Witchlanders

by Lena Coakley

Falpian peered at him. His lips looked painfully chapped, and patches of windburn stood out against his pale cheeks. “Ryder,” he said gently, “you know my people couldn’t have done it. Look at this path! No army has come this way.”

  Ryder shook his head. “But I told you, it wasn’t an army. If it’s the same thing that attacked my village, it was—they were—things. Men made of earth and sticks and nothing else. You can’t kill them!”

  “Listen to yourself! You don’t really believe in the gormy man, do you?”

  Ryder grabbed Falpian by the coat. “You know what it was? You know what they’re called?”

  “No!” Falpian cried. He took hold of Ryder’s arm, but it was more a gesture of reassurance than defense. “Of course not! That’s just a story. Something you tell children. You know, ‘Wash your face or the gormy man will get you.’ It’s not real.”

  Ryder let go. “The ones I saw were real enough.”

  “If the Baen had magic like that, don’t you think we would have used it against you during the war?”

  Ryder frowned at him for a moment, then cursed. Part of him wished he could doubt Falpian, but he knew the Baen was telling the truth the same way he knew all those other things about him, things he’d never been told, but that were in his head like his own thoughts. Falpian really didn’t know—not about the attack on the village or on the coven.

  “I’m letting you go,” Ryder said abruptly. Falpian stared, but Ryder avoided his gaze. “Don’t ask why. I hardly know myself.” He took off his pack and pulled out some crumbled bits of lump, stuffing handfuls into the velvet pockets of Falpian’s coat. “Here, take this. I won’t need it now. You can sleep in the shelter tonight.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “I’m letting you go. Are you really going to argue?”

  “But . . .”

  Ryder didn’t want to explain. Said aloud, the words would sound ridiculous—brothers in spirit. The last thing he wanted was a brother. More family just meant more people to worry about, more people to protect. More people to grieve for when they died.

  “My mother sent me to you. She gave a prophecy that there was an assassin on the mountain and that he must not succeed. I thought it was you at first, but then . . . it seemed like you were the one I was supposed to save from an assassin. I don’t understand it. I never believed in prophecies or magic, but I told myself I’d never doubt my mother again. For some reason you’re supposed to be alive.” With that he shouldered his pack and started down the path toward the coven.

  “There’s more to it,” Falpian said in a quiet voice behind him. “I know there is.”

  Ryder turned. Falpian was staring down at him, his dark eyes puzzled. Bo stood next to him, making his high whistling whine, looking back and forth between the two young men.

  “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  Ryder frowned, shrugging. “In the past two days, there have been so many times when you could have killed me,” he finally said. “How can I take you to the witches now? You’re right. They’d slaughter you in a moment. I can see who you are in a way . . . in a way they never could.”

  This was as close as Ryder wanted to come to admitting that there really was a bond between them, that there was something to this talat-sa business. Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and started down the path, walking as quickly as he could.

  There was a small boulder at the edge of the plateau just big enough for Falpian to sit and think. Part of him was happy, elated with relief, but this was an illogical feeling. His duty was still clear: Bron hadn’t killed him, Ryder hadn’t killed him, the witches hadn’t killed him—but that didn’t mean he was really free. Now there was no one left but Falpian to do what had to be done.

  This would be even better for his father’s plans. There would be a body now. There would be a funeral pyre on the beach. The nobles would come and murmur, Shame, shame. So young, and in mourning, too. We cannot let it stand. Haven’t the Witchlanders taken enough? Now they steal our very children from us. His father would wear blue for mourning, and he would fix his face with grief.

  Yes, Falpian’s duty was clear. He must go back to Stonehouse and finish the mission. He must make Bron’s death and his own look like an attack by the witches. He must start a war. But instead he sat motionless on the boulder.

  Ryder had disappeared into the trees, leaving heavy footprints. Bo seemed eager to follow; he stood whimpering at the top of the path, throwing Falpian pathetic glances.

