Path of Fate

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Reisil scrubbed her hands over her face, surprised to find her cheeks wet. Idiot. That had all been long ago. It didn’t matter anymore. Or it wouldn’t, once she was confirmed as Kallas’s tark. Most of those who had teased her so unmercifully hadn’t done so out of real malice. She had just been different and an easy target. Usually Juhrnus started it and the rest just followed like sheep. Now those same children invited her into their homes, confiding their secrets, entrusting her with the care of their families.

  Reisil squared her shoulders. She was no longer a child to cry over old hurts. No, her tears were in honor of Kolleegtark, who had died while she was away. He had been her first friend, kind and gentle, and he deserved the tears far more than the scrawny memory of Reisil, who now had so much.

  Kallas continued to wake around her. Maidservants appeared with swinging baskets, heading to market. Fragrant scents of baking bread and roasting meats drifted tantalizingly in the air. Bells jingled, doors slammed, and birds erupted into song.

  The eastern gate bustled with wagons loaded with vegetables and meat for market. Many of the farmers carried long-knives, cudgels and bows. Several of them surrounded the gate guards, voices raised in complaint about the squatter’s village.

  Reisil edged past a sweet-smelling cargo of melons, carrots, radishes and lettuce. Good as it smelled, she couldn’t help but notice the melons were tiny, the carrots thin and leathery, the lettuce stunted. The farms were too far from the river to make use of its water, and there had been little rain.

  Just outside the gate, Reisil paused at the common well, saving the water in her flask for her ramble. Situated just beyond the walls, the well was a kindness to thirsty travelers. Reisil selected a chipped pottery mug from those dangling from wire hooks around the well-house roof and scooped a cup from the already full bucket.

  The wind brushed dry fingers over Reisil’s moist brow as she drank. She closed her eyes and lifted her face into it, drawing a deep breath, tasting dust. It was looking like a third drought year. Added to the damage caused by the Patverseme invaders, there would be precious little food for people like the squatters who already had nothing. Even Kallas was feeling the pinch, with a number of its wells running low and gritty. Several enterprising men had begun hauling water from the river in wagons and selling it in town. At least the truce meant an end to the fighting for a while. If only it would rain, there was still time to salvage crops before winter.

  Reisil opened her eyes. The sky glowed sapphire, and she squinted against the sun’s fiery brilliance as it crested the eastern hills. Feeling time pressing at her, she drained the water from the cup, making a face. It tasted like metal. She replaced the cup on its hook and set off over a grassy swell, avoiding the traffic and dust on the road.

  By the time the sun had risen overhead and the shadows had shrunk away, Reisil’s pack bulged with collected booty, as did the string sack she’d brought with her. Sweat dampened her undertunic and her stomach growled. She munched more nut mix from the pouch at her waist. Her day had been profitable. She was most excited about the seedlings she’d collected to plant in her garden. Growing the plants herself would not only save time and energy hunting for them, but it was another claim laid on her cottage and on Kallas.

  She ambled down the crease of a hill, following a deer track. The sun flickered through the rustling leaves overhead, dappling her skin. Grateful for the shade, Reisil made no effort to speed her steps. Though she had worn a wide-brimmed canvas hat over her black hair, she felt prickly with the heat, and dirty. She wanted a swim in the river and some cream for her mosquito bites.

  Throughout the morning, Reisil had worked her way through the hills in a long, sweeping arc, and now descended to the road east of Kallas. She waded through the hedgerow of purple vetch and betony, pausing on the dirt to adjust the straps digging into her shoulders. As she walked, puffs of dust rose about her feet and powdered her legs brown.

  The road rose before her in a long, steady hill. Halfway up, Reisil stopped to unclip her flask and drink the last of the tepid water, pushing her hat back to wipe her brow with her sleeve.

  The Lady Day celebration two days before had been boisterous, with games and dancing following the bonfire in the Lady’s grove. Everyone in town had contributed food or drink to the feast after, and the festivities lasted well into the night. Reisil had spent the next day attending to countless little injuries and maladies stemming from the previous day’s revelry. In all the excitement, she had not had a quiet moment to offer the Lady her own thanks.

