Shaman's Crossing ss-1

by Robin Hobb

“He reeked of it.” We both knew what that meant. As soon as he recovered, Tiber would be suspended and face discipline. If he recovered.

  “No. I mean, was he breathing the smell at you? Or was it just on his clothes?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to check anything like that. I just smelled spirits, very strong, when I got close to him.”

  Another silence followed my words. Then, “Dr Amicas seems very sharp. He’ll know if Tiber was really drunk or not.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. There wasn’t much I had faith in any more.

  I fell asleep, and dreamed deep. The old fat tree woman sat with her back against her tree and I stood before her. Rain was falling on both of us. Although it drenched me, it did not wet her. As soon as it touched her, it was absorbed as if her flesh were thirsty earth. I didn’t mind the rain. It was gentle and soft, and its chill touch was almost pleasant. The forest glen felt very familiar, as if I had been there often. I was not dressed against the weather, but sat bare-limbed in the rain, enjoying it. “Come,” she said. “Walk and talk with me. I need to be sure I understand what I have seen through your eyes.”

  We left her tree, and I led the way, walking on a winding path through a forest of giants. In some places, the overhead canopy of leaves sheltered us completely from the falling rain. In others, the water plashed down, from leaf to twig to branch to leaf and then down, to soak into the forest floor. It did not bother either of us. I noticed in passing that although she seemed to walk freely with me whenever I glanced at her she appeared to be in some way part of the trees. Her hand would touch the bark of one, her hair would tangle against another. Always, always, she was in contact with them. Despite the swaying bulk of her body, her heavy walk had an odd grace. She was strength and opulence in my dream. The pillows of flesh that softened her silhouette to curves were no more repulsive to me than the immense girth of a great tree or the vast umbrella of its branches and foliage. Her largeness was wealth, a mark of skill and success for a people who lived by hunting and gathering. And this, too, seemed familiar.

  The deeper I went into her forest, the more I recalled of this world. I knew the path I followed, knew that it would lead to the rocky place where a stream ran down from a stony cleft to suddenly launch itself in a glittering silver arc into the forest below. It was a dangerous place. The rocks close to the edge were always green and slick, but nowhere else was the water so cool and so fresh, even when the rain was falling. It was a place I cherished. She knew that. Letting me go there in the dream was one of my rewards.

  Rewards for what?

  “What would happen, then,” she asked me. “If many of the soldier sons who are to be the leaders were slain, and never ventured east to bring their people against the forest? Would this stop the road? Would it turn these people back?”

  I had been thinking of something else. I came back to her question from my distraction. “It might slow them for a time. But it would not stop them. In truth, nothing will stop the road. You can only delay it. My people believe that the road will bring riches to them. Lumber from the forest, meat and furs. And eventually, a way to the sea beyond the mountain, and trade with the people there.” I shook my head in resignation. “As long as wealth beckons, my people will find a way to it.”

  She scowled at me. “You say ‘my people’ when you speak of them. But I have told you. You are no longer of those ones. We have taken you and you belong to The People, now.” She cocked her head and stared deep into my eyes. I felt she looked inside me and out the other side, as it were, to some other eyes I did not know I had. “What is it, son of a soldier? Do you begin to wake to both worlds? That is not good. Not yet should you do that.” She set her hand fondly on the top of my head.

  It was a comforting touch that dispelled all anxiety. Some worry I had felt had slipped away from me. All would be well.

  She lifted both her hands to her face and hair. She smoothed them over her head as if to ease the anxiety I knew she felt. Then she looked at me through her plump fingers. “You still have not spoken of your magic, soldier’s son. At the moment it was given to you, it began to work through you. What have you done for us? The magic chose you. I felt it take you. All know that once the magic of the god touches a man, he does his task. You were to turn the intruders back and make those who are here leave. What did you do?”

  “I do not understand what you are asking me.”

