by Jo Clayton
Tres eidolon appeared before her as she crawled into the shelter. “Well?”
She crouched on the groundsheet and stared at him. “I have it,” she said finally. “How long is this snow going to last?”
When he spoke, his mindvoice was flat and dull, scraped down to bone. He was answering her for one reason only, his report would get her to him faster. No, not her, the talisman. “It will be finished around sunup. The wind will blow hard after the snow stops falling, but you can ride in it; you had better ride in it, it will cover your tracks. It will drop after an hour or so, but there will be gusts of cold damp air, the kind that eat to the heart. You need to watch the ponies, do not override them. There is a road of sorts going south through the foothills, the Vanner Rukks use it in spring and summer, but they have settled for the winter so you will not see them. If you follow the road and make fair time you should reach a Gsany Rukk village by sundown. You can shelter for the night in the CommonHouse and buy more grain and tea there, they keep a supply for winter travelers. After that, you will have a week of clear, cold weather, then the next storm hits. You had better find shelter for that one, it is going to be a three-day blizzard; there are several Gsany villages close together, so you will have a choice of where to spend the waiting time. Come as quickly as you can, sister, I am very weary of this state.” The eidolon shimmered and was gone.
Korimenei sighed. “Well, Aili my Liki, looks like nothing’s changed. I’ll be happier’n he is when this is over. Every time I see him, I feel like he’s clawed me.” She smoothed her hand down the front of her coat, then scratched behind the mahsar’s ears. “We’ll go somewhere warm and friendly, my Aili, and wait for my daughter to be born.”
##
In the morning, as the eidolon had predicted, there were six inches of snow on the ground but none falling and a wind that cut like knives. Ailiki brought the ponies in, fed them grain she’d stolen from the Rushgar stores. The little mahsar was changing as every day passed, becoming less a beast than a furry person, even her face was flattening-slowly, imperceptibly, but steadily until Korimenei was sure she saw a human face emerging from the fur. If the change continued, maybe someday Ailiki would be able to talk to her. She stowed her gear in pouches that were beginning to show the strains of this long journey and took apart the shelter, rolling the several pieces of canvas into a neat packet.
By midmorning she’d found the Vanner Road; the stiff winds earlier had swept parts of it clear of snow, so she made better time, but the ponies refused to be pushed. They were shaggy with their winter coats, but not nearly so fat as they should have been. Despite the care she’d taken of them, they were as worn as the leather on her pouches, as worn as she felt some days though the morning stckness had left her before she reached the mountains. She walked and rode, rode and walked, slipped, trudged, cursed the mountains and the cold and her brother for sending her out in this weather.
As dusk settled over the slopes she rounded a bulge and found herself on the outskirts of a small neat village that reminded her very much of her home vale. She stopped her pony, whistled with pleasure. Even in the shadowy dimness she could see how bright the colors were, how clean and simple the lines were. The houses were smaller than the multifamily dwellings she knew as a child, they were like beads on a string, elbowing their neighbors, instead of standing solitary in a Housegarden, but they had the same high-peaked roofs with cedar shakes oiled until they were almost black, the same whitewashed walls with painted straps and beams, the same heavy shutters carved in deep relief. She couldn’t see the designs, no doubt they were quite different, the thing was, they were there in the same place as the ones she knew. She felt her souls expand, her metaphorical el-
bows come away from her sides. She understood for the first time how much she missed her family, her people. She’d joked with Frit about going home; now she was indeed going-home and she was suddenly very happy about that. Smiling fondly, perhaps foolishly, she nudged the pony into a weary walk and headed for the CommonHouse on the west side of the Square. Behind her, Ailiki made the little hissing sound Kori thought of as mahsar laughter and clucked the pack pony into moving after her.
4
Three days later she rode from a thick stand of conifers and saw a dead man sprawled facedown on the snow, three stubby arrows like black quills protruding from his back and his left leg. Blood was a splash of crimson on the snow. Crimson? It was still leaking out of the man. He had to be alive.
