But that was illusion. Even when the travelers reached the first cultivated fields, set apart from the grasslands by low walls of stone, Rhenna could not mistake them for the farmsteads of her people. The men who worked the earth with wooden hoes were dark, like Nyx, and lightly dressed for the warmth of the South. They paused in their work to stare, curious but not hostile, and some lifted their hands in greeting.
Still Nyx urged her companions on, past scattered villages of round huts and herds of cattle and goats tended by wide-eyed youngsters. Patches of wooded land grew more frequent. Well-worn paths became roads of a sort, earth scraped bare and packed firm by generations of hooves and human feet.
It was at the crossing of two such roads that they first saw the dog. The beast sat directly at the junction of the paths, a small, wheat-colored animal with triangular ears and a tightly curled tail. It grinned at the travelers with a lolling pink tongue, looking for all the world as if it had been waiting for them to arrive.
Nyx reined in her horse, signaling for the others to stop. She stared at the little dog with as much suspicion as she might regard a poisonous serpent.
“We must go around,” she said.
Immeghar laughed. “After all the mighty beasts we have seen,” he said, “you fear this one?”
Nyx cast him a sour look. “Things are not always what they seem, warrior,” she said. “You may laugh at your peril.”
Immeghar shrugged. Nyx led the way off the road and through the grass and tangled bush, pointedly averting her face from the dog. Tahvo rode up beside Rhenna.
“Nyx is right,” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder. “It is not just a dog.”
“A deva-beast, like Slahtti?” Rhenna asked. “It seems an odd choice of shape for a god.”
“Its nature is not clear to me. I cannot tell if it wishes us good or ill.”
“Then it isn’t very different from most devas. Stay close to me, Tahvo, and tell me if you sense any other dangers.”
Tahvo agreed, clearly distracted, and they rode on for several more days without encountering the dog. One morning Nyx suddenly kicked her mount into a gallop, racing past stands of fan-leafed trees. Rhenna and the others followed at a more leisurely pace, and soon they began to see plots of land where men dug holes in the earth with pointed sticks, preparing for the planting of some unfamiliar crop. Handsome dark-skinned children left their parents and rushed to the side of the road, shouting to each other in excited voices. The boldest of them darted toward the horses, nearly touched them and dashed away again, laughing.
“Innocents,” Cian said with a touch of grimness. “Nyx said they had no enemies.”
Immeghar grinned and feinted at one of the boys who came too near. The child squealed in mingled delight and terror.
Nyx returned on foot a few minutes later, calling to the children and the workers in the fields. Men and women put down their diggers and hoes. Nyx was beaming, her face more joyous than any time Rhenna had seen it in all their travels.
“Home,” Cian said, his voice rough with emotion. “How long will it be for us, Rhenna?”
He clearly didn’t expect her to answer. Rhenna dismounted and helped Tahvo down from her pony. The healer turned her face from side to side, listening intently. Nyx’s people pressed closer, many smiling, eyes fixed on the Northerners’ pale skin as if such coloring were a fascinating mistake of nature.
“You are welcome to our village,” Nyx said, encompassing all the visitors with her wide gesture. “Messengers have gone to alert the Fathers and Mothers, the heads of our clans. Soon we will have ishu cakes and emu òpe, palm wine.”
She led them along the path between the fields, through groves of tall trees and past a group of men at work smelting iron for spear-tips and knife blades. An old man, his face marked with a pattern of scars, sat on a wooden stool carving the surface of a gourd. Women washed bits of cloth on flat rocks beside a stream, and children herded goats and small cattle in search of forage. It seemed impossible to Rhenna that the Stone God or any evil could touch such a haven of peace.
Clusters of huts and larger houses, mud-walled and thatched with serrated leaves, soon replaced the open fields. Nyx stopped often to greet the men and women who welcomed her home. But Rhenna saw that many of the faces were solemn, and the people seemed to avoid engaging Nyx in long conversation. Eventually even Nyx’s smile disappeared, and she hurried on to the center of the village.
