by Hugh Cook
He really had started at the beginning. Having asked for this, she dared not complain as the Ondrask slowly worked his way through the tale of the First Things and the genealogies of the Horse who was Horse and the Rider who was Rider. It took quite some time.
As the Ondrask talked, telling now of the Last Ride of the Horse who was Horse and the Rider who was Rider, Yen Olass began to hear in his voice a measure of loss, of sorrow, of homesickness. And while she was not of the Yarglat, she was most certainly of the north, and she too began to yearn for those empty horizons, those high-hunting stars, those skies where the night veils infinity with curtains of green light, purple, red. She too yearned for the campfire where the talk goes back and forward in the long winter night, man and woman and horse and child all gathered together in the same communal warmth.
While the Ondrask talked, Yen Olass began to remember names and faces gone from her life for almost two decades. She realised now the true source of the Ondrask's rage. The high priest of the horse cult was suffering not just for the loss of his three horses, but for the loss of an entire way of life.
The Ondrask had reviewed an entire culture by the time he got to the story of his own birth.
'They named me Losh Negis. I was born in a tent on the barrens where the wind rolls forever, thinking the world downhill. I was weaned on mare's milk and boiled millet. By the time I could walk, I was learning to ride, clinging to the fleece of a sheep.’
Bit by bit, he created his world for her.
'At the age of fourteen, I was initiated into a raiding party. Six years after my spear was first blooded, I endured a vision. I knew the power then, or thought I did. What I knew was the shadow of a shadow. But I followed the Old One thereafter. I learnt of the Powers That Walk and then became them.
'My people listened to me when voices gathered. I both gave and received. For them, I endured the darkness. I talked with those who have no bones. I brought back much wisdom, and shared. In those days, my very shadow was worth more than a man. In the city here in the south, people looked on me as if I was an animal -- and a poor-bred animal at that.’
The Ondrask paused. Yen Olass made no grunts of approval, no small encouraging sounds, no conversational noises. The Ondrask did not need them, and would not have welcomed them. He brooded for a long time, staring into the dying heart of the dying fire.
'The fathers of our grandfathers came south to conquer an empire,' said the Ondrask, 'but the empire conquered us. The Blood Purge changed nothing. We slaughtered real men, thinking to kill our enemy, but it was already too late for that. We were defeated by our victory, and Haveros is the measure of our defeat.’
The Ondrask said nothing more, and Yen Olass saw that his tale was at an end. He had still not answered her original question, but she knew he would no longer welcome being quizzed on the trivial details of who said what to whom and where and when. He had spoken of first and last things, and he had talked himself out.
But Yen Olass did have one question to ask before they slept. She had always wondered about it, but, till now, she had never met anyone who might know the answer. She dared her question.
'You were born in the north,' said Yen Olass, 'and so was Khmar. What does Khmar believe?’
'Khmar?' said the Ondrask, looking at her, as if seeing her for the first time. 'Khmar believes in Khmar.’
Listening to the wind, Yen Olass thought it was dying down a little, but she was now too tired to be certain.
* * *
Yen Olass woke to find daylight filtering into the cave. The Ondrask was huddled under the horse blanket, snoring. The two shag ponies were awake. Sometimes, on other hunting trips, she had woken in the night to find Snut sleeping standing up. She had never been able to figure out how horses could do that; whichever way she looked at it, it seemed contrary to reason. She thought it was very clever of them.
Yen Olass took her feet out of the luffle bag. They were not happy about that at all. Swiftly, she put on her foot bindings, then pulled on her boots and laced them up. Going to the mouth of the cave, she found a bright cold sun shining from a clear sky on silent snowdrifts. The drifted snow was deep enough to slow them down a bit, but too shallow to stop a determined horse and rider.
Here and there, trees showed vivid yellow wounds where branches had scabbed away. The rest of the world was white and black: white snow, black trees. So many trees. The corpses of the dead ones hulked out of the snow.
