by K S Nikakis
‘Kashclan welcomes Caledon e Saridon e Talliel,’ said Miken with a solemn bow.
‘The Saridon thanks Kashclan leader Miken,’ said Caledon, bowing carefully in return.
Miken steadied him over the step into a large hall set with tables. It was warm and filled with the smell of cooking.
‘Protector Leader Pekrash’s message said you were injured, but not how severely,’ he said as they passed between the tables. ‘Please, come in and rest with us. We have a meal prepared, and it will be best if we eat before we speak,’ said Miken.
Tresen gazed beyond his father to a fair-haired man at the end of the room, and his jaw tightened.
‘Get some rest, Tresen, and we’ll speak later,’ said Miken, touching his son on the shoulder.
With a nod to Caledon, Tresen disappeared through a door opposite. If the Tremen kept to Kessomi tradition it would lead to a passageway opening on to individual apartments, guessed Caledon. Miken beckoned and he followed, Tremen staring from the nearby tables.
‘Forgive our curiosity,’ said Miken. ‘You’re the first stranger, of goodwill, ever to enter Allogrenia.’
At the furthest table, the fair-haired man rose to greet them, Protector Commander Kest, the carver of the owl, Caledon guessed. A strikingly handsome man, and not one Tresen liked. Kest’s gaze was that of a fighter – his piercing blue eyes coldly measuring, and it reassured Caledon. When the battles started, Caledon didn’t want Kira’s people going off naively to be slaughtered.
‘Kira gave me this to show you as a token of her trust,’ said Caledon, taking the owl from his secret pocket.
‘With respect, you could have taken it by force,’ said Kest.
‘Indeed I could, so she told me to say this: the silverjack has got a stubby tail and big ears, and the running horse is as beautiful as you said, and you were right: she should have carried more nutmeat.’
There was an immediate lessening of tension.
Miken poured cups of the same green liquid Tresen had given Caledon.
‘Thornyflower tea,’ he said, handing Caledon a cup.
Without honey, the tea had a bland, leafy taste, but was warming and reviving. Miken rose and fetched them food next, and for a time they ate without speaking. Various berries, eaten fresh, dried or in pastes; nuts eaten whole or as bread and cakes; and small quantities of dried fish. The platters were baked clay, the eating knives some sort of hardened wood. Herbing sickles and swords were the only metal allowed, Kira had told him, so everything else came from the forest. It must have been a hard learning for the Northerners, thought Caledon as he ate. Kasheron had come from a place of plenty.
It was Miken who began the questioning, wanting to know first about Kira, as Caledon guessed he would. Caledon spoke of his earlier journey, of being wounded by the Shargh and of how Kira had saved his life in the Azurcade foothills.
‘I told her I was going north, and she agreed to journey with me. But I decided to deviate to the Tain city of Maraschin where I have friends, before going on to Sarnia,’ said Caledon.
‘You told her of your change of plan?’ asked Miken.
‘No,’ said Caledon.
‘So you misled her,’ broke in Kest.
‘Kira was half starved when I met her and it’s a six-day journey over the Azurcades to Maraschin, and another ten days on foot to Sarnia. Even if she’d taken all my food in trade for her healing of me – which she refused to do – she wouldn’t have survived the journey. The lands are grazed by herd animals and offer little gathering, nor is food given as you do here, but traded.’
‘Why would you care whether she, a stranger, survived the journey?’ pursued Kest.
‘She was a stranger who had saved my life.’
Kest’s gaze remained hard, and it was Miken who broke the silence. ‘So, you took her to your friends in Maraschin?’
‘We went to Maraschin as prisoners.’
‘But –’ said Kest.
‘I am sure we will learn more if we let our guest speak without interruption,’ said Miken, raising his hand.
‘I’ve a long friendship with the Tain King, Beris, and his son Prince Adris, but it had been nearly five years since I’d been there,’ said Caledon. ‘The Tain are under Shargh attack and the King’s worsening health means he rarely leaves his rooms. But he is still King, and refuses to authorise fighting with the Shargh, leaving his son faced with doing nothing, or having trespassers detained – including Shargh – for failing to seek leave to cross Tain territory.’
