“But what did they want? That they kept asking and you wouldn’t answer?”
“I reckon I did answer, and they didn’t believe.” His knuckles went white around the spit he turned; it took him a moment too long to let go of it. “They wanted to know what magic it was I had that could track them down.”
“And?”
“And?” Dacey repeated, amused — which, she thought, was better than what he’d been a moment before. Haunted. “I told them the truth. Ain’t got no magic of my own — least, not aside from some spare seeings now and then — and I’m beginning to think you might have some of them for your own. No, I trap and hunt and trade for a living. But that wasn’t what they wanted to hear.”
“An’ that...that dark thing?”
There was a subtle tension in his face, a tightening at the corners of his eyes. “Jimson weed.”
“Jimson?” Blaine said doubtfully. “I’ve seen men on Jimson before. Boys, more likely, trying to show off, for all it makes ’em look stupid.” She couldn’t think of a single reference in her seer’s book — long left behind in the barn — to using Jimson, never mind in such a manner as she’d seen with Dacey. It was touchy stuff, and one time it might trigger visions and silliness; another it might just plain make you sick.
“Jimson and other things.”
She wasn’t sure she liked to see his features draw on that cold look, the one that made his jaw seem harder and his eyes more shadowed. And she realized he hadn’t at all answered her first question. Who are those men? She nibbled the end of her braid and frowned faintly at him.
He appeared not to notice, though his expression lightened some. “And now I’ll ask you something, Blaine Kendricks. I’ll bet anything you knew of those strangers before you come on me there. You knew of ’em the very day I come to your farm. I seen it on your face.”
“I run into ’em the day before.” She felt herself go stubborn, ready for censure, ready to care not like she’d had to care not about all the other disapproval in her life, not and get through it.
“An’ while I was at your table, you said nary a thing about them — nor did your daddy, an’ he would’ve, if he’d knowed of ’em. Would have been natural, me being strange, too. Blaine...why didn’t you tell him what you seen?”
Blaine drew her knees up, pulling her skirts down over them as far as they would go. A sullen, defensive posture. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“But I’m asking.”
She searched for a way to explain, until her frustration welled up and finally came out in a rush of words. “’Cause he don’t know I go to the hills, that’s why! ’Cause it’s a waste of time for a girl to learn the wilds, when she might be learning proper women things, and ’cause he’d forbid ’em to me if he knowed. And I got to have the hills, Dacey, I just got to — they’re the only thing that makes me feel better when someone compares me to Lenie, or tells me I got to marry some man who won’t much like my sharp bones poking him in bed. How’re you gonna understand that? You’re a man — you don’t get wore out with babies. You’re on your own, you don’t got someone making all your decisions for you. There warn’t no way I was gonna tell Daddy about those men, not till I knowed they were trouble enough to be worth the losing I’d do over it. Anyways, up till I found you with ’em, I just thought they was here to trade. I never got a close enough look to tell me otherwise.”
Dacey raised his eyebrows. “Huh,” he said, as Blue sidled closer to her, gazing from one to the other of them in concerned perplexity. “Who’d’ve guessed that was in there. ’Course, I shoulda known, after what you done for me.”
She realized, rather dazed, that he wasn’t judging her for what she’d done. He’d just wanted to know.
And she didn’t quite know how to react to that — but Blue saved her the trouble of figuring it out. Some decision had finally occurred in his doggy mind, and he was at last close enough to act on it. Slowly, as he had the day before, he reached for the braid she’d been twisting, his mouth open in anticipation, his lips drawn gently back —
“Shoo!” she exclaimed, and Dacey laughed, and that was that. She had the distinct impression that he’d sidetracked her with that question, that there were things he knew that she ought. Things she ought to be afraid of. But for now, dinner was all that mattered.
~~~~~
Rand was supposed to be grateful, that Nekfehr had given him this time off to plant Willum’s grave. But he felt far from grateful. Hostile was closer to the mark, rife with mutiny and half-formed plots to kill the Taken man. And he wasn’t the only one. Despite the warnings, there was talk, and the planning had already begun.
