He saved your life, she chastised herself, feeling guilty.
After a few twists and a careful ascent up some stone-cut steps there were oil lanterns in niches in the walls. They burnt with very little smell or smoke. The tunnel widened into a cavern where six men sat cooking a meal. By the men’s feet was a large raw bone, stripped of all meat.
That could not be human. Surely. Her stomach churned. The men’s red-rimmed eyes fixed on her until she left the cavern.
Since the entrance, she had found herself following the broad back of the leader of this group. From what she had heard, his name was Tracc. Sleek brown hair fell to his shoulders and, like all the other Grakkurds she had seen, fine red and blue tattoos ran up his arms. She tried to see what they were as he walked. Not snakes or fearsome beasts – these were tattoos of people – men, women and children. Was this a history of victims...eaten victims? A shiver ran through her.
With each step and passing minute, the rock walls and ceiling of the tunnel seemed to crush in closer and the darkness of the shadows became more forbidding. How could they live in here and not go insane? To keep her mind from dwelling on the immense weight of the rock that must be above them Ellinca started counting their steps.
At the seventy-fifth step the tunnel widened into a room. Here were at least fifty men and women. Most slept in blankets but some were awake and sorting small packages into separate heaps or packing away clinking bundles into haversacks. A few, with spears and swords ready in their hands, nodded at her escorts. As if anyone could sneak in here and surprise them.
One corner of this stone room was screened by a low barricade of tumbled rocks. Flickering light showed someone working behind it. From the occasional groans and hushed gentle voices she gathered that the wounded were being tended to there.
The Grakks must have already traded with the smugglers. The packages and long bundles would be supplies they needed but could not obtain in the mountains. A torn corner on one of the packages leaked what appeared to be the tiny dark-green leaves of a plant. Herbs? Ingredients for some foul brew? She wet her fingertip with spit then calmly knelt and touched the leaves. She stood, looking about from the corners of her eyes. No one had noticed. Slowly she brought the finger to her nose – a sweet smell. Tea?
Speaking curtly in Grakk, Tracc directed his people to various tasks.
Ellinca stopped dead. Off near a side wall, a man leaned over a prone figure who she felt certain was Pascolli. Not far from him two bodies were laid out wrapped neatly in red blankets. Hovering just above and parallel, like pearly translucent copies, were ghosts, their ghost eyes shut, their arms and legs together, unmoving.
She could smell fresh blood. She gasped and tried to push through to Pascolli but two Grakks barred her way.
One was the over-muscled man she had seen before. The other was a beautiful young woman. As lithe as a cat, she carried herself in a precise, confident way. Down to her shoulder blades fell three plaits of auburn hair. Smiling, the woman put a hand to the long sword sheathed at her waist – and ran a short length of it from the sheath. The blue steel glinted.
Ellinca flinched. She was beginning to feel like an animal being herded along.
Tracc frowned at the woman. “Dayna!” The woman shrugged and said something in a scornful tone.
He stepped between them and spoke to Ellinca. “Please forgive her. She is too eager for battle. The young and untested are often that way. You must come with me.”
“What?”
Seething, she turned to him. For once Ellinca knew why Pascolli reacted so impulsively at times – because sometimes one just got so frustrated that nothing else would do. To scream, stamp her feet or simply thump this woman, this Dayna, was ever so tempting. She mustn’t. She must be calm. She’d seen the actors do it with tomatoes flying about their ears. I can do it, even if steam comes out my ears.
“Hold out your hands.”
Though puzzled, she did so. Before she could blink, he snapped a pair of manacles around her wrists. They clinked against the silver bracelet Sania Therber had given her. He turned to Dost. “You also. I am sorry but it is needed. Please do this for yourself. Every foreigner the auratrist sees must wear them.”
He drew another pair of manacles from a bag and gave them to Dost. Stoically Dost put them on and closed them until they locked with a click.
Tracc beckoned. Reluctantly Ellinca followed, noting that Dayna and her fellow guard also followed. What else could she do? This auratrist, whatever that was, would let her see Pascolli. She would ask nicely.
