Moonscatter (9 page)

The sprite ruptured at her touch, whiffling into a lifeless husk that rolled down Hern's thigh to be trampled into the cold dust of the road. Feeling twenty times a murderer, she closed her eyes but could not weep.

Hern swung around and stared at her. “What was that for?”

She brushed at her eyes, sighed. “You were marked.”

“What?”

“A sprite settled on you to mark you for the Nearga-nor. Going into Sadnaji is a fool's move and you know it, Hern. They're warned and waiting for us.”

“Gloom and doom.” Hern laughed. “A Norit behind every tree. All this over a damn silly little sprite?” Still chuckling, he urged his tired mount into a faster shuffle and drew ahead of her again, leaving her to wonder where his wits had got or if her Noris had somehow worked on his head to blind him to reason.

She reached up and drew a forefinger gently around the edge of her eyespot. Fifteen years ago, no, more like twenty now, her Noris had learned how to manipulate her—with her eager help and the eyespot as gate. She shook off a touch of panic then stiffened.
I'm like the sprites
, she thought.
Not all natural
. She bent down, touched her fingertips to the warm stone in the boot pocket.
You unmake magic. I wonder if one day you'll unmake me
. She shivered at the thought, straightened, glanced at the moons.
Nearly there
. She shook out the cloak bundled behind the saddle and pulled it around her shoulders, knotting the ties with trembling fingers.
Magic, Maiden bless, I hate it. Hate it
. She jerked the hood up over her head.
I should never have been conceived, let alone born
.

The Longwind blew night and day across the Tundra at the heart of Winterdeep, a ram of air so cold a moment's exposure would freeze to the bone. Prey and predator alike slept the long dark away while the windrunners and their herds went inland to the Burning Mountains and the Place of Boiling Water where the herds could find graze and shelter from that wind of death. The Place was a long chain of valleys scooped from the black stone, tradition-tied to the various clans among the Windrunners.

By custom and by law no woman could lie with any man there on pain of outcasting should the sin be known. And known it would be if there was fruit of the coupling—all babes so conceived were misborn, marked in one way or another. Misborn, their mothers outcast, had their bodies given to the Cleansing Fire, their spirits sent home to the Great Hag on that last day of Celebration before the clans separated in the spring to follow their herds in the age-old paths down the Tundra. Serroi was conceived on a drunken night near the end of the wintering. Too much mead and too much dancing, too much warmth and too much dark and afterward too much guilt and fear even though her birthtime was no betrayal since she stayed overlong in the womb yet was born much smaller than most. And she was born perfect, rosy and well-shaped, bright, lively, a lovely babe. For two years her mother thought herself safe from outcasting but in Serroi's third year pale green splotches like old bruises darkened her small body though her hands and face were left clear. By the end of the third Wintering the splotches spread to her face and the eyespot began to take shape between her brows. Her mother watched her with a sadness and despair Serroi couldn't understand; her brothers and sisters either shunned her or played cruel tricks on her—that, too, she didn't understand.

In the spring of her fourth year The Noris came and took her away—saved her life, she knew later. Come next Winterdeep she'd be marked and given to the fire, her mother driven away to survive how she could on her own. But the Noris came before that could happen, took her away and loved her a little maybe and used her to dig into places otherwise blocked off from him.

The road looped across gently rolling land, winding soon between the high thorn hedges marking tar boundaries, past groves of brellim, spikuls and moonglows, past rattling clumps of bastocane. Loud whooshing grunts from the tired macai, macai pads thudding softly on the dust, sleepy twitters drifting sometimes from tree or hedge, chini howling in the distance at the moon, a few barks and rustles from the grass and brush at the side of the road—all familiar, even comforting, night sounds, yet Serroi felt a spreading coldness within. The air seemed to hang poised around her, though a vigorous breeze danced leaves about over her head; she felt eyes on her though she knew this had to be her own foolishness because the tajicho protected her most effectively from all spirit eyes.

She followed Hern around a last grove of brellim and moonglows and saw Sadnaji loom before them, a dark bulk with no light showing except the caged torch sputtering toward exhaustion above the Inn's door. It was still bright enough to show her the empty court beyond the broad low arch in the Inn's wall. Hern swung around, grinned at her. The flash of his teeth said without words: I told you so. She gritted her own teeth, fighting down an urge to tear off his arm and beat him over the head with it.