  “A tark is the Lady’s right hand,” Elutark always said.

  “The ahalad-kaaslane dispense Her justice; tarks dispense Her healing. Our gifts come direct from the Blessed Amiya Herself.”

  Kolleegtark had said much the same thing, and like Elutark, each night at dusk he had lit a rosemary-scented candle for the Lady, saying She cupped Her hands around Kodu Riik’s fragile light and kept the land safe from darkness. Reisil had marveled at the candles. Always set in a window to guide the sick and injured, neither wind nor rain ever doused the flame. This, to Reisil, had always been the definitive sign of the Lady’s endorsement of a tark. The night of her return to Kallas, Reisil had lit her own candle for the first time, setting it in the wind and watching into the early hours to see if would blow out. She had fallen asleep, and her joy in finding her candle still burning the next morning continued to bubble in her veins even now.

  The Lady Day celebration and aftermath had not given Reisil the opportunity she wanted to properly offer her gratitude to the Lady. Reisil had therefore planned to break her noontime fast in the green silence of the festival grove, where she could also make her devotions. Thus, despite the heat and her fatigue, she continued to trudge along the dusty road, mouth dry, sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts.

  She had forgotten the squatters in her fatigue and so was startled when she crested another hill and found herself suddenly in the midst of the “village,” which in reality was little more than a squalid camp.

  She trailed to a halt. Bits of ragged clothing hung from bushes. Reisil supposed they had been hung there to dry after a wash, but they appeared dingy with dirt. Bloat-flies rose and fell in lazy swarms, while dogs and children chased each other in the dust. Woodsmoke stung Reisil’s lungs and there was a smell of burned porridge and rancid meat. The shelters were rude at best. A blanket spread over a framework of cut branches. A lean-to made by fastening green boughs to the lowhanging branches of a traveler’s pine. A sagging wagon box given privacy by attaching a quiltwork skirting of dried animal skins.

  The village seemed entirely populated by shrieking children and barking dogs, and Reisil supposed that many of the adults had gone to Kallas or the surrounding farms looking for work, or foraged for food in the hills. As she wandered through, the children stopped their play and clustered around, eyeing her curiously, with a hint of both hope and fear.

  Before Reisil could do more than offer a smile, there came an agonized groan from within the trees along the north side of the road. It started low and rose to a howl before dying away in a wrenching wail, sending goose bumps prickling along Reisil’s arms and legs.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pushing through the crowd of children toward the source of the sound.

  A boy of perhaps twelve years stepped in front of her and put a grimy hand on her arm, his brown eyes flat and unyielding.

  “This ain’t your business. You best get along.”

  Reisil brushed his hand off as the tortured cry came again. This time he grabbed her pack and yanked, twisting her around. His lips curled like those of a cornered weirmart, his head hunching low.

  “I said, you git,” he growled, and his tongue was wet and pink against his dust-browned lips.

  Reisil paused, taken aback by his hostility. But when the cry came again, she jerked her pack out of his hands, shoving him back with the heel of her hand.

  “Get out of my way, boy,” she said, already look
ing over her shoulder for the source of the cry. “I’m a tark, and someone here surely needs me.”

  His voice changed, sounding hopeful. “Yer a tark? Why dinya say so? Come on!”

  She followed after him as he darted ahead into the trees. He led her to a shelter at the confluence of three close-growing spruce trees. She would have missed it if she hadn’t had a guide. The sweeping branches of the trees had been propped and tied together to form the braces of a roof. On top of those had been spread more branches as thatching. A series of bushes and vines had been planted and woven together to form a latticework that would eventually grow into thick, leafy walls. From the outside, the shelter appeared to be nothing more than dense undergrowth.

  But the boy offered no hesitation as he dropped to his knees and squirmed inside. Reisil followed quickly.

