by Jo Clayton
The acolyte came plunging around the corner, stumbled to a stop, then started for her, triumph stretching his mouth and glittering in his eyes. His exertions had knocked the hood back from his head. She saw with a clarity that startled her the polished gleam of his shaved pate, his ears standing out like handles on a jug.
The sling whirred over her head. He was a half-dozen steps from her when she loosed the stone. His last step aborted, a look of surprise in his one remaining eye, one hand starting to lift toward his face, he crumpled to the pavement and lay in a heap, the wind playing with the folds of his robe.
Tuli waited. He didn’t move. She lifted a hand grown leaden and pushed the sling into her jacket pocket. The wind sang eerily along the wall, tugging at the flattened folds of his robe, pressing the cloth against his bony length. She longed to run to her father and feel safe in his arms. Her stomach churned. She rubbed her sleeve across her eyes, realizing with some surprise that she was crying. She looked up. Nijilic The Dom was riding heavily across a crack in the yellow clouds, his light touching a Maiden face visible above the top of the wall, lovely, serene, compassionate, seeming to smile at her. She walked past the fallen boy (he couldn’t be more than three or four years older than her), walked past the black heap, her eyes fixed on the gentle face, the forgiveness she read into it helping her to forgive herself.
She flattened her hand on the wall, walked along it, turned the corner, her hand slipping over the rough stones, the tension flowing out of her back and shoulders as soon as the body was out of sight. She went through the gate, her feet scuffing on the bricks.
Joras was sitting up, breathing hard and poking at his head, cursing softly but with great feeling. Vonnyr was propping him up, his mobile face squeezed into a scowl of rage and concern. The other taroms, Tesc with them, clustered around him, throwing muttered questions at him that he’d given up trying to answer.
Teras was the first to see Tuli. He started toward her, calling her name. Tuli tried to smile at him, couldn’t, brushed past him and threw herself at her father, shaking all over as reaction hit her a second time.
“Tuli?” He smoothed his broad hand over her hair, patted her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“The acolyte. He was listening. He came after me, chased me. I killed him. Out there.” Her face pressed against her father’s well-covered ribs, she waved a hand awkwardly at the street. Her words muffled and indistinct, she said, “Around the corner.”
With a muttered exclamation Burin shifted his heavy body into a light-footed run and disappeared out the gate. He was back a minute later. “Dead all right. Little one here, she whanged him good with her sling. Wonder how much he heard?”
“Enough to get us all proscribed.” Kimor dropped his hand on Teras’s shoulder, smiled at Tuli. “Terrible Twins just saved our necks.”
Vonnyr helped Joras onto his feet. “You all right to ride?”
Joras smiled at his father, a small twitch of his lips, his face sweaty and pale. “I can stick in a saddle.”
“With the sneak dead, we got time and room to move.” Vonnyr looked anxiously at Joras. “Take it easy. We can haul the body off with us, bury it somewhere.”
“No,” Tesc said sharply. Tuli stared up at her father, startled to see him so grim. He shifted her around until she was standing beside him, his arm curled protectively around her shoulders. “No,” he repeated. “You want the Agli to call him from the grave to tell the tale of what he heard?”
Vrom gaped. “Huh?” Vonnyr looked uneasily around, his eyes drawn to the silent street visible through the gate’s elegant arch. The others shifted with the same lack of ease.
Exhausted by what she’d done and the tumult of her emotions, Tuli leaned against her father’s side, watching them, hardly taking in the import of her father’s words.
“You heard of Necromancers,” Tesc said.
Kimor scowled. “Norits maybe. Aglim ain’t norits, just norids. Can’t light a match without sweating.”
“Rane said Nearga-nor’s behind this, feeding the norids more power. I don’t want to take no chances.” He patted Tuli’s shoulder. “No one’s going to raise that body if it’s ash. The twins and me, we’ll dump it in the Agli’s own fire.”
Burin strangled on a snort of laughter. Vonnyr beat on his back grinning. “Be damned to you for a grand fool, cousin.”
