Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  Maybe it was wiser—although the prospect of delay was agony to Malena—to risk a reasonable rest, in the hopes that they’d predicted Gorumim’s trajectory correctly, and would soon have a town of backup to stage an intervention. That plan appeared to appeal to her husband.

  Or maybe the question was moot.

  Oji was in no condition to move in this rain, and Shivi and Paka, huddled together beneath one of the horses, didn’t seem much better. Toril himself was moving in slow motion. Only Malena felt any sort of energy or will to continue. The poorly understood power that Toril had used to banish death and cure her wounds still seemed to be feeding health to her body in an unusual way. Already the bandage around her forearm had been removed, and she felt little fatigue or stiffness.

  As Toril bent to blow, yet again, on the scraps cupped in one hand, the incongruity of the exercise struck Malena. She’d never traveled with her husband before, never seen him wield magic except at her own healing—but certainly a lip of his reputation could enhance a few sparks. Why on earth had they been struggling in the rain for so long?

  “Use your magic!” she hissed impatiently. Was the cold making him as dull-witted as she herself had been?

  Toril continued to hunch, his shoulders deflating as he blew. After a few moments he fumbled a handful of pine needles out of his vest, and Malena heard a crackle.

  When the flames leaped high enough to counter the moisture without help, Toril put hands on his knees and pushed himself into a standing position. He added an armful of twigs and branches and waved at Oji and the older couple. Hika shook herself in the darkness, then crept into the ring of firelight with a sigh.

  Malena reached her hands into the warmth, felt fingers on her wrist, and looked up to see Toril staring at her intently.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “In private.”

  Malena met his gaze for a moment, then looked down. “Can we do it later?” she asked. “I’m cold.”

  Toril’s face flushed with anger. “Say goodbye to your dinner guests and find me in the stable,” he whispered.

  Then he stalked off toward the horses.

  Malena bit back an angry retort. Just because she’d been reluctant to talk at their wedding, and just because she wanted a little while to warm up now, didn’t mean she intended to slight him at every turn. Why did he have to treat her like an enemy?

  To show her independence, she added some larger limbs to the fire, stepped closer to the heat, and watched steam rise from her cloak. She felt Shivi’s eyes on her—Oji’s, too—and wondered if they’d overheard. Did they think she was giving her husband the cold shoulder? Could they see that he was being demanding and unreasonable?

  The lack of conversation around the flames became uncomfortable, and at last Malena bowed back into the darkness. She found her husband hobbling the mare, waited for him to notice that she’d arrived, and when recognition was not forthcoming, cleared her throat uncertainly.

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  Toril gestured to a boulder that looked marginally dry, in the lee of a hulking cedar. “Have a seat.”

  Malena leaned against the rock and tucked the cloak around her knees. Something—langurs?—barked in the distance. When she felt her husband’s arms encircle her waist, and his chin rest on her shoulder, she stiffened abruptly.

  “I wasn’t planning to kiss you,” Toril said, disgust at her reaction coloring his whisper. “I didn’t lure you into the dark with an ulterior motive. I just thought I could keep your back dry.”

  Abruptly, Malena felt foolish. Maybe he’d been cranky, just now, but she was acting a bit prickly herself. She could do better than this. She would have to get used to this, right?

  “I’m sorry,” she said impulsively. “I could have come when you first asked. I was cold, but I wasn’t being very cooperative.” She deliberately leaned into him, stifling her own instinct to pull back. “Will you forgive me?”

  Toril was silent for a long time.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said. He rested a wet cheek against her own. She felt him swallow. “I feel like everything I do makes things worse.”

  Malena turned around to face him. “I haven’t been happy about everything you’ve done, but I’ve never doubted you mean well,” she said, realizing as she said it that it was true.

  Toril blinked, eyes downcast.

  She rested a hand against his cheek. Is this what wives do when they love their husbands? she wondered.

  Toril put a hand over hers.

