Heroes Adrift (18 page)

We did leave early the next morning, even though Panol was in no shape to be traveling. He was stretched out in the back of the wagon, as Taro had been when his sunburn was at its worst. The curse meant that we had to move on, no matter how ill anyone was. No exceptions for anyone, not even Atara's own son.

On the contrary, Panol's injury was declared to be a punishment for lingering too long, even though we hadn't been there for a full three days.

We walked all day with no incident, to settle down in the middle of nowhere when dusk fell. I went to practice with no prodding required from Kahlia. She had me well trained, she did. Karish met me on my way back to the tent, telling me Atara had summoned him.

“Oh,” I said.

“So let's go.”

“She didn't ask for me. Did she?”

“No, but when did that ever matter?”

Almost never. Karish did seem to enjoy dragging me into his private affairs. “I need to wash up. I've been dancing.”

“She lives with a troupe in what must be the hottest part of the world. She's used to sweat.”

“Says the man who won't be seen by anyone unless his hair is perfect.”

“I left that man in High Scape. Let's go see what she wants.”

He took my hand and pulled me along, and I let him because I was curious. Atara rarely showed herself. She was always at the front of the troupe when we traveled, and she seemed to sequester herself while we were stopped. She never came to any of my performances. I imagined Kahlia told her anything she needed telling, and we delivered money on a regular basis so she had to know we were doing well. But I would have thought she'd be a little curious and want to see at least part of the act herself.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” I asked.

“None.”

His tone was curt. And I didn't blame him. It was never a good thing to be summoned by authority figures. Good news was allowed to trickle down; bad news was delivered directly.

I was gripped with sudden panic. “You don't think she's going to dismiss us, do you?” She couldn't do that, could she? Leave us out there in the middle of nowhere? She had no reason to dismiss us. I'd been getting along with everyone fairly well, hadn't I?

She couldn't cut us off. We would be helpless without her. We didn't know how to get anywhere. Why the hell didn't we know how to get anywhere? Why hadn't I gotten a better map? Why had I just handed our lives over to these complete strangers and just trusted them to take care of us? Stupid. Careless. Irresponsible. Damn it. I was such a moron.

Karish looked back at me and frowned. I realized I was squeezing his hand. I loosened my grip.

Unlike the first time we were in Atara's tent, it was evening and all the flaps were tied up, letting in what breeze there was. It was therefore something less than stifling, despite the dozens of black candles she'd lit. I wondered how many tents she'd burned down with those candles.

Atara, her excessive jewelry glinting in the candlelight, hesitated when she saw me. She didn't object to my presence, though. She was seated at her table, and there were long lines of colored beads stretched from edge to edge. I didn't recognize the pattern, and I couldn't guess what it was supposed to mean. “I have been made to understand that I owe you my son's life,” she said to Karish.

Good evening to you, too.

Karish stammered, as he always did in such situations. I still haven't figured out whether it was a genuine display of shock or part of an act to look as though he'd been taken by complete surprise. “I put the gel on. Setter had fetched it and told me what to do.”

“Too late to be effective, Kahlia tells me.”

“Obviously not. It worked.”

“Panol has been bitten before.”

Maybe Panol needed to invest in some boots. Speaking of…I glanced down at my bare ankles. My pale skin was practically glowing. It probably acted as some kind of beacon to the snakes.

“What he felt before was not what he felt with you yesterday,” Atara continued. “He says he felt you do something.”

“I put the gel on him,” Taro said, sounding puzzled.

That, of course, was entirely an act.

“You have healing magic,” Atara declared. “Why do you hide this?”

That's what I wanted to know.

“There is no such thing as healing magic,” said Taro.

She cocked her head at him. “Who told you that?”

Karish opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it without responding. He frowned.

I couldn't blame him. I would be similarly dumb. I couldn't remember a single person ever telling me there was no such thing as magic. It wasn't necessary. It was just something I'd always known. Because it was obvious. Of course there was no such thing as magic.

Taro wasn't prepared to make that kind of argument, apparently. Instead he said, “Whether such magic exists or not, I don't have it.”

“What about this thing you say you do when the earth moves. Is that not magic?”

“No.”

She frowned. “Then what is it?”

“It's an ability I have, to kind of reach in and guide the power of an event out. With my mind.” He looked back at me for help.

I shrugged. What did I know of channeling? I wasn't a Source.

“Can anyone learn to do this?”

“No. You have to be born with the ability.”

“Just like magic,” she said with a triumphant smirk, and she moved a red bead into a line of white beads.

“No, just like anything.”

“People can learn many things and not have inborn talent.”

“You can't do anything without inborn talent.” She was looking mutinous. He sighed. “Can you sing?”

She appeared startled by the question. “Somewhat.”

“Were you trained to learn?”

“No.”

“I can't sing. And no amount of teaching will enable me to sing. I have absolutely no talent for it, and I can't hear the difference between notes. But I don't think people who can sing have some magical ability. They just have an ability I lack.”

Atara was not as impressed with the analogy as I was. “Can you explain how you can do this interference with storms?”

Not storms. Typhoons, maybe. Tsunami. Big difference.

“Can you explain how people sing?” Karish retorted, obviously not expecting an answer.

