Hunter and Fox (4 page)

The Caisah was not done with her quite yet. “The Lady Kelanim will assist you with finding something suitable, since I know your wardrobe is…minimal.”

He guided her out into the main chamber, one hand hovering inches from the small of her back; she could feel it like a poised knife. Kelanim snapped her fan closed and glided over, eyes brimming with delight.

“The Caisah has told me you will need to be outfitted.” Her voice was like poisoned honey. “The ball is a masquerade event, but I believe you alone will be unmasked.”

He chuckled behind her. “What would be the point of hooding the hawk? No one would know it among doves.”

Talyn would never have called the Court of the Caisah doves, neither was she pleased to be singled out in this way. Despite all her years of discomfort, she let out the smallest of displeased sighs.

The Caisah leapt on it immediately. “Come now, my Hunter. These celebrations are special events—four hundred years since I saved Conhaero. That is worth marking, I would think.”

She hardly needed to be reminded, but had been desperately hoping to be away on a bounty.

“There will be music and dancing, and games of all sorts to mark the occasion. Everyone from Praetors to clan lords will be arriving. I would have you there for all of them.”

“As always, I obey,” Talyn replied evenly. “May I go now?”

He was stroking Kelanim's perfect face, but his words were for her. “Won't you stay here the night?”

It was her preferred custom to sleep beyond the walls of the Citadel. The voices of the lost troubled her inside: the whisperings and echoes of laughter, the cries from yester-times.

“It disturbs me…what you have done,” was all Talyn would say to him.

“Done? I have changed nothing in it! If you have any objection to the stability of the place then I suggest you discuss it with one of your elders.”

That was a barbed jibe, even for him, and anger that usually simmered now bubbled to the surface in Talyn. “V'nae Rae was given to us by the Kindred; its permanence a symbol of the pact between us. It should never have been yours.”

Kelanim was forgotten and suddenly the Caisah was standing directly behind her. She could feel his breath ruffle the hair on top of her head. “I have taken many things that are not mine, Talyn. It is something I thought you had learned to accept.” His words were like sharp needles in her back.

Talyn let the habit of disinterest roll over her, smothering the power of her own anger. “I thought so, too,” she said and headed for the door.

As always the Caisah snatched the last word. “You will stay within Perilous for the duration of the celebrations.”

So she would be his dragon in a gilded cage, and all the worse for knowing she helped make it.

T
he blow came from behind, so quick that even if Byreniko had been paying attention, he would not have been able to avoid it. He was on the ground spitting blood before even seeing his assailant. The taste of dust was hardly new, though.

“Vaerli scum,” the surprisingly wiry and dirty man yelled, drawing the attention of others in the market. Ever since the loss of the Third Gift, people often took a perverse delight in knocking Vaerli to the ground, especially in seething little towns like this one. Many leagues from the baleful eye of the Caisah at V'nae Rae, they practiced the same bloody sports that he favored. Byreniko wouldn't be the first Vaerli to end up in the arena in a distant rural town. If they were especially perverse they might throw another of his kin in, too—some people liked to watch the Harrowing consume Vaerli in flames while consuming their lunch in the stands.

He got to his feet quickly before a mob could gather and looked about for an escape route. On closer examination, this had not been one of his better ideas. Though he longed to wade in and give as had been given to him, his saner part prevailed.

Carefully not turning his back on his persecutors, Byre tried to edge his way to the outskirts of the market. It wasn't easy; eyes were turned in his direction and his steps were dogged with a raft of whispers, like a boat's wake behind him. Old women hissed at him from the shelter of bright stalls, and some of the fruit sellers were preparing to lob their ripest wares in his direction.

Before the Harrowing there might not have been cheers for the Vaerli, but at least there was not this loathing. He knew all too well the reason for the change; Talyn the Hunter had made his people feared as well as hated. He was only grateful that they didn't know how close he was to the Caisah's hound, or things could be a lot uglier.

He found himself jogging, darting between the stalls, and hearing the rising tide of anger behind him. A tremendous bang made him leap back, just as the water seller's largest jug on the right of his head exploded in shards. One caught him under the eye, the pain sharp and sudden. Someone had a pistol back there. Though that was surprising, he wasn't about to look back and investigate.

