The Wild Road

by Jennifer Roberson

  That caught her off-guard. “You can do that?”

  Brodhi said nothing.

  “Can you do that?”

  And then he swore. The language was none she knew, but the tone told her everything. He turned over onto his back; she knew because his voice was clearer. He said a few more words in his private language, but she recognized one of them. It was a name.

  She levered herself up on one elbow, turning onto her hip. “What has Rhuan done now?”

  Brodhi sounded very much as if he were gritting his teeth. “It’s the Sending. Two Sendings, earlier. It’s opened a link. Temporary but most uncomfortable while it lasts.”

  “What kind of link?”

  “To him.”

  “Yes, I understood that. But what does it mean? You can read what’s in his mind?”

  “Bethid, you may know more about me than any other human—”

  “No, Ilona knows more; she’s sleeping with Rhuan, remember?”

  “—but you don’t know everything, and neither does Ilona.”

  “Do you think—” But Bethid cut off the balance of her question. Brodhi had gone very still; an almost preternatural stillness. She could sense it, feel it. Hair stirred on the back of her neck. “What is it?”

  Silence.

  “What did this link tell you? This Sending? Is Rhuan in trouble?”

  Brodhi rose and bent to tug on his boots. “Usually the only time he ever Sends is when he’s in trouble. But what I sense now . . . there is more. Most decidedly more. It’s someone who shouldn’t be here.”

  It startled her. “Someone else?”

  “Bethid, go to sleep.”

  “Do you want company?”

  He made no answer. He passed by her pallet, deftly untied the door flap, and slipped out into the night.

  Chapter 19

  A SCREEN STOOD DIAGONALLY in a corner of the sleeping chamber; a wrought-iron framework filled with crisscrossed lengths of stripped tree branches woven together with copper wire to form a barrier. Audrun inspected the space behind the screen and found what she hoped for: a crock. It was formed of the same fired red clay and soil that permeated the Kiba. She put it to good use, and felt much relief.

  Torvic slept again, this time in the cot that had become hers. Audrun resettled the woven coverlet over him. As was her habit, she mentally counted the children. And found that Ellica was missing.

  For one fleeting moment, it raised no alarm; her children were sometimes up early and outside organizing chores or playing. And then recollection shot through her, turning body to ice and knotting up her stomach.

  Audrun plunged into the larger chamber, telling herself Ellica was probably there. But no Ellica. She ripped aside the door curtain and stepped hastily out into the dawn light, beginning to tremble. She opened her mouth to shout for her daughter, and then saw Ellica sitting on a wooden bench beside the door.

  “Oh, thank the Mother . . .” Relief was so overwhelming that she nearly dropped to her knees. She felt breathless. “Ellica, what are you doing?”

  Her eldest daughter gazed up at her. “Eating.”

  And indeed, she was. A wide leaf set next to her on the bench contained some kind of puffy flatcake drizzled with honey, and a clay bottle was gripped in her left hand. “Where—” But Audrun broke it off. The sharpness of her initial fright, the dismissal of it in as powerful a relief, drained her of strength. Shakily, she took two steps and sat down on the bench next to her daughter, avoiding the leaf and cake at the last moment.

  “He’ll bring more,” Ellica said.

  Audrun blinked. “Who will bring more of what?”

  “This,” Ellica said through a sticky mouthful. “Omri.”

  Audrun leaned back against the brick-built front of the cave, settling her breathing. Two suns rose; though not yet hot, she felt the first warmth of the day more keenly than when she was in Sancorra. In the human world. She still trembled, she still felt weak. Her breasts ached, and her arms were empty of infant. But she was done with tears. She had children to care for.

  “Where’s your tree?” she asked. She had not seen Ellica without it since being reunited with her here in the Kiba.

  “It’s here.” Ellica’s gesture indicated the ground beside the bench, though Audrun couldn’t see it. “Omri’s bringing a pot.”

  It appeared her daughter had made a fruitful acquaintance with someone in a surpassingly short amount of time. “Omri who, and why is he bringing a pot?”

