Irregular Verbs (11 page)

A squat, red-haired man emerged when Dasatan was a pole from the nearest tent. Dasatan could not understand him when he spoke, hearing only the man’s sharp tone: the dialect was different from the one he knew, and he realized now just how slowly Balat had been speaking for his benefit.

“I am Dasatan, of the ai Daneyanim,” Dasatan said as carefully as he could. “Have you seen or heard any others like me, or some of your people, moving in a group?”

“No,” the man said, keeping his broad bulk between Dasatan and the tents.

“Well, might I warm myself by your fire?” Dasatan asked.

“No.”

Dasatan took a breath. “I need only to warm myself so I can go and find my companions. I can pay you if you wish.”

The man’s thick eyebrows rose. “Pay?”

Smiling, Dasatan unhooked from his belt the sack of trade goods he used to pay Balat and the other ai Kamanai he had hired. Trinkets, really: coral necklaces from Kadain Kisak, silk scarves from Sherez. “I have jewellery that would please any woman. Ribbons, and thread—”

“Pff,” the man said, and spat into the bushes off to his right. “Do you think me a bachelor, to have to buy a woman’s kisses?” He waved the pouch away. “There is nothing here I want. Go.”

“If I go now I will freeze to death,” Dasatan said, forcing the words past his teeth.

The man shrugged. “So what is that to me? Who are you to me? No kin of mine.”

“I could be warm by now,” Dasatan said, unable to keep his voice calm any longer. “It would cost you no more to let me stand by your fire than to stand here and argue with me.”

The man leaned in towards Dasatan, his eyes narrowing. “You are no kin to me. I owe you nothing. You have nothing I want. Go.”

Without even thinking of it Dasatan felt his hand fly to his sword hilt. Flame all these primitive superstitions, he was past worrying about offending the locals. The man’s eyes widened for a moment as the short steel blade cut the air.

A heartbeat later—or two, or more; he was sure his heart had stopped—Dasatan lay on the ground. His sword had fallen a rod away from his numb, twitching fingers.

“Go home, stranger,” the man said, turning away. “Or die, if that is your destiny. It is no matter to me.”

“So Dasat spent his days in the forest, looking for fallen branches to feed the fire in the house, and as the snow rose about him and the cold winds blew he would cast his eye more and more to the firelight glowing inside. No matter how close he came to the house, though, he could never feel any of the fire’s heat, not even when he touched the walls, and his little skin tent grew colder and colder. He never went in, though, and he never saw the woman the little man had said lived there.

“One morning he woke to find that the wind had blown his tent open in the night, and snow had drifted in. It had nearly buried him, and he felt as though he would die if he did not get warm. As he stepped out of his tent he saw, again, the eyes of the skulls glowing with firelight. He did not even stop to remember the little man’s warning, but went right up to the door, opened it and stepped inside.

“At first all he knew was that it was warm, and he felt the ice in his blood and the frost on his eyelashes melting away. Then he saw the inside of the house.

“All around, hanging from the ceiling, were iron hooks, and hanging from each was the empty skin of a man, curing into leather. A great stone mortar sat on a huge wooden table, and in it sat a dozen thighbones waiting to be crushed. At the middle was a stone chimney, and in it sat a great iron pot, and out of the pot came the sweet smell of boiling man-flesh. The little blue man with the red cap was running around the pot’s rim, holding a wooden spoon and stirring it around in the soup. When he saw Dasat he stopped.

“‘What are you doing, little Kamanai?’ he cried out. ‘Do you know not where you are? This is the house of Mokos, the daughter of the Lord of Lightning and Moist Mother Earth, the lady of dark soil and dark winter. Those plants you saw in the garden were souls she was waiting to harvest, and this house is made from the bones and hair of the ones she has already taken. When she returns at sundown she will smell that you were here and find you. Why, oh why did you come into the house?’”

“Can you stand?”

Dasatan opened his eyes. He had no idea how long he had been lying on the ground: he remembered nothing more after falling than crawling away from the camp, looking for somewhere to sleep where he would be sheltered from the wind. Though his vision was still blurry he could see a woman reaching down to grab his wrists. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Try.” The woman was shorter than most ai Kamanai, with long, straight brown hair; like all the others she wore wool trousers and a sheepskin jacket, but hers looked as though it had swallowed her. She grunted with effort as she helped him up, and he could see just enough of her arms to see that it was mostly bone and gristle doing the pulling.

