Diadem from the Stars

by Clayton, Jo;

  When she finished, she spilled a few drops of the chahi in Madar’s honor and walked slowly back to the bed of glowing coals.

  3

  Aleytys rode downhill trying to angle toward the south. The leather began to rasp against her thighs, so she stood in the stirrups tottering unsteadily but managing to wrap the abba’s flaring skirts about her legs. She settled back in the saddle and breathed a sigh of relief as the silky material soothed the rasp.

  “Well, Pari.” She patted the mare’s neck. “Looks different around here. A few more days, I suppose. Then turn back to the road.” She shifted uneasily and looked back over her shoulder. Somewhere behind her she felt a danger sniffing slowly but inexorably on her trail. She shook off the chill and glanced to the right, reassured by the dim blue line that marked the location of the mountain ridges. “At least I can’t lose that.” She looked around. The mountain had gentled into rolling hills covered with a thick growth of some tall sun-bleached grass. There were a few stunted trees but not much else.

  She squinted up at the suns. Horli was in the first quarter of arc with Hesh a bright boil on her left side, just touching the edge on his passage in front of the softer red sun. “Ahai, Pari, I took off the wrong time of the month. If I could have waited till Horli occluded Hesh …” She shook her head and pulled the hood farther over her face and settled more comfortably into the saddle.

  With the horses nodding along at a quick walk she rode on and on … endlessly … up one rolling swell and down again. The horses paced steadily along, their swaying a hypnotic rhythm that rocked her brain into an idling half-daze that combined with the monotonous sameness of the landscape to send time passing almost unnoticed. The suns climbed higher and higher until they were beating down nearly overhead. The mare nickered uneasily and swung her head around.

  Aleytys blinked and gasped as the heat bit into her. She tilted her head anxiously to see the suns. “Ahai, Pari. What a dumb thing to do, go to sleep in the saddle.” She rubbed her hand over her dust-covered face. Even through the thick material of the abba she could feel Hesh’s burning claws. She glanced around. Ahead there was a scruffy group of trees barely taller than Mulak’s head. The thin dusting of papery leaves provided little shelter from the suns, but there was nothing else around so she sighed and set Pari trotting over to them.

  At the trees, whose shelter was flimsier than she expected, she twisted in the saddle and licked dry and cracking lips. “This’s not shade enough to shelter a mikhmikh.” The square of tufan tied over the pack on the stallion’s back caught her eye. “Ai, idea! Pari, this dried-up lady isn’t licked yet.” She slid off the mare’s back and tied the tufan so that it threw a pool of shade big enough for the three of them to crowd into.

  She suffered the high heat through, head and eyes aching furiously. At the worst part she poured water onto her sleeve and bathed the horses’ tender noses and poured some water in a shallow basin so they could drink. For herself she splashed it over her face and drank a few swallows. It took years for Hesh and Horli to move the few degrees of arc that put a thicker blanket of air between them and the crisping earth. She stirred finally and felt the waterskin. It was limp, nearly empty. She poured some water into the basin and let the horses drink again. Trickling a few more drops out onto her sleeve so she could bathe her face, she thought, I’d better find water. Soon.

  She looked up and saw a hawk sailing high overhead. Reaching out, she stroked his small fierce brain. Water, she thought at him, water, thrusting the idea deep into his dim awareness. He angled swiftly southward.

  With the line between them a stretching thread of communication, Aleytys hurriedly untied the tufan, bundled it on top of the pack, and climbed back into the saddle. She kicked her heels into the mare’s flanks and sent her loping after the fleeting speck. The black stallion trotted along behind, linked to her by the other invisible thread spun out from her mind.

  As she rode, she nested further into the bird’s mind, striving to maintain the link between them. Suddenly she felt a snap and a whirling dizziness. Then she was looking down at a rolling wrinkled surface pale gray and queerly distorted. Off in the distance bobbed the clumsy earthbound animals, a blackish blot on the unreeling map of the ground. Fleetingly she felt the oddness of a black and white vision of the earth, somehow even stranger than the unaccustomed aerial view.