The market was disintegrating into two camps: those trying to catch him, and those trying to get out of their way. Things were thrown at him and everywhere there was screaming and shouting. Desperately Byre shoved a gold seller's stall onto its side and leapt over it toward the edge of the market.

His ears were full of the sounds of feet and yelling. A weaver merchant grinned at him as he ran past. Byre caught only a glimpse of his face because then the world turned white. All the woven baskets, packed with birds, burst open in a cloud of wing-flapping and mad cooing. Feathers seemed to be everywhere.

In the chaos his arm was yanked, then he found himself inside the warmth and darkness of a covered wagon. The lustrous eyes of a Mohl tribeswoman peered at him over a scarlet scarf. The contrast between her beautiful dark skin and the brightness of the cloth had him dazzled for a minute. She dropped the scarf and held a finger to her full lips in a commanding gesture.

Byre didn't need any instruction; he found he was holding his breath already.

The sound of the pursuit traveled on past.

“
Asthro.
Thank you, lady.” He dipped his head. “I owe you my life.”

She smiled enigmatically and beckoned him deeper into the wagon. In the manner of her people, his rescuer offered him a seat on a pile of marvelous tapestry cushions, and a tiny glass of sweet tea. Such hospitality after sudden danger made his head spin.

Byre drank. He knew that she could not exchange words with a stranger, but once they had drunk together they would be strangers no more.

Tucking her fabulously bright scarf about her, she set down her glass. “I am the Sofai of Mohl.”

“I am called Byreniko.”

She smiled again, a flash of white in the close darkness of the wagon. “Not your true name, I think.”

“Near enough. Since the Harrowing none of my people have true names.”

The Sofai nodded. “Just so.”

Byre shifted awkwardly. “Thank you for helping me, honored one—not many would have dared to do that.”

She offered him a slice of candied orange peel from an embossed brass bowl. “Hospitality is everything to my people. The Vaerli invited us to this world, so we still owe them guest right. We do not forget—even if others have.”

Byre nibbled at the edge of the orange; it was tart and sweet, and the best thing he'd eaten for months. He glanced at his savior out of the corner of one eye because he knew staring was considered the height of rudeness to her people. He thought her young to be a Sofai—prophetesses of the Mohl were usually old women who worked long years to attain their power.

Her voice was warm as the tea, thick with an accent that curled the edges of every word. “You have questions?”

Byre paused and licked his lips. He was ill used to sharing—the fall of his people had seen to that—but this woman had saved him, and there was comfort in her dark eyes. “Two nights ago, I dreamed.”

The faintest of lines creased her brow. “The Vaerli never dream.”

“Seldom,” Byre corrected her, “but when we do, we know it means something.”

“And what did you dream of in this important dream?”

“Fire and pain…”

All around him burned. All of his own flesh was gone, all he could hear were whispers in the brightness. He could not understand the words, which bothered him greatly. And something hovered at the edge of his vision—a presence that somehow felt friendly. He called out to it and demanded to know why he was there. The only answer came in a whisper. “Achelon.”

The Sofai repeated the word, rolling it round in her mouth with a curious expression on her face.

“Do you know what it means, honored one?” Byre leaned forward. “I came to this town because it has the largest library on the coast—but the doors were locked against me. The officials take the Caisah's edicts very seriously.”

She nodded sagely, but he noticed her fingers picked at the edge of her robe like a nervous child. “I have heard it in my own dreams; it is a name none now speak above the earth. It is the city of Choana.”

The World Builders, like the Blood Witches, were not accommodating of visitors. Even before the Harrowing, no Vaerli or any of the twelve tribes had gone there.

Though he was afraid as soon as she had spoken the words, he knew he must go. The Sofai must have read it in his face, for she leaned across and touched his hand. “If you must dare the Choana, then I will draw the sands for you.”

It was the greatest of honors. He was not of the Mohl tribe, or even of the Manesto, but he did not refuse it. For a minute he remembered the Seers of his own people and wished there was one to guide him. It was an empty, foolish wish.

At his nod of consent she drew the bottle of sands from where it lay under her clothes, near her skin. It was the finest Mohl glass, spun and twisted so that the various tubes containing the different colored sands were bound tightly together. She took his hand, placed it on her warm shoulder and then, humming to herself, she picked up the bottle. Spinning it between the palms of her hands, she let the sands pour out according to their own rules, mixing and gathering on the table below in a tracery of chaos. The wagon was suddenly full of the scent of warm spices that tickled Byre's nose. The Sofai with great reverence put the bottle down and turned her eyes to the patterns.

