by Sonia Lyris
Her eyes were wide, face yellowed and purpled, noticeably swollen on one side, lip split. But her gaze tracked him without issue. Her mind was sound.
What was she thinking now? That he might question her again? What went through her mind?
Or was she looking into the future?
“This morning,” he said, “I go to the queen and tell her I must arrange a force to send to Otevan. To find out what they are doing there. You were right. You foresaw this.”
She nodded.
“Here is my question, Seer.” He paused a moment, considering how to phrase it. “In order to keep the empire whole—as whole as is possible—whom do I send to command this force? Handled correctly, it is possible it need not come to conflict at all. Who best to command?”
She looked at him and then looked distantly. “I think you, ser.”
“I thought the same.” He considered who else to take. Who knew the Teva best?
“General Lismar,” he said. “A short woman. Cropped gray hair. Is she there?”
She blinked, seeming to consider. “I think so, ser.”
“Good.” He stood. “It will take some time to arrange.” Cavalry, infantry, supply wagons. There was work to do. “You,” he said, “will also come.”
It was not a question. That would be too close to asking her permission. Still, he waited, in case she had a reply.
“Yes, ser,” she said at last, but he could not tell if she were agreeing with him or speaking from foresight.
It didn’t matter; she would come, and she would help him, and they would win this.
After a moment, he nodded and left to get started.
Chapter Thirty-two
Maris slept poorly, and the closer the three of them came to Yarpin, the worse it got. This morning, now only a day away, she felt the tension all through. A tightness in her shoulders, a pressure in her head. Too close to him. Far too close.
So she’d finally said good-bye to them both, leaving Amarta and Enlon with suitable encouragement and warnings. She checked her horse’s packs one last time and glanced up at the many-storied inn to the window of the room in which they had stayed the night.
Someone had decided to use every House color possible and a few others besides. She still couldn’t quite decide if the varied paint betokened extreme courage or shocking obsequiousness. Perhaps an effective show of loyalty to the Houses, Maris could not say, but it was certainly a cacophony that suited no aesthetic.
Her horse snorted.
“It is truth,” she said softly to him in Perripin, and mounted up, turning south, eager to put distance between herself and the capital city.
She had meant to do so some time back. At the start her goal was to help Amarta past the worst of the strife that was tugging loose the threads of the empire’s cohesion. Then she had come to enjoy the journey itself. Enlon was one of the few Ilibans she could stand for long. Nearly a friend, she supposed.
The terror he invoked in Amarta had given Maris another reason to travel with them, to stay another night, then another. Each morning she would tell herself that Amarta was well on her way, that it was time to turn around, but she would find new reasons to continue.
Dirina and Pas would be well enough without her, with the garden and fruited trees thick around the house, jars filled with preserved meats and grains. They had enough food to see them through a whole season if they needed it. There was no need to rush back.
Yet there was no good reason to have come this far, either.
She was almost sure that Yarpin was too far from here for Keyretura to sense her, but it was as if she could feel him anyway: a weighty, ominous presence.
Or maybe she could; she did not entirely understand the bond between aetur and uslata. That the connection endured, she knew, but how far away he could feel her, she was less sure of.
In any case, she was leaving now. She had decided to take the Traveler’s Road through the mountains. Fewer people and more trees. A welcome distance from the draining presses and pulls of too many Iliban.
At least that had been her intention, but as she let her wandering inclination work through her horse’s hooves, taking one detour after another, she found herself climbing a familiar path up a mountainside.
So be it.
She tethered the horse where he could nibble the tall summer grass and walked the road upwards to Samnt’s parents’ farm, dusting herself in shadow with a hint of leaves and mottled sunlight. At the base of a large oak at the edge of the farm she sat and waited.
When Samnt at last emerged from the farmhouse, she found herself smiling. Two years had grown him tall and lanky, shoulders broader, face longer. And was that was a hint of downy fuzz on his upper lip?
For a time she simply watched as he inspected the knee-high amaranth seedlings. He seemed melancholy and somber, but when a younger sibling came out, he laughed and put an arm around her. Perhaps Maris had not, after all, with that last, hard lesson between them—so much like what Keyretura might have done—done more than bruised his spirit.
As she watched him, she wondered: would she, had she known then what she knew now, have fought the unsmiling, black-robed man who had taken her in his iron grip, plucking her away from the only home she had ever known?
Perhaps Samnt had been right that he was too ambitious and clever to be content as a farmer, digging ditches, planting, harvesting. Or maybe he was lucky beyond reckoning to have no one to take him from this warm, sweet home.
Grimacing, she stood, brushed off her trousers, and walked down the hill.
Each day she rode south through the mountains she felt herself ease a bit further. Days would pass where she saw no one at all, only trees of substance and age, branches towering over thick ferns and saplings, all atop a living loam of underbrush and roots, lush with life going deep into the earth.
The Traveler’s Road saw her through these thick forests that then gave way to high grasslands and hills. At summits she could see the lands stretch away in all directions, clouds rushing by overhead.
