by J. V. Jones
Raif headed back to the tent. The hooded men had finished eating and were now sipping hot liquid from glass cups. One man held the cup beneath his chin and let the steam roll over his face. No one spoke. Raif guessed the temperature to be just below freezing, yet they did not appear to feel it. Again, they noted him as he passed but did not halt him. They knew the Want then. Knew that the phrases “free to go” and “you cannot leave” had no meaning here.
As soon as he was inside the tent, Raif felt his strength drain away. His body was tired and achy, and it seemed difficult to think. Turning, he spied a copper jug filled with ice melt. A hot stone from the fire had been dropped in the jug to thaw the ice, and the water tasted burned. After he had drunk his fill, Raif lay on the bed and slept.
He did not dream. At some point during the night he awoke. The lamps had burned out and it was wholly dark. A strange note, low and plaintive, rose outside the tent. At first Raif thought it was the moan of the wind over the dunes, but then other notes sounded. Slow and mournful, they joined the first note in harmony before glancing away. The song created was like nothing Raif had ever heard before, hollow and deeply resonant, and he was reminded of a story Angus had once told him about the great blue whales that swam beneath the frozen ledges of Endsea. “They travel the coldest, deepest currents where the water is heavy enough to crush men. Alone, they call out in the darkness, searching for more of their kind.”
That was what the song of the hooded men sounded like to Raif: a cry in the dark. Who is there?
The song continued, solemn and questing. Raif listened for a while and then slept. When he awoke in the morning the memory of the hooded men’s song had gone.
Dawn light, silvery and diffused by mist, shone through the tent’s clarified hide walls. Inside all was cold and still. Raif lay and watched his breath crystallize in the frigid air. His body felt better. Rested. The pain in his shoulder was still there, but other things seemed more important. He was thirsty and hungry, and he wanted some answers.
Finding his belongings piled against the tent wall, he dressed himself against the cold. The Orrl cloak had been treated with some care, brushed and properly folded. No one in the clanholds could made cloaks like Orrl, cloaks that shifted color along with the landscape. They took months to prepare, the master furrier laying down countless layers of light-reflecting varnish on specially softened hides. Only white winter warriors were allowed to wear them, and Raif imagined the hooded men had never seen such a cloak before. He thought a moment and then drew his on. Unarmed, he went outside.
A shallow sea of mist washed across the dunes. The sky was pale and featureless, filled with haze. Two of the four hooded men were standing by the cookfire, gazing out through the tent circle toward the Want. They turned to watch as he approached. When he could see their eyes clearly, Raif greeted them.
“I am Raif Sevrance. Tell me who is owed my thanks.”
Two pairs of brown eyes regarded him. Neither man spoke. After a moment the younger of the two turned to the elder, who nodded. The younger man headed away toward the tents.
Raif waited. The older man crouched by the cookfire and began turning over embers with a stick. From the little Raif could see of the skin around his eyes, Raif decided he was not the one who had first tended him in the tent. Over the bridge of his nose, he had five black dots, not three. Hooking the kettle handle with his stick, the man pulled the copper vessel from the fire. Flames crackled in the mist as he poured hot liquid into a cup and offered it to Raif.
Steam pungent with licorice and wormwood condensed on Raif’s face as he accepted the glass cup. He did not drink. Wormwood was considered poison in the clanholds, yet he did not think this man meant to harm him.
A third man emerged from the farthest tent and made his way toward the fire. The ewe bleated as he passed the corral, begging for a milking. Raif set the cup on the ground. Within seconds it was swallowed by the mist. Coming to a halt before the fire, the third man nodded once to the elder. A dismissal. The elder rose with the aid of his stick and walked toward the corral.
Watching the third man Raif decided two things. One, it was the same man who had waited in the tent as he feigned sleep. And two, he, Raif Sevrance, would not be the first to speak.
