Reclamation (7 page)

“I know it doesn’t look like food,” he said as she took it from him, “but it will keep you going.”

She picked up the slab. Its warmth set her fingers tingling.

She bit one corner. The stuff tasted like bitter nuts and had the consistency of old paste. She made herself finish it off anyway, washed down with more water Eric conjured up from the hole in the wall.

The Nameless Powers know I’ve eaten worse.

“Tell me, what did Narroways do to finally get itself cursed?” The casual words were strained around the edges, Arla noticed.

She swallowed her mouthful of paste. “Refused to give up during the siege.”

“Siege?” he said incredulously.

For a moment, she looked at him like he was insane. “Oh, you had gone before that. It was maybe five years after you left, the Skymen made a full-scale bid for support for … For whatever it is the Skymen want from the Realm. King Sun announced he was going to make them ambassadors to his court and hear all their petitions. The Teachers kept on saying the Skymen were Aunorante Sangh. First City followed the First Teacher, of course, and sides got taken up and so did weapons. Narroways was cursed and the fighting’s been going on ever since.” She spoke the last words to her cup. She’d spent the past days trying not to worry about where Little Eye, or Roof Beam, or skinny Broken Trail were. She wasn’t getting any better at it.

She set the cup down. Eric was scowling at the backs of his strangely bare hands.

“Thank you for the food,” she said to get his attention back. When he looked up, Arla squared her shoulders. “Hear me, Eric Born
kenu
Teacher Hand
kenu
Lord Hand on the Seablade
dena
Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh. You don’t want me with you, and I don’t want to stay. Take me to a Skyman city, I’ll manage after that. I’ll find a way to pay you for passage and the bruised back.”

He laughed sharply at that, but then sobered. “Stone in the Wall
dena
Arla Born of the Black Wall,” Eric said levelly, “you couldn’t find your feet in a Skyman city if someone showed you where to look.” He shook his head. “All you have seen and Garismit’s Eyes, you still don’t understand!”

He looked at the closed window-wall. “Garismit’s Eyes,” he muttered again, “couldn’t even find her feet.”

“You’re not sure of that.”

That startled him. “What makes you think so?”

“You’ve taken my namestones, and you hid the scissors.”

He snickered. “That, Notouch, is because you haven’t got the sense to be afraid of what is happening to you. Besides, I saw the knife sheaths.” He gestured at her arms.

Arla crossed her arms, gripping her empty sheaths.

“And you wonder why I don’t want to leave sharp objects lying around.” His mouth quirked up into a tight smile before he lapsed back into high-house tones. “Follow me. I’ll show Arla where she can sleep.”

“As her Teacher commands.”

Eric ran his tongue over his lips thoughtfully as he circled the sofa to the back wall. He touched a hand-sized rectangle that was ivory instead of tan. A door-shaped section of the wall slid away as if pulled on invisible strings.

The space on the other side was so small it barely deserved the name “room.” An alcove with a slab of the chair stuff in it took up most of the back wall. “Bed” she labeled it. Lines dissected the rest of the wall space into squares. A stool with a hole in it had been welded to the floor in the far corner. That was the extent of the place.

“Two things.” Eric crowded his broad frame inside the tiny chamber. “One, the light. Touch here”—he pointed at another white square in the wall, this one above the bed alcove—“once and it goes away. Touch it again, and it comes back.

“Two”—he waved his hand at the stool—“when you need to say hello to a bush, do it in there. Touch here”—this time the square he pointed at was silver—“when you are finished. Understand that?”

“Bed, lamp, bush.” She nodded at the appropriate objects.

“Stones.”

She whirled around. Eric held out the lumpy black bundle she had made of her headcloth and her treasures.

“Thank you,” she said as she took them. This time, she really meant it.

“Sleep until you wake up.” Eric walked back out and the door slid shut behind him.

Maybe by then I’ll know what to make of you,
she could practically hear him thinking.
Maybe by then, Teacher Hand, Eric Born, I’ll know what to make of you.

Arla sat on the edge of the bed, and for a moment did nothing but hold the bundle of stones tightly against her chest.

