by Holly Lisle
We were all Slave, nothing but Slave, and beaten terribly if ever we confessed the names we had once borne.
The seru knew if ever we whispered those forbidden syllables. They always knew. So we earned scars on our backs, and we learned quickly that this was a sin we would not commit.
Words fall away if unused, and my name was nothing more than a word. I’d kept it hidden close to my heart, as I kept the images of the people who had loved me, but I never spoke my name, and no one else ever spoke it, and one day it was gone and I could not call it back.
“I have no name,” I said. I stared down at my hands—at the blurring green-black lines that curled across my left palm. “I lost it,” I said.
She sighed. “We got you young. So I suppose you have. Your name is somewhere inside of you. With time and effort, you’ll find it.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“When you remember your name, take it back. It will give you strength against the Eyes. Remember that you are not the Eyes, and the Eyes are not you.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Above all, find the enemies hidden behind puppets and masks who move to destroy our people. Destroy them before they can succeed.”
“I will,” I promised her.
She reached out a hand and touched me, and for a moment cold blue fire engulfed me. It stung me, and I could not catch my breath, and my head pounded and my eyes ached. And then she released me. “I have bound the Eyes to you. In what comes, they will act as if they have marked you as their own. This is a forbidden magic. Not even other oracles know of it. And you must never hint to anyone that I have done this, or you’ll be killed instantly.”
“I will keep my silence.” I was good at keeping silence.
“Go, then. I will send word that the Eyes have chosen you, and that you are to be made an acolyte within the week.”
3
Aaran
Aaran watched the burning wreck of the Sinali slaver sink into the sea. The storm had turned from a screaming nightmare into a relentless but harmless downpour, and all the wolf-ships had their water barrels on deck to take advantage of the bounty.
The rescued children—spread between the four wolf-ships—were freed of their shackles, fed, and given berths on the floor, where they slept in nests like exhausted puppies. Few if any of them had homes to return to; in most cases their taaks had been burned and any family members old enough to offer resistance had been murdered. But, in light of the slaver problems, the Tonk throughout Hyre had set up communicators who would find surviving family members or even distant kinsmen where they existed, and who would locate clansmen whose families would add these children to their own if they were left completely alone.
Several of Aaran’s brothers and sisters had added orphans to their broods. In families with ten children or more, adding an extra mouth or three to feed created no problem.
Aaran passed quietly through their midst and joined his cousin, Tuua, in the ship’s temple. Tuuanir av Savissha dryn Nakri was the ship’s keeper. He was an Ethebettan scholar by preference, though he kept up with the other saints to make himself useful to any aboard ship who might seek his guidance. He and Aaran had grown up together in the nomadic Clan Viikuu Sogan, which drove caribou and Tonk horses between Miirtaak and Kopataak. They ran in the hills as boys, untouched by the horrors of the Feegash occupation and rebuilding that followed—events that were the greatest focus in the lives of taak-dwellers during the years of their childhood.
Best friends, they had chosen to accept the challenge of edaa together. For a season, they lived apart from the adults and children of their clan with the other young men undergoing the Tonk coming-of-age trial—they occupied an edaataak, an isolated hunting ground in which they lived in waxed-felt shaddas, provided their own food by hunting and fishing, sought the guidance of Jostfar and the saints in the paths their lives should follow, discussed matters great and small … and frequently behaved in a fashion that would never be condoned again, once they left the edaataak’s confines.
Aaran still remembered his edaataak’s experiments with the creation of alcoholic beverages (a moderate success), and the group’s attempt to build a flying device (a terrifying failure).
But it was in the horrors that followed their edaa that Aaran and Tuua became men for real. Those had been the moments that set them on a shared path that led to the sea and to the wolf-ships.
Most of the things that bound the two of them as best friends had come before. All of the things that made them brothers came after.
Tuua, facing the door and writing in a thick bound journal, looked up when Aaran entered. “Ethebet save us, I thought we’d never see port again.”
Aaran slid onto the fixed bench across the table from his cousin. “If Haakvar had not worked out his deal with the captain of the Sea Hawk over the distribution of the Sinali captives, I don’t think we ever would have. I thought sure they were going to draw swords on each other.”
“Who’d have thought Sinali slavers carried women of leisure aboard?”
“Who’d have thought they only carried three?” Aaran said.
Tuua laughed. “We’ll not suffer too much for their lack of custom, I’m thinking. Midrid is not far, is it?”
Midrid, the nearest trading port that Aaran could find, lay seven days sailing due west, if the winds held or the windmen held up. “Not so far. And Haakvar got us good concessions for giving up the whore. Our pockets will thank us.” He looked down at the table for a moment, then up at his cousin again. “I’m not going to be staying with the Windsteed.”
Tuua looked stunned. “You’re giving up on Aashka? You’re going back to land?”
Aaran snorted. “Never.” He sat on the hard bench, looking around the neatly stowed shelves of books, all held in by bands of gum-rope that kept them where they belonged, even in the worst seas. He’d read a handful of the volumes. Tuua had written a fair number of the books on the shelves, had memorized many of the remainder, and knew them all. “I found something while we were fighting the Sinalis. A connection to a hundred or more slaves in desperate danger. The Tonk girl who is sending out the distress signal doesn’t have much time. She’s about to face some horrible torture.”
