First Truth

by Dawn Cook

  From behind them came a soft fall of footsteps, and Strell called hesitantly, “Is it safe?”

  Alissa turned to give him a thin smile. “Yes, just don’t expect an apology from her.”

  Talon stiffened, snatched her mouse, and retreated to the outskirts of the fog. Strell edged back into camp. He silently rummaged in his pack, avoiding Alissa’s eyes. It was cold, and she shrugged into her coat, pulling her blanket up around her as she fussed with the fire.

  Strell hesitated at the severed wing on his blanket, finally nudging it off. “What under the open skies . . .” he said.

  “So, tell me . . .” she said simultaneously.

  “You first,” he offered, putting her mortar into the coals and filling it with fresh water.

  Spotting her lovely, cream-colored boots, Alissa stretched to reach them, struggling to put them on without unwrapping from her blanket. “How long was I out?”

  “Just last night. My turn. What was all that about?”

  “You mean blacking out? I don’t know. But it wasn’t my fault,” Alissa said defensively. “All I know is I dreamed a memory that was definitely my papa’s.”

  “And it’s never happened before?”

  “No.” Alissa watched the water still, feeling used somehow. She crumpled a travel cake into the bowl, and immediately it began to give off the wonderful smell of apples and nuts. Her thoughts went back to that peculiar dream she’d had the other morning of her papa. “Maybe one other time,” she added.

  Strell’s distant eyes cleared into an unmistakable sympathy. “Want to tell me about it?”

  She nodded. Much as it hurt, it would be best to tell him when she was all cried out. As they sat together in the chill morning mist waiting for their breakfast to moisten to an edible softness, she told him about the Hold and Bailic. Through the entire narrative, her thoughts kept returning to that book like bees to a honey tree. Several times Strell brought her wandering attention back as she puzzled over where the thing might be. Now, more than ever, she was determined to get to the Hold. She wanted that book. Bailic couldn’t still be there. He’d have to be mad to stay in an empty fortress by himself for fourteen years.

  “And your mother let you walk out into the mountains?” Strell exclaimed, handing Alissa her bowl of mush and sitting down beside her.

  “She didn’t let me. She made me.”

  Strell stared, and Alissa chuckled. She could understand his confusion. What kind of mother forces her daughter out of the house cold? The usual method involves a wedding. “That nice lady did no such thing,” he finally managed.

  “Did too. She said that those at the Hold could further my education, whatever that means. Perhaps she meant me becoming a Keeper.” Alissa’s eyes dropped and she traced a dismal circle in her breakfast with her spoon. “She didn’t know the Hold was empty when she sent me away.”

  She hadn’t known why Papa hadn’t returned either, Alissa thought morosely.

  “Magic?” Strell muttered. He started to shovel his breakfast, his eyes carefully averted.

  “There’s no such thing as magic,” Alissa said quickly.

  He glanced up. “Alissa, you saw your father’s death. If that’s not magic, what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip.

  Strell stopped chewing and looked up in alarm, “You aren’t a shaduf, are you?”

  Preoccupied with thoughts of her papa, Alissa shook her head.

  “You saw your father’s death! Isn’t that what they do?”

  Annoyed, she gave him a sharp look. “I’m not a shaduf,” she said. “It runs in family lines. Mine are clean.”

  “But your temper—”

  “My temper has nothing to do with it!” she shouted. “And the guild finds you right away to start training.” Her eyes lowered. “And besides, the first thing a shaduf ever sees is his or her own death, not their papa’s. I relived his death, not foresaw it.” Depressed, Alissa pushed her bowl away. “And do you see even one scrap of blue on me?”

  He solemnly shook his head. Shadufs always wore blue as a sign of their office; the deeper the blue, the stronger the skill. In reality it was a warning to get out of their way. The deeper the blue, the quicker you moved. They weren’t very nice.

  Strell’s eyes got round. “Maybe you’re a septhama!”

  Alissa turned away in disgust. What a superstitious milksop, she thought.

  “That’s it, isn’t it!” he cried, drawing back away from her. “Bone and Ash, have you been—doing your septhama thing? And never told me?”

