Time of the Eagle (21 page)

The hoofbeats came nearer, and then the horse appeared. I saw who the rider was, and my heart sang. It was Ishtok, his hunting bow across his back.

Seeing me, he drew his horse to a halt. Slowly he dismounted and walked over to me. I had forgotten how beautiful he was. His face had changed, become more defined, and stronger. He had a short beard, and there was a new tattoo above the old one on his brow. He did not look as tall as he had been before.

“Avala?” he said.

“It is I,” I said, smiling, feeling a quickening in my pulse. How good it was to see him again!

He laughed a little, shaking his head, as if unable to believe his eyes. At last he said, “You've changed.”

“So have you,” I said.

He came close and bent his forehead to mine, in the Igaal greeting. Smiling, he rubbed his brow along mine, then lifted his face and sniffed my hair. “You smell different,” he said. “You're taller, too.”

Then suddenly we were in each other's arms, and he picked me up and swung me about in a circle, and we were both laughing. He was lean and taut, and smelled of horses, leather, and smoke. As he swung me around I pressed my face against his neck and kissed his skin, but I do not think he noticed.

“Where have you been?” he asked, setting me down again but keeping his arms around me. “I went to the valley where you said your people were, but they were not there. Did you go away with them?”

“No, they were gone when I got there,” I said.

“Then where were you? Where have you been?”

I said nothing, not wanting to lie, longing to tell him of Ravinath.

Perplexed, he held me at arm's length, studying my face, my dress, my boots. “You're clean,” he said. “Your dress, it's hardly worn. Your boots are still like new. You look . . . perfect. Beautiful. Where were you? Were you with another tribe?”

Salverion's words came back to me. I said, “I was in the mountains. In a high place. The All-father looked after me.”

“Even your talk is different,” he said, frowning, puzzled and unsatisfied. Suddenly he smiled again and drew me to him and hugged me hard. “Oh, it's of no matter!” he said. “You're back. I prayed so hard to Shimit to bring you back. Ramakoda will be pleased to see you. He's married now. At our Gathering last spring he got a new wife. And Kimiwe will go wild, to see you. She
cried for five days after you left. And Mudiwar—” He stopped, and his look worried me. “Well, if your
munakshi
has grown a bit, he'll be glad to see you. He's very ill.”

“Did he ever find out that you helped me escape?” I asked.

“No. But he was a high lot angry when he woke up after the feast and discovered that you were gone.” He mounted his horse, and I gave him my coat and bag, which he put in front of him. Then he offered me his hand, and pulled me up behind him. I slipped my arms about his waist, glad for the excuse to hug him again, and we set off toward the end of the gorge and the valley. As we rode he covered my hands with one of his, as he had done on that long ride back from Taroth Pass and the Shinali lands. He walked the horse slowly, and I hoped it was because he was unwilling just yet to take me to Mudiwar, and wanted these moments to last.

“Is all well with you, Ishtok?” I asked.

“All is well now,” he replied.

“Did you think of me while I was away?”

“Not often. Only at every second beat of my heart.”

I pressed my face against his back and tightened my hold about his waist.

“Did you think of me?” he asked.

“Only as often as you thought of me,” I replied.

We came out into the valley. Like Ravinath, it was hidden within a circle of mountains, and reached only by this one narrow gorge. Snow still covered the peaks and lay in the deepest valleys, and there were many streams and rivulets rushing down into a little lake that lay like glass beside the tents. The tribe was camped on a grassy plain beside the lake's stony shore, and it was
a place of quietness and peace. At the lake's southern end a river tumbled in rapids out through a steep, impassable gorge, rushing to the forested hills and on to the sea. The day was still, and I could hear the distant thunder of the rapids.

“It's beautiful here,” I said.

“We wintered in this place,” he said. “It's well hidden, though some of us saw soldiers go out in the wintertime, when we were hunting in the western ranges. We saw them go back with Hena slaves. It was an anxious time.”

“You would have been glad to see your Hena family,” I said, without thinking. And I added, because I had to know, “Did you see Navamani, too?”

He stopped his horse and turned to face me. “How did you know they came?” he asked.

A moment I hesitated, then I replied, “I saw it in a vision. I saw you with your Hena brother.”

He looked dumbfounded, afraid. Then he said, half smiling, “You're joking, aren't you? You're guessing.”

“I know, Ishtok. I saw him give you a leather thong with a stone fox.”

