by Clayton, Jo;
Tuli’s whimper is all too real. Maiden bless, he’s going to burn me. She presses her face against the stone so she won’t cry out. All right, she thinks, we leave Susu now. My mouth is shut and it’s going to stay that way. I hope. Help me, help me, let me say nothing, if I scream, so be it, but help me say nothing.
“Heating the irons takes a while, so you have a little free space, girl. Think about branding, think about the irons, smell them. Hot irons have a distinctive odor like nothing else in the world. I could hurry the heating if I wanted, girl, but I don’t think that’s necessary. We have all the time in the world. There’ll be another smell in the room soon enough, so savor the irons while they’re heating. Think of all the places we are going to use them on you, girl, think of your tendermost places. We’ll save your face for the last. It’s that disfiguring that breaks the stubbornest woman, and you’re not a woman, are you, child. It isn’t you we want, think of that. We want what the meie knows. Oh yes, we know her well enough here. Rane.” He chuckles at the start she can’t help. “So foolish with your silly little story; I imagine you thought you were clever, so clever to fool us. We’ll break you first, child, then her. She’s a stubborn one, she’ll last a long time. Make it easier on her, girl. Tell us what you’ve seen and heard. Name us the traitors who’ve been supplying you with food and information. Then maybe we’ll just put you to work until the war is over. Find you a husband then and let you live out your life in peace. I won’t promise the same for the meie, you wouldn’t believe me if I did. But she can have an easier death. Think about the irons, child. As long as they’re still heating you’re safe from them. You’ve got a little while to wait. Use it.” The soft coaxing voice dies away and she hears his footsteps retreating from her, leaving the room, leaving her to her thoughts.
Maiden! What a.… I can’t.… Shayl, how can I face.… whip’s bad enough.… my face.… I can’t.…
She must and she knows it. Get it over with, she thinks, clamps her tongue in her teeth so she won’t cry out, the anticipation almost worse than the burning, but it won’t be once the burning starts, she knows that too. The silence behind her stretches on and on, an eternity. She starts shaking. She is going to tell, she knows it, tears gather in her eyes and run down her face. I can’t … I can’t.… Her bladder gives way and hot liquid runs down her thighs, splatters on the floor. She goes rigid with shame, then she is shaking again, moaning. She tries to dredge up anger but can think of nothing but the irons burning her.…
The Agli’s voice comes genially behind her. “What is your name, girl?”
She wants to tell him, she is going to tell him but she sees Rane’s face Hal’s face Her father’s face Teras Sanani and her silly oadats.… And she cannot do it. Cannot. But she has to tell, what else can she do? What does it mean anyway, it is just postponing for a little what must happen anyway, they are bound to be taken, all of them, Hal and Gesda and the angry taroms and her father and Teras, and all of them. But there is something in her that will not let her do what logic tells her to do. She bites on her tongue till blood comes and says nothing.
The Agli makes a soft clucking sound of gentle disapproval. Tuli is almost startled into giggling, it is so like the sound old Auntee Cook makes when she catches her or Teras in the jam pots. Tears run down her face. Blood is salty on her tongue.
One of the acolytes—she thinks it is the one who curled his lip at her menstrual blood—brings the hot iron. He holds it close to her buttocks. She cringes away from the heat, tries to press into the stone. He sniggers, puts the iron between her legs and brings it up hard.
For just an instant the pain is something she can’t realize, it is so greatly beyond anything she has experienced or even expected, she cannot breathe, cannot make a sound, can only sob, a high whining sound like an animal cry—then the pain is gone, the heat is gone, and all she feels is an uncomfortable pressure and a gentle warmth throughout the whole of her body. And she hears Ildas’s angry chitter in her head.
The ropes burn off her hands, though no fire touches her skin. The warmth flows out of her. The acolyte behind her shrieks, the pressure drops away from her. The Agli screams in an agony equal to hers a moment before. She turns.
