by Jo Clayton
He lifted a brow. “Looks quiet out front.”
“Won’t be.” She rode past him and was pleased when he followed without a word. The gate was barred, the hinges rusty and stubborn, but Hern dealt easily enough with it. When he was mounted again and riding beside her, she said, “The Norit was waiting for me. He’s blocked now, but he won’t stay that way long.” She turned her macai into the shadow of a small grove on the edge of the commonlands. “You hear? Waiting for me.”
Hern snorted. “Fighting shadows, meie. No one followed us. No one saw us.”
She shook her head. “No one had to. The Norit’s been here a full passage. You heard what Braddon said.” She held her mount to a rapid walk as she threaded through the trees, skirting the garden patches (mostly empty now of all but weeds, the produce pickled in crocks or stored deep in root cellars against the rigors of winter). “He knew I’d have to leave the Valley. He stirred up the Kry so there’d be only one way for me to go.”
“He. Always He. Who is this ‘he’?”
She glanced at his scowling face, looked away. “The last of the Great Nor, Dom,” she said somberly. “The others are dead now, most from challenging him. The domnor of the Nearga-nor. The driving force behind all this—or so I think. No, I’m sure of that.” She felt his silence, looked at him, shook her head. “You couldn’t touch him, Hern. I don’t know who could.”
Where the commonland ended she saw the tatty hedge she’d expected, the boundary hedge of Hallam’s Tar. Sweet Hal the feckless, everyman’s friend.
“Puts us back on the road,” Hern’s voice was mild but she couldn’t miss the understated sarcasm.
“No.” Biting at her lip, she frowned along the hedge. “Which way … which way.… When Tayyan and I were coming north to take ward at the Plaz, we stopped off to see Braddon and Matti. The tarom of this holding is the laziest creature on the Plain. He let a small hole in his hedge wear big. A herd of hauhaus got out and started making a mess of the commons.” She flipped a hand at the open lands behind them. “We rounded up the beasts and fixed the break with some poles and wire. Ah, I remember now. This way.” She started east along the hedge.
Hern gave an impatient exclamation and started after her. When he caught up with her, he said, “After three years?”
She chuckled. “You don’t know Sweet Hal. Long as the patch held he wouldn’t see any reason to fuss about it.” She pointed. “See?”
There was a narrow gap in the hedge, bridged by neatly woven poles and wire. “Tch! Look at that. Hallam’s still Sweet Hal.” The bushes about the gap were tattered and dying, the wire wound precariously about brittle dead limbs. “Looks like a breath would blow it over. Hallam’s luck that it lasted through the Gather storms.” She edged the macai closer, reached down and tugged the patch loose with a series of small poppings from the thorn hedge. “Sweet Hal, bless him, even the Followers can’t change him.”
Hern followed her through the gap, slid off his macai and wired the patch upright again, cursing under his breath as the dry thorns stung him. Sucking at his knuckle he came walking back toward her. Standing by her stirrup, his lips pursed prissily, he said, “One doesn’t leave gates open in pastures. It isn’t nice.” When she laughed, he swung into the saddle. “Dammit, woman, we’re supposed to be fleeing for our lives.”
“No one’s chasing us just yet.” She began angling across the field through the silent black shapes of sleeping hauhaus, heading for the distant tarhouse, pleased with the power and grace of the mount she rode. “Trust a Norit to save the best for himself.”
“Trust me.”
She laughed. “All right, I will.” Bending forward she scratched through the spongy growths along the macai’s neck, drawing from him small snorts of pleasure after his first startled duck away from her fingers. “No, Norim don’t know much about us beasts, do they, my beautiful friend. They don’t know how we like to be stroked and praised when we do good.” She straightened, glanced over her shoulder at the Inn. She could just make out a small bright square high up near the roof. “Well, well. On your feet again are you?” She pulled the macai to a stop and slid from the saddle, calling Hern to come back. “The Norit’s with us again.” She pointed.
Around them the dark bulky forms of the hauhaus were rocking onto their feet. A few browsed with the herbivore’s constant hunger, restless under the rise of the great moon grown near full and pouring its light down on the Plain. Others dipped their heads but only nosed at the grass.
