They had gone out the River Gate, near where the Endless River turned east for a while above the city before continuing south. With the leader and his two lieutenants on either side, the caravan snaked down the long highway from Ai Hanlo, as Ginna had seen many do before, watching from the battlements. Around him were the barren foothills of Ai Hanlo Mountain. There were shepherds tending flocks on the slopes. After a while, further down, they came to fields of grain irrigated by water wheels on which men ran in place to make the water flow. For a while they were quite near to the river bank and Ginna watched the boats gliding by with great interest. They had never been more than specks to him before. Then the road took them away from the river, to the northwest, out of the foothills and onto a vast, empty plain.
Every now and then he glanced behind to see the city, like the crouching beast he had once imagined it to be, but now diseased and terrible. Slowly it sank behind the hills, and the hills themselves sank until they were no more than faint brown shapes. At last only the golden dome was visible beneath the sullen, off-white sky.
The caravan stopped once for a rest, and Ginna and Amaedig ate of their own provisions. Still no one seemed to take notice of them. The travelers, they learned from overheard conversations, were from many parts of the city and even from other cities. They journeyed for different reasons and represented different concerns. Most of them did not know anyone beyond their own specialized group.
When they started moving again, Ginna looked back. Ai Hanlo was still in sight. When they stopped again at sundown, it was not He felt an intense relief at this. It was frightening to be beyond his world, completely in the unknown, but at the same time it was hard to believe, out here, that such monstrosities as Kaemen could exist and have any power. It was as if the infection from an Ai Hanlo given over to the Dark Powers had been drawn out of his system by the distance.
When he thought of medicine, he remembered his leg and feet. It was the first time he had thought of his cuts all day. They had ceased to bother him. Now that he was aware of them, his feet did seem to ache, and his leg was a little stiff, but he was no cripple. Everything seemed right with the world.
Each component group of the caravan gathered into a circle around its own fire and prepared supper. Ginna and his companion were willing to eat alone, but they saw that no one else did. Everyone joined one group or another. As they stood apart, people gave them puzzled glances.
Quickly they attempted to join one of the circles, but were repelled.
You’re not of the Brotherhood of Yellow Sashes! What do you think you’re doing? Be gone!”
They joined another, and the words were in a strange tongue.
“Etuah namiyani! Navouran imborath!”
The meaning was clear enough.
Finally they discovered a cluster of people who did not dress alike, who did not drive the same sort of animals since most had no animals to drive, who were not all of the same caste, guild, or order.
Here no one objected when each of them took a wooden bowl from a stack and dipped into a central pot of stew. They ate in silence, picking the meat out with their fingers, drinking the broth.
“You don’t belong here, you two,” someone said.
Ginna and Amaedig carefully put their bowls down and looked up at the speaker, a wiry man seated across from them, with a face burned brown by sun and wind and grey hair shot through with silver. He wore a lute slung from one shoulder.
“In my travels,” he said, “I quickly learn who belongs and who doesn’t. You don’t I have an eye for these things.”
“We can explain,” said Amaedig.
“I—I—” was all Gina could get out
“Be at ease,” said the stranger. “We’re all odds and ends here. I am Gutharad, a minstrel obviously. I have been one for many years. I like the life. I confide this to everyone I meet because it is true and because before long I’ll be gone and won’t care what they think of me. I like it because I can wander from place to place with no cares in the world beyond my belly and my sore feet. But you two are not like that, I sense.”
He leaned forward until they could see his face more clearly in the firelight. There was a twinkle in his eyes; the corners of his mouth were at the threshold of a smile.
He sat back and laughed.
“The both of you have all the troubles in the world on your backs from the look of you. Don’t stare like that. Your eyes will pop out and fall in the fire. Hiss! Sizzle!”
Everyone was looking at them. It was impossible to tell if the others were puzzled, angered, amused, or what
Ginna turned to Amaedig and Amaedig to Ginna, each of them wordlessly pleading, do something. At last Ginna spoke.
“We’re—I mean, I am—the apprentice of a magician, and this is my servant. My master sent us to find someone for him. A lady. She’s called the Lady of the Grove.”
“Yes,” said Amaedig, nodding. “That’s it.”
Gutharad rolled his eyes upward in mock awe. “Oh, a mighty sorcerer is among us! Pray spare us from your magical wrath...”
“I am a real magician,” a man in a black gown snarled. He stood up to an impressive height. His face was grim and lined. He wore a pointed beard which he was always stroking, and held a carven staff in his left hand. The flickering firelight made his face seem carven too.
He walked to the center of the seated group, planted his staff at arm’s length, still holding it, and staring at it Silence fell over all present The sounds of other groups came to them through the gloom.
The Dark Powers pluck at my beard even now. They are all around us. I can sense all things magical. What kind of magic do you possess, boy? I see no deep sorcery in you.”
“Oh sir, I am but a mere apprentice, and my master taught me nothing of deep magic. Only a little bit of shallow.”
“Well then, what can you do? You must be a slow student not to have progressed further at your age.”
