The Seer - eARC (19 page)

They emerged to find the wagons in a small clearing surrounded by rocky rises of gray and ocher rock shot through with lines of orange and tan. A crow called loudly; another answered.

The shaota were gone, as were most of the Teva. Those remaining unhitched the wagon from the carthorses.

Seeing her confused expression, Mara said, “You will see.”

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came a handful of people. Amarta stared at them in shock.

Their hair was pale yellow, eyes the color of sky. Amarta had never seen such a thing before, had not even known it could exist. Dirina drew Pas close.

“Mama?” Pas pointed and looked up at her.

“Shh,” she replied, taking his pointing hand in her own.

The pale-haired people and remaining Teva began to unload the barrels and sacks and hay that had been Amarta and Dirina’s home these last handful of days, hefting them on shoulders and into handcarts, then taking them along a path that vanished around a small rise. No one spoke.

The carthorses were led away. Finally Jolon and Mara slung bags over their shoulders and motioned Amarta and Dirina and Pas to follow.

Around the rise the land sloped steeply down a dry creekbed, rocky banks rising on either side. The ravine snaked through one blind curve after another and ended at a large boulder. Only when they reached the boulder did she see the small opening beyond. They followed the Teva into a cave.

Mara took her hand as they walked in, indicating she should take Dirina’s, and led them into the darkness. The way led forward and down. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the pale-haired people moving around and watching them from openings in the walkway.

Points of dim lamps. The flicker of candles. No voices.

Mara’s hand stopped Amarta, and she in turn stopped Dirina. They were now in a large room with many low tables at which other of the pale-heads sat, now turning to look at them. Long shelves on the walls, filled with jars and cookpots and crates and barrels.

They stood beside Mara and Jolon, facing five of the pale-headed people, whose heads seemed the brightest thing in this dim, lamplit room. Pas clutched Amarta’s hand tightly.

Of the five they faced, only a woman rocking an infant in her arms smiled back at them. Her blond hair fell in long, snakelike ropes down her shoulders. Her baby gripped one.

An elder man and woman spoke to Mara and Jolon in a language Amarta didn’t know. The woman’s pale hair was cut nearly to the scalp; the man’s was blond to the ends, where it went abruptly dark.

Jolon answered back, and Amarta recognized their names. To them Jolon said: “These are the first and second of Kusan’s ten elders, Vatti and Astru.”

The elder woman, Vatti, spoke. “Welcome to Kusan, sometimes called the hidden city. Do you know these names?”

“No,” Dirina admitted.

“Good,” the elder man, Astru, replied. “That is as it should be.”

“I am Ksava,” said the woman with the long, ropelike gold hair, swaying slightly to rock the baby on her chest. She nodded at the other two, a boy and girl about Amarta’s age. “My brother, Darad. Our cousin, Nidem.”

The girl’s cheekbones had three lines painted on one side and two on the other. She gazed back at Amarta with a pointed, unfriendly expression. She addressed Jolon and Mara. “You bring strangers here? Do our lives mean so little to you?”

“They seek a haven,” Jolon said. “We thought you might understand this.”

“That’s a reassurance, then,” Nidem said nastily. “What do they bring us? Supplies? News of our beloveds in the cities? Or do they only take, like Arunkin do?”

“Nidem,” said Astru, in what might have been a quiet rebuke.

“We bring them,” Jolon said to her. “As we bring you bags of grain and salt and nuts, bottles of spice and oil—the many things you cannot get for yourselves, even in your out-trips.”

“And in turn,” Vatti said to him, her voice mild, a contrast to Nidem’s venomous tone, “we supply you with water and hidden shelter for your people and your horses on your journeys north and south.”

“Yes, and we are grateful to you—” Jolon began.

Vatti held up her hand to silence him, a firm gesture, and continued. “And you bring us coin when we need it. News of the world outside. Your counsel and knowledge.”

Astru spoke. “Hear us clearly: the Teva are valued partners to the Emendi. You are welcome here.” He looked at Nidem. “Nidem is a child and does not speak for us.”

“We will help however we can,” Dirina said quietly, respectfully.

“We will work hard,” Amarta added quickly, looking between the elders and Nidem.

“You had better,” Nidem said.