  “Go ahead!” Falpian snapped. “Go ahead and join your new master if you’re so in love with him!”

  Bo stared at him, then settled into the snow with a sigh, his chin on his paws. Falpian was relieved by this response; he didn’t really want to be left alone.

  He slid down off his stone perch and paced back and forth, trying to make sense of what he’d learned. The coven had been attacked, that much was clear. But by what? The idea that Ryder was mad had been gradually falling away as Falpian got to know him, but there was no believing in the gormy man. Was there?

  And yet . . . what if it was real? He could almost see the creature lurching up out of the dirt to punish the wicked, just like in the old stories. The Baen didn’t have such magic, did they? If they did, surely Falpian would have heard a whisper of it. And even if he hadn’t, how could Baen magicians work such spells right under the witches’ noses without getting caught?

  Bo made a bored little moan, but Falpian ignored him. If it wasn’t a Baen who made whatever had attacked the coven, he reasoned, it must have been a Witchlander—but why would they harm their own people? Could the witches be experimenting with new magics? Maybe they had discovered some powerful new weapon they couldn’t yet control.

  Falpian stopped short in the snow. The very idea made him want to go straight home and tell his father. This was the reason he couldn’t die: His father had to be told that his forces couldn’t attack now, not when the enemy might have some potent new magic.

  But a moment later he was frowning and shaking his head. What could he possibly tell his father? That Baen soldiers might be in danger from monsters out of a nursery tale? His father would think the whole story was just a weak excuse for Falpian’s not completing his mission. And maybe he’d be right. Falpian had no idea what Ryder had really seen—bandits in some sort of costume, perhaps. That was certainly more likely than a throng of gormy men.

  Falpian stamped his feet to beat away the cold, and as he did, his eye fell on the border marker. Only the rounded top was poking out of the snow, but it was enough for him to see Witchlander pictographs written on the stone. Stop, Baen, they said.

  How arrogant, Falpian thought, for the Witchlanders to write a message to the Baen in pictographs. But of course it was practical, too. The Baen alphabet was becoming rare, even in the Bitterlands. Soon it would be an artifact, like the Baen language itself, taught only to scholars and magicians. Everyone spoke Witchlander now. He brushed the snow from the black stone and read the words.

  Stop, Baen.

  Set no foot farther.

  The Goddess has stained your eyes that we may

  know your darkness.

  Good men and women will shudder at the sight of

  you and take up arms.

  Stay in your bitter lands and beg forgiveness,

  or Baen will be no more.

  A chill ran through him. Baen will be no more. The Witchlanders were just waiting for another attack, weren’t they? They’d use it as an excuse to exterminate every Baen they saw, and they wouldn’t stop at the border this time. It was what the Witchlanders really wanted, a world without the Baen.

  Just then an idea occurred to Falpian that made him smile, made him feel a little warmer in spite of the frigid chill. This time his people must be sure their attack succeeded. He didn’t like the idea of war, but if it was coming, the Baen must win. And Falpian could help with that.

  Rumors of the gormy men were not enough, but if Falpian could fi
nd out more, confirm their existence and find out who made them, or root out some other piece of intelligence that would help his people when the fighting came, it would justify his staying alive. Since the last war, no Baen had set foot in the Witchlands. No one knew what had changed, how strong the enemy was. His people needed a spy. His father needed a spy.

  Falpian stared down into the gray trees, and his heart quaked. He thought he could almost feel the witches’ presence, strange and malevolent beyond the bare treetops. But for the first time since he’d unrolled the blank scroll, he could imagine coming home alive and having his father welcome him. He wouldn’t have to go far across the border, he told himself. He’d see what he could learn observing the coven from the trees, and if he was caught, he’d ask for Ryder. Ryder trusted him. He’d let Falpian go, hadn’t he? Falpian could use that.

  “Father,” he said aloud, “I’m going to prove to you that I’m worth more alive than dead.”

