The White Road of the Moon

by Rachel Neumeier

  Meridy could almost see the great sprawling city of Moran Diorr in her mind’s eye. She longed to look over the bay that hid the drowned city. She had always wanted that: to see Surem, and Moran Bay where Moran Diorr lay under the waves—to get out of the shadow of the Anchor and see all the famous and wonderful places in the world.

  But now she also thought, scuffing her boot uneasily through the dust of the Yellow River Road, that seeing roads on maps was not the same as standing on them. It was a good deal safer to look at a road on paper than it was actually to walk on one, at least for a girl traveling on her own. Or almost on her own. She stroked the ghost dog’s barely perceptible head and smiled down at him. He was a great comfort, but he was a ghost, after all, not a living dog. There must be brigands along these roads; not many, surely, but some. The men of Tikiy-up-the-Mountain had caught a dozen and hanged them, not so many years ago….Meridy remembered people talking about that for many weeks afterward. The thought of running into brigands frightened her.

  But trying to go across country would be even worse. Much slower, for one thing, and then there were wolves—not so dangerous, especially in summer, but griffins might have come down from the heights. And there were fire horses in these mountains, bigger and worse-tempered and more savage than either wolves or griffins, or so people said. Fire horses killed sheep, usually in late winter when game was poor, but unlike wolves, sometimes they killed the shepherds as well. Meridy might have dreamed of taming a beautiful fire horse, but now she had to admit that, to a girl alone, fire horses were almost as frightening as brigands.

  “West, then, on the road,” Meridy said to the ghost dog. He looked at her, tilting his head to the side as though he were considering what she said, and she laughed and ran her hand along his jaw and down his elegant neck. “As long as you agree!” she told him. Then, turning into the setting sun, Meridy started walking along the side of the road, dust puffing up with every step. The dog walked with her, but his paws did not disturb the dust, except every now and then, when he left an enormous paw print alongside her boots’ scuff marks. She smiled, noticing that, certain now she had indeed anchored the wolfhound, even without knowing how or performing any sort of ritual. She knew there was some kind of ritual, but the old tales were scant of detail—maybe to stop any random village girl from learning how to bind the lingering dead.

  But she had bound the dog, and she was very glad of it, because he meant she wasn’t alone on this road.

  She thought she would walk a little while and then stop by the river and eat the hard bread that was all she had with her and maybe fish for a while. Fish liked to bite at dusk. She was lucky she’d kept spare line in Tikiy-by-the-Water, or else she’d have no hope tonight of anything but a bite of bread, and little hope of anything at all tomorrow. She was glad of the blanket she carried, too, threadbare as it was. It would not be cold at night, but a blanket was a comfort, if not so great a comfort as a dog.

  —

  Two days later, Meridy was still walking along the road, but she was beginning to think that her worries about brigands and ferocious animals had been needless. She had crossed the Yellow River and left it behind her, continuing west into more open country. She thought she was probably now in Cora Tal, though to her eye it looked much the same as Harann. Streams still came down from her left, dashing out of the foothills, so water was not a difficulty. But she was not going to find fish in quick, shallow streams like those. Frogs, maybe. Or snakes. She tried not to worry about the possibility of snakes.

  She had so far met no other people at all, respectable or otherwise. The only signs of animal life had been little birds, and once a rabbit, and from time to time faint glimpses of translucent ghost shimmer, where some creature had died suddenly and not yet gone to the God.

  Judging by tracks in the dust, it seemed that recently there had been quite a bit of traffic on the road, and she thought one large group was no more than an hour or two ahead of her. It might be possible to catch up with it. She wondered if she should try. But at the moment, nothing moved; the air was sticky with a foretaste of high summer. Meridy was sleepy. She had stopped once to pick a few narrow leaves from a redneedle bush and chewed them while she walked. The sharp flavor was pleasant, but real food would have been even more welcome. She had nothing left of the fish she’d caught yesterday.

