Chapter 49
The Ryuven city was… different. Of course. They walked through a market, familiar in its spreading variety, but many of the goods were strange to Ariana. The streets were wide and open to the sky, full of light where she was accustomed to stacked buildings and close roofs.
Ariana felt eyes always as they walked. Barter and conversations slowed as she passed. She tried to ignore this. She was, after all, an oddity and even an enemy here. How would people react if a Ryuven walked openly down the street in Alham? What if Tamaryl walked beside her father in his true form? There would be panic and resentment. They would certainly stare.
That was all, she told herself. She was a human, and they were staring. She glanced at a small Ryuven, wings shifting as she gaped, and saw her mother pull her away as they passed.
They’re just curious, maybe worried. I’d feel the same way.
“Is that the human mage?” someone asked in a hushed, urgent voice.
“She didn’t die?!”
“She’s a human who uses our magic!”
Conspiratorial voices rippled around her. “Is she here to treat with Oniwe’aru?”
“She must be very powerful.”
A Ryuven boy dashed across the clearing they made as they walked and snatched at her clothing with the air of completing a daunting dare. He raced away again, glancing wide-eyed over his shoulder.
“What is she doing here?”
“What does she want?”
Tamaryl glanced at her. “Ignore them, my lady,” he said softly.
Ariana swallowed. She was trying.
“Go back!” someone called, hidden in the throng. “Monster!”
Monster? That was an epithet for Ryuven….
“We can’t have humans here!” shouted someone else, more sharply.
Ariana tensed. Were the Ryuven gathering closer now? There were so many…. The angry muttering increased, marked by occasional shouts. Ariana glanced worriedly at Tamaryl and Maru beside her.
An object flew through the air. Ariana saw it and reached for the magic to form a shield. But the unfamiliar energy slipped through her fingers, eluding her, and she felt the awful sense of failure, only this time it was no mere entrance exam—
It was a vegetable which struck her, a reddish-brown tuber which slapped solidly into her shoulder as she ducked. It bounced to the ground, and more voices joined, and Ariana’s heart leapt in sudden terror.
Tamaryl moved and a brief hail of vegetables rebounded off the shield he flung about them. “Enough!” he shouted in a furious baritone. “Stop, now!”
“We don’t want the human here!” came a chorus of shrill replies. “It’s not safe. She’s dangerous, she’s an enemy. We don’t want her!”
“She is not here for you!” Tamaryl’s wings flared as he glared around them. “This human is mine, my own, mine by right of spoil. I carried her back from the human world, and Oniwe’aru has left her in my keeping. Which of you will challenge for her?”
The Ryuven shifted and threw frustrated glances at each other, but no one opposed Tamaryl. He turned and snapped, “Let’s go.”
They walked down the street, eyes burning them, and around the corner. Ariana walked a little closer to Tamaryl even as she clenched her fists. “Was that really necessary?”
“What?”
“You told them I was—your possession!”
“It was the way to have them let you be. I am the—no one will challenge me for right of spoils.”
“But it’s what you said!” Ariana struggled for words. “You don’t understand. A—a thing! A mere piece of loot. It’s awful! It’s like—”
“Like being a slave?” Tamaryl’s mouth formed a faint smile.
Ariana’s stomach clenched. “Tam, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you weren’t treated like a slave, not like other slaves….”
“I did serve you and your father,” Tamaryl corrected her mildly. “And to you, I was a slave. I was treated well, yes—I know that—but you always thought of me as a slave boy, didn’t you?”
Ariana looked straight ahead. “How was I supposed to know differently?”
“You weren’t,” Tamaryl answered. He paused in the shadow of an awning and turned to catch her eyes. “But I often wished you would not see me as one.”
Ariana was suddenly, urgently aware of his proximity and his size and his strange Ryuven build. “You—Tam—I….”
