The Steerswoman's Road (35 page)

“Not this one.” The servant approached and viewed Rowan with
a self-satisfied, superior air. “She goes straight to Themselves, and no delay.”
He nodded to Bel. “You come, too.”

But when the servant emerged from the room to which they had
been led, Bel was instructed to return later to make her report. Rowan exchanged
one glance with her before passing through the door the servant held wide. The
Outskirter’s expression was stony, with what emotion Rowan could not guess.
Accompanied by two of the guards, the steerswoman stepped in to meet the
wizards.

When she saw them, her first reaction was: Gods below, they’re
children!

They were not quite children, but they were very nearly so.

They might have been twins in their pale, dark-haired similarity.
Both were tall and slim, the young man slightly wider across the shoulders;
both moved with self-conscious grace, the young woman somewhat more quickly;
both looked out from behind identical smooth faces through the same wide-set
brown eyes.

The young woman stood by a round oak table, as if she had
just risen from one of the two chairs. She wore a blue shift, simple but of
beautiful workmanship, as fine as Kundekin-make but without their usual
ornamentation. Her thick black hair fell in a braid to her waist. Behind her, a
narrow window showed the walls of an interior court, dimly visible in the
predawn glow. A lamp—not magical, but oilburning—stood on the table, soft
light falling on a sheaf of papers before her, and on a vase of daffodils.
With affected disinterest she watched Rowan and the guards approach.

Her brother, who had just entered through a far door,
studied the scene with an air of vast amusement. His hair, the identical color
and the identical length, was caught at the nape by a plain silver circle. He
crossed to a low chair with its back to the cold hearth and slouched,
comfortable as a cat, stretching his long, loose-trousered legs in front of him
and steepling his fingers.

Rowan stood between the guards, watching and thinking. She
waited for the wizards to speak.

The young man spoke first. “What a lot of fuss she’s caused.”

“She certainly doesn’t look like much,” his sister observed.
Rowan could not remain passive. “Neither do you, I must say.”

“Speak when you’re spoken to!” the young woman spat.

“Yes, do,” her brother amplified. Then he smiled slyly. “But
tell us what you mean.”

“You’re very young.”

“Are we?” The sister raised her brows affectedly. “How can
you tell? We’re wizards.” She threw out one hand in an airy gesture. “We might
he a hundred years old, a thousand!”

It was impossible. Even if a wizard’s power could maintain
the semblance of youth, voice and movement gave the two away. They were
self-conscious, uncertain. They were feigning behavior designed to cover their
inexperience. They overcompensated. Life was new to them. They were young.

“You’re seventeen, about,” Rowan said. “And your brother,
not more than a year younger.”

“So you think,” the girl said archly, but her brother’s amusement
confirmed Rowan’s guess.

“Try and hide something from a steerswoman,” he said. “But
it’s an odd steerswoman, isn’t it, who sneaks around in disguise, claiming to
be something she’s not, infiltrating a wizards’ fortress.”

“Strange events create strange results.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a Steerswomen’s adage?”

“No. An observation.”

“Ah, yes. Very observant, the Steerswomen.” He sank a bit
deeper into the chair, his body more relaxed, his eyes more alert. “I wonder
what else you’ve observed, what else you might know. You weren’t very kind to
our minion, you know.” His smile vanished. “I can’t imagine why we should be
any kinder to you.”

Rowan felt a chill, but her gaze did not waver from his. “I’m
sorry about your man; but I think that you’ll find that sort of thing isn’t necessary
in my case.”

The sister came around the table and leaned back against it,
in a semblance of nonchalance. “Meaning what?”

Rowan spared one glance for each of her guards. “Meaning,”
she replied, “that I won’t try to keep anything from you. Meaning that I’ll
give you any information you desire.”

The rhythm of the exchange came to a halt. Her response had
been unexpected. Brother and sister exchanged puzzled looks. Finally the young
woman said in a light voice, “She’s afraid of what we’ll do to her. She’s a
coward.”

