Ravi freed his arm. His hand struck back to shove the book down into the sack and deftly caught the other end of the cord on its way back up. Rohana was drifting away from Ravi’s mount, and her knees were still slipping.
“No, wait, come back over here, girl.” The pommel was just out of reach.
Ravi steered his mount closer to Chandi’s. She flung her arm overhead for momentum and managed to catch hold of the pommel to pull herself back up. The bolt clip tried to slip, but she snatched it back. Ravi tied his bag closed one-handed.
Rohana’s reins had fallen about the camel’s neck. The horsemen were closing the distance, coming up to either side of them. The slaver who had hijacked one of their camels was apparently gone. She fitted a bolt to Ravi’s crossbow.
It was too big for her, awkward even held in both hands, and the trigger was tight. She raised the crossbow to her shoulder and tried to sight along the bolt.
Useless. The bouncing of Rohana’s gallop meant she’d never hit even if she convinced herself to pull the trigger. Chandi pulled closer to Ravi’s mount and handed back the weapon and his bolts.
“No good.” She scanned the sands ahead of them. It glittered like crystal. From off to the east she heard the sound of thunder. The rains are starting already? …Uh-oh. “Ravi, did you hear that?”
He nodded, grim. Despite herself, she peered into the east, looking for the source of the noise.
The front riders had their swords drawn. Ravi fired off a shot at one of them and the horse fell. More horses barreled into it. Chandi winced, but that side was cleared for the moment.
The camels were galloping over the glittering salt flat now. The lead rider on Chandi’s side must have heard the thunder, too. They were pulling back. This was suddenly a very bad place to be. Chandi pressed forward against Rohana’s hump, stretching to catch hold of the reins. If she got washed off the camel, her odds of survival were minuscule.
* * *
“Did we lose anyone?” Chandi asked after Ravi led Rohana out of the suddenly sodden salt flat.
“All the animals are accounted for, and all but two of the packs, but a good bit of our food is ruined. I hope you like that sari.”
Chandi grimaced, wringing water out of her hair. “By the time we’re done I won’t. What about the ointments?”
“Safe. We’ve lost a lot of time, though, and now we’re going to lose more drying out.” He glanced down at the compass in his hand. “Come on. I think I saw a good place to make camp just a bit ago.”
She cushed Rohana and walked with Ravi. The poor camel had done more than enough tonight already.
“So what was that Jit said about you ‘owing’ him?”
“Well, among other things, for keeping you from being stabbed to death. Probably a lot of the rest of it, too.”
“And how does he expect you to pay him back?”
“Dunno. Some sort of favor, probably. I’ll repay him if I ever see him again, assuming he’s reasonable about it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The surviving members of the expedition didn’t stop running until they reached the steps leading up from the excavation. The young scribe’s legs were crushed and useless. Assuming he survived to reach Vidyavana, he would probably lose them. Scholar Fravardin was not the only person missing. Scholar Zubin gathered the scholars and the mercenaries together, and together they agreed to never speak of what had killed those left behind.
They left that night, and the trip back from Kaddu Nagar was nearly as uneventful as the journey there. It felt surreal. Their one encounter was with a group of rough-looking men on horseback, to a man heavily armed, but they stopped only long enough to ask if their convoy had seen a man and a girl traveling together. They had not, and the group rode on.
Zubin called a halt when they reached the staging area outside the southern gate. He made a special point of clasping Bahadur’s hand warmly as he handed over the payment slip. “I hope you’ll consider signing on again. You were a pleasure to work with.”
“I will consider it, Scholar,” he said. More like I have an uncanny knack for bumping into strange things, is what he thought.
“Remember the agreement,” Zubin whispered as he released his grip.
Bahadur only nodded and moved out of the way. The note of payment was to be taken to the Guild of Historians, Bahadur confirmed before tucking it carefully into his purse. He also noted it was signed “to the bearer.” Feroze waved at him from the line as he headed for the gates; Kamboja gave him the name of a pub he frequented.
