The Wild Road (39 page)

He had consumed more than one mug of spirits. He recalled being served two, but beyond that he couldn't say. He recalled, also, that at one point he had tipped over his stool and landed on the hardpacked earthen floor. Men had laughed at him but also helped him up, righted his stool, and settled him upon it once more. Hands had clapped him on the back in companionship. And, in bitterness, he had told them his wife was gone, his children were gone, because of the Hecari.

That stopped their laughter.

He asked them why. Why had the warlord decided to conquer Sancorra.

No one answered. And no one looked at him anymore.

Davyn drank. But when he finished his drink the pub-master arrived at his table. This time he did not set down a fresh mug.

“Best you go,” he said.

Davyn looked up at him blearily. “What?”

It was said more forcefully. “Best you go. I won't have talk of the Hecari in here. A warrior might come through that door any moment; they do that sometimes. Or a man might see his way to coin rings by telling the warlord we were speaking of Hecari. Do you see? Too dangerous. Go home, farmsteader.”

“Home is gone,” Davyn told him. “Burned. Hecari did it.”

The pub-master bent down, shut a hand around Davyn's upper arm, and yanked him up from the stool. He swung Davyn toward the open door. “Go somewhere. Go out of here. I don't care where. But I won't have you in here.”

Davyn stumbled forward as the man pushed him toward the door. He nearly fell but regained his balance with effort. He realized then that he was weeping. With as much dignity and steadiness as he could muster, Davyn made his way out of the pub and into the lane.

It was nearing sunset. Clouds blocked much of the sky. People had begun to go in for the evening. Open windows were shuttered. The lane was nearly empty now. Davyn considered trying another pub, but he remembered that he was to ask for the Red Deer.

He wiped tears with the back of his hand. The cobbles were uneven. He nearly fell twice as he staggered onward toward Market Square. And when he reached it at last, he saw the huge
gher
squatting on its platform. The stands at each corner glowed with candlelight. Davyn, at the cusp between lane and Square, did what Jorda had told him never to do. He stared.

And more: he walked slowly toward the platform. It was difficult to maintain perfect balance, as much as it was difficult to maintain clear vision. But he tried to walk, and he tried to see.

He stopped at the bottom of the three steps leading up to the platform. Warriors encircled the round
gher
, were posted at platform corners. They watched him with fierce black eyes.

Two of them moved toward him.

Davyn said, “I just want to know why—”

He felt no pain as the knife cut through his throat. Blood gushed. Davyn fell to his knees. The last thing he saw in life was the Shoia courier at the top of the steps, frowning down at him. There was neither pity nor surprise in his eyes. Merely contempt.

RHUAN AND ILONA
rode his horse double and led hers to the top of the rise crowned with gray-green stones. The deepwood was just beyond, close enough to make her nervous.

Rhuan seemed to know what she was thinking. “It's not preparing to move,” he said. “I don't feel anything. And the draka's not here; it would be in the air already. Now, can you get down, or should I help you?”

“Just give me the stirrup and your arm.”

He did. Ilona, gripping the arm, slid down far enough to catch the stirrup with her left foot. As she swung her right leg over the horse's rump, she let herself down. Rhuan dismounted once she was clear.

Tumbled piles of massive boulders surrounded them. Cracks and crevices abounded, small cave-like openings where stones leaned one against another. Thin, sparse grass grew nearly knee-high. Both horses began to graze as Rhuan tied up the reins so a misplaced hoof would not lead to trouble.

Ilona stood still, closed eyes, and gave herself over to the heart of the place. Silence was absolute. No breath of wind. No insect noise. No birdsong. Even in sunlight, Ilona felt cold. She wished she had a wrap.

Rhuan stepped up beside her. Ilona opened her eyes. “Sadness,” she said. “Grief.”

He looked at her sharply. “Are you seeing that?”

She shook her head. “No. I just feel it.” She turned in a full circle, witness to unknown, unremembered deaths. “People died here, Rhuan.”

“The girl was dead before the draka brought her here,” he told her quietly. “Not so bad a thing, that.”

“No, not the girl. People. But a long time ago.” Ilona shivered. “The girl . . .” She closed her eyes and summoned the images she had seen in the mother's hand. She made herself see again details of the boulders, the shapes, the patterns of how they stood like a throw of oracle bones. Then she opened her eyes and began to pick her way slowly through the crown of stones.

It did not take her long to find what she sought. This stone, there. Another, here. And a crevice between them. Blood. Bone. Worse.

Ilona swung around to stare wildly at Rhuan. “Mother, oh Mother—” She pressed both hands against her mouth. Blood and bone, and offal. The carcass of what had been a young girl. The arch of rib cage, the crushed skull, all clad in torn flesh.

She stumbled two steps, took her hands from her mouth, fell to hands and knees and was violently ill.

“Ilona.” He was beside her, squatting. “Ah, ‘Lona, I'm sorry.” He placed a hand on her bent back, but did not attempt to prevent the heaving or to ease her position. He knew enough to let her do as she had to do without interference, even if well-meant. “I'm so sorry.”

For the girl? For her? For both? It didn't matter. It was enough that he was present and that he understood.

When Ilona was fairly certain she was done, she caught up a fold of her skirt and wiped her mouth and tears. She rose shakily, and Rhuan steadied her as he stood.

“We'll go to the horses,” he said. “I brought canvas for the task, and rope. You can wait there.”

For a moment she wasn't sure what he meant, and then she was. “I should be with you,” she told him. “With—her.”

