"Three?"
Kethry hadn't ever mentioned any sibs before.
"Father, my brother Kavin—that's Kavinestral—and me. Kavin was eight years older than me, and from what everyone said, the very image of Father in his youth. Handsome—the word just isn't adequate to describe Kavin. He looks like a god."
"And you worshipped him." Tarma had no trouble reading that between the lines.
It wasn't just the dim light that was making Kethry look pale. "How could I not? Father died when I was ten, and Kavin was all I had left, and when he exerted himself he could charm the moss off the wall. We were fine until Father died; he'd had some income or other that kept the house going, well, that dried up when he was gone. That left Kavin and me with no income and nowhere to go but a falling-down monstrosity that we couldn't even sell, because it's against the law for the Fifty Families to sell the ancestral homes. We let the few servants we had go—all but one, my old nurse Tildy. She wouldn't leave me. So Tildy and I struggled to run the household and keep us all clothed and fed. Kavin hunted the Royal Forests when he got hungry enough, and spent the rest of his time being Kavin. Which, to me, meant being perfection."
"Until you got fed up and ran away?" Tarma hazarded, when Kethry's silence had gone too long. She knew it wasn't the right answer, but she hoped it would prod Kethry back into speaking.
"Hardly." Kethry's eyes and mouth were bitter. "He had me neatly twined 'round his finger. No, things went on like that until I was twelve, and just barely pubescent. Two things happened then that I had no knowledge of. The first was that Kavin himself became fed up with life on the edge, and looked around for something to make him a lot of money quickly. The second was that on one of his dips in the stews with his friends, he accidentally encountered the richest banker in Mornedealth and found out exactly what his secret vice was. Kavin may have been lazy, but he wasn't stupid. He was fully able to put facts together. He also knew that Wethes Goldmarchant, like all the other New Money moguls, wanted the one thing that all his money couldn't buy him—he wanted inside the Fifty Families. He wanted those Court invitations we declined; wanted them so badly it made him ache. And he'd never get them—not unless he somehow saved the realm single-handedly, which wasn't bloody likely."
Kethry's hands were clenched tightly in her lap, she stared at them as if they were the most fascinating things in the universe. "I knew nothing of all this, of course, mewed up in the house all day and daydreaming about finding a hidden cache of gold and gems and being able to pour them in Kavin's lap and make him smile at me. Then one day he did smile at me; he told me he had a surprise for me. I went with him, trusting as a lamb. Next thing I knew, he was handing me over to Wethes; the marriage ceremony had already taken place by proxy. You see, Wethes' secret vice was little girls—and with me, he got both his ambition and his lust satisfied. It was a bargain too good for either of them to resist—"
Kethry's voice broke in something like a sob; Tarma leaned forward and put one hard, long hand on the pair clenched white-knuckled in her partner's lap.
"So your brother sold you, hmm? Well, give him a little credit, she'enedra; he might have thought he was doing you a favor. The merchant would give you every luxury, after all; you'd be a valued and precious possession."
"I'd like to believe that, but I can't. Kavin saw some of those little girls Wethes was in the habit of despoiling. He knew what he was selling me into, and he didn't care, he plainly did not care. The only difference between them and me was that the chains and manacles he used on me were solid gold, and I was raped on silk sheets instead of linen. And it was rape, nothing else! I wanted to die; I prayed I would die. I didn't understand anything of what had happened to me. I only knew that the brother I worshipped had betrayed me." Her voice wavered a moment, and faded against the howl of the stormwinds outside their shelter. Tarma had to strain to hear her.
Then she seemed to recover, and her voice strengthened again. "But although I had been betrayed, I hadn't been forgotten. My old nurse managed to sneak her way into the house on the strength of the fact that she was my nurse; nobody thought to deny her entry. When Wethes was finished with me, she waited until he had left and went inquiring for me. When she found me, she freed me and smuggled me out."
Kethry finally brought her eyes up to meet her partner's; there was pain there, but also a hint of ironic humor. "You'd probably like her; she also stole every bit of gold and jewelry she found with me and carried them off, too."