He glanced away and his intensity faded. “But I knew that was impossible. In your world, I could be nothing more.” He turned back to the street, where Maru stared fixedly at a market stall a few paces away. “Coming?”
Ariana’s mind was whirling, but her feet began moving. There were still Ryuven eyes on her, but she did not look back as they passed through the busy market.
Chapter 50
Shianan looked over the men as Torg called orders, mentally critiquing a few crooked lines and sloppy postures. He could address those when Torg was finished.
Shouts came from the nearby gate, where a caravan fought through storm muck in the dip long traffic had worn, draft slaves slipping and struggling with the wagons. Shianan glared at the soldiers whose attention drifted. Most looked hurriedly back to Torg. Shianan started forward through the ranks. On either side he sensed men tensing, straightening, holding their breath. Before he reached the first sloppy posture, it was corrected.
Shianan eyed them critically. If they meant to march before the king in a few weeks at the festival, they would have to be drilled considerably before then. But in the meantime, they had more important duties. “Captain Torg,” he called. “I want a company guarding the Mages’ Wheel.”
Now the caravan master was snarling threats to an overseer, who took them seriously enough that he began pushing at a mired cart himself. For a moment he and the single draft slave worked together, feet slipping in the muck, and the cart rocked promisingly, but it did not break free of the mud. Then the overseer angrily shoved away from the cart. “Push!” he shouted, slashing with a switch.
The slave jumped as he yelped and strained forward.
“Move!”
The slave gasped. “Please!” he tried, slipping as the mud liquefied beneath his efforts. “I can’t—”
The overseer glanced worriedly up the line. “Move it!” He began to flail the switch. The slave ducked away from the blows, crying aloud, and hid his face against the crossbar as he dug against the muck. But the switch did not pause, and the slave wailed and tried to shield himself with his arms, abandoning any attempt at freeing the wagon. His panicked cries stopped activity in the courtyard.
Shianan started for the gate. But before he could reach them, a dark-haired man seized the arm of the overseer. The overseer half-turned, frenzied, but caught himself. The man twisted the switch from his hand. “You’re accomplishing nothing here.”
The overseer was winded. “But—it’s not moving. Master Orcan will flog me as well if it doesn’t move!”
“Then you’d better try something more productive.” The dark-haired man pushed past the overseer and looked down at the mud-covered slave. “Let me see you.”
The trembling slave obeyed and lifted his head. The man looked at his face briefly and then turned away.
Shianan saw the overseer stiffen as the caravan master approached. “What is this?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer he lashed his own switch over the slave, who reached for the crossbar, slipping in the mud.
“Orcan!” The dark-haired man faced him squarely. “This is fruitless, wasting time and ruining our labor.” He gestured toward the rest of the caravan. “Bring a team to help free this.”
“As you say, then.” Orcan turned on the overseer, who jumped. “Go and bring the slaves from the first wagon to be parked away.”
The merchant was firm. “You have other wagons to see to, Orcan.”
Orcan set his jaw. “Of course.” Holding his switch firmly, he stomped up the line.
Th
e merchant exhaled a long breath and then turned toward Shianan, still watching from a few paces away. “I’m sorry—I think you were coming for the same reason?”
Shianan made a small gesture. “No one likes to see that.”
“Orcan would sooner cut a drudge than a cheese.” He rolled his eyes. “He says labor is the least of our costs. He may be right, at that, but I’m not sure it justifies all.”
“You must be another of the merchants come to compete for the opportunity to supply our army.”
“I hope the competition is not as fierce as that,” he replied with a smile. “Jarrick Roald, at your service.”
“Commander Shianan Becknam,” Shianan replied, offering a hand. The merchant tipped his head, as if trying to remember something. “You might have heard it as the Count of Bailaha.”
Roald looked startled. “Then I should take seriously your comment about the competition.”
Shianan liked him already. “Don’t worry just yet. Though it’s not my decision, I’ll be happy to hear why we should choose your house over another.”