  The only light filtered feebly through the dense foliage. In the gloom Reisil saw a woman reclining on a pallet, clutching her stomach as she curled up into herself. Her voice rose razor thin and her neck tented with strain as she wailed. Beside her another woman, equally young, clung to the stricken woman’s hand, bending to murmur soothing words against her ear.

  “How long has she been like this?” Reisil asked the boy as she shrugged out of her pack.

  “This morning. Not this bad, though. Been getting worse all day.”

  “Has she got family?”

  “Me. My brother.”

  “She’s your sister?”

  “Nah. Carden’s wife.”

  Carden, Reisil supposed, was the boy’s brother.

  “Better go get him,” she said, taking in the woman’s sweating pallor, ragged breathing and unceasing writhing.

  “She gonna die?” There was a matter-of-factness about his question that made Reisil’s stomach curl. But there was no time for him.

  “Not if I can help it. Now get going.” After a tiny pause, he did as she asked. The rustle of leaves was the only indication that he’d left.

  “What’s your name?” Reisil asked the sick woman’s attendant. She looked up, fear stretching the skin around her redrimmed eyes.

  “Ginle,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “And who is she?”

  “Detta.”

  Reisil crawled over to the pallet and ran deft fingers over the squirming woman’s stomach, pressing against the hard expanse. Detta moaned and flung out her hands in defense of the probing. Reisil gave a little nod to herself.

  “Try not to let her twist, Ginle. I know it hurts, but she’s only making it worse.”

  Reisil once again dug into the limited supplies of the emergency kit she kept at the bottom of her pack. Working quickly, she measured ingredients carefully into a flatbottomed wooden bowl, mixing them together with a pestle. With her fingers, she formed two pastilles from the moist mass. The first she put between the agonized Detta’s cheek and gum, straddling her chest to hold her still.

  “Detta, you must not swallow this. Do you understand? Chew it, and swallow the juice, but nothing else. All right?”

  Detta whimpered and nodded, the whites of her eyes like shining moons in the gloom.

  “Good. Now there’s another one. We have to insert it below. So I’m going to undress you. It won’t hurt, but you’re going to have to pull your knees up and spread them apart. Can you do that?”

  Reisil completed her ministrations, then dabbed Detta’s face with cool water mixed with crushed mint leaves. She didn’t know if her treatment would work. It depended on what had caused Detta’s innards to block up. But the pastilles contained both a very strong aperient and an antispasmodic. If they were going to have an effect, it would be very soon.

  And soon it was. A half hour later, Detta sat up, wanting help outside, refusing to soil her home. A short time later, Reisil departed just as the worried Carden returned in the company of the boy.

  “My wife, how is she?” Sweat runneled the dirt on on his florid face, and he panted with the effort of his hurried return. His left hand was missing, as well as his left ear. Scars of the war, Reisil thought, disturbed by the brutality of the old wounds.

  “She’s better. Give her broth with a little bread floating in it, maybe add a bit of grain or vegetable in a day or so. She needs a lot of water. Try to keep her quiet. She should rest for a couple of days. I’ll check back later.”

  Reisil’s stomach growled and she flushed as Carden took it as a signal to begin gabbling about food and payment.

  “It’s not necessary,” she said, her voice revealing nothing of her impatience to be on her way. If Detta had continued to need her, she’d have stayed by her side without hesitation. But now that her patient was on the mend, Reisil wanted to be about her business. She still wanted to make her devotions to the Lady.

  “I have my lunch,” she assured Carden, patting her pack with a tired smile. “And I am a tark. I am pleased to help anyone in need.”

  She departed the village at last, having accepted Carden’s offer to refill her water flask. He did so clumsily. He had been lefthanded, Reisil realized, watching him hold the flask under his elbow to unstopper it before sinking it in a bucket of water, bubbles rushing out as the water ran in. What work could a one-handed man find? How would he rebuild a decimated home? Plow a field? Scythe a crop?