  Both her question and my response were as familiar to me as my evening prayers, learned at my mother’s knee. She tried again to explain. “You would have done something. Some action of yours is supposed to begin the magic that you will finish when you are a great man. Telling me will not stop the magic. It will only ease my fears. Please. Just tell me. Put my mind at ease, so I may tell the forest that the beginning of the end of waiting has begun. The guardians cannot dance much longer. They weary. They die. And when they all die, there will no longer be a wall. It will fall, and nothing will remain to hold the intruders at bay. They will walk freely under the trees, cutting and burning. You know what they will do. We have seen it.”

  We were nearly to the waterfall. I longed to see it. I tried to see it through the forest, but the trees leaned together, blocking my view. “I do not understand your words.”

  She sighed, like wind in the trees. “If such a thing could be, I would say the magic chose poorly. I would say that one of The People would have known better how to use the given gift.” She shrugged, lifting the soft roundness of her shoulders and then letting them fall. “I will have to do what is within my power to do. I do not do it lightly. My time for doing things should be past. This should be only my time for being. But I fear you cannot turn them back by your self. My strength is needed, still.” She sighed and then she brushed her fat hands together. Dust, fine brown dust, fell from the surfaces of her palms as they passed one another. “I have thought of a thing, and now I have decided I will do it. I will send one of the old magics to you. With it, we can harvest from the intruders some of what they are. No knife is sharper than a man’s own turned against him. Perhaps it will give us more time to discover what it is you have done to help us.” She lifted her hand and waved it oddly at me. I sensed immense power in the simple gesture. “When the magic finds you, it will signal you. So. Then it will begin. Do not struggle against it.”

  I felt a terrible fear. She stared at me, the colour of her eyes going darker in disapproval. “You should go now. Stop thinking about these things.”

  I awoke with a start to deep darkness, and the sounds of rain beating on the roof above me and the stentorian breathing of my fellows around me. The rags of my dreams hung about my mind. I touched them and tried to pull them together, but they went to threads in my fingers. I felt dread unlike the fear I might feel from a nightmare. This was the dread of something real, something I could not recall. The wind gusted, and the rain suddenly pattered harder and swifter against roof and windowpane. It lulled, then gusted again. I listened to that, sleepless, until morning, and then rose wearily to face another day.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cousin Epiny

  I don’t know how Gord staggered through his classes the next day. As I feared, I earned punishment exercises for my incomplete maths assignment. My spirits were low. When I heard the rumour that Cadet Lieutenant Tiber had been found disgustingly drunk and was not to be suspended but simply expelled from the Academy for conduct unbecoming an officer, my misery was complete. I suspected his punishment was undeserved, but had no real proof to offer on his behalf. I still wondered if I should not take my suspicions to Dr Amicas, and wondered, too, if my reluctance to do so was cowardice or pragmatism.

  The news of Tiber’s disgrace eclipsed all curiosity about what had befallen Gord. I was a bit disillusioned with my roommates, for most of them accepted unquestioningly the tale that he had taken all those bruises tumbling down the library steps. He had developed a fine black eye from his
‘fall’ and limped as we marched to and from our classes, yet seemed quietly pleased about something. I decided I didn’t understand him at all.

  I was feeling bleak and downhearted when I returned to Carneston House at noon, and found an unexpected missive from my uncle. In it, he mentioned the upcoming days of freedom, and assured me that he would come to get me on Fiveday evening so I would not have to spend my time in the dormitory. Spink, to his credit, tried to look happy for me when I shared the news with him, though we both knew it condemned him to remaining behind alone there.

  “I need the study time,” he declared. “And I know you’ll enjoy yourself there. Don’t worry about me. Bring me back some of those cinnamon cakes your little cousin baked for you last time, and have a good time.”

  Nate and Kort had also received letters. To their dismay, they found that the plans had been changed. They would spend the night at Nate’s great-aunt in Old Thares. Their sisters and sweethearts would be housed in Kort’s uncle’s home. The evening tryst the four had secretly planned was abruptly doomed, and Nate’s younger sister was soundly denounced as a tattletale.