He stood cautiously, shocks still jumping through his arms and legs. “Who are you?” he asked; then, remembering his manners, “I am Dasatan, a trader for the ai Kavatai.”

“My name is Ayusha,” she said.

“You seem more hospitable than the rest of your family,” Dasatan said, looking around for the man he had spoken to earlier. As he tugged his tunic down for modesty he felt his loincloth was cold and damp, and he was embarrassed to realize he had wet himself.

“They are not my family,” she said. “Nor yours. That is why we have to leave.”

“All right,” he said. He spotted his sword lying among the wet leaf-litter, reached for it cautiously.

The hair on the back of his arms rose as his hand neared the hilt. “You might as well leave that,” Ayusha said. “This land is the Lord of Lightning’s, and he loves iron more than anything.”

Not answering, Dasatan reached out for the sword; a spark jumped from the pommel to his hand. He jumped back, waved his hand to shake the tingling out.

“Let’s go, then,” he said.

“Dasat sat and waited for Mokos to come and eat him, too cold and tired to do anything else. Before she came, though, a black shape came fluttering down the chimney; the little man in the red cap tried to snatch it, but it dodged out of his grasp and landed on Dasat’s shoulder. It was a bird, all black save for a single red feather on each wing.

“‘Who are you, little bird?’ Dasat asked, curious in spite of his despair.

“‘I am one of the Night Birds, who pull the moon across the sky,’ the bird said. ‘I am here to repay the kindness you paid to my brother. Listen carefully: there is no sense in trying to run or hide from Mokos, for she can smell out human flesh anywhere around the world.’

“‘Then I am doomed,’ Dasat said.

“‘Do not lose faith. When Mokos first comes home she will be an old crone, and very hungry, and will be keen to eat you. But for two bells each night, just before dawn, she is a beautiful maiden: if at that time you can get her to promise not to eat you, you will be safe until the next night. If you do this every night until spring comes you will be free to leave.’

“There was a wind at the shutters, and the bird fluttered its wings nervously. ‘I must be gone before she comes,’ it said, and fluttered back up the chimney.

“A great wind blew into the house, and with it came an old woman. She had hair like coarse rope, skin grey as a winter sky, and teeth sharp as knives; on each hand were five iron nails. This was Mokos.”

“If they’re not your family, why are you here?” Dasatan asked after the two had walked through the forest for half a bell or so. There was no path that he could see, but Ayusha seemed to know where she was going.

“They were supposed to be,” she said. “I was to marry one of the sons of the man you spoke to. But my own mother and father died last winter. Without family I had nothing to give.”

“So they just abandoned you?”

“No—they gave me this jacket, and let me follow them to their forage grounds, so long as I keep my camp out of sight.” She stopped, bowed slightly. “Here it is.”

Dasatan saw only a small clearing in the woods, made by the trunk of a fir tree that had fallen and been caught by the crook of another. Only after a moment did he see that there was a thin wall of sticks piled against the tree on the windward side, and a small fire pit in the dirt under its pulled roots. “This is your home?” he asked.

Ayusha said nothing.

“Well, thank you,” Dasatan said, “but I really just need to find my companions again. They’ll be making camp soon—”

“They are gone,” Ayusha said. “Svatyslan, the man you spoke to—he would have been my father-in-law—he went looking for them after you came, to warn them off his forage grounds. They are nowhere around.”

So they had just left him. No surprise, really: they owed him nothing, and he didn’t think his father would much mourn his loss. Dirtborn, roadbound, and now abandoned in the woods beyond the world; Yavan was laughing now, he supposed.

He reached down to his belt, patted the pouch with the true stones in it. At least losing him would cost the smug bastard something.

“Here,” she said, reaching down into a leaf-covered hole in the shade of the fallen tree. “You’ll need something to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”

Dasatan rubbed his head, fingertips still buzzing. He hadn’t thought about food since the snow started to fall; now that he did, he realized he was starving. “Yes,” he said. “Please.”

She stood, passed him a handful of dried black berries covered with a light fuzz. “They’re good, really,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, took one into his mouth and let it soften on his tongue. It was good, sweet and tart, but hardly made a dent in his newly discovered hunger. “Um—is there —”

“Anything else?” she said. “Here.” She reached back into the hole, drew out a small mushroom and handed it to him.