The silence was thick between them as they covered the last few yards to the welcoming arch. She bit down hard on her lower lip to hold back a last and probably futile plea, sighed and followed Hern into the Inn court.

A bent and tattered figure shuffled from the stables backed up against the Northwall of the court. Serroi swallowed hard as she recognized him in spite of the fifteen years since they'd met, fifteen years that had added more layers of dirt and malice to his withered face. The old hostler stopped in front of Hern, lifted his wrinkled evil face, peered up at him from red-rimmed eyes, exuding a powerful aroma of ancient sweat, stale urine and bad wine. Serroi tugged nervously at her hood, then wished she hadn't because the movement caught the hostler's eye. He stared at her, blinked slowly, rubbed at his nose with the back of a filthy hand. “Yer out late, c'taj.” His whine was filled with senile insolence. “Shouldna be pissin' round in d' dark. I gotta go fer d'Agli 'nd tell.” He giggled then, breathy whistling hoots that propelled his foul breath into Hern's face.

Serroi cursed under her breath as Hern went rigid. She edged her mount closer to his and dropped a hand on his arm, not daring to speak, hoping her interference wouldn't provoke the explosion she was trying to avert. He glanced around at her and she was startled to see laughter instead of anger dancing in his pale eyes.

“Needs must,” he said with smiling geniality and flipped a silver coin at the hostler. “Stable these beasts and grain 'em, they worked hard today, there's something considerable of me to haul about.” He slid off the macai, circled around the gaping old man, strolled unhurriedly toward the main door of the Inn. Serroi watched the hostler, his mouth still hanging open, look down at the coin in his hand. Shaking her head, she dismounted and walked quickly after Hern, feeling slightly disoriented, as if a cooing macai foal had suddenly sunk its teeth in her hand.

When she pushed through the door he was hauling on a bell-pull dangling beside the stairwell. She looked around the room surprised to find it so empty. Fear congealed in a cold lump under her ribs.
This is wrong, all wrong. Where's Braddon?
She fidgeted with the hood of her cloak, uneasily remembering Hern's orders to the hostler. If that old viper took the macain to the stable and stripped them of their gear, that cut off any quick retreat. Almost better to hope he left the macain standing and hurried off to fetch the Agli, as he'd threatened. A single lamp burned behind the bar, leaving most of the room in heavy shadow. Hern pulled the bellcord again, swearing under his breath with a growing impatience.
They did it after all
, she thought.
They've taken away his trade in spite of his friends
. She couldn't remember a single night, no matter how bad the weather, when this room didn't have a traveler or two, feet stretched to the fire, drinking and swapping lies long after midnight with local folk come to sup Braddon's beer and crunch down the extras he offered free. She looked down at the table beside her, tapped fingers lightly on the wood. Dry and shining clean. Not a crumb or even a waterstain left. She frowned down at her fingers.
We left the Valley on Vara thirty. This is Gorduu two, Maiden bless, this is the middle of Gorduufest. This place should be packed and wet to near flooding. Where are the pole lights in the square, the straw maids blessed by the shrine keeper? The green should be filled with dancers, ringed with roast-fires
. She remembered the rigid patterns of the sprite dances and the sadness she felt watching them. This room, this whole Inn breathed a sadness that near choked her. She crossed to Hern, put her hand on his arm. “Let's get out of here.”

“I begin to think you're right,” he said softly. He passed a hand over his tousled grey-streaked hair, started for the door, then turned with Serroi to face the stairwell as they both heard shuffling, uncertain footsteps, saw Braddon coming painfully down the stairs, step by slow step, anxiety contorting his features. For a moment Serroi didn't recognize him, then she scowled at him. The round ebullient man with his warm joy in good food and good neighbors, the exuberant friend of all who came through the door, this man no longer existed. His skin hung in folds over his bones, his hands shook, his bramble-bush hair was thinned and flattened and streaked with white. He stopped on the last step, glanced about the room. He winced at the shadows, swallowed as the door stayed shut. His tongue flicked across dry lips then he cleared his throat. “Cetaj?”