  “Omri’s been given to us,” Ellica answered matter-of-factly. “And the pot is for my tree. For now. I’ll have to plant it in the ground, of course, but not right away. Not—here.”

  “Given to us? Given? A man? Blessed Mother, Ellica, no one can give a person!”

  Ellica shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  “Omri said?”

  “That he’d been given to us.”

  Something to eat. And now a pot for a tree. “I’ll talk to him,” Audrun said on a sigh. And then she saw, climbing the pathway to them, the man with cropped hair who had escorted them to the dwelling. “That’s Omri?”

  Ellica nodded.

  Indeed, he had a pot. When he reached them he carefully set the container down, then reached inside and removed a tray of leaf packets that smelled of cake and honey. And clay bottles like the one Ellica had. The bottles were capped by something; nothing had spilled.

  Ellica rose, licking honey off fingers. “I’m going,” she said. She lifted the sapling and very carefully placed the root ball inside the pot. “I have to find the ideal soil for it.” Holding the pot against her chest, Ellica strode off.

  Audrun stared after her a moment. Then she turned her attention to the man. “Omri,” she began, “my daughter says you told her you’ve been given to us.”

  He nodded.

  “We don’t do that,” she said. “We don’t give people to other people.”

  “In the human world?” he asked.

  “Yes, in the human world!”

  Omri nodded understanding. “But we’re not there. And everything . . . everything you know, have been taught to know, and have always known, does not exist here.” He set on the bench beside her a stack of leaf-wrapped cakes, placed into her hands a bottle of liquid that smelled like berries, and squatted before her. “This is Alisanos.”

  “I know that!” she snapped. “So everyone keeps informing me. But it does not mean I and my children should simply dismiss everything we know from our world. We are human, Omri. We do have courtesies, and habits, and beliefs, and convictions. No matter where we are.”

  His expression was grave. “I do know that. I have been in your world.”

  That stopped her burst of anger and desperation. “You have?”

  “I have. We take a journey when we are dioscuri—”

  She waved a hand. “Yes, I know about that. Rhuan explained it. So you should very well know what our world is like, should you not, since you were there for five years?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “Well then—”

  But he cut her off. “It is less rigorous in your world, less dangerous. Oh, you die from any number of causes, even killings by fellow humans. But here, it is different. Far more deadly. There, we resurrect. Here, we do not.”

  Audrun studied the softened angles of his face, the faded look of his skin compared to Rhuan’s. And he did not meet her eyes for long, but lowered his lids in what she could only describe as submission.

  She gentled her tone. “You failed to kill your sire.”

  Omri nodded.

  “And so . . .” There was no way she could describe the details. “And so you were—punished.”

  “Yes.”

  An idea occurred. Audrun stared at him for a long, stil
l moment, saw color come into his face, and immediately looked away. She had been rude. But the idea . . . the idea had occurred, and it took precedence over everything. A cold prickle ran down her spine. If. If. Oh, very much an “if.”

  She drew in a very deep, very careful breath, held it a moment, then released it on a rush as she met his eyes again. “Why not return to our world?”

  And the idea: Take us with you.

  He met her eyes. “It’s not possible.”

  The idea gripped her so tightly she thought he must surely read in her eyes what she truly wanted. “There, no one would know who you are, or were, or what you are—or what was done to you. You would be a man like any other.”

  And then what she could not speak, dared not, and her chest was so tight. Please, say you’ll go . . . say you’ll take us with you.

  “I am not a male,” Omri said. “I am a neuter. I am a failed dioscuri. I didn’t die in challenge of my sire but neither did I kill him.”

  Once, she would have considered what she wanted entirely selfish. But not now. Not in the deepwood.

  She opened her mouth to attempt persuasion again, but he cut her off.

  “Neuters serve. We weave, we plant crops and harvest them, we form and fire clay, we mortar small stones together, we carve designs in our walls, we raise children in the creche . . . We do everything here that is beautiful.” He lifted his hand, indicating the cliffs, the dwellings, the entire Kiba. “Without us, there would be no beauty here.”

