by Cat Bruno
Her words were sharp and her gaze serious, and Aldric did not reply, although he did still wonder what had caused Caryss to push the woman from her.
The Islander was a large woman, full-hipped and full-breasted, yet Caryss had thrown her as if she was a child’s doll, with little effort. Another gift from the High Lord, he thought. He would question her later, Aldric decided, turning his attention back to the ward, weaving the swirling air around him tighter. Despite the raised voices of the crowd, Aldric could still hear air hissing around him, as if he was snake caller from the Far East. Once the ward was wrapped noose-like around them, he looked to his feet, where Caryss knelt, the sleeping woman still unmoving.
The woman’s head lay in Sharron’s steady hands, while Caryss hurriedly moved a long silver needle along the woman’s hairline. When she finished, Aldric counted eight finely stitched crosses, but the Islander no longer bled.
Sitting back on her heels, Caryss wiped her hands on her dark pants, then again reached into a pouch, pulling out an amber-colored bottle. With the lid removed, she placed the bottle beneath the woman’s nose as a strong scent of spice emerged.
“Hold the ward a bit longer, Aldric,” Caryss called. “She will wake soon and will not thank me, I think.”
As if she had heard the healer’s words, the woman’s eyes flittered open, blinking heavily until they finally rested on Caryss. Although unfocused, the woman gazed suspiciously at Caryss, letting her nearly black eyes, thickly lashed and outlined in thick kohl, trace the Northerner’s own light eyes. Then the woman’s gaze traveled to Caryss’s belt, where several pouches hung.
After a moment, the woman sat up, slowly and with Sharron’s assistance.
Pointing, she whispered in heavily accented words, “What is it that you carry there?”
Looking away, Caryss mumbled, “Ointments and the like. A few tools that I need when I heal.”
With a wave or her jeweled and sparkling fingers, the Islander laughed, “Child, I do not mean to ask what is in your bags. You carry something far more important, do you not?”
Caryss, uneasy and quiet, looked to Sharron who shook her head, in warning no doubt.
Before either woman could speak, Aldric warned them, “Tell her nothing. You have done enough.”
But the Islander was quicker than he, and, before he could move, she had reached for Caryss, grabbing her hand. “Who are you, child and why have you come to the King’s City? Your kind are not well-loved here.”
Again Caryss looked to him, afraid to look at the newly awake woman.
“And who would you be, mother, to ask so much?” he answered angrily, directing his question to the dark-skinned woman,
“Mother, is it, my friend?” she half-sung, sitting up further, although she still held Caryss’s arm. “Have we met before for you to address me so?”
“It matters naught to you who I am,” Aldric hissed, his words harsh as his hands whirred to steady the warding.
Dark, oval eyes watched him, laughter at their edges. Around her, the others quieted, as if she was a fabled siren of the sea. She stood then, gracefully, as if she was emerging from the sea, not from a cracked and soiled street. Slowly, she balanced herself, finally letting go of Caryss. Her height was impressive, taller than Caryss and nearly even with Aldric. Around her wrists, her bracelets danced, twirling and spinning as gold flecks of sunlight dotted her arms. About her long, thin neck was a colorful scarf, with vibrant blues and purples, reds and yellows, clean and sparkling, shockingly so in the dust and dirt of the piers. Her pale ivory tunic and skirt hung to her ankles, fitted tightly across her large breasts and snug again over her wide hips.
“Have you never seen an Islander before, my child?” the woman called, looking to Caryss, whose cheeks burned red.
The woman was not smiling, but her eyes were kind and her lips curved, Aldric noticed. He would have interrupted, but Caryss shook her head, raising a hand to him and quietly replied, “Only in books.”
With another laugh that carried across the bricks, the woman teased, “Do I look as if I have come from the pages?”
There was a long pause before Caryss answered, but her words, when she finally did, quieted them all.
“You look as if I should have remembered you.”
