The Wild Road

by Jennifer Roberson

  Rhuan nodded. “The same.”

  “The storm,” Jorda said. “When you were missing.” He said nothing more, but his eyes asked the question.

  “Yes,” Rhuan told him. “The storm took me. I’m not immune to Alisanos. My people come from there, but we’re no more able to control the deepwood than you.”

  “But you came back out after the storm. And I don’t see any change upon you.” Jorda paused. “Yet.”

  “And you won’t.”

  Jorda’s frown was deeper than ever. “What are your people?”

  “We’re not demons, any of us. There are demons in Alisanos, but we are not counted among them.”

  Jorda was tense as he worked through the information. Finally he asked, “And Darmuth?”

  “Ah.” Rhuan said. “Well.”

  “Well?”

  “Darmuth is a demon. I’m sorry—I didn’t intend to mislead you.”

  “Blessed Mother of Moons.” Jorda closed one big hand over the string of charms at his neck. I’ve been harboring a demon?” He was so angry now, Rhuan feared he might drop over dead. “I’m responsible for the lives of hundreds of people every season, and one of my guides is a demon?”

  “He isn’t here to harm humans,” Rhuan told him hastily. “Darmuth isn’t here for humans at all. He’s here for me.”

  Jorda’s color deepened. “What do you mean, he’s here for you?”

  So Rhuan told him about Darmuth, Ferize, and the journey, with as much brevity and clarity as possible.

  Afterward, Jorda sat in silence, staring at him, marking everything about him that he had once believed was Shoia and now knew was not.

  Jorda’s eyes darkened. “Does Ilona know what you are?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she just accepts it?”

  “Yes. Which means, very likely, that you can accept it, too.” Rhuan paused, seeing the disbelief in Jorda’s eyes. “Some day.”

  Jorda’s tone was deceptively light. “Ilona rose from the dead.”

  Rhuan knew what he was asking. “She is not one of my people. She is everything she has ever been.”

  “She rose from the dead.”

  Rhuan nodded. “I assume she must be Shoia. There truly is no way of knowing how many are left, Jorda. But we know they aren’t myth. It’s why Brodhi and I let everyone believe we are—were—Shoia, because we can’t be killed in this world. It was easy to accept. People know about Shoia having multiple lives.”

  Jorda was silent for long moments. Then he lifted the plank next to him and placed it on his lap, finding his lead as well.

  “Is it enough?” Rhuan asked. “Do you understand?”

  “I’m not sure it will ever be enough.” Jorda read over the marks on creased paper pinned to the plank. “I’m not sure I care to know more. Not at this moment, in any case. I may have additional questions for you later. For now, go and tend your duty.”

  Rhuan, knowing dismissal when he heard it, rose. He ducked his head to keep it from brushing rib and canvas. But one more thing must be said, to ease the mind of a man he respected very much. “Jorda, we’re not here to harm anyone, Brodhi and I. Truly. Neither are Darmuth and Ferize.”

  “Rhuan, I have work to do preparing a list of supplies for the trip to Cardatha. I’d advise, again, that you take yourself off to wherever this border between the deepwood and this settlement is, and begin to build your marker cairns.” Jorda glanced up. “Now.”

  Rhuan badly wanted to say more, to explain in more depth. To find something that restored the balance between them. But the finality in Jorda’s voice welcomed no such explanation. Rhuan nodded, turned, and descended the steps. He donned muddy boots. Before he left, he cast a final glance back into the wagon.

  Jorda wasn’t writing. Jorda was clutching the charms around his neck, eyes closed, talking to the Mother.

  Regret lodged itself in Rhuan. The comfortable relationship between guide and karavan-master was forever destroyed, he knew. As was everything in this world. It was part of his rite of passage as a dioscuri.

  And when that passage was completed, and in Ilona’s name, he would have to kill his sire.

