The God-Touched Man

by Melissa McShane

  The red line took them well out of their way, and it took Ayane some twenty minutes to find the trail again. As far as Piercy could tell, they were simply wandering northward across the moors, across heather that looked untrodden and past patches of bare earth that showed no sign of footprints, human or otherwise. “He’s smart enough to stay on the heather,” Ayane said absently. “It’s not enough, but he might think it is. Can he track us, do you think?”

  “Probably—well,” Piercy said, “it depends on whether our week-long acquaintance is enough familiarity that he can use reperto to locate us without possessing any of our personal belongings. Even the most talented magician has limits. But I think we should assume he knows where we are. Fortune favors the cautious.”

  “I thought the saying was ‘fortune favors the brave.’”

  “A saying invented by cautious people to induce brave people to rush into battle first.”

  “That sounds like cowardice,” Dolobeka said, but he sounded bemused, as if he were rethinking an assumption, so Piercy merely put a hand on Ayane’s arm when she spun around, furious.

  “Is it cowardice to choose one’s moment?” he said.

  “Don’t you accuse him of being a coward,” Ayane said at the same time.

  Dolobeka glanced from Piercy to Ayane. “I do not consider Lord Faranter a coward,” he said.

  “Mr. Faranter,” Piercy and Ayane again said as one.

  “So what do you mean?” Ayane said. She hadn’t yet drawn her knife, but she looked as if violence would be an option if Dolobeka answered the wrong way.

  “Ayane, this is not as important as catching Hodestis,” Piercy murmured.

  “He’s traveling with us. It matters,” she said. “Well?”

  Dolobeka’s eyes had come back to rest on Piercy. “I thought pales to be violent and uncontrolled,” he said. “You behave like a Santerran.”

  “I thank you for the compliment,” Piercy said drily. “And now that we have established that Lady Sethemba has self-control, I am an atypical pale, and Lord Dolobeka can change his thinking without having his skull trepanned, shall we continue? I do not pretend to know our path, but as we have been traveling northward, if Kemelen still exists in this time, we should happen upon it shortly.”

  Ayane glared at Dolobeka once more, then turned her attention back to the ground. Dolobeka looked as if he had a bit of gristle in his teeth and was worrying at it contemplatively. Piercy took up his position at Ayane’s left side again, staying a few steps back. “Don’t call yourself a pale,” Ayane said in a low voice.

  “I was under the impression it was no longer such an insult as it was in our belligerent friend’s time.”

  “It’s still derogatory. Don’t say it.”

  “I won’t,” Piercy said. Her insistence surprised him. He was not offended by it, so he wasn’t sure why she would be. Well, he already knew there were nuances of Santerran culture he didn’t understand. And it was heartwarming that she wanted to protect him from insult, even if he was only insulting himself.

  Now they went mostly in silence that echoed off the mountains, which drew closer gradually as the sun rose higher. The warmth burned away the slight damp chill from sleeping on the ground, and Piercy relished it. “Does this trail lead into the mountains?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. Watch out, there’s another one.” This trap was even fainter than the first, a hair-thin green line that described a circle some three feet across. “Every step we take makes me want even more to wring Hodestis’s neck.”

  “You will not do so until I have had my satisfaction,” Dolobeka growled. “I will make him restore my companions and he will die if he cannot.”

  “So you still do not believe you are caught out of time.”

  “That is foolishness.”

  “More foolish than making your friends and your horses disappear?” Ayane said. Dolobeka glared at her, but said nothing.

  “I promised we would prove it to you,” Piercy said. He took a few careful steps around the circle, then stretched and rubbed his eyes. “I am going blind from looking at nothing but bare ground and heather and grass that seems to be fighting a losing battle against Nature.” A few miles ahead, the smudge of an evergreen forest limned the horizon, expanding northward, and in front of it—

  “Piercy, look,” Ayane said, grabbing his shoulder and pointing. “That’s smoke.”