None spoke, until Caryss called, pointing to the woman’s thick leather braid tied about her waist, “Your pouches are of a kind with mine. Are you a healer as well?”
“Enough of this, Bronwen,” Aldric sputtered, using a name that had not been spoken in over a moon.
He stepped toward her, even as the ward began to shake around them.
“Let the girl be, as she is in no danger here. As you should well know, mage. Child, my name is Nahla, and I have been in the King’s City for several moon years, although I am not healer-trained as you have been. But I have some skill in the art, as many of my people do, a gift from the Great Mother, it is said.”
“What brings you to the city of kings?” the woman asked.
Aldric could take no more and moved until he stood between the two women. “She is tired and road-weary, and knows not what she asks, nor who you be.”
“Who I am? I have already told you who I am. Nothing more or less than she.”
His words grew sharper yet, as he warned, “Do not seek to fool me, not here, not in this spot. For I know more than you could guess.”
More gently than he had expected, Nahla told him, “No doubt you know more. Or you would have not addressed me so. Now let us forget this discussion, for I do not think it is one that we should have here, with so many others around. Let me invite you all back to my home, which is but a few blocks from here.”
“We will not follow you anywhere!” Aldric screamed, pushing Caryss further away.
“My dark brother, I think you should follow me,” Nahla called to him, stepping near. “If not for your sake, then for the sake of the child you travel with. And, again, if not for her sake, then for the sake of her own child. You are far from home and know not what the King’s City holds. It is not for me to question why I stumbled upon this one’s path, nor why she has stumbled upon mine. I seek no answers from the Great Mother of us all, but I trust her all the same.”
Looking up at him with soft brown eyes that seemed to hide nothing, Nahla chimed, “But, I have heard her, and I will listen.”
“Now follow me, Bronwen, if you are so named,” the woman whispered, smiling and shining, as if her Great Mother had truly touched her, draping her in rays of light.
*****
Despite Aldric’s warnings, the group followed the woman from the central piers, edging the streets until they neared an unfamiliar area, even for Aldric, who still complained. Caryss had stopped listening after he threatened to drop the ward, as if she had known that he would not be able to shield them much longer.
When they had finally arrived at Nahla’s bottom-floor home, the mage was pale and shaking, and Caryss nearly apologized. Yet, there was something about the woman that stopped the words. Instead, she reached for Aldric, holding his trembling hands between her own as they waited for Nahla to unlock the brightly painted door.
Into his ear, she whispered, “She will not harm us, Aldric.”
His eyes blazed in reply, but he said nothing as they entered.
The space was no bigger than Caryss’s room had been at the Academy, yet cluttered and cramped with trinkets large and small. Niko and Kurtis stood by the door, while Aldric trailed Caryss as she crossed the room toward a large bed, which took up nearly half of the room.
Nahla gestured for Caryss to sit on the bed, which she did after moving aside several large and colorful pillows. Sharron took a seat in the room’s only chair, and Aldric stood near the edge of the bed, his face still drawn with fatigue.
When Caryss looked up to see where Nahla had gone, she realized the woman had taken to the floor. Yet, still she appeared to the healer as if she was a queen atop a throne of woven blankets and jewel-like cushions. The ro
om itself was warmly decorated, with tapestries hanging from the walls and potted plants stationed throughout.
It was the tapestries that caught Caryss’s eye with images of the Southern Cove Islands stitched and painted across them. A few showed rolling waves and clear skies, much like the beaches of Tretoria. But the ones that most intrigued her were the ones that featured the Islanders themselves, often in embrace. After a moment, Aldric’s warnings finally rang true, and a blush colored her face as understanding slowly surfaced.
Nahla, who had been watching her, called out, “Am I not a healer of sorts, my child? All who come to me are in need, and some are broken. Many are sick. I do what I can for them, and they leave better off than when they entered.”
Aldric shook his head, as if unable to contain the words that spilled forth from his pursed lips, “She will speak in riddles all day if you let her. You have seen who she is, now let us be gone from here.”