He writhes on the floor and as she watches, flashes to a twisted blackened mummy. The acolytes burn with him. The three of them are suddenly and utterly dead. The smell of roasted meat is nauseating in the room. She walks from the wall, stops by the hideous corpse of the Agli. “You said there’d be another smell in this room, but you didn’t know you’d provide it. If I told you anything, it has vanished into your present silence.” She touches the body with her toe. It is hard and brittle and stirs with a small crackling sound that wrenches at her stomach.
Hand pressed hard over her mouth she runs from the room.
She looked down at Ildas prancing beside her, smiled at his complacent strut, the glowing whiskers sleek and content. “Take me to Rane.”
They wound through the dark and twisty halls of the Center, dodging an occasional guard or flitting female form. It seemed absurdly easy to Tuli, like dreaming of walking naked and unobserved through crowds of strangers. And there did seem to be very few folk of any sort about. Maybe Floarin’s taken them all to Oras, she thought. Near the back she came to a row of cells like the one she’d waked in but too far on the side for hers. There was a drowsy guard leaning half asleep against one of the barred doors. Tuli chewed her lip. She didn’t even have her sling, she didn’t have anything. Except Ildas, and she didn’t exactly have him, he did his own will and hers only when the two wills coincided or he felt like doing her a favor. He looked like a beast, he acted like a beast most times, she called him a beast when she thought about him, but she knew it was not the right word, he had more mind than any beast, more will, more … something. She knelt in shadow and touched him, drew her hand along the smooth curve of his back. “Will you help me, companion and friend?” she whispered.
The fireborn wriggled under her hand, then was away, a flash of light streaking along the worn stone flags, then a rope of light coiling like a hot snake up and up, around and around the man who wasn’t aware of anything happening until the rope whipped round his neck and pulled itself tight. He clawed at the nothing that was strangling him, tried to cry out, could not, staggered about, finally collapsed to the floor. The light rope held an instant longer, than unwound and was Ildas again, sitting on his hind legs, preening his long whiskers, more satisfaction in his pose, reeking with self-approval.
Chuckling, Tuli came walking down the hall. She scratched him behind his ears, felt his head move against her palm, felt his chitter echoing in her head. “Yes, sweeting, you did good.” She straightened, unbarred the door.
Rane was stretched out on a plank cot like the one Tuli’d waked on. She sat up when she saw Tuli, her eyes opening wide, the irons clashing on legs and arms. She was naked and there were bruises and a few small cuts on her body. She looked strained and unhappy, but otherwise not too badly off.
Tuli looked at the irons, then looked uncertainly about the cell as if she expected to find help in the filthy stones.
“The guard,” Rane said. “He has the keys on his belt.”
Tuli came back with the keys a second later. She took the wrist irons off first. “You have any idea where they put our clothes?” She bent over the leg irons, scowling as the key creaked slowly over in the stiff lock. The irons finally fell away with a slinky clanking. Rane worked her ankles, rubbed at them. “No, but I know how to find out.” She swung off the cot and went out to squat beside the guard. She touched the charred circles about his neck, pressed her fingers under the angle of his jaw. “Good. He’s still alive, just out cold.”
Tuli smiled, felt a distant relief. “There’s enough dead already.”
“The Agli?”
“And the acolytes.”
“How soon before someone finds them?”
“Can’t say.” She rubbed at the nape of her neck. “A while, I expec
t. They were getting ready to use hot irons on me, wouldn’t want to be interrupted at their pleasures.”
Rane shivered; once again she touched the blackened rings about the guard’s neck. “How did you do this?”
“I didn’t. It was Ildas.” Tuli’s mouth twitched into a brief, mirthless smile. “The fireborn you say doesn’t exist.”
“Seems I was wrong.” Rane wrapped her hands about the straps of the guard’s cuirasse and surged onto her feet. “Help me get him inside.”
They dragged the guard into the room, fitted the irons on his wrists and ankles. He was a smallish man so they could just close the cuffs, though Rane wasn’t worried too much about his comfort. She used his knife to slash the tail off his tunic and a second strip long enough to tie around his head. She dropped these on his chest and stood looking down at him; without turning her head she said, “Shut the door, Moth, this could get noisy.”