On the far side of the room were the entrances to three more tunnels and a curtained-off alcove. Tracc pulled a corner of the curtain aside, spoke to someone within and received a curt reply.
“You may enter.” He held back the edge of the curtain. “Please.”
Within, a tall woman sat cross-legged on a brightly embroidered rug. Numerous fat cushions were scattered about. Her purple sleeveless tunic was also embroidered, though her leggings were a plain cream. Tiny plaits of her snow-white hair and hundreds of white and black beads were woven into a tight, complex helmet on her head. The wrinkles around her eyes and on the backs of her hands showed the passing of many years but her gaze was sharp and clear, and she stood as easily as a snake uncoiling.
“I am Marla,” the woman announced. “Sit.”
No tattoos of dead people on her arms, Ellinca observed. Good. She couldn’t help flicking her gaze back to Tracc to compare them. As well as Dayna and the other man, he had drawn his sword and taken up a stance along the inside of the curtain. It was distinctly alarming.
Are they ready to cut my head off if I say the wrong thing?
When she looked back, the woman waited for her with sharp eyes that seemed to bore into her very soul.
Flustered, she blurted, “What are you doing with us? I only wanted to help my friend Pascolli.” She pointed outside, the chain of the manacles clinking. “I saw him. Out there.” She swallowed and spoke quietly. “Beside the dead. If you hurt him...Please, I must know. Um. Are you going to eat us?”
There, it was said.
Silence. Utter, appalled silence. She felt her ears, her face, flush. Dost took her elbow. She wrenched away, stumbling a little in her haste. “No. They owe me an answer.”
He stiffened as if she had hurt him. Cursing her own failings, her stupidity and herself in general, she drew on her courage and looked him straight in the eye. “Sorry.”
He nodded, once.
“We do not eat people,” the woman snapped. Ellinca could nearly hear the teeth in her words.
“Yes,” Dost muttered. “That old story. A lie put out by the Imperator’s propagandists.”
Oh. She had insulted them.
“Amongst our tribes...” The woman spoke the La’le language well. Her voice was tightly controlled, held back from anger by the smallest of margins. “It is polite to say your name when you meet for the first time.”
Everyone looked at her. Her own anger had been wrong, dangerous even. That road would get her nowhere. Talking was infinitely better than being skewered on a sword.
“Please forgive me. I am Ellinca. I have no family name. I am an orphan.”
“And I am Dost, milady.”
“Ah. Your apology, accepted. Please be seated. You may call me Marla.”
“Thank you, Marla,” said Ellinca.
“Milady.” He inclined his head. In Dost’s cultured voice the simplest word became a compliment. If only there was not that occasional revolting bubbling sound.
They settled cross-legged before Marla.
“Before I begin I should explain who I am. I am an auratrist. Amongst the Grakkurd tribes we auratrists are the final judges in all cases of complex law. Murder, theft, cowardice, treason, also trade with other peoples – especially smugglers who often like to lie to gain a better price.” She sniffed. “All these people will come before an auratrist at some time. The truth is my territory and none can deceive me.” She
smiled languidly, as a snake that had caught many rats might.
“Now, girl... Ellinca. Before we can help you in any way I must find the truth in your tale. Your companion...” She indicated Dost. “...has said he came across you by accident and knows nothing of your past. Be warned. If there is any danger in you, any way that you could harm us, I will find it out.”
Snake eyes, snake smile, thought Ellinca, shrinking inside and definitely feeling mouse-like.
“Are you going to question Dost also?” She asked this as much from curiosity as from a wish to delay the questioning as long as possible.
“Yes. Be aware, the only reason we have done as much as we have is because of the gheist guardian.”
“The what?”
“I believe you call them tuskdogs.”
As if he knew he was being talked about, Gangar pushed nose-first through the curtain then, after sniffing and snorting a while at the cushions, flopped down on his belly between Ellinca and Dost.
“Why?” she asked. “I know some say they bring luck...”