  It was a ludicrous plan, probably. But behind him, Falpian could see only death, and ahead of him there was at least a chance. Somewhere over the border was an offering he could lay at his father’s feet, some gift of information that would wipe the look of disappointment off his father’s face for good. And Falpian was going to find it. Besides, it seemed right to be doing something foolish and brave, as foolish and brave as lying about his age and crewing a black ship at the age of sixteen.

  Bo barked and gleefully thumped his tail; he seemed to understand that he and Falpian would be crossing the border.

  “I don’t know what you’re so happy about,” Falpian said. “We’ll probably die.”

  Without giving himself a chance to change his mind, he took a deep breath, raised his chin, and stepped forward. Then, following Ryder’s footprints in the snow, Falpian Caraxus and Bodread the Slayer crossed the invisible line in the path, the first Baen and his dreadhound to enter the Witchlands in twenty years.

  PART THREE

  Cursed are those who believe in a Goddess, who cannot see that a world created by a woman would be a backward place, that rivers would run uphill, animals would rule over humans, the sun would give off darkness instead of light.

  But worse still is the Baen woman who tries to sing. Remove her from the company of other women. Cut out her voice, and fill her mouth with mud.

  Make her silent.

  —The Magician’s Enchiridion

  CHAPTER 17

  TALAT-SA

  Ryder came out of the trees below the coven and broke into a run. It was as he’d feared. The witches’ settlement had been destroyed.

  “Skyla!” he called. “Pima!”

  He ran past a great black circle in the clearing where he’d tried to convince the villagers to cross the border. The firecall must have burned there, but now it was almost cold, with only a few coals glowing in its center.

  “Is anyone here?” he called. He stopped, winded, at the foot of the stone steps.

  Only one hut was still standing, the nearest to the clearing, but it was listing badly, and its door swayed open and shut in the wind. Beyond it, on either side of the steps, piles of splintered wood marked where the other huts had been. Ryder tried to remember which one had belonged to his cousin Yulla.

  He made himself climb the snow-covered steps, steeling himself for what he might find. The once high torches lay across his path like fallen trees. Remnants of witch lives were strewn everywhere: baskets, cooking pots, broken chairs—even a few goats wandered forlornly through the rubble. It was just like in the village. It was just like . . . Ryder felt suddenly dizzy, thinking of the day he’d found his cottage destroyed. His ears rang. Yellowhead. His horrid rolling eyes. His screams. Why had he left Skyla and Pima here? How could he have left them unprotected? He took a deep breath, trying to calm his rising panic.

  Behind him something clattered. Ryder stiffened. It was a familiar sound, but it took him a moment to place it. When he finally did, he turned and skidded back down the steps to the only surviving hut: Someone was throwing bones.

  Inside, a woman sat alone in the darkness. She was staring so intently at her casting that she didn’t seem to notice him. One of the smaller bones had rolled to the doorway, and Ryder squinted at it in disbelief. It looked like his mother’s anchor bone.

  “Mabis?” Ryder whispered to the shadows. His voice quivered with hope.

  The woman stood up and moved around the casting to greet him. It was Aata’s Right Hand, the girl in white, her cheeks stained with old tears.

  “Are my sisters alive?” Ryder asked sharply.

  She nodded.

  “Both? Both alive and unharmed?”

  She nodded again.

  Ryder turned abruptly, knees weak with relief. He walked away, not caring where he was going, the air cold in his lungs.

  When he reached a small, snow-covered garden at the back of the hut, he finally stopped and took another deep breath. They were alive. They were all right. A movement in the snow startled him, but it was only a flock of bicker-birds, hardly visible against the white ground. A great basket of seeds lay overturned, and the little birds hopped about, jostling one another for the biggest portion of an unexpected winter feast. As he stepped forward, they lifted into the air and swirled around him, whistling and chattering as if it were spring. Ryder’s heart lifted with them. He still had a family. Thank you, Aata. Thank you, Aayse.

  The girl in white was watching him, but ducked inside when Ryder looked her way. He followed her back into the hut, leaving the door ajar. The floor was badly slanted, and the furniture lay in a tangled pile at the near side of the room. The stone fireplace was cold.