Serroi's fingers tightened on Hern's arm. Without speaking she raised her other hand and brushed back the hood, turned her face to the light.

Braddon gasped. He stumbled off the bottom step and stretched out his hand to touch her cheek. “Meie?” His eyes flew past her, came back to her. “Did he see you?”

“He was there. I don't think he knew me—the hood was up, the cloak pulled around me. Seems to me the old buzzard's eyes aren't too sharp anymore.”

“Sharp enough.” Braddon straightened his shoulders. “Doesn't matter. Orders are no one's to be out after sundown without a pass.”

Hern started to speak but Serroi closed her fingers tighter, digging her nails into his flesh. “Whose orders?”

“Agli's. Backed by a Decsel from Oras.” The words trailed into a hiss of fury. For a moment a shadow of his old self returned.

She touched his wrinkled cheek. “So much change in such a little time?”

“Yah, meie.” The flash was gone. He caught hold of her hand, his own trembling, held her fingers against his face. “Change, Yah. They had me in their House of Repentance a full month and when they let me out they set him watching me.” He nodded at the door. “Soäreh's worm, he is.”

“Then we'd better be off.”

“He already saw you.” Each soft word fell heavily into the silence. “They said if I sinned, they'd burn me out. Sin!” He dropped her hand, stumbled to the bar and edged behind it. Fishing beneath it, he brought up a clean damp cloth and pushed it gently, lovingly across the ancient polished planks. “I don't know why I keep on, meie; this isn't living. It's not that I have anyone now, Matti dying last spring, my grandson gone off. Never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad she's not here no more and don't have to see this.” His eyes slid around to Hern. “Think I know you, friend. Shouldna be here, it's a bad place for you. Listen to an old man, both of you. Get from the mijloc and stay out. Nothing you can do alone. And folks here are too shook up to help.” He polished absently at the planks in front of him. “Call you perverts, meie, the Followers, they do. I've seen 'em chasing meien.” He stared somberly at the cloth. “Getting so a man can't spit without looking first at them damn rules they got hung up all over the place.” He flicked a finger at the door where she saw a pale square of white stuck to the middle panel. “Put me in that jail of theirs,” he went on. “Young Beyl he come to slip me out, all set for the mountains he was, wanted me to go with him. Good lad, dammit I do miss him. Be dead most like before Winterdeep. Froze or ate or skewered. Meie, you shouldna be wearing the leathers. Not here. Not anywhere. The Worm, he got to dig Agli out of bed and that fat bastard likes his sleep. You got a little time. At the head of the stairs, fourth floor, south side. Beyl's room it was. Most of his clothes left, take what you need and shuck those leathers. Go quiet, we got a Norit sleeping up there, been here more'n a passage now, hanging around snooping into things.” He folded the cloth with neat small movements of his hands, stowed it away, straightened. “You, cetaj.” He jabbed a finger at Hern then tapped it against his head. “Give me a clout here. Mark me. Worm knows when you got here. I been wasting too much time talking.” He sighed. “Han't been able to talk really seems like a year now. If they find me on floor with bloody head, maybe they won't ask when that head got bloody.” He moved quickly away, stopped by the foot of the stairs. “They find me here, they think maybe you got me before I had a chance to yell.” He rounded his shoulders and bent his head.

Hern's eyes widened, but he nodded and drew his dagger; his movements slow at first then very quick, he crossed the three-stride space between him and Braddon, the hard tap behind the ear done before Serroi let out the breath she was holding. Braddon folded slowly down. Serroi ran to him to break his fall, but Hern caught her arm and held her back. When Braddon was sprawled on the floor, he thrust her aside and knelt, his fingers searching out the pulse in the old man's throat; with a quick, relieved smile he used the blade's point to draw a long scratch across the rising bump, then jumped to his feet as blood began trickling through the coarse grey fleece on the old man's head.

“You are sometimes clever, Dom,” Serroi murmured.

He bowed, mockery in the elaborate dip. “Nice of you to notice.” The bitterness in his voice startled her, but before she could respond, he caught her wrist and started for the door. “Let's get out of here.”