Though these woods were fairly open, and riders were seldom hindered by undergrowth, Yen Olass still felt there were far too many trees. There was something weird and unnatural about those columns of wood shafting up from the earth. Something rather evil about those gaunt grasping branches. Out riding, you always had to keep a sharp lookout in case a branch tore your head off. Then, stopping in a strange place, you could never tell whether something was hiding close by, watching. In the woods, she always felt enclosed, denied the open horizons of unlimited freedom which were her birthright.
As she stood there watching, she saw a small bird perch briefly on a bough, then fly away. In the snow there was a neat set of little paw marks: a fox had passed by that morning.
She heard the Ondrask grunt as he woke; a little later, he joined her at the cavemouth.
'Yesh-la, Ondrask,’ said Yen Olass.
'Darjan-kray, Yen Olass,’ he said, giving her both the formal response and the courtesy of her name.
They stood there shoulder to shoulder. Now that they
had slept out the night in the same cave, she hardly noticed his odour; his smell was hers. Though she knew she would be fearfully late in getting back to Gendormargensis, that hardly seemed to matter. She felt . .. she felt almost happy. She would have felt better still if they could have stayed. She hated going back to the city.
'How has the hunting been?' said the Ondrask.
'Not so good,' said Yen Olass.
Game was scarce, but Yen Olass hardly cared. She came here to be free, not to kill things.
The sun glared on the absolute white of the snow. She had better smear her cheeks and eyelids with ashes before they set out. On a day like this, a day's riding could leave an unprotected person snowblind. She had better grease her boots, too; she had meant to do it the day before, but had forgotten.
Snut came to her for an apple, and she gave him one, then gave another to the Ondrask's horse. Both horses and humans would eat properly once they reached the hunting lodge at Brantzyn. Then they would push south, heading for Gendormargensis.
CHAPTER TWO
Name: Lord Pentalon Alagrace
Birth title: sal Pentalon Sorvolosa dan Alagrace nal Swedek quen Larsh
Family: Swedek quen Larsh, one of the High Houses of Sharla. Great-grandfather was Arnak Menster, Warmaster in Gendormargensis during the Wars of Dominion in which the Sharla Alliance was defeated by the northern horse tribes
Career: graduating from the Military Academy, spent twenty years with the Battle Corps in the Eastern Marches, ultimately having command of the Grey Cohorts. Subsequent service almost exclusively in the Diplomatic Service
In the year of the Blood Purge, Khmar 15, was in the Embassy which travelled to Molothair to negotiate an exchange of hostages with the Witchlord, Onosh Gulkan. Declined to return to Tameran, going into exile in Ashmolea, but in Khmar 17 accepted an invitation to become Lawmaker in Gendormargensis
* * *
Lord Alagrace urgently needed to find Yen Olass, but the oracle was missing.
He knew she had returned to Gendormargensis, as her shag pony was back in the stables attached to his city residence. Her weapons were back in the stable loft. By law, no woman was entitled to be in possession of weapons, so Yen Olass could not risk keeping bows, arrows or knives in her own quarters.
According to the stable hands, Yen Olass had returned the day before, shortly after dusk. Where she had gone thereafter, nobody knew. She had not checked in with Lord Alagrace's office, as she usually did, and a servant sent to her
quarters in Moon Stallion Strait had returned without finding her. Now Lord Alagrace himself had come to tooth 44, Moon Stallion Strait, to see if he could find any clue which would tell him where the missing oracle was.
Lord Alagrace had never visited this street before, and had no idea what he might find. When Yen Olass had demanded quarters outside the reach of the Sisterhood, a little more than half a year earlier, Lord Alagrace had told his secretary to arrange it, and when Yen Olass had pronounced herself satisfied, he had not bothered himself about it further.