  They stood there until Malena ached for the heat of the fire. “What did you want to talk about?” she prompted.

  “Magic,” he said, voice cracking. “I want to talk about magic. You told me just now that I ought to be using it to start the fire.”

  “Well, isn’t that something you can do?” Malena asked, surprised at the heaviness of his tone. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I heard a story about you once lighting random candles just to infuriate my uncle’s house servants.”

  Toril did not laugh, as she’d hoped.

  “I was just dripping there, in the rain, and I wondered why you needed the tinder box,” she added lamely.

  “I’m not a lip,” Toril murmured. “Not anymore.”

  Malena considered this statement for a while. It made no sense. Of course he was a lip. Everybody in the clan knew it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you were dying, I tried to use my magic to make you better. But I wasn’t very good at it, and it was so exhausting. I tried to think of another way—any other way at all—but it was all I could come up with.”

  “Kavro shilmar?”

  She felt him nod.

  “What was it like?”

  “The memories of it are... slippery. Half of what I said and did disappeared the minute I walked out of the paoro. It comes back to me in snatches.”

  Malena waited for him to supply more detail.

  “I knew one other person who vowed,” she finally said. “The seamstress who used to come to our home for a few weeks each year. She was a quiet woman. Very private. Intense.”

  “No flamboyant story to feed the gossip?” Toril asked.

  “No. In fact, I didn’t even know she’d done the Ordeal of Names until her last visit, when Mother commissioned my wedding sari. She insisted she’d do the bead work for free. I asked her why, and she said it was part of the price of her name. At the time I shrugged it off as an odd comment, but when I laid eyes on what she’d made I knew the name she had in mind was no ordinary thing.”

  “The sari was exquisite,” Toril whispered. “And so was the woman who wore it.”

  Malena blinked hard. She’d seen loose beads on the floor of her bedchamber after Toril healed her. “So was the woman who made it. I guessed that she’d burned a scroll, and she did not deny it, but she just teared up when I asked for more explanation. I couldn’t get a lot out of her, except that her ordeal is ongoing, not a thing she completed long ago.”

  She felt a tenseness from Toril.

  “For you, too?”

  He sighed an acknowledgment.

  “Can you tell me your name?” she ventured.

  “I asked that very question,” Toril said slowly. “That part, I do remember.” She felt him shift his legs and lean away. “I was told that if I complete the ordeal, you’ll know the name, and if I don’t, the name was never mine to begin with. I’m supposed to leave it at that.”

  Malena dissected this. She’d always pictured the ordeal as a ceremony where a priest posed hard questions, or maybe invoked some supernatural power to prove the supplicant’s integrity of purpose. Why would that be hard to remember? And why would the seamstress and Toril both claim their ordeal wasn’t over? Something about her husband’s tone made her feel like the priest hadn’t been the other party in the conversation he was reporting. He hadn’t really talked with a Speaker, had he? That only happened at High Days, when a priest or priestess addressed all the pe
ople together, in trance.

  “What price did you pay, exactly, to burn your scroll?”

  “Haven’t you guessed?”

  “When you say you’re no longer a lip, you mean you sacrificed your magic?”

  She felt him nod again.

  “But how did you heal me? I saw you speak the words, saw you glowing with power as you called me back...”

  “It had to be something precious. Worthy of the blessing I sought. The words I spoke to heal you were the last I’ll use as a magic wielder.”

  She grew still. Then, abruptly, she stepped back a step, eyes wide. “But how are we going to rescue the children?”

  Toril stared back, his face inscrutable in the deep shadows. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “Before we left the valley.”

  “You said nothing!” Malena whispered back. She could feel hostility and panic rising.

  “I said I couldn’t pull off a rescue by myself,” Toril hissed. “I said I needed reinforcements. But you wouldn’t listen.” His voice cracked at the end.