  Chapter 13

  AS THE RAIN let up, Ilona dug out from storage a thick mat made of grasses, quilted between two pieces of heavy canvas, and spread it on the packed soil beneath the awning, beneath an elder tree. Then she retrieved cushions, a low table, rich cloths, candles, items that enhanced her position as diviner, and set all out beneath the awning. She placed at the two outside corners of the awning tall wrought-iron sherpherd’s crooks, and hung lanterns. Tea kettle depended from a smaller hook over the fire, carefully laid beneath the awning so as not to be drowned in the daily rain. She stacked several small clay cups beside her table.

  She had eaten her midday meal and knew various folk would come to her to have their hands read, especially under the circumstances. She sat down upon a cushion behind the low, laquered table, folded hands resting on the cloth-draped surface, legs crossed beneath a full skirt. Quietude was necessary. Going into herself was necessary. There had, of late, been too much turmoil, too many upended days. Such turmoil did not prevent her from reading hands, but it did interfere and often twisted the vision upon itself. She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and let the ordinary sounds of a grove, of folk within the grove, fill her mind.

  A step intruded. Possibly a client. She opened one eye: Rhuan, ducking under the awning. Her other eye opened.

  Smiling, he bent over the low table and kissed the top of her head, loose hair falling around his face like a curtain, then knelt on one knee and reached out to take a hand in his own. “I haven’t the time to stay.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “I’m to begin building cairns along the border between Alisanos and the settlement. But later, yes.” Dimples appeared. “Oh yes.”

  The warmth of his hand brought recollection, and a stirring in her body. But there was no time, now, for either of them. Later, as Rhuan said. Oh yes. “Jorda’s orders?”

  Rhuan’s expression was rueful. “He is most displeased with me.”

  A wave of love and longing rose up within her. But she knew very well that if she gave into it and kissed him the way she wished to, the cairns would be forgotten as would her intent to read hands. She distracted herself by asking a question. “Did you tell him the truth?”

  “As much of it as I felt necessary, at that moment. All of the truth, no. As much as he could bear.” He shrugged, intent upon her hand, gently massaging each of her fingers. “There was no sense in telling Jorda my sire is a god and that I’m halfway there myself.”

  Ilona laughed. “Well, no, I suppose not. I think you served him quite enough on his plate!”

  “He knows now that Darmuth is a demon, and Ferize, though he’s seen nothing of her. He knows about the journey, the rite of passage. I can’t say he disbelieves any of what I told him . . . but he needs time to understand it.”

  She smiled at him. “Of course he needs time. Wouldn’t you? Well, no, not you. But then you grew up with this knowledge.”

  He nodded absently. “Have you told anyone?”

  “The courier, Bethid. Circumstances demanded it. But I’m sure she will be discreet. And you? Other than to Jorda, have you said anything?”

  He released her hand and shook hair back behind his shoulders. “The farmsteader. Audrun’s husband. The man was so lost, so desperate . . . I told him about the road so he might take some solace that he will see his family again, when the road is completed. I think it gave him some comfort. What I did not say is that his family may not truly be his family when they meet again, merely fading reminders of what they once were.” Rhuan shook his head. “I wish I could give him peace about that, but I believe if I told him now how bad it might be, he couldn’t bear it. Too much has happened in a ver
y short span of time. And how should I know? Alisanos will do whatever it chooses to do. But so long as Audrun and her children remain at the Kiba, they will be safe.” He paused. “They should be safe. Physically. Emotionally—I can’t say.” His eyes took on a distant look. “It isn’t easy living among primaries.”

  “Even for you?”

  “Particularly for me.” He looked down, picking absently at a small rip in the canvas matting, and the unbraided hair slipped forward once more. “I cannot tell you how relieved I was when it came time for me to begin the journey among humans. It got me away.”

  “You couldn’t have left before?”

  “No.” Rhuan shook his head. “Dioscuri are tied to Alisanos in some way before we begin the journey. It’s like a dog on a leash. A very long leash but, nonetheless, a leash. We are unleashed in a ceremony and, as humans say, pushed out of the nest. We must fly or die.” He paused. “You know what we face, if we fail.”

