Shadow Hand

by Sacchi Green

  Mac, also surveying the marks, spoke Cleo’s thought aloud in her own inimitable style. “Ah yes, ‘I write my name, therefore I am.’”

  The sun was so low now that its rays slanted deep into the cave. “I am happy to see that there are no very recent names here,” Razhan said. Her stern look at Ariya, who had been there two years ago, said clearly that there had better not be. Ariya’s response was a smile of exaggerated innocence.

  “Kurdish…Turkish…Armenian…hmm, could be Italian.” Razhan turned back to them. “There are caves in the more travelled parts of these mountains, passes that were trade routes for thousands of years, where Romans trapping our bears and lions for their gladiator arenas left their marks in Latin.”

  “Bears and lions?” Cleo managed to sound merely curious, which, on the whole, she was. Bears were familiar from her New Hampshire home; you just had to keep your food where they couldn’t possibly reach it, hang it in bags on high ropes between trees when you were camping. But lions? The fire pit in front of the cave might have more significance than she’d thought.

  “All gone, long ago. They say a few bears are left, in the farthest reaches, and we have leopards that may not be quite extinct, but no lions. Gone. Just as the great cedar forests were ravaged to build the palaces of sultans and caesars.”

  Ariya nodded agreement as Razhan spoke. This was the history taught in Kurdish universities, Cleo guessed. How strange it must be to belong to a land where mankind had lived and died, come and gone, and ravaged more often than not, for so many millennia. Not that her own country’s history had been all that different, but the ravaging by Europeans of the indigenous cultures there had happened a few hundred years ago instead of thousands.

  The sun dipped below a high ridge, leaving the cave dim, and colder, though the sky outside was not yet dark. Ariya began to build a fire in the outer circle, and Cleo helped by carrying wood and scrounging kindling-sized twigs and branches from the low bushes along the trail leading to the river.

  Much to Cleo’s surprise, Ash carried two buckets of water from the spring-fed stream, just like any ordinary person. Ash saw her expression. “Hey, I’d probably slosh the water if I tried any funny business. Plus I do have to flex my original-equipment muscles now and then.”

  Cleo dumped her armload of kindling and gave Ash’s right bicep a playful squeeze. “Feels like you’re doing okay. Any more original equipment you feel like flexing?” Her arms slipped around Ash’s waist. Water did, in fact, slosh from the buckets onto her legs as Ash let go and sent them floating a foot off the ground toward the fire circle. She wrapped her freed arms around Cleo. Who cared if Ariya was watching?

  They did care, though, when Mac came out of the cave with a metal tripod to hold a kettle over the flames. “What? Not ready for coffee? It’ll be a tough meal without a hot drink to wash it down.”

  That was true. Their remaining supply of pita bread was getting on the stiff side, and the rest of the meal consisted of goat cheese and dried apricots. There were sacks of rice and lentils in the food supplies, and zip-locked packets of herbs and sun-dried vegetables, but Cleo at least was too tired and hungry to wait for anything that needed long cooking. With coffee, what they had now was just fine.

  When the eating slowed and their mouths could be used for something besides chewing, Mac drew Ariya into a lively conversation about the time she’d been here training with Nisreen. “What was it like? She wouldn’t have brought your group all this way just for target practice.”

  “Oh no, although we did shoot at some moving targets. Not each other, of course!” Ariya’s spirits had visibly risen at this attention. “Some of our training was for wilderness survival, in case of being driven into hiding, so we were permitted to do a little hunting for game like the…the…” she looked helplessly at Razhan and spoke a word unfamiliar to the rest.

  “Rock partridges,” Razhan supplied.

  “Oh, yes,” Ariya went on. “Not very much meat to them, and anyway I preferred the nuts and berries we found at that time of year, but I liked showing that I could shoot one in the air. As none of the others could!” Her proud smile, flashing in the firelight, was contagious.

  “Valuable training,” Mac said.