  Coming around a long bend, Meridy was pleased to see a small creek across the road. It dashed down from the hills in a fast, narrow waterfall, spread out within shallow banks as it crossed the road, and quickened again on the other side, tumbling out toward the drier country to the east. Stepping-stones had been placed through the stream for convenience in crossing. Meridy picked the biggest, knelt on it, and started turning over smaller rocks. She was rewarded almost at once with a big crayfish, which she picked neatly out of the water. She dropped it into her skirt and looked for more. The ghost dog grew bored and wandered out of sight, but Meridy kept turning over rocks. The creek was productive; a quarter hour of searching yielded a dozen more large crayfish and one small one that she tossed back. She picked a handful of wild sorrel to go with them. Steamed in their shells, the crayfish would make a perfectly good meal. Pity she had no butter.

  She found a comfortable place off the road, sheltered under a large pine, to make a fire, with dry needles for tinder. Even with the needles, it took a little while to get the fire kindled and to cook the crayfish, but it was nice to sit still for a while.

  She had finished eating, and was just starting to kick dirt over her fire, when a drawling voice behind her made her whirl.

  “Well, well, not competition after all, is it?” There were four men in the little clearing, all with drawn knives or swords. Their clothing was worn and ragged, but it had been of good quality once—doubtless stolen from wealthier men. The one who had spoken was in the lead. “Go tell the others what we got here,” he added to one of his companions. The man grinned nastily and jogged off through the woods.

  The leader wore mail over his shirt, and ill kept as his clothing was, Meridy could see that the mail was in good shape, which meant he was a fighter, and not too stupid. He and his men spread out now, cutting her off from the road. Not that it mattered, since she had no one to run to for help.

  “All on your own, girl? Didn’t know better than to pick wood that smokes?” asked the leader. The contempt in his voice made Meridy want to hit him—or run. She did neither. She stood still and tried to think. How could she have thought it such a fine idea to leave Tikiy? Would being a soap maker’s apprentice have been so bad, really? She took a quick breath, and another, struggling to steady herself.

  “Village brat, by that skirt and them shoes,” one of the others, with a scar across his face just below his eye, commented disdainfully. “And too much Southern blood in her. Look at her: brown as a nut, and she won’t clean up anyways special.”

  The scarred man was almost as dark-complexioned and probably as common-born as Meridy, but he obviously felt no kindness for a girl, even one who shared his Southern blood. She looked around hopelessly for a way out, knowing she wouldn’t find one.

  The leader shrugged. “She’d clean up good enough for a man as isn’t too particular. Specially if she’s a virgin. You a virgin, girl?”

  “Yes.” Meridy didn’t have any trouble at all putting a quiver in her voice. If they decided not to touch her, it might be best to give up quietly and try to get away later.

  “Do we care?” That was Scar again. “There’s not so much price difference. And look at the eyes on her—black as pitch on a moonless night.”

  “Oh, well, I can think of places they ain’t so picky,” the third man said. He had his dirty hair in a loose braid, a style Meridy hadn’t seen before on a man. “Places where they don’t care if a girl’s brown or milk pale, nor if her eyes are black, decent brown, or red as coals.”

  “Maro’s, you mean,” said the leader. “Them don’t care if a girl’s a virgin, neither. I say we do her ourselves
, keep her till we’ve got enough goods to make the trip worthwhile, and take her along to Riam. We can sell her to Maro as already trained.”

  Meridy hooked her small knife out of her boot, threw it hard at Braid—he was closest—and leaped to grab the lowest branches of the pine at her back. The leader’s fingers brushed her foot, and she convulsed upward and clawed her way to a secure perch on sheer terror.

  “Little bitch!” To her utter surprise, Braid was clutching the hilt of her knife, which was buried in his stomach. She wondered faintly if it had been a big enough knife to kill him and, if so, how long it would take him to die.

  The leader glared at her, ignoring the wounded man. “Get down here, girl-bitch!”

