The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series)

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Quadrilateral symmetry. It was very hard to see people in those strange shapes.

  But these particular people were doing something, and having a lot of difficulty at it.

  She approached slowly, not wishing to startle them; the smallest male did seem startled nevertheless, arms jerking upward and dropping several times during her approach.

  She decided it was a habit of his. Some people, she told herself, are just nervous. But she stopped ten feet away.

  The second demon, the largest and darkest colored of the three, was dragging something along the ground. It was nearly as large as he was.

  The third demon was the speckled male; he stood to one side, either watching the dark male, watching Rowan, or regarding something else entirely— or doing all three. Rowan studied the gentle rise and fall of his arms, wondering what emotion or state of mind the movement might indicate. When, by pure guess, she decided that the males were accustomed to her presence, she came a bit closer; and even the jumpy male did not seem bothered by her.

  The dark male was attempting to add the object he was dragging to one of the groupings of utterances. Unfortunately, it was so large that it immediately displaced all the other objects. All three males set to rearranging the collection around it.

  Rowan sat on her heels, observing the process.

  She had already determined that the utterances were not grouped by size or shape. Some other method of organization must operate, if the males were to have any chance at all of knowing where to find the ones they sought. The only other method the steerswoman could think of was a conceptual organization, with similar or related ideas grouped together. The males had obviously decided that this new object belonged among these others. Eventually, they completed their adjustments, and they stood around the group together in a moment of motionless demon regard.

  Rowan’s mouth twitched. “I suppose I ought to be able to learn something from this,” she said, unable to resist speaking aloud, “but somehow, it seems unkind to leave it there. I don’t think it’s going to be very useful to you.”

  It would, however, be extremely useful to her. It was her pack.

  She could wait until they were gone; she decided not to.

  She moved closer again, by inches, and thought that the stirring of arms must indicate that she had their attention. “Here.” She reached out one hand cautiously toward the pack; the dark male and the speckled one moved further apart to allow her access. The nervous male, on the far side of the grouping, startled three times in succession, then backed away rapidly.

  Rowan found herself addressing the speckled male wryly. “Please tell Twitchy over there that I’m not going to eat him.” Twitchy himself startled once more at her voice, but immediately grew calmer, and even dared to draw a bit nearer again. She found herself admiring him for overcoming what was obviously an urgent, and perhaps instinctive, need to flee or spray.

  Twitchy. And that made two demons she had named.

  And why not? They could certainly hear, better than she could. They might come to learn to recognize human words. She pointed. “Twitchy.” And to her left, the dark male, “Bry,” after a big black dog she once knew. And on her right—

  The speckled male had moved slightly closer, and stood with his nearest two arms gently arched, fingers delicately dangling, just high enough to not obstruct the hearing eyes beneath his skin. Rowan studied him a moment, considered his actions in the case-object maze and on the streets of the city. She smiled. “The Thief of Words.”

  Unfortunately, she soon found that it was impossible to determine whether the act of pointing had any significance to demons. Only when she pointed to the ceiling did they show any reaction, and that a decidedly negative one. Possibly they feared she might try to spray them.

  “Well.” She pulled the pack from the grouping, careful not to disturb the other objects, and knelt down beside it. “Look.” She untied the closure, flipped open the flap. “This is not a word. Nor a sentence— ” She was startled when a demon hand reached into the pack, and she moved back quickly; she was even more surprised to discover that the hand was Twitchy’s. He boldly thrust it deep in the pack, pulled out Rowan’s spare blouse by one sleeve, and immediately fed the length of it into his maw.

  Rowan mastered her surprise and watched, bemused. “I’m sure that’s not good for you.” Her little tin cook pot followed the blouse. “And you’re definitely going to have trouble with that.” The Thief and Bry were standing well aside, arms rising and falling slightly, in what Rowan decided was a watching-something-interesting stance.