Then he was stepping through the gates into the wide dusty streets of the city. The sun was past its zenith, so sustana should be over by the time he reached the historian’s guild. It would even still be a polite hour when he took Varti her half.
* * *
“If you’ll give me a moment, I need to confirm something.” Zareen was standing before she even finished speaking.
His response was irrelevant, of course. Had she been this rude before I went on the expedition? Yes, she had, although on their first meeting she hadn’t left and taken the only light source with her. “Um, Zareen?”
“What?”
“A little light would be nice.”
She set the lamp back down on the table and left. Am I even a person, so far as she’s concerned, or just an interesting specimen? When Zareen returned, she was not alone.
“Bahadur, this is Jaleh. She’s something of an expert on the Sealing and the creation of man. If you don’t mind, she’d like to hear the story straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“How many times am I going to have to describe that room?” He snapped. Zareen must have asked for the description at least five times already, and now he would have to give it again?
“Not just the room, Bahadur. Not even just the expedition. All of it.”
* * *
Jaleh was by far the youngest person he had seen in the guildhall beside Gita, with black hair caught up in a long braid that reached her slender hips. Her eyes made her look like she was gazing off at something just out of sight over the horizon, and if her mouth had a timid shape it did nothing to lessen the impact.
Talking with Jaleh had gone as smoothly as could be expected, but if she was the newest member of the Loremasters (and she almost certainly was) Bahadur could understand why Dara said she was a bit off – more so than the other Scholars he had dealt with. Her distant expression never changed, so he could never tell how much of the story she had asked to hear she was actually listening to. She would interrupt at the strangest moments with irrelevant questions. There were more questions after he finished the story, of course, some of which were even more baffling – like what colors his wife had favored, or whether it was more proper for boys to fight or study. He wished he could see the connections she did as she carefully noted down his answers with slender, ink-stained fingers. When she was done with him she looked straight at him for the first time since their meeting began and smiled.
“Thank you. This has opened up several new avenues for my research. I hope to speak with you again.”
What a strange woman. As he walked back to Javed’s he shook his head until he didn’t know if he was striving for clarity or accepting an enigma. Sanaz’s cooking would be waiting by the time he got back, and Gita would pepper him with questions – about the expedition and what happened at the guild hall – while they ate, ignoring Sanaz’s glares until she gave up. That was how it had gone last night, and this morning as well. True to his word, he had told no one of the beast in the ruins – not even Gita.
When he arrived at Javed’s – it wasn’t home – she was pacing around their tiny yard like some sort of caged cat.
“My feet itch,” was all she would say, and not a word of explanation as to what that meant. She kept her restless silence all through dinner, and excused herself early for no other reason than to return to her pacing. Sanaz had no answer, either. When the rest of them had finished eating Bahadur went out and sat o
n the step while Gita kept circling the perimeter.
“Did something happen today, Gita?”
“No.”
He let her complete another circuit before he tried again. “Everything’s all right with you and Sanaz?”
“Sure.” Another circle.
“…Do you have some sort of rash on your feet? Is that why they itch?”
She stopped her pacing, finally, if only long enough to determine that he hadn’t grown tusks. “Ha! Not exactly.” Another circle. “I’m restless.”
Leave it to the Chèin’ii to come up with an expression like that. “We can’t leave yet, we haven’t found what we’re looking for.”
“Assuming it exists.”
“Yes, of course. Nevertheless, we can’t leave yet. Maybe there’s something else you can do that would help?”
Another circle. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Your family ran a food stall, right? Maybe if Sanaz let you help cook?”
Another circle. “My parents ran a food stall, yes, but I was going to be a dancer. There’s no room here.”
“A dancer, huh? …Maybe one of the local troupes would let you use their stage?”
Another circle. She paused, then went around again. “Either they’d want us to pay them or they’d expect me to perform with them. I won’t go on stage with some two-bit hacks.”
She’s Chèin’ii, all right. “But if we found someone who was good enough, you would?”
She didn’t stop pacing. “Ha! And what a strange debut that would be. But I could. And I’d at least be moving around again.”