“I’d very much appreciate some of your time.”
“Tomorrow evening, at my office?”
“Thank you very much.” Roald offered his hand, and Shianan clasped wrists with him. “I’ll bring wine, if you’ll have some cheese or a good cut of meat.”
Shianan nodded. “Fair enough.” He turned and called to Torg. “I want five men to move this cart.” He pointed. “And another company—Sergeant Alanz—that dip needs repair. You’ll find shovels in the warehouse.”
“That’s slaves’ work!” someone muttered resentfully from the ranks.
“There’ll be slaves to finish the stonework,” he announced loudly. “But you’ll do the base. And if you’d rather not do the stonework, too, see that you turn out more smartly tomorrow. Now move.”
Mage Hazelrig called a weary response to the knocking at his office door. Elysia Parma opened. “Someone to see you,” she said gently, and she held the door and gestured.
It was the bookbinder girl—Ranne, he recalled. “Yes?”
“My lord mage.” Her face was strained. “I’ve brought this….” She placed a wrapped book on his desk. “This was—Lady Ariana’s. She’d left it to be repaired…. I’m so sorry, my lord mage. But I wanted to return it to you.”
“Thank you.” The poor girl believed Ariana dead, and he could not disabuse her, not yet. “Thank you for bringing this.”
She nodded, clamping her lips together tightly, and made a quick curtsey before rushing for the door. He heard a stifled sob before the door closed.
Poor girl. But she would be glad again when Ariana returned from the Ryuven world, safe and whole. He folded his hands and clenched his fingers tightly. When Ariana returned….
The Silver Mage locked the door and swept around his desk. Without speaking she sat on the arm of his chair and wrapped her arms about him.
His notes blurred and he rested his head in his hands, despair and worry and fear rising in him. “She’s….” But he couldn’t tell her. Not even Elysia.
Her fingers wrapped about his, and he squeezed her hand. Ariana would return. Tamaryl had promised to bring her when she was able, and Becknam had promised to make it possible to bring her. She would return. She would return.
Chapter 51
Tamaryl paid the seller and handed a large packet to Maru. “Eat all of that.”
Maru chuckled. “If I must.”
Tamaryl handed a smaller square to Ariana. “I do not know if sweet food will be of any help, since your magic is not inherent but drawn, but I doubt it could hurt. Maru, shall we show Ariana our old lookout?” He turned to Ariana. “Do you feel up to a steep walk? I can’t fly with you, I’m sorry.”
“You caught me when I fell from the cliff.”
“And took you straight to the ground. I only managed to slow our fall to something manageable. Human bodies, even the slightest and most lovely, are unwieldy, weighty things. All that bone!”
“But they say the Ryuven carry humans in battle.”
Tamaryl sobered. “A Ryuven may indeed lift a human, when he is already at speed and simply snatches one from the ground. But he never lands with one.”
Ariana had a sudden awful image of a Ryuven dropping a human over the swirling maelstrom of battle and wished she had said nothing.
“Come. If you tire I’ll help you.” He gave her an enticing smile and led the way out of the city.
The climb was steep as promised, but Tamaryl took her hand over the rocky areas. There was no trail, as the Ryuven could simply fly to the summit. But they did not have far to go before Tamaryl and Maru paused. “This is the first stop,” Maru said. “Look.” He gestured over the view below them.
The city spread before them, gleaming white and multi-colored in the sun. Winged Ryuven sailed from one rooftop to another, and Ariana noted the taller buildings had entrances on multiple levels. To one side, the Palace of Red Sands lay under a glittering net which kept its walled gardens secure and more or less invisible to eyes overhead.
“It’s beautiful,” Ariana marveled aloud. “Absolutely beautiful.” She watched a winged figure land gently and embrace another waiting for him. “Why would….”
Tamaryl looked at her. “Yes?”
It was difficult to ask. “Why invade our world, when they have such an amazing world of their own?”
