by John Dalmas
My children! Would I even have recognized them? "On Farside," she answered, "each mother raises and cherishes her own children, and each child cherishes its mother. Have you ever wished to cherish your mother?"
He shrugged. "It is all the same to me. The Sisterhood is my mother."
"It's not the same to me! I have a husband who has sworn himself to me, and I to him. By our own choice. Idri stole me from him-Idri and a cull named Xader-and brought me back through the Oz Gate. My husband and I love each other; we were happy beyond anything you've known. And if I can, I'll return to him. Together we'll go far from any gate, have children by ones and twos, raise them ourselves, and love them."
She couldn't read the man at all; his aura hardly changed. What must Sarkia have done to him when she'd chosen to train him as a tracker! After a moment he spoke, as impassive as before. "But you can't, you see. Return to him. For I've caught you, and we are going back to the Cloister together. This time you'll like it there."
She stared quietly for a moment, then softly her mind caressed his. "Have you ever had a woman, Tomm? Held one in your arms?"
"I have never wished for one. But if I did, Sarkia would give one to me. You waste your breath, Varia."
"You've never wished for one because Sarkia spelled you as a child. Deprived you of your birthright, as she deprived you of your mother's love. Sarkia is evil, Tomm."
Again the pause before his answer. "If she does evil, it's for a greater good."
"Ah! So now evil is good! And day is night, and hunger a full belly! She's twisted your mind, Tomm, as she did the minds of us all. As the first Dynast did hers. But I lived more than twenty years on Farside, and unlearned much that I'd been taught. I wish I could take you through with me. You'd like my husband, Curtis Macurdy. He is honest and good, and you would have a friend at last. The two of you could farm together, drink coffee and talk together. Go to Decatur, eat 'ice cream' "-she said the words in English-"and see a 'movie.' You could even learn to laugh!"
Tomm stared at her silently for so long, she wondered if he'd answer at all. "You must get up now," he said at last, patiently. "It's time to start back." There was no more expression in his voice than before.
She got to her feet without help. You won't take me back, she vowed to herself. You won't. Somewhere along the way you'll let your guard down, and I'll kill you. With knife or rock, or sharp stick through your eye, I'll kill you. Then I'll walk to Ferny Cove, and once I've gated through, they'll never catch me. Not again.
13: Cyncaidh
" ^ "
The trail was familiar from the day before, but much slower now. She was drained, physically and emotionally, the urgency was past, and the trail was mostly uphill. In late afternoon they were still short of Laurel Notch.
It was Tomm's responsibility to keep alert, thus she'd let her mind wander. She imagined him dead and her slipping through the gate at Ferny Cove. And finding Curtis: She visualized it happening at the farm in Indiana. He'd be overjoyed. They'd hug and cry and kiss, then run together into the house and make love, and the terrible months in the Tiger barracks would be forgotten.
For now, though, Tomm padded a few strides behind her. He hadn't tied her hands, for which she was grateful. Probably he would when they stopped to sleep. She'd been walking slowly, and so far he hadn't hurried her. He was tired too.
Tall clouds had built and a wind had risen, swooshing the trees overhead, and she considered suggesting they look for shelter. Thinking about that, she missed the sound of the arrow that struck Tomm. Then men were all around. Tomm, a feathered shaft protruding from his chest, tried to stand, and one of them raised his sword to finish him. Varia screamed, and lunged reflexively to stop it, but strong hands grabbed and held her. The blade chopped down, taking Tomm through the back, and she screamed again. Then her knees buckled, but whoever held her, kept her upright.
"You're all right," another said. "You're safe now."
She looked around to see who'd spoken. A tall man… No, a tall ylf, his eyes tilted like hers but blue, his skin fair, his hair raven black. His eyes and coloring and magician's aura all gave him away: an ylf, though he stood before her in the fringed and greasy buckskins of a fur hunter. "We know who he was, and who you are. A tomttu told us. He was afraid for you, the tracker was so close behind."
Safe now? Did he mean it? Hope surged. "Am I free then? Free to go?"