Three elderly women waited at the doorway of one of the larger houses, a compound of dwellings set apart from the others. Men from the surrounding compounds gathered to watch at a respectful distance. Nyx bowed deeply to the women and spoke at length, introducing the visitors by name.
The oldest woman, her tightly curled hair washed gray with age, sent several young boys to take the horses and beckoned the strangers closer. Rhenna stepped forward, inclining her head to the elders.
“This is the Mother of my House, Adisa, who is also head of Clan Amòtékùn,” Nyx said. “And these are her sisters, Bolanle and Dayo. Adisa offers you the shelter of the House and the clan.” Adisa spoke, and Nyx’s face clouded. “My Mothers wish to speak with me. Will you come inside and take refreshment?”
“Give them our thanks and gratitude,” Rhenna said, smiling at Adisa and her sisters. The old women returned her smile and indicated that the guests should enter the house.
Rhenna took Tahvo’s arm and bent to walk through. She found herself in a dark, spacious room that smelled of earth, leather and dry vegetation. The two pretty young women inside got to their feet, greeting the strangers with soft voices. Rhenna eased Tahvo down on one of the woven mats, while the healer answered the startled villagers in their own language. One of the girls touched Tahvo’s hair and burst into giggles. As soon as everyone was settled, the young women hurried out the back door of the room.
“They will bring food and drink,” Tahvo said. “I think they are very curious about us.”
“About your hair, at least,” Cian teased.
“But they are not afraid.” She stared at the ground with sightless eyes. “They are like my people, who never had anything to fear.”
“They have been fortunate,” Rhenna said, surprised at her own anger, “but even they will not be safe forever.”
The Imaziren glanced at each other. No one spoke. Soon the young village women returned with carved wooden platters of dense cakes, fish and dark soup in small bowls of baked clay. Smothering laughter, the girls mimicked lifting the bowls to their lips and urged their guests to eat and drink. The flavors were unfamiliar to Rhenna, but she and the others ate with enthusiasm after so many weeks of game and the occasional cooked root.
Once they were finished eating, the girls brought in a heap of tanned skins and furs, addressed Tahvo and left again. “They ask us to be comfortable and rest,” Tahvo said. “When the proper rooms are prepared, the men and women will be given their own quarters in the compound.”
Rhenna glanced at Cian and quickly away. “The next time they come, tell them we prefer to remain together. We—”
She broke off as Nyx entered the room. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her full lips were set in a hard line. She sat down between Tahvo and Cian.
“I have spoken to the Mothers,” she said. “They understand why we have come and what we seek.”
“You have been weeping,” Tahvo said softly.
Nyx looked away. “I have just learned that my father is dead.”
Tahvo touched her arm. “I am sorry.”
Nyx sniffed and raised her head. “It happened many months ago,” she said. “I was not here to bury him, but he lies in honor beneath the rooms he shared with my mother. He is with Olorun.”
“And all that he would have done now falls upon you,” Cian said.
Rhenna stared at him, remembering the times he and Nyx had spoken alone together. “Who was your father?” she asked the Southern woman.
Nyx sighed. “He was the one who brought knowledge
of the prophecies and the Hammer to the Ará Odò.”
She began to speak in a halting voice, telling Rhenna and the others of a secret city in the East: New Meroe, true home of the prophecies.
“My father was born in New Meroe,” she said. “His people—the People of the Scrolls—have guarded the sacred writings for over three thousand years, and the city’s holy men spend all their lives studying them to learn the will of the gods. My father taught me to revere the faith of his fathers.”
Suddenly a number of things began to make a great deal more sense to Rhenna. “Now I understand why you always insisted that the prophecies were true,” she said. “But in Karchedon you said you didn’t know how Philokrates had obtained his knowledge of them.”
“None from New Meroe would willingly give an outsider access to them. He must have found texts stolen by the Stone priests. But they would be copies, made before my father’s people fled from Khemet to Meroe, and then to the new city.”
