Mindbond (30 page)

“Fathead,” I accused her, though in fact her head and all parts of her were anything but fat. She was rawboned and slab-sided, my Talu, her hide scarred by many battles, her fangs sharp and her temper sour. Ugly as the Fanged Horse tribesmen who had reared her. I slung the riding pelt and my empty food bags on her back, fastened the surcingle, and struggled onto her.

Eastward I rode, on a horse the color of dry dirt and thunder-cone grit, with a wolf by my side, down the mountain flanks toward the place where I judged Sakeema's cave might lie if the legends of my tribe spoke truth.

Heartbreaking, how beautiful it all was still. The very rocks, lovely with gaywings and doveflower twining down. Spring was at its wild, dewdrenched height, and the wrens and warblers should have been trilling as loud as waterfalls leaping with snowmelt. But I heard no song of any bird except the whimper of sorrowdoves and, once, the dark calling of a raven. All the way up the Blackstone Path from Seal Hold I had seen no creatures moving, I had ridden through silence except for the rush of cascades. No chirring of squirrels in the blue pines and firs, no whistle of marmot or squeal of pika from the rocks, no thrush's song. Not even so much as a wretched sparrow was to be heard any longer. Mahela had taken all the creatures into her maw.

I had learned to eat grubs from rotting logs, potherbs, sparrow grass, even the lichens off the rocks. I had eaten vipers as my fanged mare did, stealing them from her after she had killed them. Talu would munch nests of asps, not minding the stings. Perhaps it was the poison that made her temper so vile.… In the highmountain meadow there had been nothing to eat, not even snakes, for the horse and the wolf and me.

The nature of the land changed as I rode down the eastern slopes of the mountain called Shaman. No cataracts any longer, no spruce and blue pine. I rode through spearpine and towering yellow pine, saw the grass growing thick between the thin-branched, spice-dry trees. These were the reaches of the Red Hart Demesne. My people came here to hunt the deer. But I saw no herds fattening on the lush grass. I had seen no deer, not so much as a solitary stag, since the year before.

I left the trail and rode aside, casting about, searching for a certain cave, which I had never seen except in a vision, which no one had ever seen, the cave where legend said Sakeema lay. Looking for the cave, or for those who could show it to me. The folds and steeps of the mountain flanks went on and in and up, vast beyond thinking, so vast that generations of my people had not explored half their indeeps. Even I was not fool enough to think I could find the secret place by myself.

But once in Seal Hold I had dreamed of a white hind, and I had dreamed of her again on the journey since.

In the dream I had heard the howling of wolves and the lamenting of birds, all the creatures of Sakeema mourning because Sakeema was dead. And I had seen the cave, a tall crevice in some wild mountainside, the entry shaped like a narrow fir tree, aspiring upward, with a cataract pooling by the threshold. And I had seen Sakeema's body borne up the mountainside on the backs of stags. The deer were bringing his maimed body home from the hands of the torturers, home to his birthplace. Somewhere the kings who had killed him rejoiced, but every creature in the world hung its head in mourning.

Hinds stood in a trembling cluster before the cave. And when the bier approached them, they went to Sakeema, and their soft muzzles touched the body of Sakeema, and they turned human, naked but covered with soft fur like that of fawns. And they wept. Weeping, they carried the body within the cave and laid it there. Then the white hind, she who had suckled Sakeema as a baby, the white hind in her deer form stood over the dead god and wept through the day and the night. And with sunrise Sakeema lay healed, alive and whole. But all the deer's nuzzlings could not awaken him.

His face—I knew it well, we had met before, yet I could not remember it when I awoke.

Therefore I searched for the white hind or for the cave I had seen in the dream.

I found nothing, neither cave nor hind and least of all the god. Or food. Nightfall came, and I slept while the wolf watched over me and hunted by turns. Perhaps it found itself a toad or a lizard lurking in the dark. I hoped so. At sunrise I groaned and got up and mounted Talu. I had scarcely strength to struggle onto her. If it were not for the horse, I would have been able to go no farther. But once on her, I rode grimly. Until sunset I searched, riding in broad zigzags across the mountainside, and I rode on into the dusk, for it is at dawn and dusk that deer are mainly to be seen.

