Moving Water (20 page)

 “I can't explain now, but we all have to leave. Callissa, you can ride? Sivar'll give you a horse. Yes, Rema, you and Zepha too. You can double up behind Krem and Zyr. Zam, you go with your father. Zem—will you come with me?” Zem's ardent whisper, “ 'Course!” and he was propelling Callissa gently but irresistibly down the path.

Off at last, through still-empty streets, my lungs aching with suspense. he said,

At the corner, feeling a zany, I told myself,
This one.

Something like the Lady's command closed on my mind. I found I had reined in, heard the others copy me.

he observed. Then came the just audible, endless, feathery whistle of an indrawn breath.

Heartbeats ticked by. A horse shifted, tossed its bit. Zam was pushed, a small scared puppy, against my heart. The night rang with that seashell murmur of quiet deep enough to hear the blood in your own ears. Beryx breathed out, on and on.

Fuddled, I reached for a rein. Hooves clopped into motion, loud as a charge. We rounded the corner, here was the empty breadth of the gate square, glow of the guardroom brazier, two surcoated figures, colorless in the moonlight, leaning negligently on the leaves of the open gate.

Evis gasped. I snarled voicelessly, “Shut up!” I could fairly hear the horror of the rest.

Our horses paced forward. One sentinel was propped with folded arms, one grasped a grounded spear. Their breasts moved, their eyes, black hollows in the pallid moonlight, gazed at us. Through us. My mind reeled. I thought, We are invisible. The Arts.

Horse noise unrolled under the arch. We were on the harbor road. Oblivious, unaware, behind us Zyphryr Coryan slept. An eygnor was in song, deluded by the moon. The road dipped. Beside me Beryx released another superhuman breath and leant forward on the withers of his horse. “Keep,” he said faintly, “going.”

In a minute or two his breathing eased.

Beyond Rastyr he swung us north, but not onto the great highway of Stirian Ven. Instead we took to the forest, committing ourselves to that hidden voice which chuckled, “I probably know Assharral better than any of you. Do you think I slept down there?”

Single file, eyes strained for a bob of the blur ahead that would signal a low bough, we serpentined through forest depths that should have been in uproar with the thump of startled lydwyr, lydyrs' fff! and rattle in the undergrowth, birds roused to squawk and clatter broken leaves. None of it happened. As at the gates of Zyphryr Coryan we seemed invisible, a dream traversing a dream.

The moon died. Selionur, whitest of stars, blazed down on us as he raced in his brief winter course at the Hunter's heel. The dew settled, the enchantment of all night journeys lapped us round. Valinhynga topped the horizon, a glittering aerial Well, the sky shallowed, the air assumed that piercing purity which heralds dawn; before a thick shadow copse Beryx said, “We'd best breathe the horses and sort ourselves out.”

* * * * *

After the dismount's confusion settled I found Callissa pressed to my left side. I put an arm about her and recoiled from a furry third breast, only to realize it was the cat. Zem's arm circled my right leg, Evis cleared his throat beyond, Sivar wheezed at my back. Further on, Rema was muttering the prelude to one of her formidable complaints.

Before me an invisible Beryx said mischievously, “This is what the military manuals call a strategic withdrawal. In other words, get the devil out of it while you can.” Fatigue lay close under the levity. “And if anyone still doesn't know, the devil is a lady this time.”

Evis spoke up with the apologetic firmness which meant he would not be denied. “Sir, I can understand you might need to make a—a strategic withdrawal. But what am I doing here?”

“You're here for the same reason as the rest. Because you mean something to Alkir or me, and I've just played a trick the Lady will repay in blood, or worse. I'm glad you brought that cat, ma'am. I wouldn't like to think of an animal flayed or roasted alive just because it belonged to the family of a man who gave me help.”

There was a chorus of gasps.

“Oh, yes. Have you never heard of reprisals? If any of you had stayed in Zyphryr Coryan, you would have died. Tomorrow, or the next day—or the one after, if you were really unfortunate.” This time nobody gasped. “Now I'm out of reach, she'd mangle anyone even vaguely connected with me.” His voice grew somber. “She probably will.”

