Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  The Voice, who spoke the ancient tongue as well or better than Toril, looked amused.

  Hasha reached for the sculpture again. As soon as he touched the bowl, he shook his hand as if it had been stung. He cursed under his breath, but his eyes laughed.

  “You’ve disarmed me,” he said. “Or dishanded me, I guess. What did you say?”

  When Toril explained, Hasha huffed. “I wondered how you’d do it. I can’t focus at all. Feels like a hundred mosquito bites.”

  “He said ‘always itch,’” the Voice clarified. “You won’t be able to use your hands to work magic again, unless you can break the spell.”

  Hasha glanced at her sharply. “Can you break it? Do you know anyone who could?”

  The Voice shook her head. “A lip almost always trumps a hand or an eye, and Toril is much stronger than other lips I’ve met. I felt those words in my bones.”

  Hasha looked from Toril to the far side of the room, where the staff of Kelun hung from ornate brackets, in sight of those who traded counsel around the table.

  Toril understood.

  He walked to the wall and retrieved the totem. It was a polished shaft of ironwood as tall as a man, mahogany in color and bound with semi-conical brass endcaps. Though well oiled and guarded with care, it was more than a relic—it had seen battle on many occasions, and Toril noted dozens of scuff marks and dents along its length.

  Strips of dense elder runes banded the surface at either end, outlined by spirals of voálim inlay. He knew they told the story of Kelun, who had founded the clan when the world was young—but he’d never been close enough to read them before.

  As he examined the staff, whorls of flame-colored light coalesced beneath his hands. He felt a tingle like the one that touched his lips when he kindled in the ancient tongue.

  His face registered surprise.

  “Didn’t expect it to be so heavy?” Hasha asked.

  Toril shook his head impatiently. “I didn’t know the staff had a linger.” Magic had an affinity for living things and rarely clung elsewhere for long. What kind of linger could persist on a staff this old, and what was its purpose?

  Hasha lifted his chin. “What are you talking about?”

  “See the light?”

  Hasha looked from his son to the staff, then back again, his expression blank.

  “How about you?” Toril asked, turning to the Voice.

  The woman shrugged. “I see nothing unusual.”

  Between the carved glyphs, the grain was smooth, worn to a glossy polish by many generations of hands. As Toril watched, the lines of light twisted inward along girdling spirals until they met in the center, merged, and became syllables of script.

  Toril read the words several times before they registered, and even then they made little sense.

  “Hold your name.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Did a spell guard the staff? Was magic warning him off? Giving advice to its new master? He scanned the faces of his father and the Voice, saw puzzlement, and squared his shoulders.

  “I claim the staff by right of challenge.”

  “It has been fairly won,” the Voice concurred. Normally reserve masked her emotion, like all who took the vows, but now her eyes twinkled.

  “Let us hear the oath, then,” Hasha said. “The challenge is only half.”

  Toril nodded. He cleared his throat and looked his father in the eye. “A staff of service, not of tyranny. My people before myself. As with Kelun, so with Toril. On my honor, before The Five.”

  “Well done,” Hasha said solemnly. He looked weary but satisfied. “I offer my loyalty to the new chief of Kelun Clan. May you guard our honor as Kelun did.”

  “As you did,” mouthed Toril, watching the glowing words fade. The import of his change in status would no doubt take time to sink in, but already the oddness of the pledge from his father drove it home.

  Since Amar’s death he’d been presumptive heir to the reins of the parijan, trained in letters and battlecraft and a dozen aspects of leadership, and he had expected to sit in circles of power during his adult life. He was ambitious.

  But he hadn’t planned to leave his father’s shadow now. Not this way. He’d been a babe in arms when the other parijan heads were earning their first battle scars. He wasn’t sure they’d appreciate such a young spokesman, and he wasn’t sure he blamed them.

  Now he had a duty to represent the entire clan, not just his personal interests. He’d fancied himself wise; the abrupt summons by Gorumim would test his mettle.