  A thin plume of pale smoke threaded its way sunward, unmistakable against the cloudless blue sky. Piercy shielded his eyes to look more closely. “It is a city,” he said. “Let us speedily advance toward what I hope is a substantial meal.”

  “And Hodestis.”

  “And Hodestis. Though at the moment I feel food would be far more cheering than the little man’s disingenuous, wide-eyed face.” Piercy walked faster. “But not by much.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sight of the city quickened their pace despite Ayane’s caution that Hodestis might not have gone toward it, that he might still have left traps along their route. Half an hour’s walking brought them close enough to see the city was a fairly large one, and Piercy’s stomach began to ache with apprehension as well as hunger.

  “That must be Kemelen,” he said. “Are you certain the trail leads there?”

  “Yes. Though the ground is getting too rocky to follow it easily.”

  The bare ground and the scrub growth that covered it gave way to rocky earth that looked even more bleak than the moorlands. No trees grew near the walls of the city. Distance made the evergreen forest appear to cradle the city, but the closer they went, the more it became obvious the forest began some distance from the city and spread out northward, away from it.

  The city lay on a gently sloping hill, giving the impression that it had risen out of the ground and pushed the evergreens to the side. The black granite walls certainly looked as if they’d been forced out of the ground centuries before; they might have been there before the city was founded by people who happened upon them and decided to build within.

  Piercy stopped watching the ground and examined the city more closely. A road ran west from the city, with plenty of traffic moving in both directions, tall-sided farm wagons and sleek horses and, to his relief, extremely modern carriages, one of which was an overland express hitched to four horses that looked as if they could run all day without tiring.

  “You see?” he said to Dolobeka. “Those carriages did not exist in your time.”

  “I know nothing of your people and their transportation,” Dolobeka said with a scowl. “You do not expect me to believe your story on such slim evidence.”

  Piercy sighed. “What evidence would you accept?”

  “Talk about it later,” Ayane said. “We need to decide what to do.”

  “Did Hodestis enter the city?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes. But there’s no way I can track him there. We’ll need some other plan.”

  Piercy examined the gate, which was wide open for travelers and looked as if it could close quickly. That was probably a good characteristic for a city gate to have, here on the border, and he sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to the Twins for protecting them the previous night. “I do not think Hodestis deceived us as to his fundamental nature,” he said. “His magical traps were as straightforward as his thinking, and I think he truly does lack cunning. And he is in a hurry to restore Dalessa, or the Witch. He needs food, and he needs transportation, and I imagine he will simply have gone to the first place where he can acquire both. Though it is also possible he might try to deceive us by going to the second such place.”

  “That is no deception,” said Dolobeka.

  “I did mention he lacks cunning, did I not? I suggest we begin asking at the first inn we come to, and continue on until we have found someone who has seen our diminutive friend.”

  They circled the city until they reached the gate. No guards stood sentry there. Piercy observed the six-inch-thick gates of iron-banded oak, the granit
e walls at least two feet thick, and tried to imagine the Welkennish kinship band breaking through here, regardless of the magic they had. If this was Kemelen, it had withstood the Incursion well—or had the Welkennish not come here? Or had they, and the granite walls had been erected in a classic example of locking the barn door after the horses had fled? It was unfortunate he had no time to investigate the history of the place. Something to remember when he returned to Matra.

  There was a makeshift market just inside the gate, made not of orderly stalls but of awnings and roofed wagons fitted together haphazardly, food stalls next to carpet vendors next to a knife sharpener whose wheel clunked along under the higher-pitched skree of the blade being honed. Piercy’s eye, and nose, were immediately drawn to a cart selling hot buns stuffed with meat. “Breakfast,” he said, but only took two steps toward the vendor before Ayane gripped his wrist and said, “Piercy.”

