Weisei looked across the fire-pit at the slight, soft breathing-rhythm of Vuchak’s turned back. To Día, he looked still and ordinary: a youthful, masculine frame wrapped in a stained old blanket, two freshly-braided pigtails draping over the ground, and a battered pair of moccasin-boots sticking out from the bottom: all hallmarks of a weary man best not disturbed. But there in Weisei’s eyes was such a groundswell of feeling, such a peculiar admixture of pride and guilt and overwhelming tenderness, that he only kept it from leaking down his face by swallowing it down to thicken his voice instead. “... and he works so hard for me.”
Día had seen that expression before. It was the way that Fours, her papá, used to look at her when he thought she was asleep.
She did not want to think about how he looked now, after she’d been missing for who-knew-how-many days.
Missing, the voice echoed in her mind. Lost. Missing. Sad.
Be quiet, she thought. Just shut up.
“Anyway.” Weisei heaved a huge breath and found his place again. “She had a baby – the Dog Lady, that is. She had a baby with one of the Eaten men, just because she knew it would infuriate Father Wolf. One day, it went missing. And that’s when everything fell apart.”
A prickle crawled up Día’s spine – some crucial connection just waiting to be made – but she had no chance to think on it: Weisei had had time to consider his tale, and now seemed determined to get straight on through it. “An a’Krah war-party had left them just the night before, on their way to help break the siege of Cloud Town. The Ara-Naure believed we had stolen the child and its nursemaid on behalf of the Winter Wolves – the heretic Lovoka who had been attacking them – perhaps with the blessing of Father Wolf himself.”
“Surely they didn’t –” Día began.
“They did,” Weisei said. “The Ara-Naure ambushed us in the middle of the day, during our sleep, killing half our number in the first assault. When they didn’t find the missing child, they took the survivors as hostages, and let one go to give the word: every sunrise, an a’Krah would be killed and the body buried upside-down in the ground, and this would continue until the infant was returned.” Weisei closed his eyes. “They didn’t realize that one of their captives was a daughter of Marhuk.”
Día said nothing. She was not going to like whatever came next.
“She never revealed herself. She was courageous and clever to the end. She couldn’t tell what the Dog Lady might do to another god’s child, but she knew that if the alliance were going to have any chance, whatever happened to her had to be forgivable by ignorance. Her faith in Marhuk’s rationality never wavered.”
That was a difficult reversal to follow: it was strange to think of taking comfort in the fact that one’s parent was cold enough to accept a child’s execution in the name of the greater good. “But she might have saved herself,” Día said.
Weisei made a see-sawing gesture. “Or she might have been tortured, or made to confess secrets to spare the lives of her fellow a’Krah. We can’t know. All she knew was that the Dog Lady had become so demented, so poisoned by her love for this one infant, that she would kill to find him.”
Well. If Día needed any proof that her understanding of virtue was not shared by the a’Krah, there it was. She did not need any proof that the Dog Lady was capable of murder. “I take it her plan didn’t work,” she said at last.
Weisei shook his head. “It might have. Marhuk wished for a peaceful resolution. But the a’Krah who came to bargain for the hostages were led by another of his daughters – a fierce young woman, equally courageous, but perhaps not so clever. When she learned that she had come too late, and that her sister was among the slain... oh, it was terrible. She sang her grieving-song, and the free a’Krah sang with her, and those imprisoned heard and added their voices too. And their anger and sadness drifted through the air and soaked into the ground until her dead kinsmen clawed through the earth and climbed out of their unholy graves, and then...”
Weisei glanced at Día, and whatever he saw in her face seemed to suggest that he did not need to recount all the bloody particulars. “By the end of the night, she – we had killed nearly fifty of the Ara-Naure, and two of the Dog Lady’s children. And when the sun came up, all the still-living gods knew what we had done: we had freed the living and avenged the dead, but there was no more hope for friendship. Father Wolf saw what we had done to his sister’s people, and paid us in kind. Our allies rose to our defense, and smashed everything that was left of the Ara-Naure. And by the time everyone had lost their appetite for killing, half of the high desert people were dead or Eaten.”