  She picked her bowl back up and ignored him. That was insulting. Doing your septhama thing, indeed. But he just sat there with his wide, alarmed eyes, looking at her as if she had a radish growing out of her head. “I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” she finally said.

  “Magic, no. Ghosts?” He shuddered. “Yes.”

  “Look,” she said patiently. “I’m not a septhama. Do you even know what they do?”

  Strell shifted awkwardly. “Get rid of ghosts.”

  “Wrong. They modify the emotion left after a tragedy so it doesn’t bother anyone.”

  “Yes. They get rid of ghosts.”

  “Strell,” she cajoled, “a traumatic event makes an imprint on its surroundings. When an equal level of emotion is reached in the same place, even hundreds of years later, it sets up a resonance that acts like an echo, multiplying the force until people can see it. That’s all it is.”

  “So you are a septhama.”

  Alissa rolled her eyes. “No. I read a book about it. All right?”

  Still he sat uneasily. “There are no books on septhamas.”

  “There are at my house,” she muttered, then sighed. “I’m not a septhama. I’m just me. No ghosts, no auras, no fore-seeing the future, just me, a girl on her way to a mythical fortress.” That sounded absolutely absurd, and Alissa sat and stewed, not knowing what to think anymore. To continue on to the Hold under the inane assumption that she was more than a simple farm girl was ludicrous, but yesterday she would have said the same thing about her papa. He hadn’t been mad, and he truly believe he—Ashes. What was she thinking? Magic wasn’t real.

  But there in the tower, reliving her papa’s thoughts, she had felt something . . .

  Strell wiped his bowl clean and stood, shifting from foot to foot as he looked down at her. Slowly she looked up. “Um—Alissa?” he stammered. “It isn’t empty. The Hold, I mean. Useless wants you to turn around and go back home.”

  Ever so carefully, Alissa set her spoon down. “Who?”

  Strell’s eyebrows rose. “Useless?”

  She stared at him. “Who—is—Useless?”

  “I thought you knew.” Seeing her blank look, he shrugged. “I don’t know either, but he’s at the Hold, and he wants you to go home.”

  “Home!”

  “Please, Alissa.” Strell stepped back as she scrambled up. “Useless told me—uh—he talked through you when you blacked out—he said it’s not safe. That you have to go home.”

  Watching Strell’s anxious face, it suddenly all wove together and Alissa’s jaw dropped. That’s whom the voice in her head belonged to. She hadn’t imagined it. “You’re telling me someone who calls himself Useless has been poking about in my head, forcing me to relive my papa’s death and using me to deliver his messages!”

  Strell nodded somberly. “He wants you to go home.”

  “Well, if that doesn’t hatch your hen’s eggs!” Alissa started packing, tying the knots with a fierceness she knew she’d regret later. Inside she was shaking, but she wasn’t going to let Strell know how scared she was. The idea that someone could make her pass out at will and speak with her voice was frightening. She didn’t believe in magic. She wouldn’t.

  “Uh—Alissa? Just how set are you about going to this Hold?”

  Her breath came quickly. She was going to the Hold. If he abandoned her on the trail, so be it, but she was going. Alissa didn’t say a word, but
continued shoving her things away. Strell watched, shifting nervously. “He’s at the Hold,” he finally said.

  “Good. Then I can tell him what I think of him.”

  “Not Useless. Bailic.”

  “Bailic!” Alissa stared up, unable to hide the fear in her voice. “How do you know?”

  Strell’s eyes were full of worry. “Useless.”

  Alissa grew very still, pushing her fright down where she knew it would fester, keeping her awake at night. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her pack and strode to the lake.

  “He has Useless trapped somewhere.” Strell was half jogging beside her. “Useless told me to take you home. I think I should. Or at least the coast.”

  Alissa continued forward, afraid if she stopped, her legs would give way. “Nobody tells me what to do,” she said, hating the quaver in her voice. “And I’m not going home.”

