by Carol Berg
... the soft rain fell like tears of grief, washing away the purple blood of the monster I had slain. Wisps of steam curled from the silver knife I wrested from its leathery neck. I stepped along its back and gazed upward, letting the rain cool my face, washing away the sweat and blood and foul sputum of the beast. Even as I watched, the clouds broke, revealing brilliantly clear stars in no pattern that would ever be visible in the realms of men. I felt the wafting breeze, tasted its shape and strength, and judged it enough. It would carry me to the portal easily. I was tired, but it had come out well, and soon I would be in her arms . . .
Fires of heaven, why could I not keep it buried? Aleksander was poised on the stone, waiting. The boy had been dying. What if I’d misunderstood him? “Clear your mind and speak the words,” I said harshly. “ ‘Dryn haver.’ Let the image come. Don’t try to control it. They wouldn’t have left it simple.”
Aleksander leaned over to the beast again and was quiet for a moment. An eternity. Our pursuers were only a street away. The scavengers had already fled into the dark alley-ways.
“Druya’s horns!” Aleksander’s hand flew into the air as if the bronze beast had stung it. He bellowed in laughter, then leaped from the stone block right into Musa’s saddle. It made my backside throb to watch it, but not as much as it did when he hauled me up behind him again and kicked the obedient stallion back to life.
“Extraordinary!” he shouted as we wheeled and shot out of the southern gate of the marketplace just as the torchlit chase entered from the north. I could almost hear the leather of their armor creaking. We raced madly through the sleeping lanes. I couldn’t imagine how Aleksander could see where we were going, as the buildings melted together in a blur. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was all the horse. But every time I thought we must emerge from the city into the countryside, Aleksander would take another turn, and we’d find ourselves deeper in the old part of the city. I was sure we were lost.
I thought my fears confirmed when the Prince halted Musa in a dark, narrow lane near the river. It stunk of pigs, dead fish, and rotted cabbage. Sour yellow light spilled into the lane through the smoke-grimed windows of a tavern.
He’d got it wrong. The map enchantment would not lead us to the Ezzarians themselves, only to a meeting place where we would take on a guide. But Ezzarians would never use such a den of filth, of excess, of impurity. Besides, it was right in the middle of the city. Much too public. I should have envisioned the map from the gyrbeast enchantment myself. “My lord, this couldn’t be the place—”
“It’s not, but we need to stop here anyway. Come on.”
A man staggered out of the door and pissed in the lane, then collapsed in his own puddle. Aleksander stepped over him and pushed open the door of the tavern. Exasperated with the willful Derzhi, I followed, mystified, wondering if he had decided he couldn’t proceed without a drink or a woman.
The air inside the dark hovel was thick with smoke, and smelled of burned grease and sour ale. The eight or ten ragged men and slovenly women slouched on stools about the room goggled curiously at us. It was not the sort of place a Derzhi warrior would frequent. The proprietor, distinguished from the others by his possessive hand on the single ale barrel, had only one yellowed tooth in his gaping mouth, and his lip was birth-cleft all the way to his nostrils. He jerked his head to a vacant stool for Aleksander, then curled his lip at my bare feet and the steel bands about my ankles. Slaves did not usually patronize taverns, either.
Aleksander did not sit down, but circled the room, examining each man carefully until he stopped behind a slender, long-legged fellow who had his face buried in a buxom woman’s bodice and his hand up her skirt. “This one,” he said, then wrapped his left arm about the man’s neck and dragged the poor victim out the door. The frowsy woman who had been sitting on the man’s knee collapsed to the floor with a florid curse, one breast hanging out of her bodice and her skirt bunched around her waist.
“I don’t like his looks,” Aleksander shouted to the curious drinkers who crowded up to the door to see what was going on. None dared step outside to get in the middle of it. I pushed my way through them, just as confused as the rest. What could Aleksander be thinking? Hooves and shouts echoed through the nearby streets.