Tooth 44 turned out to be a cold, massive building in white marble. In the foyer, three old women were sorting dirty linen into baskets, which would later be picked up and taken to the Central Washhouse. And, on the stairway leading upwards, two soldiers were gaming with dice.
The soldiers leapt to attention when they saw Lord Alagrace. But it was far too late for that. Their helmets, their ceremonial shields and their spears were cluttered together in a corner; it was impossible for them to pretend they had been attending to their duty. Lord Alagrace took their names, then asked them what their duty was.
The soldiers told him the names of a dozen dependents of the last emperor, Onosh Gulkan, the Witchlord, who were now living in this building under what was supposed to be house arrest.
'And what really happens?' said Lord Alagrace.
'We make sure they're all in the building by evening. Other than that, nobody worries.’
'I see,' said Lord Alagrace.
This explained a lot. At least twice since his return from Ashmolea, he had thought he had been seeing ghosts when he had glimpsed people whom he had thought dead or banished long ago. When he had the time, he should really
have an inventory made of the more important captives held in Gendormargensis.
'Who else lives here?' said Lord Alagrace.
The guards were able to tell him a few names. He vaguely recognised some of them. They were hostages and ambassadors from states which had now ceased to exist, indigent old generals who were waiting for the Lord Emperor Khmar to attend to their petitions for pensions, a couple of Khmar's distant relations from the far north -- the place was a veritable bureaucratic rubbish bin for dumping problems which were not worth solving.
Lord Alagrace asked the guards a few more questions, then went upstairs. On the way up, he passed a group of old women who were going down, and one or two of them looked at him strangely. Puzzling over those glances, he realized he remembered them from the years when they had been young and beautiful -- famous hetairai, the playthings of the powerful. Unless his memories deceived him, in his youth he himself had lusted after at least one of them -- though always from a distance.
On reaching height 3, Lord Alagrace soon found room 7. Yen Olass, as a slave, was not permitted a door which could be closed against the world; instead, the interior of the room was guarded only by a free-standing screen, which he could walk around if he chose.
'Yen Olass?’
No answer.
Lord Alagrace went in and looked around. There was a bed, a chair, a window. Little else. A brazier, which was cold. A linen basket with a few soiled oddments sitting in the bottom of it. A linen chest for clean clothing. A battered old klon. A wobbly side table with a few oddments on it -- some stones, a couple of broken shells, a scrap of cheap amber with some dirt flaws running through it -- he couldn't imagine why she kept such rubbish. On the bed, folded sheets, folded blankets and a scruffy quilt, which was leaking feathers.
Looking under the bed -- his knees creaked alarmingly
as he knelt down -- Lord Alagrace discovered an oracle's nordigin. There was also a felt-lined box containing a copy of the Book of the Sisterhood. Lord Alagrace, who had never perused this classic statement of the Sisterhood's doctrine, took it out and had a look at it. But the script was too small for him to read. These days, relays of scribes were kept busy copying out vital documents in a big, bold hand, so he could consult them at his leisure.
Disappointed, Lord Alagrace returned the Book of the Sisterhood to its box. He knew he could always requisition a copy, then have it read aloud to him, or copied out in a hand big enough for his deteriorating vision to cope with, but he would never do that, because he would have been ashamed to show so much interest in a woman thing.
When Lord Alagrace left the room he saw, some distance down the corridor, a rheumatic old woman standing in the doorway of her quarters, leaning on a stick and watching him. On the off-chance, he went down the corridor to ask her if she knew where Yen Olass was.
She invited him into her room, which was small, and crowded with antiquated furniture, tapestries and carpets. She claimed that she did indeed know Yen Olass. She pointed to a large, amber-coloured cat which was asleep on her bed. The cat, she claimed, belonged to Yen Olass. Once the oracle came back from 'the world of her wandering', she would reclaim the cat, which was called Lefrey. No, Yen Olass had not been in the building for the last few days. No, nobody could say where she might be.
