by Diana Rivers
“You, by yourself? You will open a sealed gate?” Pell asked in disbelief.
“Do you doubt my powers, girl? What do you know? I could make you turn somersaults in the air if I chose to do so.”
Alyeeta came to stand next to Shalamith. “I will help you from the outside. I have no doubt you can get it open. Keeping it open long enough, that will be hard.”
“How do you plan to do this?” Pell challenged.
“How!” Alyeeta exclaimed with her mocking laugh. “How! That is for us to know and you to see. Just do your part, and we will do ours. Make sure to get yourselves there alive at the right time. Then you will see what Witches can do.”
There was a buzz of excitement. Pell’s face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. Now, now she will begin to shape our plans, I thought. No one had spoken against it. It was clear to me that we would stage a raid on Eezore, though from some kind of stubborn folly I still thought I would not be one of those to go. The final questions had been answered. As I looked about me at that circle of ragged young women standing around a stump in a dusty clearing in the woods, and thought of them trying to invade the Zarn’s city, the very center of power, I did not know whether to laugh or cry or shout at them all for their madness. In the end I kept my silence on it.
In the midst of Pell’s talk I suddenly heard Ashai shouting with fear. Her few words of Kourmairi rang out over and over in the clearing. “Help! Come quickly! A man here is!” Women grabbed frantically for their clothes. When I looked around I saw Hereschell slipping through the trees with the gray wolf, Soneeshi, at his heels.
“Nothing to fear,” I shouted to the circle. Quickly I ran to calm Ashai and then to meet with Hereschell. “Why did you come sneaking in like that past our sentries instead of letting them bring you to us?” I asked him angrily. “Look what confusion you have caused!”
“How did I know who you would have on sentry duty and if they would know me and let me by? After all, I am a man and not to be trusted. I thought it easier to simply come here. And you should train them better. If it is so simple for me to slip past, then Pell has been careless with her training.”
I had more angry things to say. Then I saw he was grinning, clearly pleased with himself. I had no wish to add to his amusement.
“Ah, you,” I said with mock annoyance. “You could slip through a fishnet if you wanted to. If you have something to tell Pell, tell her yourself. Now what is it that brings you here this day?”
“I hear you have plans to move against Eezore.”
“So there are rumors about?”
“This was no rumor. This was a message sent to me.”
“Then you mean to help us?
“Yes and no. After all, Wanderers are all fish who slip through the fishnets. They must be careful. It would not do to be tagged by one side or the other.”
“Still, you will help us in some way or you would not be here.”
“Oh yes, without a doubt, I will help you in some way. Among other things, I have knowledge of that city that you need. We Wanderers do not always go in and out by the Great Gates and let ourselves be counted. We have our own ways.”
“If the Wanderers helped us more openly, would harm come to them for it?”
“Perhaps, but not likely. I cannot go into the city of Eezore with you, that you must understand, nor can I be too plain with what I do, but mostly Wanderers are left to go their own way. Not even the Zarns want to pinch the Wanderers too hard. For the most part Wanderers stay out of Ganjarin affairs, but they are the very devil when roused, and slippery besides. I think the Zarns have enough on their hands at this moment without seeking to engage the Wanderers.”
I could still hear Pell’s voice from the circle, spinning out plans. “Hereschell,” I asked urgently, “is this madness? Can she do this thing? Will the Star-Born all die in that city? Is Pell a fool?”
He raised both hands. “Easy, Tazzi, I am no reader of the cards. It is not one of my talents. But, in the first place, your people are not easy to kill. Let us remember that. It gives some comfort. And then, of course, there is the advantage of surprise. The Zarn will not be expecting such a raid. I am sure the Zarn, in all his power, does not look to this raggle-tag to invade his city. He believes his enemies are being hunted elsewhere. He will not think to find the hunted suddenly become the hunters right inside his walls. Also, I trust you will not stand and fight like a troop of guards. Hopefully you will slip through their city as swift and silent as sewer rats, gone almost sooner than you are seen. You could learn some lessons from those long-tailed folk. As to Pell, you are a better judge of her sanity that I could ever be.” Each time Hereschell said the word “you” I could feel my heart pounding wildly and my throat constrict. Then I had to remind myself that I would not be one of those to go. I had planned exactly what I would say to Pell in the matter. Likely she would leave me to manage the camp in her absence, as I would be of no use to her in Eezore.