Weisei sighed and stared morosely at the coals. “I don’t hate them, you know – the Eaten, I mean. But I think about what it must be like for them. One god. One language. No marks or gifts or god-children to separate one from another. Everybody all alike, always agreeing. It must be so EASY.”
Día suspected that he was considerably mistaken about some of that. But it had been twelve years since her father had put her in the sacristy – twelve years since she was truly ‘alike’ with anyone – and she did not pretend to understand anything about life on the other side of the border.
And she was apparently just as ignorant of the goings-on on this side, too. Día rubbed her aching eyes, overwhelmed by the need to get home, and beset by the sick, sodden fear that she might never see it again. She felt the grief that didn’t belong to her, and the hesitation that did.
“Weisei,” she said at last, “what would you say if I told you that I can still hear her, in my head? That I might not... that the Dog Lady might not be finished with me?”
For a moment, the young man of the a’Krah looked at her with an expression verging on envy. Then he tipped his head, left and right, and went back to watching Vuchak sleep. “I would tell you that it’s often considered a great honor to be called by one of the gods... even though we may not understand the reasons for it. Do you think she has a purpose in mind for you?”
Día shook her head. “I’m not sure she even remembers me. But she’s in so much pain, and it doesn’t seem right to leave her like that.”
Weisei did not answer, and she could see the struggle in his face: the natural compassion of this newer generation soured by the blood feuds of the last one.
Día tried a different tack. “What’s over there?” She pointed west by northwest at the nearest of the mountains, and if she’d had a gun in her hand, she could have shot the source of the foreign presence in her mind – that was how precisely her intuition guided her.
“Eh?” Weisei looked up, roused from different thoughts, and followed her gesture. “Nothing very much – a few little springs, a couple of good shelters if you’re traveling in winter, and if you circle about a mile around to the south, you will find the cart-road up to Atali’Krah, where Grandfather Marhuk lives.” He nodded up at the mountain’s eroded peak, though Día couldn’t see anything exceptional about the rumpled gray-white rock. Weisei glanced nervously back at Vuchak. “Ah, maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
Día did not contradict him: she was far too surprised to speak. So this was the land of the a’Krah – and she was practically loitering on Marhuk’s doorstep.
And she wasn’t the only one.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Día realized. She hadn’t thought it could get any worse, but after what Weisei had said, things now seemed poised on a fatal precipice: the Dog Lady was awake, violent, crazed with grief – and right at the feet of Grandfather Crow, whose people she had murdered in a mistaken act of vengeance, and who had destroyed her own people in turn. “What if she kills someone? What if he attacks her?”
It took Weisei a moment to catch up to her reasoning. His gaze darted between her and the root of the mountain she’d asked him about; he made the connection with a nervous squeak. “She’s there? You’re sure?”
From the other side of the camp, Vuchak rolled over. “Hihn?” he mumbled. “Hihn netsigwa?”
Weisei touched his throat in alarm. “Gai, Vichi,” he replied in a soothing voice. “Aga’vish koche.”
And he sat there in anxious silence, hand over his mouth, waiting as his partner’s breathing slackened again.
That was more than enough time for Día to understand what had to be done. “Weisei,” she said at last, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I think it’s time for me to go.”
His large eyes widened, and in that moment, she was endlessly grateful for the concern that shone through them. “Now? Yourself? Please, if we’ve offended you with our secrets-keeping –”
Reassuring him might be her last easy task. Still, the more she thought of it, the more inevitable her decision seemed. She glanced between Vuchak and Weisei, as out of place as ever. How could she stay here, a stranger imposing herself between two kinsmen? How could she ignore the friend – and whatever she was now, Mother Dog HAD been a friend – who had comforted and guarded and nursed her through mad days and lonely nights?
