Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

Oji had dropped out of his steady trot. Now he padded back toward their horse, with Hika at his side. “They’re still a ways ahead,” he said. “The scent of the children is obvious to me, but it’s faded enough that we must not be close. Beyond the bend in the river, at least. We have another quarter of an hour before stealth will matter.”

  Toril was shaking his head. “I feel... uneasy,” Malena heard him whisper. He slid a leg over the saddlehorn and dropped into the grass, staff in hand. “Give me a moment to look around.”

  Malena exchanged a puzzled glance with Oji. Shivi and Paka had now caught up; they seemed content to remain in the saddle. She nosed the horse in the opposite direction from Toril’s survey.

  The quattroglyph was thirty or forty paces away, half-hidden in the tall grass. Malena saw the arrangement of stones almost immediately, despite the twilight, but she didn’t recognize its man-made nature until she was almost on top of it. She dismounted and waved the rest of the group over.

  “Help,” she observed, when Toril arrived. “They were trying to say ‘help,’ but they didn’t finish.”

  Paka nodded. “One of the children must have left it.”

  “Gutsy child,” said Shivi, her voice husky.

  Toril stared at the stones. His face was flushed with emotion. His lips worked. “Helpless,” he rasped. “A conflicted center means ‘helpless.’”

  Malena shrugged. Obviously that had not been the child’s intent, but it didn’t seem worth arguing.

  Toril blinked as if dismissing his emotion. He stared at his staff, then at the path that led downstream, and then at the nearby riverbank.

  “Malena, what feeling do you get from these stones?” he asked quietly.

  The oddness of the question took her aback. She got feelings, sometimes, but they came from her heart, not from objects... What was she feeling, now?

  She bit her lip. “My heart aches for the children,” she said. “And I want to hurry. Why?”

  “Nothing else?”

  Malena considered, then shook her head.

  Toril appeared to study his staff for a moment. Then he turned to Oji, who was stroking Hika’s fur. “How about you?”

  Oji shrugged. “The child who built this was lonely and scared.”

  Toril lifted his eyes to Shivi and Paka; both raised their eyebrows, uncertain what he was fishing for.

  “Something’s not right,” Toril said. “Our plan’s not going to work.”

  Oji shook his head in frustration. “It’s the best plan we will come up with,” he began. “We have to be decisive to get past...”

  “Actually...” Malena interrupted, “I might agree with you, Toril.” She studied the faces of her fellow travelers, wondering how they’d react. “Although I’m not sure how much to trust myself. I haven’t had a moment free of worry since we left, but I’ve been more jumpy since we got to the valley. I was chalking it up to nerves. Maybe it’s more than that...”

  “Being scared doesn’t tell us anything,” Shivi said. “I’ve been quaking for the past hour, but that’s only natural—we’re about to face some serious danger. Nothing’s changed. We have to press forward.”

  “You said it yourself,” Oji added, nodding at Toril. “There is no better plan.”

  “What do you think?” Toril said, turning to face Paka.

  Paka tugged at his beard. “We have to get around the soldiers and the golden if we’re going to get to town before them,” he said. “It’s hard to argue that. On the other hand, we’re here because we listened to Malena’s heart a little. So far, that’s been important.”

  “Yes,” said Toril slowly. He stared at the riverbank again. “I wonder...”

  “What?” Oji asked.

  “What if we didn’t pass them on the trail?”

  Malena scissored as a trough in the river swallowed the end of the log she held. Backwash slapped her cheeks and forehead; she spat a mouthful of water, spluttered as softly as she could manage, blinked, and raised a hand to wipe her eyes. She was a strong swimmer—she’d spent summers at the lake near her home, stroking beyond the combers like a fish—but the darkness and the chop posed more challenge than she’d expected. The log pivoted sideways for a moment, then straightened as Shivi and Paka, clinging to the far end, floated through the standing wave and dragged her back.

  Her teeth were chattering. Rivers were never warm at this altitude; she’d gasped as her knees and waist met the swift current, and again when her feet lifted and her shoulders submerged for the first time. Since then she’d shivered continuously.

