Snare (74 page)

Events were beginning to make sense for Zayn as well. The mayor in Shairb must have had some business arrangement with Herbgather Woman, profitable enough for him to help her with her long-term politicking. When an important possible hostage like Jezro Khan had ridden his way, the mayor had notified her somehow. Some of her supporters must have been waiting nearby for just such a chance.

‘Zayn Recaller,’ Water Woman said. ‘You be be-not angry with me?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Zayn said. ‘You had no way of knowing what was going to happen.’

‘I thank you.’

Zayn, of course, could never admit the real reason he was so forgiving. If he hadn’t broken Bane and tipped Soutan off, Jezro Khan would never have ridden near Shairb. Ammadin gave him a sharp look and laid a hand on his arm.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

‘I was just thinking about Soutan.’

His statement was close enough to the truth that she accepted it. ‘We can’t forget him, no,’ Ammadin said. ‘From what you told me, he’s crazy enough to be really dangerous, and he might be close by. I can’t find him in my crystals.’

‘Your crystals,’ Water Woman said. ‘They be dead not dead?’

‘Not,’ Ammadin said. ‘But Soutan can use his crystals to hide himself. He does something that interferes with the images. It’s a command called “Hide Me”.’

‘I know-not this before. So! I think-long-time he hide in the secret roads, but I see-now he know something I know-not. I asksoon Sibyl to kill his crystals. Then we all have power to see him.’

‘Can she do that?’ Loy said. ‘Kill a crystal, I mean?’

‘Yes. Sibyl have power to do many things none of us have power to do. She tell-once me that she talk to the Deathbringers, or the Riders like Ammadin call them. The Riders give orders to the crystals, she say-then. Sibyl call-then the orders settings.’

‘Settings?’ Loy said. ‘Do they control how far a crystal can see or hear?’

‘Just that. Sibyl say-then that the Riders control all crystals, make them strong or weak, and decide what they have power to do.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned! That answers a big question. Now where did I put my notebooks?’

‘You write, Loy Sorcerer. I get-now my servants to hunt, and we all share-soon lots of food.’

Water Woman followed through on her promise about the crystals. When in late afternoon the Riders returned to the sky, Ammadin took Zayn with her and walked some way away from the noisy camp. They found a copse of strangely twisted trees, whose dark maroon trunks curled around themselves like a piece
of clothing wrung out in strong hands. Instead of leaves, scarlet needles bristled from every branch, thick or fine, and at the branch tips hung yellow domes. When Zayn touched a dome, it shattered and released a cloud of spores. He sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

‘What are these things?’ Zayn said.

‘I don’t know. Do they smell bad or poisonous?’

‘No, just itchy. Can’t you smell them?’

‘It’s being surrounded by all the Chof. I can’t smell anything else.’

Zayn’s expression froze on the edge of a smile.

‘Damn you,’ Ammadin said. ‘I can guess why you’re smirking like that.’

‘Smirking? Who’s smirking?’

‘Oh shut up and let me scan.’

With Zayn standing nearby on guard, Ammadin brought out her crystals and activated Spirit Eyes. She began moving the crystal’s focal point, spiralling out from their camp to hunt for Soutan. The spiral grew wider and wider; she was expecting to hear the angry chirp that marked the limit of the crystal’s range, but it never came. Finally, on the western edge of the traps, Ammadin found her prey and realized that indeed, Sibyl had overridden Soutan’s crystals.

She could see Soutan crouched in the high grass, studying crystals of his own, his face bright red, his eyes narrow and his mouth twisted with rage. Some yards away, Arkazo was leading two of their horses to drink at a stream. Something about the boy’s appearance struck Ammadin as odd. She focused Spirit Eyes down to study him and realized that he seemed half-asleep, moving slowly, glancing languidly around him with half-closed eyes. At the open throat of his shirt, the imp glittered on its golden chain. Out in the grass something moved – a Chof warrior got to his feet, stretching his pseudo-arms and both pairs of legs. Others joined him, six Chur in all.

Where, exactly, was Soutan and how far away? Ammadin moved the focus point of the crystals south, keeping to the west side of the hills, until she saw her own camp, the white flexstone building, Loy sitting on the ground and writing in a notebook, Water Woman haranguing her servants.

‘He’s north and no more than ten miles away,’ she said to Zayn. ‘Arkazo looks like he’s either exhausted or ill.’

