Snare (62 page)

‘No sign of Soutan,’ he said, first in Kazraki, then in Vranz. ‘No one’s seen him. Anywhere. It’s like he’s vanished.’

When Gairmahn spoke and Jezro answered, Zayn translated for Warkannan without being asked.

‘He’ll have to turn up sooner or later,’ Gairmahn said. ‘Horses can’t fly.’

‘He’s good at hiding,’ Warkannan put in. ‘I know that from personal experience.’

The others nodded, shrugged. Jezro stuffed the letter into his pocket and returned to making conversation with their host and his family.

After the meal, Warkannan stood in the corner of the towering great room and watched Jezro talking with Gairmahn, heads together over a long narrow map, as they sat side by side on a red velvet divan. The glow from one of those ysterious lamps that burned nothing caught them in a pool of gold and sent light like a fountain up to the beamed ceiling. Warkannan had no idea, of course, what they were discussing. Eventually Zayn joined him and told him.

‘Water rights,’ Zayn said. ‘Jezro’s trying to get support for some kind of long-term irrigation project.’

‘Long term, huh?’ Warkannan said. ‘Tell me something, Zayn. Do you think he’ll ever leave here?’

‘I don’t know. You must be worried sick.’

‘I am, yes. Well, if he won’t go back, there’s only one thing to do about Gemet, and that’s assassinate him. I probably won’t live through the attempt, but as God is my witness, I’ll have to try.’

Zayn started to speak, then merely shook his head.

‘You can give me some pointers,’ Warkannan went on. ‘I have a feeling that you know a lot more about palace security than I do.’

‘I do, yes, and that’s why I’d rather talk you out of trying. You’d never even get close to him.’

‘Well, maybe it won’t come to that.’ Warkannan fell back on the one person who had never disappointed him. ‘Inshallah.’

‘Inshallah,’ Zayn agreed. ‘I’m more worried now about Soutan. I never should have talked about Ammadin’s plans. He’s probably going to try to follow her. If something happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.’

‘I’ve never known a comnee woman who couldn’t take care of herself, especially a spirit rider.’

‘Yes, but –’ Zayn hesitated for a long moment. ‘It’s Bane, what I did. Talking about her quest with an outsider, I mean. I broke Bane.’

‘That’s serious, all right, or it would be if you were a comnee man.’

‘What makes you think I’m not?’

Warkannan laughed. ‘Still,’ he went on, ‘I’m just as glad that we’re going after the slimy bastard.’

In the morning they left the Gairmahn estate early, but not before a second letter came from Kors. Soutan and Arkazo had
been spotted once, at sunset the day before, heading east on a back road, about forty miles from Kors.

‘They’ve covered a lot of ground,’ Jezro remarked. ‘They must have stayed in the saddle all day yesterday.’

‘They’d better be careful,’ Warkannan said. ‘If they founder or lame those horses, they won’t be going anywhere, fast or slow.’

‘Let’s hope we’re that lucky.’

In the event, luck was the one thing they lacked. Over the next several days they rode east steadily but slowly. The entire canton knew Jezro, it seemed, and everywhere they stopped they found the zhundars, the landowners, and the local priests of the One God willing to offer information and advice, but always at the cost of delay. None of them, however, had seen Soutan and Arkazo. Occasionally, very occasionally, a zhundar did have a second-hand sighting to offer, usually from an isolated farmer who had sold two mysterious strangers food and grain.

After three days of this futile searching, Warkannan was ready to give up, but Jezro refused. That night, by the light of an oil lamp, they sat in their room in a shabby country hohte and studied the map Zayn had brought from Sarla.

‘We’re only about ten miles from Shairb,’ Jezro said. ‘That’s right here on the border between Burgunee and what used to be N’Dosha. The last time anyone saw Soutan, they seemed to be heading that way.’

‘We might as well go there,’ Warkannan said. ‘But let’s face it, they’re long gone by now, out in wild country.’ He felt as if someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart, just for the briefest of moments. The strength of the grief surprised him. Jezro laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Idres, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. We’ve got to get back home. Arkazo’s only one man, and the khanate –’

‘Can wait for another couple of days, damn it. I told you, I’ve got things to say to Soutan. No, don’t bother to argue.’

Zayn had been studying the map. He laid a finger on a straight line that ran from Sarla east to the hills at the map’s edge.

‘The old N’Dosha road,’ Zayn said. ‘There’s a feeder road that starts near Shairb and leads straight there.’