“No, not at all,” Día replied. “But you two have to find your friend, and I – I really should do what I can for mine.” Her gaze rested on Vuchak, searching for the right sentiment. “She worked hard for me, too.”
Weisei didn’t answer, but steepled his hands on either side of his nose. Finally, he pressed his hands to his knees and rose to his feet. “Then that’s how it will be,” he said.
And just as Día began to wonder what that meant, he set about plucking strips of half-dried jerky from the wooden frame. “Now, does your dress have hand-mouths? Yes? Good: take these for later, and this to eat first, before it spoils.” Día found herself stuffing her left pocket full of jerky, and weighing down the right with a flank steak the size of a dinner-plate. “Be sure to eat plants as you can, or it will take you a week to pay your debts. The mesquite beans and cactus-pears here are just as they are in Island Town, and if you see any red berries growing from four-leaved green stems, take all you can, but eat them only a little at a time, or your stomach will be angry with you. Don’t touch silver-nettles at this time of year, unless you’re making an offering to the Deer Woman, and be sure to bury anything you leave behind – that’s how Grandfather will know you as a respectful guest.”
In that moment, puttering and fussing over her and rattling off the most strict and sensible instructions, Weisei was so much like her doting papá that Día was hard-pressed to keep her heart in check. She tried to push her feelings aside, and think carefully about what else she might need to know. “And if I meet other people here? How will they know me?”
Weisei wiped his hands on the hem of his shirt and then bowed, his outstretched wrists turned upwards. His forearms were sickeningly thin. “Make your elbows touch and put your arms out like this, as if you were offering your veins. This is how you show deference. And if you can remember the words, say ‘kalei ne ei’ha’, which means, ‘please see me kindly’.”
Día hadn’t thought of that, but yes, of course – these weren’t the borderlands, and there was no guarantee that any of the local a’Krah would know Marín. Her resolve faltered as her perspective widened, reducing her to an irritating foreign speck in the eye of an unfriendly god. Had she strayed so far from home, and did she really propose to go traipsing about here on her own? Was she truly foolish enough to abandon the first living people she’d met in the hundred lonely miles between here and Island Town?
Weisei must have seen the hesitation in her face. His expression softened, and he reached out to smooth the collar of her cassock. His slender fingers felt like delicate birds’ feet at her shoulders, and he smelled exquisitely, handsomely human. “Don’t be frightened, fire child. We are the dearest children of still-living gods, and their love never leaves us.”
She smiled at that, though it was hard to feel terribly brave just then. “It’s not my god I’m worried about.”
He brightened at the little joke, and cannily tapped the side of his nose. “Well, I don’t know how it is with yours, but remember that our gods have no tongues: they speak in your heart, and can only be heard by those who strive to listen. As long as you remember yourself, she can’t have any power over you.”
Now there was a real comfort: she could handle everything else, as long as she could keep from being overwhelmed by that strange, alien mind. Día dipped her head, grateful beyond expression. “Thank you, Weisei – for everything. I’m sorry I haven’t been more helpful to you, but I’ll do my best for her, and for Halfwick if I can, and I...”
How to say it? What wouldn’t be too forward?
“... and no matter what happens next, I’m very sincerely glad to be your friend.”
For an instant, Weisei’s smile lit up his face – and just as quickly disappeared into a powerful full-body embrace. Día could not have been more pleased to return it. “Go bravely,” he said, his breath warming her ear, “and goodness will always find you.”
He couldn’t have known how tempted she was to disappoint him just then – to abandon her intentions and stay right there with him and Vuchak, safe and sheltered between two splendid young men. When she couldn’t smother the force of her affections, she finally tore herself away by transferring them instead – by taking what she’d received from Weisei and carrying it from the a’Krah camp, west by northwest, to the place where it was most sorely needed.
I’m coming, Mother Dog, she thought, the new day warm on her back. Wait for me – I’m coming to help.