“'Lona, I'll do it. Just wait with the horses.”

She shook her head and turned. Took the two steps. Looked again upon the remains.

The world turned black. But she didn't fall. She wasn't faint, she wasn't sick, she wasn't on the verge of collapse. She
saw
.

“Ilona?” She was aware of him, but blind to him. She felt him come up behind her. “Ilona!”

She blinked. The world once more came into view. She looked again at the remains and felt nothing. She was somehow empty of feelings and full of knowledge.

“Ilona—”

She turned and looked straight into his eyes. “I won't come back, this time.”

He was clearly baffled. “What?”

“I won't come back this time.”

He frowned down at her. “'Lona—”

Ilona said distinctly, so no mistake could be made, “I am going to die.”

BRODHI, ATOP THE
gher
platform, stared down at the body collapsed upon the steps. It lay face down, turned head resting on the middle step. Mouth and eyes were open. Blood flooded polished wood, ran in rivulets to the cobbles. But no more issued from the opened throat.

“Brodhi, Sweet Mother—” It was Jorda, running across the square.

Brodhi moved quickly. He leaped across the body, landed, ran five steps and planted his hands against Jorda's shoulders. He stopped him completely, then shoved him back several off-balance steps.

“No,” he said curtly. “Don't go, Jorda. Leave it be. Don't go near the body. They'll kill you.”

Jorda's expression was horrified. “I told him—I
did
tell him . . . ‘Don't stare,' I said. ‘Don't stare at them.'”

Brodhi took his hands from the karavan-master's shoulders. “He stinks of spirits.”

“Oh, Mother!” Jorda clasped the top of his head with both hands. “I thought he understood. I told him. I spoke plain. I thought he understood not to stare at them!”

“He probably did,” Brodhi said, “
when
you told him. But he was far gone in spirits. They addle a man's wits.”

Jorda scrubbed at his hair as if his scalp itched terribly. “I was moving the wagons to the inn . . . there.” He gestured briefly toward the wagons. “He was to meet me there after seeing the city. He was fascinated by the
gher
. I thought he might come here. But never this! Never this!” He appealed to Brodhi. “Why?”

“That,” Brodhi remarked, “is what the farmsteader said. ‘I just want to know why.' He died because he stared and because he dared to ask that question. He died because he was a fool.”

Jorda swung around. He walked two paces, still clasping his head, then spun again to face Brodhi. He let his arms drop to his sides. “Will they allow me to claim the body?”

“I'll tend to it.” It was not what Brodhi wished to say or do, but he saw no sense in letting Jorda die as well. “Leave one of the wagons for me. Take the other and go back to the inn.”

“Blessed Mother,” Jorda said, his voice cracking. “I
did
tell him.”

Brodhi did not understand why the karavan-master, who barely knew the farmsteader, was so upset. Humans, it appeared, grieved even for strangers.

“He did what you told him not to do,” Brodhi said sharply. “There's no blame for you in this.”

“He was my responsibility!”

“On the journey, yes. But not here. Not here.” Brodhi paused. “Go now. Pray to your Mother to see him safely across the river, as your people say. I'll find a shroud and wrap the body in it, put it in the wagon. Where is the inn?”

Jorda told him.

Brodhi said, “Go.”

He watched as Jorda turned away and began to walk toward the wagons. His steps now were more certain, steadier, and his posture spoke of duties recollected. He was a karavan-master. He had seen worse, faced worse, than what had happened here.

Brodhi turned. Two warriors flanked the farmsteader's body. He glanced at them very briefly, then looked at the cobbles where blood had run. “They have rites,” he said to the two, trusting that Hecari did as well. “I'll take him back to his people. The body should not be left to profane the warlord's
gher
.”

One of the warriors grunted. “Take. Send to its god.”

Brodhi was faintly amused. Trust a Hecari to never even consider that the deity was a woman.

The two warriors bent, took up the body by its arms, and flung it, head lolling, from the steps onto the cobbles.

Brodhi looked at what once had been a man. “Fool,” he told the body. “What will your woman say when she learns of this?” He shook his head very slightly, mouth compressed. Dead humans, he thought, always looked so empty.

Something fell lightly against his head. And again. Brodhi looked upward into a darkening sky. The Sancorran's Mother of Moons, be she Maiden, Mother, or Grandmother, was not present.

It had begun to rain.

Epilogue

D
EMON SMILED. SHE
sat outside the hut's low door and watched the girl toddle around on unsteady legs. No longer an infant, was she. Demon's memories, clouded as they were, suggested the girl would be accounted two years old, did she live in the human world.

But she did not. She lived in Alisanos, and its magic was in her.

The child's hair remained flaxen, and her eyes, blue. But the pupils within them had changed. No longer round, they were slitted, like a cat's. Like, too, a demon's.

Soft human flesh naked to the world.

The child stretched her arms toward low-hanging boughs and shrieked, mouth stretched wide in a joyous grin. A strip of delicate golden down ran the length of her spine.

She attempted to run toward the water that was, today, a streamlet. But she stumbled over exposed roots and fell hard onto her face.

Demon expected her to scream, to begin crying, and stood to fetch her from the ground and comfort her as was necessary.

But the girl neither cried nor screamed. She sat up, displaying a scrape on her chin, blood upon her mouth, and shouted in childish rage. Then she struck the root with the flat of one small hand.

The root shriveled. Flaked away into dust.

That pleased the child. She looked at Demon in utter delight, and laughed.

Demon laughed back.