The guard was beginning to wake, shifting his head about, moaning a little as he began to feel the pain in his neck. Rane set the knife at his throat, the point pricking one of the charred rings. “Where did you put our clothes,” she said softly. “No, don’t try yelling, you won’t get a sound out, I promise you. I’d prefer leaving you alive, man, but that’s your choice. Where did you put our clothes?”
He blinked up at her, his neck moved under the knife point; he gave a small cry as it cut deeper into the burned flesh. “Storeroom,” he gasped out.
“Where is it?”
“Go down hall.…” he cleared his throat, “first turn, go left, three doors down. Everything there.”
“Good.” She snatched up the hacked off bits of cloth, held them out to Tuli. “Gag him. You,” she shifted the knife point a little, drawing a grunt from him, “open your mouth.”
With Ildas scampering ahead of them, they loped down the long corridor, made the turn and dived into the storeroom.
Their clothing was thrown in a heap in the corner; no one had bothered going through them, Tuli’s sling and stones were still in her pocket and Rane’s boots had kept their secrets intact. Instead of dressing, Tuli started poking about the storeroom, seeking anything she could use as a pad. Now that the worst fears were behind her, along with all urgencies but the final urgency of escape, the little niggling irritations had taken over. She wanted water desperately, even more desperately than clothes to cover herself.
Rane’s hand came down on her shoulder, making her start. “What is it, Moth?”
Tuli blushed scarlet. “Menses,” she muttered. “I got to wash.”
“That all? All right. Wait here, I’ll see what I can find.”
The ex-meie came back a short time later with a pitcher of water and a pair of clean towels. “Hurry it, Moth. No one around right now, but Maiden knows when the guard’s due for changing.” Tactfully, she turned away and began looking through the things on the shelves, taking a tunic here, a pair of trousers, two black dresses, exclaiming as she came across her own knife, her grace knife whose hilt she’d carved and fitted to her hand a long time ago. Tuli scrubbed at herself, sighed with relief as she washed away the crusted blood and found that where the iron had burned her there was no sign of burning. She looked down at Ildas and smiled tightly. Should stop being surprised at what you can do, she thought. He seemed to hear what she was thinking and rubbed his head against her leg. She tore a strip off the towel, folded it and pinned it into her trousers with a pair of rusty pins she found thrust into a crack between a shelf and one of its uprights. It was uncomfortable and was going to make riding a messy misery but it was better than nothing. She climbed into her clothes and felt much more like herself when she stamped her feet into her boots. “Ready,” she said.
“Good. Help me with this.” Rane was whipping a bit of cord about the bundle of clothing and other things she’d taken from the shelves. “Maiden bless, I wish I dared hunt out their food stores, but we’d better get away.” She straightened. “Set your Ildas to scouting for us, Moth. Toward the back. That’s best, I think. I wouldn’t mind a bit of snow either.”
“What about mounts? Can we hit the stables? It’s some distance to Appentar. I put out grain for our macain and there’s snow for water, but they’re tied, Rane. We can’t leave them like that.”
“Yah, I know. We’ll see when we get out. Tuli, if there are guards in the stable, we head out on foot. No argument please.”
“No argument.” She bent and scooped up Ildas. “Stables will be coldern’n these halls. You notice we haven’t seen more’n two or three guards even in here. I think most of them, they’re sitting around a barrel of hot cider and a nice crackling fire.” She rubbed Ildas under his pointed chin, smiled as his contented song vibrated in her. “Ildas is used to scouting, he found you for me. He’ll let me know if there’s anyone coming at us.” She scratched a last time, set him down and watched him pop through the door. “He’s off.”
Rane shook her head. “If I hadn’t seen that guard’s throat,” she murmured.
Ildas’ head came through the door; he sang emptiness to Tuli. She laughed and said, “Right. We come.” To Rane, she said, “All clear.”
“Let’s go then.”