Marla laughed dryly. “No. No. They are gheist guardians.” She waved her hand about, obviously struggling for the right word. “Gheist!”
“Yes, I know it means ghost. Oh. So they wait for people to turn into...ghosts? Or they guard ghosts?”
“Yes, that is right, once in each tuskdog’s lifetime. The ghosts of our people, we revere them, we honor them. They are our link with the Alter world, the other world where we go after death. In a way, yes, tuskdogs are lucky, for they allow the people they select to put order into their lives. Those people are the best. They shine out to us with their great appreciation of life and its values.”
“Are they, the tuskdogs, never wrong?”
“No.”
“But, but I’m not a ghost, why would he be following...” She felt the blood drain from her head. She knew she wasn’t the best of anything, and she didn’t want to die anytime soon.
Dost rumbled an answer. “It’s not what you think.”
“How can that be?”
“Gangar is my gheist guardian. Can you see a yellow halo about him? No? I am the only one who can. It is his ghost and, as my death approaches, the halo changes color.” He spoke drily, as if reciting a math lesson. “When it reaches ultraviolet I will know to say my final prayers.”
“Oh.” This was startling, but it made sense. Dost was the one nearest to death. She thought back over all the times when Gangar had appeared. “A seer told me about him – ”
“Pah!” Marla dismissed the idea. “Your seers say nothing worthwhile most of the time. Now. You have distracted me enough. Two warriors out there died when we met a Burgla’le force. We must leave here soon. They will bring in trackers.” The last few minutes of apparent friendliness faded. “With or without you, we leave.”
She placed her hand palm up on a small cushion between them. “Give me your hand, child.”
The manacles chimed prettily as she moved. Slowly, with much trepidation, Ellinca put her hand down. The auratrist placed her other hand over it, clasping Ellinca’s like a warm, living trap.
Ellinca thought frantically. She had never heard of the auratrists, but then neither had she heard of gheist guardians. There was much about the Grakkurds that she could learn. If only she could live that long.
Think. If this was a simple physical ability she might defeat it. She would not blush, sweat or flinch. She would be a statue. The woman must not discover her ability to heal...and to destroy, if the bludvoik were any indication. If they hated wild mages, like the Empire...
“You must answer my questions completely. Leave nothing out,” said the auratrist.
A strange coolness flowed up Ellinca’s trapped hand. In an instant, both her hand up to the wrist and Marla’s had turned to ice. Blue, crackling, surfaced with frost, and solid. Magience, surely. Wild magience? Yet she was respected.
“Your name is Ellinca?”
“Yes.” Her voice was strangely distant, and she became aware she was somehow looking across a vast chasm at herself and the auratrist. The voices echoed to her ears. Curious faded visions flashed before her. In all of them this woman held someone’s hand in her grip of ice. Men, women, children – a long line of them vanished into the past.
“Are you any danger to us, the Grakkurd people?”
Such a question. A smile crept across her face. “I don’t know.”
The woman’s eyebrows flew up. “Why don’t you know?”
“I can do something that might be bad.” She watched herself struggle. She must not tell, but what did it matter? Nothing mattered.
“And what is that? What can you do? Are you a mage?”
“I-I-I don’t... I don’t...” The question sent a surge of crackling force through her as she wrestled to find the true answer. She had to answer truthfully. What was the truth? The solution came to her. “Because I can do this.” She freed herself. The ice melted away. She moved her fingers this way and that, as if admiring them for the first time.
The auratrist stared wide-eyed though she quickly recovered. “I release you. Be as you were.”
For a time there were no words. Ellinca sat and examined at her hand. Eventually she mumbled, “What did you do to me?”
“What I always do. The real question should be what did you do? You freed yourself. How?” The snake eyes were back.
“Was that real? The ice?”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, frowning. She could remember everything that had happened, but still didn’t know what she had done.
“But you can remember, something...”
“The ice...” There was another trick here, Ellinca thought, biting her lip. “A little. Not much.”
“Aaah.” Marla exchanged a glance with Tracc. “Never mind. I have learned enough. You failed. Now.” Calmly she turned Dost. “There is you.”