“Khemet, which the Hellenes call Aigyptos,” Cian added.
“Yes. After the Godwar, the City of the Exalted was no more, and men wandered in search of new homes. The gods gave mortal heroes of the war all the sacred texts to hold inviolate for the future. These heroes were among those who unified the land of Khemet, building new cities out of the desert. They stood beside the first Pharaohs, and they became priests of an order devoted not to a single god but to the fate of men and gods alike.”
“More priests,” Rhenna muttered.
“Never mistake them for the evil ones in Karchedon,” Nyx said. “For one hundred and fifty generations, these priests served the good, living and working in their own secret citadel…until the Libu kings conquered Khemet. My father’s people fled south to the land of Kush and were given shelter by King Kashta, who later became Pharaoh—”
Rhenna held up her hands. “These names mean nothing to me.”
“For now it is enough to know that the rulers of Kush welcomed the People of the Scrolls, who then numbered only a few thousand, and the royal family of Kush intermarried with their leaders to create a new dynasty that would stand until the Time of Reckoning. But again the people were forced to flee when the priests foretold the birth of Alexandros the Mad, who would free the Exalted from their prison.”
“This part I know,” Rhenna said. “Alexandros conquered Hellas, Persis and Aigyptos before he died. He moved the Stone from the desert.”
“He let the Exalted escape,” Cian said, staring at the packed earth floor. “The Ailuri weren’t there to stop him.”
Nyx touched Cian’s knee. “You will redeem your people, Watcher.”
“Continue with your tale,” Rhenna said brusquely.
Nyx withdrew her hand with a sharp, knowing look at Rhenna. “Driven from their second home in the city of Meroe,” she continued, “the People of the Scroll built New Meroe in a barbarous land in the East, hidden from unconsecrated eyes. There they have lived, safe from the Stone God, for the past sixty-five years. There my father was born.
“He grew up devoted to the prophecies…especially to the cult of the Watchers, who made ready for the one born to bear the Hammer of the Earth. He served as a warrior, training every day for the Time of Reckoning and the final battle with the Stone. But he was impatient. He hoped to be the one to locate the Hammer and bring the Watchers to the holy city.”
“The Ailuri were still in the Shield of the Sky, even five years ago,” Rhenna said.
“My father’s people had only rumor, faith and cryptic writings to guide them. Still, my father took what knowledge he had and journeyed west, over mountains and through endless forests, to the land of my mother’s people.”
“This village.”
Nyx nodded. “Though my father was both courageous and skilled, he reached this land only to be attacked by a wild beast and was severely wounded. My mother, a daughter of Clan Amòtékùn, found him and brought him here. She nursed him back to health. But his injuries were such that he could not continue his quest. He married my mother and was accepted into her clan.”
“He became an exile,” Cian said.
“He spoke often of the city he had left behind, never forgetting the great quest that had driven him to risk his life. And when I was born, he told me every tale of his people that he could remember. He taught me of the empire and the evil to come. I grew up a disciple of the prophecies, as he was.”
“You determined to finish what your father started,” Rhenna said.
“I listened to every rumor that drifted across the Great Desert, sought out those few who crossed it and survived. From them I learned of Karchedon, and how well the Stone priests had succeeded in forcing their evil god upon the conquered peoples. I knew I must go north and find the Watchers, even if it meant my death.”
“You found what you sought,” Tahvo said.
“I completed my father’s quest, but I did not return in time to tell him, or to show him…” Tears shone in her eyes. “My mother’s people had no knowledge or prophecies of the Stone God before my father’s coming, yet most have come to believe his claims. Their own gods, the òrìshà, have given signs that the heavens and earth are disturbed by forces they do not understand.”
“I feel these spirits,” Tahvo murmured. “They are still strange to me.”
“The Ará Odò have no priests,” Nyx said, “but they make offerings to the òrìshà, and the gods sometimes answer.”
Rhenna got up and paced from one end of the room to the other. “Why did you not tell us of your father’s quest when we left Karchedon?”