She slid off the pony, ran to him and knelt beside him, fingers searching under his jaw; she couldn’t feel a pulse, but bodyread told her, yes, he was alive. “Aili, come here.” She scooped up the mahsar and set her on the man’s back. “Do what you can to warm him, my Liki, while I figure how to move him off this snow.” Without realizing what she was doing, she closed her band about Frunzacoache; the talisman felt eager, as if it had suffered frustration from being unused all the years it sat in the shaman’s pouch. It was a focus of renewal, that’s what the books said anyway. The Great Talismans weren’t living creatures in any sense of that word, but Kushundallian said they sometimes showed a kind of willfulness, as if they recognized in some nonthinking way what they wanted and used whatever hands that came their way to get it.
She sat on her heels and rubbed at her back. It was late afternoon, the sky was boiling with clouds though the air down near the earth was barely stirring; it was several degrees above freezing, but that was not much help to the man stretched out beside her. If he wasn’t to die on her, she had to get those shafts out of him and move him under cover… she touched his long black hair, drew her fingers along his cheekbones, down his nose, trying to remember where she’d seen him before. There was something… something about him… she couldn’t catch hold of it, not yet. He was warmer; Ailiki’s cuddle was starting to work on him. He was also bleeding faster. She jumped to her feet and ran to her stores.
She tugged him into the road and onto a piece of canvas, bunched blankets about him to hold in the warmth Ailiki was feeding him, then she sat on her heels scowling at the arrows. She had to get them out without killing him. Cut them out? She shuddered at the thought. Inanimate Transfer? Might as well grab hold of them and drag them out of him. She could burn the shafts, but that would leave the points sunk in him. Inanimate Transform? Hmm. Might work. With a little help. Leg arrow first; if I blow it, I’ll do less damage there. She pulled Frunzacoache from under her shirt and pressed her left hand over it as she got ready for the act of transforming. She started to reach for the shafts, stopped her hand. Are the points iron or bone or stone or what? She grasped the shaft and read down it. Iron, yes.
“Meta mephi mephist mi,” she chanted, hand tight about the shaft, feeling it vibrate against her palm as currents of change stirred in it. “Syda ses sydoor es es. Meta mephi mephist mi. Xula xla es eitheri.”
The wood sublimated into the air; a thread of clear water oozed from the wound.
She smiled, shook herself, and eased Frunzacoache’s chain over her head. Pressing the flat crystal enclosing the deathless leaf over the puncture wound, she held it there though the heat it generated grew so intense it was painful, held it and held it until the heat dropped out of it. She lifted the talisman and inspected the place where the wound had been. The puncture was closed; there wasn’t even a scar to mark where it had been.
She rocked on her knees along his body until she could reach another of the arrows; it jerked rhythmically, a movement so tiny it was hard to see unless she looked closely at the flights. It had to be lodged tight against the man’s heart. Tricky. If it had penetrated something vital, getting it out might be as dangerous as leaving it in, he might bleed to death before… She opened her hand and gazed thoughtfully at Frunzacoache for a minute, then closed her fingers about it and chanted: Meta mephi mephist mi… and as soon as the chant was done, slapped the talisman over the wound and held it…
Contented with the results, she moved to the arrow high in the shoulder and began the c
hant for the third time…
When she lifted Frunzacoache, it felt swollen, tumescent, as if it drew power into itself by expending power. It was so heavy it seemed to jump from her fingers to land on the man’s back, driving a grunt out of him though he didn’t seem to be waking up.
“Sounds like you’re going to live, whoever you are.” She felt under his jaw. A strong steady throb pulsed against her fingertips and his skin was warm, but not too warm. “Yes indeed.’ She started to straighten, but stopped as Ailiki chittered anxiously and put a small black hand on her arm. “You want me to do something more? Obviously you do.” She moved closer to the man so she could kneel on the canvas; the cold from the sodden earth was striking up through her trousers and worrying at her bodyheat. Frowning, she focused on the man, scanning him in a full bodyread. “Poison, tchah! He’s rotten with it. I wonder… minhl no time for that. Back to business.” Reluctantly, because her fingers were aching and stiff with cold, she cupped her hands about Frunzacoache and called on its gift of renewal to help, her finch the poison from the man and heal its ravages.
