Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (9 page)

Time, as the humans reckoned it, ran very differently in Alisanos. Here it was named as hours, days, weeks, months, years; there it was what it was, simple
continuation
. The suns of Alisanos, and its place upon the world, gave it day and night, daylight and darkness, but the rhythms of his body were not predicated on such things as dark or light, night or day, or even of time passing. Five years, the primaries had decreed;
five human years. Brodhi was not entirely certain how those years were counted, other than being some conglomeration of hours, days, weeks, but he would know, he was told, when the time was up. When the journey was ended. Either because he had completed it, or because the primaries despaired that he ever would and ended it for him. He would be declared a neuter, unfit for godhood of any ilk; unfit, too, for the human world.

Unfair, he felt, that he, so patently prepared, so deserving to take his place among the primaries, to ascend to godhood, was nonetheless forced to undertake the journey. Such things belonged to Rhuan, his cousin, his kin-in-kind, who expressed a desire to become human himself. To
not
become a god. To
not
take a place among the primaries.

Brodhi could not blame Rhuan’s human mother for that. His own mother had been human as well. Discussions among the primaries were ongoing as to whether it was the human element, the human blood, that had caused the seeds of Alario and Karadath to kindle into
dioscuri
in the wombs of two unrelated women when none had been born to either brother for hundreds of years by human reckoning, but as far as Brodhi knew no decision had been reached. And so the weakness he despised in Rhuan was present in himself: the blood, the bone, of humans. He was not just the legacy of primaries, who were wholly divine.

Sighing, Brodhi worked his hands beneath Alorn’s shoulders and pulled him from the confining folds of oilcloth. He settled him a small distance away, beneath the brilliant sun, then retrieved Timmon as well. Side by side, they lay in silence, senseless.

“Are they alive?” Bethid’s voice, much perturbed, as she arrived. She swooped down to kneel beside the two men. “Oh, Mother, tell me they’re alive!”

“The Mother can’t, or won’t,” Brodhi said dryly, “but I can. Yes, they’re alive. Both of them. And not likely to die, from what I can tell.”

She put her hand against Alorn’s throat, waited, then nodded once. She moved then to Timmon’s body and did the same.

“I don’t lie,” Brodhi observed. “Not even in the interest of tact.”

Bethid, still kneeling beside Timmon, scowled up at Brodhi. “Pardon me for caring enough to want to find out for myself.” Then her expression altered. “Did you pull them away?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Her mouth twisted. “And made sure they were alive.”

“Yes.”

“So perhaps you do care, and I do you a disservice.” Bethid stood, knocking mud from the knees of her woven trews. “I’m going to find them water. Could you could fetch something to eat?”

“You do me no disservice.” Brodhi glanced across the settlement. “I suspect fetching food means I must
hunt.” He gestured. “Little is left here of food storage and meals.”

“Mikal found some spirits,” Bethid pointed out. “You might go to the remains of his ale tent. Something edible may be left.”

Brodhi shrugged. “But we will all need fresh meat soon enough. One might as well hunt.”

She nodded, eyes narrowed, studying him thoughtfully. “One might. Or one may merely want nothing to do with tending injured humans.”

He gifted her with a slight, dry smile. “One might not.”

But she knew he was correct—fresh meat was a necessity—and waved him away. Brodhi found that dismissal more than a little irritating, but his choice was either to depart or to aid her with Alorn and Timmon, work that was, he felt, best left to her. Hunting would take him away from the remains of the settlement, putting distance between himself and human grief, human anger, human despair. Such things sat ill with him.

And then he remembered, startled by realization. “Our horses.”

Bethid, walking away, stopped. Her eyes widened as she turned back. “Oh, Mother—how could we forget? How could
I
forget?”

This time he waved dismissal at her. “Fetch them water, Beth. I’ll look to the horses.”

They were couriers. Horses were necessary for their duties. But also helpful for hunting.

TO RHUAN’S RELIEF, Audrun stopped asking questions. She lost herself in tending the infant, wrapping muslin between and around her legs, criss-crossing it and tying it in place with a long piece of cloth. He left her to that tending, to a mother’s joy—though he had, in the creche, changed many clouts himself—and set about giving thanks to the dreya, asking their support. This was their home, this ring; one did not remain within without permission, if one had manners at all. Unlike the human
hell
, where no good dwelled, not all of Alisanos was poisonous to humans, dangerous to others. Dreyas, unlike various demons, devils, and beasts, were not murderers, did not feed upon flesh. They took strength from the soil and suns. Born in and of Alisanos, they were nonetheless benevolent.