  “Have they gone to the village?” he asked. “My sisters and the others?”

  Aata’s Right Hand shook her head, pulling a thin shawl around her shoulders. Her quilted tunic and loose pants were streaked with dirt. Ryder moved toward her, avoiding the bones, his boots tracking snow.

  “The caves, then?”

  She nodded.

  “Why aren’t you with them? Have they banished you?” He looked at her shrewdly. “Or are you ashamed to show your face after that false prophecy you gave?”

  The girl’s expression hardened. She bent to her knees to collect the bones strewn over the slanted floor.

  “Why don’t you speak?” In the dim light, Ryder could see that the red mark signifying her vow of silence was now just a dark smear at her throat. “After all you’ve done, why should the Goddess care if you break your vow or keep it?”

  She ignored him, but he could see his words stung. Awkwardly she drew together the heap of bones. They were smaller and newer than Mabis’s set—deer and goat mostly, the partial jaw of a rabbit with some of the teeth still attached. She raised them over her head, then dashed them to the floor as if she wished they might break. Ryder suppressed a cry, stepping back against the wall as bones slid toward him. They rolled and skittered to the low part of the room, making a wide casting. She bent to peer at them, then gave Ryder a searching look and pointed to the floor.

  “What?” he said.

  She pointed again.

  “Are you asking me if I can read your bones?”

  She nodded as he stepped toward her.

  “Can’t you?”

  The girl tried to look away, but Ryder grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. “Can you read them or not?” Aata’s Right Hand stared up at him with fear in her eyes. “It’s so convenient that you can’t speak, isn’t it?” he hissed. “You have so much to answer for.”

  She pulled away, then grabbed a lump of charred wood from the hearth. Hurriedly, she began to draw some symbols on the curved wall.

  “Don’t bother,” Ryder said. The girl continued to write. “I said don’t bother. I can’t read—not enough to understand, anyway.”

  She stopped and glared at him, then shook her head and threw the coal back into the hearth.

  “I asked a yes or no question. Can you read the bones?”

  After a slight hesitation, the g
irl shook her head.

  “Could you ever read them?”

  She shook her head again.

  Ryder felt a cold anger sweep over him. “Why?” he demanded. “Why for Aata’s sake did you ever say you could? Are you insane?” Tears were coming to her eyes now. She pointed to the writing on the wall as if the lines and circles there could somehow justify her actions.

  “Speak!” Ryder shouted. “It’s because of you. It’s because of you that the witches ignored my mother’s warnings. She might be . . . She might . . .” He couldn’t say the word “dead.” Wouldn’t say it. He pushed past her. “I’m wasting my time. I’m going up to the caves to speak to Sodan and the other elders.”

  Outside, Ryder stared up at the mountain’s crooked peak. It couldn’t be far, not compared to all the climbing he had already done, but he was so tired.

  “Wait,” said a voice.

  Ryder wheeled around, startled.

  Aata’s Right Hand pulled her shawl tighter. “Did you kill the Baen?” Her voice was hoarse and breathy.

  A moment before, Ryder had scorned her for not speaking; now he felt a stab of pity. “Your vow.”

  “After all I’ve done, why should the Goddess care if I break my vow or keep it?”

  Ryder winced, hearing the cruelty in his own words. In the light of day, he saw how defeated she looked. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks looked sunken.

  “The Baen was innocent,” Ryder said. “He didn’t make the creatures.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Who else could it have been?”

  “So you don’t think it was my mother anymore?”

  She paused, and in that moment, Ryder saw what she must be thinking—that Mabis couldn’t be responsible for the second attack because she must be dead.

  “A witch did this,” he told her before she could give voice to her thoughts. “Someone who understands magic. Maybe you, for all I know.”

  The girl’s brown eyes widened. She gestured to the ruin around her. “How could I do this? And why? Why would any witch destroy her own coven?”