Naamahs Curse

by Jacqueline Carey

Page 16

 

  My stomach lurched, and I swallowed bile. Gods, I needed air! Frantic as a trapped animal, I scrambled blindly toward the rear of the cart, dragging my chains, bumping into obstacles I couldn’t make out in the dim light.

  It was a tarpaulin of oiled canvas that covered the cart, secured in place by ropes. It gapped at the far end, glimpses of the brightening blue sky visible between the rope lashings.

  Rope could be cut. Ignoring my chains, I groped at the sash around my waist for the dagger that Snow Tiger had given me, with its ivory hilt carved in the shape of a dragon’s coils.

  It was gone.

  Wheels creaking, the cart ground to a halt. Deprived of any sense beyond the ordinary mortal ones, I lay still and took quick, shallow breaths, listening to the faint sound of approaching boot steps. Unseen fingers fumbled with unseen knots. I willed myself to be calm, and sought to summon the twilight.

  It was gone, too—or at least, it was beyond my reach. With my magic constrained by these bedamned chains, I could no more take a half-step into the spirit world than I could fly to the moon.

  The canvas was folded back to reveal a bearded Vralian face peering at me. Filled with an unreasoning mix of panic and fury, I tried to hurl myself at him. Weighted down by shackles and chains, I merely fell over the tailgate of the wagon, the impact driving the air from my lungs.

  “No good!” Retreating out of reach, the Vralian wagged a stern finger at me, speaking a limited version of the Tatar language. “We save you. ”

  I heaved myself and my chains backward, huddling in the rear of the wagon, wrapping my arms around me until I caught my breath. “Why?”

  The second Vralian, who looked to be a few years younger than the first, came to confer with him, speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. The first raised his medallion to his lips and kissed it. “God wills it,” he said in a reverent tone.

  “Then I am grateful to your god,” I said slowly and carefully, unfolding one arm and extending it. “If you will take off these chains, I will go with thanks. ”

  Free of the chains, I could summon the twilight and pass through the campsite like a phantom, taking Bao with me.

  The Vralian smiled gently and shook his head at me, as though I were a child who’d said somewhat foolish. “We save you from you. ”

  I stared at him, and then raised my voice. “Well, then, I bedamned well don’t want to be saved!”

  He shrugged. “God wills it. ”

  “I don’t care!”

  He made a hushing sound, pointing backward toward the Tatar campsite. “Not far yet. No trouble, or the young man…. . ” He made a slashing gesture across his throat. “Khan say he kill. ”

  Bao.

  I weighed my choices. My head ached too much to think straight. If Bao was awake, he would know something had happened to me, for as surely as the chains kept me from sensing his diadh-anam, they would prevent him from sensing mine. Whatever their purpose, the Vralians didn’t seem intent on harming me. They said we had not gone far yet, so I couldn’t have been unconscious for long. If I screamed and shouted at the top of my lungs, it might be that Bao would hear me.

  And what then?

  I didn’t doubt that the Great Khan would sooner kill Bao than allow him to rescue me. Skilled as he was, Bao couldn’t take on all the Khan’s men; and he surely couldn’t outride them. It would be best to be patient. There was a key to these chains. All I needed was a chance to steal it, and a minute or two to undo my shackles.

  I raised my hands in surrender, chains dangling from my wrists. “No trouble. ”

  The Vralian nodded. “Good. ” He pointed at the floor of the cart. “Today, hide. ”

  Forcing myself to be compliant, I lay down. They pulled the tarpaulin back in place, lashing it securely.

  Hours passed, long, stifling hours filled with fear, nausea, and tedium. Every hour took me farther away from Bao, farther away from freedom, farther away from the hope that my destiny was calling me home.

  What in the name of all the gods did the Vralians want with me?

  Never in my life had I felt more alone, miserable, and helpless. At least in the face of the storm that had nearly killed me, I’d been too busy trying to survive to even know what I was feeling.

  Although I tried not to, I wept.

  My only comfort was the spark of my diadh-anam, alive and flickering inside me, a promise that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself had not forgotten me. I was Her child. These cursed chains could bind Her gifts, but they could not kill Her divine spark within me. In the suffocating darkness beneath the tarpaulin, I prayed to Her; and I prayed to Naamah and Anael, who were my D’Angeline patron gods. Although I could not sense their presence, I prayed they had not forgotten me, either.