He tossed another shovelful of dirt down on the almost-covered casket — the diminutive, Willum-sized casket — and wiped the sweat of his upper lip, pausing to stare down at the homestead from the little flat that held their family graveyard. Lenie, her hair in an uncharacteristic braid and her skirts soiled and torn, planted in the garden. His mommy struggled with the steps to the porch, one of which had given way under the weight of the many friends who had come to pay condolences on Willum.
He should be down there, wielding that hammer. And Willum and Sarie should be playing in the yard. And Blaine —
He still didn’t believe she was dead. He couldn’t. He’d have found her, surely —
That didn’t bear thinking about. Rand turned back to his shoveling; he had only half a day for this chore. Willum’s casket disappeared under the steady rain of dirt, and soon enough he was tamping down the small mound of extra soil it had displaced. Unlike the early stages of this task, his mind no longer churned with defiance and hatred — instead, he gave it over to the repetitive nature of the shoveling, going blank and dull, closed to the world around him.
Which was why he didn’t notice when the leader and two of his fighters climbed the path to the graveyard, not until he was flanked. He startled around to find Nekfehr regarding him with an unnerving false geniality.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” the man said.
“You come all the way up here to ask me?” Rand frowned, and tried not to. Tried not to show what he’d been thinking moments before, or the trickles of unseemly fear that made him clench his hands around the shovel. “Ol’ Bayard’s the one that knows the most about things, not me.”
“He doesn’t know your sister.”
Rand narrowed his eyes. “What about her? She’s dead, didn’t you say so?”
The man ignored the question. “Not many people seem to know much about her, other than the fact that she’s skinny, somewhat impractical, and hasn’t garnered any suitors. But they all seemed to think that you know her better than anyone.”
“I reckon I do,” Rand said, sounding stubborn even to his own ears. “I guess that means I’ll have the best memories of her.”
“Two days ago you didn’t believe she was dead.”
Two days of time to decide that for Blaine, being considered dead was better than being looked for. He muttered, “I’ve had time to wrestle with the notion some.”
“Where would she go, if she was looking for a place to hide?”
Rand shook his head. “She don’t know the hills.” It was an easy lie, after all this time.
The man considered him, his dark eyes cold, but without hostility. “She knew them well enough to elude my men when she came for Dacey Childers.”
Realization bloomed within Rand, double-headed realization. She’d eluded them. She was alive. And — “It’s Dacey you want, ain’t it? They’re together somewheres, and you’re looking for them.” He jammed the shovel into the dirt and let it stand up on its own. “Why say she’s dead? Why make us think we’ve lost two?”
“Because it suited my purpose,” the man said. “And because it’s only a matter of time. Your sister is a symbol of defiance, and we will not tolerate defiance. Dacey will live until my questions are satisfied. Blaine will not.”
“And you think I’m gonna tell you where I think
they are?”
“Yes. I do.”
That was all the warning he got. A physical threat he would have reacted to, he would have ducked or blocked. But the man simply reached out and touched him, and —
Rand’s body stood, stiff in shock, while the force that plundered his mind ignored it. His awareness, his soul, ran in frantic circles, trying to evade the tendrils of oppression closing in on him.
Suddenly there was nowhere else to run. His body grunted, a reflection of his inner scream of terror, and purple haze over sifted jumbling memories, Blaine heading into the hills, Blaine talking wild dreams, needing soothing in the night, Blaine’s well-hidden interest in Dacey’s words at supper, words about seers —
The oppressive force stopped there, hesitating long enough to come to some decision, and reached for another line of memories from much earlier days. The seers moved south after their victory, south to some place Rand had never been, but that he’d occasionally heard about. South, a week’s travel through the mountains, over the huge obstacle of Sky Mountain and into its valleys — unless you risked the much short trip along the swift, rocky river — dangerous travel that got you to the same place much faster.