“So we make a quick reprovisioning stop, and then we go get them,” Tuua said.
“That’s what Haakvar said, until I tracked the girl’s call back to its source for him and we went over the charts to figure out their position.”
“And … ?”
“They’re on an island in the northern Fallen Suns, close to the Dragon Sea.”
Tuua gave a low whistle. “No.”
“Yes. It’s such an inhospitable area that all Haakvar has on his charts for that area is white space and the list of names of ships known to be lost while traversing the area.”
“But you’re sure Tonk slaves are there?”
“Yes.”
“Then we go get them.”
“Haakvar says we don’t. That region is full of cannibals, necromancers, and petty island kings who demand tribute to pass through their waterways. He said he’d never get the full pack to sign on to a voyage into those waters, and without a full pack, he could be assured only that we’d never survive to save anyone. Then he said we couldn’t afford to die for a useless gesture—the Sinalis have picked up their slaver activity on the north coast of Hyre, Wiiktaak was just burned to the ground yesterday, the children who weren’t murdered are presumed stolen, and this pack owes its duty first to save those who can be saved.”
Tuua sat up straight, studying his cousin with narrowed eyes. He pushed the book in which he wrote to one side without looking at it, then leaned forward. “Aaran Donin av Savissha dryn Tragyn, have you come to me seeking advice, or the guidance of Ethebet? For if you have, I offer my services.”
Aaran shook his head. “Forget the formality. I already know what I’m going to do. I came in to find out if you’d do it with me.”
“Tell me first that you’re
not going to mutiny and steal the ship.”
Aaran laughed. “I’m not going to mutiny or steal the ship. I’m going to see if I can get a good rate on a captured ship, refit it as a wolf-ship, and then register as a privateer.”
Tuua swore under his breath, invoking the Saints in unflattering ways. “I always suspected you were a madman,” he said. “Aside from watching you trying to fly off the ledge in that horror of skin and branches you and those other fools built, though, this is the first time I’ve had proof.”
“I know. I shouldn’t consider it. But I’m going to. We joined the wolf-packs to save our people and stop the Sinalis, and these are our people. Tuua—I can hear this girl in my head. I can feel her under my skin. When I close my eyes, I can get glimpses of where she is, of the path to her. I can taste her fear and desperation—it’s like metal and blood in my mouth.”
He pressed his fists to his thighs, fighting the urge to pound the table in frustration. “She may be there. Aashka. She may be one of these captives. Something in me screams that this path, and this path alone, will take me to her.”
Tuua studied his cousin for a moment, and Aaran couldn’t read his expression. Then the keeper rose and went over to the shelves. He perused them for a moment and pulled a slender, black-bound volume from between the ropes. “Atinak on Ethebet the Warrior,” he said, and returned to his space on the bench. He thumbed through the pages, frowning a little as he did. And then, for just a moment, he read. “Yes. I thought so.”
“Could I hope that you would share with me what you have discovered?”
Tuua read aloud: “Koorak the Spider-Legged, Jostfar’s keeper and companion of Ethebet, stood at Ethebet’s side on the day that she and the only three warriors who would wear her braid mounted horses to ride against an enemy of a thousand. This was in the days when Northmen plagued the Tonk and the Tand Plains were yet overrun with them.
“Koorak, knowing what she planned to do, had cast her lot with caribou bones, and had seen for her no future. So he told her,‘Stay and save your life, my beloved. If you go as only four, the moriiad will eat your flesh and drink your blood, and wear your bones in their hair and your teeth at their wrists. You cannot hope to succeed with only four.’
“Ethebet smiled down at him from astride her horse and said, ‘Then come. Make us five and we shall rout them. Or if we do not, then we shall yet make such a show of it that none shall ever forget the tale.’”
Aaran said, “I thought the keepers had decided that Spider-Legs was a later fiction. Didn’t you tell me that?”
Tuua gave him a disbelieving look. “That misses the point, you thick-headed ox. The point is, when a thing must be done, it must be done. But better to go with five than with four.”
Aaran had spent long years listening to Tuua, and winding his way through Tuua’s endless quoting and paraphrasing and referencing, all offered in place of answers that from a sensible man would consist of either “yes,” or “no,” or perhaps “I’ll consider it.”
“No, Tuua,” Aaran said, “the point is that one of these days you’ll actually answer a question and I’ll fall over dead.”
Tuua said, “I’m coming with you, you idiot. Of course I’m coming with you.”
And that was why Aaran loved Tuua as his best friend. His trusted ally. His brother. “Good.” He stood up. “You can contribute some of your share to the purchase of the ship, and to the refitting.” He stepped over the bench and walked to the door. “And one of these days you’re going to tell me how it is that you are the one who answers a question with fifty words when one will do, and leaves the asker no more certain of what you intend than before you opened your mouth—or your book—but I’m the thick-headed ox.” He pulled the door open, but turned toward his cousin one last time. “In my case, of course, that would be bull. Not ox.”