  “Alissa.” Strell grasped her arm, halting her. Eyes wide, she tugged it free. “Alissa, please. What can you do against Bailic?” His eyes flicked away. “It’s too late to go home, but come with me to the coast. You’ll be safe. No one will care what you look like there. But if Bailic finds out who your father is, he’ll kill you, too.”

  “Then he’d better not find out,” she whispered, turning away in apparent confidence, but she was far from it. She was going to the Hold. She had to have that book. It was hers, she kept telling herself. She wasn’t going to have the only thing to remember her papa by be a stinky little bag of who-knew-what around her neck.

  And yet, a part of her smelled the smoke from the ’ware fires. It almost seemed as if something was drawing her to the Hold. But by the Navigator’s Hounds, it was only a book.

  13

  “Sand in the west will protect you best,” Alissa heard Strell whisper as he blew his handful of dust at the setting sun. She had watched him carefully choose and place his sundry rocks and pebbles. Though he was very subtle about it—nudging a stone with the toe of his boot here, tightening a bootlace and dropping another there—the dust was rather obvious, and his eyes lowered at her questioning look. “I don’t believe it really works,” he muttered.

  She nodded dismally and returned her attention to mending his old hat. Who was she to say anything? Her papa had been able to do magic. Sweet as potatoes, as Strell would have said.

  Much earlier, after the usual loud and lengthy “discussion,” Strell had chosen to stop at the base of three very large fir trees. Camp had gone up smoothly. Though having traveled together for only a short time, they had already settled into a comfortable routine. Strell would arrange the basics of the camp while Alissa looked for something to eat. He would then make dinner while she finished setting up. It worked well, and they weren’t constantly in each other’s way. More importantly, Alissa knew exactly what was in the pot.

  And so, as the sky darkened and the soothing fog rose, they found themselves content before the fire. Alissa’s back was against the largest tree, and she could feel the wind shift it from time to time. The chill deepened as the light faded, and Alissa worked steadily on Strell’s nasty old hat. She found cold, like hunger, to be an excellent goad. She had meant it when she said he could have hers, but it looked ridiculous on him. If she could get his old one halfway decent, she was hoping he’d ask to trade back.

  Strell was busy with fashioning a pair of jesses. It had taken him all afternoon to convince Alissa they were necessary, but she was again having second thoughts. He had already cut two narrow strips from his scrap cloth and was now trying to fasten them about her unruly bird’s feet. Leather, he had claimed, would be better, but the only other practical source besides their coats was the map, and he wouldn’t touch that.

  “Come on, Talon,” he coaxed. “You’ll get used to them.”

  Talon pulled at the unfamiliar binding, biting neatly through the thin material. With a happy chitter, she held it up and gave it a vigorous shake. Enjoying the new game, she dropped it in Strell’s lap, eager for him to tie it back on. “It’s no use,” he sighed as Alissa began to laugh. “She just keeps taking them off.” He turned up the bottom hem of his coat and fingered it. Alissa could almost see the thoughts going through his mind. His coat was new, hers was obviously not.

  “You’re going to have to use your coat,” she warned him. “I still think jesses are a bad idea. Talon flies free. She’ll get tangled.”

  “It’s jesses, or I throw a blanket over her if you black out again. I can’t control her.”

  “Why?” Alissa set her work down to give him a wary look. “Does she go mad?”

  “Uh—her claws are awfully sharp.” Strell glanced sheepishly at the tender new skin on his hands, and Alissa nodded. Although the healing properties of her mother’s salve were inversely proportional to its nauseating stench, pain was still pain.

  “Well, I still think it’s a bad idea,” she said softly.

  Strell took his duller knife from his pack, and not bothering to remove his coat, cut the hem free to slice two strips from the bottom. Shaking her head, Alissa bent over her work. She wasn’t going to hem it back up for him.

  “You know,” she said, biting off a thread, “for someone who claims to be a minstrel, I haven’t heard much music from you.”

  He gave her his usual grunt, smiling as he looked up. “I don’t play when I’m alone.”

  Alissa gestured in confusion. “So who’s alone?”

  There was a moment of silence. “You’re right,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’m usually alone when I travel, so I naturally equate the two.”