Tesc smiled, sobered. “You all take care, keep in your heads what happened tonight. We been careless, nearly paid for it.” He shook his head. “Going to be a tough winter.”
Once the taroms were safely away, Tesc walked back from the grove and stood looking thoughtfully down at the boy’s body. When Tuli and Teras joined him, he shifted his gaze to the old granary across the street. The flame in the outer basin was burning low and the place looked deserted. He dropped his hand on Teras’s shoulder, tapped Tuli’s cheek. “Think the two of you can carry him?”
“Yah,” Teras said. Tuli felt her skin crawl at the thought of touching the dead boy, but she nodded.
“Good.” Tesc frowned. “Let me look the place over first.” He moved quickly across the weedy ground, stopped at the corner of the shrine to look up and down the street, moved rapidly across it, a bulky man walking with the silence and grace of a hunting fayar. He melted into the shadow at the base of the granary, hesitated in the doorway, disappeared inside. Tuli looked down at the dead acolyte and shuddered. She moved closer to Teras. The minutes passed slowly; it hurt to breathe.
Tesc reappeared in the entranceway. He beckoned, stood waiting for them.
Teras knelt and turned the body on its side. He looked up at Tuli, his eyes shining liquidly in the dim light from the cloud-obscured moons. The wind whipped his short hair about his face. “Grab his legs, Tuli.” He straightened, hugging the boy’s torso against his side. The skinny legs trailed limply on the ground by Tuli’s feet. She suppressed another shudder and forced herself to lift them. Her twin looked over his shoulder. “Ready?”
She nodded. As they moved swiftly across the empty street, she was all too aware of the cold flaccidity of the dead flesh she carried; she stared down, saw coarse black hair curling over the pale flesh, saw long thin toes, saw every crack in the horn on the heels, the stained and crooked toenails, the dusting of dirt between the straps of the worn, sweat-stained sandals.
Tesc vanished inside the granary. Tuli shivered at the change that the last weeks had made in her father. His usually amiable face was harder, leaner, angry in a way that sometimes frightened her. She shifted her grip on the acolyte’s legs and looked sadly at her brother’s back. Some of the same anger was churning in him. He’d always been the one to keep her steady, the sane one, bubbling with an infectious sense of fun, a quieter appreciation of the ridiculous. Like the change in her father, the change in her twin frightened her, even more, it chilled her. He moved without looking back at her. She pinched her lips together, the sense of loss deepening in her.
Teras circled the exterior fire. Tuli followed awkwardly, her fingers cramping about the thin legs of the dead boy. These new things she was being forced to learn, the killing and the capacity of people to hurt others, the things she was learning about her father and her brother, these things reached back into her memories and corrupted them. Nothing was the same. Nothing was safe. She blinked back tears and forced herself to concentrate on the present, to be alert and ready to act if she needed to.
They trudged along the curving hall that followed the turn of the outer wall, new-panelled and new-painted, stinking of the fresh paint, glistening white paint that caught shadows and images of the small lamps bolted high on the walls, caught them in its wet film like a sun-dew catches insects for its supper. The sweet sickly smell of incense came drifting back to them, mixing with the stink of the paint. When they turned into the meeting room, Tuli was fighting down nausea, concentrating so hard on her rebelling stomach that she didn’t at first see what was waiting for them. Teras dropped the shoulders of the acolyte with a hiss of disgus
t. Tuli let the feet fall away and stood rubbing her hands on the sides of her jacket.
The Agli was stretched out on a mat, his head close beside a brazier that sent up a heavy oily smoke. The smoke moved slowly out and over the gaunt man, wreathing his still form with ragged black claws. The smell was powerful enough to make her dizzy; she pinched her nostrils together, trying to shut out the stench and the choking smoke.
The Agli’s eyes were open, but he seemed to see nothing. Tesc loomed over him, looking down at him with disgust—disgust and a brooding satisfaction.
“What’s that?” Tuli pointed at the brazier.