“So shall we ask Sanaz and Javed about places to check?”
She nodded, and pressed her lips together even as their corners tugged upwards.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ravi’s shoulder was still weak, but healing well and without infection. He acted just like the Ravi she had gotten to know in Sararaq, but she was less at ease. He was a killer. No matter that he had been aiming to rescue her. No matter that as a merchant traveling alone she should have expected he was capable of it. He had been wanton in the slaver’s den. In the stories that sort of thing was celebrated – a sign of great devotion, to be willing to kill for child or lover or brother or friend – but the reality… She supposed she was flattered that he would go that far, except for the nagging feeling that it hadn’t been for her. She sighed and put it from her mind for what must have been the hundredth time. There were more important things to deal with, like remembering the progression of the ritual dance. It was long, and far more complicated than anything Auntie Kiran had put before her, but she knew she could learn it if she broke it down.
“Is everything all right back there?”
“Yes, fine, Ravi. Just visualizing the dance.” He couldn’t help her work through her worries any more than she could help him with his past. Besides, she was trying to work through it. She just kept getting distracted by these niggling little fears. The camels behind her began to grumble, and Ravi reined in his mount.
“Ravi?”
“Yes, I know. Wait here; I’ll see what’s over the rise.”
This again. While Ravi scouted ahead, Chandi took a closer look at the surrounding countryside. Maybe three days outside Rodsfahan the sand had taken on a reddish hue. The rise was not a dune but a ridge of rock.
Ravi’s camel picked its way back along the stony ground, avoiding spots that would be roughest on the pads of its feet.
“Come on. Looks like we’ve found a tribe of herders. They already know we’re here.”
When Chandi crested the ridge, she understood. Not only did the tribe know they were there, they were not pleased to have visitors. A group of men on camel back sat in a line between them and the tents and mud-brick buildings with fabric roofs. They were draped in cloth from head to toe, and while their faces were not covered a long, loose strip hung from the side of their turbans that could be used for the purpose. As she drew closer, she could see spears held across pommels. Not pleased at all. She glanced at Ravi and saw that he rode with his hands plainly visible, empty save for the rein of his mount that was looped over a thumb. That looked like a good idea; Chandi followed suit. They were about twenty paces away when the man in the center started forward.
“Èihl.” His voice was as brittle and cracked as a stream bed in the dry season. Ravi reined in his mount and waited. Chandi rode until she was even with him. If they were lucky, one of them might be able to understand the tribal dialect.
“Eshri ba dhaish nii Qaehl syód vrii vróudyai? Èbai beq khai shrókhai t’eni vrii èiq?”
Chandi looked at Ravi; there was something familiar about the man’s pattern of speech, and maybe once she figured out what it was she would be able to understand, but right at this moment it sounded like falling rocks. Ravi blinked and opened his mouth in a few false starts before speaking.
“The girl,” he gestured at Chandi with an open palm, “and me,” and pressed the palm against his chest. “We look for, uh, we jii tùdhya èq something very… kimai.” Ravi recognized what the dialect was, at any rate. “Guh. Èiq Trade vrii dhad?”
The men of the village spoke among themselves for a moment. They did not keep their voices low – they knew they didn’t need to. Then the man who had spoken before motioned for them to follow. At least the tribesmen weren’t going to kill them outright. The other men kept casting sidelong looks at them as they fell in around Ravi’s camel train.
“Who are these people?” She didn’t quite whisper, but close.
Ravi shook his head. “I have no idea. I just caught some archaic forms in their speech, and took a gamble. What I know I learned from books, though.”
“Here’s hoping you didn’t just tell them their camels bathed in figs, then.” She giggled, although if he had misspoken it could go very poorly for them indeed. Ravi’s expression said he was well aware of that.
The men led them to a wide area in the center of the village where the ground was hard-packed around a large fire circle. They and their camels were ushered to the center. While the tribe’s spokesman moved off into the village the other men stood watching them silently. The tribesmen did not dismount, and so neither did they. Some of their camels tried to greet the locals and were quickly rebuffed by a smart rap from the butt of the spears.