  Hasha seemed to read his thoughts. “I’m sure your mind is awhirl,” he said. “I’ll notify the parijans of the passing of the staff, and I’ll find a page to ride with you and see to provisions and that sort of thing.”

  “But what strategy should I follow at the council?”

  Hasha smiled. “Whatever seems honorable and good for the clan. Be a diplomat. Listen more than you speak. You’ll know most of the men at the council, but I’ll write up some extra notes about their loyalties and motivations if I think of anything you ought to keep in mind. We can confer by Voice when you get there, if the situation is too convoluted. And if you want my counsel.”

  “We need a more detailed plan than that.”

  “You think I never had to wing it, son?” Hasha coughed, and then gestured toward the Voice. “I’ll see if I can find out more about these supposed incursions of the osipi for you—but politics has already claimed too much of your attention tonight. Go. If the chief of Kelun Clan won’t dance for Gorumim, he must certainly dance for his wife before he rides away. How are you going to explain this all to her?”

  4

  a feast and stable ~ Malena

  Malena flinched when a hand—male, by its weight—landed without warning on her shoulder. It was a gentle gesture, not intended to be intrusive, but she was unaccustomed to such touches, and she nearly shrugged it off before she realized that the hand belonged to her husband.

  Husband.

  She’d had since Lambs End, when she’d signed the marriage contract that launched their troth, to train her thoughts to the reality.

  The word still felt odd.

  She glanced up from the cushion where she sat at the head of the great hall. Toril grinned back, teeth contrasting with the copper of his skin and the deep walnut of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry you had to begin without me,” he murmured, kneeling.

  “We managed. Your servants rolled out the wine and roast lamb too fast for folks to gossip much.” Malena smiled as she said it, but she spoke loudly enough for her parents, seated just beyond Toril, to overhear. She wanted them to know he was apologizing. It was a poor substitute for more explanation from him, but at least it was something.

  Malena had not been thrilled when Toril’s proposal arrived; a young man from another parijan had already opened negotiations. Malena knew Sarín well—his sunny disposition, his reputation for dependability, his good looks. She’d even traded him a smile for a wink on festival days. Toril, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. But his status quashed the competition without debate.

  Malena had resented that—the fact that her mother and father had hardly even consulted her before switching to the more prestigious offer. But she’d gritted her teeth and talked herself into an optimistic-leaning ambivalence.

  Tonight, the enthusiasm of Malena’s parents had faltered a bit when Toril and his father disappeared as the wedding ceremony concluded. Malena couldn’t decide if the faltering made her feel irritated—now they considered the possibility that all might not be rosy!—or glad that finally they seemed capable of worrying about their daughter’s feelings.

  Perhaps it didn’t matter; what was done was done.

  It helped to have her husband acknowledge the slight, but did he realize that his choice to follow father instead of bride had been apparent to all the guests? Did he understand that his attitude would play a large role in determining her standing in this new household, and that things
were not beginning well?

  Remember the daisy, Malena thought.

  Toril’s fosterage—a period of broadening education hosted by an allied family—had been with one of her uncles. Malena had visited there occasionally, and had a memory of Toril as a slender kid with bruises on his arms from drills with the weaponmaster.

  She recalled skipping across the courtyard of her uncle’s home, stumbling, and dropping the ocarina she held in her fingers. The ceramic flute had cracked against the cobblestone. It was not her property—she’d appropriated it from among prizes on her uncle’s mantle—and she felt sick when she saw the damage.

  Toril, who had been walking the other direction, noticed her stricken expression and helped her to her feet.

  “It can be mended,” he said. Instead of releasing her hand, he covered it with a second set of fingers and squeezed, smiling. But she had tugged away and run off in a panic.

  Later that night she found the glued ocarina on her pillow, a daisy poked through one of the finger holes.