The Prince shoved his besotted victim against a wall. “Remove your clothes. Boots and all.” The man gaped in uncomprehending surprise until Aleksander grabbed his ear and pulled the slack-jawed face onto a level with his own. “I said, remove your clothes. Your Prince has need of them. And be quick about it. If you take more than half a minute, I’ll pop your left eye from your head like a pit from a cherry.” He flexed his thumb and forefinger in front of the man’s face. Well short of half a minute, Aleksander tossed me a pile of clothes and boots that smelled like tar and wine and piss, and the man was running naked down the street wailing as if a Derzhi hangman was at his back.
“Well, get them on. I didn’t go to all this trouble to have you gaping at me like these hod-carriers. Unless you’ve developed a steel ass and leather feet, you’ll be glad of them and not care that I was ungentlemanlike while acquiring them. We’ve no time to visit my tailor.”
Refusing to wear the clothes wasn’t going to put them back on the man they belonged to. And, in truth, the closing chase did nothing to make me think generously. The Prince would be coddled and escorted back to his demon guardians. I was the one who would lose one of my feet and half of my face ... if I was lucky.
In the matter of one minute, I was wearing the first boots and breeches I’d put on in sixteen years, and we were flying through the streets again, sparks shooting from Musa’s shoes as we headed for the western gates.
A Derzhi prizes a fine horse above every other possession, and my presumption that Aleksander would have none but the best was fully justified. No pursuer came any closer to us that night. We raced out of the city and across the open valley floor toward the heavily forested mountains to the west. Even carrying the two of us together, Musa never faltered. About the time the darkness thinned to the color of watered milk, the road narrowed and entered the trees, and the Prince slowed his steed to a walk. The lolling gait made me drowsy....
... they kept coming, wave after wave. A Derzhi warrior leading his four cadre brothers, and behind them a troop of Manganar foot soldiers and mounted Thrid mercenaries, ivory talismans dangling over painted breastplates. A scream from behind me. Verwynn, my father’s friend, fell, a Thrid spear in his gut. My leaden arms were covered with blood. Still they came ... unending waves of blood and death ... I had to hold until the others got away. I was a Warden, sworn to protect them ...
“Daughters of night!” Aleksander’s exclamation as we jerked to a halt startled me awake. The Prince was bent forward, pressing his head into his hands that clutched at Musa’s mane. Clawing shivers crept along my spine, more than could be explained by the icy droplets dribbling down my neck from the thick branches overhead.
“Is it the change, my lord?” I said, ready to scramble from the horse rather than share it with a shengar.
“No.” Aleksander straightened up again and spurred the horse to a walk.
As soon as Musa settled, so did I. My head rested heavy against Aleksander’s back. I could not seem to keep the dreams at bay ...
... the sunset stained the sky red as if the earth could not hold all the blood. I whirled about, kicked the knife from the hand of a Derzhi youth, and slashed at the grinning Manganar, who was sneaking up my blind side, his last thought amazement at how I knew he was there. To my left the brothers Giard and Feyn—Searchers called in from their rounds—struggled with at least eight warriors. To my right all was silence—though as I flung the lifeless youth onto the pile of bodies behind me and rushed to Giard’s aid, I strained to hear the sound of reinforcements. Ten or twelve other Ezzarians were similarly engaged, and coming up the narrow valley were more Derzhi ... another wave ... how had they found us? We had been sure that no one knew of this route. We were hoping to surp
rise the main body of their force before they could slaughter our left flank, but before we could get out of the shallow valley, we were trapped. Feyn gasped in astonishment when the arm that had slain fifty warriors dropped from his shoulder, severed by a Manganar ax. When the sword released his entrails from his belly, he toppled slowly onto his arm as if to reclaim it. I roared in madness and raised my sword again . . .
“... for the moment, but they’ll bring in Janque as soon as they can get him sober.”
I didn’t know where the first part of the conversation had gotten off to. “Janque?” My tongue was thick with sleep.