It was clear that he addressed Caryss, and to her they all turned. Yet, she sat silently, with her chin in her hands and her eyes still on the nearest canvas. The man woven there stared back at her, as if he might speak.
Unlike the others, he stood alone, in front of an open field, high grasses behind him and a fiery orange sun overhead. Dressed all in black, and larger than any man Caryss had ever seen, he was imposing and intense, with thick, braided hair hanging down his back and over his shoulders. In his hands, he held a long, leather whip, although there were no animals to be seen. At his hip hung a curved sword, which shined nearly white, as if made of pearls. The wide, arched blade lay exposed and intimidating, and Caryss doubted that she would even be able to lift such a sword. Across his back another sword was sheathed, although she could see little of it as the man faced the room.
Even though the whip fell to his feet, unmoving, and the sword lay untouched, he still appeared ready to strike, as if preparing for battle. His eyes, dark and guarded, hinted nothing, yet the man smiled. She could not tell which to believe.
“Do I know this man, Nahla?”
Her words cracked like ice across the silence of the placid room.
“How would you know him?” answered Nahla, and although her words had been spoken clearly, still they rang with jest.
“I have never left Cordisia, at least as far I remember. Yet, I recognize that man, as if I have met him.”
Shaking her head, Caryss continued to stare at the wall hanging, then added, “No, that’s not quite right. I have not met him. Yet, I believe I will. Yes, that is it. I feel as if I need to meet that man. Who is he, Nahla?”
As Caryss spoke, she crossed the room, as if wrapped in a mage-spell. Her words held certainty, but madness as well. Stepping in front of Nahla until she was near the wall, Caryss finally paused. The Islander watched, as if in judgment. She half-expected the man to emerge from the threaded jail, yet even her touch could not bring him forth.
Behind her, Nahla sighed and rose. “Oh child!” she breathed, “You are a strange one. You know nothing of my people and my homeland and nothing of the Great Mother who watches over us. Yet you want to meet that one? Not many of my own people would make such a claim.”
Her warm words tickling the back of Caryss’s neck, Nahla added, “However, I find myself believing you.”
To Aldric, she called, “I am surprised that it was not you who claimed recognition, mage. Long ago, I learned not to judge what appears and mistake it for what is. Here before me sits barely a grown woman who shines with light, yet burns with darkness. And, you, brother, are nothing but dark, yet your heart grows lighter because of her.”
Aldric said nothing, as he half-begged Caryss to do, and Nahla continued, “Let me tell you of my people, since you know so little of us. We are an ancient tribe, older than any from Cordisia could claim. We have long lived in seclusion, guarded on all sides by sea and sand. But even though few have ever attacked us, we have long warred with one another, and brother has killed brother in order to rule. While the Great Mother weeps at death among kin, she only intervenes when her vows have been broken.”
“Is it not so with most gods?” Caryss asked, letting her eyes fall upon Nahla and thinking of what Kennet once told her of the Tribe.
Nodding, the woman murmured, “Perhaps it is so. But our vows are strong ones, and few break them once given. You have been invited into my home, which is a blessing among my people. Once inside, your secrets become my own, as the Great Mother has willed it, and so do I swear.”
Bowing her head slightly, Nahla placed the fingertips of her right hand on her lips, before moving them up to the center of her forehead, then crossing over to her heart. She ended by placing her open palm against her womb. Beside her, Aldric quivered.
In a voice laced with song, Nahla continued, “I come from a long line of weavers, talented women, and a few men, that could spin nearly anything into an object of beauty.” With a wave of her hand, she told them, “All of the tapestries here were done by my blood-kin and carried with me when I came to Rexterra. Except for that one.”
Her bracelets clanging as if bells, Nahla walked toward the wall where the man watched them. With fingers skilled at caressing, she traced his cheek.
“I should send him back to the islands,” she purred, her gold-rimmed fingers moving toward his neck.
Caryss watched as the woman let her hand linger there, on the man’s thick neck, wondering what the woman had planned.
