He could not deny it, but he plainly did not want to say it was true. He said instead, this time in darau, “Please let me try to help Ryo inGara. Whatever you do to me afterward, I swear before the gods, I will not do anything to harm your people.”
Still Lutra’s expression did not change. She said, “Tell us how it happened. Speak in taksu.”
He nodded and took a moment to gather his thoughts. Then he began. “Garoyo inGara leave Ryo as tuyo. I take him. I take him into the summer country. Brave young warrior. Good heart. I like him very much. He speak good darau. I think he can help me fix war between Lau and Ugaro. I think someone make this war. This person make trouble in borderlands, in summer country, in winter country. I think this person is sorcerer. I am not certain, but I think so. Many time my king send me to fix trouble when people disagree. Some time, he send me to fix trouble with sorcerer. This time, I find out, both problem. I think I know what I should do, but I make very bad mistake. My enemy is much more strong sorcerer than I think. He defeat me instead. He do this to Ryo, he try to make him a knife to use against me, against everyone. But knife turn in his hand, cut him. He think small ... little ... of Ugaro. Then this happen. I think he is very surprise. Surprised. Ryo save my life, bring me here. Please let me help him.” He hesitated. Then he added in darau, “Singer of the inGeiro, please. If I’m forced to leave him in this condition, I will die ashamed. If you let me help him, then even if you put me to death afterward, I swear I will not use any forbidden acts to prevent you.”
Lutra inGeiro studied him. Then she considered me. I could not speak at all now, and I was ashamed to look her in the face, so I dropped to my knees and bowed my head. If they killed me, I would not protest. I said, though I had not known I was going to speak or what I would say, “I should die. You should not set the fault against Aras, but you should kill me. I want to die—”
“Ryo, be quiet!” Aras snapped. He said urgently to Lutra, “Singer, please. Putting Ryo to death would be completely unjust. I can help him. I’m sure I can help him.”
Etta said quickly, “Lutra, I think this sorcerer is telling the truth—I think he is telling the truth at least this far: that his enemy did something terrible to Ryo and that he wants to help my brother. Let him do that, and I promise, my father will give the inGeiro anything they ask, even if the inGeiro put the sorcerer to death afterward. Even if my father decides he still has to put Ryo to death afterward.”
“That is a rash promise,” someone else said, behind me. “But I will stand behind it.”
Though it was very bad manners for me to turn away from the singer of the inGeiro without permission, I spun, up on one knee, then immediately on my feet.
-23-
“Ryo,” my brother said.
“Garoyo!” He was here, my eldest brother, standing beside a three-dog sledge, his hand on the brake. The young man, Iro, was behind him. The dogs were panting and my brother and Iro were both breathing hard, but Garoyo was alive, unhurt, here. As when Etta had first run to me, all my doubt fell away. I took a fast step toward him before I remembered Lutra inGeiro and her people. The inGeiro were not our family and Garoyo was my warleader as well as my brother. I began to kneel to him, but he strode forward, caught my arms, and pulled me into an embrace. He was no taller than I, but heavier, a man in the prime of his strength. His arms closed hard around me as though I were the boy I felt myself. “How?” I asked him. I could not imagine how he could be here, even if I could manage to believe he was alive.
“Your letter came to your mother.” His voice was husky. He pushed me back and looked at me from that small distance. “She sent boys south to find us. They came first to me. I told Tokavo if he wanted a chance to prove his ability as warleader, here was that chance. Then I came north. Your mother read me your letter. I meant to go next to the inKera, to ask them how it had happened. But I came here first, because it was not out of the way and I wished to see Etta. I had just left, but then young Iro ran after me and told me that a sorcerer had brought Etta’s brother to this place and who knew what might happen next? So I came as fast as I could.”
His gaze went from my face to Aras and then came back to me. He added, “I think I heard most of what your sorcerer said. This is the Lau warleader who spared your life? I did not expect to find him here, begging the inGeiro to spare it again.” He paused and then said to Aras, “You are that warleader who took my brother as tuyo.”
