Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (46 page)

             
It made no sense to negotiate with what had no mind for it, and yet here they came with a thing that Glynn would have, in her best judgment, allowed Zarshar to slaughter, wondering if they had the secret to a new world.

             
The Emperor had
not
become as intelligent or even as clever as an Uman-Chi, and yet he frustrated her people time and again, not with new knowledge brought from his world—that would have been exhausted long years ago—but with an uncanny ability to look at the world around him and see a path through it to victory.

             
Now things shone more clearly to her, kneeling in prayer to Eveave, secluded from the rest of them at the edge of the fire. Her head down, her knees protesting against the unforgiving dirt, Glynn fought to clear her mind of these concerns and did nothing more than unearth others, new fish for her stream.

             
War spoke to Lupus the Conqueror and advised him, step after step. Now Eveave had brought these new ones here, and would then do the same.

             
The gods had lost faith in the Uman-Chi as leaders of the people of Fovea. They had failed to step in where the Cheyak had fallen. Angron Aurelias himself had misjudged and worked against Her, in his ignorance, and now Eveave had clearly chosen.

             
What good, the salvation of the Fovean world, if the Uman-Chi are not to lead it? What good, the many centuries of Uman-Chi life, if it is spent on the knee to
Men
?

             
Glynn prayed into the night. Soon Jack fell asleep. Zarshar blinked in and out of the nervous rest of his kind. For hours she sought wisdom, solace and to renew her energy.

             
When she arose, not so much refreshed as renewed, Jack snored softly and the dog had wandered off.

             
Stupid
, she thought. The beast had bided its time and slipped past all of them, in order to seek out its masters.

             
“Zarshar,” she whispered. He might yet hunt it down.

             
“It’s patrolling,” he informed her, without opening his eyes. He lay on his back in his armor, far enough from the fire that his jet skin could be difficult to see. She identified him more by the ruddy glow from dying embers on his breastplate.

             
“The dog?”

             
“Well, I’m here, and so is the old, fat one, so yes, the dog,” Zarshar rumbled. “Its hide - the brindle color - covers it as it moves, so it’s difficult to see, but it gets up about once an hour, wanders out about a tenth of a daheer, and then comes back and lays on the old Man again.”

             
“It’s trained, then?” Glynn asked the Swamp Devil. As she spoke, sure enough, the dog returned from out of the night like a spirit, regarded her with a wag of its tail and, receiving no encouragement, returned to the Man’s side.

             
Zarshar finally opened his blood-red eyes. “I suppose it is,” he growled. “But there are dogs that do this out of instinct. In Angador, the farmers have a shaggy dog that tends herds against wolves.”

             
She nodded—she’d heard of it.

             
“It loves him,” she noted.

             
“It’s a dog,” Zarshar growled, and settled his shoulders deeper into the hard ground.

             
“They’re stupid.”

             
She had to smile, despite herself. The Devil may be evil, but not without his charms.

             
For lack of a better place, Glynn laid her bedroll down beside the Man and dog, and lay on it. His odor didn’t reek as foul as the Devil’s, and his body threw off plenty of excess heat.

             
Laying down, still in her dress, she watched Jack’s simian face for a while, forcing her mind to rest as she prepared to take what sleep she could.

             
Kneel down before these? Never.

             
And yet, the goddess had spoken to their Raven, and surely War to the Emperor. Which of Adriam’s children would address itself to Jack, then? Which would bless his mind with divine wisdom?

             
Perhaps one did so now.

             
The minds of Men had turned out to be a treacherous thing.

* * *

              By a little stream in a
very
pretty meadow, Melissa dipped her toes (she had just had them done—they looked
gorgeous
) in the water and leaned back to let the sun beat down on her face.

             
Bliss
she thought. What a perfect day. She had nothing to do and forever to do it—she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually relaxed.

             
The birds started singing. Jasmine bloomed somewhere. She loved that smell. How strange for the middle of the day! Jasmine bloomed at dusk.

             
“Aren’t you a picture?” someone told her.

             
She threw her hair over her shoulder and looked down the stream, where it flowed from between two grass-covered hill. She saw a doe on top of one of them, munching the clover. Down the other came Raven.

             
Uck
, she thought. She didn’t like this girl. She acted pushy and mean, and dressed in leather like some kind of super hero.

             
“What do
you
want?” Melissa asked her.

             
“Roust you up,” Raven told her. Her leather outfit creaked as she walked, twisting on her breasts and hips. Melissa allowed herself the chick-on-chick mandatory check out. Had to admit—the outfit was working. She would turn heads anywhere.

             
“You’re making a camel limp somewhere,” Melissa sniped her. “You stole its toe.”

             
“Nice,” Raven told her. “Your boyfriend pay for those toes, or did he charge it to his wife’s card?”