"A practical woman; you're right, I think I would like her. I take it she had somewhere to hide you?"
"Her brother's farm—it's east of here. Well, I wasn't exactly in my right mind for a while, but she managed to help with that for a bit. But then—then I started having nightmares, and when I did, every movable thing in my room would go flying about. Mind you, I never broke anything—"
"Since I gather this was a 'flying about' without benefit of hands, I would think it would be rather unnerving."
"Tildy knew she hadn't any way of coping with me then, so she took me to the nearest mage-school she knew, which was White Winds. It only took one nightmare to convince them that I needed help—and that I was going to be a pretty good mage after I got that help. That's where I got Need."
Kethry's hands unclenched, and one of them strayed to the hilt of a plain short-sword wedged in among the supplies tucked into the shelter.
"Now that's another tale you never told me."
"Not for any reason, just because there isn't much to tell. We had a guard there, an old mercenary who'd been hired on to give us a bit of protection, and to give her a kind of semi-retirement. Baryl Longarm was her name. When I was ready to take the roads, she called me into her rooms."
"That must have had you puzzled."
"Since she didn't have a reputation for chasing other females, it certainly did. Thank goodness she didn't leave me wondering for long. 'You're the first wench we've had going out for a dog's age,' she said, 'and there's something I want you to have. It's time it went out again, anyway, and you'll probably have to use it before you're gone a month.' She took down this sword from the wall, unsheathed it, and laid it in my hands. And the runes appeared on the blade."
"I remember when you showed me. 'Woman's Need calls me, as Woman's Need made me. Her Need I will answer as my maker bade me.'" Tarma glanced at Kethry's hand on the hilt. "Gave me a fair turn, I can tell you. I always thought magic blades were gold-hiked and jewel-bedecked."
"Then she told me what little she knew—that the sword's name was Need, that she was indestructible so far as Baryl had been able to tell. That she only served women. And that her service was such that she only gave what you yourself did not already have. That to her, a fighter, Need gave a virtual immunity to all magic, but didn't add so much as a fillip to her fighting skills—but that for me, a mage, if I let it take control when it needed to, it would make me a master swordswoman, though it wouldn't make the least difference to any spell I cast. And that it would help Heal anything short of a death-wound."
"Rather like one of Her gifts, you know?" Tarma interrupted. "Makes you do your utmost, to the best of your abilities, but bails you out when you're out of your depth."
"I never thought about it that way, but you're right. Is there any way Need could be Shin'a'in?"
"Huh-uh. We've few metal-workers, and none of them mages—and we don't go in for short-swords, anyway. Now, what's the problem with you going back to Mornedealth? Changing the subject isn't going to change my wanting to know."
"Well, you can't blame me for trying—she'enedra, I have angered a very powerful man, my husband—"
"Crap! He's no more your husband than I am, no matter what charade he went through."
"—and a very ruthless one, my brother. I don't know what either of them would do if they learned I was within their reach again." Kethry shuddered, and Tarma reached forward and clasped both her hands in her own.
"I have only one question, my sister and my friend," she
said, so earnestly that Kethry came out of her own fear and looked deeply into the shadowed eyes that met hers. "And that is this; which way do you want them sliced—lengthwise, or widthwise?"
"Tarma!" The sober question struck Kethry as so absurd that she actually began laughing weakly.
"In all seriousness, I much doubt that either of them is going to recognize you; think about it, you're a woman grown now, not a half-starved child. But if they do, that's what I'm here for. If they try anything, I'll ask you that question again, and you'd best have a quick answer for me. Now, are you satisfied?"
"You are insane!"
"I am Shin'a'in; some say there is little difference. I am also Kal'enedral, and most say there is no difference. So believe me; no one is going to touch you with impunity. I am just crazed enough to cut the city apart in revenge."
"And this is supposed to make me feel better?"
"You're smiling, aren't you?"
"Well," Kethry admitted reluctantly, "I guess I am."