“In the last few moons, he has made me lose coin. Many are frightened of him, and, now, when I have business to manage, I take him down. My mother’s mother called him Otieno, for he carried the night with him, it was said.”
Half-chanting, Nahla continued, “He would travel from village to village, as a diauxie, a medicine man of sorts, but not healer-trained as you are. You do not have his kind in Cordisia I have learned. For a small price or token or meal, he might mend you. But not of injury or illness. Diauxie are sought when all else has failed. When death is near.”
With another wave, she explained more. “But, that is not all that he was, for he was once born from a line of kings. For many moon years, he trained as a warrior, and became named Sefusana, Prince of Swords. Few dared to challenge him, and most feared him. While we have far fewer people in the Cove than here, and only a small army, he was named commander, and answered only to the King. Then, he disappeared, with none to see him off and all wondering why he denounced his kin-right.”
“From kingsman to beggar for this man,” Caryss murmured.
With a nod, Nahla told her, “Aye, he chose to walk a different path. A darker path, some say. The one he still walks. He wanders the islands, and even though he is never without sword, it is said he no longer wields them. It is said, too, that he has lost his taste for blood. But my mother’s mother has told me different, and swears that he hungers still, or did so when she last saw him.”
“You said that few seek him out. How is it that your kin was with him?” Aldric asked, unable to conceal the doubt in his words.
Her hands fells from the tapestry as she twirled to face the mage. In a voice no longer etched in song, she told him, “Several moons ago, he allowed my mother to weave his image, which is what you see here. After she had completed it, he insisted that it be sent here, to me, even though we had never met.”
“A charming story,” Aldric mumbled.
“What reason do would I have to lie?” Nahla cried.
Caryss hurried to intervene, reaching for Aldric as she drew him away from Nahla. Into his ear, she whispered, “Trust me, please. We need this man, Aldric. She needs him.”
Knowing that she did not need to explain more, she called to Nahla, “Once I am free to leave the King’s City, I will find him.”
“Child,” Nahla gushed, softer now, but with a warning all the same. “You do not seek him. He finds you. And even that comes with a price.”
To Aldric, she asked, “Dark brother, who is this child you have brought me?”
Not expecting an answe
r, Nahla walked to where Caryss stood and without hesitating, wrapped her arms around the girl, hugging her as a mother might a child. Then, she leaned down and whispered into the girl’s ear, low enough that no one else could hear. After Caryss nodded, Nahla stepped around her, and gently removed the tapestry from the wall. She quickly rolled it up and then tightened it with a piece of leather that had been tied at her wrist.
Handing it to Caryss, she said aloud, “I have done my part it seems. I am but a step on the long path you walk, Bronwen, but I will help when I can. You need only send word or find me. The Great Mother wills it so. ”
Caryss gently kissed Nahla on the cheek. “May your Great Mother bless you as she has done me by crossing our paths.”
After a few moments, Caryss departed, clenching the tapestry in her hand as the others followed her. The smells bothered her less now and the reddish haze faded, the distant city no longer blurred. While she had been with Nahla, Caryss felt free, more so than she had in moons.
As if the gods no longer watched her.
2
After the group departed from Nahla’s, Aldric secured rooms at a nearby inn, unassuming, yet clean. Few would notice them there, he had told Caryss.
It was nearly evening when they departed, having spent hours in the washrooms. Nearly all of their clothing had been replaced, although Caryss still dressed as a wealthy Eirrannian. She had pleaded with Aldric to let her wear another riding suit, but he had insisted that she don one of the dresses that Willem’s housekeep Chien had readied.
The gown was long, falling to her feet and covering her Tretorian sandals, which surprised her, for Chien was much smaller than she. The material was fine, soft and smooth as it draped over her body, although the color was not one she would have chosen. It was dark, not quite midnight, but near enough. Only now, under the rays of the setting sun, did Caryss notice that the gown was more blue than black.
As she admired the delicate threadwork, Aldric approached.
