Karavans (15 page)

Rhuan took from the string of remounts his favorite gelding, spotted black on white, but availed himself of neither saddle nor bridle. The halter was enough. He untied the rope and swung it across the horse’s neck, reached under and caught it, then knotted the free end to
the rope loop beneath the gelding’s jaw. He led him some distance from the rest of the string, then grabbed a handful of ivory mane and swung up, settling down across the spotted back.

The horse was full of snort and opinion; Janqeril’s horseboys had learned not to exercise the spotted horse. Rhuan preferred to do it himself, despite the resultant displays. And one such lurked now: the spine beneath him arched, the tail whipped, the head rose up into the air, then bent at the poll with an air of annoyed impatience, ears spearing the air. Rhuan spoke to the gelding softly in a language only a very few would recognize, smoothed an eloquent hand down the long angle of shoulder, then tapped him lightly with his heels.

The journey was short. Rhuan rode only as far as a grassy bluff overlooking the river. The escarpment was neither sharp nor steep, nor was the descending angle or footing particularly dangerous, but riding down could be unpleasant if the horse missed a step in the abbreviated light offered by the moon. So he slipped off the gelding, left the loop in the rope rein across the spotted neck so the horse would not put a hoof through it while grazing on summer grass, and walked to the edge.

Below, water shone silver-black. It lazed through the shallows like a sleepy hound. Tomorrow Jorda would lead the karavan down the rutted trail to its bank, where the accomodating earth rolled out smoothly to water’s edge, and all would fill their water barrels. After that, Jorda would take his people onto the road, and Rhuan and Darmuth would ride ahead to see what there was to see.

To make certain all was well with the world.

Rhuan shivered, flesh going taut on his bones. Inside, something—shifted. He felt a twinge within his viscera. A feathering along his bones. All was distinctly not well with
his
world.

He closed his eyes, hoping the sensations would pass; knowing they would not. Two days before he had awakened just before dawn, aching in every joint, be touched. The worst passed
within several hours, but he remained aware of a subtle pressure. A presence.

Alisanos
.

After forty human years: Alisanos. Again.

He should have known the primaries would interfere. Such promises as theirs were never to be trusted.

Flesh stood up on his bones. A shudder wracked him. Rhuan’s eyes snapped open; the world around him was a hazy pale red and out of focus. He gazed up at the moon, seeing the doubled stars as her acolytes burning against blackness. The moon’s cycle went on no matter what he did, or what was done to him. Grandmother Moon: near to disappearing. Then no moon at all, called the Orphan Sky. Followed by Maiden Moon, tentative, growing to fertility; and Mother Moon, gravid, whelping the nights to come. And then the drift into old age again, the wisdom of the Grandmother shaping the night sky.

It was a pity, he reflected, that he could find no comfort in the cycle that ordered the lives of humans. That he was governed by something else entirely.

Beneath itching flesh, muscles spasmed. The feathery touch became demanding, wreathing itself, serpentlike, around his bones. Muscles knotted. He tried to wait it out with clenched hands and gritted teeth, but the pressure increased. Unimpressed by his petty strength, it pressed down like a hand from the heavens, unstinting with its power. That power dropped him awkwardly to his knees, body bent forward, arms braced, splayed hands flattened against the soil, breath hissing in his teeth.

A quiet voice from behind said, “It’s getting worse.” Darmuth. Of course.

“You know what’s coming.”

Rhuan nodded. Once.

“You could leave. Distance yourself.”

It took effort to speak, and more yet to speak clearly. “I won’t run from it.”

“If you stay here, it might take you.”

The blurt of Rhuan’s laughter was cut off by a sharply
indrawn breath of pain. “And is it that you want me to run from it? Or
to
it?”

Darmuth’s tone was dry. “I can’t ask you to do either. It was merely an observation.”

Observation. What Darmuth was best at.

Rhuan felt sweat on his brow, bathing his upper lip, prickling beneath his armpits. The air was cool on the moisture, stippling rousing flesh. From aching hands and knees he moved into a seated position facing the river, legs crossed, spine to Darmuth, and sat improbably straight. A practiced toss of his head swept back the heavy plait of braids that had fallen forward so that it dangled down his spine. He wanted no impediments, no distractions, as he assimilated the discomfort.