  “You didn’t say you were... crippled!” Malena shot back. She heard echoes of her mother in the last word, and a part of her cringed. The woman had been so proud of her gifted son-in-law—but strip away the wealth, the reputation, and the talent, and Malena could imagine her mother’s dismay. Was she, herself, worried about such shallow considerations—even as she claimed concern for the children?

  “I guess I came because part of your argument made sense,” Toril responded. “Besides, what was I supposed to do? Humiliate myself by begging you? Blab my most private secrets in front of complete strangers? Even if I’d wanted to, kavro shilmar is supposed to be sacred, between me and a Speaker. What I did there should be shared with nobody. I’m only telling you because you’re directly affected.”

  “Children’s lives are at stake!” She heard desperation in her voice.

  “You think I don’t know that? You think I’ve thought about anything else while we’ve ridden into the wilderness?”

  “If I’d known, I would have gone to Sotalio,” Malena retorted, her voice quivering with indignation.

  “You would?”

  Despite her anger, Malena found herself digesting the question. A part of her was remembering Shivi’s assessment from the other night. Malena and her husband had both been right, according to the old woman. At the time, the ambivalence had seemed comforting; she’d needed to hear that her own motives for dashing into the wilderness were not foolish.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she heard Toril whisper. “It never felt like the right moment. You haven’t exactly been approachable.”

  No. She had not been willing to talk. She couldn’t dispute it.

  “It’s not hopeless,” Toril continued. “I’ve been thinking hard about this. If Gorumim’s really heading for the river, then we have a chance, even without any special abilities on my part. I know people in Two Forks. We keep cash reserves there. Half a dozen powerful men owe my father a favor. If we can get there before he does...”

  When Malena did not respond, and the silence grew awkward, a plaintive tone crept into his voice.

  “Please forgive me,” Toril whispered. “I am trying to do my best...”

  She felt his chest heave. His breathing grew more noisy, and his forehead began to bob against her shoulder.

  “I’ve made a mess of everything,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. “Tat told me to be diplomatic at the council. You begged me to find a way to agree with Gorumim. Instead, I shot my mouth off and made him angry, and he took it out on Noemi.” A barely audible whine dwindled from tenor into soprano as he fought a sob.

  Malena wanted to grab Toril and shake him. She wanted to pound his shoulders with her fists, weep in bitterness and accusation. Did he really expect her sympathy? Did he have any idea of the price that others were paying for his pride and stupidity?

  She stepped away from the boulder, the tree, and her husband, and walked out into the rain.

  23

  footwraps ~ Malena

  The fire had generated a broad bed of coals by the time Malena rejoined the group. Her teeth chattered; the shoulders and hood of her cloak were sodden.

  The black dampness of the trees ringed them on every side, and hung opaquely overhead to hide cloud and moon. The air was motionless but full of the subdued patter of the rain, punctuated by drips and trickles. Her boots sloshed.

  Oji nodded a curt greeting as she stepped into the clearing. He was crouched over the fire, hands stretched wide, still wearing the double layers that Toril had given him earlier; he looked more alert than when she’d seen him last. Had he taken a nap before starting his stint on watch, or did his vitality just return with proximity to heat?

  Beneath the boughs of a spruce, Shivi and Paka snuggled like spoons, sound asleep under layers of buckskin and wool. An undignified snore from Paka brought a fleeting smile to her lips; she noticed how his beard bent inward as he inhaled.

  Toril curled nearby, surrounded by mounds of pine needles. His face looked pale, weary; a bare sole half-poked into the light. Hika lay on one side of him, his staff on the other, endcap glinting.

  Why did she find herself able to feel empathy or good will for her husband more when he was asleep?

  “Lavender tea?” Oji suggested. “Shivi told me to keep it warm.” He extended a tin cup.

  Malena curled her fingers around the hot metal and sipped gratefully.

  When her fingertips had lost their pink, and her belly gurgled with warmth, she worked her boots off and hung them upside down on sticks jammed in the dirt near the fire. She was just finishing when she remembered that her bedding was in the saddlebags.