  “No one would know,” Audrun repeated, wishing very hard not to let the desperation show. “No one.”

  He rose. Submission was no longer evident. “I give you back your words,” he said. “We too have courtesies, and habits, and beliefs, and convictions. No matter where we are.”

  Oh, that struck home. Audrun said nothing, made no beginning of an answer, because she could not, and there was none.

  Omri named himself a failed dioscuri. He served the primaries; he was not one of them. But for all his posture and lowered eyes spoke of submission, even though Karadath referred to him as worthless, Audrun saw in him the same innate sense of self. His was simply dimmer than Rhuan’s, than Brodhi’s. Dimmer than the primaries she had seen.

  But dimmer was still a glowing coal.

  After a moment, torn between despair that Omri could not help and resentment that he would not, Audrun gathered up the tray of leaf-wrapped cakes and carried them in to her children. To three of her children. The fourth was potting her tree. The fifth was—elsewhere.

  Ah, but her breasts ached. As much, she thought, as her heart.

  THE DEMON DELIBERATELY moved into his way, Alario knew, who stopped short to avoid a collision. For the first brief moment, he was speechless, and then annoyed that he was speechless. Especially in front of Darmuth. “Little demon,” he said, “not the best course.”

  Beneath the moon, there was a hint of gleaming on Darmuth’s skin; pale, pale glow outlining a scale pattern. And when he stretched his mouth in what was merely mimicry of a smile, elongated canines glinted white. The green gemstone glowed. “But the only course, I think,” Darmuth said, “in view of what you’ve done. And yes, I know exactly what you’ve done.”

  This was sheer folly. “It’s none of your concern, Darmuth.”

  The demon’s brows rose. “Of course it’s my concern. It may well affect my dioscuri, and I must protect him against incursions such as this. You are not to be here, Alario. You are not to interfere.”

  Alario smiled and made no answer other than the warming of his skin, the downward slide of ruddy membrane over his eyes. No words were needed.

  But Darmuth did not hesitate, nor did he back down in submission. “You know this perfectly well, primary. It’s been a rule since well before I was made. Possibly even before you were. You are not to interfere with a dioscuri’s journey.”

  Alario took a step forward. His chest nearly touched Darmuth’s. “In this world, I do whatever I wish.”

  “You’re not supposed to be in this world!” Darmuth declared. “Not to confront me, not to harm Rhuan, and most especially not to impregnate a woman! I say again: You are not to interfere.”

  “My get makes it necessary to sire a dioscuri on a human woman.”

  “You have one of those, primary!”

  “I want another. And I shall make another.” Alario stepped closer yet to Darmuth. The faint flicker of Darmuth’s scale pattern faded, overtaken by the powerful dominance of a primary’s presence. “My current get is worthless, and you know it. His failure to exhibit the proper behaviors for a dioscuri make him weak—”

  To Alario’s astonishment, Darmuth cut him off. “—and that reflects on you, so you believe. I know that. What do you think a journey is for but to discover if a dioscuri is fit to become a primary? It isn’t up to you to decide whether he is or not. It’s up to him. It’s up to the challenge. Up to all the primaries.”

  Anger rose and an inner annoyance that Darmuth could make him angry. “I may make whatever decision I wish, little demon. Such as deciding what is fit to be my get. Rhuan is not.”

  “He survived,” Darmuth insisted coolly, not in the least submissive. “He is your only get left. That’s all the customs ask, that a primary have one dioscuri to challenge him. And to take his place if the primary is killed.”

  “He survived because the remaining two killed one another. Rhuan did nothing save watch them die. And he could never defeat me. Never.”

  “It’s doubtful,” Darmuth agreed, “in which case you will defeat him, and all the questions of his fitness to ascend shall be answered. But you precipitate matters. Let it play out as it will. Anticipate Rhuan’s death, yes, but don’t effect it. It’s not your place.”