“Look,” I whispered suddenly, gladly, to the wolf trotting by my side.

It was a deer. Not the white hind, but a red deer, a mere yearling, scarcely more than a fawn, standing at the verge of a thicket and watching me with slender legs drawn under it, poised for flight. I stopped Talu and looked, for the sight of the young creature, stare of dark eyes, great quivering ears, smooth flanks and the creamy fur of neck and belly—the sight of it gave me a dim sense of hope, however witless. Hungrily I gazed—it was heart hunger. I had no thought of food for my belly, and though my bow hung close by my hand I made no move to use it. In that twilight moment I knew that I would gladly have eaten greens for my life's time just to keep one such beautiful creature alive.

For the span of a few precious breaths the deer stared at me as I sat Talu. Then a shadow came slipping over my head, out of the west, and even before I looked up I flinched and cowered, knowing what I would see.

Devourer!

No matter how often I saw the cold, foul brutes, I could never constrain that first panicky jolt of terror. Or—sheerest loathing as much as terror. Even at the distance and in the sweet, open air I seemed to smell the thing's reek, that most horrible of all odors to me, smell of—woman, of lovemaking, turned to slime and decay. Even at the distance I seemed to feel the monstrous breasts at my face.

Rippling wings of fish-gray flesh swooped overhead, huge, blocking out the day's dying light. The single eye peered whitely just above the headless thing's hard dugs. I saw the—clam, the cleft, swollen like that of a bitch in heat, just beneath the monster's thrashing tail, and in the midst of that vast bulk, the maw, ringed with spearpoint teeth, wide open to take in whatever the mindless thing's cold mistress had commanded.

Alar sprang out of the scabbard to meet my hand, her pommel stone blazing, for she liked the minions of Mahela no better than I did.

Scudding over me, the devourer bellied down on the deer.

I shouted and sent Talu leaping forward, lifting my sword, more enraged than if the monster had attacked me. I should have known its errand was not to me. It would attempt me in the dark of night, sometime when I had moved in my sleep and my hand lay far from my sword. The mindless thing, it yet had cleverness enough to fear my sword. And by Alar's soul, she and I would not let it take a yearling deer!

But all was over even as I shouted. The deer had only time to bleat once and take a single leap before it was gone.

Gone, as if it had never been. Taken into that great maw, taken away for Mahela, another captive for her undersea court of death, the chill place she called Tincherel. She liked lovely things, Mahela, such as this deer, and the soft-eyed creature seemed to have no will to resist the monster for even a few moments. The devourer lifted upward and flew away westward, swimming in air, its flattened snake of a tail flailing like an eel. Swimming heavily but well out of my reach, it bore its prize away, and in my hand Alar shook, her pommel stone flaring the color of lightning, as angry as I.

“Slime of Mahela!” I swore to any listener. Then a trembling took hold of me that would not stop, a weakness that lay on me heavy as a devourer, my own hunger devouring me, I could not center myself, I could scarcely put away my sword. My head spun, and I slid off Talu, thumped to the hard ground and lay there, not much aware of anything.

Chapter Two

Some time later I awoke to find myself blinking into firelight, with a pungent taste in my mouth and my head resting in the naked lap of a full-breasted deer maiden, pillowed on the springy hair of her merkin.

Oddly—for I had never been a slowcome with women, no matter how weak and wounded I might be—I felt no lust for her, not even gazing up at the sway of her russet nipples as she moved her arm to bring the liquor to my mouth again. It was some sort of hard berry wine, very bitter, and I coughed on it and sat up in protest. My eyes met many smiles. There were other deer maidens bending or sitting all around me, their large eyes glowing warmly in the firelight, their glossy fawn-furred bodies close to me, red-brown hair cascading down to their backs and shoulders but failing to hide their full, round breasts. And still I felt no desire for them, though the last time I had encountered them I had gone so moon-mad with aching for them that Kor had feared I would sprout antlers.

It was because I was so weak with hunger, I decided, and filled with despair—no. Suddenly I knew what was keeping my cock so unwontedly quiet. Tass. My love for Tass. I had consummated it with her, and now I was hers utterly, forever. The knowledge gave me a pang of yearning and unease. Long ago Kor had told me that he was in thrall, that he wanted no woman but Tass, then or ever, and I had not understood or believed. If he felt that way still, which I judged he did, how had he forgiven me?