  We completed our afternoon classes, and then hurried back to our barracks to pack. As we were climbing the stairs up to our room, Gord actually passed me on the steps. By the time I reached the study room, he was coming out the door with his previously packed bag slung over his shoulder. A broad grin dominated his fat and swollen face.

  “What are you so chipper about?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “I’ll see my parents over the break. My father has come to town for the Council meeting. And I always enjoy staying with my uncle. And Cilima will be visiting there as well. She lives only a few miles from my uncle’s house.”

  “Who is Cilima?” I demanded, and all around me, the other cadets paused to hear the answer.

  “My fiancée,” Gord asserted, and suddenly blushed a deep red. There was some scepticism and mockery, but he quietly produced a miniature of a raven-haired girl with large black eyes. Her beauty stunned me, and when Trist archly asked if she know the fate that awaited her, Gord replied with dignity that her affection and belief in him were the keystone to his persevering through difficult times. Again, I was struck by the realization that there seemed to be more to Gord than any of us had imagined. He was the first of us to leave, and the others followed soon after, for they had all packed the night before.

  Spink followed me to our room and watched woefully as I packed, and then bravely accompanied me down to the drive to await my uncle’s carriage. He stood beside me, talking as we waited. Other carriages and conveyances were coming and going, bearing off cadets. I could tell he was eaten up with envy that I would escape the Academy routine for a full two days, but he was covering it well, saying only that I should enjoy food cooked for the pleasure of eating it rather than the convenience of feeding.

  I had expected only that my uncle would send a carriage for me. Thus I was taken aback when the driver pulled in his horses and I saw that not only my uncle but also my Cousin Epiny had come to fetch me. The coachman descended to open the door and my uncle emerged to greet me. I introduced him to Spink, of course, and Uncle Sefert graciously shook hands with him and asked him several questions about how he was enjoying the Academy and how his studies were progressing. Epiny, left unattended in the carriage, immediately climbed out without assistance. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she wandered a short distance down the walk, studying the grounds and the administrative building with her direct, inquisitive stare. She looked like a stick in a large lace collar. I was accustomed to seeing women and girls of her age in the voluminous flounces and bustles and hoops or whatever it was under their skirts that made them bell out so. Epiny’s dress was a childish style in a stiff, shiny fabric of diagonal navy and white stripes. It was short enough that I could see she wore little black boots instead of slippers. Her hat looked like a cock-eyed tower with lace and three blue flowers spouting out the top of it as if it were a vase. It was so ugly that I was certain it was extremely fashionable. She had some sort of shiny charm on a string around her neck, which she held between her teeth. When she came closer, I realized it was a whistle shaped like an otter. Her breathing blew it very softly as she carried it. She came to stand at my uncle’s elbow. She listened for a short time to Spink detailing his current project for drafting and then sighed out through the whistle, rather loudly.

  My uncle gave her a sideways glance. I was embarrassed for her. I expected him to rebuke her, as my father surely would have done if either of my sisters had so put herself forward in the company of men. Instead, he made a slightly sour face at Spink and said, “My rather spoiled daughter is hinting that I should introduce her to you.”

  Spink glanced at me, and then reached his own decision. He made a very polite bow and said, “I should be delighted to meet her, sir.”

  “I’m sure,” my uncle replied dryly. “Cadet Spinrek Kester, I am pleased to present to you my daughter, Epiny Helicia Burvelle. Epiny, take the whistle out of your mouth. I have never so regretted buying any trinket for you as I have that one.”

  Epiny spat out the whistle so it dangled about her neck. She dropped an elegant curtsy to Spink. “I am so pleased to meet you,” she said, quite correctly, and then spoiled it when she asked with a smile, “And may I presume that you will be joining my cousin for his visit to our home?”

  Spink glanced at my uncle in confusion tinged with alarm. “Uh, no, Miss Burvelle, I was merely here to see your cousin off.”