Tamaryl sighed. “Look at the fields beyond the city.” Without city walls, it was easy to see distances. The fields were green and brown, mottled with grey-black. “That blight has affected crops here for a generation. Food stores are precious, and some years we have famine. It has become more common for nim to beg money and indenture themselves for the debt, providing for family and guaranteeing their own food and shelter in the house’s service. We haven’t steady resources, our social structure is changing, che and sho are desperate for glory and power and security.”
“So you want our food. And battles.”
“Some years are more urgent than others. And in truth, it’s worsened since I left.”
Tamaryl settled on his stomach in the hillside grass, wings folded compactly on either side. Ariana settled cross-legged beside him, more weary than she wanted to admit. The magical atmosphere was demanding, and the climb had tired her.
She closed her eyes and tried to see the Ryuven magic, as she perceived her magic at home. Here in the Ryuven world, however, magic was not something which could be seen. It was sight, sound, taste, scent, pressure, heat, cold, all at once, overwhelming her if she tried to approach it like the tame magic of the human world. It came at her in a dizzying rush, crushing her in a roaring wave, tugging her under—
She opened her eyes and pulled a deep breath, her heart racing. The world settled about her, the magic pulsing just below the fabric of reality, ready to surge again.
Tamaryl turned to where Maru still stood. “Come join us,” he prompted. “We can relax for a few minutes.”
Maru sat a few paces from Ariana. She hesitated and then ventured, “I don’t often bite, despite my vicious human appearance.”
Maru glanced down, sheepish. “No, I suppose not.”
“You took care of me when I was a senseless heap. I can’t be too fearsome. I’m not nearly so dangerous as your own kind.” Immediately she regretted the words. She hadn’t meant to refer to the attack, and the incident was not a subject for jest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…. She’s a brute, a horrid—there aren’t even words for her. She muddies lust with power and ruins both.”
Tamaryl regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “And I had thought my lady innocent.”
Ariana flushed. “I am innocent, but not ignorant. My father said those who are ignorant will not long remain innocent.” It was time to change the subject. She pointed. “Which is your house?”
Tamaryl was chewing on a piece of grass, so Maru answered, “The bright one there traditionally belongs to the Pairvyn, and the Tsuraiya’s is across the way
. Ryl, what are you doing? Are you a grazing beast?”
Tamaryl laughed. “When human children have clean grass in their reach, they often chew it. I’m not sure why, but it does offer an interesting flavor—though I perceive now our grass is more piquant. Anyway, I took up a number of childish habits. Useful camouflage.”
Maru shook his head. “That you should be—”
“Your grass is tasty!” announced Ariana around a stalk. She laughed. “Try it, Maru!”
He looked skeptical, but he gamely plucked a stem and tasted it. “Hmm.”
“Isn’t it, I don’t know, almost savory?”
Maru’s expression was not quite patronizing. “As you say, Ariana’rika.”
She laughed and tipped her head. “Does rika mean mage?”
“No, no.” Maru grinned. “We have no need of such a word, of course. Rika is a—a title? An honorific? A term of respect. A rika is a female where a sho is a male. And then there are bel and che, and then nim.”
“Silth and aru are our rulers, you would say,” contributed Tamaryl. “King and queen.”
“Does Oniwe’aru have a silth wife, then?”
Maru blinked at her in confusion, and Tamaryl chuckled. “No—if Oniwe’aru takes a mate, she will be rika. My mother was silth while she ruled, and rika after.”
“Your mother was a ruler?”
“Yes, for a long time. And then Susanoni’silth after her, and then Oniwe’aru. My mother was also Tsuraiya after her rule—that is, she led the Ai host.”
“The Ai host… like an army?” Ariana frowned. “But we’ve never seen female Ryuven in raids. Don’t you guard them, like Damas wives?”
Tamaryl chuckled. “My lady mage, Ariana’rika, you misunderstand. We do not protect our females. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
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