The Lens of the World Trilogy

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  “We wouldn’t,” she replied. “And if he wanted, he could make some really naughty jests about me on top of this boy.” She slapped her stallion’s beautiful, soggy neck. It made a sound like mud pies. “And yet he’s so mannerly, Dowln could easily handle him.”

  “Could I?”

  Arlin laughed and turned her face to me. Her hair was full of rain gutters, too. “Of course you could, Nazhuret. You can handle almost anything. You have let this blond changeling intimidate you. I don’t know why.”

  I didn’t inform her. I was considering a three-way switch, whereby Dowln could have his gelding and Arlin her racehorse, when she emptied my mind entirely by saying:

  “I don’t know. I might decide to fight in this war.”

  I was no longer cold. I was sweating. I asked her what she meant. “Powl would warn us not to try. That it would be useless for us, and fatal.” I heard your voice, old teacher, across the years and through the rain, and I repeated your words to Arlin. “… Do not touch the police, the military, for you will wind up hanged.”

  “I believe it now, after the last five years. The more we try to help, the less we will be understood. No good to them and deadly to us.”

  Arlin trotted a few yards before answering. “I said ‘I,’ Nazhuret. Not ‘we.’ And about Powl. Do you think he himself isn’t already planning battles with the king? Or with those old alliances of his, of which he spoke?”

  “Old alliances? Oh, yes. And odd acquaintance. I remember, now. I thought he had meant us, by that,” I answered her.

  She shook her head forcefully. “No. He was talking about his own strength, apart from us. He has tools that we… that even you don’t know about, Zhurrie. ‘Powl’ is only a part of the Earl of Daraln.”

  I had known that, but not dwelt upon it. “What Powl teaches us to be, we are, Arlin. Powl himself may well be something different. What’s that to us? He is the carver, not the carving.”

  “We are not the same carving,” she said very gently. “I’m sorry if hearing this upsets you. But hear me, my true knight. I will fight for Velonya.”

  “My true knight.” Arlin called me by those awesome words rarely. Each time she did it was as though the sky opened to receive me. This time, however, it was only rain that went through the opening in the heavens, and my heart did not rise at all.

  Another thing you said to me was regarding attachments, which you feel will tie my hands and warp my understanding. Of course you’re right, but sometimes it is impossible to be completely right and sometimes it is merely foolish. If Arlin chose allegiance to rule over allegiance to our teaching, she would not go to war alone.

  I rode lonely and full of dread, and I took the opportunity of the rain to weep a little. I included all the dead in the red city in my weeping, even my cousin Reingish.

  The rocks gave way to the plains, and the horses under us showed their true usefulness. I believe we were three days crossing over what had taken us so long before.

  The saddlebags grew lighter, for the animals ate with the sullen singlemindedness only a man who has worked with his body could appreciate. Dowln’s replacement horse had become Arlin’s, and it kept the most flesh, having had fewer days of hardship behind it. Mine, which had been hers, suffered most, and I became obsessively concerned with preserving the stallion.

  Arlin told me I did nothing wrong as a rider, and as I learned most of what I know not from school or from you, Powl, but from her, I could only trust her word. But still the poor creature grew so thin the girth would not tighten, even when I stopped and made a little knot in each of the fibers in its weave. I had to hold the saddle on by balance, and between the natural sway and the lack of padding on the stallion’s withers, he soon developed a bare patch and then a sore. I threw away the saddle and rode bare on that very bony back.

  My own body also hurt, although I’m sure not as much as the horse’s did. My fingers on the reins stiffened and locked and ached at night as they never before had. (But they have since, in wet weather, or at a change of season.) The insides of my thighs were a bloody bruise.

  On the second night I saw a patch of blood, some dry and some shining, on Dowln’s saddle, and for a moment I had the alarming thought that his castration scar had opened again, more than twenty years afterward. I then remembered he had had even less riding to harden him lately than had I.