“Yes,” answered Aras. He still knelt, but he looked my brother in the face and said, “I am very glad you come here. Please, warleader. I will help him if I can.”
Garoyo nodded, reserved acknowledgment rather than an agreement. He asked me, “Should I believe this Lau, even though he is a sorcerer?”
I could not answer at first. Then I said, “You are here. He did not put you to death. He did not kill all our warriors.” My voice tightened. “He did not kill them? His people did not come after you and shoot them all? No one is dead?”
My brother pushed me back from him, gripping my shoulders hard, studying my face. “Yakoba died of his wounds long before we came to your mother’s camp. No one else died. The Lau did not pursue us. They took you as tuyo and went back to their own country. I thought they put you to death. I told our father that was how it happened. I went back to see if they had left your head, but there was nothing.”
I stared at him. I saw something now I should have seen at once. “Garoyo, your hair.” I could not believe it. “But what happened was not your fault!” Then I stopped because I did not know what had happened, only I knew Aras had killed everyone, Garoyo, all our people. But I knew that was wrong, only I did not know what might be the truth. But I knew my brother could not have done anything so disgraceful he should have cut his hair for it.
As though he had forgotten his cropped head, my brother lifted a hand to touch the fingerwidth length that was all that remained. “I did it for the shame of leaving my younger brother to take the tuyo’s place when I should have taken it myself.”
I tried to find words, but at first I could only stare at him. Finally I said, “You had to leave me!” I knew that was true. Even as terrible as the events that had come after that ... as the events that I remembered had come after that. Even if everything had happened the way I remembered, Garoyo would still have been right to leave me. And none of that had happened. I asked him, “Did I speak bitter words to you for leaving me there? I remember that. Did that happen?” From his expression, from his lack of expression, I knew it had.
“I deserved everything you—” he began.
I tightened my grip on his arms. “No.” No matter what was true or false, I knew that was wrong. I said, “You should have hit me and told me to remember my name and my pride. I let you walk away with that between us. It was a bad way for brothers to part, and it was my fault, and you died before I had a chance to apologize and ask your pardon for my disgraceful behavior. I have been ashamed ever since that day.” I hesitated, because he was not dead. Then, since the gods had been kind and he was here and alive, I bowed my head and said, “I beg your pardon, Garoyo. The disgrace was mine, not yours. You were right to do as you did, and I am deeply ashamed I let my fear poison my last words to you.”
He gazed at me, wordless.
Etta commanded, “Say you forgive him, Garoyo.”
He blinked. Then he said to me, “I forgive your words, Ryo. I have forgotten them. They were never spoken.”
“Now you,” Etta ordered me. “Say you forgive him for leaving you, Ryo.”
I smiled at her. I said to our brother, “Even if I had died that way, even if you had died that way, you would still have been right. It was the choice that offered the best chance for all our people. Please let your hair grow, Garoyo.”
Garoyo drew a breath. Then he nodded. But he said to me, “I am perfectly well, but you are not. You remember things that did not happen. You said you want to die.”
I had said that. Everyone else was dead; everything was lost
in terrible grief and rage and confusion. But out of that storm, this new certainty: my brother was alive. No one had done to him the terrible things I remembered. I said helplessly, “I do not know anything.”
“His sorcerer ordered him not to say such things,” Lutra inGeiro said to Garoyo. “You said he begged me to spare your younger brother. You are right: he has asked most urgently in both languages. He swore that in return for that generosity, he would not use sorcery to defend himself against an inGeiro knife. Warleader of the inGara, I will hear your opinion. Should I believe what he says?”
Garoyo looked at me, raising his eyebrows.
I shook my head, helpless to answer. “I do not remember anything real,” I repeated. “All my memories are lies. I tried so hard not to kill him, Garoyo, I tried so hard. If he had done all those terrible things, I would have killed him. I think all my memories are lies. They must be lies. You are not dead, and Etta is not dead, and our people are not dead. I think everything I remember is false and everything he says is true.”