In the distant window a black form swayed from side to side as if the Norit sniffed the wind for their traces. It stiffened. “Ma-al-chi-i-in.” The word was a wild howl rushing by overhead; again Serroi thought she saw the Norit move, stretch more of himself outside the window, his head swinging rhythmically. “Ma-a-al-chiin!” he shrieked. Serroi shuddered.
Hern stirred beside her, touched her arm. “Malchiin?”
“A chini called from Zhagdeep. A demon to track and kill.” She kept her voice low and steady but she couldn’t control the trembling of her body. Against her will the Noris had used her to make those malchiinin. Demons aping flesh, shaped by the chini essence of the pups she’d raised then betrayed, pups she’d seen driven to their death by her Noris. If anything part or wholly magic could break through the tajicho’s distortion, a malchiin could. They knew her, blood and bone they knew her, her scent, her shape, her voice, her touch.
“Can it?”
“What?”
“Track us.”
“I don’t know. Probably. Take my hand.” In the moonlight she saw his pale eyes glint with amusement and his mouth stretch into a mocking grin. “Don’t say it, Dom.” She thrust her hand at him. “I’m protected from the Norit’s far-seeing but you’re not. There’s a chance he’ll think I’m alone but why depend on that?”
“Touching. Your solicitude, I mean.” His hand closed over hers, warm and rather comforting. “Difficult to ride like this.”
“We won’t be riding for a while.” She stiffened as she heard the third call; for just a moment she felt a lifting of her spirits, a brief hope that the Noris wouldn’t send the beast-demon. Then a streak of utter blackness swept across the sky, dropping chill ferocity like rain onto the earth below. She closed her fingers hard on Hern’s hand, fighting down the urge to mount and kick her macai into frantic flight away, away anywhere even though she knew that flight was futile.
Hern raised his brows. “Malchiin?”
“Yes.”
Shouts drifted broken on the wind, coming from the Inn, squeals from unhappy macain and other less identifiable noises. The night turned red over there with the glow of torchlight.
“Nice little mob.” Hern tried to pull free but she kept her grip on his hand.
“The Norit won’t wait for them.”
The malchiin began belling, the huge sound bounding and rebounding from earth to sky. The sound swelled and cut off, the subsequent silence as stunning and ominous as the beast’s first call had been. Hern jerked loose and drew his sword. “We can’t outrun that.”
“No.” She looked at the sword, shook her head wearily. “You can’t think that’s any use?”
Around them the hauhaus stopped grazing. As one they faced the gap. As one they groaned in shuddering, terror-filled hoots. As one they turned and galloped frantically away.
The malchiin trampled down the patch and stalked through the gap, a great black form shoulder high to a macai. A silver chain looped about its neck and lifted in a graceful curve to the black-gloved hand of the Norit who followed the demon through the gap, riding a macai mare who stepped with near daintiness into the interstices of the pole and wire mesh. The demon bounded forward, tugging at the chain, its red eyes fixed on Serroi, burning with eagerness to get at her. Foil to that eagerness, unhurried, savoring what he seemed to see as repayment for past humiliations, the Norit rode slowly toward them, stopped his mount a short distance from them, jerking the malchiin back onto its haunches, holding it there with a gro
wled command. The malchiin sat with predator’s patience beside the macai, black ears pricking, red tongue lolling from its chini mouth, its chini tearing teeth gleaming in the moonlight like bits of polished jet.
The Norit smiled. “Meie,” he said.
“Cetaj-nor.”
“He waits.”
“Let him wait.”
The Norit reached into his sleeve, took from it a chased silver collar with a delicate chain attached, its loops filling his palm and dripping in graceful cascades from each side, the silver very bright against his coal black skin. “Take it, meie.”
“No.” She looked past him, frowned as she listened to the noise of the mob. It was moving out from the court, coming toward them, getting louder, the torchlight brighter. She shifted her gaze back to his calm face. “You want me,” she snapped, hoping to goad him within reach, “you come fetch me.”
The Norit eyed her somberly, shook his head. With a quick jerk of the chain and a harsh word, he brought the great demon beast back onto four feet. “He has no use for the fat man. Come, or I loose the malchiin on him.”