A sigh from Astru. “You gift us with your companionship as well as your trade, Teva,” Astru said. “And now Nidem will gift us with her silence until she is told otherwise.”

At that Nidem made a series of gestures with her hands and fingers. A clear signal, judging by the sharp reactions of those around her; Vatti pressed her lips together in what might have been annoyed forbearance, and Ksava suppressed a smile as she moved her baby to her shoulder. Astru looked long at Nidem, his eyes flickering back and forth.

Nidem scowled and stamped out of the room.

Astru made a gesture with both hands, a brushing of the air, somehow conveying a cleaning of the unpleasantness that had preceded. Vatti put her hands together at her chest, then reached out to Mara and Jolon in turn, fingers out. They met her fingers with their own.

“We honor your presence here. Your friends are welcome in Kusan,” Vatti said.

“Our gratitude to you,” Mara said.

“Come,” Astru said, “show us what you have brought us.” Then, to Amarta and Dirina: “Ksava will show you how to conduct yourselves here. We will see you at the meal.”

As they left, Jolon paused, put his arms lightly around Dirina and Amarta’s shoulders, head tipped downward, and said quietly: “Their forebears were enslaved by Arunkin. They can perhaps be forgiven for mistaking you for the enemy. Be patient with them.”

* * *

“We have our meals here,” Ksava said, motioning to the large room. From the low, round tables scattered around the room, pale-headed adults and children watched them with expressions from curiosity to looks rather similar to Nidem’s. Amarta looked at Ksava rather than meet their eyes. “We eat two meals together each day. If you are hungry another time, go the kitchens back there. Someone is always present to help you find what you might like to eat.”

What she might like to eat? This was wealth, to always have food, to be invited to have a preference. Her mouth watered, and she wondered if it was too soon to ask.

She would wait.

Ksava took a lamp from a nearby table. With Darad trailing behind, she led them down one of many bewildering cave tunnels. They passed numerous doorways, and she was soon lost, though she noticed letters carved into the stone at every juncture. As she stared at one of the signs, trying to sound it out, she noticed Nidem had joined Darad behind them.

A hand sign from Darad brought a smirk to Nidem’s face that vanished when Amarta looked. Nidem gave her another hard glare.

“There are those among us,” Ksava said, “who believe all Arunkin are slavers and not to be trusted. You are the first to visit Kusan in quite some time.”

At this, Amarta moved a little closer to Dirina, wondering how long until they would be leaving.

Ksava gestured to a door much like the last handful they had passed. “I sleep here with my family. You are welcome to join us, or stay with the Teva.” The room had six thick pallets across the floor, cabinets, and the soft sound of running water. Ksava motioned with her lamp toward the back of the room. “The water in the sleeping rooms is for drinking, not toilet or bath or clothes. I’ll show you that next.”

They descended wide stairs that Pas insisted on taking himself. Amarta was glad for this slowing; as they walked, her foot hurt more. She was resolved not to limp.

“The city descends many levels. Even we do not know the extent of the tunnels. Go nowhere on your own until you have learned all the ways. If ever you are lost, do this.”

She sang out in a loud, clear, high tone that then dropped low, then climbed again. “Repeat that until you are found, yes?”

They nodded.

Motion at the floor of the corridor caught Amarta’s attention. Darad knelt to the ground, and a long, thin creature with a ratlike face ran to him, then up his arm and onto his shoulder, nose twitching, sniffing his ear. Pas was reaching upward and making wordless sounds of longing. Darad dropped down and let Pas pet the creature on his shoulder.

“The ferrets are our companions,” Ksava said. “They find misplaced objects in dark corners. They bring us home when we are lost. They know the tunnels better than we ever will. Be good to them.”

Darad let the animal back to the ground. It ran to the wall and then paused, standing up on back legs. Ksava brought out a piece of something and tossed it to the ferret, who caught it between handlike paws and transferred it to its mouth. In a twitch it was gone again, back into the dark.

They descended another flight of stairs to a room with many holes, under which were the sounds of a rushing waterway.

“These are the toilets.”

“Oh!” said Pas, tugging on his mother’s hand.

“Don’t drop anything in there,” Darad said with a grin. “It goes all the way out to the ocean. You’ll never see it again.”

This was a toilet? Amarta looked around. Something was missing. “It doesn’t smell,” she said wonderingly.