The third man’s gaze pierced Raif, passed through the holes in his eyes and saw inside. Raif felt known. There was a moment where something hung in the balance, as if a cup standing on a table had been knocked over and was rolling toward the edge. The cup might stop before it reached the edge or fall and break. Raif did not breathe. The brown-black gaze held him.
And then withdrew.
“Sit.” The man spoke softly, long brown fingers uncurling to indicate the mist.
One word, yet Raif knew instantly several things. Common was not the man’s first language. His accent was long and lilting, filled with smoke. Raif had the sense that he rarely used any language, that he was speaking solely for the stranger’s benefit. Finally Raif knew that he had not been judged by this man. The cup had come to rest on the edge.
Raif sank to the ground. It was like diving into water; the coldness of the mist.
The man touched his chest. “Men once called me Tallal.” Holding the back of his robe against the back of his knees, he dropped into a crouch. “If it pleases, you may use that name.”
“And the others?”
“They are my lamb brothers. Their names are not mine to give.” Absently, he made a slight stirring motion with his index fingers, rousing the mist.
“I owe you thanks. For saving me.”
Tallal thought for a moment and then nodded. “Perhaps.”
The word troubled Raif. He felt out of his depth, and wished he could see the whole of the man’s face not just the slit containing his eyes. “How many are you?”
“Eleven.”
It took Raif a moment to realize Tallal was including the animals in the count; six mules and the milk ewe. Four then. Yet five tents.
Tallal had tracked Raif’s gaze as it moved from the corral to the tents. “In my homeland we have a saying: God will only come if there is room in your house.” He smiled; Raif could tell by the crinkling around his eyes. “My lamb brothers and I very much want God to come.”
Raif became aware of a light pricking sensation around the small of his back. The mist was receding. For some reason he thought about the small gesture Tallal had made seconds earlier, the finger rousing in the mist. “Are you and your brothers lost?”
“No.”
How can you be in the Want and not be lost? Raif wanted to ask yet didn’t. A sense of propriety stopped him. It was too early in their acquaintance for such a question. “Where did you find me?”
Tallal shrugged. Anyone who hadn’t spent time in the Want might take the gesture as a careless dismissal, but Raif understood it. Anywhere. Nowhere. Who can say?
“And my horse?”
The wind pressed Tallal’s facepiece against his lips as he murmured. “The tide carried her away.”
Raif nodded once. Now the mist had gone you could see the pumice dunes clearly. The wind was whittling them down, blowing streamers of dust from their crests. He let the icy particles scour his face awhile before turning back to Tallal. “How long have I been here?”
“Four nights as you and I count them.” Tallal’s voice was quiet. As he spoke he fed pale, barkless driftwood to the fire. “Much ailed you. My brothers and I did what we could to heal your body. We gave you water and tonics so you might sleep. I cleaned your wounds. If this breaks one of your holy laws I ask pardon.”
Raif knew nothing of religions that forbade healing. “It does not.”
Tallal nodded softly as if Raif were confirming something he had already guessed. “Strong gods guide you. They would not be petty, such gods.”
A piece of driftwood hissed as moisture trapped inside it turned to steam. Raif imagined for a moment he could be anywhere: in a distant desert, a foreign shore, the face of the moon. Unfamiliar territor
y, and it was becoming his domain. Sometimes it seemed as if every step he’d taken since leaving clan had been a step into the unknown.
It was in his mind to say to Tallal that he had no gods, that he had broken an oath and abandoned his clan, and no gods that he knew of would keep faith with such a man. Yet he didn’t. Instead he remembered the nightmare. It made him hope Tallal might be right.
“Where do you head?” he asked.
Behind his face mask, Tallal’s expression changed. Raising his hand, he touched the dots on the bridge of his nose. Three separate movements. “Where the Maker of Souls leads.”
Raif wondered what kind of god would lead his followers here. The Stone Gods had no dealings with the Want; their domain ended in the hard, fixed earth of the Badlands. “Your god claims this territory?”