‘So he chooses the latter,’ muttered Kest.
‘Yes. Kira and I were separated and brought into Maraschin as prisoners, not something that helped her build trust in Adris, or strengthen her trust in me. When I first met Kira in the Azurcades, she used only Onespeak and revealed nothing more than the name of Kira, and that she was a Healer from the southern forests.
‘I learned the tongue she spoke when she called out in nightmare, and discovered that she was your Leader when she told the Tain troopsmen who held her, possibly because she believed they were going to kill her. I haven’t spent a lot of time with her in Maraschin either. I’ve been out with Prince Adris protecting those who dwell in the western Tain lands, while Kira has been in the Sanctum – the Tain place of healing – teaching their physicks her skills and healing those injured by the Shargh.
‘After I outlined to her what I believed is happening, Kira gave me the names of those she loved, the configuration of the Eights, and a message for the council.’
‘And what is it that you believe is happening?’ asked Kest.
‘The Shargh tribes who were broken in the fighting that caused the Sundering have united, and they test their strength in the Tain lands and are gratified to find a Tain response lacking. They intend to take back the north and this will unleash a tide of blood, engulfing the Tain and Tremen alike.’
‘You’re saying that, if they succeed, the Shargh will not be content to let us live on in peace here?’ asked Miken.
‘Not when they discover you’re of northern blood.’
‘Did Kira tell you we were Kasheron’s seed?’ asked Miken.
‘No, although she admitted to having kin in the north. I’d been puzzled by her looks – which are pure Kessomi – and the fact that she spoke Terak, despite coming from the south.’
‘And her eyes?’ asked Kest.
‘Extraordinary certainly, but I knew of the northern Healer Queen Kiraon’s gold eyes, and those of her sons, among others. The tale of the Sundering is well known in my lands, too, but it speaks of Kasheron taking his followers over the Oskinas Seas, not south. It wasn’t until I’d begun my journey here that I realised that the Kash in Kashclan wasn’t Kir as I’d thought, but Terak.’
‘Kessomi,’ corrected Miken.
‘Kessomi,’ acknowledged Caledon.
In the pause that followed, Caledon became aware of the woody music of chimes spiralling in an open window. Sunlight intruded, lighting the fair hair of a child at the next table.
‘Kira didn’t grow here, despite being kin to me,’ said Miken, following his gaze. ‘Her father was Tremen Leader Maxen, and the Leader’s family lived in the Bough, a longhouse in the centre of our lands, a quarter day’s walk from here. The Bough was the heart of healing in Allogrenia.’ He paused, and went on sadly. ‘The Shargh burned the Bough at Turning and murdered Kira’s father, her elder brothers Merek and Lern, and her younger brother Kandor, as well as many others. Kira was the only one of her line to survive.’
There was a short silence.
‘And so she became Leader,’ said Caledon, struggling to overcome his shock.
‘She did, but because she was the best Healer, not because she was of the Leader’s line. We do not follow the way of the Terak Kutan in the north, passing leadership on the basis of chance-birth, regardless of character.’
The Clanleader suddenly leant across the table. ‘Kest and I have spent much time thinking on why the Shargh might hunt Kira. Is ther
e anything in your travels, Caledon, or in your speech with the Tain King and Prince, which tells you the reason?’
Caledon’s thoughts went to the Feailner in the north and the fact that the Ashmiri might have shared their knowing of him with the Shargh.
‘The Shargh are highly superstitious, and see omens in the flights of birds and portents in the rare or unusual. Kira’s eyes may well be the reason they seek her,’ said Caledon finally.
23
I don’t think he’s being truthful,’ Kest said to Miken, as they made their way along the Drinkwater Path to the Warens.
‘I think he’s possibly being selective, which doesn’t necessarily mean dishonest,’ said Miken.
‘It does if it misleads us. He’s yet to say why any of this interests him. Talliel is well clear of any fighting.’
‘I’m not sure where half these places even are,’ said Miken. ‘Maraschin, Talliel, the Oskinas Sea …’
‘Yes. I only studied the maps Kira found in the Storage Cavern after she left,’ admitted Kest.