  Paka seemed to cope with the water and the temperature well enough, but Shivi was a problem; the older woman was too petite to retain body warmth, and her comfort with water was obviously low. She’d professed an ability to swim as they debated Toril’s idea, but Malena had seen fear in her eyes.

  They’d left the horses behind. Though Malena could see no way around it, the decision worried her. No way could they stay in the water all the way to Two Forks; sooner or later they’d have to get out. They’d already been afloat for the better part of half an hour; considering how depleted Malena felt, Shivi must be near her limits. Toril had gambled that by the time hypothermia was unbearable, they’d be well past the children, and far enough ahead to beat Gorumim into town, over whatever distance they had to cover on foot. That bet was looking riskier all the time.

  She also had her doubts about whether Oji would find them downstream. The small warrior had flat-out refused to get in the water—he’d claimed the cold would render him unconscious with any prolonged exposure. Toril seemed to find this reassuring; he said any ahu who noticed them floating past would hesitate to attack in deep water.

  But Malena remained uneasy. Arrows would cross a current regardless of temperature. And what if Oji planned to meet with his compatriots, rather than slipping past? He’d saved the humans from wolves, but Malena had also seen his grief when he talked about those he’d left behind to come on this quest. Could he be trusted? And if yes, would he really be capable of finding them in the dark, just by trotting along the river bank with ear and eye cocked?

  The dog was with him. Would that help? Had she remained quiet enough as her osipi companion slunk through the trees?

  The sun had set before they entered the river; now it was too dim to see much of anything. That, at least, was going according to plan. If her husband was right about lookouts watching the trail instead of the river, the dark was not critical—but it was reassuring to feel invisible behind the black length of tree trunk to which she clung.

  The banks rushed past; she guessed the current was moving faster than the trot they'd sustained this afternoon on horseback. Waves bobbed her up and down as she swept over submerged boulders and into depressions in their lee. The channel was deeper and smoother than a mountain cascade, but not yet as wide as it would be when it joined more tributaries downstream. At Two Forks, she knew, boats fished, fresh-cut timber floated in wide rafts, and ferries were more practical than a bridge—but here, her boots swept across submerged stone from time to time. So far, no rocky collision had been bruising—but she worried that their luck would not hold.

  As if confirming her concern, she heard a muffled grunt from Toril, a few strokes ahead. His face flashed for an instant as he rotated and dipped into the orbit of a bulge in the water.

  Malena barely had time to catch her breath before she felt a knee collide with an oblique plane of slimy stone. The impact jarred; her leg twisted awkwardly. A moment later, her hip smashed against the obstacle. Then the log came to a standstill as a jutting edge jammed, and the force of the current levered the trailing end almost vertical.

  Shivi and Paka tumbled on top of her, into the wake of the boulder. She was driven underwater by their weight, down so far that she couldn’t believe she didn’t hit bottom. Backwash sucked her in toward the stone. She kicked against the current, panicked.

  All sense of orientation disappeared. She was tumbling out of control. Which way was up?


  A foot kicked her shoulder. A hand clawed at her braid.

  The sound of pounding, scouring water filled her ears. Icy liquid shot up her nostrils. She felt her lungs spasm. Her eyes were open, but she was blind.

  An arm wrapped itself across her chest and yanked her, hard. It felt like she was being dragged back toward the undertow. She thrashed blindly. Fingers hooked her armpit, flipped her over. She felt a hip beneath the small of her back, strong legs impelling her in a direction she didn’t want to go. She tried to roll away, but the arm was a band of steel. She stretched hands over her shoulders, clawing desperately. She slammed her head back against her attacker’s shoulder, trying to break free.

  Suddenly her face broke from the water. Her hands slapped the surface. Her lungs coughed and sucked air. She realized that Toril’s voice was in her ear.

  “Relax. Don’t fight me so hard!” he gasped.

  She continued to choke and cough, but gradually she forced herself to stop struggling, to focus on taking breaths. By the time her lungs filled, the force of the current was abating.