  A hint of kindness was more reassurance than many women had, Malena reminded herself. In the rough Sumago wilderness, marriage was above all practical. It ensured that shelter and food continued after parents slipped into old age. It meant companionship and a warm bed when nights were cold. It provided a new generation to work the fields or trades that formed the backbone of village life—or, in Toril’s case, to lead the parijan when his father was gone.

  Malena often formed impressions of someone’s heart on less evidence than the daisy, and time seldom altered her insight. This was not one of her times of certitude, however; about her new husband she felt hopeful, maybe, but too nervous to be confident.

  After Toril ate, they danced, skipping in opposite directions around a circle in the center of the hall, hands meeting for a whirl each time they converged. The sun had set, and guests were mostly a smudge in the torchlight, but Malena caught an approving wink from her mam, and a wave from her younger sister.

  She longed to sit and talk with Tupa, especially. Letters and an occasional message by Voice could not replace confidences in the dark in the bedchamber they’d shared; Tupa was about to be lonely. And she was just months away from her naming ceremony and fosterage; her sense of isolation would grow keener still.

  As the dancing stopped, Malena turned toward her parents, hoping to exchange a few words. Despite their proximity, she’d been forced to make conversation with strangers for the whole meal. But Toril held her hand and tugged in the opposite direction.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve done our duty here.”

  Malena blushed at a good-natured catcall that rose from one of the guests quick to read Toril’s intentions.

  “Let me say good night,” she hissed.

  “I need to talk to you,” Toril whispered back. “But not here. You can find your folks later.” He tugged again.

  What ‘later’ could he have in mind? If he was as eager to hang the heartstone as he claimed, she couldn’t imagine more socializing on her agenda tonight. “I’ll be with you soon,” Malena snapped.

  Toril’s eyes narrowed. “Very well,” he said, releasing her hand. “Come find me in the stables.” And before she could respond, he was striding away, shoulders stiff.

  Malena let out of a puff of exasperation. Her tone had been unfortunate—hardly the sort of voice to auger marital bliss for either of them—but couldn’t he see that she needed one last reassurance from those she trusted? Couldn’t he at least let her be courteous?

  Why was he going to the stables?

  She hurried over to Tupa, sharing a hug that should have been tender but was now blighted by annoyance. Then her mam was planting a dry kiss on her forehead and making a crack about the impatient groom that made her face flush all over again. Her father, less demonstrative, squeezed her hand and whispered something about seeing her in the morning, before they left for home.

  Soon she was walking into dark, down an echoing corridor to the edge of the compound where she knew the horses were housed. The music and rumble of conversation faded. She passed a pair of servants playing stones at the exit to the living quarters. They looked up in surprise as she pushed at the timbers of the door. Perhaps it looked odd for a bride in her wedding attire to be wandering alone on this of all evenings; well, she would not explain.

  The stable was a long, low building nearby, surrounded by grass cropped short by grazing. She could see lantern light coming from one of the windows. Its yellow glow counterpointed the violet of the borealis behind distant mountain peaks.

  “Toril?” she called out, walking past the two dun marwaris her father had let her keep, and some stalls filled with shaggy mountain ponies.

  Hay rustled near where a black and white collie—a herding dog of some sort, she guessed—lay in the straw, its tail thumping. A hand waved from a stall.

  “In here,” he said. “Can you put that gear in the saddlebags?”

  She noticed a jumble of leather, steel, and foodstuffs heaped against the gate, along with a carved staff leaning against the wall. She stared.

  “What are you doing?” Malena eventually managed.

  “I have to leave tonight,” Toril said, emerging from the far side of the gelding with a currycomb in his hand. He was wearing buckskin trousers now, woolen vest over a linen kurta, and worn but sturdy riding boots. A sling and a silver-hilted dagger hung at his hip. He looked hesitant, as if concerned for her reaction.

  “Where? Why?”

  Toril sighed. “The message from Gorumim was to summon Kelun Clan to a war council at Bakar.”