  It wasn’t funny, but Meridy laughed in pure astonishment that he thought she might obey. The leader reddened and jumped for the lowest limb of the tree. Meridy grabbed a thin branch and whipped him across the face with the needled end as hard as she could, and he lost his grip, cursing. She climbed a little higher. Did they have bows? She didn’t see any. And then she did as Scar turned: a small crossbow, but more than adequate.

  The leader looked at it, looked at her, and smiled. It was the meanest smile Meridy had ever seen.

  “Shoot her in the legs or the hands,” he said. “Be careful not to kill her. I want her alive.”

  “It’ll ruin her value,” Scar pointed out.

  The leader was still smiling. “Screw her value.”

  Scar shrugged and set a quarrel in the crossbow. Meridy took a deep breath and edged around to put the trunk of the tree between her and the bow. It was amazing how much thinner the tree suddenly looked. Braid, still gripping the knife in his stomach, made a coughing sound and fell to his knees. The leader glanced that way in evident annoyance, stepped over, and cut Braid’s throat with the skill of long practice, stepping back to avoid the blood. Meridy didn’t throw up, but it was an effort.

  Scar lifted the crossbow. Meridy stared at him…and out of the corner of her eye saw a flicker, both like and unlike a glimmer of sunlight through the leaves. She blinked. The first quarrel pinned her skirt to a branch. Meridy jumped and made a small noise embarrassingly like a whimper, but she didn’t look away from the movement she thought she had seen.

  Then a large paw print appeared in the scuffed soil below the tree. Meridy caught her breath. Concentrating, she made out the shimmer of light along one powerful shoulder and flank. A second quarrel, deflected by the breeze, hit a branch directly in front of her knee. She flinched, losing the almost-image. Then smoke from her cooking fire blew across the ghost dog, and Meridy blinked and stared at it with fierce concentration, remembering stories in which witches used smoke or mist or dust to help demarcate the ethereal, help bring what they alone could see into the real so that anyone could see it. She had never tried to do anything like that herself, but she’d never been so scared, either. So she stared at the pale wisps from her smoldering fire and encouraged the diffuse smoke to outline the dog so anybody could see him—most of all so the brigands could see him. She made him a little more real than he had been, and a little more, and bent the ethereal into the real. And there he was: visible and suddenly almost real, a tall smoke-and-silver brindled wolfhound, looking much bigger now, tall and aggressive, with his hackles raised like a war dog from an old and violent tale.

  Now that they were able to see him, both the brigands stared. Scar half lowered his bow.

  Meridy drew one hard breath and shouted, “Good dog! Get them!”

  Scar took a step backward.

  The dog hit him at chest height. The outlaw went sprawling, too surprised to make a sound. Transparent fangs tore his throat out, and for a second spraying blood outlined the head and shoulders of the ghost dog, letting Meridy pull him farther into the real. The outlaw leader grabbed his sword up and slashed at the wolfhound. But the blade passed right through a half-visible back and thudded into the ground, pulling the man off balance, and the dog closed powerful jaws on his side, just above the hip, and shook him violently. The crack of his snapping spine was clear even over his scream.

  Then there was a pause, during which nothing seemed to make a sound except the last harsh breaths of the dying outlaw leader. When even that stopped, the world seemed infinitely still.

  Meridy clung to the branch and shook. The ghost dog crept to the base of the tree, making himself small, afraid, she could tell, that she would be mad at him. Probably he was not actually trained as a war dog and wasn’t supposed to bite people. Meridy ripped her skirt free from the quarrel and managed to climb down from the tree without killing herself. She collapsed at its base, unable to stand. The dog came and put his weightless head in her lap. She put her arms around where he almost was and told him what a good dog he was, what a fine dog. Then she cried. The dog wiggled and licked her face and became more and more solid, there in the shadows of the trees, every translucent hair glimmering with its own ethereal light.

  When Meridy had more or less recovered, she gathered up her things and repacked them, even the knife that she had thrown at Braid. It scraped sickeningly over the bone of his pelvis as she pulled it out, and she had to stop to throw up in the bushes. But she still went through the outlaws’ pouches and took their coins. She didn’t know how much all the coins were worth—there seemed a lot of different kinds—but she took them anyway. She also took the small crossbow and all the quarrels she could find. Then she went back to the road. Her legs were still shaky, but she knew she had to get far away. The fourth outlaw had been sent back to their group. Eventually they would start to wonder what the delay was.