He looked long at her without answering. "Free of him," he said at last. "Free of those you fled from."
"Not truly free then? Just new captors?"
"There are things we need to learn from you."
"I heard how you questioned my Sisters at Ferny Cove." Her words were little more than a hoarse whisper now. "When your army raped sixty of them repeatedly before you killed them. In front of the people there."
"No," he said quietly. "Not the army."
"Who then?" The question was defiant.
His expression was bleak. "The Kormehri. Men and boys of the town. Farmers of the district."
"You lie!"
He shook his head. "General Quaie ordered it. The original plan had been to capture all the Sisters and their children, or as nearly all as might be, and bring them to the Empire. Unharmed so far as possible. But your magic was more powerful than we'd supposed, and most escaped. So those we caught-" He paused, took a deep breath. "Those we caught, Quaie required the local men to rape publicly. Even the dogs that afterward destroyed the victims were war dogs of King Vertorus. They'd been useless against us, against our magic. Now Quaie made his own use of them. The story would spread, Quaie said, and no one in the Rude Lands would ever regard the Sisterhood as they had before. They'd see a Sister and remember them humiliated, raped by a line of men like themselves, their magic broken. Then torn-even eaten-by dogs.
"He didn't even bring one home to question. Said it was needless. Pointless. That the Sisterhood was finished, and the lesson of Ferny Cove was best taught his way."
The ylf's face had twisted as if the words were bitter in his mouth. He stopped, breathed, stabilized. "That was Quaie's reasoning," he went on, "and to some degree it worked as he'd said. But the business was vile, and on our return, the Emperor dismissed him, both from command and from his seat on the council." He shrugged. "And as the story spread, it has harmed us everywhere. As I warned Quaie it would when he gave the orders."
Varia stared. "You were there!"
He nodded. "I was there."
She looked around and saw six others. Except for the leader, they were men. Or no-half-ylver who could pass for men. Six that she could see; there might be others. Her voice became little more than a whisper. "What will you do with me?"
He looked down at her from his six-feet-four, and shook his head. "Not that. Nothing like that, I promise you. But we have to take you with us. To be questioned."
"Take me where?"
"To our own country. The Empire."
Again her tears sprang silently. Truly there could be no more hope.
Tomm's cloak was taken from his pack, and put over Varia with its storm hood up to conceal her telltale Sister's face. Then bronze manacles were put on her wrists, manacles with a twelve-inch chain that allowed some use of her hands. Meanwhile the storm had begun, flashing and booming, but the rain passed in a minute, a spattering of large cold drops with wind and a smell of ozone, to blow off northeastward. Then her captors set her on one of their spare horses and started northward. They would travel by night now, albeit the nights were short in that season.
Varia scarcely noticed. Her mind was numb. On their brief stops, she neither ate nor drank. Finally, as dawn paled, they left the trail, set sentries and cooked. A military camp, for despite their clothing, these were soldiers. One of them led Varia a little distance off, gave her cloth and a pan with water, to use after relieving herself, removed her manacles and left her in privacy. After a bit he reappeared and took her to the others. She accepted food-a thick, honey-sweetened corn meal mush, and cheese-and drank
from a cup that was offered. There was more in it than water or brandy-some potion-and she fell quickly asleep.
They rested through the day, ate again as the sun set, and moved on. Before dawn they'd passed the first farms. Meanwhile she'd grown more alert, and begun thinking of escape. To her it was obvious that their leader had set a spell to help them ride unnoticed. Not an invisibility spell-that wasn't practical for a traveling party-but a spell that made them easy to ignore, to pay no attention to. It would hardly cover an uproar though. Perhaps, she thought, she could make an outcry, screaming and struggling, when they passed through some town, or met some large party of travelers.
But the two villages they passed through that night were tiny and fast asleep, too small to waste what would undoubtedly be a single chance. Nor did they pass any travelers. And as if her captors knew her thoughts, the next evening she was gagged before they broke camp. Apologetically it's true, complete with explanation, and not brutally as Idri had gagged her, but still firmly gagged. She glared as the leader tied it.