Día’s courage was tiny, a leaf in a churning river. But it stayed afloat, pushed by the wind and warmed by the sun as she headed for the anguished presence lurking in the foothills.
CHAPTER THREE
ONE OF MANY
“– AND THAT’S WHY I told her to go.”
Vuchak waited for his marka to finish speaking before he resumed pounding out the jerky. “Of course you did.”
Apparently this was not good enough. “You don’t believe me,” Weisei said, his voice equal parts accusation and hurt.
“I do,” Vuchak assured him, punctuating it with another meat-rending strike from the stone in his hand. It was miserable work without real tools. “I believe that she said each of those things to you, and that you answered her with sincerity.”
Weisei was foolish, but he was no fool: he had no trouble hearing what Vuchak had left unsaid. “You think she was lying to me.”
Vuchak put down the pounding-stone and sat back on his heels. Everything was a soured blessing today, as vexing as a warm bed and a full bladder. The day was bright and clear, but had shone no light on Hakai or Dulei. The jerky was dry, but didn’t want to turn to powder no matter how much he pounded on it. The grave-woman had pledged loyalty and help, but had taken what she wanted and then vanished like the faithless vagrant snake-daughter that she was, and Vuchak had no-one but himself to blame for that. He should never have believed her.
Still, he wasn’t going to let his anger spill over to Weisei. She’d taken their food and their trust, but he wouldn’t let her have their peace. He’d worked too hard for it. “I think it’s clear that neither of us knows enough about her to say what is or isn’t true,” Vuchak said as diplomatically as he could. “And I think we need to take care of our own business before we waste any more time on hers. Are you sure you can handle the horse today?”
“YES, Vichi!” The answer was fast and exasperated. “How many more times do your ears need to hear it?”
Well, his ears would have an easier time if his eyes didn’t keep contradicting them. Vuchak wiped his brow and glanced up from where he knelt under his marka’s thin, shrinking shadow. From this angle, with his disheveled black-feather cloak pulled close around him and his nose protruding from his gaunt face and his bony toes splayed out in the grass, Weisei looked like a tarred and starving heron. He’d done hardly anything but eat and sleep since they scraped the campsite together, which was as it should be... but that was only a day’s rest, and those hollows under his eyes confessed that he needed at least a week. By every god, Vuc
hak was exhausted just thinking of everything that still had to be done, and he wasn’t the one about to animate a half-ton of horseflesh.
Well, all the more reason to hurry up and put that ungainly carcass to good use: the sooner they found Hakai, the sooner they could put him to work, and the sooner they recovered Dulei’s body, the sooner they could go home. Vuchak dusted his hands, tied the yuye over his eyes to shield them from the worst of the sun’s light, and pushed himself up to his feet, viciously tempted to forsake everything and go back to sleep. “Then we might as well get started.”
So Weisei put on his shoes and Vuchak picked up his blanket, and together they went to the horse, who was just then beginning to mother its first generation of flies. The rot-smell, still relatively mild, reminded them of the passing time: they would not have more than two or three days before the carcass decayed past usefulness. Vuchak threw the blanket over the horse’s back, glad that the circle of chalk had kept the ants out of that sun-bleached black coat, while Weisei put his hand to the gunshot wound above its eyes.
Then he began to sing. This was not the grieving song, of course, as an animal could not be mourned in the same way as a person. Instead, the deep, delicate melody that bloomed from Weisei’s throat was the remembering song – a tuneful, wordless encouragement for the body to leave off returning to the earth, and recall its living functions.
That had been easier at this time yesterday, when the horse had only been a day removed from the living world. Now the death-amnesia had blurred more of its memories, making it hard to remember a time before stillness and decomposition. Vuchak, no son of Marhuk himself, did not understand exactly how it worked, but he knew that somewhere in Weisei’s song was a reminder of grazing, of rolling in the dust, of banishing flies with skin-twitching, tail-swishing diligence, and always, always watching for signs of danger.
Dreams of the Eaten Page 5