The woman then started to get querulous, complaining about the cold of the building, the irregular linen service, the state of the communal ablutions, the rats she had seen in the latrines. Lord Alagrace excused himself.
Leaving the building, he passed a blank-faced woman who walked with an odd, jerking shuffle. He shuddered. Someone unfamiliar with the history of Gendormargensis might have mistaken the woman for a cripple or a victim of terminal syphilis, but Lord Alagrace knew exactly what was responsible for that peculiar gait -- and that face washed clean of all character and emotion. The woman was an ofika, the first he had seen for years.
During the reign of Onosh Gulkan, the emperor who had earned himself the title of Witchlord, the running of Gendormargensis had been left very much in the hands of the powerful dralkosh Bao Gahai. Drawing strength from a liaison with the powers of the dead, she could destroy anyone who opposed her, turning them into an ofika, a semi-sentient automaton which would, to the best of its remaining ability, obey without question.
Bao Gahai, who must be at least sixty by now, was said to be still alive, living in the court of Onosh Gulkan in the city of Molothair on the island of Alozay, one of the Safrak Islands of the inland waters known as the Swelaway Sea.
Thinking of Bao Gahai, Lord Alagrace realised who the old woman with the amber cat was. Her name was . . . no, her name still escaped him. But he remembered when he had seen her last. She had been one of Bao Gahai's servants and, once, at great personal danger, and seeking no reward for herself, she had sheltered him from the wrath of the dralkosh.
Losd Alagrace hesitated, and thought about going back. But the demands of the day were many, and he could not linger any longer.
* * *
When Lord Alagrace got back to Valslada, his city residence, he found a messenger waiting. The messenger had come from Lord Alagrace's office in Karling Drask.
'So what have you got to tell me?' said Lord Alagrace.
'My lord, your secretary has sent me to tell you that an important communication is waiting for you at Karling Drask.’
Lork Alagrace swore, more from habit than anything else, and set out for Karling Drask. His secretary had received his basic training many years ago in the secret police of the Witchlord Onosh Gulkan, and had never been able to shake his obsession with secrecy.
Arriving at Karling Drask, Lork Alagrace found the communication was a letter from the Ondrask of Noth, demanding that he come personally to the Ondrask's yashram to collect Yen Olass. Lord Alagrace recognized the handwriting. The Ondrask was every bit as illiterate as the Lord Emperor Khmar. He had dictated the letter to Yen Olass Ampadara, who had written it out in a large, bold hand, knowing that Lord Alagrace was no longer able to focus well enough at short distances to read small handwriting.
With Khmar in the south, Lord Alagrace was the supreme authority in and around Gendormargensis. The Ondrask had no right to give him orders. Furthermore, Lord Alagrace was busy. He had all the responsibilities which went wit
h the Lawmaker's office, and, while the Lord Commander of the Imperial City was ostensibly Volaine Persaga Haveros, that was only a matter of form, and Lord Alagrace handled all the administrative decisions which went with that position, too. However, the Ondrask called, and the Ondrask had influence with Khmar -- so Lord Alagrace went.
Now, at least, he knew where to find the oracle Yen Olass Ampadara.
* * *
At the Ondrask's yashram, Lord Alagrace found Yen Olass sharing a meal with Losh Negis. He could hardly believe his eyes. However, Losh Negis explained that Yen Olass had given him hospitality in the wilderness, which made everything clear; a true Yarglat, like the Ondrask, had to repay such a debt, even if the debt was to a female slave.
'But when you come back,' said Losh Negis to Lord Alagrace, 'she will be cooking, not eating. I will make her my skona-pana-tay.’
Yen Olass flinched when the Ondrask made that little joke, and the Ondrask's women -- or those of them who were within hearing -- muttered amongst themselves. In Eparget, 'skona-pana-tay' meant, literally, 'young silk triangle'; the words were usually translated into other languages as 'silk girl', and formed the courtesy title of a particular type of whore.