Rhuan drew in a long breath. “I accepted the journey the primaries set before me. I accepted all potential tests and challenges, even ignorant of which are created by the primaries and which are merely happenstance. This too may be a test.”

“But the primaries are fair, Rhuan. You may change your mind. You may repudiate your vow. They left you those options.”

“And if I do so, I am trapped forever in a world the primaries rule, bound by their laws, made to play their games.” Rhuan shook his head. “Here there are no games. Here you are born, you make your way in the world, and you die. No more.”

Darmuth smiled. “Few would call it ‘trapped,’ to live with the primaries.”

“It isn’t freedom, Darmuth. Not as I desire it.”

“Ah, but there are many who would say the freedom you desire is tantamount to a death sentence…for the soul, if not the body, for one such as you.”

Rhuan smiled slightly, staring across the red-tinged darkness. “My soul is more alive among humans than it was before I came here.”

“If you surmount all challenges and obtain what you desire, you’ll disappoint the primaries, Rhuan. You are the first child Alario has sired in three hundred human years.”

Rhuan laughed. “I would disappoint some of the primaries, but not all of them. Many of them would be pleased to see Alario’s child fail. It would weaken Alario’s standing among them.”

Darmuth asked, “Do you suppose it is as difficult for Brodhi?”

Rhuan at last was able to turn his head. Vision was returning to normal. Over one shoulder he observed Darmuth, who sat a horse made of air and shadow, taking substance from Grandmother Moon. Darmuth could do that.

“Brodhi,” Rhuan managed, “suffers daily. But it has nothing to do with—this.”

“Ah. You refer to his bigotry about humans. Yes, I agree; life would be much less difficult if he rid himself of that bias.” The laughter was soft. “Perhaps be more like you?”

Rhuan heaved himself to his feet, catching his balance before he staggered. The worst had passed, though the weakness afterward was never pleasant. He needed rest. He needed ritual and release so that rest was possible.

He turned to face the man on horseback. Grandmother Moon found little purchase on Darmuth’s features, so that his expression was shadowed. “Oh, no doubt
that
would be Brodhi’s choice. To be more like me.” Rhuan moistened dry lips so his forced grin wouldn’t crack them. “I think Brodhi prefers even humans to me.”

“Ferize is coming tonight,” Darmuth announced, changing the subject, as was his wont, without preamble. Then he paused, stilled, as if listening, as if scenting the air. “In fact, she’s already here.”

“Well.” Rhuan tested himself inwardly, prodding for lurking pain, but it had dissipated. In its place he felt the expected nausea, the knotting of muscles at the back of his neck. He shook his head and walked to the spotted horse. Weariness descended, washed over him. He needed privacy before Jorda found him and set him to a task. “I’m sure they’re aware of it, too, Darmuth. It draws nearer every day.”

“I notice Brodhi came here anyway.”

Rhuan scrubbed the back of his hand across his drying brow, then massaged the rigid muscle on either side of his neck with strong fingers. “He accepted the journey and the tests even as I did. I am a guide. He is a courier. We serve for five human years. Only one year remains. You know perfectly well that if either of us forsakes that final year for any reason—”

Darmuth broke in. “Yes, but if Alisanos goes active, everything changes. Perhaps even vows and journeys.”

Rhuan slid gentle hands along his mount’s jaw, lowering his face to share a lengthy exchange of breath, nose to nose. To draw in the warm, comforting scent of equine flesh. “I will go on as I am, Darmuth. I have a duty to the humans. And I made a vow unconnected to the one made before the primaries, but which, to me, carries as much weight.” He moved, caught doubled handfuls of mane, swung himself up. “To Jorda.”

Darmuth’s laughter was unfettered. “He’s human! And merely a karavan-master.”

“Now you sound like Brodhi.” He settled his weight more comfortably across the spotted back, gathering the rope rein. Even to Darmuth, he could not explain all his reasons for needing to remain. Indeed, as suggested, he could ride away now, leaving behind the karavan, the humans, and the pain that would come more often if he remained so close to an active Alisanos, pain that would increase as they neared the borderlands, but he would forsake far more than duty to the humans and a vow to the gods were he to depart.

He would also forsake his only approximation of humanity.

“So,” Rhuan said, “run along, little demon. You may now report to the primaries and tell them what I have said in answer to this latest test.”

“Oh, this wasn’t a test,” Darmuth said lightly. “This was merely me reaquainting you with your options.”