“People draw breath and push it through their throats and shape their mouths to release the air with different notes.”

“There must be more than that, because I do the same, and I have been reliably informed that I can't sing.”

By who? I'd never managed to get him to sing. I'd even tried to get him drunk for that very purpose. And I'd seen him drunk, but it hadn't been enough to get him to open his mouth for anything other than speaking.

Atara's jawline firmed in that way that said she was gritting her teeth.

Atara, unlike most of the other members of the troupe, had actual furniture. Tables with legs that didn't fold. Dressers an arm length in width and waist high. A full-length mirror. She opened a drawer in one of the dressers and took out a palm-sized black box. She opened the box, curling her fingertips into the contents.

She blew the contents, a fine, silvery powder, into Karish's face.

Taro sputtered and sneezed. I gasped uselessly and clutched at his arm.

Atara grabbed up the nearest candle and sort of waved it around Karish.

Please don't set my Source on fire.

The flame of the candle flared up oddly, here and there. No doubt in reaction to the powder hanging in the air.

“It is there,” Atara announced solemnly.

I avoided rolling my eyes. Barely. Charlatan.

“We had a healer for many years. She died.”

A victim of the supposed curse?

“Will you take her place?”

“I am not a healer,” Karish snapped, his temper finally showing through.

“We gave her coin. We'll give you coin, too.”

He scowled. “What are you suggesting? You want me to lie to your people? You want me to claim to be something I'm not and take money from them, all the while endangering their lives because of my ignorance? I thought honesty was so important to you.”

Atara's eyes narrowed. “You speak so little of yourselves,” she said flatly. “The city you come from, these tasks you perform, this is all you tell us, and little enough of those. Nothing of your families, your raising. All we learn is nothing more than the answers of what we ask. When you are not working, you hide yourselves away. In your tents, or wandering apart.”

What, she was the only one allowed to take time for herself?

“How am I to know what to make of you? Whether you are speaking true or for your own convenience?”

Karish had clearly had enough. Through my hand on his arm, I felt tension solidify his muscles. “Don't you think I'd want to do this, if I could?” he demanded with frustration. “I'm useless. And I can't learn anything that will serve anyone else. I have no skill with my hands. I have no talent for performance. I don't know how to do anything your average regular can't do for himself, and better.” He let loose a sharp snicker. “I don't even have a face anyone wants to look at.”

I scowled at Atara. Her stupid, brutal insistence. Her nosy, judgmental arrogance. Making Taro feel this way, feel useless.

He wasn't useless. I needed him. He kept me sane. I would have snapped and murdered everyone long before this, if it weren't for him. And if he were slightly less useful on the island than he was at home, that was only because the island was full of idiots.

“Do you think I don't know I'm here only on sufferance?” Karish continued. “That I'm tolerated only because I belong to Lee? That you'd happily leave me in any village—or a ditch—and go on your happy way with the Flame Dancer?”

I glared at him. Like I'd ever consider going on without him.

It appeared Atara felt equally insulted. “We do not,” she interrupted coolly, “value people like trinkets. We do not feel them animals to perform for us, or serve us, or to be discarded.”

I was happy to hear it, but I thought Taro could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

“I would love to be able to do something more than fetch and carry. I would love to bring in enough coin that Lee doesn't feel paying off our list of debt is her sole responsibility. But I will not lie and swindle people for money. I will not.”

Atara stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then, something in her air, something almost imperceptible in her posture, seemed to relax. “You cannot do this?” she asked.

And this time it seemed an honest question, rather than a challenge.

So Taro relaxed a little, too. “I cannot,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Don't apologize to her.

“It is, indeed, unfortunate. We need a healer.”

Don't you dare try to make him feel guilty.

“I have been on the Northern continent,” she said. “When I was a younger woman, before my mother died. She thought it important for me to see a broader world. At some time, I would like Kahlia to do the same.” With her fingertips, she moved a number of beads around with a light touch and no apparent design in mind. “The air was so dry. It made my skin peel, and I felt always thirsty. And dirty. As though dust were clinging to my skin, and no amount of washing could rid me of it. The food was so heavy and thick, it seemed to layer the bottom of my stomach for days. It became so cold in winter, I felt as though my very bones had turned to ice, and I would never be warm again. My fingers and wrists and ankles hurt.” She held her hands before her, bending her fingers as though testing them for pain. Then she shrugged, putting the black box back in its drawer. “They called my prognostication witchcraft. Some would offer money to me, to do it on their behalf, as though I would sell my gift, like Corla.”

I kept my eyebrows from rising up, but only just. So it was all right to have someone selling their gifts for the benefit of the troupe, but Atara was too good to do it herself?

“Others, though, they drove me out of town. They thought I was evil.” She smiled at that, strangely enough. Then she looked at Karish. “I had forgotten how difficult such things could be.”

Taro tilted his head in his approximation of a bow. “I can imagine.”

He was completely relaxed. I had anticipated an evening of trying to get him out of whatever mood this conversation was putting him in, and probably failing, but it was unnecessary. His arm beneath my hand was loose and fluid. The tension had drained out of the air. He was so changeable.

Atara seemed pretty relaxed, too, so I thought I'd dare a question. “This trip up north you took, was it before Kahlia was born?”

“Kai.”