Hegira (24 page)

“Now you can return home,” the balls said in unison.

“But we have to take them back with us,” Kiril protested hoarsely.

“No need. Both are dead. There can be no returning for them now. All you have to do is return with what you saw here. In fact,” and the voices seemed to be speaking through smiles, “your women are already free of their affliction.”

“We have to go back now,” Jury said matter-of-factly. “My woman will be half out of her mind if she wakes up and finds everything in shambles. I have to be with her. If she hasn't awakened . . . buried alive someplace.” His face paled.

“She is alive,” the ball reassured him.

“How do we get back?” Kiril asked.

“Find the gate. Enter.”

Whether it was the same gate or not, they never knew. They said their farewells rapidly, eager to be done with each other, to try to get back to reality and away from this knowledge-filled madness. They entered the door a few seconds apart and never saw each other again.

Kiril awoke from a sound night's sleep on a hillside in a country he barely recognized, clothed but unshod, and minus his ball and pack. A local sheriff arrested him for vagrancy a day later as he walked along a narrow dirt cart road, and he was taken to a deputato.

It took him three weeks in custody to prove he was who he claimed to be. A visiting church cleric from his village, dough-cheeked and acne-scarred, another student of the Franciscans, was brought in to identify him, and the deputato released Kiril into the hands of his former order. The cleric lent him an ass and together, poor and humble yet somehow happy, they trekked across four hundred kilometers of Mediweva, resting at village inns of varying repute. Nothing seemed to have changed much. The knowledge of the English-speakers had yet to come this far south.

Obelisk Tara was their guide and beacon. After two weeks of travel, interrupted by visits to the church of local districts — the cleric's business — they came to the village where Kiril had been raised. Here they parted company. Kiril shook the hooded man's travel-roughened hand. “Go with God,” he told him.

Then he found the large, ancient stone house of Elena's family, hidden deep in a forest of conifers near the village. The estate was empty but for a plump, tired-looking servant, who greeted him with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “Nobody's here,” the servant told him. “They've gone to the wedding.”

“What wedding?”

The answer he received was brusque. “The Lady Elena has been restored to health, and is about to marry a fine young man, a prelate of respectable family and sound means.”

That, Kiril thought, would not do at all. How would Bar-Woten handle this situation?

“Where will the wedding be?”

At the family ranch in the north, the servant told him reluctantly, butting a broom handle nervously on the floor. This tall, strong-looking and exceedingly ragged young man bothered him — frightened him, if the truth be known. Despite his strange eyes, he almost seemed familiar . . .

“Don't I know you?” the servant asked as Kiril turned to go.

“Yes. We met some time ago, before Elena ...” He shook his head. No time to waste. “Thank you.”

A bank account he had never touched held funds for his scrittori apprenticeship. He was glad now he hadn't turned it over to the Brotherhood of Francis. He proved his identity to an officer of the bank with his signature and a code word that he remembered with some difficulty, his head was so full now of odds and ends. Retrieving these meager funds, he bought passage on a steam wagon.

The steam wagon, crowded with fanners and salesmen traveling to the small communities in the highlands, chugged and hissed for hours, climbing steadily if laboriously along the irregular grades. In a small town near the estate, Kiril left the steam wagon and hired a two-passenger steam-cart to take him the rest of the way, and to await his needs.

By early evening, Kiril jumped from the cart near the gate to the ranch and walked unobserved to the steps of the stone house. He stood by a window to the left of the porch, standing on tiptoe atop a split log to peer through thin lace curtains. He could see inside well enough, but the large family room was empty. He frowned fiercely, then lowered his head as a woman passed near the window. Cautiously, he angled his head to one side and lifted an eye above the sill. A group of seven or eight entered the room, talking among themselves.

Kiril recognized a few, among them Lisbeth, Elena's godmother, a slow, dull woman, earthy and direct. She spoke to a man whose back was turned. Her expression was more animated than usual. The man turned; he appeared to be half-asleep. Kiril knew the lassitude one could fall into, listening to Lisbeth.