“You may tell them also that I find such inquisitions by proxy wholly transparent.” Rhuan, reining his mount around, sank his heels into spotted sides and set the
horse to a run, leaving Darmuth and his moon-made mount behind.

Not that it mattered. Darmuth would be waiting for him when he got back to the karavan anyway, having dispensed with imaginary horses and relied strictly on himself.

Unfair, Rhuan thought, who could do no such thing. But not unexpected. Rudeness was but one of the annoying things he had discovered in riding with an Alisani demon.

A
UDRUN, TOLD BY DAVYN to go ahead to Jorda’s diviner while he and Gillan hitched the oxen and moved the wagon, found the woman waiting at her tall, yellow-wheeled wagon. She sat casually in the open doorway of her wagon, brass-tipped boot toes peeping out from layers of colorful split skirts, chin propped in one hand. Her dark hair was a mass of long ringlets tamed only slightly by ornamented hair sticks anchoring coils against the back of her head. She wore a sleeveless knee-length overtunic belted with fawn-hued leather wrapped low on her hips. Brass studs had been hammered into the belt in myriad tangled designs, and a handful of feather-and-carved-wood charms hung from it. She was a slender, striking woman, with hazel eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose, and a wide, expressive mouth.

She rose as Audrun approached, welcoming her with a warm smile and gesturing for her to mount the steps into the tall, big-wheeled wagon. Dyed canvas sidewalls had been dropped down for privacy, and as Audrun followed the diviner into the wagon, the woman shut the door.

As with the exterior, the interior of the wagon was a panoply of colors. Even the shallow drawers built into the underside of the diviner’s narrow bed were painted and adorned with brass pull knobs. A pierced-tin lantern hung
from the central curved Mother Rib, and in the ocherous light Audrun saw the glint of gilt scrollwork winding around the waxed wood, the dull glow of dangling brass charm-strings. Pots, pans, mugs, and ladles hung from lesser ribs.

“Please.” The diviner gestured for Audrun to seat herself on the narrow bed. Here too were myriad colors in the rich, deep dyes used on the coverlet. The fabric’s woven nap was a mix of smooth and nubby. “It’s informal this way, but you don’t strike me as a woman in need of excess ritual.”

Audrun essayed a crooked smile. “Tonight, perhaps, less even than usual. The day’s events have been, well, unusual.” Lower back aching, Audrun sat down upon the bed and neatened skirts that, she realized in dismay, were coated with the dust and grit of travel. She had washed her hands before preparing dinner, but now, faced with the tidiness of the diviner’s wagon and clothing, not to mention the delicate texture of her warm-toned olive skin and the clarity in hazel eyes, Audrun felt the rest of her could have done with washing as well.

And a change of clothing to boot, she reflected glumly, with or without excess ritual.

The diviner sat down next to Audrun, smiling in a way that struck her as sincere, not donned for business. “My name is Ilona. My gift is to read hands, to determine whether what lies ahead for those who wish to join the karavan is auspicious. It’s harsh, I do know, to realize that a journey may be ended before it begins merely because of what I see in your hand.” Her expression became more serious, “but Jorda is responsible for the lives of all the people in this karavan. He would be negligent were he to accept individuals who could mean danger for everyone else.”

Audrun studied the woman’s expression and black-lashed eyes, seeking anything akin to guile. She found none. “My name is Audrun. We are a man, his wife, four children, and—” Her hand covered her belly, “—another yet to be born. We do not intend to travel all the way with this karavan, but to
turn off and take another route to Atalanda.” Desperation edged her tone; were they to be turned away after all? “Forgive my plain speech, but what danger could we cause?”

The diviner did not curb her words into a gentler truth. “Possibly the death of everyone in this karavan.”

It shocked Audrun into a sharp disbelief that made her blunter yet, with skepticism undisguised. “Merely by coming with you?”

“Yes.”

Audrun considered it. Though raised to respect and honor what diviners said in the practice of their art, she was not certain she believed this woman—or perhaps it was simply that she didn’t wish to believe her. She had fought a war already this day and won, gaining permission for badly-needed passage from the karavan-master himself, only to have his hired guide suggest another skirmish lay ahead; and now the hired
diviner
suggested by words and expression that yet a third battle faced her. Audrun was tired and short of patience.