Moonscatter (31 page)

The band of assassins kicked up dust behind them, the men visible as black dots like seed in a cottony white fruit. They were leaving the chini behind, pushing their mounts now that Serroi and Hern were in sight, closing the gap faster than was comfortable in Serroi's eyes. And the wash stubbornly refused to narrow, though it did begin to curve toward the east just a little.

“Serroi,” Hern called suddenly, bringing her head back around. His words spaced by short silences as he spat out the churning dust, he continued, “Look ahead. Am I dreaming or is that a neck a couple lengths ahead?”

Serroi rubbed at her eyes, squinted ahead. “I think so. Doesn't look much better than the last two we passed, could be it's enough. Want to take the chance?”

“We got a choice?”

“No.”

They angled out from the wash to give their macain running room. Behind them they heard shouts from their pursuers, screams from the Sleykyn macain as their riders tried to whip speed they didn't have from the tired beasts. Bent low over macain necks, whispering encouragement to them, Serroi and Hern sent them racing at the wash. Powerful hind legs kicked against the earth; the macain flew in shallow arcs across the chasm. Serroi's mount landed a safe distance from the lip, claws out, digging into the hard soil; he pranced a few strides farther, halted as she tugged him to a stop and turned to watch Hern's struggles. His mount had landed on the very rim of the wash, brought down early by Hern's weight. He flung himself up over the neck of the macai as the beast scrabbled frantically at the crumbling rim, the shift of his weight finally enough to turn the balance. The macai scrambled to safety and minced delicately up to Serroi, Hern settling himself back in the saddle. Across the wash they heard a roar of frustration. There was no way the Sleykynin could emulate their feat, their mounts were exhausted and their full armor made them heavier even than Hern.

A short spear hummed past Serroi, plunking into the crusty earth. Hern patted his trembling mount on the shoulder and set him into an easy lope, frowning at the ragged breathing of the beast. Serroi, startled, looked over her shoulder at the Sleykynin. Two of them were on the ground, throwing sticks in hand. As she looked, the second whipped his arm down. The spear hissed through the air at Hern, faster, it seemed to her, than any arrow. She kicked her macai to the side, heard the spear slice past her, heard a grunt from Hern. When she looked, he was crumpling from his mount, a spear shaft protruding from his back. She only had time for a glimpse of this before there was a terrible burning pain in her back and she was falling too.

Mordant bite of dust in her nose and mouth. A yielding hard bulk under her body. She blinks, sits up, pushing against a resistance that is sticky like thick syrup. With almost a pop! she breaks through it and stands.

At first she can see nothing, it is very dark. No moons—Are the clouds back?—then it seems to her she can see a form in the darkness, a long slim form looming high over her. She blinks, wishing she could see more clearly though she isn't frightened, something that surprises her since she can vaguely remember a moment of extreme fear and pain. With the wish comes clearer sight as if all she needs is to will something and it is so. She sees a slim woman with a stern lovely face, it is like one of the Maiden carvings in the great Temple in Oras, but this vision lasts only an instant, the image fades—or changes—or was never there at all. A dark bulk is in front of her, closer to the ground. She blinks. Reiki janja sits cross-legged on the cold gritty earth. The janja beckons. Serroi glides to her at first delighted to see her, then puzzled because she is somehow not walking. She looks down at herself. She is naked. She puts her hands to her face, ashamed to be naked before her friend. She is confused. She can't remember stripping. She holds out her hands and looks at them. She can see the ground through them. She is dreaming. As before. She is suddenly afraid. Before her is Reiki janja, her friend, she is certain of this, then not certain, she gazes painfully at Reiki, trying to see into her but she cannot. The memory of pain grows suddenly stronger, she looks back at what she left behind her.

In the cold austere moonlight, softly rounded in the stark black and white angles of the landscape, she sees her body draped over Hern's, the stubby shafts of spears growing from both their backs. She gasps and is back hovering over herself. She sees the trampled dust around the two bodies, the prints of many macain circling them. Her weaponbelt is gone. Their mounts are gone. Hern's sword is gone. The Sleykynin have left them for dead, she knows suddenly. She looks back at Reiki. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet. Not quite.” The janja's voice is quiet, reassuring.

