by Myers, Karen
Ilzay and Jirkat coiled the first long rope around the outside of the circular wall, halfway up, to hold the lattice firmly, and tied it off. Then they wrapped a second rope just below the top where the rafters were hooked in, to further support the outward pressure of the roof.
Once all the rafters were in place and the ropes had been adjusted and tightened, the structure held itself erect. Penrys let the taller men lay the felts on the slanted roof and around the walls, and lash the canvas sections over them with ropes tethered to the ground to hold them in place, while she carried in the canvas flats and rolls of small rugs to cover the floor inside.
The interior of a six-section kazr like this was about twelve feet across. It felt downright spacious, and far larger than the two of them needed, but there was no declining the gift of Umzakhilin’s son’s kazr. They had left most of the furnishings back in the winter camp to lighten the load, but Najud had insisted on bringing along the two bedframes and the umaqab, or rolled pads, that went with them, on rope supports.
“See how the woman’s is wider?” he’d told her. “They tell you it’s because she may need to take a child into bed with her, but that’s not the real reason. You wouldn’t need the hangings over it, if it were just for the children.”
His wink and leer made his meaning clear, and she hoped for a more private demonstration.
The only other furnishings were a tall table that could be assembled and used standing to prepare food, a low table and two low seats for working, and the simple iron stove that Najud toted in, by far the heaviest item, at twenty-five pounds or so. The metal stovepipe came in three lightweight sections, one bent to connect to the back of the stove, and the end of the top one fit neatly through a metal-protected gap in the zamjilah. A screen suspended between the two top pieces kept most of the sparks from reaching the zamjilah or the canvas of the roof. Penrys had seen thin metal like that in the Kigali cavalry camp, but couldn’t identify it. A flat piece of the same material made a fireproof platform for the stove to sit on.
The narrow box of the stove was less than two feet deep, with a surface that could hold an iron pan and a deeper covered oven for roasting or stewing. A small door below the grate of the main box allowed for draft control, and its legs were long enough that you could cook standing, if bent over.
Along with a spouted pot for hot water, which could sit on the metal floor plate near the stove when the top was occupied, Hadishti had sworn a woman had everything she needed with this arrangement.
Penrys had done little cooking for herself in Ellech, at the Collegium of Wizards, and only camp food on the trail with Najud, but she’d spent a couple of hours getting some basic lessons from Hadishti, and hoped she could cope. She already knew her body remembered kneading bread—maybe it remembered more about cooking than she realized.
Najud helped her position the beds placed along the walls of the kazr. “Not together?” she asked.
“It wouldn’t be seemly. We have the larger kazr and any discussions will be here. It’s a… public space, after a fashion. That’s why the woman’s bed has a hanging for privacy.”
She laughed. “Isn’t there any way to lock the door?”
He grinned in response. “Oh, we can drop the flap over it. And will. And it’ll be respected, barring an emergency.”
He looked around the bare space. “It seems empty now, but it’ll look more occupied once we bring in our packs. Our homes are portable, but when you move every night, like this, you don’t take as much along. They’re not as friendly-seeming as the ones that stay put and accumulate…”
“Memories?” she suggested.
“Yes, memories.” He beamed at her. “This is ours now, whether or not we find Umzakhilin’s son. Do you like the colors? We can make our own memories here, if you wish it.”
She heard the coaxing in his voice, but her stomach clenched, still, at the thought of making a life among these strangers. At cheating this man of children—she felt sure that was what would happen. And she would never be able to just accept the mystery of her origin, especially in the face of others who seemed to share that with her. She’d never be content to stay and ignore that.
His face fell, and he started to turn away. She reached out and patted his forearm. “I’m sorry, it’s not you.”
“I don’t have to put a chain around my neck to get you to chase me?” he asked, only half-joking.
“Never say that!” Penrys wrapped her arms around his chest and burrowed in. “It’s not that simple.”
He enfolded her in his arms and rested his chin on her head. “I know, Pen-sha, I know.”
He murmured in her ear. “I’ll just have to try and convince you again tonight, after everyone leaves.”
She smiled at the sound of his voice rumbling through his chest against her other ear. “I’ll take that as a promise,” she said.
CHAPTER 19
It was too cold now to stand outside around an open fire, so dinner was made separately in each kazr, and they met again in Najud’s, afterward.
Penrys was secretly pleased with her own efforts. Trail sausage was tastier fried crispy in a little oil, and the grain cakes with dried berries would serve for breakfast, too, or maybe lunch. She’d even thought to put a handful of the dried beans in to soak overnight for a warm breakfast. Scouring the iron pans clean with a bone scraper and a wisp of grass, she left Najud to prepare the bunnas for their guests.