In camp she was left ungagged and mostly unchained, but somewhat segregated from most of the party. One of the half-ylver had been assigned as her guard and companion. His name was Caerith, and when they camped, he talked to her. By the third day her reserve had softened, and his occasional brief monologs had become limited, intermittent conversations. This had been a reconnaissance party, she learned, sent to explore the territory where reportedly the Sisterhood had relocated. Not that there was any intention to make war, he insisted. For one thing, the new location was in a dwarf kingdom. This had been simply a matter of intelligence-gathering. What they'd do with such intelligence, Caerith didn't know.
After the third day, with the country increasingly peopled, they turned to one of the pack horses and replaced their buckskins with more civilized travel clothing. Oddly, there was even a set which more or less fitted Varia, though she continued to wear Tomm's too-large cloak for concealment.
They continued to travel only by night. Varia knew the pole star, and saw that their road took them more northwestward than north. Ferny Cove was northwesterly. Each time she thought of it, she felt a pang of desperation. Thus, in camp after the fifth day, she went to the leader.
"You're Cyncaidh?" she asked.
His expression was calm but grave, his face not only handsome but aristocratic, though few aristocrats had one like it. "Yes," he said, "I'm the Cyncaidh."
"I lived for more than twenty years on Farside, and have a husband there. Then the Sisterhood stole me from him and brought me back. They kept me in detention at the Cloister, and-used me badly, but I watched for my chance, and ran away. When the tracker caught me, I'd been traveling northwest, working my way toward Ferny Cove, to the gate there. To find my husband again. We can't be many days walk from there now. I want you to let me go."
She saw and felt his gaze, and before she'd well started, a sense of pending refusal tightened her throat, raising the pitch of her voice.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's not possible. Not now. You have information more valuable to us than you realize. And beyond that, the Kormehri feel that the Sisterhood abandoned them: While Quaie butchered his Kormehri prisoners of war, the Sisterhood used its magic to escape. And-the rape at Ferny Cove had an ugly effect on the Kormehri. It would be terribly dangerous for you to go there. You'd never…"
Her shrill anger cut him short. "Dangerous? Dangerous! I escaped from a Tiger barracks at the Cloister! Got out over the wall, under the noses of sentries! Traveled the wilderness for days, alone! A troll killed my horse, and another ran off with my boots! And you talk to me about danger?"
"My lady, I cannot release you. Jaguars and catamounts, bears and trolls, are not as terrible as men can be. And…"
She screamed and lunged, her unshackled hands raking at his face, his eyes. He caught her wrists, astonished at her violent strength, and held her arms overhead while she screamed and kicked and spat. Caerith grabbed her, wrestled her down squalling and struggling, then wide-eyed, looked up at Cyncaidh. The leader stood white-faced, lines of oozing red scoring his cheeks and forehead.
Kneeling, he opened his kit and took out two pills. "Open her mouth," he said quietly. Caerith pressed hard with his thumbs on the latches of her jaw, forcing her mouth open as he might a cat's. Then Cyncaidh dropped in the pills, far back where she couldn't spit them out, though she tried. They held her down while she strained red-faced, then gradually she went slack. Her pupils dilated further, and her eyelids slid shut.
Cyncaidh nodded, and with Caerith carried her to where she'd spread her cloak and blanket. "That," Cyncaidh said, "is a woman of character and strength. They are fools back there, as well as evil, to have dealt with her so cruelly."
And speaking of cruelty, he asked himself, what of your own? You intended to steal a Sister if the chance arose, take her away, and wring out her mind for your own purposes, yours and the Emperor's. And then what? Not send her home again; that would never do. You hadn't thought about that, had you?
Varia spoke to no one the rest of the way to the Big River, not even in camp. Occasionally she wept, but always silently, inconspicuously. And now not only Caerith looked after her, but from a little distance, Cyncaidh as well.