  I called his attention to the stain, and without expression he pulled a rag from his gear and began to dry the spot. The rag was dark already with dried blood. “What should I have done?” he asked me, his voice like his face. “Asked to stop?

  “We are probably now even with the infantry marching along the sea road, and tomorrow, if the spirits allow, we will be in the town of Warvala. Then my duty to you will be over.”

  We camped only a few dozen yards from a stream, and Arlin was carrying water in a pot and spilling it on the horses’ backs, so that the salt of their sweat would not irritate them. The beasts were hobbled instead of picketed. (They were not going anywhere by choice.)

  “What is your duty?” she asked him. By her voice, she was the least tired among us: but Arlin had been born to ride.

  Dowln sighed and settled onto the turf. I saw that his blousy Rezhmian riding breeches were stiff with blood, and even his linen cloak was speckled. “To see you to Velonya. Just that.”

  Arlin’s eyes were bright and pale in the starlight. We had no fire. “How are you to do that, emperor’s man? If we meet soldiers…”

  “Then I am the emperor’s man. An extension of his person, in fact. Do not dismiss the importance of that.”

  The shining eyes narrowed. “But do not presume too strongly upon it either. We are not at court.”

  Dowln laughed, showing white teeth. “I knew there was something different about this place,” he said. “So that’s it. It’s not the court.” Arlin laughed in reply.

  I was flat on the ground with no desire to do anything at all, so I saw them both outlined against the blackening sky, and I remember the scene very well.

  Arlin came and sat beside me, but she was not done with him. “What about the Naiish, sword-maker. What value will you be if the Naiish catch us again?”

  Dowln’s eyes went wide, and then distant. In the severe light of the stars, his blue eyes were the same as Arlin’s gray ones. He sucked in his breath and held it.

  “My value is, corpse-maker, that with me the Naiish will not catch you.”

  She did not take this appellation as an insult.

  On the next day my stallion’s heart began to go wrong. He would utter a “whuff” and I would feel the music of a crazed drummer between my knees. He did not slow down, but his head began to sag, and to sway left and right as though in a confused wind. I relayed all this to Arlin, but it was no surprise to her.

  “He’s too muscular,” she answered, looking down on the horse’s neck. One could see the muscles, as well as veins like hands of fingers reaching, clearly under both hide and hair. “He is good for a day or two at this speed, but for spanning countries you want a horse with light bones and neck. Not as impressive, but like my… like my…”

  “… like your Sabia,” I finished for her, because now it was Arlin who was weeping: weeping as though she’d never yet wept for the mare at all. Or for the baby.

  Because of Arlin’s upset, and my concern for her, and Dowln’s physical misery we didn’t notice as we passed into a loose herd of buffalo. At last I looked up and saw one horned head, and then two, and neither of them offered to gore us or to flee. My speed-dazed brain decided they must be domestic. Ahead were many more of them.

  “Arlin,” I shouted. “Clear your mind! Naiish! Naiish!”

  She looked up at me, her face wet and resentful, and then in two seconds her eyes had unfocused and then hardened again, and grief was behind her.

  “Keep riding,” screamed Dowln. “Keep riding and don’t change your direction left or right!” It was as though he had a detailed map of time, as well as of the
north marches of Rezhmia. I hated him for that, but I kept riding.

  As we reached the center of the herd, the animals began running from us, lowing nasally as buffalo do. I remember one calf that had difficulty getting out of the way. It seemed that its horns, slopping this way and that, overbalanced it at speed. It fell three times while I watched. Wild buffalo must have more coordination, or there would be none left.

  When we came out of the buffalo’s dust, I saw the unthinkable before us. Two of the long brush-built houses that make seasonal homes for the Naiish people blocked our way. Between them was a Naiish well and only ten feet of passage, in which many of the people had gathered to see what was disturbing their cattle. This congestion of people was only eighty feet ahead.

  “Ride, ride!” screamed Dowln, like an angry old woman, and he took out his damned little whip and beat our horses about the hocks with it.

  I cursed the eunuch as I have rarely cursed anyone in my life, but the horse had the bit and we were passing the well.

