Moonscatter (32 page)

Serroi rubbed her feet back and forth in the slippery dust. “We've got no water, no food, nothing.”

“Learn to be still. Empty yourself and listen to the voice of the Mother.”

“Words. Can't eat words. You won't help us.”

“You're survived before and in worse case. The plateau's no desert. You don't need help.” Reiki got heavily to her feet, grinned at Serroi and was suddenly not there.

Serroi blinked. Somehow what she knew as reality and what she thought of as dream blended so completely that she had no idea where one began and the other left off. She closed fingers about the soft leather bag hanging between her breasts. That was real, it was here, she could touch and see and smell it, even taste it if she wished. She slid her feet back and forth in the cold dust, feeling morning in the air, something about the darkness and heaviness in the wind pressing against her back, the extra chill in the dust beneath her feet. She went back to Hern, knelt beside him.

She reached out to shake him awake, instead drew her fingers very softly across his broad low brow, brushing the sweaty strands of hair off it, drew her fingers down along the side of his face, smiling as she touched short stiff whiskers. His razors were gone with his gear. He wouldn't like that. He was fussy about his person. Fastidious. The quest had already been hard on him that way, it would be worse now. She smiled tenderly as she traced the outline of his lips, leaned down, kissed him lightly, straightened to find his eyes open watching her, a twinkle of amusement shining in them. She sat back on her heels. “Sneak.”

“Viper.” He sat up stiffly, rubbed his hands together, moved his shoulders. “Thought I was dead.”

“Not quite.”

He moved his shoulders again, caught sight of the two spears lying beside him. “Another little talent?”

“So it seems. Newly acquired.”

“Good timing.” He lifted the spears, examined the points, raised his brows when he saw traces of blood on both points and on the shafts near the points. He got to his feet, gave her a hand, swung her around so he could examine her back. “Got you too.”

“Uh-huh.” She pulled free, stooped, picked up one of the spears, straightened, scanned the sky just above the top of the scarp. It seemed to her she could see a faint lightening just above the dark ragged top of the cliff looming over them, though it could have been imagination only.

Hern's hand dropped on her shoulder. “You thinking what I think you're thinking?”

“Yah, Dom.”

“Why?”

She leaned back against him. His arms closed around her, holding her quietly, without fuss. She sighed. “I have to. Don't ask why because I damn well don't know.” She rested against him, reluctant to go on. “Wild magic up there. The Sleykynin are afraid of it,” she said. “You don't have to come with me. There's a river not too far north of here. You could steal a boat and ride in comfort down to Shinka.”

He said nothing for several minutes, only stood holding her, his chin resting warm on her head. Then, laughing, he turned her around and gazed down at her, his hands on her shoulders. “You won't take orders even when you know I'm right, you won't answer questions until you're ready, you're bad-tempered, intolerant, self-centered, annoying.” Still laughing he left her, collected her boots and the other spear. “Let's go.”

The ascent of the scarp face was more exasperating than difficult, a crawl from crack to crack with rock that seemed solid splitting away from under hand or foot, every hold tested and not excessively trusted. By the time they reached the top Serroi's hands and feet were bleeding, Hern's hands. The sun was just coming up, a red dot on the flat line of the horizon. The morning was cool and fresh, an erratic breeze stirring the grit and the clumps of limp dry grass, the low scraggly brush. Serroi dug her spear point into the hard earth, left the spear standing as she turned to Hern and took his hands.

“What …?”

“Be still.” Healing is not so easy in the body. She feels his startled resistance, his subsequent relaxation, as she roots herself into the earth and lets the warmth of the Mother surge up through her and into him. He feels it and shies but she is holding him tight and he can't pull away without hurting her. He grows quiet as the healing drains his strength a little, not much this time; the wounds are minor, but she has an urge to do something about that small weakness. She fills him with the strength of earth herself then takes her hands away. He stares down at his hands as she is noting that she has, without intending it, healed herself. She meets his eyes, sees his brows raise, sees also that scar on his face is gone, though the break in his whiskers remains to show where it was. She backs away to the spear, takes hold of the shaft, feeling a brief euphoria, a high that slowly leaks away as she faces the sun and starts walking.

She took a few steps, turned. Hern was watching her with an odd expression on his face. He brushed his hands across his shirt front, shook his head, came up with her, asking no questions.