  Malena knelt, scratched the dog’s ears, and began gathering packets of dried venison, goat cheese, and naan. “Who will attend?” she asked.

  “We were given very little notice,” Toril said. “Father couldn’t get there in time. It’s just me and a page.” He waved toward the far end of the stables, where Malena noticed for the first time another horse standing saddled in the half-light beyond the lantern.

  “You’re riding all night, with only a page as escort? The mountains can be dangerous.” Malena thought of the gouges she’d seen on a deodar’s trunk on the trip to Noemi. Moon bear, one of her father’s men had muttered. The slashes had been well above eye level as she rode past.

  What about the vikuras, or the bandits that sometimes frequented the pass? Toril would fetch a princely ransom…

  “You’ll be crossing the Barrens?”

  Toril grunted. “Going around. I’ve been through in daylight, and I think it’s wind, not enchantments, that make those noises. But there’s no point spooking the horses.”

  Malena nodded slowly.

  “I’ll be okay. I’m fast, and I’m not defenseless.”

  He gazed at her, and then reached out to finger the ribbons in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “This makes twice that I’ve left you on our wedding night. You must feel like I don’t prize my bride much.”

  Malena looked away to hide the agreement in her eyes.

  “My father isn’t well, Malena. He’s been coughing blood and complaining of pain beneath his ribs for most of the summer. He managed some energy for the wedding, but it stretched him. I’ve been trying to help him where I can. I’m sorry that it pulled me away.”

  “Oh,” Malena whispered. She leaned against his hand and closed her eyes. After a moment she felt his arms slide around her waist. She buried her nose in a shoulder, smelling hay and hardwood smoke and leather. He felt solid.

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked, pushing gently against his chest and feeling... pleased? ...but a bit nervous when he did not release her.

  “I can’t imagine I’ll be there more than a day or two,” Toril said. He paused for a long time, and Malena felt him draw a breath. “You saw the staff?” he asked.

  Malena nodded, and then, as the oddness of the question sank in, swiveled to look at it again. When she realized what it must be, she stepped away from him.

  “What are you doing
with the staff of Kelun?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “I took it from my father,” Toril said. “I challenged him.”

  Malena sank into the straw, too stunned to comment.

  “It was his idea,” Toril added. In a rush, he explained the timing of the summons, its dubious rationale, and Hasha’s analysis of the political import. He told how he’d managed the duel and of Hasha’s satisfaction at the outcome.

  When he finished, Malena began to fill the saddlebags. The marriage she’d observed most closely was an unbalanced and unhappy affair; her mother’s opinion had been ignored so often that it was seldom voiced. Malena had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t fall into that trap. However, the moment for precedent with Toril had arrived much sooner than she’d expected. Did she dare to speak? She could tell that her husband was waiting for an encouraging reaction, so she turned her back to him and tried to keep her voice neutral.

  “Will Gorumim be there?” she asked.

  “I doubt it,” Toril responded, sounding surprised. “Last I heard he was up by the capital. He’ll have to use a shimsal.”

  “You see no reason to go to war?”

  “I think it’s crazy to even discuss it. The osipi are a nuisance, maybe, but they share blood with every parijan in Zufa. They’re people, not vermin. I’m not going to commit the clan to provide men to fight them.”

  Malena’s own perspective was less generous, but she decided debate was ill-advised. “I suspect you won’t be popular at the council if you talk that way. I’ve heard rumors.”

  Toril shrugged. “I’m not going so I can make friends.”

  Malena bit her lip. “Are enemies in the best interest of the clan?” She focused on lashing a waterskin to the saddlebags, hoping that as little confrontation as possible would be heard in her question.

  “Are friends who would have us be cruel, who would spend our blood on foolishness, more to your liking?”

  Malena stood and stepped back toward her husband, placing her hands on his shoulders. “I apologize,” she said. “When you come to know me better you’ll see that I am not a meddler. But I’m not a quiet little mouse, either.”