At a deserted crossroads where madrone and salal and hemlock grew, three men on horses surrounded her, pulling out long, notched knives and heavy sticks. They ordered her off her horse and made threats and demands.
She put fingers of thought into all three at once, so none of them would be distracted by the suffering of their companions as they doubled over in pain, unable to breathe, struggling to stay in their saddles, which Maris made sure they could not. They slid off their horses, finding their way to the ground with heavy thuds, writhing in silent agony with their various breaks and bruises.
When she was sure she had their attention, she spoke for a time, sympathizing with the difficulty of identifying a mage who didn’t wear the black, commenting on the inadvisability of being rude to travelers, and conveying her annoyance at being thus inconvenienced. She urged them to share this cautionary story with others.
The land and trees had put her in a generally good mood, so she let them live. They’d heal in time, but it would be a long and challenging walk back to wherever they came from, because she gave their horses a small spark of encouragement so that they would be happy to be quickly gone from the area.
Then she continued south.
It was a delicious time of year, the scents of the land rich and full, flowers and trees intent on the business of life. Her nights were abundant with stars, mornings glorious with birds.
Another week south and then another, and she was passing brown and green patches of newly planted fields in the highlands, goats reaching their heads through fences, bleating hopefully, chickens chattering and calling.
On a warm day she stripped off her overshirt, stuffed it into one of the side packs, then stopped her horse at a bend in the road to watch an old man standing there. He held a large stone and stared at a pile of rocks by the crumbling remains of a wall that had once held the hillside back from the road.
He was speaking something that sounded like a long, thoughtful
curse. Seeing Maris, he stopped in mid-word.
“Perripin,” he muttered. “Don’t get many of your kind here.”
“Blessings of the season to you, grandfather,” she said.
He grinned, showing more gaps than teeth. “Yes, yes. Blessings and so forth. You get old, you forget to say polite things. You look at one thing and another pops into your head, and then a third thing comes out your mouth. Ah—” He waved a hand. “You’ll see. My woman tells me I’m just a forgetful old man. Then she tells me something else, but I can’t remember what.” His grin widened.
Maris smiled at the ancient joke.
“Not this one,” he said tossing the stone he held to the outer edge of the pile. He bent to pick up another one, standing slowly, wincing, a hand on his lower back. “Pah,” he said, and dropped the second stone as well, grunting as he pushed rocks out of the way with his foot, walking around the pile. “Where did the long, flat one go?”
“How many times have you rebuilt this wall, old man?”
He snorted. “What makes you think it’s mine? Maybe I just happened by. Could be my neighbor’s and I’m being helpful.” He bent his knees, crouched down over yet another rock.
“Could be. But I think you’ve rebuilt it before.”
“Nothing wrong with rebuilding.”
“If you use mortar, it might stay up next time.”
“The stones fit fine without any of that fuss.”
“Except that they seem to have fallen down.”
He stood, frowned, looked at her. “Yes, woman, they fall down. Then I put them back. You just going to sit on your horse and watch? Or you going to help?”
Maris chuckled, swung down onto her feet, and picked up the stone he had been looking for, handing it to him. He placed it on a gap in the wall where it fit snugly.
“There,” he said, proudly. “You see?”
“I see. But it will fall again.”
“Then I’ll put it back up. As long as the wall needs me. Until my last sleep.”
Maris touched into the man’s body. He had a strong heart. He could easily live another ten years, maybe twenty. “And when that last sleep comes, man, what about the wall?”
“Every wall falls,” he said. “Pah. Too much talk. There, that one.” He pointed. Maris lifted it up, handed it to him. “Can’t worry about tomorrow. Got my hands full of today. And today . . .” He stood again, holding his back, looking up at the sky. “Today is not so bad.”
Maris laughed a little at this bit of wisdom.
“Where are you bound?” he asked her.
“Perripur.”
“Long way. Help me fix this wall and you can have some stew off our pot tonight. A soft place to sleep.”
It was tempting. She picked up a rock that she saw would fit. “Just to set right a few stones?”
“Well,” he glanced sideways at her. “When your stomach’s full, you might tell us about Perripur. My woman, she’s always saying we should go south where it’s warm. Maybe if you tell her how awful it is there, how the sand storms will take your skin off, she’ll stop nagging.”
“For a place to sleep and a bowl of good stew, I could talk a bit. It is good stew, is it?”
“Oh, yes. She’s had decades to get it wrong, and I’d say she’s got the knack now.” He grinned.
A bed. Warm food. Even some company might be welcome. But something stopped her.
She was, she realized, weary of the charade of pretending to be other than she was.
“Only a fool invites magic inside, old man,” she said gently. “Best fear it from a distance.”
He snorted. “Magic is a foreigner’s problem. We don’t have any of that here.”
Holding the rock in her palm, she touched below the surface, felt there the compression of eons, the dust of life long passed, the tightness of heat and cold wrapped up so small. Along the surface she made changes, shifting one thing into another, and the stone in her hand began to spark and sputter, sizzling and popping, tiny bits flying off in a spray like stars, its surface suddenly the color of the sun.