“The finest tracker in Capharna. As I said, it’s why I went west when we’re supposed to go north. He’ll have a harder time following us through here. I’ve left him six false trails. He’ll eat his hounds for breakfast.”
Hounds. Trackers. What was I thinking to lead the Derzhi down on the remnants of my destroyed people? “My lord, we can’t—”
He knew exactly what was in my mind. “I know what I’m doing. They’ll not be able to follow us. Even Janque. Go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Are you arguing with me? Just because I gave you boots, you think you can say what you please?”
“No. Of course not.” We rode on and I lost track of the day again.
The shadows were angled in a vastly different direction when we stopped and I fell off the horse. Well, I didn’t exactly fall. Aleksander pulled me off. But it was the same gut-twisting sensation, and I ... I had been deep in that other place.
“Ho, Seyonne. All’s well.” He caught one flailing hand in his steady grip, but I wrenched it away, whirled about, and aimed for his neck with the side of the other hand and for his gut with my knee. It was only his own impeccable reflexes and my lack of practice that kept me from breaking his neck.
“What in Athos’ name ... ?” His eyes were huge, and when the thunder in my blood quieted enough to realize what I’d done—and almost done—I was appalled.
“Forgive me, my lord. I was dreaming ...” I could scarcely speak for the shadows crowding one upon the other to escape my head before I could capture them and remember the fading vision.
“Dreaming? I’ve not seen three men who could move so fast and so ... deadly ... when they were fully awake.” He looked at my hands that were clamped in his own, then released them and moved his gaze to my face.
“Happily one of them was you,” I said, drawing my cloak about me against wind that was not half so cold as my soul. “I’ve heard people can do amazing things in their sleep that they couldn’t possibly—”
Aleksander held up his hand and closed his eyes. “Don’t. I told you, I’ll hear no more of your pitiful lying. I’d rather you say nothing at all.”
“As you wish, my lord.” We were stopped in a small clearing away from the road. I climbed up a pile of rocks beside the trail and looked out on a high mountain valley still locked in the embrace of winter. Frost snapped a limb somewhere deep in the trees, and the screech of a hunting falcon split the bitter air.
“What I wish is to know what you are, Seyonne. A slave held sixteen years who moves like a Lidunni fighter.... Were you in service to one of them, or someone who studied their ways? You watched them, didn’t you? Someone allowed you to see, or you spied on him and learned it.”
“No, my lord. No one is responsible for teaching a slave things that are forbidden.” The Lidunni Brotherhood was a secretive sect of Derzhi who mixed religion and the art of hand combat.
“You snapped my grip as if I were a five-year-old girl. I will know how you learned it. If you knew this from before ... how in Athos’ name were you taken captive?”
The taste of death was in my mouth. It was all too close. “Please, my lord. Not now. I’ll tell you some day if you insist, but not now.” I tried to keep the moment’s disturbance out of my voice, the inexplicable dread that constricted my throat and made my heart race when I dreamed. That battle was long lost. There was no reason for it to take on new life just because I was going to see Ezzarians. The dead were dead. The living ... had survived. “Is this the place that was shown to you?”
“Damnation, you’re stubborn,” said the Prince, cheeks and eyes blazing. “You try my patience, and I’ve little enough of it in the best of times. If I weren’t asleep on my feet, we’d have it out right now. After what I’ve seen ...”
“You’ve seen nothing but the remnant of a dream, my lord. Please tell me if this is the place.”
“No, not yet.” He propped his hands on Musa’s saddle and leaned on it tiredly. “And just as well. I’d not be awake to greet anyone.”
“We need a fire,” I said, shaking off the lingering shadows. The sun was low over the mountains. It must have been weeks since I’d gotten more than three hours’ sleep in a sun’s turning. The Prince was still staring at the saddle, and it came to me that there were a number of things he had never had to do for himself. “I can take care of the horse, so you can sleep.”
Aleksander snorted in irritation as he stirred himself and began unbuckling the girth straps. “You need have no fear. Dmitri would not allow me to have servants when I was training. I can care for Musa, put on my own boots, and even cook a fair rabbit if there is one in such a frozen desolation as this.”