  Indeed she did. Brodhi had made it plain: castration. And abruptly impulse took her, sending a river, a spate, through her spirit. Words tumbled over themselves. “Rhuan, stay here! Don’t return to your people. Half of you is human . . . you belong here! Repudiate the primaries. Repudiate this journey. Don’t go back.”

  His face was tense. “I must.”

  “But why? Your father and uncle—and Brodhi as well!—have told you repeatedly you are inferior.” And that might have been phrased more tactfully, but she went on in crisp determination. “Why should any of them care if you stay here?”

  She saw color rise up in his flesh, a deeping of the pale copper she was accustomed to. For a moment the third eyelid dropped down over his eyes, red as blood. But the membranes lifted, disappeared. The flush in his skin died away. “Ilona, you know primaries can come to this world. Alario did.”

  Indeed, she knew.

  “All of them could come to this world if they wished . . . but they don’t wish. Why should they? In Alisanos, they are gods. Here, no, though with certain physical advantages. No dioscuri wishes to remain in the human world once his journey is done.”

  “Except you.”

  “Except me. And I’m not even certain what might happen to a dioscuri-cum-primary who returned to this world intending to remain. That’s something I will discover for myself. But if, in the meantime, I don’t complete the journey, primaries will come to me here. Three of them. Probably my sire, Brodhi’s, and Ylarra, a female. I am a child to them . . . they are full grown and would easily overpower me. They would devour my spirit. Unman me. Yes, they would leave me here, but what they leave would be nothing you know.” He met her eyes, and she saw the acknowledgment in them, the undertone of bleakness. “I must return to Alisanos when my journey is completed and challenge my sire.”

  She drew in a slow breath, released it. She had never seen him so. Never heard him so. “But you do mean to come back here. You’ve said so.”

  “If I take the victory, I may do as I will. Then it’s my choice. And that is indeed my goal—to return here. Because then I will be a primary, and no one can stop me.” He shrugged. “But whether I remain a primary when I return to this world, I can’t say. No one knows.”

  Fear edged in like a blade. She had met Alario. She knew how fragile was human life, compared to the primaries. But Rhuan? Yes, half of him was human, but the other half came of the same blood that resided in Alario and all of the primaries.

  She did him the favor of not prevaricating, of not dismissing realities and difficult truths. “Can you defeat him?”

  Rhuan’s voice was stripped of emotion. He did not dissemble, merely stated facts. “I don’t know.”

  CLOUDS TORE APART, leaving streaks of blue behind. The sun, unencumbered, turned a bright face to the earth. But everything was damp. Wisps of moisture steamed beneath the sun. The fallen grove imitated life, green leaves not yet dry and shriveled. The warmth of the day returned with the sun, but it was humid, cloying. Tent-folk would be rolling up canvas sides to let in the the air and karavaners the same with their wagon canopies. This was what all would face for weeks, until the monsoon withdrew. Everywhere was the scent of dampness, the odor of mud and wet and woodsmoke.

  Despite his disinclination, Brodhi assisted with the re-pitching of the big common tent. He grudgingly decided that, much as he detested the argument, perhaps Bethid had a valid point when she said they ate food and drank ale in the settlement, and thus he owed it his participation in the current situation and long-term future. There were worse places to stay on the road. This settlement had always been one of the most habitable. And Mikal wasn’t afraid of him or made ill-at-ease by his presence, the way some ale-keeps were in other places, tolerating him solely because he was a Guild courier.

  Brodhi smiled with no little smugness. Afraid of me as Shoia . . . what would they think if I told them the truth?

  He, Timmon, and Alorn, being male and therefore taller and stronger than Bethid—who was small even for most women—erected the poles and canvas, and drove iron anchors into the wet ground more deeply than ever before. They doubled up on rope guy-lines and knots and did their best to secure the tent. But all knew that if Alisanos struck again, the tent might collapse once more.

  In the meantime, Bethid scrambled under the canvas as they raised it to gather up personal articles. These she deposited in a pile in front of the tent, on top of a sheet of oilcloth. As the men tied off the lines, she ducked back inside to hang hooks from the Mother Rib, to untangle the leather thong from wire. She spread bedding for all. Fortunately the boot-packed interior ground had not soaked up the water, as fallen canvas had protected the ground as well as most of their belongings.