Ginna remembered one of the few tricks Hadel had taught him. He closed his eyes, made a sign with his fingers in the air, spoke a word, and opened his eyes again. A bush of white roses was growing out of the ground at the magician’s feet, winding around his body for support. Every few inches a new flower opened.
The audience applauded. The magician stared at Ginna with haughty disdain, spread his arms apart, and the roses vanished. Without another word he went to his former place and sat down.
“Why don’t you show us more?” someone said.
“Yes, entertain us.”
“We’ll let you stay.”
So Ginna stood up. The minstrel had said he confided in strangers because they didn’t know him and before long he would never see them again. There was nothing better to do than follow the implied advice and let the secret out.
He folded his hands together, opened them, and a glowing yellow ball floated into the air. He made a dozen of them, one by one, and by the end the first ones were beginning to fall. One drifted into a man’s face. He swatted at it, and was astonished to see it vanish like a bubble. Ginna juggled the rest awkwardly, not having had much practice of late, but it was an instinctive thing, and before long he was doing it well enough, without thinking. Only two more evaded his grasp and burst. Everyone watched him with interest and in silence, even the magician. When he stopped, there was more applause. He bowed politely and sat down.
Gutharad moved over next to him.
That was very good,” he said. “I have never seen anything quite like it, and when someone shows me something I haven’t seen before, I’m glad to have them with me. You shall be welcome into our midst, young—”
“Ginna.”
“Ginna. Ah yes. How appropriate, since you are mysterious. Yes, I know the hill tongue. And what are you mysterious about?”
Now Ginna reconsidered telling all his secrets to a stranger.
“I try not to be. Really. I’m just like anyone else.”
“Not everyone makes bubbles of light with their hands.”
“I saw him teach it to him,” Amaedig said.
“And you, young lady, is there anything mysterious about you?”
“No, I am just ordinary too.”
“Ah, despair! How ordinary the world is getting. Before long everything will be boring and there will be nothing for me to sing about and I’ll die. What a tragedy, the last minstrel perishing forgotten...”
“The magician isn’t ordinary,” said Ginna. He was beginning to feel at ease with this friendly man. He laughed, but oddly the minstrel didn’t.
“Lower your voice when you talk of him. That one is from Zabortash. A most sour and unpleasant fellow. They all are down there.”
“Down where?”
“In Zabortash—my, my, you do have a lot to learn. You are not widely travelled in this world, even for your years.”
“No, I have never been beyond the city before. Or, I mean, only once, and not this far.”
“The city? Now Ai Hanlo is a famous and holy place, and people come there from all over, but to call it the city betrays a decidedly provincial outlook, my boy.”
Ginna fidgeted with his knife handle, then his boot laces. “I can learn,” he said.
“Actually you are very fortunate to have so much ahead of you yet I, who have travelled so far for so many years, am in danger of becoming jaded.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Ginna thought glumly of the events of the past few days, and it occurred to him that much of the world would doubtless be filled with horror. But now, he hoped, he was safe for at least a little while.
“As I was saying about Zabortash, it’s far to the south, where the land is so hot it has melted into mushy swamps. The air is so heavy there that everybody carries it around in buckets, and when they breathe they stick their heads in and go gulp, gulp, gulp.” Gutharad opened and closed his mouth, imitating a fish. Both Ginna and Amaedig smiled. Despite his own advice, the minstrel had not lowered his voice much. Several of those who overheard snickered. The man in black stared at them grimly.
“I was sailing into Zabortash,” said Gutharad, “on a ship loaded with this and that, mostly that, with a bit of this, and a pinch of something else—hearers of stories don’t like to be encumbered with such trivia as cargo listings, you understand—I was sailing into the great, greasy, smelly, overheated city of distant, tropical Zabortash, when one of the oarsmen called out to me. “You there! Honeymouth”—that’s what they called me down there in the south—“Play us a song or we throw you into the harbor for the crabs to eat” So I asked for requests, and overwhelmingly they all wished to hear The Generous Mother. You may know the song. It’s about a wife who’s cheating on her husband, who keeps coming home drunk. He sees her lover’s horse at the door, but she tells him it’s a cow her mother generously sent. The lover’s boots are chamber pots, and so on. But he stays out one night sober and watches the house. He sees the lover slipping out the back door very, very late. He asks her who it was and she says it was a poor traveler from Zabortash who was lost and asking directions. Well, I had never been to the south before, and I didn’t know any better, so I went into the next verse.”
The minstrel took his lute in hand, strummed, and sang:
Oh many a day I’ve travelled
A hundred leagues and more,
But a Zaborman who can last till dawn
I’ve never seen before.
* * * *
The magician stood up, grunted something under his breath, spat into the fire, and stalked off.
“See, what did I tell you?” said Gutharad. “A sour bunch the lot of them. No sense of humor. It turned out half the crew of the ship had remained sullenly silent throughout the song. They hadn’t requested it. They had no appreciation for music. They also couldn’t take a joke. They were Zabormen, every one.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened, boy? A riot broke out. The ship wallowed from side to side and almost tipped over as they fought. Somebody hit me with an oar. I had to swim ashore, though the crabs didn’t eat me. But I ruined a perfectly good harp, which was what I played in those days.”