They walked in that companionable silence for some time. The plateau near the edge of the scarp was mostly rock with scatters of thin soil, a few patches of wispy sun-dried grass, small crawlers disturbed by the passing feet. As they got farther from the edge the soil got deeper, the grass thicker, the brush taller, a new kind of brush with a dusty, pleasantly pungent odor. Short crooked limbs with a smooth leathery bark so darkly red it was nearly black, teardrop-shaped leaves of a dusty grey green. She stepped over a dried-out vine with a few touches of green left in the ropy stems and leaves, dried out fruits, wrinkled, dark purple, clinging to desiccated yellow stalks. She felt a sudden bite in the soles of her feet, lifted first one foot then the other, brushed hastily at her soles, trotted after Hern.

A second vine. The prickle again. She stopped.
Listen
, she thought.
Reiki said listen
. She slipped one boot from under her belt, knelt beside the vine, stripped the dried fruits into the boot. Hern watched a moment, walked on, impatient, growling in his stomach, thirsty already and getting thirstier. She knew what he was feeling but at the moment she didn't know quite what to do about it except keep gathering roots and anything else she found edible. She rose and walked after him, listening at last, listening through the soles of her feet.

A lappet scurried across in front of them. With an explosive exclamation, Hern was after it, the spear reversed, poised for the throw. He disappeared between clumps of brush, running with a speed and energy that surprised her, though she wasn't surprised to see that he could use that spear, he seemed to know something about any weapon she could think of. She forgot about him and began “listening” to the earth again, digging up crooked yellow tubers, dropping them into her boot with the fruits. She found a patch of tulpa, broke off the thick crisp stalks and added them to her collection. She was prodding thoughtfully at the soil with the point of her spear when he came back, three lappets not one dangling from his left hand, a wide grin marking his delight with himself. He mopped at his face with his sleeve. “Think you could find us some water?”

She leaned heavily on the spear, wondering what she could do. Not needing his prodding, she'd already sent her outreach searching for water. As far as she could tell, there was none on the surface of the plateau.
Water
, she thought, and as she thought of water now, she had an itching on the soles of her feet, a writhing wriggling feel as if immaterial roots were struggling to break through the skin. Alarmed, she lifted one foot, felt a pressure on her back and neck. “Wait here,” she said, “let me see.” The push driving her, she struggled to keep some kind of control over her body, to avoid the snatching thorns on the brush; she felt confused, ignorant, helpless in her ignorance.

When the push lets up she kicks her feet through the matted grass until she is standing with her feet partly buried in the gritty dirt. The roots break through, drive into earth's cool heart. She touches a cold so intense it is a terrible pain. The cold gushes up through her body. She cannot pull away, not without tearing loose from those roots and she is afraid of doing that. The cold bursts forth and flows over her feet. She looks down. Crystalline liquid is gushing from beneath her feet, the flow increasing until it is bubbling up past her ankles.

She stepped out of the water, wiped her feet on a patch of grass, wrinkled her nose at the clammy feel of the sodden last inches of her trouser legs. She looked at the water, laughed, an uncertain rather frightened sound, stopped when she heard that fear. “Hern,” she called. “Here's water.”

Hern wiped his greasy hands on a patch of limp, dry grass, broke the improvised spit into bits and dropped them into the small hot fire. Serroi sighed, peeled another tulpa stalk and bit off a piece of the crisp white flesh, the smell of the roasted meat making head and stomach ache.

Hern dug his boot heel into the dirt, inspected the groove. “You think this so-called quest is worth all the trouble it's giving us?” He turned his head, his grey eyes considered her gravely. “Or something Yael-mri cooked up to get us out of her hair.”

Serroi shook her head. “If it was anyone but Yael-mri—no.” She yawned, surprising herself, covering the gape with a sluggish hand. The warmth of the sun and her exertions were making her sleepy. “It's a real chance.” She yawned again, blinked. “Chance. Win or lose, what else is there?”

CHAPTER XI:

THE MIJLOC (IN THE EARTH'S TEETH)

Stretched out on her stomach on a narrow flat high up the mountain, Tuli dragged the twig through the stony earth, gouging out a line beside others scratched at random in front of her, using the control she imposed on her hand and wrist to help her tighten what little hold she had on the turmoil in her head. She slanted a glance at Rane. The lanky ex-meie was sitting cross-legged beside her, perched on a hummock of grass, fingers stroking continually along and along the smooth old wood of her flute, her face controlled, serene. “You think I'm crazy?”