"When a child of the Clans falls off her horse, we make her get right back on again. She'enedra, don't you think it's time you remounted this one?"
"I—"
"Or do you prefer to live your life with them dictating that you shall not return to your own city?"
Her chin came up; a stubborn and angry light smoldered in her eyes. "No."
"Then we face this city of yours and we face it together. For now, make a mattress of Rodi, she'enedra; and sleep peacefully. I intend to do the same. Tomorrow we go to Mornedealth and make it deal with us on our terms. Hai?"
Kethry nodded, convinced almost against her will, and beginning to view the inevitable encounter with something a little more like confidence.
"Hai," she agreed.
Two
Kethry envied her partner's ability to drop immediately into sleep under almost any circumstances. Her own thoughts were enough to keep her wakeful; add to them the snoring of her mule and the wailing of the wind outside their shelter, and Kethry had a foolproof recipe for insomnia.
She wanted to avoid Mornedealth no matter what the cost. Just the thought that she might encounter Wethes was enough to make her shudder almost uncontrollably. In no way was she prepared to deal with him, and she wondered now if she would ever be....
And yet, Tarma was right. She would never truly be "free" unless she dealt with her fear. She would never truly be her own woman if she allowed fear and old memories to dictate where she would or would not go.
The disciplines of the Order of White Winds mandated self-knowledge and self-mastery. She had deceived herself into thinking she had achieved that mastery of self; Tarma had just shown her how wrong she was.
It's been seven years, she thought bitterly. Seven long years—and those bastards still have power over me. And I'll never be an adept until I break that power.
For that, after all, was the heart of the White Winds discipline; that no negative tie be permitted to bind the sorcerer in any way. Positive ties—like the oath of she'enedran she had sworn with Tarma, like the bond of lover to lover or parent to child—were encouraged to flourish, for the sorcerer could draw confidence and strength from them. But the negative bonds of fear, hatred, or greed must be rooted out and destroyed, for they would actually drain the magician of needed energy.
Sometimes Tarma can be so surprising, see things so clearly. And yet she has such peculiar blind spots. Or does she? Does she realize that she's driving us both to the Plains as if she was geas-bound? She's like a messenger-bird, unable to travel in any direction but the one appointed.
Kethry hadn't much cared where she wandered; this was her time of journey, she wouldn't settle in any one place until she reached the proficiency of an Adept. Then she would either found a school of her own, or find a place in an established White Winds enclave. So Tarma's overwhelming need to return home had suited her as well as anything else.
Until she had realized that the road they were on led directly to Mornedealth.
It all comes back to that, doesn't it? And until I face it, I'm stalemated. Dammit, Tarma's right. I'm a full sorceress, I'm a full adult, and I have one damned fine swordswoman for a partner. What in Teslat's name am I afraid of? There is nothing under the law that they can really do to me—I've been separated from Wethes for seven years, and three is enough to unmake the marriage, assuming there really was one. I'm not going in under my full name, and I've changed so much. How are they even going to recognize me?
Across the shelter Tarma stirred, and curled herself into a tighter ball. Kethry smiled and shook her head, thinking about her partner's words on the subject.
"Do you want them sliced lengthwise or widthwise"—Windborn, she is such a bundle of contradictions. We have got to start talking; we hardly know anything about one another. Up until now, we've had our hands full of bandit-extermination, then there just wasn't the privacy. But if I'd had all the world to choose a sister from, I would have picked her over any other. Goddess-oath and all, I would have chosen her. Though that Warrior of hers certainly took the decision right out of our hands.
Kethry contemplated the sleeping face of her partner. In repose she lost a great deal of the cold harshness her expression carried when she was awake. She looked, in fact, a great deal younger than Kethry was.