“I told Cian because he was most directly involved. Telling you would have changed nothing.”
“Perhaps you feared we might trust you less if we realized that your ambition to bring Cian here was more a personal quest than a desire for the salvation of the world.”
Nyx held Rhenna’s stare. “Do you think I hate the Stone any less than you?”
“I think there is more you may be hiding from us.”
Cian pounded his fist on the packed earth floor. “Enough,” he growled. “We must find the Hammer, and Nyx’s people know far more than we.”
His sudden ferocity startled Rhenna. “I’m sure Nyx can also explain exactly what we are to do when we find it,” she snapped.
“Finding it will be no easy task,” Nyx said. “The forested lands are wide and difficult to penetrate. The Mothers will consult with the People of the House and with the Fathers of the other clans to decide what must be done. They will almost certainly wish to call upon the òrìshà for their aid. Until then, rooms in the compound have been prepared for your comfort.” She rose. “Abeni and Monifa, the girls who brought your meals, will show you. Ask for anything you require.”
She left, deftly evading Rhenna’s attempt to detain her, and shortly afterward the girls arrived to lead their guests to new quarters. Immeghar, Cian and Mezwar were given one hut near the center of the compound, while Tahvo, Rhenna, Cabh’a and Tamallat took another near enough that Rhenna saw no good reason to object to the separation. Tahvo retreated to one corner of the room, focused inward on the voices of her spirits, and Tamallat sat near the door and sighed over Mezwar.
Rhenna practiced warriors’ exercises with Cabh’a in the open area between the huts, observed by curious children, and waited for Nyx to make her next report. At nightfall, after the second meal had been brought and Nyx had still not appeared, Rhenna went to the men’s hut to look for Cian. She suspected he knew more of the Southern woman and her motives than he had admitted.
But Cian wasn’t there. Immeghar said that he’d slipped away sometime after the meal. He was not in the village. Rhenna knew better than to chase after him.
She crouched outside her hut and watched the black edge of the forest beyond the cleared fields, listening to the strange hoots and howls from the broad canopy of the treetops. They were seductive, those cries, thick with wild longing and the rejection of all that humans called civilization. The forest’s call wa
s far darker and more primal than the stark serenity of the steppes or the mountains. And as she breathed in the heavy, rich scents of the Southern night, Rhenna realized that she was more terrified of losing Cian to this place than she had ever been of his bonds to Nyx, the Imaziren or his own people.
Cian might enter such a place and never return.
Nyx found Cian an hour’s walk into the forest, where he had paused to drink at a stream. She stood on the opposite bank and watched him toss twigs and stones into the water, not speaking, until he could no longer pretend he was alone.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“Why did you leave the village?”
He cocked his head, breathing shallowly to keep his mind clear of the intoxicating scents that swirled around him. “Do you seek your gods in this place, Nyx?”
“Sometimes,” she said, “when I come to the forest alone.” She curled and straightened her long body in a sensuous stretch. “Is that why you ventured here, Cian? To listen to the gods?”
He swallowed his laughter. “That is Tahvo’s gift,” he said. “The devas don’t speak to me.”
“Are you so certain?” She crossed the stream, her own scent mingling in perfect harmony with the fragrance of earth and water and growing things. “I understand you better than you know.”
She was close. Too close. “Go back to the village,” he said. “I’ll come to no harm here.”
“Do you think I fear for your safety, Watcher?” She shook her head. “None of my clan fears the forest or its creatures. The first of our Mothers was a part of it.” She gazed up at him, her dark eyes catching some distant glimmer of light. “You asked how I found you. I can see in the darkness almost as well as you.”
“Because you have the gift of Earth magic. Your ancestors were godborn.”
“Yes. And no. The other clans of the village believe that my clan’s founder was a panther woman who met a man of the Ará Odò and fell in love with him. She left her skin in the forest and took human shape to bear the man’s children.”
Hammer of the Earth Page 20