Serroi kneels. The janja is right. There is life burning in both the bodies, in her abandoned body and Hern's, though the fire is flickering low. She takes hold of the spear shaft, intending to pull it from her body, but there is no strength in her hands. Reiki is beside her as she takes her hands away. “Reach deep,” the janja says.

“How?” Serroi looks helplessly at the shaft. “I don't understand.”

Reiki kneels beside her, getting down with difficulty and many muttered complaints, presses her hands on Serroi's green glass feet. “Reach into earth for the strength you need.”

Her body knowing what to do though her mind is clouded with confusion, Serroi reaches deep and quivers as a surge of warmth comes from earth into her.

Reiki takes her hands away and grunts herself leg by leg back on her feet. “You know what to do,” she says. “The knowledge was born in you.”

Serroi sets her hands on the spear shaft again. Before she can gather herself to try pulling it out, it moves of itself and begins working out of her body's back. As it comes loose, blood surges from her back. She lets the spear fall and drops to her knees, flattening her hands on the wound. At first the blood flows through her hands, then the warmth flows out of them. Her hands sink into the lacerated muscle. She doesn't know what is happening, but the warmth knows, her body knows—how to heal itself is what it knows. She realizes this almost immediately and relaxes, letting what is happening happen of itself. Her body uses the warmth to make new flesh, new blood, pushing her hands up as it repairs itself, layer by layer. When her hands emerge from her body, she stares at them. Her dream-flesh is translucent green glass and there is no blood on it.

“You want to hurry a little or Hern will die on you.” Reiki's grave voice breaks into her wonder.

Dream-Serroi nods. She tugs at her body but can't budge it even when the warmth surges back into her. Reiki pushes her aside and lifts Serroi and lays her flat, face up, on the ground. Dream-Serroi flits to Hern. She roots herself in the earth again, the feeling is like extruding tendrils from her dream body, she sees them growing down deep deep into earth's heart. She grasps the spear shaft, feels it come alive and begin working up through the thicker meatier muscle of Hern's back. When it is out, she lets it topple and presses her hands into Hern's flesh. Again the body knows its business. She doesn't have to fuss, just provide the energy and let it work. She is much more confident this time, feels a great serenity, a happiness that is partly joy that Hern will not die and partly the joy she finds in the healing itself. Again the flesh knits under her palms, little by little pushing her out. When the wound is closed and healed except for a faint pinkness of the skin, she sinks back on her heels and looks thoughtfully at the delicate green glass of her hands. She turns and smiles at Reiki janja, weary but happy with it.

The janja smiles a bit distractedly, waves her big hand at Serroi. “Back home, little one. You've been out long enough.”

Serroi drifts across to her body. She stands looking down at it for a moment. Her body's eyes are closed. There is a half-smile on her face. She looks quietly happy and at rest at long last as if all her agonizing has been washed away. Dream-Serroi hesitates. But—in spite of the pain she knows is waiting for her—she isn't quite ready to die yet. Rest is seductive, but there is too much left for her to do to succumb to that seduction. She steps onto her body and merges with it.

She sat up. Hern was still out, his body recovering from its strenuous business. She felt some of the same weariness, a dragging tiredness as if she'd been heaving forkloads of wet hay all day long. She pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around them. Her herbs and drugs and other small supplies were gone with her weaponbelt, the macain were gone and all the food and water with them. The gold was gone. She sighed as she thought of Yael-mri's annoyance when she heard this. Gone to Sleykynin, that was the worst of it. She propped her elbows, on her knees, dropped her chin into her hands and contemplated Hern. He was sleeping, no longer unconscious, she realized that when she heard a faint snore.
Left for dead
, she thought.
They'll regret that, probably are already with the Prime of the local Chapter House chewing their ears off about not bringing the bodies back. Wonder what time it is
. She dropped her hands and looked up. Most of the moons had already set, though the three Dancers were still up, their light touching the face of the scarp and illuminating the rotten ragged stone.
They'll be coming back
. She spared a moment's thankfulness for the wash she'd cursed so fervently before. Without that, without the Sleykyn fear they'd escape, she'd be back in the trap she'd been in before at the well, facing a course of rape and torture, this time with less—far less—chance of escaping it. She touched the side of her boot, felt the long slim hardness of the hideout, blessed the tajicho. She watched Hern snore for a few minutes then turned to search for Reiki expecting to see nothing, thinking that the old woman had vanished with the ending of the dream, but the janja sat quietly, waiting with wordless patience for Serroi to finish her musings, passing a soft leather bag from hand to hand, the long drawstring draped over her thick wrist.