He looked the thing over. With its sickly white flesh and dirt-brown cap, it was much less appetizing than the berries had been. “Am I supposed to—eat this?”

“No,” she said; hungry though he was a wave of relief washed over him. “Go see if you can find some—it grows in clearings and on stumps. Don’t pick any with pink or red on them, though.”

Dasatan looked down at his hands. This whole episode had the quality of a dream, and he half-wondered if he was still lying on the ground by the tent. “I’m not sure I—”

“I’m hoping,” Ayusha said, “that you’re going to bring in more food than you eat; that you’re worth my letting you share my shelter and fire. If you want to convince me of that, you’d better get started.”

“The old woman wrinkled her nose as she looked around the cottage. ‘I smell human flesh,’ Mokos said. ‘Where are you, my little morsel?’

“Dasat was terrified at the sight of her, but he remembered his manners. ‘I am here, grandmother,’ he said. ‘I am sorry to have come into your cottage without asking, but I was very cold and wanted only to sit by your fire.’

“‘Well, that may be and it may not,’ Mokos said, ‘but I’m going to eat you either way. Now be a good boy and hop into the pot.’

“Dasat looked into the deep iron pot, merrily boiling away as the little man ran around it with his spoon. He had, as I said, a foolish mind and a wise heart; there was no way he could trick Mokos, so he thought how he might slow her down by kindness. ‘You wouldn’t want to put me in the pot, granny,’ he said. ‘I’d make terrible stock, with so little fat on me. I’d boil away to bones in no time.’

“Mokos looked him up and down. ‘So you would, sonny, and I must say it’s mighty fine of you to say so. It’s few of you that shows such concern for granny. So up onto the hook you go to hang, for if you’re not fit for stock then you must be game.’

“Dasat looked around at the hooks hanging from the ceiling, and all but one of them had a man hanging from it, drying like venison. ‘You wouldn’t want to hang me, granny, for I’ve been out in the snow all winter; I’d get mouldy before I aged properly.’

“Mokos sniffed him up and down. ‘So you would, sonny, and I thank you again. Since you’re so helpful, tell me how I should eat you if I’m not to boil or to age you?’

“Dasat made as though he were thinking about it. ‘You should wait to have me for breakfast, granny,’ he said. ‘For the only fat left on me is just a strip around my belly, and that’s good for bacon; the rest of me you can fry in the grease and cook in an egg-cake.’

“At that Mokos’s eyes lit up, and her long red tongue, with hairs on it like a cat’s, shot out and licked her lips. ‘That’s the thing to do, and no doubt about it,’ she said. ‘You’re a breath of fresh air, you are, and I thank you again. Oh, if I can only wait until breakfast!’”

“Skylord!” Blood welled up from Dasatan’s fingertip. He shook his hand and sucked at the thorn in his flesh, then swore again as the cloth full of berries fell to the ground. “Oh, sweet Sisters . . .” He knelt down, felt a dozen other brambles scratch him as he tried to retrieve the berries he had collected earlier. It was a given, he had learned, that the useless or poisonous plants were the most accessible, while anything worth eating was protected by an army of tiny swords. These ones, tiny strawberries, at least didn’t have thorns themselves, but were inevitably found in the middle of a patch of thistle. At least he could tell now which berries were edible; Ayusha’s rejection of all but two of the mushrooms he had gathered that first day had been as humiliating as anything in his life.

“What’s the matter?” her voice called from the other side of the thicket.

“Nothing,” he said, gathering the fallen berries as quickly as he could.

“Are you sure? You sounded hurt.”

“I’m fine.” He straightened up, gathered the corners of the cloth together and tied them securely. “You don’t need to—”

“What’s this?”

“I said I was fine,” Dasatan said.

Ayusha looked around at the dark, bare earth on his side of the bramble. “What happened to all the plants here?”

“I pulled them.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“To plant things. Berries, whatever.”

“The dark soil is sacred to the Lady,” Ayusha said in a tut-tutting voice. “We take what grows from it, but we don’t dig into it.”

“I know,” Dasatan said. “That’s why I’m covered with scratches from head to foot, from picking wild berries. That’s why we have to spend dawn to sunset rummaging for whatever food your former family hasn’t picked yet. There’s little enough life in this land in the spring—have you thought about what we’ll do when winter comes?”