  The afternoon sun had grown hotter, and Reisil’s steps were slow on the rutted road. The heat intensified her weariness, but the relief of Detta’s recovery gave her energy enough to struggle on. She thought of the pitiful village, remembering Beren’s prediction—that the ahalad-kaaslane would drive them all away. She shook her head. The village had not been so deserted because the people were lazy beggars. Only those too young or ill had remained behind, while everyone else went in search of work and food. Even Carden with his one hand.

  Reisil wiped away sudden tears with an irritated hand. Tarks who got too involved didn’t survive long as tarks. Swallowing, she resolutely put the plight of the squatters from her mind. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. The ahalad-kaaslane would make that decision.

  The Lady’s grove was as cool and restful as Reisil could desire. A shrine stood on the western edge of the clearing. Its simple, square lines were faced with color-fully glazed tiles with pictures of wild animals. Banding the top was a series of green tiles with redeyed gryphons gamboling around. A crystal spring bubbled from an opening at its base. The water collected in a red-tile pool and then ran off into a rill, the same one that ran near Reisil’s cottage.

  The smell of charred wood clung to the clearing, and a large scorched spot opposite the shrine told why. Four times a year a fire was kindled before the shrine to celebrate the Lady’s generosity, and Her victorious light holding back the Demonlord’s night. The Lady Day fire always burned highest and longest. It was the longest day of the year, when the Lady’s power waxed greatest.

  Reisil skirted around the scorch and knelt before the shrine, pulling off her hat. So tired was she that she sat for several minutes, unable to focus on a prayer. She opened her mouth and then closed it. Finally she bowed her head and let her thoughts tumble together, swirling and rolling like a quick-running river. With them came her fears, her hopes, her pity for the squatters, her desperation to stay in Kallas. Above all else was her gratitude.

  “My heart and my hands belong to you, Blessed Lady. You have given me so much. A home at last. Let it be your will that it remain so,” Reisil whispered fervently. And then she dug a rosemary candle out of her pack and set it on the shrine. She lit it with a steel and flint, watching the flame lengthen and flicker.

  Her stomach growled again, reminding her of just how hungry she was. Pressing a hand to her heart, Reisil bowed a deep obeisance to the shrine and then retreated to a fallen log nestled in a hollow just beyond the clearing. She smiled and sighed as she sat back against it, stretching her legs out before her. The lush grasses were matted here, the leafmeal furrowed. Someone had completed an assignation here during the Lady Day celebration. She chewed, wondering who it had
been, and if they had been married, or hoped to. Her mind flew to Kaval, leagues and leagues away. She blushed in the leafy silence. If he were here now, what they would do! Her flush deepened, remembering the warm, sleek skin wrapping his ribs, the swell of his buttocks, the rough warmth of his chest.

  A belligerent voice shattered her daydream and made her stomach clench. She tensed to flee, but didn’t have time to escape without being seen.

  “Haven’t you been listening at all? The Patversemese are monsters. They didn’t just invade; they spoiled. Look at what’s happened to these squatters! Look at Mysane Kosk! How can you defend them?”

  There were the sounds of scuffling boots and crackling twigs and then four figures—no, Reisil corrected herself, eight figures: four human, four animal—entered the Lady’s grove. Juhrnus stalked in first, his jaw jutting like an angry bull. He carried his ahalad-kaaslane draped across his shoulders. The green-and-yellow-striped sisalik splayed contentedly on its pale belly, black claws clamped around Juhrnus’s bicep in a gentle grip. The lizard’s long, prehensile tail wrapped Juhrnus’s other arm three times down to his wrist.

  Juhrnus was dressed like his companions, in sturdy leathers with a sword on one hip, a long knife on the other. Everything he wore was new—a sign of his recent choosing. He was taller than Reisil by a few inches, with a wide, muscular chest, powerful legs and a square, boyish face. Thick brown hair fell in shaggy locks over his forehead and past his collar. If Reisil hadn’t known him, if he hadn’t spent her entire childhood tormenting her, she might have thought him attractive. She knew many girls did. But she did know him and the very sight of him made her blood boil.