I looked at the naked, lissome damsels smiling all around me, answering their smiles only with my own, glad of their friendship, quelling my aching thoughts of Tass, of Kor. At least, I told myself, there was no danger any longer that I might become like Birc—

And there he was, striding up to kneel beside me, shyly smiling as of old to greet me, the shaggy hair of his forehead stirring and parting to reveal knobs and spikes in velvet.

The wolf trotted into the circle of firelight at the same moment, making the deer maidens jump up with bleats of fright, then turn into hinds within a heartbeat as they fled. Birc stiffened and quivered but did not change form or flee. He was courageous, Birc, as he had been since the first day I had known him, one of Kor's guardsmen at Seal Hold. He watched the wolf narrowly as it lay down beyond the fire, then let go of fear and sat beside me, offering me a seedcake such as the deer people are accustomed to eat.

I gave him a one-armed embrace as I accepted it. The seedcake was an awful thing, as I knew quite well, made of millet coarsely ground and nearly as bitter as the liquor. Nevertheless, I ate it within the moment. Birc gave me another, snatching it from the hot stones near the fire, and when I had finished it he offered me a third.

“No, thank you,” I said. “My gut is aching.” Two of those things would be enough to either strengthen me or kill me.

Birc extended a hand toward me in silent inquiry. He could not speak, of course, any more than a sylkie could, and I had to guess what he wanted. He was wondering why I was not with his former king, probably.

“I had to leave,” I explained. “I must find Sakeema.”

Birc's brows arched high.

“I must find Sakeema!” I repeated more fiercely, “or the whole world seems likely to slide down to ruin. But Istas has died, and Kor had to stay at Seal Hold.… Birc, you know I could not have left him for anything less.”

He was still looking at me, quizzical. I tried again.

“Kor was well enough when I left him. As long as there are mussels on the rocks and fish in the sea, he and the Seal Kindred will not starve. But I know he will soon be hard beset.” I felt my shoulders sag. “The Fanged Horse Folk are in ugly humor, and they threaten. So does the Otter River Clan. If only I can find the god quickly and go back to him.…”

Something moved white in the night. The fair white hind, Birc's mate, walked up to him on dainty cloven hooves, nuzzled his ear, and changed with the touch into her human form, the fine fur of her body creamy pale, her glorious mane of hair the color of a red deer in sunset. She gazed at me with herb-purple eyes. I had once been afraid of her, for men turned mute and grew antlers for love of her. But whether from desperation or folly, I feared her no longer.

“Can you help me find Sakeema?” I asked her, the first time I had spoken directly to her. “Can you guide me to his cave?”

She and Birc looked at each other, then tried to tell me with gestures something that I could not understand. They were anxious, they made small bleating noises such as deer do. I asked again to be taken to the cave, and again they looked at each other, conferring, and this time they nodded me a grave-faced agreement.

With the dawn they set out to take me there—the wolf was nowhere to be seen, for it was a courteous creature and knew that these strange deer-humans could not abide it, nor were they to be hunted. And they were all in deer form, my friend and his eerie bride and all their retinue. Birc made a magnificent hart, his dark eyes flashing, kingly even though his antlers were only in their first springtime growth. The white hind and her maidens leaped and darted, all aquiver, taking every step airily, and Talu plodded sourly along the ways they led us. It was a hard, two days' journey over rough, craggy mountainside, and my winsome mount took every step of it with her ears flattened back in ill humor. Perhaps the beauty of the deer annoyed her.

The pathless way led southward and westward, into a fold of some nameless mountain's flank, a fold that led on and inward, bend upon bend and crag after crag, until I was well out of any demesne I had ever explored, in unknown land somewhere near the headwaters of the Otter River. The second day we climbed a dry gorge so steep and rough that I had to leave Talu and go afoot, though the deer folk leaped up nimbly enough. And I was glad that I had been eating their foul seedcakes all the way, for I would never have found strength to manage it otherwise. Sometimes when the sunset had turned sky and snowpeaks blood red, when I was streaming sweat despite the chill air crawling down from the icefields, I looked up and saw what made me forget any weariness, any hunger except the hunger for Sakeema.