“Where are you taking them, Mother?” asked Little Eye from memory. She had run one dirty, nail-bitten finger across the smooth surface of the stone.

“Mother is taking them to learn about the Skymen.” Arla tucked them into her pouch one at a time. “She and they will be back soon.”

Nameless Powers preserve me
—Arla bowed her head over the stones—
and do not let me have lied to my daughter.

The memory of Little Eye gave a fresh edge to Arla’s resolve. The Skymen sought power in the Realm. Silver on the Clouds, the Heretic King of Narroways, had linked that quest for power to her own. If Arla could learn what was truly going on behind the Skymen’s mysteries, if she could bring some skill or piece of knowledge to the Realm, at the very least it would help her family survive the strangeness sweeping the world. At most … Arla let her real hope surface. At most she could bargain with the Narroways lords to raise her family up from the mud and have them declared no longer Notouch. Such things had happened before, maybe only in the apocrypha, but maybe those stories would be enough.

After all, stories have been enough for me most of my life.

Don’t lie to yourself.
Arla fingered her bundle.
If stories had been enough, you wouldn’t be here now. You want to make the stories come true.

She undid the knotted cloth. The bundle fell open and the stones glimmered in the stark light of the glowing ceiling. They had taken no damage from her treatment of them. She had known they wouldn’t. Perfect and beautiful, they waited for her need.

Most Notouch hoped their children would grow to display the power gift. It was the one ability that could raise them out of the mud and all the way up to the rank of Teacher. According to the Teachers in the Temples, at any rate. Arla brushed her palm across the stones’ smooth, cool surfaces. According to them, the Nameless created the Royals to rule, the Nobles to administer, the Bondless to trade and travel, the Bonded to make and mend, and the Notouch to serve all. That the power gift could arise in any child of the People was the sign that all were named by the Nameless and all were under the eyes of the Servant.

They had forgotten, or in their arrogance ignored the fact, that there was at least one other kind of person in the Realm.

She glanced at the door.

No. Not here. Not now. He could come back at any second. Sleep is one thing, but if I try a reading, I’ll never wake up in time if he decides I’m too much trouble to cart about.
She shook her head.
I’ll have to wait. I’ve managed this much, I can wait.

Despite her long, unimaginably strange day, she was still able to think clearly. That realization brought her almost as much comfort as the weight of the stones against her lap.

I have Teacher
…
Eric Born shaken. That’s good. That’ll help. Everything I do successfully, every time I get something right about this place, it’s a blow to what he thinks I ought to be. That’s important. Keeping him off-balance might be as good a weapon as my knives, if it turns out I need a weapon.
She looked down at her bundle and stifled the fervent hope that this one Teacher was what he was supposed to be, a preserver of the lives of the People. Her stomach twisted when she remembered the uncontrolled burst of delight she’d felt when she’d heard him give the Teacher’s greeting in the middle of the Skyman’s chamber. She tightened her hold on the headcloth and cast around for something else to think about.

The easiest was the ship-place around her. It was a Skyman thing, there was no question about that. The Skymen were not part of the realm of the Nameless, so they could not have power-gifted among them. So this ship was meant for use by ordinary people. If that was true, anybody could learn the workings.

It’s going to be awhile before I know enough of the Skymen to find out what they want in the Realm. There’s nothing I can do about that now.

I can, however, find this Cam.

Arla slung the pouch of stones from her belt again and faced the door. On the right side, about shoulder height, hung a pale, palm-sized rectangle that matched the one she’d seen in the other room. Arla touched her fingertips to it and the door slid away.

Darkness filled the bigger room. A glimmer of light caught her eye and shifted her gaze to the right.

Her heart froze. The window-wall was open. The emptiness with its countless lights gaped at her. Arla’s knees collapsed. She tasted blood as she bit her tongue to block the scream constricting her throat. Her arms threw themselves up to shield her helpless head and eyes.

She screwed her eyelids shut and slammed her hand flat against the wall. She must have hit the right spot, because she felt the breeze as the door swished shut.