  At last, the interminable cart-ride came to an end. The Vralians unhitched their horses, hobbled them, and turned them loose to graze, then untied the tarpaulin once more. With a strange, reluctant solicitousness, they helped me clamber out of the cart.

  It wasn’t easy.

  In the early-evening light, I got a better look at the shackles that bound me. They were etched with sigils and inscriptions in a strange alphabet. The cuffs around my wrists were linked to the circlet around my neck by chains long enough that they didn’t restrict the movement of my arms overmuch. That wasn’t their purpose. The chain that linked the shackles around my ankles was another matter. It was short enough that I was forced to adopt a halting, mincing gait.

  Clearly, running away was not an option.

  In case the matter was in doubt, one of the Vralians—the one who spoke a bit of the Tatar language—produced yet another chain, looping it around the front axle of the cart, and lacing it through the chain on my left arm. Averting his gaze, he put down a pallet of furs for me, indicating that I could take shelter beneath the wagon.

  “You’re too kind,” I muttered.

  Deeming me safely secured, he studied me with deep-set eyes. “God wills this. ”

  Already, I was perishing sick of his bedamned god; but I had the sense to hold my tongue. The other fellow set about erecting a tent well beyond the reach of my tether, which I was sorry to see. They had not been overtly cruel to me thus far, but what kindness they had shown me, chaining me like a dog, I misliked.

  I was scared and alone, and if they had given me the opportunity to bash in their heads with a rock while they slept, I would have taken it.

  They didn’t.

  Instead, they kindled a careful fire of dried dung-chips, heating a pot of water filled with strips of dried meat and root vegetables. They knelt in prayer before they ladled out servings, murmuring in sonorous tones.

  The second fellow brought me a steaming bowl of stew and a spoon. Far from it though I felt, I resolved to try being pleasant.

  “Thank you. ” I accepted the bowl, my chains rattling as I reached for it. I took a deep sniff, miming pleasure, then smiled at him. “It smells good. ”

  He beat a hasty retreat, avoiding my gaze. Stone and sea, what was wrong with these men?

  Whatever it was, I didn’t learn the answer that night. When dusk fell over the steppe, they extinguished their fire with care, retiring to the safety of their tent. Huddled in my cocoon of furs, I watched the moon rise and spill its silvery light over the plains, thinking and thinking, my mind restless.

  I wondered if I could shift the cart.

  I tried. Scuttling underneath it, I found the wooden chocks that braced the front wheels and pried them loose. When I banged them softly together in my fists, it made a very satisfying sound.

  Scrambling out from beneath the cart, I got to my feet and went to the end of my short tether. Throwing my weight into the effort, I tried to drag the cart toward the tent.

  I failed.

  There were chocks bracing the rear wheels, too, and those I could neither reach nor dislodge, no matter how hard I strained. My tether was too short,
and the cart was too heavy. I could not do it.

  In the end, I gave up. I was cold and tired and heartsick, and tomorrow was another day. Sooner or later, I thought, an opportunity would present itself. When it did, I would take it and flee.

  Gathering my furs, I crawled beneath the cart.

  There, I curled up like a dog, and slept.

  EIGHTEEN

  On the morrow, my situation looked as bleak as ever.

  The Vralians were careful not to give me any opportunities for escape or violence—not that I could have taken either easily, entangled in a clinking, rattling mass of chains as I was, unable to take a single full stride.

  They gave me hard black bread and water to break my fast in the morning. When I explained to the older fellow that I needed to answer nature’s call, he shook his head, not comprehending. Clearly, his limited Tatar vocabulary did not extend to encompass the mortal body’s most basic requirements.

  “I need to piss!” I said in frustrated Alban, using a vulgar slang term and knowing he wouldn’t understand a word of it. I pointed at his crotch, and mimed a man holding his phallus and relieving himself. “Gods! Do you people lack bladders as well as hearts?”

  He flushed to the roots of his hair, his face darkening with embarrassment and disgust. But at least he unlocked the chain that tethered me to the wagon and pointed toward the outskirts of the camp.