Tesc snorted. “Tidra.” He moved until he was standing by the Agli’s head. “They put a pinch of it in the fire at the tiluns to help them work up the folk and make them pliable.” He snorted again, and as she gasped in surprise, he carefully, precisely, kicked the Agli in the head. The drugged body jerked, the Agli’s head slammed over against the mat then rolled back. This time the glazed eyes were closed.
“Is he dead?” Tuli leaned against the door jamb, frightened by the barely controlled violence in her father.
“Not him.” Tesc glanced at the brazier, scowled, kicked it hard away from him. It skimmed over the floor for several feet, bounced onto its side and began to roll noisily along the floor, spilling coals and the gummy resin that was the source of the smoke. He nodded with grim satisfaction then walked to the acolyte’s body. With a grunt he scooped it up, carted it to the altar, the broad flat basin where the fire was dancing high into the heavy air, hot and crackling. Turning his face away, he dumped the boy’s body into the flames and leaped back, nearly tripping over the Agli’s outflung arm. He steadied and stood watching a moment as the flames shortened and blackened then started building up again as the black robe kindled.
Tuli shivered as the sweet smell of roasting flesh joined the mix of odors, remembering suddenly and unwillingly Nilis thrusting her arms into that very fire. She moved over to the door. The paint stink was welcome now, something cleaner than the odors fighting in the meeting room. She leaned her head against the jamb, breathing shallowly, waiting for the others to come past her. Their job was done; it was time to get out of here. She wanted terribly to get out of here. When she didn’t hear footsteps, only the soft murmur of voices, she gathered herself and turned around.
Tesc and Teras were standing on opposite sides of the Agli’s unconscious form, looking thoughtfully down at him. A cold smile curled her father’s lips; he rubbed a hand along his chin. “Think you could find some of that paint?” He jerked a thumb at the doorway.
Mischief danced in her twin’s eyes. “Yah,” he said. A grin on his face, he ran past Tuli without seeming to see her. Tuli watched him disappearing back toward the front of the structure. Her uncertain temper flaring, she flung herself back into the meeting room, glared at her father, scuffed about the room, glancing repeatedly at him, snapping her fingers, hissing to herself trying to work out her anger. She kept well away from the fire that was beginning to send up oily black smoke to coat the clean whiteness of the new-painted ceiling. She stared at the film of grease, took a deep breath for the first time since she’d entered the room, realizing for the first time too that she’d been almost not breathing as she wandered about. She looked up again, her hand over her nose and a mouth. What’s left of a man. She shivered and went to stand beside her father, seeking comfort from his strength and vitality.
He was kneeling beside the Agli, using his knife to cut away the dark robe from the man’s arms and shoulders.
“What’re you going to do with him?” Tuli shoved her foot into the Agli’s side, nudging him so that his arms moved a little.
Tesc lifted his head, frowned at her. “I forgot,” he muttered. He sat back on his heels. “Rope. Tuli, go find me some rope. Keep your eyes and ears open. I don’t think there’s anyone in the building, not with all this wet paint.” He rubbed at his nose. “Enough to strangle a bull hauhau.”
Happier to be included even though she still didn’t know what was happening, Tuli ran out. She was only a few steps down the hall when she met Teras coming back. He was carrying a large paint pot. A coil of rope was looped over one shoulder; when she saw it she quivered with disappointment and annoyance. She bit at her lip, then turned to walk beside him, glancing at the paintpot and brushes. “What’s all that for?”
He grinned. “You’ll see.”
“Tchah! Teras.…” She took hold of the rope and began working it off his shoulder. “Sometimes I could hit you.”
He stopped walking to let her slide the rope over his arm. “Use your head, Tutu. What do you think we could do with paint, rope and that clown?”
The rope dangling from her hand, she snorted softly, repeatedly, at the use of her baby name and followed him into the room. She dropped the rope beside her father and stepped back, pressing her lips together to contain her laughter.
Tesc was slicing off the Agli’s thick black hair, having some trouble since his knife wasn’t a particularly good razor. The Agli’s head had a number of slow bloodworms crawling over the pale skin. When he heard the whispery splat of the rope, he rose to his feet, frowning at Tuli. He took hold of Tuli’s shoulders, turned her about and pushed her toward the door. “Go outside and keep watch.”