  Presently Twitchy thought better of his actions, and extracted the pot and the blouse. He dropped both to the ground, the blouse a sodden, tattered mass. The three demons shifted positions— to gain a better view, Rowan realized. All three stood motionless; then all three walked away.

  Well. At the least, Rowan had identified two different demon body postures: watching-something-interesting and the Thief’s clearly directional closely-observing-one-specific-thing. Progress of a sort.

  As she tied the pack closed, it suddenly occurred to her that Twitchy had assumed that the pack, not being an utterance, must be an animal carcass, and had attempted to dine on its entrails.

  Still, she had her pack. Her logbook, pens, and ink would keep her occupied until it was safe to leave. No blanket, nor cloak— she had not completely dismantled her camp, planning to stay one more night— but a woolen vest would help Janus stay warm. There was a packet of dried meat and at the bottom, a precious canteen of water—

  The demons returned. Bry arrived first and, choosing a clear space between two groupings, set down three utterances. Then he stepped back from them and stood, shuffling his feet slightly, resulting in a slow rotation of his entire body, for what purpose Rowan could not even begin to guess.

  Rowan rose, went somewhat closer, considered the objects. She made a noise, whose purpose even she could not identify: frustration? Longing? One would think that a language of physical objects would at the least contain components that resembled the things to which they referred, as the wood-gnome’s gesture language sometimes did.

  Wood-gnome. She could not emit shaped objects, but she could shape her hands. And demons had hands.

  Twitchy arrived, an utterance in each hand. He stood for a moment, perhaps considering Bry’s statement, then placed his own beside it. Bry became motionless, then returned to circular shuffling.

  The Thief returned, and as Rowan expected, had carried his own statement in his maw. But he first paused, and having seen it three times now, Rowan identified the specific looking-at-a-new-statement pose. Then he extracted his own statements, arranged them; and all three first looked and then, perhaps, contemplated, arms slowly rising and falling.

  Rowan waved her hands as wood gnomes did to get one’s attention; an alteration in the demons’ arm movements suggested that it had worked. Then Rowan gestured: You, me, speak.

  But you and me consisted merely of pointing. Speak was gestured at the mouth, and would have some significance only if these demons knew she communicated with her mouth— or for that matter, even knew that it was her mouth. Or knew that her mouth was located on her head. Or knew what her head was.

  And in two days of observations in the city, she had never seen any demon gesture in any fashion. How was she even to assign signals to objects if she could not point at them?

  She slapped the pack beside her, signaled pack. She went to Twitchy’s discarded meal, rapped the pot with her knuckles. The sound was not loud enough to pass through her earplugs, but, predictably, it caused Twitchy to startle again. Cup, Rowan gestured, having forgotten the wood gnome gesture for pot. Cup would do.

  She was completely unable to determine what impression, if any, the demons gained from her antics. She thought they were watching her; they might as easily have been regarding each other, the statements they had made, or the furthest walls of the cave.

  Abruptly, the Thief froze in the look-at-a-s
tatement pose. The others noticed, did the same, then shifted to “watching.” With obvious hesitancy and caution, the Thief approached Rowan.

  The steerswoman forced herself not to retreat, with difficulty. Three feet away, with the pot and blouse between them, the Thief stopped.

  She was sitting on her heels; the demon loomed above her. She found herself looking up at him, to where his face ought to be. Nothing there; but below that, between the shoulders, two puckered spray-vents, pulsing slightly, weirdly.

  The Thief tucked his feet close, lowered himself, and sat, four knees high all around, in a demon version of Rowan’s own posture. Delicately, he reached out his nearest hand, folded the fingers, then rapped once on the pot.

  “Yes!” Cup, cup, Rowan gestured rapidly; but the Thief, ignoring her, picked up the pot, passed it to his opposite hand, and walked back to the other demons.

  Arrived, he placed the pot beside the utterances. All three entered into “look,” and then “contemplate.”