  The crowds, which had pressed close to them as they entered the city, had now spread out away from them, leaving them standing like an island surrounded by a cobblestone river. No one had quite stopped to stare, but pedestrians slowed in their passing, and men and women standing at nearby booths and carts were eyeing their little group and whispering to each other. “They’ve probably never seen Santerrans before,” he said. He drew closer to Ayane, whose chin was lifted firmly in a way that told him she was extremely uncomfortable. Dolobeka was scowling more fiercely than ever, and his hand was on his sword. “Don’t draw that,” Piercy said quietly.

  “They intend to attack. I will defend myself,” Dolobeka growled.

  “They will not attack unless you give them cause,” Piercy said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. Dolobeka’s fierce appearance might constitute cause all by itself. “In this era your people are not feared in Dalanine. Mostly.”

  “You’re not reassuring,” Ayane said. She was trying to see in every direction at once, and her hand was twitching as if she wanted to draw her knife. “Lord Dolobeka, try not to look so threatening.”

  Piercy mimicked Ayane and surveyed their surroundings, trying not to seem nervous. The street in which the market lay was narrow, crowded by half-timbered buildings that leaned close on either side, some of them coming within feet of touching one another. Windows with fist-sized rows of glass panes dotted the upper stories, but at ground level there were doors only, and Piercy’s stomach knotted itself up in dread. Suppose they had not returned to their own time, after all?

  Then he remembered speaking to Evon, and the carriages, and felt foolish. This was just a very old city with some very old buildings no one had ever bothered to tear down and rebuild in a more modern manner. A very old, very small city that was nevertheless enormous from the point of view of someone trying to track down another person who didn’t want to be found.

  “We are going to eat,” he declared, “and then we will find Hodestis. Beyond that, I have no plan. I blame your influence, Lady Sethemba.”

  “Just because I like to take advantage of what the moment brings doesn’t make me reckless, Piercy.”

  “The word I was thinking of was ‘imprudently foolhardy,’ which I realize is a phrase and not a word, but I daresay we could argue semantics for an hour and be no nearer agreement than we are now.” Piercy strode toward the food cart, not waiting for Ayane to follow. “Six,” he said to the vendor.

  The woman looked past Piercy at his Santerran companions. “What’s wrong with them?” she said, her hand hovering over the stack of buns.

  “What?”

  Piercy stepped firmly on Ayane’s foot, turning her burst of outrage into a yelp of pain. “Madam, they are of the highest nobility from our southern neighbor Santerre! I am astonished you do not recognize their noble visages. I choose to assume you mean no disrespect to Lady Sethemba and Lord Dolobeka.” His indignation wasn’t entirely faked; anger at the woman’s rudeness tried to well up into much harsher words.

  “I—” The vendor looked afraid. “Never seen no Santerres before. Nobility, you say?”

  “Santerrans,” Piercy corrected her, “and they are near royalty in their own country.” He held up a finger to still the woman’s next question, turned to Ayane, and said in Santerran, “I did not expect you to be completely unrecognized. If we have to explain your appearance to everyone we meet—”

  “Time enough to worry about that when we come to it,” she said.

  “The woman seems afraid of us,” Dolobeka said.

  “People usually fear or hate that which is strange to them,” Piercy said. “Something you no doubt understand.”

  “Do not mock me,” Dolobeka snarled.

  “The Gods forbid,” Piercy said. He turned back to the vendor and said, “How much?”

  “Why’re they here?” the vendor asked.

  “Madam, their business is their own. Suffice it to say they wish to experience Dalanine without the pomp they must necessarily travel in. How much?”

  The woman looked past Piercy again. “No charge,” she said. “Just take ‘em away from here. I’ll have no custom else.”

  Piercy had to close his fist hard against his anger. “You would insult our guests?”

  “They don’t look like nobility. Don’t look natural. Move on, I said.”

  The buns looked much less appetizing now. “Thank you,” Piercy said, and took a fierce bite out of one so his mouth would be too full to swear at the women. He handed out the others, then strode away through the impromptu market, seething. And Dalanine was supposed to be civilized. How could anyone not know even the old stories of Santerre? Or be so bigoted?