Hern swore, took a step toward the demon, his sword lifting, balanced lightly in his hand. “Loose that thing and lose it,” he said briskly. The past hour had provided a nasty series of shocks to his amour-propre. Accustomed to deference however hypocritical, accustomed to having his own way with little struggle, he’d found himself reduced to a despised appendage, forced to follow passively where another led. To him, despite Serroi’s babbling of demons from Zhagdeep, the beast was only an overgrown chini. He knew his own skills and was confident in them.
“Hern!”
“Stay clear, meie.”
“Don’t be a fool. Steel won’t touch him.”
“We’ll see.” He eyed the panting malchiin with anticipation. “Try me, Nor.”
The Norit ignored him. “Come here, little misborn.” The Norit’s voice was a whisper of silver sound in silver moonlight, spider silk whipping about its chosen victim.
“Never.” She leaped in front of Hern as the Norit dropped the chain and hissed the beast at him. Two swift strides and it was leaping at her. Hern’s hand closed on her arm, he meant to sweep her aside, there was no time for that, no time, she reached out small hands dusky grey in moonlight that leached the color from everything but the glare of the malchiin’s eyes, she leaned into the leap of the malchiin, feeling heat surge up through her body and into her hand, a heat so intense she couldn’t bear the pain of it but she did bear the pain and, bearing it, she thrust out her hands and touched the malchiin, touched the stone-hard flesh, the horrible cold flesh, she felt a numbing blow against her hands, a blow that sent her stumbling back against Hern, the heat gone from her, gone suddenly, wholly out of her. The malchiin hung in place an instant longer, a hollow chini shape, mouth gaping on nothing.
Then the shape was gone, the eerie silence was gone, what was left of the malchiin fell to earth in a dusting of black ash.
Serroi thought she heard a whimper as the chini shape collapsed, as if the fragment of chini soul trapped inside at last won free of its torment and returned to the Maiden.
She felt herself shoved aside, fell as legs too weak to hold her collapsed under her, lay shaking on the grass as Hern lunged at a Norit numbed by shock, as startled as she by his attack. Before he could calm himself enough to call on his magic, Hern sprang from the ground, caught his arm, fell back, toppling him from the saddle. Hern came down light and sure on his feet but the Norit crashed on one leg which folded under him, bone cracking under the sudden weight put on it, the sudden pain disorienting him yet more. He shrieked and fell silent, eyes rolling back in his head, mouth falling open. Hern sliced his head neatly from his shoulders.
Panting a little, he strolled back to Serroi, caught her hand and pulled her to her feet, grinning broadly. “Maybe not the malchiin, but steel worked well enough on that.”
Leaning against him, feeling her strength slowly creeping back into her, she matched his grin. “One of these days we just might make a good team.”
CHAPTER V:
THE MIJLOC
For three days the Agli’s fist tightened about Cymbank until it was squeezed out of all semblance to its former shape. Peten Jerricks, the Townmaster, sat in one of his own cells, a look of astonishment permanently in his round eyes. The Scribe—tax gatherer, magistrate, Oras legate to the Taromate of RiverCym—hastily examined his soul then put on Follower black and the silvergilt badge of Soäreh.
The women in black chanted at Tuli as she stood with her wrists bound with soft leather straps to iron rings high off the floor:
There is a pattern for all things
Blessed be Soäreh the Light-giver
Every creature has a place, blessed be the place
Blessed be Soäreh the Pattern-giver
The broad soft strips of the five-tailed lash came down on her naked back. It stung a little but she lifted her head and laughed at them.
The guards quartered in the Center rode out in patrols, fetching the accused back to the Center, shoving them in cells with no pretense of trial. All that was required was an accusation from a Follower in good standing—an accusation of lewdness, blasphemy, secret Maiden worship, disloyalty to Floarin, cursing, a thousand other minor infractions of Soäreh’s law. The guards had open warrants from Oras to preserve the outward look of legality, but there was no more law on Cimpia Plain, only the will of Floarin, and that, whether she knew it or not, was the will of the Aglim, the will of the Nearga-nor, the will—ultimately—of the Great Nor, Ser Noris, the unbeliever in anything but his manifest power.
The women chanted:
To man is given stewardship of field and beast
The beasts whose meat is red, the wildfowl and the wild beast
Is given to him
Blessed be Soäreh who makes man herder and hunter and tie
The lash fell again. Tuli locked her teeth together. Her back was a ladder of pain. She no longer felt like laughing.