Tuli wiggled away from his hands, swung around. “I want to watch here.”
“Do what I told you. Get.”
Her eyes fell and she shuffled backward to the door, her gaze sullenly on the naked body of the Agli. When her shoulder touched the jamb, she lifted her head.
“Get,” her father repeated. The look on his face showed her the futility of argument, so she stumped off down the hall grumbling at her exclusion from the fun.
“Just because Da stripped him.” She blew a gust of air through her nose. “Just because I’m a girl. Girl! Who took care of the spy? Me. And now they sent me away to protect my young eyes. Tchah! Girl!” She kicked at the dirt of the street, went to stand leaning on the edge of the smaller basin, glaring at the pile of pale ash and scattered coals with a flicker of red left in them. Overhead the clouds had closed in again until only TheDom’s broad glow shone through, a vague circle of dull yellow light. The wind blew stronger and too hot; the night was stifling; in spite of the air’s pressure against her, she felt smothered as if someone had dropped a blanket over her. She rubbed at her eyes. They were sore, felt swollen. Waiting was hard, a lot harder than the running and fighting she’d done not so long ago. She was suddenly tired, very tired. Her arms ached. Her legs ached. She wanted to cry, she curled her fingers into claws, wanting to tear at someone, anyone, her father and her brother for pushing her out here to wait alone while they played their games with the Agli’s naked body.
She heard a whispery scraping sound. Tesc and Teras came through the entrance, dragging the Agli behind them. They’d fitted a sort of rope harness about his body, looping rope between his legs and under his arms, the second length of rope, the tow rope, knotted to the harness between his shoulder-blades, they were pulling him along on face and belly. A smear of paint trailed off behind him along the tiles of the hallway. He was still unconscious, his head lolling about as they let him fall and strolled over to stand by Tuli and inspect the twin timbers projecting from the wall over the entranceway, left over from the days when the structure was used as a granary. Tesc looked at Teras. “Ready?”
“In a minute.” Teras cocked a thumb at the hall. “Lost his drawers he did.” He stooped beside the Agli, rolled him over and began slapping more paint on his groin and genitals. Tesc watched a moment, then tossed the end of the tow rope over one of the timbers. “Don’t forget the Maiden’s Sigil,” he called over his shoulder.
“Got it.”
“Start working on the wall, I’ll pull him up.”
As the Agli rose in the air, hanging limply in the harness, the ropes cutting in his soft but meager flesh, Teras hauled the paintpot a little way down the wall and started scrawling characters on t
he mud bricks. Wrapping the rope about his arm, Tesc began walking back along the wall until he reached a hitching post. He glanced around, narrowed his eyes as he saw Tuli watching with a face-splitting grin. “Get over here; little bit; tie this off for me.” He held the rope taut while Tuli knotted it to one of the rings bolted to the post. The rope stretched a little as he let it go. The Algi’s body jerked up and down. Out in the street again, Tuli bounced from foot to foot, a hand clamped over her mouth to stifle the giggles that threatened to explode out of her.
The once-formidable priest was a comic figure, dripping slow drops of thick white paint. From knees to navel he was slathered with paint. On his hairless chest Teras had drawn the Maiden’s Sigil. While paint coated most of his head, Teras had left circles of unpainted flesh about his eyes and mouth and ears. He looked like a toy clown dangling from a string.
Teras tossed the paintpot into the street. The clatter drew Tuli’s eyes to what he’d been doing. “Soäreh’s pimp?”
Tesc caught hold of her shoulder and swung her around. “Never mind that.”
Tuli stumbled ahead of him as he kept tapping her lightly on the back urging her along. “Don’t see why you didn’t put that rope around his dirty neck.”
Tesc moved up beside her, took her hand. “Folks don’t laugh at corpses.” He glanced over his shoulder, smiled with satisfaction, led her briskly across the street toward the grove where their macain waited. He swung Tuli into the saddle, watched to be sure Teras was up, then mounted quickly and led them out of the grove. “Seems to me a good belly laugh can cure a lot of foolishness.”