They reached the Big River and the Inderstown ferry docks in the black hour before dawn, to wait for daylight and a ferry crew. The soldiers, with their commander's permission, got down from their horses, and napped or sat talking on the shore. Cyncaidh, however, waited in the saddle. Perhaps, Varia thought, because she did. Her anger had passed, replaced by resignation, but she refused to show anything less than deep offense at her captivity. She was here against her will, a prisoner guilty of nothing-certainly not against these people-and she would not seem reconciled to her captivity.
Varia pulled her mind from her situation, focusing on the Big River. She'd never seen it before. Its Farside equivalent, the Ohio, she knew well from visits to Evansville, and it was large, but the Big River was clearly larger. A meteorologist might have told her that the conformation of the east coast, combined with this world's equivalent of the Bermuda High, the size and circulation of the Southern Sea, and orographic effects of the Great Eastern Mountains, combined to produce high and fairly constant runoffs from its extensive watershed.
On its north side lay the so-called "Marches"-kingdoms not ylvin, but which paid tribute to the ylver's Western Empire, acknowledging its Emperor as their suzerain. She knew little about them, she realized. At the children's school in the Cloister, they taught that the Marches had been conquered in a bloody war which ended with the ylvin boot on their necks. And that the ylver planned the same fate for the Rude Lands. How much of it was true she didn't know. Some of it no doubt.
Finally, with the sun clear of the horizon, a crew arrived. From her horse's back, Varia watched the oarsmen clomp down the wharf and board the ferry, muscular men in short, open, canvas vests, gibing each other, laughing and roughing. Shortly, chains rattled as two of the ferry's crew lowered the end gate, which became a ramp for loading. Led by Caerith, she rode her mount out onto the ferry, hooves clopping on the wooden deck. Then Caerith dismounted and tied her reins to a rail. She watched oarsmen unship their oars, heard commands shouted, saw them lowered, dip, pull, and they moved away from the wharf, a dull drum beat regulating the strokes.
"It's a fine sight, the river," Caerith said.
She looked coldly at him from within her hood. She had nothing against the half-ylf. He was decent and patient with her. But four or five days' westward was Ferny Cove. She didn't doubt it held the dangers Cyncaidh had implied. But neither did she doubt that, with care and stealth, she could be within dashing distance of the gate when next it opened. Now she'd get farther from it every day.
The crossing did not take many minutes. When they were firmly docked, the gate at the shore end was lowered. Then the riders untied their mounts, and Caerith led his horse and Varia's off the craft. Again they waited on the shore, while the
half-ylvin soldiers roped the pack string and remounts into an orderly file. When they were ready, Cyncaidh, instead of mounting and giving the order to move out, walked over to his captive and reached up to her.
"Let me help you down, my lady."
For a moment his offer and form of address unsettled her. Then she turned, leaning sideways a bit, and he took her under the arms, lifting her down. "Your wrists, please," he said, and when she'd extended her hands from the cloak, he removed first the manacles, then the gag.
"We're entirely safe here, my men and I. And you."
He turned and walked to his horse. Caerith stepped up to help her mount, but she shook her head. "Thank you, Caerith," she told him, "I can do for myself now," and raising a foot to the stirrup, swung into the saddle.
A moment later, Cyncaidh gave the command, and men, horses, and captive started up the road from the river bank, Varia looking ahead at him with a new unease. Dismounting had been difficult with manacles, and Caerith had usually helped her. But that had been simply a soldier helping a lady from her horse. When Cyncaidh's large hands had lifted her down, it had triggered her heart, speeded her blood. The feeling was one she hadn't wanted; not in this world.
She set her jaw, concentrating on the easy movement of the mare beneath her.
They rode no farther than a livery stable at the north edge of Parnston, for their horses were worn out from long use and no grain. The proprietor brokered a sale with a local breeder, and before noon they had new mounts. Not especially good animals, but adequate, well fed, and rested. Meanwhile, the travelers actually ate breakfast at an inn, and an early lunch. Varia had thought they might lay over a day, but Cyncaidh didn't even give his men time to fall asleep at the table before ordering them back into the saddle.