Out of the corner of my eye I had glimpsed the silent ones creeping around the edge of the clearing as we talked. To my surprise they did not run and hide at the sight of Hereschell. Instead they advanced in a zig-zag course in his direction, coming stealthily but with clear purpose. He must have sensed them for even as he spoke he turned slowly. I saw a look of shock and recognition cross his face. “So they are safe here with you. We did not find their bodies with the others and thought they had been taken by the raiders.”
As they crept up on him I told him how they had come to us. “Ah, that Vanhira,” he said nodding, “She was always a brave one. I wonder who brought them to her and how.”
Holding hands, they came to stand and stare at him, knowing and yet not knowing him, ready to run at any moment yet drawn by some flicker of memory.
“Take them with you, Hereschell,” I whispered, “take them far from here. Hide them safe with the Wanderers where they can heal and remember slowly. Here they are a danger to us and to themselves as well.”
He nodded again, watching them with a terrible sadness on his face. “I suppose we Wanderers are in this thing one way or the other, whether we will it or not. Johalla, Illyati,” he said softly, naming them for the first time in our hearing. They came forward slowly, reaching out cautiously to touch his sleeves and then his hands with tentative, questioning fingers.
A little later Pell came to look for me. She seemed full of energy and resolve, amazingly cheerful for one about to ride off into the jaws of death. “Come to the mapping, Tazzi. I need you to know as much as possible of the city. Good thing that Irdris has taught you something of Shokarn speech. On the way to Eezore I trust that you will cover the rear of the line while I cover the front.” Before I could say even one word of my planned speech Pell was gone again, gathering others for this mapping.
This time Pell was the learner as Askarth and Hereschell between them laid out a giant map with sticks, rocks, pieces of string, and whatever else they could find to add to the scratched lines for marking the walls, gates, streets, and Great-Houses of Eezore. Even the Zarn’s Palace itself was marked there as well as the passages that lay beneath it all.
Irdris and the other two Shokarn, Ashai and Sural, added their own lines and pebbles to show us how the streets and houses they knew connected to each other. The others milled about, asking questions and squatting down to see better. For me, hard as I stared, the lines remained only lines and the pebbles only pebbles, nothing more. When I strained to focus, all of it was suddenly fraught with terror and blurred in my sight. As I turned away in disgust, Hereschell made as if to grab my arm. He quickly dropped his hand but moved instead to block my way, saying in a thundering voice, “Tazzi, you will not shut your head and walk away! You will stay here and learn this map!”
All eyes turned on me. I drew myself up with sudden anger. No man had ever spoken to me in that way, not even my own father. I looked to Pell and Jhemar for some support, but they were both nodding in agreement with him.
In spite of that I wa
s about to step past him haughtily when Hereschell put out his hand again, not trying to touch me this time. “Please, Tazzi,” he said softly, speaking so low only I could have heard him. His tone of entreaty stopped me as nothing else could have. I gave him a nod and turned back. Yet stare as I might, those lines were still only lines, in no way shaping themselves into the city I so feared. I could make no sense of it at all. Even as I struggled with this I could hear Irdris and Ashai in back of me arguing in rapid Shokarn. I could understand a little of this from time to time. Apprently Irdris was intent on going back to Eezore with us and Ashai was begging her not to, listing all the dangers. Suddenly Sural sided with Ashai, saying Irdris was too well known there. Irdris said loudly, “Jemalia” as if that settled everything. Then she walked away abruptly. It was the first time I had ever seen her angry. All this talk of danger did nothing, of course, to lift my spirits.