“I don’t think so,” Rowan said. “But I’m not stupid. I don’t
wish to die, or even to suffer, particularly.” She smiled thinly at their
confusion. “Here.” The guards shifted nervously when she reached into the neck
of her cuirass; she turned a flat gaze on them, then continued, pulling out the
leather pouch where her ring and chain nestled beside the mysterious jewel. As
the wizards watched, she placed the ring on the middle finger of her left hand
and slipped the chain over her head, its gold glittering against dull leather. “There.
Now I’m a true steers-woman again.”

She found, with surprise, that her emotions had relaxed, her
body stood at ease. In the clutches of the wizards, she was suddenly like a
prisoner freed. She was at home again, the home she carried with her. Her mind
was clear, and she knew exactly what to do. Facing the pair, she said calmly, “Ask,
and I’ll answer.”

The young man shot his sister a glance. She said stubbornly,
“It’s a trick,” and he turned back, watching with narrowed gaze.

“It’s no trick. Steerswomen do not trick people.”

“And you expect us to believe it’s as simple as that? You
don your symbols, and you’re suddenly trustworthy?”

“It’s not at all simple,” she told them. “It only seems so
from the outside. And you’re free to believe anything you like.”

“Impossible,” the young woman muttered.

“Wizards are under the Steerswomen’s ban,” her brother
pointed out.

“Not at all. A person is put under ban once he or she
refuses to answer a steerswoman’s questions, or lies to her.” She turned from
one young face to the other. “I don’t believe either of you have ever spoken
to a steerswoman at all, and you haven’t lied to me yet. The ban can’t apply to
you. The only reason I used deceit was my desire to survive. You tried to kill
me.”

He snorted. “Not us.”

“You be quiet!” the girl told him. He raised his brows at
her speculatively, but said nothing. Rowan made mental note of the exchange.

“Once you knew the soldiers were ours, you came here,” the
female wizard continued.

Rowan shrugged.

“Why? Once you defeated them, why not run?”

Rowan thought. “Curiosity.”

The brother was astonished. He threw his head back and laughed.
“It’s true,” she went on. “I know too little; it makes me vulnerable.”

He made a vague gesture. “You know
something.”

“I don’t even know which of you is which.”

He smiled up at the ceiling. “I’m Shammer.” His sister made
no comment.

Rowan nodded.

“Very well.” Dhree recovered her composure and ostentatiously
turned her back, giving her attention to the vase of daffodils. “Then answer
our questions, steerswoman.” She toyed with one of the golden blooms. “To begin
with, why are you being hunted?”

Rowan stopped, stunned. “You don’t know.” Not a question, a
statement.

Dhree carefully showed no reaction. Shammer watched from his
chair, head tilted insolently.

If they had sent their soldiers against her, and they did
not know why, then her conclusion had been right: they had been ordered to do
so. Who could give commands to wizards?

“You seem to be held in low esteem,” Rowan hazarded.

“What do you mean?” Dhree asked, controlling anger, and her
brother smiled at her discomfort.

“You’re being treated like servants,” Rowan said.

“If we were held in low esteem, we wouldn’t be here at all,”
Shammer drawled.

Meaning that they were there by permission, that leave had
been granted to them, the right to claim and defend their holding. Granted by
whom?

“Possibly true.” Rowan opened the sack again. “Then perhaps
you can make something of this.” She passed Dhree the enigmatic chip of blue.

“What is it?”

“It’s the reason you were told to capture me.”

The wizard took it in her hand, glanced at it once, twice;
then, astonishingly, she flung it down on the table. She whirled on Rowan in
outrage. “Don’t be stupid, steerswoman, and don’t play games.” She stepped
close and glared down at her. Rowan noticed how fine the wizard’s skin was, and
how clean her hair. She smelled faintly of rosemary. Her voice hissing spite,
she said, “Do you really think you can fool wizards?”

The steerswoman was not intimidated. “If you’re going to
tell me it’s a decorative object, I won’t believe you. I’ve been told that
already, by someone who was clearly trying to deceive me. I know it’s magic.”

“Of course it’s magic! But it’s common, we use them every
day, in any number of spells. I could show you a hundred like it—”

“No. Not quite.” Her brother had risen and moved to the
table; he was turning the jewel over and over in his hand.