Blast him! Blast him headfirst into the Lif marshes and wash him into the Dead Sea! Nameless Powers preserve me! I thought I had him! I thought …
Arla’s arms dropped and her eyelids fluttered.
I thought he was going to make a stupid mistake and leave me free to wander, just because he’s a Noble facing a Notouch.

She began to laugh. The low, hoarse noise spilled out of her until her shoulders shook and tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes.

“Arla Born of the Black Wall, you are an idiot Notouch! Even the stones will not change that. Give yourself this. Whatever you think of the Teacher he was, Eric Born is not stupid!” She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

But, what is he?

Arla stood up and staggered, catching herself against the wall.

Go to sleep, Arla.

She dragged her poncho off and laid it on the bed. Not trusting her balance anymore, she sat on the bed to undo the laces around her leggings. The leggings themselves peeled off in long strips of cloth that she folded on top of her sandals.

She unbelted her overtunic and dragged it over her shoulders. The scent of herself came off with it.

I hope he has a bath in this place. I reek.
She stripped off the knife sheaths and tossed them on the pile of clothing.

One hand strayed to her waist and pressed against the thick, leather belt beneath her undertunic. It chafed. It had been put on her when she first came to her cycles. As much as the hand marks, it said she was old enough to leave the clan as a woman in need of protection and reminding. For a searing instant her skin felt Nail in the Beam’s heavy touch and missed it.

Well, get used to that,
she told herself roughly.
He’ll surely have divorced you by the time you get back home.

Arla considered taking the time to remove the belt, but a formless notion told her to leave it be. Part of her had been far too relieved to see Eric Born and that part might need reminding, or protection.

She rolled her clothes into her poncho and dropped the bundle beside the bed. She stretched out beneath the blanket and reached up until her hand found the lamp-light square. The room went black. Her mind quickly followed its example.

Behind his cabin door, Eric shucked his clothing and stepped into the cleaner. The sonics shook the dried sweat off his skin, but did nothing to shake the apprehension inside him.

War.
Eric’s heart thudded.
Over the Skymen. Has it reached the First City? Who’s backing Narroways?

I don’t care,
Eric reminded himself fiercely.
I DON’T CARE.

Clean, but not relaxed, he pulled on his spare tunic and trousers and sat in front of the cabin’s auxiliary comm terminal. He switched the input setting from keyboard to audio. The screen lit up to show a blank, grey background.

“Ready for input,” said a neuter voice from the speaker.

Eric licked his lips. This was going to be a risk. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of Vitae pursuit, but that didn’t mean they weren’t looking for him. Any transmission was a chance to be spotted and tracked. But running blind, as he was now, was even more dangerous than running scared.

“Wanderer,” he said in the language of the Realm. “This is Teacher Hand. Tell Dorias I need him.”

He settled back to wait. May 16 was light-years away, and getting farther by the second. Eric folded his arms and drummed his fingers against his forearm, trying not to think too much. Dorias had tried to get a warning to him. That meant he knew at least something about what was going on. Anything was better than operating in total ignorance.

At long last, the terminal let out a single, low chime. “Connection made.”

Eric pulled himself up straight. “Dorias?”

The blank screen did not shift, but the terminal’s voice deepened into an approximation of a male baritone. “Eric! What took you so long? Are you on your way here?”

“Dorias, wait a minute, will you?” said Eric. “I’m not on my own and the Vitae have all gone insane. I only got part of your message on Haron Station. What’s going on?”

There was a long stretch of silence. “Eric, where are you?”

“On the
U-Kenai,”
said Eric with more than a touch of exasperation. “In flight.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Dorias seriously. “What contact have you had with the Vitae?”

“They tried to incarcerate me.” Memory added heat to his tone.

“Do they still have the woman?”

Eric stared at the terminal for a moment without answering. “How did you know about her?”

Dorias sighed. “It’s a very long story, Eric. I need to know, do they still have her?”

“No,” said Eric. “She’s with me.”

“Good,” said Dorias in the same serious tone. “We need you both here. She was being taken to May 16 when the Vitae waylaid the ship.”