Ellinca felt hands at her shoulder and was hauled backward and onto her feet. A gag was wound round her mouth and quickly tied. She struggled wildly but the two guards were strong. The sad look she saw on Tracc’s face made her throw herself around even more. Another half yard to the curtain. Where were they taking her?
“Stop,” Dost cried. “Leave her be. I can tell you more. Together we can help your cause.”
He was telling a huge lie, but it sounded good. Keep going, she tried to tell him with her eyes.
Marla dismissed his plea with a scornful lift of one eyebrow. “She may be dangerous to us. She must be disposed of.”
“Let me speak. This war has gone on for long enough. I can stop it.”
Disposed of! Ellinca spluttered through the gag and hammered her heel on Dayna’s foot.
The woman gasped and hissed at her through clenched teeth. “Not! Or I hurt you!”
Marla glanced at them. “It’s not as you think, girl. There are people across the mountains we will send you to. The Bheulakk take those we cannot quite...trust. You will be a servant to them. Not free, but alive.”
This was not going well, thought Ellinca, horrified. The Bheulakk were not quite human and were said to be devious and cruel. Perhaps the rumors were false, like the ones about the Grakkurds eating flesh. Something snapped inside. A limit had been passed. Everyone wanted to get rid of her. It wasn’t fair, or nice, and now she was angry.
“No,” Dost said. “I am a leper. I have a gheist guardian. That gives me a certain...immunity from your laws. You should not touch me.”
“Ah. You know our ways very well.” Marla pursed her lips. “Yes, it says much for your character that a tuskdog has come to you. He does you much honor. However we are at war, as you say. Our old ways have to be, um, put aside sometimes. Give me your hand.” She laid hers down on the pillow.
Dost did not move. For the first time Ellinca thought she could see fear in his eyes. He hadn’t expected this. The guards shifted their stances. The threat of violence filled the room. Slowly he lifted his hand.
“Take off your glove.”
He pulled off the yellow glove. Even from where she stood, with her arms held in a bruising grip, Ellinca could see the unhealthy blue of his fingers and the gaps where muscle and tissue had decayed to reveal bone.
Marla pulled back her lips. With the gentleness of a feather, he placed his hand over hers.
“Ugh!” Ellinca watched as she covered his disfigured hand with her other hand.
A spider web of red crackled across Marla’s flesh, following the veins and arteries as it raced up her arm. Red tracery flared on her neck and face. Her eyes bulged.
Dost snatched back his hand. Tracc and the second guard leaped over the cushions with swords in their fists as Marla scrambled backward.
“What are you?” She gasped. “Death dances in your veins!”
The point of Tracc’s sword quivered before Dost’s chest. And the sword... Ellinca found herself unable to look away, appalled yet fascinated. The sword of the other guard had pierced his palm, jutting out the back by a full hand’s breadth. Yet Dost moved not a muscle.
“I will not hurt you,” he said. “And you cannot hurt me.”
Ellinca’s thoughts sped like fire. He’s lying. He’s hurt Marla in some strange way. He’s not bleeding. And if he’s not a leper... The answer was frightening. Despite everything, she must tell them. At least they were human. She levered at the gag with her tongue.
“What are you?” Marla bared her teeth.
Elinca spat out the cloth. “He’s a bludvoik! Undead!”
“Kill that...thing!” Marla shuddered violently, like someone wracked by mind-numbing cold.
With a sudden twist of his pierced hand Dost pulled the sword from the guard’s grip. The chain between the manacles snapped. His other hand grabbed Tracc’s naked blade and yanked it away. Both weapons he tossed to the ground. “Listen! Idiots! Have you ever heard of a bludvoik talking?”
That made them pause. Gangar, as if to remind them of his presence, climbed to his feet like some stone monolith coming to life and ambled over to Dost. After sniffing his boots he lay down again, snorting and snuffling as he got comfortable. At last he settled with his back resting against the line of Dost’s thigh.
Magience: second edition Page 11