Tallal lifted his gaze to the Want. “My god claims souls, not land. He commands us to search for souls in need of peace.”
A compulsion out of his control, like an involuntary knee jerk, made Raif ask, “Dead or alive?”
Tallal looked at him, his dark eyes filled with knowledge. “We are lamb brothers. We care for the dead.”
The wind moaned, skinning the dunes. Raif shivered deeply, his neck bones clicking. For an instant he had an image of himself as a carcass and the four hooded men as ravens picking at his dead flesh. He shook himself. You had to guard yourself against the distortions of the Want. All of them. Tallal and his lamb brothers had nothing to do with him, and to imagine otherwise was some kind of vain and crazy blasphemy. They were here to do the work of their gods. He was here because he couldn’t find a way out.
Observing Raif’s disorientation, Tallal said, “The buffalo women and the bird priests deal with ayah, the souls of the living. Their numbers are many. It is said that there is a herd of buffalo for every sheep.” Tallal smiled gently; Raif could hear it in his voice. “It is not wise to get in their way. They can be fearsome when it comes to saving souls. When a man hears the rumble of many hooves and turns to see the buffalo stampeding it is not unlikely he will change his course.”
Raif grinned. He was beginning to feel better, but he had a hunch it wouldn’t last. “And the souls of the dead?”
A smoke ring of breath blew from Tallal’s mouth. “Morah.” The word had power. Raif felt it pump against his eardrums. Slowly, rhythmically, Tallal began to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Morah is the flesh of God. Every man, woman and child who passes through this mortal world grows a portion of God within them. This we call the soul. When someone dies their soul rises to the heavens and God claims it and sets it in place. The Book of Trials foretells the day when the Maker’s body is whole and he will walk amongst us and we might look upon his face. We, the Sand People, await that day with hope and deepest longing. Yet if as much as a single soul is lost God’s body will remain incomplete and he will be forever unknowable.
“The Book of Trials commands the lamb brothers to seek out the lost souls of the dead. All must be counted and released. They are precious to us beyond reckoning, for they contain the substance of God.”
Raif stared into the flames whilst Tallal spoke. The wood burned green and white and gave off the cold and empty smell of high places. Listening to the lamb brother made him feel sad. Tallal had been set a task that would never be completed. His god would never come. There were too many men and women out there who had lost their way and died without peace or salvation. Generations of bodies had disappeared; flesh eaten by maggots, bones dried to husks then ground into sand. How could they be saved when there was no record of their existence?
And who would save the souls of the Unmade?
Heritas Cant had said that every thousand years the creatures of the Blind ride forth to claim more men for their armies. “When a man or woman is touched by them they become Unmade. Not dead, never dead, but something different, cold and craving. The shadows enter them snuffing the light from their eyes and the warmth from their hearts. Everything is lost.”
Without thinking, Raif raised his hand to his shoulder. The wound had begun to sting. If Heritas Cant was right, then countless people over thousands of centuries had been lost, their souls claimed by the Endlords. Raif glanced at Tallal. Did he know this? Was he aware of the impossibility of his task?
Tallal’s gaze was level. “Once a year in the hottest month of summer, when the sand snakes grow bold and even the blister beetles search for shade, the storms come. Day falls dark as night. Rain crashes from the sky and lightning strikes. Once in a very long while when lightning touches sand it turns to glass. This glass is very rare. A thousand thunderstorms may pass overhead yet everything—the sand, the wind, the moons and the stars—must be in accordance before lightning can transform sand into glass. Stormglass is a powerful talisman. Kings and shamans covet it. It is said that when you look into it you see other storms; storms that are gathering and may come to be, storms of thunder and storms of men. My people sweep the sands for it when we travel. Like gingerroot it lies beneath the surface, out of sight, and we use acacia branches to comb the dunes as we walk the cattle. We dream of finding the perfect unbroken piece, long as a sword and clear as water. In my lifetime I have never known anyone to find such a piece. Yet still we sweep.”