Sivar said in a tight, strange tone, “Sir, these fellers are all outlanders. But my family's back there.”

After a moment Beryx asked, “Fisherman, is he? Your brother? Would that boat make Eakring Ithyrx?”

“Probably, sir, but—that's overseas! Foreigners!”

“That's the only chance. Just be quiet.”

Silence marched on his heavy, protracted breaths. They eased. Sounding tireder, he said, “I've woken them. They don't understand, but they'll sail on the morning tide.”

Sivar mumbled combined protest and thanks. Amver ventured, “Sir, once we helped with the fever, we reckoned we'd all have to run if it came to the worst, but—just what happened, sir?”

A horse behind us uprooted a tussock, mouthed and jingled its bit. I heard the muffled clank as Beryx leant back on a tree.

“The Lady and I,” he began, “are having a private war, over what she's doing to herself and to Assharral. To me it's evil, and I'm fighting to have it stopped. Unluckily,” it came with wry amusement, “there are many weapons I won't use. I won't lie, I won't withhold truth, I won't break faith or let others suffer for me or kill innocent men for my own ends. So I keep getting thrashed because she will. The Mistress of the Wardrobe told Alkir and me some of the Lady's private affairs. She was so furious it wasn't enough to behead Klyra. She brought Alkir down to me, and she would have made him put his hand in the fire.”

I heard men's grunts, Rema's guttural squawk.

“I tried to stop her in a wizard fight, and lost. So I said, I'll burn mine instead. I don't like torture better than anyone else, but it hurts me worse when someone suffers in my place. Call it crazy if you like.” That mischief teased me. “It's part of—my beliefs. If I deny it, I've lost the war. That paid for Klyra, but she'd seen a flaw in my guard. Yesterday we upset her again, and I was worried, so I did some scouting, aedric style. Read her thoughts. It's just an art.” His voice grew bleak. “She had plans, sure enough. This morning, she meant to torture Alkir's wife and sons in front of me. And now she knows I'd rather suffer than let others do it, there would have been no substitutes.”

Callissa gave a throttled sob. Zem's arm about my leg became a tentacle. Evis began thickly, “Love of—” and snapped it off.

“So I had to run,” Beryx went on tiredly, “and take you with me. It was what we call a Must.”

Dawn whitened behind the trees to reveal they were vyxians, scaly umber monsters lancing up sheer to a cloud of foliage. So that, I thought, as cold horror squeezed my heart, is a Must.

Beryx was staring south, with a haunted, wretched look. In disbelief close to exasperation I thought, He didn't want to go!

A honey-eater gurgled in the scrub. A saeveryr responded, chickle, churr. Callissa's small, high, hostile voice asked the question that was paramount to us.

“Where are you going?”

His face set. The crisis had arrived.

“Phaxia,” he said. “Nowhere else is far enough.”

He let them shout themselves out. Then he said, “Yes, it's four hundred miles, yes, we have to cross the Stirsselian swamps, yes, we'll be slow as a baggage train, yes, you're technically at war with Phaxia. Yes, we're not prepared for a journey, yes, it's a huge wrench to step out of an entire life. I know. I've done it before. Is there any choice?”

Slowly, among the guards, I saw grim acceptance creep over each face. Evis still looked balky. Rema's bottom lip stuck out like a shelf, Zepha was in tears, Callissa holding her fire. Beryx looked wretched too.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “It's a cruel sort of joke. If you were evil, you wouldn't have helped me, if I were evil, I wouldn't care. But you did. And I do. Some of you weren't even directly involved. It isn't just.” Pain stirred in his look. “Life isn't just. I suppose that's why we aim for justice above all, and never fully accomplish it.”

“To the pits with your philosophy!” Callissa's control snapped. “You've wrecked my husband's career, you've outlawed us all, you've hauled us out here without a fendel or a loaf or a spare stitch between us, you want us to die as foreign beggars in Phaxia, and all you can do is talk philosophy! Well, I won't! I want my house back! I want to be safe! I want my life—like it
was!
” And she burst into tears.