             
“I’m sorry,” Melissa said, giving the toes a swish, “I didn’t see the stripper bar down the road from here.”

             
“You didn’t see it or you couldn’t read the sign?” Raven gave back.

             
The day began darkening. The doe looked up and seemed alarmed. The cool stream now felt too cold.

             
“Isn’t there a pole you could be dancing on?” Melissa groused, pulling her heels underneath her butt. She realized right then that she was naked. Why would she be hanging out naked in a public place like this?

             
Raven walked right up next to her, stood there looking down at her. Melissa’s eyes held level with the dagger in Raven’s boot.

             
“You going to waste your whole day here?” Raven asked her.

             
“No,” Melissa scoffed, and then looked up at her. “Why?”

             
“You have places to go,” Raven said. “You have things to do.”

             
“Do I?”

             
“You tell me.”

             
For the life of her, Melissa couldn’t think of one thing.

             
“Weren’t you interested in something about fire?”

             
And behind Raven, both of the grassy hills burst into flame. Where the stream ran too cold, now the water began steaming.

             
“Fire?” Raven repeated.

             
“What is this?” Melissa demanded. She tried to stand but Raven shoved her back onto her butt.

             
“Don’t you make fire?” Raven demanded of her. Her hair and her black leather outfit began smoldering. Her eyes looked wide and wild, and Raven’s smile seemed almost gleeful as she started to burn.

             
“Fire?” she demanded again.

             
The flames swept down the hills and across the plain towards her. The doe ran screaming away from it. The stream boiled.

             
“What are you doing?” Melissa demanded.

             
“I’m waking you up, little girl,” Raven told her. “Time for you to get your ass going.”

             
The fire swept right up beside her, past Raven, whose flesh burned right off of her body as if it were tinder.

             
“Roust, bitch!” the burning skeleton of Raven told her.

              “Whoa!” Raven leapt up from the dirty plain. She had been laid down in her harness and pants, her coat turned around, covering her.

             
The first thing she saw was Nina, glowering at her with some self-important smirk on her face. Without even thinking, Raven balled her fist up and punched the purple-haired girl in the mouth.

             
“You bitch!” Nina reached for her dagger, but couldn’t find it in her arm sheath.

             
Melissa reached for her boot dagger, and found it right where she’d left it. Then she put it to Nina’s throat.

             
“Stop it, both of you,” Jerod snarled.

             
Nina’s hand rose and did nothing, except to remind Raven of the day before.

             
She had intervened when Nina had tried to cast a spell. She had taken Nina’s power.

             
Then Raven had tried to
make use
of Nina’s power, to use it as her own. And it had worked.

             
Raven didn’t drop the knife, but looked around her.

             
The grass looked black, the earth scorched.

             
She looked for Jerod, for Jahunga, for Xinto—she saw them all. The Toorians, the horses—they were there.

             
Then who…?

             
“Drop the knife, Raven,” Jerod warned her.

             
Jahunga behaved more politic, but more firm. He put the head of his spear against the blade, and pressed it to the scorched plains. “Girl, you put that down, now.”

             
Raven allowed the weapon to fall. She felt her jaw go slack, peripherally aware that her mouth lay open.

             
She had wielded magic. She had actually done it.

             
And more than anything now, she wanted to do it again.

             
She looked Nina right in the face. She felt the other woman’s gray eyes search hers.

             
“You know, don’t you?” Nina asked her.

             
“I know what?” Raven countered.

             
Nina just looked into her eyes.

             
Raven thought back to the deck of the
Bitch of Eldador
, alone with Shela, the conversation, the hug.

             
She had said, “I knew it.” Once in a while, Raven had wondered about that.

             
“The most important thing in the world…” Raven began.

             
A slow smile crossed Nina’s face, followed by the one on Raven’s.

             
“I never would have guessed it,” Nina admitted.

* * *

              Glynn woke with the sun, the Devil already up and the dog gone. Jack slept the sleep of exhaustion, his old bones weighing on him, no doubt.

             
The lives of Men were fleeting and lived mostly in sickness.

             
She saw a portion of the antelope, still half cooked over the fire. She applied her will to drive the flies from it, then to heat it enough to be healthy. The aroma sufficed that hunger overcame sloth and awakened Jack.

             
“Hmmm?” he said, and rose up to his elbows.

             
She still felt unhappy with his kind and simply grunted at him. He stood and stretched, then made a low whistle through his beard.

             
The dog galloped out from between the surrounding hills to be with them, wagging her tail and bumping him for attention. One hand on its head, Jack drew a short knife from his belt and addressed the carcass uninvited. Glynn wondered at what may live in the dog’s coat, which would now migrate to their meal, but said nothing.

             
“There’s an army marching up from the south,” Zarshar informed them, approaching from behind the dog. She saw dust on his forearms and leggings, and his hair had become tangled with grass.