Behind a young couple nearest the corner desk stood Elena's youngest brother, working string figures on his fingers. He closely resembled the doppelganger whose death had begun Kiril's journey, it seemed an age ago.

Kiril circled around the house, keeping a close lookout for anyone who might see him. He felt like a burglar. Anger was building in him at the thought that a simple church prelate — a godly man, no doubt, pious and inexperienced and kind — might have already sampled what he had gone to the end of the world to save. Kiril's face flushed at the thought. Not even the memory of distant Golumbine could dispel his jealousy; in fact, it stung him to further resolve.

He had given up more than time to reach this goal! He had given up the basic, dumb satisfaction he might have had if he had stayed in Mediweva, contented in his life and work. He had given up all possibility of finding an uncomplicated love and a simple existence among his fellow citizens.

Kiril returned to the front porch and took a deep breath. No more skulking. He would be direct. The sky was already darkening. In an hour or so the fire doves would be out, and if he didn't act before then, he feared the steam cart would leave and strand him until morning. The driver could not expect a handsome tip from this ragged stranger. He had to move quickly.

Kiril knocked heavily on the wooden door. Endless seconds later a thin, small male servant dressed in ceremonial dark green answered. “I'm a friend of the family. I'd like to speak with Elena's father, please, on an important matter.”

“The master is busy at the moment,” the weary-eyed man answered, staring at him balefully. Kiril was not recognized. “He's eating dinner and entertaining guests. May I announce you?”

The servant behaved as if this were an exceedingly generous offer.

“No,” Kiril said, stepping swiftly around the man and marching through the anteroom and hallway. “No time!”

The family had just finished the evening meal. A few guests had sauntered into the outer rooms, but most lounged before a large fire in the tall, wood-paneled sitting room. Elena sat at the knees of a young, actually fairly handsome man Kiril knew immediately was the prelate, her husband-to-be. Kiril stood in the entrance to the sitting room for a breath or two, all eyes turning to examine him. Elena's gaze, most important of all, went wide, and she choked in her cup of wine.

“I've come,” he said, knowing it was melodramatic, and pausing for even more emphasis. “Come for what is mine.”

It was a grand, stomach-churning moment. His tongue was sure but his hands trembled.

“Alfred Karl!” the father shouted at the servant. “Did you let this man into my house unannounced?”

“I let myself in. Elena, come here.”

The father and mother then recognized him. “Where have you been?” the father asked, approaching him with squared shoulders and a dour look. Kiril had once had great respect for this man's strength of body as well as character. Now he felt they were at least evenly matched.

“I will not be stopped,” he said quietly, holding up a calloused hand. He was sleek and muscular beneath his soiled white clothes, and well-tanned, an altogether different sort compared to the pale, scholarly fellow who had wooed, mourned and then vanished over two years before. “I've gone through hell for you,” he said to Elena. She didn't look the same, somehow; less radiant than he had expected. Tired. She had been through quite a strain in the past few weeks, he guessed; the marriage had been hastily arranged, no doubt, after her revival.

“Kiril, I can't leave now,” Elena said, her strained, pale face wet with tears. Her obvious confusion pained him deeply. She had not felt the passage of time. Everything was topsy-turvy for her. “Something has happened ...”

He walked across the room, over the century-old woven rug at the center of the half-circle of chairs, and reached down for her arm. The prelate gaped and puffed and stood up, almost falling back over his chair as his legs flexed abruptly against the frame. “What are you doing?” he demanded. His voice, compared to Kiril's, was a small and undistinguished yap. Still, Kiril acknowledged, trying to be fair, his face did show some courage. He felt sorry for the man.

Kiril grasped Elena's arm as gently as possible. Her wide, green eyes accused him, shocked and — he thought, he hoped — happy for his return. He lifted her from the floor. The prelate swung at him and seemed to magically miss, as if Kiril were a ghost.

“I can't go!” Elena wailed. “You can't take me back! It's all arranged.”

