Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (36 page)

ILONA ORIGINALLY PLANNED to set up her low, lacquered table outside along with the seating cushions for the farmsteader’s visit, as she usually did for hand-readings. But as she rose to do so, she realized that would require more strength than she had. Instead, she spread a blanket on the ground at the
foot of the wagon steps, sat down on the bottom step, and, when the farmsteader arrived, asked him to sit on the blanket. He evinced mild surprise, but only because when she’d read his hand before, the arrangements had been different. He sat down without hesitation and offered his hand, palm-up.

Before she touched it, she looked into his face. He was weary, tense, grimy, and needed a shave, but what lived in his eyes was desperation and despair, not anger, not hatred. He truly believed Rhuan had sent his family into Alisanos, but the root of that belief was fear, and misplaced logic.

Ilona addressed that. “I must tell you: I read true.”

The blond man blinked, puzzled. “I know that, else I wouldn’t be here.”

“And if what I see disproves your conviction that Rhuan acted with the intention of sending your folk into the deepwood?”

A muscle leaped briefly in his jaw. “You’re a diviner,” he said. “You’ve been touched by the Mother, to have such a gift. I put my faith in you. Tell me what you see, good or ill.”

“Very well.” Ilona placed her right hand beneath his, cradling it. Her left she rested lightly atop his palm. There were several methods for reading hands, but actual contact was the most effective. It also relayed high emotions, occasionally too high, so that it was difficult for the hand-reader to disengage. But Ilona felt this particular reading called for contact because the farmsteader’s emotions and thoughts were in upheaval,
and she herself was anxious because self-doubt had seeded itself in her soul.

There was blockage, familiar and frightening blockage, as she sank her awareness into his. At first she recoiled in dismay, but then the blockage abruptly bled away. It opened many doors before her, allowing her entrance. She went through, then down and down, deeper and deeper.

Images began to form. None of them were clear enough to read, merely sparks here and there, flashing like fireflies. She felt the grief, the worry, the fear, the determination that he must and would find his family, as well as the acknowledgment that it was possible he could not. That was the terrifying conflict in his soul, the besetting fear that his life was forever altered, forever to be blighted.

The jittery images steadied, slowed. She found them one by one, began to sew them together in her mind, assembling the squares of a quilt, the fabric of his future. She evaluated, then stitched, or discarded. Took up another square of cloth, examined it, set it beneath the silver needle in her hand. And when all the squares were found, discarded, or sewn, the quilt at last was whole.

Ilona opened her eyes. She saw that the farmsteader, too, had closed his. She pressed his hand briefly, then withdrew hers. It jarred him back into the world. He closed the hand and held it against his chest as if what it contained was the rarest jewel.

What she had seen made no sense to her. Part of her
wished to doubt. But the images had been infinitely clear. She could not mistake what she had seen, surprising as it was. “Brodhi,” she said. “Somehow, Brodhi is the key.”

His brows knit. “What?”

It still, to her, seemed unbelieveable. “Brodhi is the key. Not Rhuan.”

“Did the guide act with intent?”

“He did not. He, too, is trapped.” Her mind said,
And Rhuan is gone
. It took effort not to let her own pain show itself, but it was required. This was his reading, not her own. “Your wife and children are in the deepwood. All are scattered, save for the two youngest. With them, the youngest, is Brodhi.” Ilona drew a breath, knowing the next would be difficult. “She had the child, your wife. The baby is born.”

It stunned him utterly. “
Our
baby? Audrun’s and mine? But it isn’t due yet! It’s too early!”

“The child was born at full term.”

“It can’t be … Audrun isn’t due for four more months!”

Ilona saw no way of softening the blow. “She’s a child of Alisanos, not wholly human.”

“The—my baby? Not human?” Color washed out of his face. “But she’s mine! She’s Audrun’s! How can she—
she?
—not be wholly human?”

“She was born in Alisanos.” Ilona tried to gather words that were least hurtful. “This is why … this is why fifteen diviners said she must be born in Atalanda. None of us knew why, but that much was understood.
Now, the image is clear. Your newest is born, but born in Alisanos. The deepwood has laid claim.”

“Blessed Mother…” the farmsteader whispered. “O Mother of Moons …” His face was oddly devoid of all expression, as if so many emotions clamored for release that none could find the way to the muscles of his face. “What—what am I to do?”

“Gather them up,” Ilona told him. “Find the way. Find your family. It’s vital they be found soon, if they are to remain human. As each day passes, they all become less so.”

“But how am I …” He let that go, moving to another concern. “Who is this Brodhi?”

“Shoia,” she answered. “Like Rhuan; his cousin, I believe. Brodhi’s a courier. I see him there, in Alisanos. He is the key.” She turned up her own hands, displaying empty palms in a gesture of helplessness. “I can’t tell you why this is so, only that he is.”

His gaze unfocused as he stared into distance, the farmsteader rubbed a broad hand through his hair, sleeking it back against his scalp again and again. “But who would agree to go into Alisanos on purpose?
I
would, of course—I plan to—but I thought to make the guide, Rhuan, take me there—”

Certainty shaped her words. “If you go, you are lost.”