“The shiny areas around the holes are mage-made. Nothing sticks. This helps.”

“Mage-made?” Amarta said. “But that’s . . .”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t that . . . doesn’t it bring death and bad fortune?”

Ksava chuckled, handed her baby to Dirina. She took Pas’s hand, walking him to the edge of the hole, holding him while he peed into the hole. Pas laughed in delight.

When she returned, she said, “My people were brought into the worst of bad fortune when we were abducted from our homeland and taken in chains across the sea and made into slaves. Kusan has been a sanctuary for a thousand years and more, older than the Arun Empire. The gifts that mages have left for us here have been far more welcoming than anything the Arunkin have done. Who brings death and bad fortune, Amarta?”

To that Amarta had no answer.

“Are there other mage-makings in Kusan?” Dirina asked.

“Perhaps the waterways, but they may be simply cleverly made. It is hard to know.” Ksava returned Pas to his mother and led them out of the toilet room. “We Emendi have been here only some hundred years.”

“Do you ever leave?” Amarta asked.

“We visit the hidden gardens up top,” Darad said. “To see the sun, when the keepers allow.”

Nidem tapped Darad and signed at him.

“And,” Darad added, “the out-trips.”

Ksava spoke: “We travel to nearby towns to buy those things we cannot make, grow, or hunt. Darad might do so. Even Nidem, in a few months, if they study the ways of the outside well enough.”

“I’ll be in the trade wagon by year’s end, sister. Watch and see.”

She reached over to him and rubbed his head affectionately, laughing a little. “We’ll see how your hair likes the walnut dye. Take Amarta to see if Nakaccha can look at why she’s limping.”

“I’m fine,” Amarta said quickly. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Then it won’t take long,” Ksava answered. “I’ll show Dirina and her young one the baths.”

“She’s good at seeing things that you don’t want seen,” Darad said to Amarta as they made their slow way up the stairs.

“But I’m fine.” Amarta glanced back to see if Nidem was following, felt relief that she was not.

“Not me you need to convince. Oh, here,” he said, pausing at the door of a room and bringing out from the darkness a flat, hand-sized rock, which he handed to her. “A pillow for you to sleep on tonight.”

“This? A pillow? What?”

“Well, after it’s been softened, of course.”

“What?” Amarta said, bewildered, examining the rock more closely.

“Yes,” he said, taking the rock back, knocking his fist lightly against it, then knocking his own head. “Our blond hair, you see. It’s magic. It softens the rocks until they become so soft they’re pillows. Tell you what: I’ll give you my already-softened pillow for tonight and sleep on this one until it’s ready.”

Amarta’s mouth hung open for a long moment.

He grinned wider.

“You’re fooling me?” she asked, stunned.

He laughed. “Of course.” At her expression, he sobered, adding, “I’m playing. Don’t you play, sometimes?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“Perhaps later,” he said, giving her an odd expression. “Down this way to the hot springs. The soaking baths. Clothes washing. When was the last time you had a bath?”

“You mean to be submerged in water?”

“Warm water. You’ll like it. Now here, see this huge opening?” He waved his lantern so she could see over the lip of the opening, which dropped down sharply some ten feet. “This is the lesser canyon, which opens way back there into the greater one. We hunt in there, but only in large groups. Don’t go in here alone.”

She peered into the darkness, for a moment thinking she saw distant movement, black on black.

“What is that, back there?”

“The ruins of old Kusan, now taken over by the night forest. It goes a long, long ways. There’s a lake back there. Cavewillows and white trout. On the hills we harvest mushrooms and nightberries. That’s where we hunt nightswine.”

“Nightswine?”

“You must have heard. No? Ah. Pigs. They get fat on cave-truffles, white thistle, the fruit of spider trees. They taste better than any pig in the world.”

“You’re toying with me again.”

“No, no. This is true. The Teva take our salted nightswine to the great markets in Munasee and Garaya. Sell it for us.”

In the lamplight she gave him a suspicious look. “Truly?”

“Ask the elders.” At that, his face broke into a grin. “You can ask them about the pillows, too.”

At the meal, Amarta realized she had never before seen so many people gathered together in one place. Hundreds, it must be, all sitting around the large, low, circular tables.