Aaran returned to his own berth in the crew cabin, stretched out in his hammock, and closed his eyes.
And slipped into the Hagedwar, building the forms and shapes of it. First he spun out the rich blue sphere that was the Banjgran—Infinite Eye of God. Within that, he cast the vibrant red cube called the Hunatrumit, the Flesh and Thought of Man, making sure all corners of the cube stayed within the borders limned by the sphere. Finally, he spun out of light and fire the pale yellow left-pointing tetrahedron that was the Sugritnaj—the Will of Soul, and intersecting through it the rich golden right-pointing tetrahedron of Grandolfit—the Will of God. The Hagedwar was foreign magic, from a people as far from the Tonk in philosophy as they were in geography. Fifteen years earlier, a Tonk Shielder named Talyn had discovered the secrets of the Hagedwar and turned them against the Feegash occupiers of Hyre, ridding the land of the foul bastards for good.
Talyn had then passed on what she’d discovered to as many Tonk as were willing to learn it, because unlike the Tonk magic, which could only be learned or used by those born with an innate talent for it, the Hagedwar could be taught to anyone who had patience and an ability to follow instructions. And unlike the Tonk magic, it could be used—more or less safely—by one person alone. The Hagedwar was not completely safe, but it was safer than stepping naked and alone into the View to listen to the songs the universe sang.
Aaran could use the Tonk magic. He’d been born with the talent and when he was old enough, it had manifested itself in him. But trackers worked alone, both on land and at sea, so he had learned to use the enemy magic, Silent Magic, as well.
Now, with the shield of the Hagedwar formed, with it cast around him to keep him from falling under the spell of the songs of creation that could lure him to leave his body behind while his soul wandered forever, he sought out the desperate cry that had so compelled him before. He tracked his markers back to the current.
And there she was.
He could not see her, though he could see through her eyes. He could not touch her, though he could feel through her hands. But he could hear her, because she could hear herself.
Her words when she spoke to others were foreign to him, but when she cried out to him, she spoke Tonk.
He strengthened the connection between them, searching for the thread that connected this stranger to Aashka. He could find nothing tangible, nothing that he could track directly. But for the first time since he lost her, he could feel a hint of the presence of his sister.
He had sworn an oath, and for the first time in long years, he caught a whiff of hope that he might live to fulfill that oath.
For that hope, he would cross seas filled with cannibals and enchanters and monsters—by swimming, if he could find no other way.
Penitent
Redbird sat down next to me at the long table where we took our meals. One of the seru led us in “Ritar, Ritar, Vran Vrota Megaro Nondi” (Vran Vrota, for All Your Blessings, Our Thanks Twice Over) and then the slaves carried out the bowls from which we would share our midday meal. Most were filled with hot tubers sliced thin, covered with bean gravy; some held fresh asparagus from the garden, lightly steamed and vibrantly green; and platters held sliced black bread and small crocks of nut butter to spread on it. And as always, we had clear water to drink.
We ate, for the most part, in silence, but some talking was forgiven if we kept our voices down.
“What did she say to you?” I asked Redbird.
“She requested that I take Obsidian Eyes. Immediately. That I become your protector. She said you were to be Hawkspar.” Her voice dropped lower. “It does not have to be this way. We are so close. We can … finish what we’ve started. Tonight.”
I’d thought of that very solution a hundred times throughout the morning, doing my regular studies and my regular chores as if nothing had happened, knowing that some time within the week, everything in my life would change.
We did not yet have a rescuer, but Hawkspar had said one had heard my plea and was coming; what if he came while I was receiving Eyes? What if he came and took all save me, and I was left behind?
What if I might hope to escap
e with my own eyes still intact?
What if all my coconspirators and I could reach freedom without being blinded and branded by the Order for the rest of our lives?
Even if he did not come in time to save us, we’d thought to save ourselves. We could slip aboard one of the ships down in the harbor of the town below the Citadel. We’d considered that option, even though we knew if we did so, we would have to pay with our bodies, traded by men and used as they chose. We had heard often enough about that trade—about the slave girls who had not been lucky enough to be bought by the Order, and who were probably dead of a hundred horrible diseases, and glad to be dead.
We could probably escape on one of those harbor ships—we had one coconspirator who had recently become an Obsidian, who had access to the gates that led out to the rest of the world. We could beg her to let us out, and hope that she remained loyal to us, and not to the Order.
“Did she tell you about … family?”
Redbird ate and nodded, saying nothing.
“She told me, too. I feel them out there. Every day, morning and night. You know when.”
She nodded again. We did not talk about our secret prayers morning and evening. I knew she did them though, just as I did. No matter where we were, at sunrise we found time to face the sun and think—for we dared not say—Haabudaf aveerzak, and at sunset, Gitaada.
Hawkspar had known. The moment held magic in it. Somewhere out there, in my heart I felt others standing beside me. In that moment, I was never alone.
For that moment, for the possibility that it was more than simply my yearning heart pretending a feeling that did not exist in truth, I had to do what I had to do.