  When Bethid came back out of the tent, Brodhi saw her gaze shift to somewhere over his shoulder. “Ah. Hello, Rhuan,” she said.

  Brodhi swung around immediately, unable to control the whiplash reaction. Yes, there he was, his kin-in-kind, about three paces away. Rhuan had yet to braid his hair—or have it braided for him—so it hung loose on either side of his face and down his spine. He gave the newly-pitched tent a glance of assessment, then came to a halt not far from Brodhi. “Your map,” he said. “If you’ve gotten a head start on marking where the border is, it would save me some time.”

  Brodhi felt the familiar antipathy kindle. At that moment he cared nothing about maps, markers, or the well-being of the settlement. His mind fixed on one thing. “You’re a disgrace.”

  Rhuan blinked. “Why am I a disgrace this time?”

  “You might as well cut off your hair like a neuter. You have no respect for our rituals.”

  Rhuan sighed. “You know very well how my hair came to be unbraided in the first place. My sending in the dreya ring, remember, when I was injured? Not that it convinced you to offer aid.”

  Brodhi ignored that topic altogether. “You could have had it rebraided at the Kiba.”

  “I could have, yes.” Rhuan glanced briefly at the other couriers, who looked on with puzzled interest.

  “You married that farmsteader woman,” Brodhi said disdainfully, ignoring the others; they would believe this was a Shoia conflict.

  Timmon expelled a blurt of surprise. Alorn caught Bethid’s eye, pointed briefly at Rhuan, and mouthed a question: He married the farmsteader’s wife?

  Bethid shrugged and shook her head, indicating puzzlement akin to his own.

  Brodhi continued. “With proper instruction, she could have braided it as it should be braided.”

  Rhuan, who was focused solely on Brodhi, stared at him in bafflement. “Why does it matter to you whether my hair is braided or loose? And no, I did not marry the farmsteader woman.”

  Brodhi spared a glance for Timmon, Alorn, and Bethid, now riveted by the exchange. Brodhi glared. Bethid, somewhat more intuitive than the two male couriers, abruptly waved a hand at them in a gesture that suggested they go into the
tent so that the cousins—that human word—could speak privately. And they went, but she knew they would have many questions for her later.

  Brodhi looked back at Rhuan, lowering his voice. “It matters,” he said. “You dishonor us by being so lax.”

  “Who is ‘us’? You?”

  Brodhi scowled. “You know very well who I mean. Primaries and dioscuri. I don’t know why you even bother to undertake the journey . . . you want no part of it. You want no part of us.”

  “‘Us’ again. Still the primaries and the dioscuri?”

  A slow pressure built up in Brodhi’s chest. His skin warmed into what he knew was a faint coppery sheen. “You are a disgrace!”

  A chill settled into Rhuan’s eyes, dismissing the normal cheerfulness Brodhi also detested. “You said that once already. But as it matters so much to you, I have every intention of instructing Ilona how to braid my hair. As I will braid hers.”

  Brodhi wielded the verbal knife with a scornful laugh. “Can you even satisfy one woman? And now you’ll have two?”

  Heat and color rose in Rhuan’s face and the red membrane flickered. Ah, that told much to Brodhi. “I didn’t marry Audrun.”

  Brodhi’s smile, shaped so carefully, he knew from experience, was infuriating. “But you did.”

  “I didn’t mean to marry Audrun.”

  “But you did.”

  Rhuan said something that was, in human terms, entirely obscene.

  Brodhi laughed, pleased. “You see? Disgraceful. Offensive. Weak. Entirely inappropriate for your rank. Perhaps I should do all of the primaries a good turn and end your worthless journey here and now.”

  And he had, at last, gotten under Rhuan’s skin. His kin-in-kind glared at him. “This profits nothing,” Rhuan said. “I came for the map.”

  “To save yourself some trouble?”

  “Why repeat an action that doesn’t require it?”