  “Piercy, you passed the inn,” Ayane said, and he came to himself and turned around. They’d passed through the older part of the city and were now standing in the middle of a street that would not have looked out of place in Matra. Ayane and Dolobeka were eating, Dolobeka placidly, Ayane with a ferocity that matched Piercy’s. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked as if she wanted an excuse to use the knife.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Ayane said, then glanced at Dolobeka. As hot-tempered and proud as he was, it was better he remain ignorant of that exchange. “Anyway, this is the first inn we’ve come to.”

  Piercy finished the last of his meal and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, not caring about his breach of good manners. The inn was newer than most of the construction surrounding the market, with a smoothly vertical brick façade instead of the leaning half-timbered buildings whose upper stories jutted out over the lower ones, and it had a plate glass window instead of the many-paned windows he saw in the older buildings. Men and women sat at tables in the taproom, eating somewhat more substantial breakfasts than theirs had been. “I suppose we start here,” he said, and followed Ayane into the inn, Dolobeka bringing up the rear with his habitual glower.

  The attention they received was more overt this time; all the diners stopped eating to stare at Ayane and Dolobeka, though most of them shied away from the latter’s menacing scowl. Ayane pretended not to notice. Piercy realized his fists were clenched and relaxed them. He went to the bar and rapped on it. “Good morning,” he called out. “Might I have a word with the proprietor?”

  A moment later, a girl no more than seventeen emerged from a back room, bringing with her the tantalizing smells of bacon, eggs, coffee, and fresh ham. Piercy’s stomach growled around the meat buns. “Can I—” she began, then stopped abruptly when she saw the Santerrans.

  “May I ask the name of this city?” Piercy said.

  “It’s…it’s Kemelen, sir,” she said.

  One mystery solved. “We are looking for someone who might have stopped here for the night,” Piercy said. “A small man, middle-aged, dressed much as I am but with less elegance and style. He might have appeared nervous and would probably have paid with very old-fashioned coin. Have you seen anyone of that description?”

  “Who are they?” the young woman whispered.

  “They are Lady Sethemba and Lord Dolobeka of Santerre. They
are of the highest nobility and are not accustomed to being stared at with such disrespect as I frankly did not believe Dalanese citizens capable of.” Piercy’s voice grew louder as he spoke, and he heard chairs shifting behind him.

  “But—why are they here? I don’t—I can’t host them.”

  “Because of their skin?” Once again anger filled him.

  The girl looked terrified. “No, sir, don’t have nothing good enough for noble. I’m sorry.”

  Piercy realized he was leaning too far forward on the bar and straightened, embarrassed at his reaction. “We do not need rooms, just information. The man?”

  “Can’t tell naught about my patrons.” She’d gone from frightened to stubborn in the space of two breaths. Piercy took note of how she stood and interpreted her words to mean He was here, but I’m not admitting it.

  “Then I will tell you something about him,” he said, once again leaning forward, but confidingly. “He was a trusted member of our party, the lord and lady’s guide to Dalanine. Two nights ago he stole almost all their money and the lady’s prized necklace and left them to sleep rough on the moors. You can no doubt see Lady Sethemba is not accustomed to such privations. We intend to find him and deliver him to justice. Now, you are of course entitled to keep your patrons’ privacy, and we will no doubt find him eventually, but I think you should consider whether you wish to give our foreign guests an unfavorable impression of Dalanine they will no doubt pass along to their queen. It is entirely your decision.”

  The young woman looked past him as the vendor had done. “Queen?”

  “They are among the queen’s closest confidants,” Piercy said. That was at least half true.

  She licked her lips nervously. “He came late last night,” she whispered, so low Piercy had to lean even farther forward. “Paid with an odd gold coin and wouldn’t take change, not that I knew how to change it. Asked about the reckoning early this morning. That was maybe two hours ago.”

  “What is the reckoning?”

  She frowned. “Happens yearly. Someone from the government comes to hear important cases, put the king’s stamp on laws, oversee the spring festival and crown the Spring Princess. Things like that.”