Rand staggered, not ready to catch his body when it suddenly became his to control again, too dazed to do anything but blink and throw himself to the side, retching in reaction.
He was only vaguely cognizant of the two plainsmen stepping away from his side and out of the graveyard. But he was painfully, distinctly aware of the satisfaction in the leader’s voice.
“Thank you, Rand. That will do just fine.”
~~~~~
The annektehr within Nekfehr reeled with the delightful intensity of Rand’s fear and revulsion — anne-nekfehr — and in the reverberating feedback from Nekfehr himself, the very same feelings generated from within the annektehr’s permanent vessel. With the plainsmen at Nekfehr’s heels, the annektehr let his information flow to the Annekteh whole, sharing with all the linked, those who were embodied annektehr and those who were not — the nekteh, whose incorporeal existence lent the annektehr strength.
None of the nekteh would have been able to say which brought the whole of them more satisfaction...the information gained — a means to find Dacey Childers, to find the fled seers — or the feelings stolen from the Rand Vessel. The anne-nekfehr.
Survival, the Annekteh demanded.
The anne-nekfehr, the Annekteh craved. Needed.
Would do anything to get.
~~~~~
After five days of walking and climbing — with one fully devoted to simply crossing Sky Mountain, even though Dacey knew where the gap was — Blaine found it almost impossible to get moving in the morning. Short rations, long days, constant worries. They didn’t talk much; she never had the breath nor energy to voice the questions with which his habitual silence left her. By now she at least knew that they were headed for his homeplace, that she was going to visit the hills to which the seers had fled. And that they wouldn’t stay long — just enough for Dacey to visit some folks, tend to some business, and give them each time to take a breath.
For he hardly looked any better than she felt.
The strain around his eyes didn’t disappear with the bruises her potion had helped to heal so quickly, and she had the feeling he hardly slept at night. Still, she knew he stopped for more rests that he’d have given himself, and at evening, when she collapsed, he set up the night’s camp with efficient moves that Blaine only slowly grew used to seeing in a man. She watched him with his dogs, and lived with his silent companionship, and wondered what it would be like to have such a life. Confident. Independent. Making his own decisions, not minding what people like Cadell said about them.
It ain’t seemly to covet. And that’s what she was doing — coveting not his possessions, but his very life.
But when Dacey finally led her to a small clearing and ushered her into the tiny but well-built cabin that occupied it, Blaine’s only thoughts were grateful ones. She didn’t protest when he gave her a gentle push toward the bed in the corner; she fell on top of it and just as quickly fell asleep.
When she woke, sunlight poured through the open cabin door and the thickly glazed window. She found herself alone, and covered with a brightly patterned quilt which hadn’t been there when she’d fallen asleep. The next day? Had to be, to judge from the stiffness in her bones and the pang in her bladder. Slowly, she hitched herself up in the bed to look around.
Dacey’s was an orderly little home, one room with an alcove of stored food goods and a small door in the floor that Dacey had made no attempt to hide with a rug. She decided, since she hadn’t seen many outbuildings on the way in, that it must be his dairy: cool, stone and underground. Everything he owned seemed to be neatly tucked away on shelves or in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, except some herbs that hung high off the ceiling. Despite its size, the cabin lacked the perpetually cluttered look of Blaine’s home — the result of a busy family with five children merely going about life.
She wasn’t sure whether she liked it more, or less — but it was certainly different.
Dacey’s recent absence showed in the dust and cobwebs — mostly occupied — decorating the corners and floor. She pushed off the quilt, grateful to see that the cookstove was going and had warmed the cabin despite the half-open door. Dacey was nowhere in sight, but Blue lay across the threshold, and he greeted her with hearty tail slaps. She stepped over him to run to the outhouse and back, suddenly aware that she was starving. With some relief, she found tea simmering on the stove, and some precious sugar to put in it. A handful of dried turkey strips sat on the windowsill beside the stove, and she gnawed off a bite to soften in her mouth. And then, unable just to sit there and eat, not interested in wandering around to look for Dacey, she found a broom behind the door and put herself to work.