Rane turned her head slowly, smiled slowly. “No,” she said.

“They do.” Tuli stared down the slope dropping away close by her left shoulder at the turmoil below, the miniature black figures of busy mijlockers, some scurrying about without apparent destinations, others trotting in double lines from the quarry below to the semi-circle of stone backed against the near vertical cliff on the far side of the long narrow valley, or in double lines carrying blocks of roughly dressed stone to the quickly rising wall that was beginning to block off the valley between two crumbling cliffs near the point where it opened out onto gently rolling hills. Below her, stone cutters worried granite from the hillside using what makeshift tools they had with them, worked the quarried stone into blocks, the steady ring of iron hammer against iron chisel, chisel against stone making bright singing sounds that rebounded from the face of the mountain across the way. A creek wriggled along the valley floor, making a demanding unresonant music. Shouts and laughter bounded up to her ears. The air so high was thin and cold and carried sound with the clarity of cracking ice.

“Teras went scouting with Hars,” Tuli said. “Five days ago. Without me.”

Tuli dumped the water from the canvas bucket into the big pot backed up against the fire and stretched hands blue with cold to the blaze. The heat reddened her face, made her skin itch, but she didn't draw back, the warmth felt especially good after the splashing of the icy stream. She closed her eyes, sniffed with pleasure at the fish frying in the pan, abandoned for the moment while her mother beat at batter in a thick-sided crockery bowl. Tuli sat back on her heels, yawned idly, watching her father as he came up the streambank toward them, stopping a few minutes at each of the nearer camps to talk a bit with the other outlaw taroms that had settled in the valley. Sanoni was a little farther up the mountain, fussing with her oadats, a half dozen of the grey-furred ground-runners kept for the moment in rough wicker cages. They weren't adapting too well to the higher altitude though they still produced an egg or two, Annic's batter testified to that. They tended to droop and forget to eat except when Sanoni teased and caressed them into a happier state. Teras didn't seem to be anywhere about.
Da must've sent him to get something
, she thought, then tried to dismiss him from her mind. He'd been restless and irritable, snapping at her with no excuse at all, hanging around with the boys when he wasn't working. As her father came up the slope to their camp, red-faced and vigorous, oddly content for a man who'd lost everything, Tuli got to her feet, stood rubbing her hands down along her sides. “Where's Teras? He better hurry back, breakfast's almost ready.”

Tesc lost his smile. He bent over the fish in the frying pan, picked up Annic's spatula, prodded at them, flipped them over neatly with a quick twist of his wrist, surprising Tuli who'd never before seen him try anything connected with work of a house, though, of course, this rough camp was far from being a house.

Tuli started to repeat the question. “Where …?”

“He left early,” Tesc said reluctantly. He frowned down at the fish, tapped them with the spatula. “With Hars,” he said. “We need to know when the next tithe wagons are loaded and ready to roll.”

“Left? No. He wouldn't go without me.” Tuli tightened her hands into fists, knives in her head and belly, a surge of heat up her body. She wrestled with the newborn rage, tried to shove it down. “He wouldn't, Da. He knows I want to go.”

Tesc came around the fire and took hold of her shoulders with gentle strength, stood looking gravely down into her face. “Try to understand, Tuli. I don't want you riding with them. It's too dangerous.”

Mouth working without making words, Tuli stared up into her father's round blue eyes, saw anxiety in them and something else she didn't understand—unless it might be pity and she shied away from that because she couldn't endure the idea that her father might pity her. “No.” She folded her arms tight across her tender breasts to damp the waves of anger surging in her. “No. I don't believe you.” Her voice was not quite shrill and broke on the words. The pity she refused was stronger in her father's face. “It was him, wasn't it? He doesn't want me.” With a hoarse scream as her fury burst on her, she flung herself onto her father's chest, fists beating on him, a voice hers and not hers shouting things she couldn't bear to remember later. Annic came around behind her, pulled her away from Tesc, turned her, slapped her hard first right cheek then left, shocking her from her fit, holding her close after, patting her shoulders, murmuring soothing, meaningless sounds until her shuddering passed away and she was limp and exhausted in her mother's arms.