  Rowan thumped one knee with her fist. “No, it’s not a word.” She crossed over to them; Bry and the Thief politely shifted, to allow her to join the contemplative circle. “No, it’s— ” she knelt on the stony floor “— it’s a thing, an object, a tool— ” She had seen no tools in the city, no implements of any sort: even the hunting party had carried no spears. Other than utterances, the only made objects she had seen were dens, the tables in the courtyard, the rings around the rock pools, the rough stone breakwater.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said helplessly. “You use it …” She picked it up; the demons increased their attention. “It’s a container …” She turned it over, used it to cover one of the case-objects—

  Startlement, from all three, so sudden, so extreme that Rowan instinctively ducked, wrapped her face in her arms, remained in a trembling ball, waiting for spray or attack.

  None came. She unfolded herself.

  Twitchy was gone; moth-light deep in the cave showed where he had run to seek his words. Bry stood, arms rising and falling one at a time in sequence all around his body: a curious weaving motion that Rowan had seen before.

  The Thief had the pot. He was lifting it, lowering it, lifting and lowering, covering a different case-object each time, and displaying with each uncovering the identical degree of extreme startlement.

  Rowan sat back, wrapped her arms around her knees, watched. “Apparently,” she said presently, “this is an entirely new concept in your experience, am I right?”

  Twitchy arrived, precariously carrying eight utterances, which he immediately spilled to the ground and set to arranging. The Thief demonstrated the pot trick, which caused Twitchy to weave his arms as Bry did. Bry discovered an urgent need to comment, and hurried off to find the means of doing so, leaving a trail of moth light on the ceiling behind him like a comet’s tail.

  What an incredibly inefficient means of speaking, Rowan thought. Less so for the females, of course, but even so: how carefully one must choose one’s statements, how slowly information must spread! On the other hand, once something was said, how easy to transport the utterance itself, like writing and speaking simultaneously …

  The females’ utterances were far more complex, more sophisticated. Possibly a great deal of information could be carried by one discrete object. The males must be speaking a simplified version, perhaps as clumsy as baby talk; and what a shame that their quick minds had no easier expression.

  “Clay,” she said to the demons. “What you boys need is clay. Why have you not discovered clay?” The next steerswoman who came here would certainly introduce its use; although that might inspire antagonism from the females …

  Bry approached, a case-object in each hand. At the least, Rowan decided, she would have some idea of what he was talking about …

  Bry stopped. He dropped his words. The Thief and Twitchy paused.

  All three demons walked away.

  Rowan puzzled. “Now what?” Light rose behind her; she turned.

  She had only an impression of movement, the flash of steel; words scattered. Then he was past her, clumsy, stooped.

  “No!” She scrambled to her feet, threw herself at him. He had nearly caught up with Bry. She clutched his shirt, swung him around. The talisman fell from his right hand, where it had been awkwardly balanced on the bandages. “Are you insane?” It struck the ground, landing at an angle that displayed only its underside.

  The demons saw him, threw up their arms.

  “No!” She swung Janus behind her, wrenched the sword from his grip, shoved him to the ground, turned back, interposed herself, held up one hand to the demons in a useless, meaningless gesture, spoke out loud, helplessly, “No, he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

  The demons hesitated, during which moment Rowan seemed to have a great deal of time to contemplate exactly how foolish it was to place herself in such a situation. She thought she ought to go for the talisman; she also thought— and this very clearly— that she ought not move at all, not the slightest bit.

  Twitchy had already made his escape. The Thief stood near the door, arms raised. Bry, the largest and strongest of the males, had his two near arms raised high, his far-side arms spread low and wide, taloned fingers forward, guarding the retreat of his companions.

  The Thief relaxed, slowly; Bry did not. The Thief shuffled a few cautious steps forward, reached out one hand, wrapped the fingers around one of Bry’s. He tugged gently.

  Bry allowed himself to be led away, keeping his near-side arms high enough to spray, high enough to keep a very clear view of exactly what he was leaving behind.