My brother nodded. He looked for a long moment at Aras. Then he shifted his gaze to Lutra. “This is inGeiro land and so the decision belongs to the inGeiro. But if the inGeiro are so generous as to permit this sorcerer to help my brother despite the risk this clearly brings to their people, than I stand behind the promise my sister offered: my father will give the inGeiro anything they ask in return for that generosity. What the inGeiro decide to do with the sorcerer afterward is their decision, but—” he touched the hilt of his sword. “I may step in front of any knife. That will be my decision.”
Lutra listened to all this carefully, but Aras spoke before she could answer. He said quickly and quietly, in darau, “I ask for a chance to speak on my own behalf, but that is all I ask. Whether the inGeiro grant my request or not, if you permit me to help Ryo inGara, I swear I will not use forbidden acts against your people.”
Lutra listened to him as gravely and calmly as she had listened to my brother. Then she asked, “How long a time do you need?”
Aras looked at me. He drew a breath and turned back to Lutra. “Days,” he said in taksu. “I do not know how many.”
“A handful?”
Aras shook his head. “More than that. I am not sure. The hurt is very—” he held up his hands, spread them wide. “It is a big hurt. Two handful. Three. Not more than three.” He added in darau, “I think if I can’t do this in fifteen days, I can’t do it at all. But I ask for that long.”
Lutra raised her hands to show that she was making an important decision and everyone should listen. She said, “The inGeiro are willing to shelter both Ryo inGara and this sorcerer. We offer shelter for two handfuls of days, or three if two are not enough, but not more than three. We are willing to take this risk in return for two oaths, both already spoken clearly before the gods: that in return the inGara will repay our generosity with open hands, and that the sorcerer will not defend his own life by sorcery nor bring harm to the inGeiro.” Then she lowered her hands and asked Aras, in taksu, “What do you need from the inGeiro in order to take the madness from the one harmed by your enemy?”
Before the Sun had moved a hand’s-breadth farther along his path through the sky, Aras and I were in a small tent, not very near the inGeiro camp. The tent was lined with felt and hung with blankets inside the felt. More felt and blankets lined the floor of the tent. All the blankets were tightly woven, mostly red, also yellow and purple, with complicated designs worked into the weave, so sitting inside the tent was like sitting inside a red jewel.
A brazier glowed in the center of the tent and another to one side, so that inside the tent it was almost as warm as the summer lands. A bowl of hot water flavored with rosehips and sweetened with honey rested on a short-legged table.
Aras sat to one side of the central brazier, his back straight, his hands open and empty. I knelt on the other side. My wrists had been bound together behind my back. Garoyo knelt beside me, gripping my arm lightly. Etta sat cross-legged to one side, by the door. She held a bow, an arrow to the string. Her expression was solemn. She would try to kill Aras if she decided he was evil. She might be able to do it. She was a good shot. I had taught her to shoot myself, when she had eight winters, and I had fourteen. His fourteenth winter is hard for a boy. When the long cold ends he will be fifteen and a man, but before that he is still a boy. My sister had made me feel older, stronger, superior. I had enjoyed showing her my skill. I had enjoyed teaching her the things I had learned. Now she held a bow and she had the eye and hand and nerve to use it well.
“It will be bad at first,” Aras said to me, or perhaps to my sister. He spoke in darau. Then he repeated it in taksu for my brother. “It is bad to begin. He will fight. Hold him.”
“Yes,” said Garoyo, his expression unreadable.
Aras nodded, and began. I tried to kill him the moment he touched my mind. I might have done it, even bound as I was, but Garoyo pinned me. I fought, but no matter how hard I fought, I could not throw him off; he was too much stronger than I was, and he used his strength ruthlessly when I would not stop fighting. He jerked my arms up until my vision swam with the pain, and forced me down, and set his knee against my back to hold me.
Then ... then the rage was gone. I lay still, panting, my brother’s weight still pinning me. I had no sense at all of how much time had passed, but I knew I had fought hard. My wrists hurt. I could feel the trickle of blood where I had torn them, trying to get to Aras. My shoulders hurt. My throat hurt, as though I had been shouting. Or screaming. But the blinding rage and the bitter, consuming hatred were gone.