I was still staring dully at the map after the others had moved away when Hereschell stepped up next to me. As I turned toward him he took my hand in his, looking me in the eye first for permission. “Forgive me my rudeness, Tazzi. It is not the Wanderers’ way to compel another’s will, but I was afraid for you. I feared for your safety if you went on in your head-blind way, and did not want to see you go into that city in ignorance. You may lose your life on this mission to Eezore. If so, that is the way of things. Life is a risky gift at best. But I would not have it be from stupidity alone when a little knowledge could have saved you.” He hesitated, coughed a little and seemed unable to go on.
Suddenly he was the father I had never had, a man who was afraid for me instead of me. I felt like a small child and had an impulse to throw myself into his arms and cry on his shoulder. Instead I held myself tightly together and pressed his hand in return before releasing it. He looked at me with a wry smile. “It is also not Wanderers ways to care too much. Who knows where the next bend in the road will take us.”
I glanced back at the map and it all swam before my eyes. “Oh, Hereschell, if my life depends on it, I may well die in that city, for I can make no sense at all of these lines in the dirt.” I was shocked at the wail of despair in my voice.
“Well, at least that is something that can be easily mended.” Squatting down, he drew me down beside him. “If you think of streets as paths grown wider and more numerous then you can begin to see them. They are only cow paths paved over and given names, even the fanciest of them. Look, here is the central fountain and a circle around it. Streets run out from it in all directions like this. Here is Bird Street and Carriage Street, and there is Long Street that runs across the whole city at a long diagonal.” He went on talking and pointing, naming places and streets till the sticks, stones, and lines in the dirt began to come alive for me, turning into a city. I knew I must be seeing it through his eyes. I could even picture myself slipping safely from street to street. Finally, I was the one pointing and naming. Hereschell was sitting back on his heels with a wide grin on his face, nodding his encouragement. “I told you some things are easily mended. You see, you will not even need me there.”
Half teasing, I turned to him and asked, “If you cannot come with us will you at least light candles to the Goddess for our safety?”
He shook his head, very serious now. “No, Tazzi, you must light your candles to Her yourself. The Goddess is yours, not mine. That is not how the Sacred Spirit speaks to me, the One who is Many, the Many who are One.”
“Is that what you Wanderers believe in, the Sacred Spirit?”
“Believe?” he shrugged. “I do not understand this ‘believe’. It is what I feel, what I know in that inner place. How the Sacred Spirit speaks to each of us, that is our life’s gift, our life’s message. It is not for another to question or criticize or even understand. It is for each one of us alone to open our hearts to, not something that can be written or turned into law or held captive in a building. And one person’s ‘knowing’—that must never, never be forced upon another. That would be the deepest breach of ‘the Code’.”
“What is this ‘Wanderer Code’ you speak of?” He was so serious and turned inward I was almost afraid to speak to him, and not at all sure he would answer.
After a moment of silence he nodded, “Ah yes, the Wanderer Code, something not easy for the Ganjarin to understand. It is not written anywhere, only in our hearts, yet we all live by it, each in our own way. My own words for it would be, ‘wander wherever your heart takes you, harm none and put your love out into the world.’”
We sat for a while in silence then, my own bitter, angry heart chewing on those words. When Hereschell began to speak again it was so low I had to strain to hear him. “When I leave you I will go into the Cave of the Spring to ask. There I will set my little pile of pebbles on the moss, and look into the water for some peace. I will wish for this thing to be safely done with as little harm as possible, hoping no deaths will come of it and of my part in it. Though I am no foreteller, yet even I can see much blood and fire in this time to come. The Ganjarin do not seem to mind killing, but for the Wanderers, unnatural death is always a deep distress, and the shedding of another’s blood is a tear in the fabric that holds us all.” He fell silent again and looked as distant as if he already sat before his spring. I sat studying his face. This man who had just spoken was as different from the proud and bitter man I had known as that one was from the fool I had first met. There seemed to be no bottom to this well.