  A building compulsion jerked the bird’s eyes away, Aleytys’s awareness following, as to the south, far ahead, almost at the limit of vision, a wandering line of dark gray cut through the pale gray grass. Trees, she thought. Some kind of stream. That’s good. I wonder how far it is.

  The hawk caught the wind in the hollow of his wings and banked over and down into a long slanting glide. The ground came close and the glide leveled out. She sensed the complex play of muscles, as ordinarily she was aware of the pressure of air sliding on her skin … a subtle tactile awareness with every inch of her body part of a vibrant sensing organ. With the hawk she soared. It was an exhilarating experience, joy riding on the wings of air.

  A sudden jolt snapped her away from the hawk. She blinked. For a moment a vast resentment of her heavy clumsy human body quivered in her, then the last remnants of hawk evaporated and she was once more wholly herself, flat on her back in the hot and dusty grass.

  Cautiously she straightened her arms and legs. Everything worked and everything hurt, but no sharp, shooting pains warned of serious injury. With a wry grin on her dirty face she struggled back onto her face and dusted herself off.

  Somewhat abashed, she climbed back on the mare and tucked the abba around her legs. As she rode along, letting the mare choose her own pace, Aleytys tilted her head and looked into the sky with amusement and regret “Next time I go flying,” she murmured, laughter bubbling in her voice, “I’ll keep my feet on the ground.” She stretched and groaned. “Just what I need, a new set of bruises.”

  Hesh and Horli crept slowly down a sky that was vibrating with heat so that the air burned her lungs with each breath she took. Even the horses were panting and growing increasingly skittish. Every shadow sent their eyes rolling and their bodies dancing sideways. She looked anxiously around. The grass spread out on either side, broken here and there by low patches of brush. Even the scattered trees were behind her. Rolling gently in a series of small lumps, the earth heaved up and down, stretching endlessly to the horizon line all around.

  Hot … it was hard to breathe … her mouth was dry, her nose stiff and hard … hot … She unhooked the waterskin and squeezed out a few drops onto the edge of her cowl. Her throat felt scraped raw, her mouth like badly cured leather. An ache climbed up the back of her neck and burned blue-white at the back of her head. She clutched at the saddle horn with one hand, the other held the damp material against her mouth and nose. Where the hell is that stream? she thought.

  The land washed out in front of her eyes, washed out like a faded print, until all she could see was flash on flash of blue-white light.

  Up another hill, then down, bracing with feet in stirrups; the mare’s gait grew rougher … she was speeding up. Hoof-beats sounded beside her … the stallion. He was a black blur going by on her right side. She opened swollen eyes. At first it was difficult to focus on anything, then she squinted painfully and made out a blue-green line crawling at the bottom of a long slope. The mare twitched her head from side to side, pulling the reins loose from Aleytys’s shaking fingers as she stretched out into an eager run. Aleytys hung on grimly, bobbing about in the saddle like a bundle of avrishum, her legs too tired and sore to have any grip left in them.

  A sudden halt … belly banging into saddle horn, face into mane.

  The mare was standing knee-deep in muddy water, her head buried up to the eyes in the tepid wetness. Aleytys worked her left leg up over the saddle and slid—fell really—into the stream. She didn’t bother trying to stand, just collapsed flat out into the water.

  She splashed the water over her face and into her hair until she was saturated
, streams of water pouring down along the strands of hair and the folds of her abba. She sat up and shook the wet hair out of her face. “Ahai, Pari love, I think I’m going to live.”

  Both horses were having a little trouble drinking around their bits so she stripped the bridles off and tossed them up onto the bank. Then she loosened the cinches a little. She leaned against Mulak’s side and watched the two horses sucking in water, frowning as some vague memories nudged at her about the problems caused by too much water after too much heat. She waded over to Pari, the soggy abba pulling heavily at her legs, threatening to trip her with every stride, further muddying the lazy flow of the water. “Out, Pari,” she said, then she tugged at her mane, trying to pull her head up. Pari shook her head impatiently, splashing water all over Aleytys.