Rhuan, taking a step to the queen tree, grinned.
Rather like me.

“What are you doing?”

Questions again.

He turned, standing at the foot of a tall, pale, widecrowned, thick-trunked tree entangled on either side with the silvery branches of others. In the ring, dreya shared hearts and souls and blood; the latter humans called sap. “I intend to ask for protection tonight, so we may rest without concern for our lives.”

Audrun blinked. “They can protect us? The trees?”

“The dreya, yes. A ring is sacrosanct.”

She was astonished. “And demons respect that?”

“Well,” he said, “not always. But mostly. Sometimes.” He shrugged, placing a hand against the trunk that was formed of thousands upon thousands of small, thin, silken scalelike plates of silver-hued bark. Each trunk bore a narrow cleft from ground to lowest branch. “Occasionally.”

“That,” Audrun mused absently, stroking her daughter’s pale-fuzzed head, “is not particularly reassuring.”

“They chose to admit us.”

She looked up again, brows arching in startlement. “They could have kept us out?”

“Oh, most certainly. They allowed us to enter. In a way, they’ve granted us sanctuary … but I owe them gratitude, devotions, and my name. Your name.” He smiled. “And Sarith’s.”

“It matters to them, our names?”

“Names define us, Audrun. Among other things.” He turned then, turned away from her to face the tree. He placed both hands on the patterned trunk, and leaned in to rest his forehead against the wood as well. With eyes closed, he exhaled through his mouth and let the breath gust against the smooth trunk. In the tongue the dreya queen would know, he told her his name, the name of the woman, the name of the child; asked safety for the night; explained their need, and what brought them here. Then he offered her and her sisters all the respect of his soul, trained into him from infancy. He honored the ring, honored the dreya.

He might have used his sire’s name, but he did not.
Alario had many sons, though only Rhuan remained of his
dioscuri
-born. The others were ascended, or neuters, or dead. And he, well, he would choose to be none of those things, but human. To live among the humans in the human world.

He wondered if his sire knew that. Alario might, if Darmuth had said anything after the Hearing. He was enjoined from such, but demons were not always dependable. And they could be tricked by beings who were gods.

Rhuan told the queen:
My mother was human, born into and reared by that world. Alisanos took her, as did a god—but her sap has quickened in me. The heat of Alisanos runs in my veins; I answer to the suns. But I answer also to the heartwood of my mother dwelling within me, the soul and the bone; and to the pull of the human world, the human people. This woman is one of them. She has young saplings in her world, growing straight and strong. She has a new-sprouted one here, stalked by that which, and by those who, would kill them both. When the suns rise tomorrow, it will be my task to protect the mother and daughter. Tonight, will you honor us with your protection?

From without, from a distance, came a scream.

Audrun shot to her feet, clasping the baby. “That’s Gillan!” she cried. “That’s
Gillan
!”

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

—
painpainpain
—

He was stripped of self, of self-control, of all humanity save that which screamed in pain. He was nameless, mindless, engulfed in agony. He could not speak, could not pray, could not beg, could not petition the gods, the Mother, for release. He could only scream.

His leg was afire.

To the bone, it burned.

Around him, heat turned stone to liquid. Heat bubbled up. Heat wreathed the world in steam. Beneath him, his body was poised to fall, to follow his leg into indescribable agony. If he fell, if he followed, would the pain cease?

—
painpainpain
—

Gillan screamed again.

ELLICA, POISED STIFFLY upon the rock, heard the screaming. It harrowed her to the bone. It set the hairs on her flesh rising, her scalp prickling. Not close, not close. Was it human? Demon? Prey?

Was it something dying?

Some
one
dying?

INDECISION LOCKED AUDRUN’S joints, held her transfixed in place. She could not move. She could only clasp the child, only stare at the
man, only fasten every nerve upon the comprehension that her son was in pain. Her son was screaming. Her firstborn, the eldest of the siblings to the infant named Sarith, was not only in Alisanos, but in agony.