  By God’s grace, I think we didn’t kill anybody.

  There was shouting behind us, and after a minute there was the sound of hooves, but we passed by a few tents and some frightened cattle and we were alone again on the rough grass.

  The stallion’s breath sounded like mad flutes.

  After a half hour, Arlin pulled up her racehorse and my mount was not so crazy as to want to gallop alone.

  “We’ve lost him,” she said, and turned in her own steps. “Dowln.”

  I had not thought the pursuit that effective. I had not heard a single arrow, but my anger at Dowln, which had heated to conflagration, chilled instantly to be replaced by worry.

  We found him in five minutes. His horse was trotting heavily, its chin an inch from the grass. “I fell off,” he said, and he smiled through a split lip. His beardless cheek was a criss-cross of scratches. “But I had the sense to get away before doing it.”

  “Let me clean that face for you,” I said, but he pushed right past me.

  He shook his head. “I’m not stopping again.” He kicked his horse into a canter.

  We came into Warvala before nightfall, and to me it seemed an act of magic, so unexpected it was. I had not realized we’d crossed the border. The town looked very familiar, but also very busy. As I sat in the main street, recalling the way to the Yellow Coach (where I was sure we would find hospitality, if only in memory of my usefulness in times past), the stallion I rode died under me, and almost crushed me in falling.

  I rolled to my feet and stared at the beast, still beautiful in its parched lifelessness. I remember that somehow in its agony it had gotten its tongue over the bit, and that seemed to me the most pitiful part of it all. Arlin reminded me I was still holding one of the reins.

  A dead horse always draws a crowd, though everyone has seen a dead horse before. Out of this crowd marched a little man, about my height, portly and with his hair combed sideways over a bald dome. “Say, you can’t leave that here,” he said.

  There is also always someone to say that in such instances, too. I have heard it said, in those words and in that tone, about the smashup of a laden lumber wagon. As though the teamster could put the huge logs over his back and march off…

  I was in no mood to hear those words right now.

  I was thinking I did not know how long this accident would slow us down. I was thinking we had probably only some hours’ lead on the Rezhmian infantry moving up from the South. I was thinking that such a fine stallion had doubtless had a name, and that I had never learned it and now never would. I decided these thoughts were inappropriate to the moment, and so instead I looked at the short, swaggering citizen in front of me. He ran away.

  I was almost used to streets full of soldiers, but it took me aback when I saw the sky blue and white of the Velonya Royals that surrounded us. I strode through them, and perhaps it was the expression upon my face or perhaps it was something Arlin did behind me, but the soldiers made way without incident.

  The Yellow Coach was where I had left it. There were two prettily dressed guards at the door who were not intimidated by travel stains or temper, so I shouted for Alshie, the landlady. After a half minute of waiting, I turned to go around to the back, but the guards stepped away from the door and it was not Zaquashlan Alshie who faced me, but Rudof of Velonya.

  “I stopped here upon your recommendation,” he said, with the broad smile of a man who is amused, and expects to be better amused. “But I didn’t really expect to meet you here.” His green eyes took in our dirty, dry condition and more besides. His smile disappeared.

  “You aren’t here by accident, are you? You came looking for me. By the three faces, Zhurrie, your gifts are supernatural!”

  I answered, “I’ve heard just about enough lately about the supernatural!” Arlin gave a nervous guffaw and I realized that once more I had begun a conversation by insulting the King of the North.

  The king laughed also, and it seemed a strange sound for a leader at the edge of war. Men do laugh in such times, but it is a very special sort of humor, all barbs and edges.

  I stood as closely to him as I could and whispered, “How much time do they give you—your spies? It can be only hours.”

  Rudof stared at us, his fresh face going white under its freckles, and then he dragged me off my feet and into the common room.