She smiled to herself. Guests, indeed. It felt enough like a home already to make that word seem natural. Najud had been right—with all their personal packs stored safely under cover around the walls, there was still enough room for comfort, and the little stove, fueled by dried dung, put out an amazing level of heat in the enclosed, insulated space, unless throttled by an almost-closed firedraft door. The lantern suspended from the zamjilah shed a soft light on the colorful wooden surfaces—no plain wood had been left unpainted, not the rafters and zamjilah, and not the furniture. Only the tops of the two tables and the seats of the two low chairs were left bare. All the fabrics, from the rugs to the cloths, were a riot of stylized flowers or mythical beasts, sometime both. She wondered if it was to give the eye something to look at in the long, snowy winters.
She glanced around the space. The cloth to surround her bed, suspended by a hook from the top of the lattice wall, was in place, but not spread for use. Hadishti had warned her that every modest woman hung a cloth there for the purpose. Whether it was ever used was another matter, but it was an important symbol. “No one will question what a bikrajti does,” she’d said, “but you are also a woman traveling with men and living with a man who is not your husband.”
When Penrys had opened her mouth to protest, Hadishti raised her hand to stop her. “It’s no concern of mine,” she’d said. “We are grown women and can choose these things. But it’s always best to respect the proper forms.” She’d waved her hand at the hanging cloth hooked to the lattice above her own bedframe.
At the sound of a knock on their door, Najud put the steaming pot of bunnas on the metal floorplate next to the stove. “Ready?”
At her go-ahead gesture, he walked to the door and opened it. The canvas flap had been rolled up above the door when they set the kazr up, but the door had been closed, to keep the warm air in. Now, as Najud beckoned them, the three men stepped in over the threshold of the kazr, careful not to step on the threshold itself to break its luck.
Winnajhubr bowed to Najud and nodded to Penrys, behind him. With formal politeness, he said, “What a fine kazr, bikrajab.”
Jirkat poked him as he went by and seated himself, casually, nearest the pot of steaming bunnas. “And what would you expect the clan’s zarawinnaj to have given his oldest son, when he married?”
Ilzay’s mouth quirked as he joined them, but he nodded to both his hosts before he sat down.
Penrys provided a cloth to use in picking up the pot of bunnas, and Najud offered it to Jirkat, who pulled a cup out of the inside of his robe. E
veryone except Penrys took a cup, and they sipped it for a moment as the aroma of roasted bunnas filled the space. Even Penrys liked the smell, just not the taste.
When no one else looked like they wanted to begin, Ilzay asked, “What does it mean that they still have knives but haven’t escaped?”
Najud looked at Penrys. “Tell them about the horde.”
Penrys cleared her throat. “That other chained wizard, in Rasesdad, that we told you about…”
She looked at them and they nodded. “He had three groups of people with him. One was voluntary, a bunch of brigands from the mountain tribes. They were a guard, a little army for him. Then there were captive wizards, from Rasesdad—he controlled them directly, stole their power and kept them weak.”
“A bikraj thing,” Winnajhubr suggested.
“That’s right. The Kurighdunaq have no wizards to control. And no brigands.”
She swallowed. “And the third, well, we called them the horde. They were ordinary folk, and the Voice, he treated them like puppets, like dolls. They did what they were told, they had no choice about it.”
Najud said, “He used the power he took from the captive wizards for it.” He raised an eyebrow at Penrys, but she shook her head.
“I don’t know how he did it,” she said. “He kept them fed and watered, but it was no concern of his if they lived or died.”
She looked around at their dismayed faces, but it had to be said. “He must have lost a great many of them, before he was stopped.”
Penrys missed the little crackle of burning wood that would have filled the ensuing silence if they were outside. Too bad this fuel makes so little noise.
Jirkat was the first to speak again. “Did this ‘Voice’ use animals, too, like the zarawinnaj’s story?”
Penrys shook her head. “No, that’s something different, something new to me. I can hear animals”—she tapped her forehead—“that’s how I was able to find the strays for you, but I’ve never tried to control them like that.”
She glanced at Najud. *But we both know I can probably learn how. Don’t want to tell them that, though. But what’s she using for power, without wizards?*
*Maybe she doesn’t need much. Maybe controlling people is a lot like controlling animals.*
She winced away from that thought and tried to keep her face expressionless.
Ilzay refilled his cup with bunnas. “I have a special pack I have consecrated to carry…”
Najud nodded. “I will prepare your… our three kinsmen tonight and bring them to you in the morning.”
“Good. The tally horns will be ready by then.”
Penrys had seen them soaking in a pool, downstream of where they drew their water, weighted down by rocks. Najud had explained this would allow what was left of the bony cores to be pulled out so that only clean horn remained.
Najud asked Ilzay, quietly, “Two horns?”
“One for the dead, and one for the living,” Ilzay said, fiercely. “We will not be too late for our people, not all of them.”
Penrys kept Najud company late that evening as he finished the outsides of the pouches of remembrances for the three dead they’d found that day. They shared the low worktable, seated across from each other.
As she’d told him once, her hands seemed to remember leather-working, and she drew the rest of it from his own deep knowledge of it, so he let her finish cutting them from the goat-hides and stitching them together.
“This won’t be enough for more than a few,” she said, patting the rolled remnant of the hide.