  “Agreed,” Ash said, “but our current mission must involve some different training.” She looked across the firepit to Razhan. “Let’s go back over the plans we discussed on the way. You’ve told us that hundreds of women are captives in an ancient walled city that can’t be bombed or attacked by rockets for fear of injuring the captives. Mine fields all around prevent a direct attack. As I understand it, your soldiers and…and Cleo… will let themselves be captured and imprisoned, then prepare the captives to escape once I’ve taken down the gates.”

  “Even now my troops are training for the mission,” Razhan said. “Our time here is only possible because other arrangements are also being made, and need time. Our allies must be contacted. A field hospital will be set up in secured territory. Enough trucks and private cars and refitted buses and even motorcycles with sidecars are being gathered to transport the prisoners once they are past the mine fields.”

  “Like the small boats rescuing the stranded soldiers at Dunkirk,” Mac said.

  Ash nodded. “So what will the training here involve?”

  Razhan hesitated. “We must plan that as we go. You, Ash, are uncharted territory. The valley itself will provide natural targets, trees taller than others, rock formations, loose boulders for projectiles, so we can discover what you can do.”

  “So we’re talking about testing, rather than training,” Ash said. “Fair enough. I need to find out myself how much I can do, and stretch to do more. This is uncharted territory for me as much as for anyone else. But since it happens to be my uncharted territory, tomorrow morning, with Cleo’s help, I want to set up a target. I noticed some likely loose rocks and boulders upslope on the way yesterday that could make a rough tower. After they’ve had a chance to settle in for a few hours so I can be sure the structure is stable, I’ll climb much farther downstream and see what I can do from a distance.”

  She gazed around at the others. It was hard to read their expressions in the flickering light from the dwindling fire. “Suggestions, of course, are welcome.” She stood and flexed her shoulders. “For now, though, what I need most is sleep. I imagine we all do.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement. Ariya set about banking the fire so there would still be embers in the morning, and only glanced once or twice toward the corner where Cleo and Ash cocooned in their separate bedrolls close to each other.

  The sand of the cave floor was firm though not unyielding, and a faint glow and hint of heat came from the fire pit. They could have combined their blankets and lain together, skin to skin, not caring what Razhan or Ariya thought, but in wordless agreement they both looked toward Mac in her solitary corner and Ash shook her head. Beneath all of Mac’s self-control and sharp wit, her fear for Nisreen showed through.

  Razhan, too, feared for her sister, but it was Mac’s sorrow that kept them from flaunting a closeness that she couldn’t have now, and might never have again.

  They were still close enough for their hands to meet, and for Cleo to whisper, “We’re still us.”

  “Always,” Ash whispered back. As she drifted off to sleep, dreams, memories, or maybe something else, washed over her like the touch of Cleo’s fingers.

  Chapter 14

  A light coating of frost glittered on the bushes and sparse grass between the cave and the river, but dissipated quickly in the morning sunshine.

  They divvied up the chores. Ash took on water-bearing, while Cleo searched for kindling. Ariya rebuilt the fire for Mac to make coffee and stir up a pot of bulgur wheat sweetened with chopped dates.

  When the food was ready, Ash tried briefly to resist temptation, but she was getting the hang of using her power to transport liquids i
n containers, and soon a tin cup of coffee floated from her hand to hover in front of Razhan, who sat deep in study.

  “Oh!” Razhan set aside her maps. “Thank you, Ash.” She grasped the cup’s handle and looked around. “Thank you, everyone. I’ll do my part after breakfast by washing up.”

  Ariya started to object, but Ash shot her a silencing look. Rank couldn’t be entirely ignored, but a commander’s honest efforts at equality should be accepted graciously.

  Mac nodded, giving Ash that all-too-familiar feeling that on some level she had read her mind. “Good, Razhan. I’ll do my best not to burn the cereal on the bottom of the pot. If I do, though, scrubbing with sand is the best way to clean it.”