When the work was complete, she lifted the talisman. Heavy, dark, swollen, it frightened her; though she didn’t want to, she slid the chain over her head and tucked Frunzacoache under her shirt. It was hotter than she’d expected, the heat burned into her but vanished almost as soon as she felt it. She tucked her trembling hands into her armpits and looked around. The ponies were kicking through the snow and tearing up clumps of withered grass. A deer came to the edge of the trees, gazed out at her a long minute then retreated into the shadows. Otherwise the narrow winding flat and the stony slopes were devoid of life; sunk inches below the level of the flat by generations of hooves and high-wheeled wagons, the Road was the only sign that people had passed this way. Overhead, there was a high thin film of cloud, gray and cold. A chill wet wind was gathering strength around her; it blew across her face and insinuated itself into every crevice in her clothing. She shivered and wondered what she should do next. She couldn’t just leave the man lying beside the Road. I have seen him before. I know it. Somewhere. Silili? Doesn’t feel right. Where.. where..
The wind blew a strand of black hair forward over his face; it tickled his nose and he sneezed. And opened his eyes.
He rolled over, dislodging Ailiki.
She gave an explosive treble snort and lalloped across to the ponies; she jumped onto the saddle and sat watching the man with vast disapproval as he pushed himself up and ran his eyes over Korimenei.
“I know you. At least…” He moved his shoulders, felt at his leg, looked round at the splatters of blood and forgot what he’d been saying. “I owe you one, Saiiri.”
Korimenei laughed. “Three.”
“Huh? Ah! Your point.” He narrowed his very blue eyes, inspected her more closely. “Kori?”
“It’s Korimenei these days.”
“Does that mean you’ve taken a husband?”
“No husband. I travel alone.” She stood, fumbled in the pocket of her coat for her gloves. He knows me as Kori, she thought, I haven’t been called Kori for ten years, ten… god’s blood, I DO know him. She glanced at him again. I think I know him.
He struggled onto his feet, grimacing at his weakness; it would take time to replace the flesh he’d lost in healing and the blood that’d leaked out of him. “I see you didn’t stay home and marry one of your cousins. How’s your brother? Don’t tell me he got taken in the Lot?”
“Daniel?” She stared at the thick wavy hair; it was part of him, she’d stripped poison from those strands. “But you were…”
“Bald? That I was. And you were a child?”
“Ten years ago. One ceases to be a child in the ordinary course of time. Bald heads don’t grow new crops.”
A brow shot up, giving him a quizzical look. “And one turns a hair pedantic, it seems.”
She sighed. “So I’ve been told. If you’re stuck in a school ten years, it can do that to you. Even school doesn’t grow hair.”
“A sorceror can grow hair anywhere he wants, didn’t you know?”
“But you weren’t…” She stepped close to him, flattened her hand against his chest. “But you are.” She stepped back, disturbed. “Why didn’t I smell it before when I was working on you? And now…”
“Long story.” Waves of shudders were passing through his body; she could see the muscles knotting beside his mouth as he fought to control the shaking of his jaw. She glanced at the sky, located the watery blur that was the sun. At least three hours of light left. On the one hand, she didn’t want to waste that much travel time; on the other, Daniel was in no condition to go anywhere. No coat, nothing but that odd vest she remembered more vividly than she did the man, now that she thought of it. A vest with two new holes in it, which wouldn’t help it turn the wind.
“You can tell it later.” She walked to the ponies, her irritation audible in the staccato crunch of her feet. “We’ll stay here until tomorrow morning. While I’m getting camp set up, you cut find some wood for the fire. The work’ll warm you up a bit.” Her hand on the saddle, she looked over her shoulder at him. “If you’re up to it.”