‘I might have a look at them,’ said Miken. ‘I’ve a feeling I’m going to need to know where these lands are … That we’re all going to need to know.’
‘What mean you?’ asked Kest.
‘Think of it, Kest. Our Leader’s in the Tain city of Maraschin, and now a man from the north-west has arrived. He’s the first stranger intent on good rather than harm to enter our lands.’
‘We don’t know that he is intent on good,’ said Kest.
‘I don’t believe he carries a Shargh heart, do you? Even if he serves his own purposes, the fact remains – we are no longer hidden. Kira has spoken of us beyond the trees, and so, too, will Caledon when he leaves. Allogrenia will be marked on the maps of others, even as our maps carry their names.
‘Regardless of whether Kira reaches the north, and whether the Terak Kutan give or refuse aid, the choice of remaining as we are is no more.’
‘Caledon will ask us to send men,’ said Kest.
‘Not Caledon; Kira. The message he carries from her to the council most likely contains a request from her. It’s hard to see why he’s come, otherwise.’
‘I can’t believe Kira would request men, unless she was forced to by someone,’ muttered Kest. ‘Has the Clancouncil the authority to send Protectors beyond the forest?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miken honestly. ‘Like most of what’s beset us since the Shargh attacks began, the question’s never been raised. You command the Protectors, and Kasheron established them specifically to protect Allogrenia, but whether he only intended the Protectors to fight beneath our trees, or outside, to stop the threat reaching our trees …’ Miken shrugged.
Caledon certainly looked better at their evening meal. His colour was good, and the tension round his eyes and mouth had eased. Miken now understood more fully what Caledon had said earlier, having found the places Caledon had named on maps in the Warens. He and Kest had spent considerable time poring over them, Miken realising with astonishment the breadth of the world beyond the trees.
The Shargh Grounds lay two days to the north-east – uncomfortably close – and were backed by the Cashgar Mountains, while the Dendora Plain stretched directly north up to the Azurcades. In their northern foothills lay the Tain city of Maraschin, with Tain settlements scattered east and west of it, then the mighty stretch of the Sarsalin Plain ran away northward to the Silvercade Mountains. The Terak Kutan city of Sarnia sat in their southern foothills, while Kessom appeared to be actually in the mountains.
North of the Silvercades was an ocean called the Oskinas, and on its shores, west of the Terak was Talliel, from whence Caledon claimed to have come. He was a long way from home, Miken thought, as he introduced him to Tenerini and Mikini, then took him to one of the farthest tables to eat.
‘How did you come to injure yourself?’ asked Miken, portioning fish.
‘I fell while crossing Shardos, the main peak in the Azurcades. The southern side is steep and shale-clad, and can give way without warning.’
‘You’ve crossed it before?’
‘Many times, but I was careless, not thinking of the dew, or the slope, but of Kira.’
‘And what exactly were you thinking?’ asked Miken, breaking the nutbread.
‘I was pleased I’d made Kira stay in Maraschin.’
‘Made her stay?’
‘It’s the only place she can be safe at the moment,’ said Caledon.
‘As the Terak Kutan’s kin, Kira would be safe with them, despite their barbarity,’ said Miken, wondering if Caledon were so arrogant that he’d actually boast to a people about imprisoning their Leader.
‘Your kin are the Terak Kirillian. The word kutan means, variously, liar or thief, and the fact you use it shows how little you know of them. But, however small your knowing, it’s greater than theirs of you. The Terak Kirillian tales tell of Kasheron’s folk, the traitors and deserters, going north over the Oskinas Sea. When they are spoken of, which is rare, spittle invariably follows.’
Miken struggled to control his anger, reminding himself that Caledon was intelligent and highly disciplined. The fact that he’d reached Allogrenia so badly injured was testament to that. Caledon must be aware of how offensive his words were.
‘I presume your lack of manners has a purpose other than to insult the Tremen,’ gritted Miken.