Blue watched her with great interest and an oft-thumping tail, making her sweep around him — for she couldn’t bring herself to broom him when he aimed mournful eyes at her. When she finished with the broom she usurped a rag to clean the lamp chimney — and spent some time examining the lamp itself, a coal-oil lamp with a strange, perforated deflector under the wick sleeve, like none she’d ever seen before. Finally, she found a pan and cloth and went outside to draw water so she could clean the two thick-glassed windows.
She was admiring those windows when he came back, staring at the distortion in the glass and wondering how he got such a treasure up into the hills. She knew two families that had paid for glass windows, but her family did with open shutters in the summer and well-greased rawhides in the winter — which weren’t clear but at least let in some light.
Dacey cleared his throat to let her know he was standing in the door and she backed away from the window to look at him. He was a sight she had grown used to, although the fading bruises were still changing the landscape of his face.
“I thank you for cleaning the place up,” he said. “It’s been neglected some lately, I guess.”
“It was plenty neat,” Blaine told him. “I just didn’t want to be sitting around.” I want to be back home. But she didn’t say so; she’d said it often enough on the journey, and he well knew it. Instead she asked the questions their flight and breathless climbing had not left time for, fiddling with her skirts a moment to work up the nerve. “Dacey, you ain’t once really told me what’s happening. I been real patient, but I gotta know who those folks were, and what they want with us — us and some sassafras groves they consider we know about.”
“Ah, you heard that, did you?” Dacey responded, setting a string of traps down inside the door. Blue gave them a perfunctory sniff and wandered outside into the sunshine, greeting Mage as he went by. Dacey left the door ajar — for the dogs, Blaine figured — and took the only chair in the cabin as Blaine backed up to the bed and sat down.
“Yes, I heard that,” she said. “You know what’s going on, Dacey — you have, right from the start. Whatever it is, brought you a
ll the way up to Shadow Hollers. I think it’s ’bout time you just spit it out.”
“Ain’t you full of questions.” He gave her a crooked little smile, full of his wry nature.
“Always have been. Since you’ve done took me from my home, you might as well get used to it.”
“What if you don’t get no answers?”
“I reckon you’ll get tired of hearing the questions after a while.”
He studied her a moment, the smile gone. “And what iff’n you don’t like what I got to tell you?”
She shrugged, feeling herself on the edge of victory. “I don’t guess I can hold it agin you, can I?”
His gaze went inward, then, and his foot twitched a couple times — a tense motion Blaine was certain he hadn’t meant to do. “There’s some I know about this, an’ there’s some I don’t. Those men come from the north, and they want what they’ve always wanted: more. Territory. Slaves. Things of magic, like these hills got. They’re looking for the sassafras special, for the way it soaks up the hill magic.”
She blinked at him.
“You knew that, didn’t you? You and your sassafras potions?”
Numbly, she shook her head. “I guess things more’n I know ’em. I got this book...but it’s just bits and pieces.” Numb, because she wasn’t thinking about sassafras, or lumber of any sort, or even potions. They come from the north, and they want —
“What hill magic?” she blurted — anything to keep from thinking —
“It’s there,” Dacey said gently, as though not to scare her thoughts from the path they were taking. “It’s coming back. They know that. They needed to act before folks learn how to use it again. Before they learn to fight back.”
“What makes you think we ain’t no good at looking out for ourselves now?”
He raised an eyebrow into the shaggy bangs of his dark ash-blond hair. “You know the tales, Blaine. You’ll know all the answers, if you’ll only think on it.”
No, she didn’t. She didn’t want to, even though she suddenly realized she had known for days, had hidden it in exhaustion and worry and annoyance at the hounds. Men from the north, men who knew magic. Men who intended to enslave her people. Like before. Dacey, seer’s blood come north. And the sky she’d seen that one day, the one he’d so easily called a Taker’s Sky when he sat down to sup with them. “Spirits,” she whispered. “It’s them, come back.”
Seer's Blood Page 8