“I see darkness around you—closer than your own shadow and deeper. But you shall break free of it, if you seek the fire instead. You must go to the Great Cleft in the earth—only there is peace to be found. The future is…” she whispered and paused, shaking her head. “Dim. I see change and pain, but more…there is someone within the flames. It knows you, it watches…”

The sands suddenly ignited, and the table was flared with fire. The Sofai slumped forward and would have fallen into the flame if Byre had not caught her. He leapt about, beating the fire down with one of the cushions before noticing that her head scarf was charring. He tore it off and tossed it outside with a curse.

The Sofai was stirring. He helped her sit up and found a last drip of the now-cool tea to pour through her lips. He was holding her as close as a lover and, suddenly realizing that himself, Byre blushed. It was more human contact than he had experienced for months.

She smiled shyly and murmured, “Thank you,” before levering herself away from the table. “I am all right.”

They both examined the sadly scarred tabletop.

“That was my grandmother's marriage table,” she whispered.

“I'm sorry.”

“No, no.” She took his hand again. “It was not your fault. Something stood between the seeing and me. I pushed too far. But I did see the Great Cleft in Achelon—you are right to go there.”

Byre looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “In truth, I am afraid—not for the journey, but for the taste of hope. I have been wandering for so long with nothing to sustain me. My people are broken, and our Gifts stolen, and I fear this dream is just a cruel joke of the Caisah's.”

“It cannot be,” she replied confidently. “I saw that you would be here. I was told to aid you, so there must be something else at work here.”

The Mohl, unlike the other tribes of the Manesto, did not have any scion like the Brother of the Green or the Rainbow Mistress. He knew there were many tales about this strangeness. Some said they'd traversed the White Void without having one, while others whispered that they had in fact killed him as soon as they arrived in Conhaero. Whichever was the case, Byre was unsure what she was putting her faith in.

“Then I will go to the World Builders, I will find an answer to the flame. I have been doing nothing for three hundred years. I don't even know…” he stopped suddenly, the revelation choking his throat.

“Why you continue?” The Sofai lightly touched the back of his hand. “So many Vaerli have gone—but something is stronger in you.”

“I was almost too young to remember the time before the Harrowing. I wasn't even raised by my own people. I am the least of my kind.”

She laughed, low and soft. “And how can you judge that, pray, when you have met so few?”

Unbidden, he chuckled too. “I suppose that is true.”

Rising, the Sofai opened the camphor chest at the end of the wagon. “I see you have lost your stick, Byreniko. You cannot go through the world without a weapon.”

“Mine was taken at the city gates. Apparently it's not enough to ban us from carrying swords.”

He found a smooth fighting stick pressed into his hands, bound with silver. He looked closer, and could see the World Tree of his people etched upon it. He also recognized heart oak and the hand of a master in its making.

“As you can see,” she said, “I did indeed foresee your coming.”

“It is too much. I will be the best-equipped Vaerli in the world.”

“Not quite,” he heard her murmur.

He knew of whom she spoke. Ducking his head, Byre accepted the gift. “I have nothing to give you in return, honored lady…”

Taking him to the entrance, she dared a look outside. Once ascertaining the way was clear, the Sofai turned her deep brown eyes upon him. “You have nothing now, Byreniko of the Vaerli, but I feel next time we meet there will be enough for you to offer.”

Not quite knowing what to say, but feeling his skin heat under her gaze, Byre tucked the stick under his arm and darted from the wagon.

The Sofai sighed to herself and glanced back over her shoulder to the ruination of her grandmother's table. The paths she had seen there were imprinted on her mind as the fire had so nearly been on her face. She had not dared to tell the Vaerli what she had seen, lest his courage fail him. Many betrayals lay ahead of him, and hers was only the first.

Up close, the twelve open mouths of the goddess seemed larger. Pelanor stood trembling in the thin shift and awaited the moment of transformation. She could feel the cool wind of death flowing from those mouths—one of which she was about to throw herself into. Afterwards there would be no collar of pain or fear about her heart; she would be free of all mortal concerns.