  “If you burn it, I will be glad to watch you demonstrate the method,” Razhan said with a straight face, while Ariya giggled.

  The meal was tasty, and the mood remained remarkably congenial. When Ash made each filled bowl float from Mac’s ladle over to someone’s eager hands, it wasn’t showing off, just good-natured fun. Even more so when Cleo teased by moving her hands back and forth as her bowl approached. The persistent bowl followed each of her movements, until suddenly it began retreating. Cleo lunged for her breakfast, and managed to spill some cereal in her lap.

  Amid the general laughter, Razhan said lightly, “Ash, is there anything you can’t do?”

  Ash wasn’t deceived by the playful tone. “That,” she responded, “is exactly what we all want to know. What we’re here for. I can’t promise we’ll find out much. Most of the time I don’t know what I can do until I’ve done it.”

  She looked around the group, avoiding Ariya’s worshipful gaze. “I think this mission will be within my power. I’ve committed to it, with everything I possess, even my life, but there’s no way to be sure until crunch time comes.”

  Razhan’s slight frown eased when Ash met her eyes. Mac’s face was so devoid of expression that it had to be intentional, although Ash thought she detected a smile trying to break through.

  Cleo set her empty bowl aside. “After all that inspiration, it must be time we went looking for some rocks to crunch.”

  “Right back up the trail we came down, for starters.” Ash headed for the cave’s opening.

  “Wait a minute.” Mac reached into the capacious pockets of her camo jacket and came up with several energy bars. Another example of her versatility. “Here’s something better than rocks to crunch on.”

  They’d climbed almost to the halfway point of the trail when Ash paused, looking upward. The scrub pines and thorn bushes had become shorter and shorter, and above them a mound of rubble could be seen where a long-ago rockslide had stopped, slowed by a great rock ledge.

  “This is far enough.” The prickles of irritation she associated with Ishtar’s influence had begun to return. The valley itself seemed to shelter her from the goddess’s ever-simmering savagery beaming from the desert far away, but the higher they went the less sheltered she felt. Cleo, right behind her, wore a worried, pinched look.

  “You feel it too?”

  “Maybe,” Cleo said, “Or it could be I’m just feeling you feeling it.”

  “Some action ought to help.” Ash focused on a boulder and made it roll to the center of the ledge. Another, flatter slab rose and moved to balance on the first. Then two smaller rocks, side by side, with another large one perching on top of them. Ash had to move closer to choose her next couple of layers.

  “How high are those damned gateposts I’m supposed to topple?”

  “No idea,” Cleo said, “but if you get the lower parts moving, gravity will take care of the rest.

  “Good point!” Ash managed a genuine smile. “Just one more, then.” A thinner slice of stone, rounded on one side by erosion, rose toward the top of the tower.

  “Hey, can you make it hover there?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  Cleo snapped a photo. “We could make flying saucer videos with stuff like that!”

  Ash gave that comment the disdain it deserved by letting the stone drop onto the tower hard enough to shatter into numerous pieces. All the rest, though, remained steady.

  “Let’s move along and let it settle.” She took off back down the trail with Cleo close at her heels. They slowed, though, well before reaching the campsite.

  “What shall we do now?” Ash asked. “No need to get back this soon.”

  “Explore,” Cleo said right away. “Let’s go upriver, toward the falls.”

  A narrow trail along the river showed old animal tracks. Cleo led the way upstream for some distance until they found a place where a couple of good-sized rocks stood at the edge of clear, shallow water. Perched on one, she scooped up a mixture of wet sand and gravel, and let it trickle through her fingers.

  “So,” Cleo said after a while, “this mountain air seems to agree with you. With both of us. I had a hard time this morning resisting an impulse to salute your little speech, and you know how easily I can usually resist that.”

