Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (45 page)

“If we are not fit to become adults, we are not fit to procreate. And so the primaries make certain we cannot.”

Ilona frowned. “How in the world can they do that? If your seed is alive, it’s alive. You can sire—”

“Castration.”

The color flowed out of her face. Horror shone in hazel eyes as her lips parted.

“Our world,” Brodhi said, “is somewhat more rigorous than yours.”

“Mother of Moons …”

“Yes, we kill our brothers. It is necessary so that one day we may challenge our sires. Only one of us may do that; it is how our sires are replaced. If we fail our journeys, fail our tests, provide the wrong answers, we remain children. And the opportunity to challenge our
sires, to become as they are, never arrives.” He stared at her. “And I think even a woman may understand that castration is not an acceptable outcome.”

“Brodhi—”

“You do read true,” he said, “though in this case perhaps not for the reasons you believe. Yes, I will enter Alisanos. You have made it necessary.” He shook his head. “Karadath should know what Alario intends.”

TORVIC AND MEGRITTE straggled into the cabin not far behind Lirra. On the trip back, Meggie had from time to time said she was hungry, even after they’d eaten the berries found along the way, but for the most part none of them spoke. Lirra had, for the first time, seemed despondent over their inability to find rivers, creeks, or ponds containing fish. It had been their last real hope. But now they passed the stinkwood fire, the rotted melon patch, the deceased vegetable garden, the small field where wheat and corn ordinarily grew. With all the chickens dead, there was no comforting noise of their clucking and squawking around the cabin. The well still gave water, but they all of them wanted something solid.

No bread. No tubers. A handful of herbs. Nothing more.

As Torvic followed Meggie into the cabin, he saw Lirra standing in front of the shelving, digging through the contents once again. Nothing was to be
found, he knew; she had done the same thing repeatedly before their last trip looking for fish. Meggie crawled up onto Lirra’s bed and sat against the wall, knees drawn up and arms hugging her belly. Exhaustion was obvious in her features, with circles beneath her eyes and bones prominent. Pale hair straggled loose of its braids.

Lirra stopped rummaging. She looked at them both, lines etched into her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. Brown hair, ordinarily tucked into a neat knot at the back of her neck, was coming undone. She pressed fingertips against her forehead and rubbed. He saw fear in her eyes, and a terrible hunger. After a moment she crossed to the table and sat down in one of the chairs. Her hands, folded atop one another on the table’s surface, trembled.

She looked at him. Looked at Meggie. Closed her eyes, as if she prayed.

Torvic took the deadfall fruit he had found along the way from the hem of his tunic. He went to the table and set it beside her hands. “I’m not hungry, Lirra. You eat it.”

She looked at the fruit, then to him. “Ah, Torvic, no. It’s for you.”

He shrugged. “I ate along the way.” So they had, each of them, finding berries, nuts, a few deadfall fruits from a tall tree. Those they had indeed eaten. But they had found nothing more. None of them had truly eaten for two days.

She looked past him to Meggie. “She’s so tired, poor little thing. See her? She can’t even stay awake.”

Torvic looked. His sister was slumped against the wall, head fallen forward in something akin to sleep.

“What can we do?” Lirra asked. “She’s the youngest, the smallest, the weakest. I fear we’ll lose her first.”

For a moment he wasn’t sure what she meant. Then he knew. “No! Meggie won’t die! None of us will!”

“Hush, hush.” Lirra lifted a hand to halt the flow of words. Then she leaned forward, resting her face in her hands as she braced elbows against the table. “O dear Mother, have you abandoned us?” She looked upward, tears running down her face. “What are we to do?”

“I’ll go.” The words jumped out of his mouth. “I’ll check the snares. Maybe they’ve caught things while we looked for fish.”

Lirra nodded, attention only partially on him. She looked terribly worried, exhausted, and desperately hungry.

“I’ll find something,” Torvic promised.

Lirra’s gaze sharpened. She stared at him, almost as if memorizing his features. Her expression was stark, then altered into decisiveness. Her tone now was crisp. “Be thorough, Torvic. Take your time. Be very
thorough
.”

He stared back at her, then broke from his reverie and promised once more that he would find something to eat. He turned and hastened out of the cabin.

AFTER BRODHI’S DEPARTURE, Ilona returned to her tea. She took an extra fold with the rag intended to protect her hand since the kettle had ended up over the fire longer than intended. She had filled the mug and was blowing on the surface of the tea when Bethid came around the end of the wagon.

“Ilona? Have you seen Brodhi? Someone said they saw him coming this way.”

Ilona nodded, still blowing. “Yes, he was here.” Hot steam rose up from the mug into her face. Loose hair around her face began to curl. “Would you like tea? We may not be able to drink it until sundown, but there can be no complaints it’s too weak.”

Bethid shook her head. “I need to catch up to him. Do you know where he went?”

Ilona looked through steam at the courier. “I don’t think you want to catch up to him, Beth. He’s going into Alisanos.”

Shock flowed over Bethid’s face.
“Why?”