Then she let the stone’s shifting fires quiet.
The man’s mouth fell open, his eyes wide. He took a step back. “I meant no disrespect,” he whispered.
“I’m as old as you are,” she said tiredly. “But I hide. Why should I struggle so, only to make the likes of you less afraid of the likes of me?”
The stone was cool and gray again. She held it out to him. She could feel his heart pounding, his mouth drying.
Terrorized.
And that, she reflected, was what mages were good for. What she was good for. A sorrow settled on her shoulders as she saw that he would not move, would not take the stone.
She walked to the wall and placed it. “A snug fit.”
“Well,” he said. “Well,” he repeated. “Well.”
She turned, put a hand on her horse’s neck, and swung back up into the saddle, taking the reins in hand, pressing forward down the road.
“What is this?” he called from behind her. “I offer you my hospitality and you walk away without a word?”
She stopped, bewildered, turned her horse around to face him. “What? You still offer?”
“My back still hurts, doesn’t it?” He glanced at her furtively, then down at the pile of stones. “My wall still needs building, doesn’t it? Come on, woman. Mage. However it is you are called. Help me set this wall aright.” He stood there, wobbling, arms crossed over his sunken chest.
“What is this you say?” she asked softly. “Are you not afraid?”
“Of course I’m afraid,” he snapped, eyes flickering to her. “But you want food and a bed. I want this wall built. Can’t live my life by the dictates of fear. Old as me, you say? You ought to know that, then. That one there.” He pointed at another rock, his hand shaking.
Moved by this odd courage, Maris dismounted again. She picked up the rock he still pointed to and put it in his shaking, outstretched hand. He set the rock into the wall and turned back, breathing hard, looking around at the pile and not at her.
She was surprised, and surprised to be surprised. Taken off guard by a gruff old man and a pile of stones.
It made her smile.
The stew, it turned out, was better than the old man had promised, and the company more nourishing yet. When she left the next day, she felt oddly content.
It was full summer by the time Maris reached Dasae Port, and Perripur was hot and bright and green. She stopped at the market, finding herself idly considering a toy, wondering if Pas might like a limestone spinning-top, painted black and white, and spun to make color. But no—she could only carry so much. Instead she loaded up on spices, cheeses, dried meats and nuts, her packs filled tight.
A few more days of riding the plains and she was nearly there, eager to see Dirina and Pas.
So many things to do, once she had unpacked. First they would feast on olives and cheeses, on the thick, sweet paste of cacao, and celebrate her homecoming.
She knew they were gone the moment her horse’s feet stepped past the outermost of her watchstones, the heavy lodestones that marked the boundaries of her land, where her wards were set.
Heart speeding, she pressed the horse to a trot and then a run up the hillside path that snaked over brush and through falls of red-flowering vines trailing across the road like blood. As the path curled around the sun-oak, she pulled him to a stop, slid down, and ran the rest of the way herself, up the tightly switchback hillside, past puff-flowers drifting on a too-quiet breeze.
At the house, breath coming hard, she yanked open the door and ran through the rooms, calling for them in each room, even though she knew they were not there.
Empty. It was all empty.
A fine layer of dust covered the main room’s table. They had been gone days at least. Weeks, more likely.
Fury built inside her. She let it come, damming the flow so that it would not escape, not a drop of it, saving it for the someone who had earn
ed it. She walked the rooms, touching every surface, looking to confirm what she had already knew, had known from her first touch onto the watchstone.
Keyretura. He had come to her home, broken her wards, violated her protections, and taken Dirina and Pas.
Despite how tired she’d been a moment before, how keen to end her journey, rest was nowhere in her plans. She would not stay a moment longer than she needed to.
How dare he?
He had taken Dirina and Pas.
She would find him.
She would make him sorry.
Chapter Thirty-three
Amarta was tired of being hot. In the heat of this tiny, enclosed wagon it was as warm as Perripur in summer’s midday sun. When a guard came to bring food and water and take the chamberpot, ducking as she stepped into the small space, Amarta begged her for an opening in the sides of the tarp.
“I’ll ask,” she said with a sympathetic look, wincing at the heat under heavy leathers, then she was gone.
Smaller and more secure than the Teva wagon in which she’d ridden to Kusan, there were no torn seams to peek out of as she was jostled on the road, not a thread out of place in the heavy covering to allow a small hole. She knew; she’d examined every inch of it.
She was still sore from Tayre’s questioning, and her fingers ached painfully under the splint and bandage. Even one-handed, she would have far preferred to ride than to be in here, day after day. She wasn’t being kept here to rest and heal, but to be isolated as around her the army marched. A captive.
And wretchedly hot in her stinking prison.
As she struggled to sit up, the wagon lurched to a stop, sending her flat again on the mattress, sharp pain shooting through so many parts of her.
Are you ever surprised?
All the time.
It didn’t matter that she could see the future if she didn’t happen to be looking.
Voices around her wagon indicated they had stopped to make camp. She wanted to be out of here, even if her every move was watched by a tencount of armed guards.