  “Hold here.” Toril’s arm slid over her shoulder; the pressure of his hip abated behind her waist, and her feet began to drop as she went from prone to vertical. Her feet touched gravel. She felt him grab her hand and guide it to rough bark. She realized that it was a dry limb, bending motionless over the flow. This was a living tree, not her floating log—she was at the bank.

  Toril splashed back into the current.

  When she was able to think clearly, Malena studied the shoreline. It was steep, eroded, and muddy, but the bend created a lull in the current. She allowed herself to drift for a moment, then stroked out at an opportune spot and clambered up, fingers digging into reeds to find a purchase.

  Without warning, an inky lump a few paces upstream twitched, and she recognized Paka’s timbre in a wet-sounding cough.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  Paka coughed again. “Did you see Shivi?” he asked, sitting up with apparent effort.

  Malena shook her head. Then, realizing that the gesture would be unseen, she added, “Everything got confused when we went over that rock.”

  “I panicked,” Paka said, after a long pause. He drew an uneven breath. “She was pullin’ at me, trying to keep her head above water, and I couldn’t get my breath. I...” His voice quavered.

  “We all panicked,” Malena said softly. “Instinct took over.”

  She crawled over some rocks and sat beside him. She could hear air whistling across his teeth and lips as he shivered, and wondered if she sounded just as miserable.

  “I’m supposed to g- g- go first,” Paka eventually stammered. “Not her.”

  Malena let the silence stretch out.

  "Got a lump in my gut," Paka added, his voice growing flat and quiet. "It's been painin’ me for a while now. Been tryin’ to work up my courage to tell the wife about it. My grandpa and my ma both had something like this at the end. They went fast, but hard."

  He looked at Malena, waited for a comment.

  She twisted water from her braid.

  "It's part of why I came," Paka said. "Seeing the finish line made me reckless. Wanted to help the kids. Told myself I might actually have the stones to face one of those bandits, if I had to. A few days one way or another shouldn't be worth worryin’ about, right?"

  He slapped his arms. Malena felt droplets fleck her cheek.

  "Then when we fought those wolves," Paka continued, "I just about wet my pants. So much for stones. And when I knew it was the guard instead of some stupid rabble, I got scared all over again. Just now, I... I kicked... I think I kicked her when we were under the water." His voice broke into a half-sob.

  Malena understood what panic could do. She pictured herself cowering in the corner of the stable, listening to the shrieks of terror amid the looting and battle cries.

  "We've got a couple daughters," Paka said. "They moved away when they got married, and we don't hear from them much. I was thinking she ought to track one down. Living alone wouldn't be good for her. I've been thinking it'll break her heart when I go."

  Malena cleared her throat. "I'm sorry," she rasped.

  When Paka continued, he sounded haunted. "There can be some dishonesty in worryin’ about someone else, I guess, if you don't do it for the right reason. It can be a way to avoid your own heart. I've been tellin’ myself that I've had a good life. Spent it with someone who loved me. I'm old. Ready to be done, maybe. Told myself I needed to worry about Shivril. And now maybe she's the one who's gone, and I see that I'm terrified of bein’ alone, myself."

  Malena laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're not alone," she said. "And we don't know about Shivi, yet." If trusting her heart had killed Shivi or her husband...

  30

  rescue ~ Toril

  The rush and chattering of water buffeted Toril’s ears. His feet were submerged. Gradually, he noticed how the soggy cold at his toes contrasted with clamminess above his waist, how gravel poked at his cheek, and he came to the conclusion that he was lying mostly on the riverbank.

  He opened his eyes.

  The moon was out; a large measure of the night had passed. He caught a flicker of motion in the gray dapple along the top of the bank, heard whispers.

  Shivi’s limp form was not on solid ground beside him. He remembered making it to the shallows with her body, his strength so depleted that he’d collapsed trying to lift his own weight out of the water. Had he passed out and allowed her to float away?

  His heart ached.