“You can let him up now. You can cut those thongs and give him something to drink,” Aras said. His voice was steady, but there was something in it ... not fear. Horror, perhaps.
He had spoken in darau. I did not even realize it until my sister translated for Garoyo. My brother eased back, still cautious. “Ryo?” he asked me. The same edge of horror was in his voice. I was too ashamed to look at him, but I made the sign one does, to show one acknowledges a fight is over. Garoyo let me up. I pushed myself slowly up to kneeling. I ached all over. But the quiet in my heart was so astonishing that I hardly noticed the pain. It was like the quiet the fengol had brought, but different.
My sister was staring at Aras. He did not return her gaze. He did not look at anyone, but kept his gaze on the bowl of rosehip tisane he held. Though his hands seemed steady enough, the liquid in the bowl shivered. He repeated, “You can give him something to drink. His throat hurts. You can cut the thongs. He won’t do that again. That part is past. Thank the gods.”
I coughed, and that hurt too. I managed, in a voice that did not sound much like mine, “Etta ... please. I would like water.”
My sister looked at Aras and then at me, but she did not move until Garoyo signed to her. Then she put down the bow and brought me a bowl, not of water, but of the tisane. Even after she cut the thongs, my hands were shaking so much she had to hold it so I could drink. The hot tisane soothed my throat a little. After a while, I was able to hold the bowl myself.
Growing more sure of the quiet in my heart, I said to Aras, “It is ... gone. I hated you so much. The memories ... I still remember all those terrible things you did. That he made me believe you did. But the hatred, the fury. That is gone.”
“Yes, I hoped it would help to lift the compulsions first,” he answered quietly. “You actually still feel a great deal of anger, Ryo, but the compulsions were so much worse, I can understand why you can barely tell there’s anything left. I’ve learned a great deal about compulsions from what Lorellan did to you. I never realized ... I don’t believe I understood how a sorcerer might take natural grief and anger and build them into a compulsion.” He paused, looking at me. Then he smiled. “You stubborn Ugaro. I cannot believe you held off such violent compulsions for nineteen days.”
“I did not hold them off. I hurt you.”
“Yes, you did,” he agreed, his tone matter-of-fact. “But you could have don
e far, far worse to me. Many times I thought you would. You distracted yourself, you taught me to distract you, and you set one oath after another in your own way. I am exceedingly grateful for your stubborn heart, Ryo.”
I could not meet his eyes. “I swore I would not hurt you. I broke my oath.”
We were speaking darau. My brother did not understand those words. But my sister grew still.
Aras answered, “I don’t agree. But if you did, then I set the fault against Lorellan, not against you.”
“The gods will know the fault is mine,” I said.
“No. They will judge you kindly, as I do; and set the fault against Lorellan, as I do. Anything else would be unjust. Every time it mattered most, you protected me. I say you have held to every oath you swore to me, even the oaths you don’t remember making. Would you say you are fit to judge any truth, just now?”
My sister had been looking anxiously from one of us to the other. She leaned forward, waiting for me to answer.
I could not say so. I shook my head, mute.
“Then accept my judgment. You are not at fault. Lorellan is at fault. You are not an oathbreaker. Every oath you have ever sworn to me still holds.”
My sister sat back, drawing a long breath. I bent my head. Perhaps it was true. I said helplessly, “If I could remember . . .”
“Yes. I’m going to take care of that.” His tone of calm confidence put heart into me. Shifting to taksu, he said to Garoyo, “This part is not so bad. I think it is not so bad. My enemy make him want to kill me, hurt me. That part is much better now.”
“I understood that,” Garoyo said shortly. “You explained that.”
“Yes, warleader. This part is not like that. He has many lies in his mind. I move each memory to the ... to the front. Then I make it so he see it is a lie. It take a long time. But I think he is not ... will not fight like that. But maybe I make a mistake, so please watch.”
“Yes,” said Garoyo. He laid a hand on my wrist and came to one knee, ready to force me down if I tried to get up. I leaned my cheek against his knee so that he could set his other hand on the back of my neck. He would be able to stop me very quickly with that hold.
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