“There should be provision enough in the saddle packs for a few days,” I said.
“Good. Can’t say I want to go hunting at the moment. In fact, perhaps you had better do this part for me.” He nodded to the long leather sheath fastened to his saddle. I removed the sword and the three packs, and Aleksander hefted the saddle to the ground. He took the saddlecloth and rubbed down the handsome bay, talking to it more brotherly than I’d ever heard him address any human.
While he saw to the horse, I gathered wood, piled it behind a sheltering outcrop, and tried to convince my cold fingers to strike the flint. A fire would be welcome. The wind was bitter, and I was guiltily grateful for the wool shirt, thick breeches, and serviceable boots. They fit amazingly well. But for Aleksander’s whim, I could be facing frostbite, sepsis, and amputation.
Aleksander flopped down beside my miniscule flame and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was quiet, and I went about my business of nurturing the tantalizing wisps of fire. When next I glanced at him, he was trembling, and I thought his clenched fingers might press his eyes all the way into his skull.
“What is it, Your Highness?”
“Unholy ... cursed ... so real I can taste it. Can smell the blood. And when I try to think of something else”—he took a harsh breath—“I think my head is going to crack open and spill out what paltry brains I’ve got.” He shuddered. “Vile.”
Setting his jaw, he pushed away the damp hair that had come loose from his braid and plastered itself to his forehead, then started rummaging in the saddle pack, pulling out a tin cup, a packet of dried meat, another of dates, and another that, from his sigh of relief, must be the tannet bark and leaves used to make nazrheel. “Wake me when I can do something with this,” he said, tossing me the packet, then rolling up in his cloak and blanket, starting to snore before his last word was out.
“As you command,” I said automatically. The words lingered on my tongue, then dropped into my mind like stones into a quiet pond. I gazed on the deserted valley where ice fogs gathered in the low places in the fading light. The stones were sharp-edged gold, every ridge, corner, and crack shaped by the steep-angled beams. The wind stirred my hair with a frosty finger. Rarely had I ever experienced such a moment of perfect clarity.
I could walk away. I had a horse, clothes, and provisions, and the only man who could prevent me was half-mad with demon visions—oh, yes, I could guess the seductive horrors they were using to torment him. And now he was so deep asleep I could slice his throat if I wished. I could be free. The consideration was overwhelming. I already knew I would not leave him—my oath forbade it—but for an hour, as I fed the newborn flames and grew them into something that
could thaw my bones and boil a cup of water, I indulged myself, setting my mind loose to imagine what it might be like.
It was a most discouraging exercise. I couldn’t think where I might go or what I might do or even what I might tell the first person who asked about the mark on my face. I had forbidden such thoughts for so long, I couldn’t summon them. All I knew was how to be a slave. Perhaps I could neither think nor act unbidden anymore.
When the stars had wheeled a quarter of the way through their night’s path, I boiled water in the cup and soaked the tannet bark, leaving the cup near the fire to stay warm. After another hour, I added the leaves, boiled the stuff again, and when the green-black mess was stinking in all its proper glory, I woke the Prince. A proper duty for a slave.
“Well-done, Seyonne,” he said, sipping slowly, savoring the nasty, bitter drink. “If you want to sleep, I’ll watch for a while. I’ve had enough dreaming for three lifetimes. Bad enough they come when I’m awake. To sleep is to invite more.”
“I slept all day,” I said. “I’ll do another stint.” I stepped away from the fire to relieve myself. In my unaccustomed fumbling with layers of clothes, I found the paper stuck in the pocket of the slave’s tunic I still wore underneath my shirt. It was the letter I’d taken from Aleksander’s chamber on my way to his tower prison. When I returned to the fire, I gave it to the Prince and told him its history.
“It’s from Kiril.” He twirled it in his fingers. “Do you know why we always use red wax?”
“I’d guess it has something to do with blood,” I said.