  What would Paka do? What about Malena?

  How could he face either of them, when his counsel had led to this?

  As he rolled onto his knees, a boy-sized shadow flitted down a tree trunk sloping into the gravel.

  “Welcome back, stonecaster.”

  A small hand reached out. Toril pulled against it and swayed to his feet.

  “I lost Shivi,” he croaked.

  “We’ve been warming her. You were breathing fine, and you weren’t even shivering, so she was our focus.”

  Toril blinked dully for a few heartbeats until the import of Oji’s statement sank in.

  “She’s alive?”

  “Waterlogged and blue, but intact. Come see.”

  Toril closed his eyes and exhaled.

  Twenty paces from the river, cocooned by curving willows, dark shapes knelt. Malena’s shoulders shifted, but she continued to crouch, her arms around a smaller shadow. Paka stood and embraced him.

  “You brought her back to me.”

  “I put us in the river in the first place,” Toril said bitterly. “If I hadn’t insisted...”

  “You were right,” Shivi interrupted, her voice sounding tired but calm. “Tell him, Oji.”

  Oji cleared his throat.

  “My clan brothers were hiding, watching the trail only a short distance beyond where you entered the river. If we’d ridden any farther, they would have ambushed us. I might have been caught myself, if it weren’t for Hika.”

  Toril noticed for the first time that the dog was curled in Shivi’s lap. Without a fire, the animal’s fur and body heat—and an embrace from Malena—were the best response to a frigid soaking. He was glad Shivi was getting some help, but he felt a flicker of resentment that Malena offered nothing to him.

  He shivered.

  “I noticed the dog’s nose twitching,” Oji continued. “And she kept shying to the right, off the road. Smart, smart dog. I got suspicious and sat for a while, until I caught the scent myself.”

  “They were waiting? How did they know we were coming?”

  “Scouts, maybe. Gorumim’s no fool. He’s known we were on his trail since the wolves. We should have assumed we weren’t invisible.”

  “Are we invisible now? Did they see you go past?”

  Oji snorted. “I left them crouched in the weeds, wondering when their stupid half-sighted human victims would come along. By now maybe they’ve reported their failure to Gorumim
.”

  “He wouldn’t accept that report. If they’re not still hiding, then they’re looking for us,” Malena broke in.

  “If so, they’ll search behind, not ahead,” Paka said.

  “Yes,” Oji agreed. “They know a young woman is in the group they seek, and all of my people recognize that scent. Since they haven’t smelled their quarry, they’ll assume she’s still downwind. They won’t consider what a dousing in the river might do, because none of them would dream of getting in the water themselves.”

  “But I’m out now,” said Malena.

  “We’re almost two leagues beyond them at this point,” Oji said. “And the breeze is gentle. I didn’t want to risk a fire, but I think we’re safe.”

  “Then let’s press our advantage,” Toril said. “We’re within a few hours of Two Forks. Shivi, do you think you can walk?”

  31

  Cricket ~ Kinora

  Kinora crawled toward the unmoving toddler, rocks and weeds tearing through rips in the knees of her pantaloons. She shivered; the sun was not yet high enough to dispel the morning chill.

  Dried mucus crusted one of his cheeks; the other was grimy except where tears had washed a trail through the dirt. His upper lip was split and swollen.

  The glaze on his eyes terrified her, but as she got close Kinora could see his chest moving, ever so slightly.

  She sat beside him, pulled his head into her lap, and began to stroke his hair. So little—not much bigger than her brother Maco had been, when he first walked across the room to her...

  His feet were still soft. It had been half a summer, maybe, since he’d been crawling—not long enough to form calluses, yet.

  “Do you have a name?” she whispered.

  He just stared at the sky over her shoulder.

  “I heard them say that someone’s coming. Coming... to help us.” Kinora heard her voice grow hoarse, swallowed hard, tried to smile. “Someone the bad men are afraid of.”

  She watched moisture swell around his eyelids.

  “Maybe it’s your tat. Can you tell me about your tat?”

  More stroking of the hair.