  I made my clanking, mincing way over the plain. Whatever else the Vralians were, they weren’t voyeurs. Both of them turned their backs on me as I concluded my business. And an awkward business it was, hovering in a narrow squat, trying not to let urine splash on my bare feet, my felt trousers, or the bedamned chain between my ankles.

  The sheer misery of the experience nearly brought me to tears.

  I breathed slowly until the moment passed, distracting myself with thoughts of flight. It was impossible, at least for now. I could barely walk, let alone run. Still, the thought of forcing them to chase me down held a certain grim satisfaction.

  But there was no point in rousing my captors’ ire for the sake of a foolish whim—and my body was stiff and aching from the wagon’s jolting. So instead I hobbled back to rejoin them like an obedient dog.

  For a mercy, they didn’t force me to hide beneath the tarpaulin today, but allowed me to ride atop it, pointing out a spot where I could sit atop some covered bales of wool. As such things went, it was reasonably comfortable.

  We set out once more, heading due north. The younger man drove the cart, his hands firm on the reins. The older sat beside him. Their backs were rigid and upright, and they exchanged few words. There was only the sound of the breeze and the steady clopping of the cart-horses’ hooves.

  I endured the silence for the better part of an hour, staring at the backs of their heads and despising them.

  “May I ask why your god wills this?” I asked in the Tatar tongue, forcing myself to speak politely.

  The older man turned his head in my direction without actually looking at me. “To save you. ”

  “To save me, yes. ” I was as perishing sick of the phrase as I was of his god. “Why?”

  He held up his gold medallion, which was shaped like a square cross with flared arms, and kissed it reverently. “Yeshua. ”

  “Yeshua,” I repeated. It wasn’t much of an answer. “Yeshua ben Yosef? Are you his priests? Did he tell you to save me? Am I to save him?”

  That the Vralian understood; he reacted in shock, drawing back as though I had struck him. His companion queried him in their own tongue. They spoke for a moment, and the first man took on a thoughtful look.

  Gods, I didn’t understand a thing about these men!

  “No talk here,” the older man said. He pointed toward the north. “There, in Vralia. ”

  I sighed, collapsing onto my canvas-covered bales. If I didn’t escape soon, it was going to be a very long, very miserable journey.

  I occupied myself with studying my shackles and chains. Now that my head was no longer spinning and yesterday’s vicious ache had dwindled to a tender, throbbing lump on the back of my skull, I realized I’d seen the like before.

  When Raphael de Mereliot and the Circle of Shalomon had summoned the spirit Focalor, a Grand Duke of the Fallen, the silversmith Balric Maitland had wrought a chain to bind him—a silver chain with a silver lock, each link etched with sigils. These were much the same, and I thought the inscriptions on the shackles might have been written in the Habiru alphabet. I’d seen it before in the summoning invocations the Circle studied.

  Well and so, I thought. Focalor, who had appeared in the form of a tall man with immense wings like an eagle’s, had broken the chain with ease.

  He had also killed Claire Fourcay, another member of the Circle, and breathed her life force into me, forcing me to keep open the doorway to the spirit world that had allowed him to be summoned. And he had very nearly succeeded in pouring his own essence into Raphael, taking possession of his mortal being and wreaking untold havoc on the world.

  If it hadn’t been for Bao and Master Lo, Focalor would have succeeded. But the important thing now was that the fallen spirit we summoned had been able to break the chain in the first place.

  I racked my brains trying to remember how he had done it, recalling at last that the spirit had accused Claire Fourcay of mispronouncing two words in the spell of binding. That was no help, since the Vralians hadn’t spoken at all when they bound me. If there was a spell, like as not it was written in the inscriptions on the cuffs.

  There had been another thing, though. Focalor had told the silversmith that a single drop of solder had obscured the sigil on one of the links.

  That, mayhap, could be of use to me—although how the spirit had known it to be true, I couldn’t say. I supposed a Grand Duke of the Fallen, able to wield power over wind and sea, had magical resources well beyond the ken of one frightened, lonely bear-witch. Still, I could examine the chains for myself. I set about examining the links one by one, starting with the chain that ran from my left wrist to the collar around my neck.