  “Hai!” Aleytys backed up and plopped herself down on the bank. Taking firm hold of the two equine minds, she forced the horses out of the water. “Wait a little, mi-muklisha, then you can have some more.” She smiled as the two horses began cropping at the tough springy grass, then looked around. The trees provided protection from the direct rays of the double sun, but did nothing to cut the stifling heat. Her sopping abba wasn’t cool anymore but was more like a portable steam bath. She plucked disgustedly at the clinging material. “What a mess.”

  Struggling with the wet ties, she finally managed to wriggle out of the abba. Carrying it upstream, she sloshed it around in the water, then lifted the dripping garment, and wrung it out. Above her head a low limb stretched out over the water as if made for a clothes line. She grinned and hung the abba over it. Then she stood up and stretched, feeling gloriously free as the feeble breeze played around her naked body.

  When she got back downstream, the horses were still grazing peacefully at the thick clumps of grass. Good, she thought, I won’t take the packs off now. We can go farther after we rest a while. Ai-Aschla, I’m tired.

  Finding a flattish spot thickly carpeted with grass, she stretched out on her stomach, resting her head on her crossed arms. It felt good to lie flat and let her aching muscles rest. She closed her eyes and slid down the long slope into sleep.

  Deep in the darkness in her mind something stirred, expanded into a shimmering image something like a mirage. Gradually it steadied and the dreaming Aleytys recognized the tracker, crouching uncomfortably in the shade of a blanket tied to an ironwood, his horse kneeling close beside him barely inside the limits of the shadow. The dreamer shuddered as she traced the dour fanatical lines of the tracker’s’ face. As she watched he leaned from the shade and squinted thoughtfully at the suns. Working with neat, efficient movements that husbanded energy, he urged the horse onto its feet and began untying the blanket sunshade.

  In her sleep the dreamer stirred and a mischievous smile spread over her face. As the tracker unhooked the waterbag and pulled the stopper loose, she insinuated sensor threads into the patient mind of the horse and spooked him into a panicky flight, leaving the startled tracker cursing furiously as he watched his mount disappear upslope along his backtrail.

  Home, she breathed into the equine mind. Home without stopping. Chuckling happily, she let the scene dissolve and went deep into sleep.

  4

  The bottom of the huge red ball touched the mountain, then seemed to sit motionless while the sides squeezed out like a tomato being slowly squashed by an invisible foot Hesh was still a double palm’s width above the horizon, sitting like a belly dancer’s navel jewel on Horli’s middle. Aleytys pulled the mare to a halt and flexed her cramped legs.

  “Three, four hours till dark,” she murmured thoughtfully, easing back in the saddle. The mare shook her head briskly, making the bridle jangle. Leaning on the saddle horn, Aleytys eyed the narrow, deep river rushing past a few feet from Pari’s hooves. “Can’t cross yet. Look at those clouds, muklis. It’s a good thing it didn’t rain the past three nights.” She stood in the stirrups again and looked around. “Ai-Ascha, nothing but trees.” With a sigh, she settled down again and sent the mare into a fast walk with a gentle nudge in her flanks.

  “We need a roof of some kind over our heads, Pari, azizmi. I can’t afford to get sick.” Humming softly, she scratched her fingers along the base of the mare’s mane.

  The river gradually broadened as the slope of the land gentled, but there was still nothing visible but the same trees and tangled bushes, neither the thick-leaved horans nor the squat bushy bydarrakhi, just spear-straight ironwood and thick stands of mingled raushani and pricklebushes offering no shelter at all. Then the river curved and the mare followed around the bend.

  They emerged from the trees into another of the soggy open meadows that dotted the banks of the river. She shifted in the saddle again, running her eyes around the clearing in a cursory, disinterested sweep. This time, though, she looked back quickly. Halfway under the trees on the far side of the meadow a brownish square object loomed out of the shadows. A cabin? She looked hastily around but saw no one. Good, she thought. She kneed the mare toward the shaded shaggy edifice.