  Additional heat spilled down through veins and flesh, limned even bone. “My place is as I make it!”

  “In Alisanos, yes. Not here. You risk censure, if the others found out.”

  Alario leaned into Darmuth, chests pressing against one another. “And do you intend to carry word, little demon? You have leave to come and go so you may tell tales about how Rhuan fares on his journey.” Alario smiled. “How would you do that thing, were I to unmake you?”

  He saw the faintest flicker of startled withdrawal in the demon’s eyes. Darmuth, speaking of Rhuan, was confident, protective. He could be nothing else. But now it was his own existence threatened.

  “I should give you a taste,” Alario murmured, and fixed upon Darmuth’s eyes, his own in unwavering dominance. “Do you feel it?”

  Darmuth’s lips drew back as breath hissed between his teeth. His head tipped back, baring his throat; tendons stood out like rope. Slits appeared in the flesh of his face, but what he bled was not blood at all. It was light.

  “I could flay you,” Alario said carelessly, “and leave you alive to live without flesh. Would the humans accept you then? I quite doubt it.”

  Darmuth cried out. He flattened palms against his face, attempting to stop the flow of light. But then identical slits appeared in his hands, and light welled forth. Alario need only extinguish that light, let it bleed the body dry, so that the flesh fell off the demon, the viscera crumbled, and the bones were blown away as a fleeting shroud of dust.

  “Stop it!”

  That wasn’t Darmuth. Alario looked up into the branches.

  “And will you unmake me as well?” Ferize dropped out of the tree and landed lightly, abreast of Darmuth. The scale pattern was upon her, and her pupils were vertical slits. “Because unless you intend to unmake Darmuth and me, and to kill Rhuan, the primaries will at some point discover the truth. As Darmuth said, they will censure you.” He saw her feral, malicious smile, elongated teeth glinting in the darkness. “Do you believe they would not? How many challenges do you think you could withstand before one of your opponents was the victor?”

>   And yet another new voice came out of the darkness. “If you like, I will send Ferize to the Kiba now. And then we shall know.”

  Alario was shocked as Brodhi stepped free of shadows, and then angry that the distraction of troublesome demons had kept him from sensing Karadath’s get. He should have sensed Brodhi. That he had not would be remarked as a weakness in the Kiba. But, for now, he was here, and no one would know.

  “She will carry word,” Brodhi continued without inflection, “just as she is supposed to. And if you attempt to unmake Ferize and Darmuth, you will be challenged by Rhuan and I simultaneously. Can you defeat both of us acting in concert?”

  Alario’s third eyelid slid down, and a faint copper sheen rose up on his flesh again. Though this was not a formal challenge to the death, Brodhi did challenge him with provocative words and tone.

  Alario laughed as Darmuth fell to his knees. Then he halted the bleeding light, closed and sealed the slits, and made him whole again. His amusement had palled, and now he addressed Brodhi.

  “That is not how it should be. Not both of you. Single combat, by get and sire,” he said.

  “In the Kiba, yes. But we’re not there. We’re here. And if you intend to do as you please, regardless of the customs, then we shall as well.”

  He let contempt show. And certainty. “I would kill you both.”

  “Perhaps so.” Brodhi paused, letting the moment build. “But then Karadath would challenge you in my name . . . would you survive that?”

  Alario’s flesh began to glow. “Karadath would do no such thing! In fact, Karadath has elected to make another dioscuri.”

  Brodhi could not hide his shock. The membrane dropped. His skin warmed, casting a faint ruddy sheen. His posture altered. He was so stiff now that Alario smiled. “Send Ferize. She will return with confirmation. Should it come to that, she may even return with Karadath himself.”

  Brodhi matched him stare for stare. And then Karadath’s dioscuri, bitter, looked away.

  “You see?” Alario said. “Do you see?”

  Brodhi’s tone thinned. “Ferize. If Alario kills Karadath’s get, or even his own, you should immediately return to the Kiba to tell what has happened.”