‘It does, and I ask that you forgive me. But it’s vital you understand the reality of what lies beyond the trees. To aid you, the Terak Kirillian Leader would have to acknowledge the kin-link, and the northern peoples would be very reluctant to accept that. What they would accept more readily is a renewal of the Terak – Tain treaty that stretches back to Terak’s time, but which has grown weak through too many years of Terak leaders and Tain kings seeing no reason to cross the Sarsalin Plain.’
‘So, you’ve made Kira stay in the Tain city so there is no chance of her drawing the Terak Kirillian’s aid to us and away from the Tain?’
‘Essentially what you say is correct, but it’s also to keep Kira safe. Going north alone would place her in enormous danger. In fact I doubt whether she’d survive the journey, even without the Shargh. The Sarsalin is harsh and dangerous, not just because of its sudden changes of weather, but because of the animals that inhabit it. The Terak Kirillian avoid traversing it alone. But even were Kira to reach the Terak city, her arrival would be a distraction to what must happen.’
‘So you’ve had your friend King Beris lock her up?’
Caledon stiffened. ‘Kira killed to save my life! She took my pain! She was companion to me in one of the worst storms Shardos could inflict! I would never have her locked up!’ he exclaimed.
Caledon’s passion stemmed from more than some imagined slight to his honour, thought Miken. Perhaps the real reason he wanted Kira kept safe in Maraschin was for him to return to.
‘I made a trade with Kira in return for her delaying her journey,’ continued Caledon more calmly. ‘I pledged that if I didn’t return within seven days after the new moon, Prince Adris would provide her with an escort to the northern city.’
‘It’s the new moon now. Even were you to leave this day, you’d not be back in that time, if the distances are as you say,’ said Miken.
‘You’re correct. Even were I not injured, I couldn’t travel that swiftly.’
‘So will the Prince provide Kira an escort?’
‘His word is binding. He may delay a little, but at some point Kira will conclude I’m dead, and hold him to his pledge.’
‘Maybe Kira will conclude you’ve simply been delayed and wait,’ said Miken, pouring more tea.
‘Kira didn’t want me to go. She told me everyone she loves dies.’
‘She has love for Tresen, and he’s survived,’ said Miken sharply.
‘And for you. When she spoke of you and your wife, her face filled with joy.’
‘My bondmate, not my wife. The Tremen don’t marry.’
‘Surely it’s only a dif
ference in name?’ said Caledon, puzzled.
‘Not according to what the Writings tell us of the north. Marriage is permanent, despite unhappiness. Here, if a bonding fails, the couple parts and bonds again.’
‘Is repartnering common?’ asked Caledon, astonished.
‘No,’ said Miken, enjoying disturbing Caledon’s composure. ‘Bonding is taken extremely seriously by the Tremen, but if it must be broken, there’s no shame. I’ve always assumed Kasheron replaced marriage with bonding in recognition of our limited numbers and the constraints of clan membership.’
‘The constraints of clan membership?’
‘You’re the first stranger to enter Allogrenia, Caledon, apart from the Shargh, and we’ve had to impose rules about who can bond with whom to ensure relationships are not too close,’ explained Miken, spreading nutbread with riddleberry.
‘And if a woman chooses poorly, can she break the bond, or can only the man do that?’ asked Caledon.
‘Either can break the bond,’ said Miken. ‘Kasheron recognised early that if Allogrenia were to survive, it couldn’t afford to have men and women locked in loveless and childless unions.’
Caledon’s brow creased in thought.
‘Kira grew up in the Bough, as I’ve told you, but if I’d had my way, she would have grown here with us,’ said Miken more softly. ‘The Tremen don’t speak ill of their leaders, nor of the dead, but I will say this: Kira’s father Maxen had no love for her, ignoring her from soon after her mother died until her healing rivalled his, then seeking to confine her. Kira won’t tolerate being confined by any man.’
‘I thank you for your words,’ said Caledon uneasily.
24
Kest met with Miken the next day to give him a brief outline of the patrol reports. There had been no Shargh sightings and Miken wondered whether Kira had been right that the attacks would cease when she left. It was also possible that the wounding of the Shargh Leader kept the Shargh away, or that they now attacked the Tain instead, as Caledon suggested.