  Epiny swung her direct blue gaze to me and demanded, “Why isn’t he coming with you, Nevare? How could you be so stupid as not to have invited your friend?” Before I could even frame a reply to her accusation, she turned pleadingly to her father. “Papa, please invite him now. It would be perfect. Then we’ll have enough hands for a good game of Towsers. Right now, we’re short a player, and it is far too easy to deduce the cards if there are only two of us. Please, Papa! If you don’t, then you shall have to be the one to round out the game for us.”

  “Epiny!” her father rebuked her, but he sounded more abashed than angry.

  “Please, Papa! I’ve been so bored and you told me you no longer approve of Mistress Lallie spending every week’s end with us. I shall die of ennui this Sevday if we do not have some company to amuse me. Please, Papa! Mama will not mind! She is gone to wait on the Queen, so she will not complain of too much company and noisy games giving her a headache. Please!”

  I had never heard a woman of her years whine and beg like a little child. I think I would have been more humiliated by Epiny’s wheedling if a flush of forlorn hope had not passed over Spink’s face. It was gone almost before I had seen it, but I knew my uncle had perceived it when he said gently, “Epiny, my dear, I would be glad to invite Nevare’s friend, but I fear we have left it too late for this visit. I would need to request permission of Colonel Stiet, and Cadet Kester would need time to pack a bag. Perhaps when the first-years are next given leave, we can invite him.”

  She gave a harrumph and then crossed her arms stubbornly. “Papa, it is not a problem, really. You can tell the colonel now that we are taking him, and while you are doing so, he could run back and quickly pack a few things. Men need very little in the way of clothing and such; I am sure he could be ready in no time at all. Couldn’t you, Spinrek?” She smiled most charmingly as she unabashedly helped herself to his first name.

  He was like a bird paralysed by a snake. Epiny and Spink were of a height and she cocked her head and smiled as she awaited his response. He looked into her open gaze and knew he must offer a reply and that the only polite response would be to agree with her. “I suppose I could,” he said, and then, as if suddenly aware that he had put my uncle in a difficult position, hastily added, “But I doubt that Colonel Stiet would give me permission on such short notice.”

  “Oh, Colonel Stiet? Don’t fret about him. My mother knows his wife, and the colonel’s lady would just die to do anything that might pl
ease her. I’ll go with Papa and say that my mother would take it as such a personal favour if you were allowed to visit. Run and get your things so you don’t keep us waiting when we come out. Come, Papa, let us go and see the colonel.”

  “Epiny, you are impossible!” To my shock, my uncle was laughing at her deplorable behaviour.

  “No, father, I am certainly not! What is impossible is trying to remain amused when the house is as still as a tomb. Just look at how he is already frowning at me! I do not think he will be very amusing at all. Purissa is too little to be any use at all in serious games… unless you will take time to play with us? Oh, would you, Papa? I can never guess your finish card when I play Towsers with you. Will you play?”

  My uncle just looked weary at the question, and I found myself wondering how many hands of Towsers he’d had to play recently. I well recalled when my sisters had become infatuated with table marbles and made the game the focus of their lives for an entire summer. My father had tolerated it for a month, then exiled it to the schoolroom and finally banned it outright when my mother complained that chores and lessons were being shirked. Uncle Sefert seemed willing to try a different tactic. In a moment of decision, I saw both Spink and myself offered as sacrifice to Epiny’s caprice. “I’m sure I won’t have to mention your mother to get Colonel Stiet to release Cadet Kester to me for the free days.” He paused to look at both of us severely and add, “I trust you young men will bring your study materials so as to be well prepared for Firstday. I do not want the colonel to think that my home is an undisciplined place of folly and leisure.”

  “No, sir. I shall not neglect my books.” Spink’s pleasure at the thought of two days away from the routine of the Academy shone in his face. He beamed as I had never seen him smile before.

  I think that such an honest display of warm anticipation pleased my uncle, for he gruffly ordered us to ‘put my nephew’s bag in the boot, and then hurry off to fetch Kester’s pack. Epiny, wait in the carriage. I will not be long.”