As they loped through the maze of corridors at the back of Center, Tuli mused over the difference in the guards as they moved closer to Oras. Down by Sadnaji most of them seemed as committed as the Followers. But here they were a rag-tag lot, as if Floarin had dumped all her misfits and doubtfuls close to Oras where they couldn’t make trouble for her, where their slackness would mean little since the shadow of Oras weighed heavy on the Plain here in the north. For the past tenday, the patrols she’d seen out in the snow and cold were mostly Followers with a guard or two but no more. The ones here were probably drunk and comfortable and not about to take much notice of what was going on around them unless there was someone to prod them to it. Thanks to Ildas the Agli was beyond prodding anyone. She looked at the narrow back swaying ahead of her and smiled. And it’ll be snowing, she thought, betchya anything. A nice dusty snow to powder in our tracks.
She smiled again as they eased through the narrow door and stepped into the stableyard. The yard was deserted and dark and a feathery mist of snow was drifting onto the trampled earth.
They reclaimed their own mounts and discarded those taken from the Center stables—poor beasts, bad-tempered and sluggish. Their own macain were uncomfortable and complaining in low hoots but Ildas soon had them snuffling happily at the grain, wrapping himself like living wire about them, warming the chill out of them. Another scoop of grain apiece, some melted water, and they were ready to go on; Rane and Tuli stripped the gear off the sad specimens from Center and turned them loose, hoping they weren’t too stupid to smell out the nearest food and shelter.
“What about those two twits?” Tuli scowled into the snow toward Appentar. “They’ll do the same to anyone that shows up.”
“You’ll see.” Rane swung into the saddle and rode toward the edge of the grove, Tuli following, Ildas perched on the saddle in front of her.
At the gate of the tar the ex-meie dismounted and used her grace knife to cut an inconspicuous mark in the gatepost, then she was in the saddle again riding swiftly away. It was some time before she slowed and let Tuli move up to ride beside her. “That was a warn-off mark,” she said. “Players, tinkers and peddlers have a series of marks they use to leave messages for each other. The warn-off says keep away, there’s trouble waiting for you here. Anyone on the run who knows Lembo and doesn’t know the signs will have to take his chances. Or hers. Lembo.…” She shrugged. “I don’t know about him. Maybe he was away like his daughters said and we just came at the wrong time. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s turned. It doesn’t matter that much right now, we’ve got more important things to get busy on.”
“What next?”
“Oras. Fast and straight as we can. One good come out of this, we’ve got grain enough to keep the macain going on long marches.” She reached back and patted the fat sack tied
behind the saddle.
Tuli nodded. “At least there’s that.” They’d been sparing in what they’d taken from tars, but there was no such moderation required when they were taking from the Agli.
They rode north and west and soon passed beyond the edge of the plain into down country, a region of low rocky hills. There were occasional flurries of snow; when it wasn’t snowing, the clouds hung low and mornings were often obscured by swirling fog. Roofed stone circles alongside small huts swam at them out of that fog as they wound among the hills. Now and then, a young boy with a chunky, broad-browed chini pressed into his leg stood in the hut’s doorway and watched them ride past. Sometimes the boy would lift a hand to salute them, more often he watched, silent and unmoving. The stone circles were filled with huddled linadyx, some of them wandering out into rambling pole corrals to chew on wads of hay and scratch down to the winter grass below the snow, their corkscrew fleeces smudges of black and gray and yellow-white against the blue-white of snow. Every fifth circle was empty.
Tuli waved back to one of the boys, then kicked her macain into a slightly faster lope until she was riding beside Rane. “How they going to feed those beasts if it keeps snowing?”
“You saw the empty circles.”
“Yeah. So?”
“The Kulaan have winter steads in the riverbottom. Women and children work the fields there in the summer while the men and older boys are in the downs with the linas; come first snowfall they start bringing the herds down.” She wiped at her thin face, scowled at the slick of condensed fog on her palm. “I’d rather it was snowing instead of this infernal drip. Other years all the flocks would be down by now.”
Tuli shivered as she heard a distant barking and the high coughing whine of one of the small mountain sicamars. It seemed to come from all over, impossible to tell the direction of sounds in this fog. She thrust a gloved hand in her jacket pocket and closed clumsy fingers about the sling. “So. Why not this year?” Her voice sounded thin and lost and she shivered again.