‘He’s probably both,’ Zayn said. ‘You know, if Water Woman agrees, I could just take some of her men and go after Soutan tonight.’

‘It’s not that simple. Soutan’s got his own Chof with him, six of them. Water Woman’s made it very clear that she doesn’t want any bloodshed.’

‘She may have to change her mind.’

‘Maybe, yes, if things get bad enough. But what about Arkazo? Do you want to risk him dying in a night fight?’

Zayn winced. ‘That would break Idres’ heart.’

‘Arkazo must mean a lot to him.’

‘Well, his sister’s husband has two older sons by his first wife, and they get all his attention. Idres has pretty much been the only father Arkazo’s had.’

‘His sister’s a second wife? I thought you said Warkannan came from a powerful family.’

‘He does. But unfortunately Kaz inherited that nose from his mother.’ Zayn smiled as if he’d made some point.

‘So?’ Ammadin said.

‘She’s not pretty, just the opposite, not that I’d dare say that around Idres.’

‘What does that have to do with her family?’

‘It means they couldn’t make her a better marriage.’

Ammadin rolled her eyes in disgust, then got back to work. She swept the scanning focus back to Soutan, then brought out Long Voice and locked it onto Soutan’s image. At first she heard nothing except the occasional burst of Vransic profanity, but when Arkazo returned, Soutan had more of interest to say.

It’s that witckwoman. She’s killed my crystals again, and I don’t have the slightest idea how she could have done it.

Oh?
Arkazo said.
Does it really matter? We’ve got the slate, and if we get to Sibyl first, we can get new ones.

That’s very true. I’m not going to use it now, though, with the Phalanx up, just in case she’s watching us. If you are, bitch, I hope you choke to death on rancid saur jerky!

Ammadin burst out laughing; she was still smiling as she set the crystals out to recharge.

‘What’s so funny?’ Zayn said.

‘Soutan. He’s blaming me for the death of his crystals, and he figured out I might be watching him, so he threw a few insults
my way – really childish insults. He’s furious, which is all to the good.’

‘You bet. Angry men make mistakes.’ Zayn knelt down in front of her. ‘You know, I keep thinking about tonight. Do you think anyone else is going to want to sleep inside that building?’

‘Probably not, because there’s a latrine in there, and everyone will be tramping through to use it.’

‘Damn!’

‘We can just come back to these trees. The dark’s as good as a tent.’

He caught her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her. In answer she twined her hands behind his neck and let him pull her close, but as he kissed her again, she could hear the Chof, booming and thrumming back in camp. She pulled away and stood, grabbing her saddlebags, just as Loy came running, calling their names.

‘News,’ Loy said. ‘Several kinds, in fact. Did you realize that Sibyl’s reset our crystals?’

‘I knew something had changed,’ Ammadin said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any limit to my scanner’s range.’

‘Not on mine, either, and the sound pick-up is just as powerful. Water Woman helped me set up a relay, too.’ Loy paused for a smile. ‘I reached the Loremasters Guild, and I managed to talk with my daughter.’

‘That’s wonderful. How is Rozi?’

‘Better. Not completely well, but better. The dreams are fading. She’s eating more, not a lot yet, but more. She says to thank you for the bottle of oil.’

‘I’m glad I could help. What was all that noise in camp?’

‘Excitement. I’m not sure how Water Woman got the message, but the Great Mother’s on her way here. She should reach us tomorrow, Water Woman says.’

‘That’s good, because Soutan knows where Sibyl is. He’s talking about getting there ahead of us.’

‘That butt-faced bastard! How could he?’

‘He’s got something Arkazo called a slate. I saw it once before when I was scanning back on the grass. It’s flat and thin and grey.’ Ammadin held up her hands to indicate its size. ‘About so, and I saw blue lights dancing on it. Zayn, what did you call that mask thing again? The one Soutan was wearing?’

‘A hologram.’

‘That’s it, yes,’ Ammadin said. ‘When I was using the crystals, I could see right through Soutan’s mask, but it did show up as blue light, dancing around him. The light on the slate’s surface looked the same.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’ Loy paused, thinking. ‘But I’ve read about it. The Settlers had a device called a recept-screen. It did something called accessing a cache and then displayed the information it found, and the display probably was hologrammatic.’

‘Do you think those caches might hold maps?’ Zayn said.