Najud looked up from his light engraving of the surface of one of the pouches. “Umzakhilin gave me lots of these hides, two whole packs full, and many rolls of lacing. We thought of footwear or clothing for survivors, not this…” His gesture took in the sad work in front of them.
He finished the last of the names, cut into the surface of the leather. He rummaged through the small pack on the ground at his side until he found a small stoneware bottle from which he poured a bit of oil into a small, shallow dish.
With a little brush, he carefully stirred in finely powdered charcoal dipped with a bone spoon from a small pouch in front of him. When it was the consistency he wanted, he filled in the engraved hollows, very carefully, with the coloring agent.
“I’ll need to paint these twice,” he said, “even with the rough surface I’ve made from the engraving. The first one always soaks into the leather a bit. Once it’s had a little time to partially dry, I’ll do it again. Then they can dry altogether overnight.”
Penrys said, “I’ll just watch. Don’t think I’m much of a painter.” What she meant was that her fingers didn’t itch to pick up a brush, watching Najud, the way her hands did, when he held and worked the leather.
With controlled strokes, Najud filled in the engraved name. The intensity of the black faded as some of it was absorbed into the roughened letters, but even so, the letters were neatly formed, somber and plain.
He covered his dish of paint and suspended two of the three empty pouches near the stovepipe for a few minutes to let them partially dry.
“I’m surprised Ilzay didn’t want to do this himself,” Penrys said.
“They all know how to read and write,” Najud said, “but bikrajab are considered better at that sort of thing. People often come to the bikraj for special work like this, not just the writing, but…”
He waved his hand at the three sad little heaps at the end of the table. Each had bits of fabric, and any jewelry that could be found. In one case, there was a scrap of parchment that said “broken left upper arm.” There were two men that Jirkat and Ilzay could think of who had an old injury like that, and they weren’t sure which one this was. Maybe the remaining relatives would recognize the fabric. The pouch destined for that one had no name engraved on it, and no paint.
Najud glanced sideways at Penrys. “You know, you’ll have to experiment again.”
“What, find out if I can control non-wizards directly? Like she seems to be doing?”
“You have to know how the qahulajti uses her power, if you want to stop her.”
Penrys shook her head. “This isn’t the Temple Academy in Gonglik, and these aren’t wizards. I can’t do this to one of our companions. How would I even explain it to him? He’d hate me, afterward. I have to live with them on this trail for weeks!”
She could feel his sympathy, but it was still impossible. “How about starting with the animals,” he suggested. “We don’t want mice in our things, do we?”
He waggled his fingers and twitched his eyebrows suggestively.
Despite herself, she chuckled.
“You win. Let’s see what I can do with mice.”
She let herself feel the tiny mind-glows in their immediate vicinity. To her somewhat appalled amusement, she found them concentrated under and around the two kazrab, drawn by the heat, she supposed. Najud, looking on through her perception, let some of his own appreciation show. *Well, who can blame them? They just want to be warm.*
*Not in my tent.*
She couldn’t speak to them, anymore than she could speak to a horse. She tried conveying a sense of menace, and an image of a snake. This would probably work better if I could send them the smell of a snake instead. How would I do that?
Still, it had some effect. All of the little mind-glows retreated, especially from her own kazr, though less so from the other one which was further away.
“Don’t know how long that will work,” she said.
“You can check in the morning and see.”
“I’m not sure this is what she did. I didn’t command them, the way she seems to have done with the wolves and the stallion. I just showed them something that wasn’t so to make them do what I wanted.”
Najud looked at her patiently. “Maybe that’s all she does, too.”
“Not with the people, surely. That wouldn’t be enough.”
He considered. “Maybe that depends on what she shows them.”
&nbs
p; CHAPTER 20
After a week, the first light snow had blown in, and then mostly blown off again. The crisp, cold temperatures had kept it dry enough that the trail was still plain.
Penrys found it even more visible from the air, while the snow was light and uneven, a faint but wide scar that meandered over the landscape, headed to the south and west. She was on her outward morning flight of twenty miles, looking for the mind-glows of people or larger animals. When she reached her planned distance, she would return, weaving back and forth across the trail to fix the location of anything her companions should be told about.
Ilzay had announced this morning that they were starting to catch up, that the droppings they were finding were now only weeks old, less than a month. Certainly the track they’d been following had wandered over the low grassy hills and ridges, as if it had no destination in mind.
The hope Ilzay’s news should have engendered was weighed down by the continuing finds of bodies, some horses or cattle, but most of them the clansmen for whom rescue had come too late. Sometimes nothing remained but a skull, but usually the clothing had helped many of the larger bones stay intact. Building cairns became their chief occupation, and they’d learned to be grimly relieved when several of the dead could be gathered in one place into a single cairn.
From the air Penrys was able to spot many more than would have been visible from the ground, but she knew they must be missing some of them. No one spoke of that. The pack with its Kurighdunaq marking, the rainbow, was almost full. The tally horn that Ilzay carried slung from his neck recorded four jal, now, ninety-six, plus another seven couple in the spoken record—tabith, in the old counting language Najud used.