The maiden Shrine was closed, the fountain dry, the vines uprooted. The columns with their carven maiden faces were still standing but smeared with thick black paint. Follower hands had used the same black paint to scrawl Soäreh’s sigils across the delicate patterns of the tiled court. The Shrine Keeper had vanished into the Center—renamed the House of Repentance—and no one had heard her or seen her since.
The women chanted:
To woman is apointed house and household
Woman is given to man for his comfort and his use
She bears his children and ministers unto him
She is cherished and protected by his strength
She is guided by his wisdom
Blessed be Soäreh who makes woman teacher and tender and tie.
For a third time the lash fell. Her back was on fire. She gasped this time when the thongs came onto her flesh, then bit down hard on her lip, ashamed she’d let them draw even that small sound from her.
Center. Under its new name it was still the center of the town. It was the place where the “mistaken” were gently corrected and taught to see things right (right being whatever the Agli said). The taroms, the ties, the craftsmen and shopkeepers—they seethed and dithered and struck out clumsily and ineffectively. After so long a peace and so mild a rule, they were accustomed to obeying directions from Oras (not blindly, and not completely—they were independent hardheads all. They obeyed as far as they felt like. In the old days that was enough. Hern was too indolent to drive them hard and his fathers had been the same. Still—the habit was there. It was hard for them to think of rebelling; they turned at last to the old ways of dealing with intransigent Scribes: they dug in to wait it out, confident Floarin’s aberration would go away eventually and things would return to the way they were when everyone was comfortable).
The women chanted:
Cursed be he who forsakes the pattern
Cursed be the man who puts on woman’s ways
Cursed be the wom
an who usurps the role of man
Withered will they be
Root and branch they are cursed
Put the knife to the rotten roots
Tear the rotten places from the body
Tear the rotten places from the land
Blessed be Soäreh the Pattern-giver
The chant continued, led, after the first hour, by the silver-voiced acolyte. The long slow flogging continued with it. The words drove Tuli wild until the pain swamped her and she no longer heard anything over the pounding in her head. The tenth blow was the last, landing a good two hours after the first. Her mouth was bloody when it fell, her teeth cutting into her lip as she held back the foulest curses she knew, as she held back the cries of pain.
In three days the Maiden was thrown down and Soäreh elevated in her place. The Taromate was disbanded. The customs and institutions of centuries were overturned and replaced. Those three days Annic Gradin and her younger daughters spent in a small dirty cell with a rickety cot and thin straw pallets and a stinking slop bucket in one corner, in hard and meaningless labor, in a constant din of instruction until they were angry, disturbed, and most of all afraid. Teras Gradinson spent the days in the same way, packed in with a dozen boys his age. Nilis Gradindaughter kept Dris (the baby) at the Tar, since he was presumably young and uncorrupt enough to be reeducated to the service of Soäreh.
After the tenth stroke they cut her down. She tried to stand but anger and pride were no substitute for strength. Her knees folded under her and she found herself crouching at the acolyte’s feet. One of the chanters brought her the dingy black blouse she was forced to wear in this place. She fumbled her arms into the sleeves and managed somehow to button up the front. Her warders waited with enraging patience for her to finish, then the two women took her arms and lifted her to her feet. She refused to cry out though the pain in her shoulders was greater than that in her back. Because they were under Alma Yastria’s angry gaze she expected them to handle her roughly, but they were gentle and considerate, walking slowly and carefully so she could stumble along and not be dragged, speaking to her in soft tender voices, telling her … telling her … she missed the first sentences, protected from what would be an intolerable irritation by the pain that ran like fire through her body, by her need to concentrate on moving legs and feet that seemed to belong to someone else, but as her strength came back, she heard them murmuring lessons of obedience and submission, telling her over and over of the true womanliness of yielding, going on and on, meek and mild, until she wanted to scream. And yet—that would be a victory for them, an acknowledgment that she heard them, so she fought with her fury; she said nothing, tried to pretend she didn’t notice them, but she couldn’t prevent the stiffening of her body, the silent but fierce denial of everything they wanted from her. She knew they had to feel this, but they changed nothing, not the firm but gentle hold on her arms, not their soft-voiced exhortations.