“Take off your boots, little one,” Reiki said softly. “For a while now you must keep touch with the Mother.”

Serroi touched her boots, outlined the small round of the tajicho. “I can't. I dare not.”

Reiki tossed her the small pouch. “Put it in this. Wear it around your neck.”

Serroi fished out the tajicho, looked up to meet Reiki's smiling eyes. “You shouldn't be able … how …?”

“I couldn't if I wished you harm.”

“The sprite … Hern.…”

“I know. Don't worry about it.”

“Oh.” The tajicho was warm in Serroi's hand but not burning. She slipped it into the pouch and hung the pouch around her neck.

She pulled off her boots and sat rubbing her feet. She looked at the boots, pulled the hideout from its sheath. She set the knife on the ground beside her and dug into the other boot for the silver box and the lockpicks stowed there. She set the picks and the box beside the knife, looked at them a long moment, sighed, restored them to their pockets and set the boots on the ground. She got to her feet, feeling bones and muscles creak. She stretched, working her sore muscles until they protested, then strolled over to smile down at Hern.

Still deeply asleep, he looked uncomfortable but there was nothing much she could do about that. Even back in her body she wasn't strong enough to lift him. Stepping back, her foot touched something. She looked down. The spear. She bent and picked it up, rubbed her thumb along the dried blood on the point, pounded the shaft against the ground. It was long enough to serve as a walking staff. She dug the bloody point repeatedly into the hard earth to scrub the blood away.
Good for digging too
, she thought. She stopped and stared at the spear.
Digging?
She shrugged, cleaned the second spear and laid them both out beside Hern. She scratched at her nose, twisted her mouth, went back to her boots. Holding them in her hands, she gazed at Reiki. “Digging?”

“You know already.”

“I know nothing. I understand nothing. What's happening to me?”

“You're changing. Shifting from his hand to mine.”

“Who are you?”

“You know me.”

“I thought I did. I'm not sure now.”

“I'm Reiki, janja of the pehiir. What did you think?”

“That only?”

Reiki shrugged, spread out her hands palms up. “Sometimes I think so, sometimes not.”

“Now?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. What is he to you?”

“He has made himself my enemy.”

“Does he know what we're after? Do you?”

“I know. He doesn't yet. He thinks you're running from him, trying to pull his attention from the Valley. And he's worried about you.”

Serroi looked down at the boots in her hand; she lifted them and smoothed the tops over her arm. “Why is he doing this?”

Broad hands palm down on her thighs, Reiki janja sighed. “An end to uncertainty. He's tired of seeing things and people he cares about darting out of control, out of his control. He's not an evil man.”

Serroi echoed Reiki's sigh. “I know. He doesn't understand anything.”

Silence. The whisper of dust on dust, the acrid taste of dust in her mouth. The soft regular puffs of Hern's breath. Serroi flattened her feet on the earth, feeling the currents passing between earth and her, understanding now a little why she must walk barefoot for a while. She wiped her face with the sleeve of Beyl's shirt. “What else do I need to know?”

“Eat no meat up on the plateau.”

“Hern won't like that.”

“That's not laid on him, just you.”

Serroi grimaced. “For always?”

“No. Only on the plateau.”

“So. What can I eat?”

“Learn to listen.”

“That's a big help. Will you be coming with us?”

“No, little one. I'm not here.”

“Am I still dreaming?”

“No. Yes. Does it matter?”