  It was Arlin who told the king about the advance of the Shoreland Infantry in the South, and of the emperor’s Hainaure Cavalry on the plains behind us. She spoke much better than I could have, seeing anger turn to desperation and then horror in Rudof’s face. While the king was still dazed, she explained that the Rezhmian heir, Reingish of the Red Knife, had died in an attempt upon the ’naur’s life, and that the old man himself was “leading” his cavalry.

  King Rudof began to pace. As he moved he felt along the plastered, beer-stained wall beside him, like a blind man feeling his way. “I heard about an earthquake,” he murmured and then said louder, “… a catastrophic earthquake. That’s all I heard. I was certain that meant we had all winter. In fact, I didn’t expect an attack at all. They have no cause: nothing to stir the people. Especially if the young madman is dead.”

  So I told him about the roomful of sad weaponry the emperor had shown me, and about the raids.

  Now the king glared at me and showed a bit of his temper. “There have been no raids. Do you think I would do that? And if I did, that I would lie to you about it?”

  This was complex, for although I did not think he would send soldiers to burn peaceful villages, I thought it likely that if he had done some such thing, he would lie to me about it. I thought it best to leave the question alone.

  “I think that something did happen, and that the emperor told me the truth as he understood it.”

  Rudof shifted his hands from the wall to the long benches, but he kept moving. “You think he told the truth. But he’s your relative—family, isn’t he? I wonder where your loyalty lies.” He pointed an accusing finger, and I saw the hand was bloody with splinters from the old wood.

  Arlin pushed between us. “That was unworthy,” she said.

  I was irritated too, and beginning to stiffen up. “I am related to the emperor. And to you. To about the same degree: second cousin or something like that.”

  The king straightened in pure surprise. It must never have occurred to him that my being the son of Norwess meant we shared a great-grandfather.

  “And as for my loyalty, it is to my own conscience, as we have discussed before. My time, however, has been taken up by the King of Velonya in no easy manner for the last little while. And no matter what my descent or my motivation, thousands of armed Rezhmians will be at the border any hour now.”

  Rudof sank onto a bench and lay his damaged hand palm up on the table. “That’s really a pity,” he said distantly, with a groaning sigh. “Because I’m here in Warvala with no more than two hundred useful soldiers behind me.” He began to pick at the splinters with his other hand,
which was far too large and callused for the task. His fingers went slick with blood. “So what do I do, Nazhuret? Challenge the emperor to single combat?”

  I sat down on the other side of the table, but I had nothing to say. Behind the bar stood the very Alshie whose attention I had been trying to draw, and though she met my eyes she was too intimidated by the company to gesture a hello.

  Arlin remained standing, her face in the square of light thrown by the open door. “Powl,” she said, and her face twisted sideways in a grin. “Where is the Earl of Inpres when we need him?”

  The king looked up intently at her, and for a moment their faces were mirrors, different only in color. Two long, aquiline Velonyan faces. What had become of the third Velonyan face: the one worn on an other-than-male body, and concealing an other-than-Velonyan mind with other-than-human abilities? I had lost track of Dowln when the horse died under me. I feared he might come to trouble in Warvala. If he tried to use his little white whip on the Zaquash locals, for instance…

  I stood. I almost went out the door to check on him, but this conversation was so crucial. Perhaps it was hopeless, but it was crucial nonetheless, and besides, even Zhurrie the Goblin is not fool enough to walk out on the king.

  The king’s grin had straightened itself, as though he’d found something wholeheartedly amusing amid the hopelessness. “Powl is here! I don’t mean in body. I haven’t seen him since I asked him to locate you, back in middle spring. I have only had letters since, and the last one over six weeks ago. No, I mean all that the earl has to give us is already here. I have spent over half my life receiving Powl’s lectures on history, government, ethics, military strategy, and…” Unable to put a name to the rest of his education, he fell silent and shrugged, looking for understanding in our eyes.

  “And you, card cheat. What do you have of him?”

  (The king had called Arlin “card cheat” for the past five years, though I don’t know that he believed she really was one. It was his way of dealing with a woman who was not a woman—whose eccentricities had saved his life. He had never played cards with Arlin, I am sure.)