His face went pale, and his hand went to his chest, under his shirt. He drew out the amulet, the little carved fox.

“Shimit's teeth, Avala!” he breathed. “You've come back a seer! Where have you been? Tell me. Please. Else I shall think you've been with the gods—or with ghosts.”

He looked so disturbed, I could not leave him in his fear. Also, I did not want to live with a lie between us. I said, “I've been with some people who live in hiding. If they were found by
the Emperor in the stone city, he would murder them all. They sheltered me and taught me many things. I was sworn to secrecy about them and their place. I should not even have told you this much. Please ask me nothing more. I won't be telling anyone else this, not even Ramakoda or Chimaki. Will you keep the secret for me?”

“I will,” he said. “Were they Navorans, these people?”

“No questions,” I said. “I can tell you no more. And please don't look so worried, Ishtok.”

“I'm not worried. I'm scared witless. You frighten me. Where you've been, the way you are now. The secrets you hold. There's a power in you that wasn't there before.”

“I've learned a lot of things, nearly all of them to do with healing. Please don't be afraid of me.”

“Too late. I already am.” However, he grinned, then turned to face the camp, and we moved on.

“You didn't tell me about Navamani,” I said.

“Who?” he asked.

“Navamani,” I repeated. “The woman you were in love with.”

“Oh, her,” he said. “She met someone in another Hena tribe, and married him.”

Smiling to myself, I said, “You must have been devastated.”

“I was. For the space of one heartbeat, between two thoughts of you.”

We were almost at the camp. Children saw us coming and started running and shouting, and by the time we reached the tents most of the tribe was standing by the lake, waiting for us. We got off the horse, and I saw Ramakoda striding over, his grin
wide, warm as his welcome. He pressed his forehead to mine, then held me at arm's length as he looked me up and down.

“What a wonder, to see you again!” he said. “You've weathered the winters well. Where have you been, kinswoman? Ishtok rode out to visit you with your people, but you were gone.”

“I've been in a secret place in the mountains,” I said. “I can't say more than that.”

He was silent a while, frowning, his face bewildered and curious. At last he said, “Well, wherever you've been, the gods have looked after you. Come, see my father.”

Suddenly I was almost bowled over by a leaping, squealing, long-haired little girl, and I laughed and picked up Kimiwe. She nearly choked me with her hug, and planted kisses all over my face.

“I looked for you every day, wanting you to come back,” she said.

I put her down and kissed her cheeks. Her scars had healed well, though there were pale pink patches on her skin where the burns had been, and ridges down her cheeks. She was bald on one part of her head, where her hair had been burned off, but her smile, her irrepressible spirit, were beautiful. Though she had grown, she looked so small, for I had not seen a child in a long time. Then Chimaki was hugging me, and people were rushing about calling to one another in surprise, and the dogs were going mad, caught up in the excitement. Suddenly there was quiet.

Mudiwar was limping out of his tent. When he saw me, he stopped and leaned on his staff, his face inscrutable. A slave rushed up to him and put down a small stool, and Mudiwar sat
down. I saw his shoulders rise and fall as he fought to breathe, and his neck and shoulder muscles were tense from the effort. I went and knelt before him.

“Greetings, my chieftain,” I said. “I ask for shelter with you and your people, in exchange for my healing work.”

“You will indeed work, escaped Shinali slave,” he said, his words broken between the struggling breaths. From where I knelt, I could hear the fluid bubbling in his lungs. He was slowly drowning. “You should be punished,” he went on. “Why have you come back to us, after so long?”

“The All-father sent me back to you,” I said.

“Your god? Or were you sent back by whichever tribe you sheltered with? Does no one want you now?” He began to laugh but coughed instead, a long time. A slave brought a bowl for him, and as he coughed into it I saw blood. At last he sat upright again.

“We know your people were not where you left them,” he said. “Ishtok went seeking you. How is it that the storms and snows and wild beasts have not touched you? That you come to us with your clothes clean and fine, and wellness on you like a light? Where have you been sheltering all this time? Who fed you?”

“I was in a holy place in the mountains,” I said. “I was well cared for, and taught new skills.”

“A holy place, in truth,” he said. “Shimit must have guarded you. How did you find us?”

“I had a vision of your place here, my chieftain,” I said.

His hooded eyes narrowed, and he thought about that for a while. Then he said, “You say you have learned new skills. Very
well, you can heal me. That is your test. If you make me well, you may live among us as a healer and honored slave. If you fail, you'll be whipped, and be no more than a keeper of our dogs.”