Rema's grievance burst too, Zepha howled in sympathy, the men shifted and looked everywhere but at us. All except Beryx. He watched her weep, as if this were one more penalty he had no right to evade.

When her sobs eased at last, he said tiredly, “There's no answer that will satisfy you, ma'am. The best I can say is—if you go to Phaxia, you may come back. If you stay here, it's certain death.”

Evis had made his choice. Looking stark and resolute he squared his shoulders, said, without looking, “Sir, permission to carry on,” and went past me to Beryx. “Well then, sir. Do you have any plan? Route? Tactics? Provisions? Those fetters will have to go. And our surcoats. Have you considered disguise?”

“The Lady sees through it.” Beryx was regretful. “And every Assharran will be her hands. Haven't you ever caught a ‘rebel'? How did you know he was? She told you, of course.”

Evis deflated. Beryx grinned. “Cheer up, there's one thing in our favor. Me.”

Evis did not look reassured. Beryx said, “We'll keep the surcoats a while.” He gestured north. “The highway's just over that knoll. A post-house. You and Sivar could liberate some shoeing tools. Throw your badge around, spin a tale. Valuable beast, has to be re-shod on the spot. . . . A sledge and chisel would do.”

They did. With a good deal of trouble the manacles were chewed through on a convenient stump, the left one with blows that must have jarred his burnt hand to the bone. But though white and sweating, he rose with a spring. Shook his arm, sighed, “Math! That's good.” Scanned the horses with a cavalryman's eye, and turned to consider Rema, planted broad, bulging and balky on a fallen log, Zepha drooping in her arm. A twinkle dawned.

“We need speed. And if we're not built to make it on horseback. . . .”

Rema said flatly, “I'm not going. You can turn me inside out with your magic, I'll not budge.” She patted Zepha. “Nor will she. The poor child, walking out she is, they'd be wed next new moon. . . .”

The eddy in Beryx's eyes was the image of the weighing, planning mind. Then he said, “Yes.”

As Rema's jaw dropped he said, “I'll give you a Ruanbraxe. A mind-shield. It may not block the Well, but you can stay in Assharral. Not in Zyphryr Coryan, do you understand? You must go under cover. A new name, a new past, a new place. If you contact anyone you know, it will kill you both.” He forestalled her despair. “It won't be forever, Rema.” A pledge, for a dawn he could only hope to see. “I can't explain, but . . . it's the best I can do.”

Then he sat on his heels between them, eyes on the ground as he drew those huge straining breaths, until the sweat patched his surcoat and his muscles shuddered as they did in the throes of the other arts.

Rema too was horrified. When he relaxed, whispering, “There,” she burst out, hostility forgotten, “Eh, sir, you've near killed yourself! If I'd known—I didn't mean to—”

“I'm used to it.” He rose, forcing a smile. “Off you go. I'm sorry to bring you so far out of your way.”

After the farewells he watched them leave with anxiety, concern, veritable tenderness, and the insight burst on me like a signal flare: there is the definition. Apologizing to a cook because you cared enough to save her life and it took her out of her way, still worried when she leaves the shelter of your care. That is the reality. Math.

* * * * *

We remounted with Callissa mutely recalcitrant and Zem now on my saddle-bow. From the knoll Stirian Ven showed beneath us, its walkers' and horsemen's lane set between the double-paven carriageways, dotted with traffic, shivery with mirage pools, leaping into the blue northern hazes like the image of unswerving thought.

“She'll expect me to make for Hethria,” Beryx said. “We need speed. Traffic's light. Come on. I can use Fengthir to handle that.”

Before the noon change of horses I had held his rein a score of times while his eyes went blank and he put forth the fearful effort needed to send carts, carriages, wagons, traveling herds, groups and solitary pedestrians or riders past as if we did not exist. If we trusted the magic by then, we still found it eerie. And none of us was reconciled to its cost.