Tallal paused, waited for Raif to meet his gaze. “To search is to be sustained by hope. Every morning we may wake and say Perhaps today I will find what I seek. A sense of purpose is like a meal of lamb and rice; it can fill an empty man.”
Raif breathed in deeply, letting the cold air steep inside his chest. He wondered at what point Tallal had ceased talking about the search for stormglass and started talking about the two of them instead. Glancing down at his hands, Raif saw the cold had turned them gray. His fingers felt raw, and the stump on his left hand where Stillborn had chopped off the tip of his little finger looked bald and misshapen. The wound had healed months ago, but the ridge of scar tissue left behind by the stitches would never make a pretty sight. It was the price of admittance to the Maimed Men. You could not become one of them and remain whole.
Will you come back?
Raif thrust his hands into the folds of his Orrl cloak, hoping to thrust away Stillborn’s words. Sunlight broke through the haze, giving off a weak silvery light that made nothing seem warmer.
Tallal rose to standing. A figure emerged from the farthest tent and headed toward the fire. Judging from the stoop of his shoulders and the slight rocking motion of his walk, Raif guessed it to be the elder lamb brother he had addressed earlier. The man was carrying a rolled-up prayer mat.
“We pray now,” Tallal said.
Raif stood. He needed to think. Crazy ideas were getting tangled in his head. Did the lamb brothers know who they had rescued? I watch the dead. They save them. Does it mean something or nothing?
Tallal walked to meet the elder man and the two of them exchanged a handful of words in a foreign tongue. Wind twisted their cloaks around their legs. The elder nodded once. More words were spoken and then Tallal headed back toward Raif.
“My brother asks if you will join us in prayer.”
Raif was surprised by his desire to say yes. He had not expected to be included. Shaking his head, he said, “Perhaps tomorrow.” As he spoke he knew it was a lie.
Tallal knew it too. “As you wish.”
A moment passed where Raif wanted to say something but didn’t. How could you tell someone that the reason you didn’t want to pray to their gods was because you feared being struck by a bolt of lightning? Nodding farewell to Tallal, Raif headed back toward his tent.
The lamb brother stopped him with a question. “How long have you walked the Want?”
Turning, Raif smiled gently. A distance of twenty paces separated him from the masked and robed figure of Tallal. Pumice blowing from the dunes was already beginning to fill in his footsteps. “Too long.”
Tallal did not return Raif’s smile. His eyes were serious, and for the first time Raif noticed deep lines around them. “A ma
n who does not know where he is headed will never find a way out.”
Raif turned and walked away.
SEVEN
Twenty Stone of Eye
Marafice Eye thrust his good foot into the stirrup and hauled himself over the back of his horse. The steel gray stallion shook its head and stamped its iron-ringed hooves against the traprock, and Marafice the Knife had to shorten the reins and rap on its rump to take command. It was a fine beast, and the Knife didn’t blame it for fighting. If someone thrust a metal bit between his teeth and forced two metal spurs into his belly he’d likely do the same.
Damn, but it was cold. The sky west of Ganmiddich was turning that mouth-ulcer color that meant snow, and the slow water on the inside edge of the river bend was quickening to ice. At least there was no wind. It wasn’t an ideal day for an assault on the Crab Gate, but in Marafice Eye’s experience it was always better to attack than wait.
He was careful as he tightened the waist and chest cinches on his breast and back plates. Small things like that could betray him; those little adjustments close to the body that everyone with two eyes could do without thought. And they were watching him, make no mistake about it. Those high-and-mighty grangelords and their sons; he could feel their sharp and critical gazes on his back. Butcher son, they called him—but never to his face. That wasn’t their way. They preferred to smile and nod and “yes, sir” him man-to-man. They were scared of him, of course, but fear was an interesting thing, Marafice had noticed, and feeling contempt for what you feared eased the sting. So the lordlings were nice to him in person—though they choked on it—and in private they cursed him as a low-bred, savage beast.