Chapter Seventeen
I have a great dread of writing this part and wish could leave it out of my account altogether. I find myself making excuses, delaying and delaying, fearing to be thrown back into that state of terror. Besides, so much happened there, so much so fast. How am I to piece it all together? But now it is blocking the rest of the story. I have no choice but to try.
Eezore! The feelings I remember from that day are terror followed by an icy calm. The terror was not like any ordinary fear, not like the fear of being killed or of encountering the guard. It ws more like the terror of being thrown headlong from a precipice and finding myself whirling helpless through the air toward the rocks below. It was the city itself that terrified me, a place so alien to my very being. I can thank Hereschell for forcing me to learn the map, saying over and over, “The streets are only paths and trails paved over. Watch for signs, observe everything, remember to smell and feel and listen as well as look.” And in truth, as soon as I began doing what was needed, the terror abated and that icy calm came over me. But I am ahead of myself now. Let me go back and try to tell the story as it happened.
My group had stopped, uncertain how to find the others who had gone before us. The night was dark. Out of it the towering heap of the Bargguell loomed even darker before us. Its stench filled the air, making it hard to breathe. Beyond the Bargguell, I could see the walls of the city topped by watchlights.
Rishka leaned toward me and muttered, “We could have found our way here by smell alone.”
Just then an owl called three times and then three more. Without a word, we moved almost soundlessly in that direction. Soon I saw the dark huddled shapes of the others.
From close by I heard Pell say softly, “That is all of us now, all together and accounted for.”
A shiver went up my back. The last players in this game were in place. Eezore was waiting for us.
It had been well before dawn when we had left Hamiuri’ s shelter, wearing dark cloaks for concealment, and riding out in small groups, no more than six or seven at a time. We had thought the roads to Eezore would be well-guarded at such a time, and so, not wanting to give any sort of alarm, we had kept separate from each other on the way, even muffling the sound of our horses hooves with rags as we drew near the city. But the ride proved uneventful—at least my part of it. Pell had gone first, along with Askarth, Hereschell and Kazouri. Rishka and I had been in the last group to leave. I had stayed to the end to make sure all went smoothly. Those few guards we passed had been easy to evade. Sometimes we had only to draw aside. It
seemed Eezore had not only shut its gates, it had shut in on itself, thinking perhaps that all its troubles were inside already. A few farm boys on the road were no concern to a city at war with itself.
Gathered together now we were more than fifty, five double hands, enough for three or four to enter each Great House while others watched from outside, waiting there ready to help those within, and still others roamed the city streets stopping trouble or making it as was needed at the moment. Some were to stay and watch for us outside the city gates, guarding our backs as we went in and ready to bring the horses as soon as they were needed. Our places had already been assigned. I was to go with Rishka and Askarth to the Great-House of Starmos. I felt a rush of relief. At least I was to have a guide in the city.
Pell had been giving last minute directions when we rode up. Hastily I dismounted. Zenoria and Zari came instantly to take our horses. It was hard for me to let Marshlegs go out of my hands so quickly. I hugged her for a moment, arms around her neck, pressing my face into her sweet smelling hide. When I turned around so as not to see her being led away, I found Pell at my side.
She grabbed my arm, saying urgently, “Rope, Tazzi, we need more rope. If you have some take it instantly to Kazouri.”
The tunnel entrance had already been cleared of brush. Kazouri and several others were there trying to fasten ropes around a huge rock that blocked the way in, no easy task since this boulder pressed against the tunnel sides and the rocks behind it leaving little room to pass. Candles kept blowing out and tempers were short.
Kazouri, who was much too large for the job, paced about beating her fist in her palm as if ready to tear the thing out with her bare hands. “If this rock delays us much longer,” she muttered, “we will be doing this foolishness by the light of morning with an audience of interested guards. We may as well blow a horn to announce our presence.”