  Rowan turned back to Janus; he lay half sprawled among scattered case-objects, watching her with a wild gaze. “You idiot,” she said. “They’re helping us.” His mouth moved; she could not hear him. She pulled out her earplugs. “What?”

  “You should have killed them.”

  She composed herself with difficulty. “Janus …” She went to him, reluctantly offered a hand to help him up. “I know that demons hurt you, but you’ve got to understand— it wasn’t these demons.” He stared at her hand, seeming not to recognize it. Then he took it; she pulled him up. “Demons aren’t animals, Janus. They’re intelligent, just as humans are. They’re people. You can’t just go about randomly slaughtering people— ”

  And realization struck her so hard she felt blinded.

  A village, inhabitants vanished, structures reduced to dust by wind and rain.

  Another, emptied of life.

  A third, with its dead lying in the streets, on the hillsides.

  And an innocent line on a traveler’s map. Janus’s route, with its simple notations, each crossed out: ONE. TWO. THREE.

  Janus, sailing away from Alemeth in his copper-bottomed boat. Janus, with his perfect protection from demon attack, walking the demon streets like a ghost, impervious, invisible.

  His face was inches away; his hand was still in hers. She flung it away, stepped back, and back. She gasped once, said, “No.”

  He watched her; he said nothing.

  “No! No, tell me you didn’t!”

  No answer; his face was blank.

  “But, but”— and she pleaded— “you didn’t know, did you? You didn’t know they were people— ”

  Silence. Silence, and his empty eyes.

  He had known.

  “Are you insane?”

  No words.

  She threw her sword down; it clanged on stone, loud. “Why?” He said something; she did not catch it. “What?”

  “Payment.”

  She flung out her arms. “For what?” A crypt in the wilderness. “Your shipmates? The ones who survived the wreck? Demons killed them?” Revenge, yes, that she could understand. “Oh, but, Janus, surely,” and she said, “surely one town was revenge enough— ”

  No visible remorse, no visible shame, not even any anger; and on his face, in his eyes, not one single visible thought.

  “Oh, no wonder, no wonder they came for yo
u, hunted you.” She clutched her own arms, tight, shaking. “All those poor people … You’re, you’re some kind of creature, a monster from the Inner Lands! Murderer— ” Her voice cracked in her throat, painful. “I should leave you here to die— ”

  “Why don’t you?”

  She could not answer; she could not even find the answer that she was not permitted to speak. She made some sort of sound; she heard it. But even she did not know what it meant. She shut her eyes.

  Three dead towns. Insects and animals, feasting on corpses. “Janus … why … ?” She opened her eyes.

  He stood, green light shuddering about his head, shadows beyond and around, demon thoughts lying scattered about his feet. And at that moment, what seemed to Rowan impossible, incomprehensible, and terrifying was merely: his human shape, the thinking tilt of his head, the slight knit of his brows as, with every appearance of calm rationality, he carefully considered her question.

  Then he said, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, “Sometimes, Rowan, one pays in advance.”

  42

  He would say no more than that; eventually, she ceased to ask.

  She waited. She could do nothing else.

  Tan did not return. Of the males, only the Thief visited in the night, bringing food and leaving immediately after. He did not attempt to converse.

  Rowan waited.

  She tried to fill her time. She wrote in her logbook, made sketches of the four demons she had named and of selected groups of case-objects. She drew the formal demon body stances she had identified: surprise, confusion, regard an utterance, contemplate.

  She searched the cave for her ring and her name. She did not find them.

  She gave Janus food, when the Thief brought it, and her woolen vest, when it grew cold. And she waited.

  She slept close to the entrance, so that demon-voice would wake her before Janus. She kept the talisman, kept her sword close by. A night passed, and a day, and another night.

  The next morning, Rowan woke to find herself blanketed in delicate moth wings which crumbled under her touch. The entire cave floor, and all the beautiful, organized words, were covered in drifts, as if from a pale green snowfall. On the ceiling, the wingless moths were clambering, seeking each other, mating.