When she sleeps, she's the child she was before she lost her Clan. When she's awake—I'm not sure what she is. She eats, drinks and breathes the Warrior, that's for certain, yet she hasn't made any move to convert me. I know it would please her if I did, and it wouldn't be any great change to do so; her Goddess just seems to me to be one more face of the Windborn Soulshaper. She seems like any other mercenary hire-sword—insisting on simple solutions to complicated problems, mostly involving the application of steel to offending party. Then she turns around and hits me with a sophisticated proverb, or some really esoteric knowledge—like knowing that mind-magic is used in Valdemar. And she's hiding something from me; something to do with that Goddess of hers, I think. And not because she doesn't trust me... maybe because I don't share her faith. Her people—nobody really knows too much about the Shin'a'in; they keep pretty much to themselves. Of course that shouldn't be too surprising; anyone who knew the Dhorisha Plains the way they do could dive into the grass and never be seen again, if that's what he wanted to do. You could hide the armies of a dozen nations out there, and they'd likely never run into each other. Assuming the Shin'a'in would let them past the Border. I suspect if Tale'sedrin had been on the Plains instead of camped on the road to the Great Horse Fair the bandits would be dead and the Hawk's Children still riding. And I would be out a sister.
Kethry shook her head. Well, what happened, happened. Now I have to think about riding into Mornedealth tomorrow. Under a glamour?
She considered the notion for a moment, then discarded it. No. I'll go in wearing my own face, dammit! Besides, the first sorcerer who sees I'm wearing a glamour is likely to want to know why—and likely to try to find out. If I'm lucky, he'll come to us with his hand out. If I'm not, he'll go to Wethes or Kavin. No, a glamour would only cause trouble, not avoid it. I think Tarma's right; we'll go in as a mercenary team, no more, no less, and under her Clanname. We'll stay quiet, draw no attention to ourselves, and maybe avoid trouble altogether. The more complicated a plan is, the more likely it is to go wrong....
Kethry began formulating some simple story for her putative background, but the very act of having faced and made the decision to go in had freed her of the tension that was keeping her sleepless. She had hardly begun, when her weariness claimed her.
The blizzard cleared by morning. Dawn brought cloudless skies, brilliant sun, and still, cold air that made everything look sharp-edged and brightly-painted. They cleared camp and rode off into a world that seemed completely new-made.
Tarma was taken totally by surprise by the changeling forest; she forgot her homesickness, forgot her worry over Kethry, even temporarily forgot how cold she was.
Birdcalls echoed for mi
les through the forest, as did the steady, muffled clop of their mounts' hooves. The storm had brought a fine, powder-like snow, snow that frosted every branch and coated the underbrush, so that the whole forest reflected the sunlight and glowed so that they were surrounded by a haze of pearly light. Best of all, at least to Tarma's mind, the soft snow was easy for the beasts to move through, so they made good time. Just past mid-afternoon, glimpses of the buildings and walls of Mornedealth could be seen above and through the trees.
It was a city made of the wood that was its staple in trade; weathered, silver-gray wooden palisades, wooden walls, wooden buildings; only the foundations of a building were ever made of stone. The outer wall that encircled it was a monument to man's ingenuity and Mornedealth's woodworkers; it was two stories tall, and as strong as any corresponding wall of stone. Granted, it would never survive being set afire, as would inevitably happen in a siege, but the wall had never been built with sieges in mind. It was intended to keep the beasts of the forest out of the city when the hardships of winter made their fear of man less than their hunger, and to keep the comings and goings of strangers limited to specific checkpoints. If an enemy penetrated this realm so far as to threaten Mornedealth, all was lost anyway, and there would be nothing for it but surrender.
Since the only city Tarma had ever spent any length of time in was Brether's Crossroads—less than half the size of Mornedealth—the Shin'a'in confessed to Kethry that she was suitably impressed by it long before they ever entered the gates.
"But you spent more than a year hunting down Gregoth and his band. Surely you—"
"Don't remember much of that, she'enedra. It was a bit like being in a drug haze. I only really came awake when I was tr—" she suddenly recalled that Kethry knew nothing of her faceless trainers and what they were, and decided that discretion was in order. "When I had to. To question someone, or to read a trail. The rest of the time, I might just as well not have been there, and I surely wasn't in any kind of mood for seeing sights."
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