“It would be to his credit,” Ilona began dryly, “if he were going to help the farmsteader’s family, but he’s not. Well, he
will
help the family whether he intends it or no, but that isn’t why he’s going.” She considered attempting to sip, then decided against it. She had a feeling she might burn her lips off. “Bethid, there are things about Brodhi you don’t know.”

“There are things about everyone I don’t know,”
Bethid replied, impatient. “But why is he going into Alisanos? Is he mad?”

“Angry,” Ilona said, “but not mad.” She blew on the tea again, ruffling its surface. “Don’t fear for him, Beth.”

“He’s going into Alisanos! How can I
not
fear for him?”

Ilona weighed Brodhi’s undoubted preferences for keeping the truth secret against Bethid’s very real concern for his safety. “He isn’t Shoia, Beth. He’s
from
Alisanos.” She lifted a hand before the courier could blurt out a response. “I know. I do know. But it’s true.”

Color had bled out of Bethid’s face. “Did you read his hand, to know this?”

“No. He told me.” And then she reflected that Brodhi had done no such thing; Brodhi’s
uncle
had told her. But she feared that would prove too much for Bethid to assimilate just now.

In fact, Bethid glanced around absently as if looking for something, then simply sat down upon the ground beneath the spreading tree. She crossed her legs as if perfectly at ease, but the expression in her eyes, the tone of her voice, belied that. “Then what is he?”

“That, I can’t tell you.” Ilona risked a small sip. The tea was quite hot, but not undrinkably so. “I don’t know what they call themselves, his folk.”

“Then Rhuan is also … not Shoia.”

Ilona sighed. She moved to the nearest of the high wooden wheels and squatted down, balancing herself against the spokes as she sipped again at tea. “Not
Shoia. No. Neither of them.” She smiled crookedly at Bethid. “We have either been particularly gullible, all of us, or they are extremely experienced at hiding the truth. But Rhuan always refused to let me read his hand. I did catch a glimpse once, just one brief glimpse, when he was dead. The night we met.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw … chaos.”

They stared at one another for a long moment. “Mother of Moons,” Bethid murmured. “Alisanos? You’re sure?”

Ilona nodded.

“Is he coming back? Brodhi?
Can
he?”

“I don’t know.”

Bethid nodded, her eyes full of thoughts. Finally she met Ilona’s again. “What do we do? Do we tell Jorda and Mikal? Do I tell Timmon and Alorn? Do we say nothing at all?” She rubbed a hand through her cropped hair. “What do we
do
, Ilona?”

“I think—I think we must let this be what it will be.” Ilona grimaced. “I know that sounds trite or intentionally obscure, as if I’m a charlatan trying to make you believe. But the Mother must surely have a plan. Certainly I see sense in telling Jorda and Mikal, but anyone else?” She shook her head. “I think it’s best we keep this to ourselves, for now. If we tell everyone that Rhuan and Brodhi are actually from the deepwood, we would very likely seed panic. And those maps Brodhi has drawn to keep
us
from Alisanos would become suspect.”

Bethid nodded after a moment. “Yes. Yes, I think you’re right.” She tipped her head back against the tree, making a strangled sound of frustration. “It just becomes more difficult, doesn’t it? Day by day!”

“Moment by moment.” Ilona raised her mug. “Tea? I promise it won’t burn a hole in your throat.”

“No.” Bethid rose. “No, I think I want something stronger than tea.” She cast Ilona a weak smile. “Probably a great deal of it.”

Ilona watched the courier slap at trews to free them of dirt. “Jorda will likely have questions. Tell him that when he has time, he should come to me.”

“I will.”

Bethid strode off. Ilona leaned her head against the wheel behind her and gazed up through the stormstripped tree limbs to the sky overhead. It hurt, she realized, to acknowledge that Rhuan was not Shoia. That he was in truth a child of Alisanos.

The get of a god.

Or merely the unwanted child of someone who
claimed
himself a god.

T
ORVIC CHECKED EACH snare with hope filling his chest, and each time it was dashed. Of eight snares, seven were empty.
He
felt empty, and hungry, and sick. He approached the final snare slowly, almost afraid to look, thinking how and what he would tell Lirra and Meggie if he returned to the cabin with nothing. He was so hungry he trembled, and his belly ached, but he refused to give in to it. He peeled back the leaves hiding the last snare, and saw that it also was empty. The final failure. All growing things had died, all living things had died, and they found no rivers with fish in them. Torvic fell to the ground, trying very hard not to cry, but he was so tired, so weak, and so very hungry he had no strength to halt the tears. They ran down his face until, at last, he wiped them away with the back of his hand, trying to repress the terrified sobs that wanted badly to be released.

Da
wouldn’t cry.
Gillan
wouldn’t cry. He, Torvic, was the man of the cabin. He shouldn’t cry, either.

But he was very hungry.

He swiped again at his face, gulping down a sob, and then he heard, cutting through the forest, a thin, high shrieking.

Meggie.
Meggie.

He ran. He ran and ran. He ignored vines and brush and trees that slapped at his body, leaped over roots, tore his arms free of thorns. Meggie was screaming.