“You said you caught archaic forms in their dialect?”
“I did.”
“I wonder if they would recognize…?” Chandi allowed her question to trail off as she urged Rohana over to one of the nearer men.
“Chèihl’ii. Chód ka óri dham gaen cha vrii jaensai óri?” It was Old Kaehr, almost never used outside of ritual and never used except among the Chèin’ii, highly formalized and incantatory. She knew enough of it to get by at the conclave and at birth ceremonies or funerals, but that was about it.
“Khóudhyun jibai vriish shróvii, kir gèim óri chóim.” ‘Your words,’ he’d said, ‘hear’ and ‘little’. She grinned: she could make out parts of it, anyway. It wasn’t much, but if he’d understood her as well as she understood him, this could work.
“Chandi órish t’èishi. Ravi pash t’èishi. Vrii t’èishi?” Introductions were both simple and friendly, exactly where she wanted to start.
“Nanda. Bar’shetr Vasengu na jii. Vrii jibai?” His name was Nanda, of the Bar’shetr Vasengu, and he wanted to know what tribe they were from.
“Chèin’ii óri jiim èidha. Ravi… yuhr jid.”
The man spat air once when she gave her tribe, and twice when she identified Ravi as a city-dweller. She sighed; the old stories could be as much bane as blessing, sometimes. Then his expression changed, as though he was struck by something.
“‘Jiim èidha?’ Èbai èin vriish shrókhai qaedhya?”
‘Were born?’ He’d asked. ‘Happened… tribe?’ She’d missed some of what he said, but she caught that much. Somehow she’d managed to imply more than she meant to tell him. Now she had to search for the words. She gaped a few times, a
s Ravi had earlier.
“Dhúikhaellun.” It was a single-word picture, that – the image of a rock turning to dust and the wind stealing the dust away. It was also a word she didn’t know she knew, until now. Its existence was a puzzle.
Nanda looked stunned.
What did I… “Ah! Qai. Aranya Prasuuna Chèin’ii ableh. Óri khara.” ‘No. Only the Aranya Prasuuna Chèin’ii. I hope.’
He relaxed a little; he’d thought she meant all the Chèin’ii were gone, when it was just her clan.
“Chandi, you can understand them?” Ravi interrupted before the man could offer his sympathies.
“A bit, now that I know what to listen for.”
“That’s still more than I could manage. Looks like I’ll be relying on you, here.”
“I’ll try not to rub it in?”
The man who had split off from the group returned with another tribesman, a few years older than the spokesman with his brittle voice, who was himself a few years older than the others.
“Travelers need speak Trade?” The man’s voice was halting, his Trade broken almost to the point of shattering.
Chandi looked at Ravi, who looked at Chandi. This was what they had to work with? “Gèim Kaehr óri aya dham,” she answered. ‘I also speak a little Kaehr. ’ Thank the spirits she remembered it at all!
“T’evi nagii, rónsi èga gaen shróka dhash! Vrúindra vrii?”
She blinked. ‘Thank the spirits,’ she caught, and ‘person’, but she could not for the life of her make out what he was asking her to do. “Huh?”
“Órish shróvii nii pash shróvii vrii chód syai?” ‘My words… his words… you… turn….’ Oh! …Why did she come up with dhúikhaellun immediately, and not know the word for translation?
She nodded; as long as they kept it simple, it shouldn’t be a problem. “Vai, ka shróvii jibai óstai.”
“Haehl vrii jibai. Óstai na qundra óstii.” ‘You’re a young girl. We will keep things easy.’ Well that was obnoxious. How backwards could these people be, to tell her to her face that it was because she was a girl she had trouble! You almost never ran into that attitude in the cities. Well, not in the cities she’d been to, anyway. There were horror stories told at Conclave about places where a woman who showed an ankle or a wrist was a whore. The dancers were kept under guard in those places. The man just laughed as she got her expression back under control.
Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1) Page 27