  Halfway across the clearing she burst out laughing. “What an idiot.” Pulling the mare to a stop, she sent her mind questing out, sniffing for intelligence. Nothing. With another laugh, she patted the mare on the neck. “Luck’s really holding me.” She stretched and yawned. “Come on, Pari, let’s inspect our new home.”

  Sitting with hands crossed over the horn, she examined the cabin. It was constructed of peeled logs and roofed with shakes, heavy timbers hammered into shutters and door. Very neatly made, too, under the weathering and webbing of seasonal debris. Dry leaves snuggled in dusty heaps against the walls; spider webs festooned the eaves and dripped over the shutters.

  “Hmm.” She swung down and stepped cautiously across the mud to the door. “Ahai, I hate spiders.” She grabbed a handful of leaves and wiped the webs away from the door. “How do I get in? Oh. Yes.” She tugged at a braided thong dangling near the doorpost. With a hollow thud, a swoosh of dust-laden air, and a sepulchral cre-eak, the door swung open and she poked her head in.

  The interior had a dank and musty smell. Even with the door open, little light got in because the window was tightly shuttered. She backed out and considered the window. “Open that and blow the dead air out. I wonder what that stink is. Hope I find something disgusting in there.” Using the palm of her hand as a hammer, she pounded the shutter bars out of the hooks and dragged the heavy shutters back. More dust splashed into her face, making her sneeze. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “Ahai!” She waved her hand back and forth in front of her face. “If there’s a lot of sassha in there … the thought of being a meal a bite at a time for a pile of vermin …” She shuddered. After hooking the shutters open, she leaned through the gaping hole and peered inside. “Looks clean. Hmm.”

  She walked into the cabin and stood in the middle of the single room, hands on hips, examining the place. The floor was constructed of carefully fitted planks, neatly level and joined so well that it was hard to tell where one plank stopped and another began. On the far wall shelves made of open latticework marched up to the roof. There was another window in the back wall directly opposite the one in the front. “That’s interesting. I wonder why.…”

  She moved over and sniffed at the lathwork. “Ahai! That’s where it comes from, yes.” Flicking a clump of short silky fur off a corner, she grinned. “Fur hunter’s hold. Talk about luck. If there’s a balance to things …” She bowed her head and made the shalikk to the Madar, then turned and leaned back, bracing her elbows against one of the shelves. “I’m going to have some bad, bad times ahead to make up for all this honey. Madar willing, I’ll survive.…” She laughed and looked around again. “The owner of this little gem probably won’t be by here till Baligh at the earliest. Ahai-mi, what it must be like when the hides are green!”

  On the other side of the window a field-stone fireplace spread out across the wall. The inside was blackened with use, but the old ashes had been swept neatly out. Only a few o
f the ever-present spider webs and a lot of dust and a few skeleton leaves rested in the firehole. She pushed away from the drying racks and sauntered over to the other wall.

  An open bunk bed with nothing on it but laced leather ropes woven in a taut webbing that creaked and screeched as she leaned on it was snugged neatly in the far corner. She sat on the webbing, her knees hiking up as she sank with the elastic leather. “A place to sleep.” She wiggled on the sagging web and chuckled. “Softer than the rock I had for a bed yesterday.”

  After lugging the pack sacks inside, she hung the saddles and other tack on the pegs that marched up the wall beside the bed. By this time the light inside was a dim red haze. Alevtys walked over to the doorway and glanced to the west. Hesh was gone completely and she could barely see any of Horli above the trees. I’d better get in some wood, she thought.

  The last light was a fading fan of red thrust through a break in the heavy clouds when she dumped the final load of wood beside the fireplace and went outside again. Large drops of rain came plopping heavily down. “At least the horses are under a roof.” She chuckled. “Even a shed out back with a manger and all. This is a man who loves his comfort and not so bad a person; he thinks of his horses, too.” She sighed and stretched, letting the raindrops splash on her upturned face. “Talking to myself more and more. Well, long as I don’t begin answering … ahai!”