“What do you mean?” Dhree hesitated, then reluctantly came
to his side.

He indicated. “Look at the coating. It’s constructed
differently.”

“That’s your area.”

“Of course it is. You’re theory, and I’m execution. Well,
dear sister,” he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm, “theorize.”

She studied it, touching it with one forefinger. “Is that
coating inactive?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Then it’s protective.” Her aspect had altered. Gone was the
bravado, the venom. She showed the clear concentration of an intelligent mind
involved in solving a problem. Other considerations had vanished. Rowan felt an
odd, sad touch of kinship with her.

“Protective from what, I wonder,” her brother said.

The young woman stared at the jewel, but her attention was
turned inward. “Environment,” she said at last.

“Ours don’t need this protection. And they survive any sort
of weather.”

“Then a different environment entirely. Desert, perhaps.”
She looked at him. “You’ve worked with the Grid.”

He shook his head. “They’re nothing like this.”

Rowan fought to keep her excitement from her face. Information,
she thought.

Dhree turned her attention back to the steerswoman. “Where
did you get this?”

“That one, from an irrigation ditch in farmland by the
eastern curve of the Long North Road. And there are many more, scattered across
the countryside in a broad line that runs southeast from there clear into the
heart of the Outskirts. If you have a map, I’ll show you exactly.”

Brother and sister, side by side, gazed at her suspiciously.
Then Dhree gestured to one of Rowan’s guards, who hesitated, then stepped back
to the door to call the servant.

“Maps, Jaimie,” Dhree instructed when he arrived. “Covering
the lands north of the Inland Sea. The librarian will know which.” She paused. “And
bring another chair for this table.”

It was a strange collaboration.

At times Rowan forgot where she was and with whom she was
dealing. She presented her information as completely as if she were speaking to
steerswomen, and as long as she was the person speaking, she could become lost
in the work itself.

It was only when she felt a question about to escape her
that she stopped short and remembered: If she asked a question, they might refuse
to answer. On their refusal, she could no longer reply to their questions, and
all progress would cease.

And her first question was about the maps.

Shammer took one from the group presented by the servant and
unrolled it on the tabletop. At first Rowan could not orient herself to it; it
seemed to be a work of art, executed in a style delicate and beautiful, like a
watercolor painting. Then abruptly, with a small internal shock, she recognized
along the right edge the course of the river Wulf. Southwest she found the city
of the Crags, with the fjords depicted in maddening detail. The center of the
map was dominated by an immense sweep of mountains, the same that lay on the
western limit of all the large-scale maps in the Archives.

And, west of the mountains, past the mountains, on the other
side of those mountains which no living person had been known to cross: A
string of lakes like jewels on a necklace. A range of weird, twisted hills. A
river broader than the Wulf, longer than the Greyriver, writhing northeast to
southwest and vanishing at the map’s edge.

She stood silent. Her hands hung limp at her sides. She
forgot to breathe. She suddenly remembered a long conversation she had once had
with a Christer, as he tried to describe to her the sensation of holy epiphany.

And she said to herself: Don’t ask them. Don’t ask.

Where had the information come from? Who had been there? Who
had seen it? How had they traveled?

Who had drawn that map, with so steady a hand, such elegant
colors? How precise were the measurements? Were there communities beyond the
mountains? Were there wizards?

Shammer released the edges, and the map rolled closed again.
“Wrong one.” He swept it to the floor impatiently.

Rowan wanted to rescue it and cherish it as if it were a
living thing.

The wizard pulled out another chart, read the legend on its
outer edge, and spread it on the table. “This one, I think.” Dhree tilted her
head at it and nodded.

From where Rowan stood, across from the wizards, the map was
upside down. That should not have mattered, but the style was so different
from that used by the Steerswomen that she was momentarily confused again.

It seemed that the mapmaker considered roads to be no more
important than the natural features of the land. Rowan located a brownand-green
shape that she finally understood to be the salt bog, and managed to locate the
eastern curve of the Long North Road nearby, dimly marked by a faint gray line.
Again she felt that internal shift as the chart became comprehensible.