‘I see it.’ Jezro nodded agreement. ‘Shairb it is, gentlemen. It’s a trade town, by the way.’

‘Trade?’ Warkannan said. ‘Trade with whom?’

‘The ChaMeech.’ Jezro glanced back and forth between Zayn and Warkannan.

For a moment Warkannan was too angry to speak. Zayn’s face had lost all expression.

‘People out here have a different view of the ChaMeech,’ Jezro said at last. ‘Despite what happened in N’Dosha. Huh. I wonder if Soutan’s planning on meeting those allies you told me about. Shairb would be a logical place to do it.’

‘Maybe so,’ Warkannan said. ‘Let’s hope there’s only six of them.’

Zayn looked up with his mask firmly in place.

‘What’s wrong?’ Warkannan said.

‘Nothing.’

‘When you get that look there’s always something wrong.’

‘Damn you!’ Zayn’s voice lacked real anger. ‘I’m worried about Ammadin. If that bastard hurts her, I’ll skin him alive.’

‘We’ll help,’ Jezro said. ‘It’ll give us all something pleasant to look forward to.’

Like most citizens of the Cantons, Loy had taken riding lessons as a child, but neither her family background nor her personal taste ran to keeping large expensive beasts in her garden. While the Loremasters Guild did eventually give her a horse, along with the necessary equipment and provisions for her trip, getting these things took time. She ran from office to office in the guild precinct, talked Wan Mendis into assuming her one crucial autumn class, cancelled the others, argued with Zhoc over funding, and eventually hauled a sheaf of rushis around for signatures. Ammadin watched all of this frantic activity with amusement at first but ultimately, exasperation. They finally left Sarla a full five days after Zayn.

On the road a new problem presented itself. Loy hadn’t been on a horse in years, as she’d ruefully admitted to Ammadin.

‘Oh, you’ll remember fast enough,’ Ammadin had said.

What would never occur to a comnee woman was that remembering mightbe painful in the extreme. After one day in the saddle, Loy could barely walk, and after a night of sleeping on the ground, she could barely get back on the horse again. Day followed painful day until, on the morning that Jezro Khan and his men set out for Shairb, Loy was ready to break down and weep at the very thought of riding.

She and Ammadin had camped the night before near the Dordan border on the grassy bank of a river, or to be precise, Ammadin had made the camp while Loy sat miserably on the ground and watched. Seeing Ammadin so calm and competent humiliated Loy further. She’d gone to bed that night determined to tell Ammadin in the morning that she would simply have to turn around and walk home. When dawn woke her, at first she couldn’t move. By rocking back and forth like a baby in a crib, she managed to sit up and look around.

Nearby, the horses – Ammadin’s grey, the chestnut pack horse, and the black gelding Loy had borrowed from the college stables – were tethered and grazing. Ammadin had already rolled up her bedroll and left the camp. Loy rocked some more, got to her knees, stretched every way she could think of, and then, slowly, with some trepidation, got to her feet. In the warm morning sun her muscles began to relax; the pain, she realized, wasn’t as bad as it had been the day before. When she turned and looked upstream she saw Ammadin kneeling near a brushy red and gold Midas tree, her crystals spread out in front of her. Barefoot, Loy limped over to join her.

‘Good, you’re awake,’ Ammadin said. ‘I’ve just spoken with Water Woman, and she had some strange news for us. Soutan’s riding east.’

‘East? What’s bringing them all east?’

‘It’s not all of them. It’s just Soutan and Warkannan’s nephew – oh, what’s his name – Arkazo, that’s it.’ ‘Not Zayn?’

‘No, just the two of them and a couple of pack horses.’ Ammadin sat back on her heels. ‘I tried to spot them, but Soutan must have used his crystals to hide them.’

‘Then how did Water Woman see them?’

‘She didn’t. Here’s the odd thing – Water Woman told me that Sibyl heard they were coming. Not that she saw them, but that she heard them. Sibyl has incredibly powerful magic at her disposal, powers that are way beyond anything you or I can do. Water Woman calls this one the spell of a thousand ears.’

Sibyl may be able to tap directly into the observation grid, Loy thought, then sighed in sudden misery. Hearing about Sibyl’s technical prowess had just made it impossible to give up and go home. Ammadin began to wrap up her crystals.

‘Are the Riders down?’ Loy said.

‘Yes.’ Ammadin sat back on her heels. ‘We need to get on the road. How are you feeling?’