‘It would be a logical choice, wouldn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ Ammadin said. ‘I’ve never used a map, so I wouldn’t know.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Loy said. ‘We need to tell Water Woman about this. Not, I suppose, that she can do anything about it tonight. She made it clear that she absolutely has to wait for the Great Mother, Yarl or no Yarl.’

‘Well, we can’t go breaking their laws if we’re going to get Zayn’s friends back. Which reminds me. Loy, these imps – you said once there were a lot of different kinds.’

‘Yes, there are. Oddly enough, I learned about them from Yarl. He did a lot of research on them at one time.’

‘Arkazo’s wearing one, and it can’t be one like Zayn’s. I had no trouble seeing him.’

‘Huh.’ Loy thought for a moment. ‘Unless Sibyl can override imps, too. We don’t know what she can or can’t do.’

‘Well, remember when I saw Arkazo a couple of days ago? Sibyl hadn’t overridden anything then.’

‘That’s true. His imp must have a different function.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ Ammadin went on, ‘that there’s an imp that can influence what a person thinks or feels.’

‘Oh yes, several. The Settlers used one kind to keep prisoners from causing trouble, but I don’t know how they worked, exactly. Yarl’s paper on the subject said that they send out energy pulses or waves of some kind. The wearer’s brain can sense them, and eventually the brain activity changes as it synchronizes to the pulse.’

Ammadin understood this explanation only in the most general way, but the general way sufficed. ‘Arkazo’s acting like
he’s half-asleep. Could an imp affect him that way?’

‘Most likely, yes. They called that function “tranquillise”.’ Loy glanced away, scowling. ‘It would be just like Yarl, too, to use a dirty trick to dominate someone who trusts him.’

After the evening meal, Loy noticed Ammadin and Zayn surreptitiously grabbing bedrolls and saddlebags. In the gauzy twilight they slipped away, heading off for a little privacy, Loy figured. Although she had long subscribed to the principle of ‘to each their own’, she still found Ammadin’s taste in men appalling. Better her than me! With a shrug she got out her latest notebook.

Loy sat by the fire and wrote up the day’s log while she kept an unobtrusive eye on the Chof. The two servant females wandered around, picking up bags and bundles, setting them down elsewhere, then picking some of them up later to move them again. Loy could see no pattern in what they were doing, but she was willing to bet there was one. With the exception of Stronghunter Man, the male Chof withdrew to the edges of the camp. As far as Loy could discern in the darkness, they were disposing themselves in a rough guard circle.

Stronghunter Man and Water Woman stood near the door of the white building and argued. While Loy could hear Water Woman’s voice, the Chur Vocho’s lay beyond the range of her hearing, but she could see his throat sac filling and pulsing. Water Woman began stretching her neck higher; he stretched his to match; she waved her hands; he leaned his spear against the wall and waved his. After some minutes he let out the series of high-pitched yips on a single note that meant surrender, but he never lowered his head or bent his neck. He grabbed his spear and, thrumming on a deeper note, stomped off into the darkness to join his subordinates. Water Woman came to the fire and haunched a few feet away from Loy.

‘H’mai men,’ Water Woman said, ‘they be or be-not as stubborn as Chof men?’

‘Every bit as stubborn,’ Loy said. ‘Does he still want to try rescuing the hostages?’

‘No, he want-now to go and make a night raid on Yarl’s camp. I say no. Zayn Recaller have-now a friend in that camp. We have-now six Chof men there, too. No deaths. No fighting. I want-next none none none.’

‘I agree with you, for what it’s worth. Things are too complicated already.’

For a few minutes they sat staring into the fire. Loy had a long list of questions that she was eager to ask, but she felt that grilling Water Woman about her people would be rude. One subject, however, logically seemed open to discussion.

‘Now, when the Great Mother arrives, what exactly are the protocols?’ Loy said. ‘Do we all line up in front of her and just start arguing?’

‘No.’ Water Woman raised a forefoot and tapped it on the ground. ‘We observe-first some courtesies. This time, we need-also decide what language we all use. Great Mother be the one who decide.’

‘Do you mind if I make notes on the things you tell me?’

‘Not mind. I make-always an effort to remember everything I learn about H’mai. It be the same thing, though I be no Recaller like Zayn.’

‘Your people remember what a Recaller is, then.’

‘We remember everything we have power to remember. We learn things as children and recite them over and over. Lost lore be a sad thing.’