  That was the day she named the ghost dog. She named him Iëhiy, which was the name of a king’s hound in one of the old tales. In Viënè it meant “lifted by fire” and might refer to smoke, or sparks, or souls.

  —

  Three days later, Meridy sat high on a hillside and watched a company of wagons set up camp by the road. She had retreated off the road after meeting the brigands, to watch for a westbound party that might be willing to let her travel with them, and that looked like the kind of people with whom Meridy would feel safe. She had thoroughly lost her appetite for traveling alone, but she was equally nervous about choosing the wrong kind of travelers to join. She was also a little bit worried because she had only the coins she’d taken from the outlaws to offer for her passage and she didn’t know how much those were worth, or whether she might be able to ask for work in exchange for leave to travel with a caravan. It had never occurred to her to ask Ambica for everyday details about practical things. Now she was sorry for that.

  This company looked good. There had been two other parties, and she liked the look of this one best. It was a merchant’s train, judging by the wagons heavily laden with barrels, bales, and crates. There were fourteen wagons, plus about forty mounted men. Most of these were clearly guards, who looked tough, well armed, and disciplined. Four women were with the company, three driving wagons and the other watching over a gaggle of children. It was the children and the women that made Meridy decide to go down and try to get a place with the party.

  She looked around for Iëhiy. The ghost dog was lounging in the shade of bayberry shrubs, nearly invisible even to her. The leaves of the bayberry sent a lacework of afternoon sunlight flickering across his back and legs, as though not quite sure that anything was there to reflect them. At her glance, the dog lifted his head attentively. Dust motes in the sunlight caught the outline of his head as it came into the direct light. Entirely transparent, he was nevertheless plain to her sight, like a dog carved of ice or fine glass. Leaves behind him were perfectly visible, though a little distorted and wavery.

  “Well,” Meridy told him, “I hope no one down there has eyes to see you, or they’ll think I know how to bind ghosts, and you know how people feel about that. Well…we’ll risk it. You want to come with me?” She stood up. The dog scrambled to his feet, tail waving enthusiastically. “Silly question, hmmm?” said Meridy. “Come on, little one. Don’t
bark, now.”

  Iëhiy, who had hardly barked once since he had been with her and would not be heard if he did, raced in pleased circles around Meridy as she started down the hill. He came in closer as they got nearer the wagons and, as though conscious of his dignity, was right at her side by the time a rider noticed her and approached them.

  The man reined up a short length away and stared at Meridy, frowning. He was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, and even with him on horseback it was obvious he was tall as well as big. He looked to be in his forties. Meridy thought he was probably not yet fifty, though his hair, coarse and nearly black and with plenty of curl to it, had lots of gray hairs mixed with the dark. He had a thin scar running from the corner of his mouth across his jaw, but despite his frown it didn’t make him look mean, the way the outlaws had looked. Judging by his coloring, darker than any possible tan, he had some Southern blood behind him, though he’d clearly gotten all the height of his Kingdom ancestors. His eyes were brown.

  “Surely you’re not out here on the road alone, my girl?” the man demanded. He looked her over carefully, then lifted his gaze to examine the hills behind Meridy. Apparently reassured that no one was there, he studied her once more, looking rather askance at her black eyes and her slightly tattered condition. He gave no sign of noticing Iëhiy.

  The dog, for his part, regarded the guard alertly, but his tail waved gently, which was reassuring.

  “Have you parents hereabouts? Or a husband?” The man sounded doubtful on that last; girls as young as Meridy did sometimes marry, but most girls waited till they were a little older.

  “No, sir,” said Meridy, and lied smoothly. “My father was taken into the God’s hand when I was little, and my mother just last week. I mean to join an aunt of mine in Riam, if I can get there. I hoped your people might let me travel with this party?”