“If you’ve got an axe, my teeth just won’t do it.” His voice sounded strained, but he finished with a quick twitch of a smile.
“Fool.” She relaxed, reminded of the days in the cart, him telling stories, listening to her chatter, playing his flute for her and the other children. “No axe, just a hatchet which you can curse all you want with my blessing.” She began working on the straps that held it, doing some of her own cursing at the stiff, reluctant leather and the clumsiness of her gloved fingers. “I saw plenty of downwood as I came through the trees. Ah!” She caught the hatchet as it fell, held it out to him. “Better you than me. I put an edge on this thing last night. That should last about three cuts.”
He took the haft between thumb and forefinger, gave her another of those twitchy smiles and marched off, vanishing under the trees.
“Right. Aili, I’ll get the canvas. You chase the ponies to a place where we can camp.”
5
The fire crackled vigorously, hissing now and then as the heat from it loosened a fall of snow from the branches high overhead. “Settsimaksimin decided I had Talent so he flipped me over to Silili, sponsored me at a school and made sure I stayed put until I Passed Out.” Korimenei pulled the blanket closer about her, sipped at the cooling tea in her mug. “Why I’m here, now, I’m going home. You?”
“Things happen, I get booted about.” He was using her spare mug; he cradled it between his hands, frowned down at the inch of cooling tea it held. “Why not.” He lifted his head. “Remember Ahzurdan?” You met him at the Blue Seamaid when you went to see the Drinker of Souls.”
She stared at him. Inky shadows cast by the fire emphasized the jut of his nose, his high angular cheekbones. His face changed and changed again with every shift of shadow. It was like looking at one of those trick drawings where background and foreground continually shift, where a vase-becomes two profiles then a vase again. “I remember,” she murmured. “Who are you?”
“Daniel Akamarino. Ahzurdan. Both and neither. Call me Danny Blue.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“Well, what have we got but time?”
“All right. Chained God… remember him?”
“How could I forget?”
“Right. He wanted a weapon to aim at Settsimaksimin. He made one. He took a sorceror and a starman and hammered the two men into one. Me. You might call Daniel and Ahzurdan my sires. In a way.”
“That’s not long, just weird.” She wrapped her hand in the blanket, took the kettle from the coals at the edge of the fire and filled her mug. “Want more?”
“Better not if I intend to sleep tonight.”
She sipped at the tea and thought about what he’d just told her. No wonder Tre was frightened of the god and wanted Frunzacoache to protect him. Does he kn
ow about this? She sneaked a look at Danny Blue. This abomination? He didn’t say anything, but then he wouldn’t, not where the god could hear him. She clung to a moment’s hope, maybe her brother wasn’t the way he sounded, maybe… no, don’t be a fool, woman. She took too sudden a mouthful, spat it out, her tongue felt singed, “Did you know you were rotten with poison?”
“I know.” He lifted a brow. “The past tense is the proper tense, I hope?”
“Very proper. I can’t abide a half-done job. Blackmail?”
“Mmm-hmm. Bring us the talisman Klukesharna and we give you the antidote, that’s what they said.”
She looked quickly at him, looked away. Another Great One being snatched. She slid her hand inside her shirt, touched Frunzacoache. It felt warm, it seemed to seek her fingers as if it wanted to be stroked. I wonder, she thought Kushundallian told us They get restless sometimes, They go through a period of dormancy, then They start moving, going from hand to hand until They feel like settling down again. Hmm. “You don’t have Klukesharna.”
“Not now.”
“I see. Hence the feathering.”
“You got it.”
“You can’t have been lying there more than an hour before I found you, you’d be dead otherwise. You could go after whoever took it. Will you?”
“No. That’s trouble I don’t need. Or want.”
“Hmm.” She looked down; she’d been playing with Frunzacoache all this time without noticing what she was doing. Either he wasn’t the chosen or the person who took it had enough gnom to overpower a fresh link. She thought about asking, decided better not. “Have you decided what you’re going to do now?”