‘Abysmal, actually, but it doesn’t matter. If I can get my boots on, I can ride. Ammi, have you thought of asking Sibyl to scan for Zayn? She saw him before we left Sarla, so we know she can pick him up again.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ Ammadin’s eyes became expressionless. ‘If something’s gone wrong, there’s nothing I can do about it way out here.’

‘But don’t you want to know?’

Ammadin shrugged and concentrated on wrapping the crystals.

When it came time to ride, Loy’s muscles screamed, but they weren’t quite as loud as they’d been the day before. The old N’Dosha road headed due east through land gone wild with second growth. The pink hill-bamboid grew up through patches of wheatian; old oaks branched above golden stands of Midas trees. At times crumbling fences paralleled the road, and now and again they saw the remains of farmhouses and barns, roofless and tilting. Purple grass grew as high as the horses’ bellies in a tangled thatchy mass, bleaching out blue in the arid summer weather. Darker stripes of purple followed the courses of ancient irrigation ditches down to the streams, where trees and waist-high ferns crowded close to the water. Insects swarmed and droned over the fields.

Not long before noon the land began to rise. At the horizon, dead east of them, hung a dark mass that at first Loy thought clouds. In a few miles, however, she could just discern that the mass made a sharp edge against the clear sky. She caught Ammadin’s attention and pointed.

‘The hills,’ Loy said. ‘Chof country.’

Ammadin nodded, staring at the distant hills. ‘That’s where Sibyl must live. You don’t find caves in flat country.’

‘That’s true. Oh God! they’re so far away!’

Ammadin laughed, but in a friendly sort of way. ‘Another thing Water Woman told me? We need to be careful about yap-packs.’

‘What are those?’

‘Some kind of reptile. They’re not very big, but they hunt in packs. They’re noisy, so we should be able to hear them coming. She says that they’re pretty cowardly. When we camp, we should gather throwing stones.’

‘Oh great, just what we need! Hungry wildlife! It’s a good thing I brought the family legacy. I’d better wear the power pack from now on to keep it charged.’

‘The family legacy?’

Loy had to do some fast thinking. ‘Death spirits,’ she said. ‘They throw a particular kind of fire on command. They’re powerful, but they need a lot of feeding.’

‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

‘Well, they’re very very rare. I’ll show you when we camp. But I inherited it from my mother, who got it from hers, and so on, all the way back to the Chof Wars. The Loremasters Guild issued them, because of course everyone was terrified, thinking the Chof were out to kill us all. That’s why I call it the family legacy.’

‘I see. I’ll tell Water Woman we’ve got a weapon, then, when I talk to her next.’

‘How long before we meet up with her?’

‘I don’t know. She had to come from the Rift by some roundabout way.’

A few miles on, a white pillar stood beside the remains of the road. It gleamed, so slick and bright that it had to be flexstone, rising tall out of the grass and debris that had collected around its base. Loy dismounted and led the black over; she let him crop the high grass while she searched for inscriptions. Beneath the galactic spiral she found writing in Old Vranz.

‘I need to get out my notebooks,’ Loy said. ‘I want to copy this down.’

‘Well, let’s camp here,’ Ammadin said. ‘The horses are going to need some rest time, and it looks like a good spot.’

Loy glanced around and saw that they stood at the edge of a grassy field, thick with purple grass. A stand of Midas trees marked a stream running at the far side.

‘Let me help set up the camp,’ Loy said. ‘I can scrounge dead wood and dig our latrine.’

‘I won’t say no.’ Ammadin grinned at her. ‘You must be feeling better.’

The stream turned out to be broad enough to be called a shallow river. Once they had a camp laid out near the trees, and the horses were tethered and grazing, Loy took a notebook and a pencil out of her saddlebags and hurried back to the pillar. She had brought a good many pounds of bound rushi notebooks and
pencils with her to gather the data she’d need for her reports.

There were two separate inscriptions on the pillar. Words engraved with artistic precision declared that it marked the border between Dordan and N’Dosha cantons. Words hacked out with some inappropriate tool memorialized all those who had died in the Chof Wars. ‘Too many to list in their hundreds,’ the inscription finished, ‘slaughtered defending their farms and their children.’ Loy turned cold. What was she doing, riding off to Chof country with only a spirit rider, a woman she hardly knew, for company?

The spell of a thousand ears, she thought. But it’s more than the tech that’s bringing you. The truth. An abstract thing to many, maybe, but it had drawn her east more strongly than any Settler gadgets could have. Water Woman would know Chof lore about the wars, she would see them as her species saw them, and she might be willing to share that knowledge. Sibyl’s cave might hold other truths about the Settlers as well.