Several people began to yawn and stretch.
“And these days,” said the minstrel, “I am old enough to have need of sleep, so I think that shall be all of my tales for tonight.”
* * * *
The caravan approached the land of Nagé. Gutharad touched Ginna on the shoulder and pointed to three small hills which rose out of the dusty plain like the backs of whales rising from the sea. The minstrel told the boy what a whale was, and pointed out the similarity in form.
“When we are beyond them, we are in Nagé.”
“My teacher came from this country. He never said much about it.”
“A silent bunch, these Nagéans, but very learned, I assure you. It is a perfectly respectable place to be from, unlike—” he looked over his shoulder at the sullen magician who followed them—”Zabortash.” The minstrel chuckled, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I must tell you my other Zabortash story sometime. It’ll put hair on your chest, boy. I think it would do the same for you, young miss, if it didn’t curdle your innards entirely. Did you blow that they don’t, ah, make babies down there the way the rest of the world does it? In Zabortash they have to be different. I think it comes from gulping air out of buckets.”
“How do they do it?” asked Ginna in a hushed tone. “Yes, tell us,” said Amaedig, less solemn, more amused. “Go ahead and put hair on my chest if you can.”
“Keep your voices down, both of you! We can’t allow ourselves to be overheard.” Gutharad rolled his eyes upward, then glanced back at the magician, who led a pack horse and marched on in regular, deliberate steps. The expression on the man’s face was one of contempt for a noisome insect which happens to be out of reach at the moment Ginna looked back and saw him, and felt a tinge of unease.
“Is it possible,” he said to Gutharad in complete earnest, “that babies are made in other ways in countries beside Zabortash? In other countries I mean.”
With a broad grin the other leaned close and said, “If you and your friend here swear to absolute secrecy, I will tell you the greatest, the strangest, the ultimate truth.”
“Oh really?” snickered Amaedig.
“Yes, young lady. The secret and the gleaning of life. I wouldn’t settle for second best in such a case.”
“Then tell us. We swear.” She made a gesture and Ginna copied it. The minstrel waved his hands in complex patterns which he seemed to be improvising as he went along.
“Now that we’re through swearing, come closer.” He put his arms around both of them, holding one on either side. His lute jangled as he walked, making hollow sounds. “Listen, and listen well. This is the wisdom to end wisdom, the secret of all secrets.”
They both leaned very close, and he told them. “Some people... will believe... anything!”
He threw the two of them aside and stood there, bent over with laughter. The caravan swerved around him, while Ginna and Amaedig stood and stared. Drivers cursed. The magician looked away as he passed. The three of them had to run to regain their place.
Gutharad was less talkative the rest of the day. Ginna thought that he might be somewhat embarrassed at leading them on like that He was a good man, and very funny sometimes, but not seemingly of the sort who would make fools out of his friends deliberately.
Late in the afternoon they passed one of the Dead Places. There were no ruins, no solid shapes. Faint draperies of light flickered and waved against the grey sky, stirring up dust. In the periphery of his vision Ginna sometimes saw towers or walls, and once a fantastic procession of winged and plumed figures keeping pace with the caravan, but whenever he turned to look at them directly, there was only empty land stretching away into the distance. He saw waterfalls of blue and red light rushing forever into the earth. Something like a ship but large as half of Ai Hanlo drifted near the
horizon.
“I think the builders of this place are still here,” said Gutharad. “I don’t think they were ever flesh and blood at all.”
The three caravan masters on their katas rode up and down the length of the company with rods in their hands, shouting for all to keep moving, striking anyone who stopped to gaze.
“They have a point I have heard that if you wait here till sunset, the place becomes so beautiful in the darkness that anyone who keeps looking at it goes mad.”
Later the perspective somehow changed. They passed a crucial angle, and all at once the flickering lights, the dim, half-glimpsed shapes, the burning waterfalls all winked out and they were alone with the natural desert once more.
By nightfall they were well beyond the three hills. The caravan masters had been driving everyone hard. All made camp quickly, then dropped to the ground exhausted. Supper was served. After a rest Ginna and the minstrel performed. Later, when Amaedig was away to relieve herself, the two of them sat looking into the darkness.
Ginna spied lights moving up the slopes of the hills. “What’s that?”
Gutharad stared for a minute and said, “It might be a very stupid band of robbers showing off their position, but I doubt it. No, no... look now.”
Some of the lights had risen above the tops of the hills and were floating in the air.
“The Bright Powers,” said the minstrel. “I don’t doubt it now. They congregate on the hills like that sometime. It’s best to stay away when they do. Supposedly they assume human shape to dance and play strange music. If you hear it, you are bewitched and drawn to them, clear out of this world.”
“And?”
“Maybe some get back. Did you ever wonder where lunatics come from?”
The Shattered Goddess Page 9