  “Not me.” Alissa looked up through the needles at the few stars not yet eclipsed by the nightly fog and sighed contentedly. “Talon has been with me every time I’ve gone off the farm.”

  “She must be a comfort,” Strell murmured.

  Puzzled over his tone, Alissa looked at him, unable to tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “Yes,” Alissa said carefully, “she is.”

  Strell slowly let his breath out. “I’ve been thinking about your blackout. Do—do you think you can control what you learn when you’re unconscious?”

  Alissa set her work down to give his question her full attention. “I don’t know.” She thought back to when Useless showed her how to get rid of that mind-numbing headache. Clearly there was more potential here than at first glance. “Maybe.”

  “Do you think,” he said, fidgeting with the fire, “you might learn something for me?”

  “For you?” Alissa raised her eyebrows, wondering just where this was headed.

  Strell glanced from her to his empty hands and back again. “I know it’s foolish, but I’ve always wanted to know why I was ‘encouraged’ to seek my profession away from the family. I wouldn’t even ask, but I have no other way of finding out now.” His eyes dropped. “It’s unheard of for a son to be excluded from the family trade, especially if it’s a profitable one.”

  She stirred uneasily. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Do me this then,” he said before she could refuse him outright. “Think about it? It might be a good way to see just how much control you have.”

  Put like that, it almost made sense. Almost. “And knowing why you aren’t a potter is that important to you?”

  “Listen.” He leaned forward intently. “My entire family, as far back as can be recalled, has been trained in the craft. Ever since my grandfather Trook resettled in—in the ravine”—he swallowed hard—“no one has left the household. Even my aunts stayed. Their husbands were eager to learn the skills necessary to get by. For them, the opportunity for their children to carry a chartered name far outweighed the loss of their own inheritance.”

  Pausing, he shifted a log on the fire before it rolled out. “There’s lots to do at a potter’s stead besides spinning clay,” he said softly. “There’re pigments to grind, clay to dig, fuel to gather, kilns to tend. If nothing else, there’s selling of our wares. Being born to it, I was assured a position regardless of how sorry my crafting was or how many
brothers I had.”

  “How many were there?” Alissa asked, fascinated with this slice of plains culture.

  “Five.” Strell’s face went still.

  “Five!” she gasped. “In one house? And you were the youngest?”

  “Youngest son. I had three sisters my junior, one senior.”

  “By the Navigator’s puppies. Ten children in one house!” She picked her hat back up.

  “No,” Strell mumbled. “There were eleven of us at one time. I had an older brother who died of hills pox when I was six.” Strell rose and edged away from the fire. “On second thought,” he said, his eyes downcast, “why don’t you forget the entire thing.”

  “Mmmm,” Alissa said gently. He had just found out about their demise. Bringing them to the forefront of his thoughts probably wasn’t wise. She watched in sympathy as his hunched form slowly moved out of the ring of light. For a moment she heard him snapping through the underbrush, then nothing. Talon flew after him in a smattering of feathers. Alissa’s hand rose to stop her, but then dropped. The cheeky bird had cheered her up countless times. Perhaps Talon could ease Strell’s thoughts a little.

  Turning back to his old hat, she thought about what he had proposed. She had been a passive participant last time, but what if she could direct the situation? Deep in thought, she yanked her pack closer, looking for the blueberries left from dinner. By mutual agreement they had combined their stash of provisions into her bag. It was easier that way. She always got hungry before he did.

  She dumped the berries into her bowl, promising to save some for Strell. Settling herself against the tree with the bowl in her lap, she cast her thoughts back to that morning. Useless had said her headache was from a blockage across her—what was it—synapses? He could have called them windmills for all she cared. It had looked like a simple enough task to divert the flow of shimmery force to the proper path, if she could find that maze of lines.

  Fumbling for another berry, Alissa closed her eyes, trying to find that in-between area somewhere in her thoughts. But the harder she tried, the more ridiculous it sounded. She gave up, flushing. It had probably all been in her imagination anyway, she thought, leaning her head back against the tree with a soft thump.