“I can, and will,” Kiril said softly. “You can make up your mind away from these people.” He rushed her into the night, dancing agilely through the arms of servants, parents and the poor prelate. She did not protest once they were outside. The steam cart waited at the end of the road, beyond the gate. Kiril picked her up and set her in the cab, then climbed in after her. The driver moved the can off at his command. Behind them, a crowd spilled out onto the road, murmuring, shouting. The prelate chased them for perhaps a quarter of a mile, then gave up, collapsing on the gravel.

Elena, stiff as a board, sat in one corner of the cab and stared at him, shocked and frightened. “Come on,” Kiril murmured, unable to meet her eyes. “I haven't been gone that long, not as far as you're concerned.”

“They said you'd been gone for years while I was asleep.”

“You weren't asleep.”

“In a coma, then.”

“You weren't in a coma.”

Elena suddenly went limp, like an unstrung puppet, and sobbed. “Where have you been?” she wailed. She hit his shoulder with several stinging slaps. “Where in God's name have you been?”

“I've traveled a long way,” Kiril said. “I have a lot to do here. I'm a determined man now.” But he still felt like a young boy in places. His assurance did not run through him unflawed.

The cart stopped abruptly, and the driver swung down from his seat, cursing and loudly praying. The illumination of the night had subtly changed; it was brighter. Kiril helped Elena down from the coach and waved his hand at the stars in the sky, and the wisps of glow in between.

“See all this?” he asked. She nodded, awestruck, but not, he noted with approval, particularly frightened. She would suit him just fine after all, he thought. She was resilient.

“I know what it is,” he said. “Most of it, anyway. I'll explain it to you soon.” For an hour, they stood beneath the young, strange glow of the new night sky.

Finally, Kiril helped her back into the cab. The driver came back from the woods, where he had abruptly departed, wringing his hands and complaining bitterly. He took his position on the cart and glared at his passengers.

“How soon can you explain?” Elena asked.

“I have to put it all together in my head,” Kiril said. “Maybe you can help me.”

She regarded him sharply, then reached for his hand. “They said you were gone for good.”

Kiril smiled. “You knew better, I hope.”

“No,” she said, turning away petulantly. “I really didn't.”

Kiril's heart leaped. This was the Elena he remembered, difficult but not impossible. As the cart lurched forward, he reached out to draw her to him, and she did not resist . . . much.

When the stars came out again, Bar-Woten was spending the night at a small hostel near the city of Frelang. He had been kicked out of three towns already, called a liar and a tramp. Few believed him when he told his story of returning from Sulay's march. Sulay was an ugly legend in Ibis; he had taken most of the country's youth on a journey from which few, if any, had returned. He had depleted the countryside of manpower and wealth.

Discreetly, the far-traveled soldier inquired about returning pilgrims, people who had abruptly appeared, crazy people who proclaimed visions and vast knowledge. He had heard of a few, and he was intent on tracking down at least one. Perhaps these pilgrims had also been on Sulay's march, and had settled down years past — deserters, caught up in the life of another country. Perhaps they had been seduced by thoughts of domesticity, and fate had tricked them, turning their husbands or wives into blocks of merciless silver, sending them on a long quest.

It seemed difficult to believe that anybody else had traveled to the Wall but one of Sulay's soldiers. Still, he supposed, anything was possible.

When he found a pilgrim, he would ask questions. He would protect the pilgrim, from himself or others. He would guide the pilgrim politically and, perhaps, help establish the new order.

Bar-Woten, Bear-killer of the One-eyed God, soldier and would-be-pilgrim, stood beneath the wispy night with the sounds of drunken revelry coming from a nearby tavern. He felt a familial contempt for his ignorant fellow creatures. Something big was happening, that much was obvious.

He would be a part of it, or he would die trying.

He owed that much to the ghosts of those he had killed. To Barthel. Even, he thought, to Sulay, so despised in his homeland now.

He savored the wildness of the new sky, its apparent strangeness and youth. Here was challenge, opportunity. He had not the slightest idea what it all meant, but he knew oae thing.

The stars were here to stay.

And he would find a place in them.

-end-