  Ash, on the other rock, dipped her fingers into the cold water and swished them slowly back and forth. “Nope, it’s the valley air. Even more, it’s the cave. Up high on the ridge, I felt her like the buzz of a wasp’s nest. She was angry when we went northwest, happier the few times we went east or south. And the fortress we have to breach is to the southeast, as far as I can tell.”

  Cleo nodded. “She must be impatient for us to get there.”

  “Seems that way. In the valley, the farther down we come, the less I feel her. She hardly gets through to me at all here. Inside the cave, there’s total peace, the first I’ve felt in a long time. No fighting the urge to lash out at any annoyance. Makes it easier to be myself, take control in my own way, do what I know must be done. I’ll use what she gave me, but I won’t be just her tool.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Cleo did, briefly, salute her. Ash shifted to Cleo’s rock, where there was just barely room enough for two sitting very close together, each with an arm around the other. Their perch was too precarious for anything beyond a kiss or two, but being close together, truly together, was enough.

  “Nice here,” Ash said after a while. “Look, there’s the eagle again.”

  Cleo raised her head from Ash’s shoulder. “Looks like he’s got a partridge.”

  “Probably she. Females are the best hunters.”

  “You sure about that?” Cleo stared harder at the eagle. “I’ve heard it about lions, but not hawks.”

  “Hawks, lions, close enough.”

  Cleo chuckled. “Don’t dis lions like that.”

  “I’m not dissing them. Eagles are noble, too. Anyway, the best part of being here is that she can’t hear me.” Ash sighed. “I wish we could just stay,” she said dreamily, drifting in the smooth current of being able to say anything, however foolish, however impossible, and still be unconditionally loved. “What do you think? If I couldn’t do well enough, if I failed the distance tests, would they just go away and leave us alone here? We could compete with the eagle for partridges to roast.” Above them, the eagle’s prize dropped suddenly from its talons, but at Cleo’s sharp nudge, Ash made it rise again and return to the grasp of the rightful (and no doubt confused) hunter.

  “We could fish in this river,” Cleo said, riding the same current. “Right here. This pool is a likely spot.”

  “Did you bring a fishing pole?”

  “I could improvise something. But couldn’t you just lift a fish out of the water if you saw one?”

  “Hmm. I don’t know. There’s something about refraction of the light that makes things under water look like they’re not where they really are.” Ash stared into the amber-green depths of the pool. A submerged rock seemed to shift back and forth as ripples flowed over it. The sun reflecting on the water dazzled her eyes, and she shook her head. This time her sigh was deep, and resigned. “If I’m going to focus that mu
ch on anything, it had better be on what I know I have to do. Find my limits, and then get past them.” She slid off the rock. Cleo came too, still with an arm around her waist.

  “Yeah, I know. Deep winter here would probably be a bitch, anyway. Not that I couldn’t keep you warm.” Cleo’s arm slipped down so that her fingers could grip Ash’s thigh. Then she stepped aside to dip her hand in the water and rinse off the remaining sand.

  She caught up with Ash where a tangle of branches arched into the river from a small uprooted tree.

  “Look!” Cleo pointed over Ash’s shoulder. “There’s a real treasure!” She started tugging at the nearest branch, raising it partway out of the water.

  Ash couldn’t tell what Cleo saw, but she helped anyway, until one particular mass of twigs and dead leaves bound together was within Cleo’s reach. What bound them together was some sort of fiber, or…spider web? Ash almost let the whole mass drop into the river.

  “Fishing line!” Cleo crowed. “And a hook! No lure, but that’s no problem. There probably isn’t a prime fishing spot on earth where somebody hasn’t got their line tangled in a tree and had to abandon it.” She worked at the knots and crimps, and Ash made twigs and leaves break away until what was left was more line than wood. “I’ll work on that later, and maybe go fishing. We’d better get back now, before they come looking for us.”

  “Somebody’s coming already.” Ash listened for a moment. “Mac, whistling and tramping along to make sure we’ll hear her coming in time to stop doing anything too embarrassing. How did she know we were here?”