  She winced in regret. The rough footwraps she wore could scarcely get wetter, but the ground was muddy and full of pine cones and rocks. And at last she was not cold. Was it worth pulling the boots back on again?

  Oji’s voice caught her as soon as she stood and stepped away. “He already laid out your stuff.”

  Malena rotated on her heel, eyes scanning the margins of the firelight. Beyond the boots, in the overhang of another spruce, she saw a beige blur with cream along the edge.

  The sheepskin was spread on a knee-deep bed of dry needles. When she pulled it back, the aroma of toasted spruce tickled her nose. Two melon-sized stones nestled in the piles of padding, still radiating heat from the fire. Atop one lay a pair of clean, dry footwraps.

  “You were crying in your sleep.”

  Malena turned around and considered Shivi’s small form in the morning half-light.

  “I thought I was quiet,” she said, wiping at her cheeks.

  “You were. But I’ve become a light sleeper in my old age.” Shivi took a step closer. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to wander away. I was worried sick about you last night, even though Oji said he could tell you were close.”

  Malena shrugged. “The wood naris have been keeping watch. I heard their voices when the morning breeze began to sway the trees.”

  “Wood naris are as flighty as birds and as elusive as moonbeams. Not a source of protection.”

  Malena sighed. “You’re right, of course. It’s crazy. Being alone scares me to death, especially this deep in the wilderness. But I’m a bit numb, I guess. Jittery about everything, to the point where one more risk hardly seems to matter. And being around people who... know what happened... gets me claustrophobic. No offense intended. I just have to come out for air no matter what might be waiting to grab me.”

  “Some times are safer for breathing than others,” Shivi observed.

  Malena shrugged again.

  “You were angry with Toril when you left last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “He told us why.”

  Malena pursed her lips and shook her head. “I thought he wanted his privacy. He waited long enough to tell me.”

  “He said you convinced him that we had a right to know. He said he couldn’t do anything special in whatever rescue p
lan we picked, because his magic is gone. His plan is to try to reach the river port before Gorumim does.”

  Malena stared at the brightening sky.

  “I’m feeling pretty stupid right now. I should have listened to him when he wanted to go to Sotalio.”

  Shivi’s fingertips brushed her elbow. “Because we came, someone who cares about those children is close behind the men who took them. I think good will come of that—but even when a kind act doesn’t accomplish its preferred purpose, it kindles more light in the universe. It is never wasted.”

  Malena exhaled. “I thought the young were supposed to be idealistic, and the old jaded.”

  Shivi’s lips twitched.

  “I’m desperate to imagine we’re doing something noble here, but the truth is, I’m afraid, Shivi. Afraid I’ll be attacked again. Afraid my parents are dead. Afraid I’m wrong about Tupa being up ahead. Afraid about the rescue. Afraid that I doomed those children by insisting on a course of action that could never work.”

  Shivi didn’t respond right away. “I’m afraid, too,” she murmured at last.

  Malena chewed her lower lip and fretted with her braid. “How do you stay so steady?”

  “When a woman gives birth,” Shivi said with a sigh, “there is always risk. You can’t wish away the scary parts. But you can trust and hope. It never ceases to amaze me how most labor ends in joy.”

  Malena snorted. “Joy?”

  “Joy is not the absence of sorrow, Malena. It is its transformation. Or its overcoming—sunlight singing the dawn, knowing the night must flee.”

  “What kind of transformation can you possibly expect to come from this?” Malena rasped, spitting the words as they tumbled out. “Most of those children have parents who were slaughtered. My sister’s probably one of them. If we can’t stop Gorumim, he’ll murder them in cold blood. My husband’s an outcast who’s lost his magic, we have nowhere to live...”

  Shivi regarded her without blinking.

  “Now that you’ve started, you need to keep going,” she said.