“But—”

“Brodhi is the key.”

Now he rubbed his face with his hand. “How does one convince a stranger to enter Alisanos? I have no
coin to speak of. He knows nothing of me or my family.
Why
would he go?”

Ilona said again, “Find the way.” Then a wave of exhaustion swamped her, one so powerful she nearly lost her perch upon the step and tumbled to the ground. She clamped both hands on the edges of the steps. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave now … I must rest.” Dizziness assailed her. “… sorry …” She tried to rise and nearly pitched forward into the farmsteader’s arms.

“Here, here, let me help.” He closed hands on her upper arms and steadied her, helped her rise and turn. “Is your bed inside?”

“It is …” As he helped her to climb, Ilona grabbed either side of the doorjamb and clung. Without his aid, she knew she would collapse into a puddle of abject exhaustion. “Just inside …” Oh, Mother, she was weak! The world appeared to be slipping sideways.

“Here. Lie down.” He guided her to the cot atop the chest of drawers, ducking roof-ribs. “I’ll send someone to you.”

Ilona sat down, leaned, then collapsed into bed. She clamped both hands over her face. “Blessed Mother …”

“This is my fault,” the farmsteader said. “I shouldn’ have asked this of you.”

“You didn’t.” Ilona parted her hands just enough so that her mouth was clear. “I offered.” The dizziness was worse. It unsettled her stomach. She began to think the nightcrock was in order, and she wanted no
witness for that. She opened her hands, noting that the farmsteader looked more worried than ever. “Yes,” she said, “do send someone to me.” Just so he would leave, and she’d have some privacy for a few moments. Inspiration occured; she knew it would require more of his time than calling for Naiya. “Go to Mikal’s ale tent. Bethid might be there. The woman courier.”

“I will. Yes.” The farmsteader exited hastily.

Ilona covered her face again as sweat broke out on the surface of her skin. Her mouth dried. She made a very long petition to the Mother to settle her belly, if only to distract it, then turned on her side and pulled up her knees. In one of the drawers below was a small bag of tea that would quiet the nausea, but she felt too ill to make the effort.

“This is not fair,” she murmured. “Not fair at all.”

And yet there was ironic humor in it: Her gift had returned, and she couldn’t celebrate.

ALARIO’S HAND, LOCKED into his hair and the base of his neck, infuriated Rhuan. He wanted no physical contact with his sire at all. But before he could speak, before he could react other than grit his teeth in surprise, Alario released him, pushed him aside. “She’s broken through,” the primary said.

Rhuan, putting distance between himself and his sire with pronounced alacrity, frowned. He exchanged a quick glance with Audrun, who was equally puzzled.

Alario’s awareness was patently not of either of them, but of somewhere very much different. His eyes were full of distances. “She’s stronger than I thought.” Abruptly, with no further speech, he turned and strode into the shadows, disappearing amid trees and brush.

Rhuan stared after him, aware that Audrun did the same. After a long moment of considering silence, they broke that pose and looked at one another, brows raised. Rhuan sighed, managed a wry smile, and tried to make light of it. “Not the kind of father human sons desire.”

Audrun was clearly appalled. “Is that behavior
typical?
”

“With primaries? Unfortunately yes.” He sat down upon the fallen tree, feeling at the back of his neck where Alario’s fingers had dug in. “And yes, all of them are every bit as arrogant as my sire. Imagine, if you can, nine hundred and ninety-nine exactly like him.”

“That’s impossible, Rhuan.”

He worked the muscles at the back of his neck. “Impossible to imagine, impossible to accept, or impossible to be true?”

“All three, I think! He truly is very like a spoiled child.”

“But a remarkably dangerous child.”

Audrun, too, sat down, placing herself beside him. “Could he have done as I asked? Found my family, transported us to the Kiba?”

“I think it’s quite probable. But I’m ignorant of all he
can do … we’re reared that way, to not know the extent of the primaries’ ability to manipulate the wild magic.”

“Why? Aren’t you his heir?”

Alario’s grasp had loosened the leather thong tying back his hair. Rhuan removed it, allowed the coppery curtain to fall forward of his shoulders. He glanced at her a moment, registering her genuine curiosity, then looked back at the dreya ring. The odor of charred wood wreathed the air. “It’s different here.”

“That, I understand.” Her tone was ironically acerbic. “But if you are his only surviving
dioscuri
, and he is unlikely, from what you said, to sire any others, why does he hold you in such contempt?”

He winced; that truth was painful. “Primaries are extremely long-lived. It’s a facet of the wild magic. They manipulate it to suit them, and longevity is a part of that. But the only one who knows how much he or she can manipulate, and exactly what can be done, is the individual primary. It’s an advantage, obviously, but it’s also a weapon.” He blew out a breath and looked at her full-on. “For me to inherit my sire’s place, I am required to kill him.”

Audrun’s lips parted. He saw the shock flow into her face, the widening of her pupils. She was not slow of wit; she grasped the consequences immediately. “And you can’t.”