Again he began coughing, and two slaves helped him back to his tent.

F
or the rest of that day I was with Mudiwar. Chimaki helped with his healing, and I was glad of her aid, for he needed ordinary healing first. I made him breathe over a steaming bowl of pungent herbs, and Chimaki and I pummeled his back until he coughed up all the fluid in his lungs. He cursed us furiously, for it was a hard time for him, but after, when he lay exhausted on his bed, I healed him with the deep healing of Salverion. By the end of that first day, Mudiwar was breathing easily, the rattle had gone from his chest, and his lips were no longer blue. He said, with a glimmer in his eye, “Your
munakshi
has improved, Shinali woman. I don't think I'll have you whipped after all, for your escape—though if you drum your fists so hard upon my back again, I might consider it.”

That evening the chieftain rested in his bed and was fed by a slave, while the rest of us feasted sitting on the mats under the trees on the edge of the lake. I could not help thinking of the glorious eating-hall in Ravinath, with its tall curved windows open to the mountain peaks; and when Ishtok passed me platters of
meat to choose from, I looked at the Hena paintings on his sleeves, and thought of gold-embroidered crimson robes. The Igaal dishes of clay and wood seemed suddenly alien to me, after the fine-wrought silver and gold we had used at Ravinath, and the high voices of the women and children were startling, after the world of Navoran men. As I looked at the faces around me I saw the suspicion that remained, the mistrust and resentment. I had not expected Mudiwar's tribe to seem so foreign to me, and had forgotten the hate. I looked at Ishtok, and he caught my glance and smiled, and there was fondness in his eyes enough to ease my ache for Ravinath.

While we ate, I was told about the happenings with the clan over the past year. I heard about journeys, of the Gathering of the tribes, and Ramakoda's marriage. I also learned of hardships.

“It was hard, this winter just gone,” Chimaki said. “Many old ones got dead bits on their feet, like old Gunateeta before she died. I gave them medicines for pain, but we wished you were here then.”

An old woman said, with a sly chuckle and a shrewd look at Ishtok, “One of us, especially, missed you a high lot, Avala—and not because of sore feet.”

Ishtok looked embarrassed, and Ramakoda said to me, “Well, we had other visitors, to make up for your absence. Ishtok's Hena tribe came to see us. They had been attacked by Navoran soldiers early in the winter, and many of them were carried off. They spent some of the winter with us, here.”

“Avala already knows about the visit,” said Ishtok, before I could stop him. “She saw it in a vision. She even knew about the fox amulet Atitheya gave to me. She has visions now, like a seer.”

Others overheard, and talk around us stopped.

“Is that so?” asked Ramakoda. “Are you a seer now, Avala?”

“I see some things in dreams,” I said.

People were so quiet we heard a waterbird dive into the lake after a fish. Gradually talk resumed, but I noticed that the looks of hate from some people changed to curiosity. Although Mudiwar had never held visionaries high in importance, others in his tribe did. When I checked the chieftain before bedtime, he said to me, “They tell me you're a seer now.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Your breathing, it's getting easier all the time?”

“You're the seer,” he said, grinning. “You tell me.”

“I think you'll live to be a great warrior again,” I said. Then I bent and kissed his forehead, and he growled and muttered something about women's foolishness, though he looked pleased.

Before I went to bed, I went outside for a while and stood by the lake and watched the moon rise. It was unutterably peaceful. I thought of Taliesin out in the mountains alone, and wished him a safe night, in my heart. He would be almost at the mouth of the Ekiya Gorge by now.

Suddenly there was a quiet movement beside me, and Ishtok stood there. For once he looked uneasy, unsettled.

“What is on your heart, Ishtok?” I asked.

He replied, “You said you can't tell me about the place you went to, and I honor that. But I'm thinking it must have been Navoran. I saw the things you put away in the wooden chest Ramakoda gave you. They were strange, foreign things.” I realized he was talking of my map, and the little telescope. Slowly, he lifted my right hand and touched the silver ring I wore on my
thumb, the gift from Taliesin. “And this must be Navoran,” he said.

I did not reply, and he stayed close, still holding my hand.

“It must have been strange for you,” he said. “Even though your father was Navoran, his people are still your enemies.”

“Not all his people are our enemies,” I said. “No nation is wholly evil, or wholly good. I'm beginning to think that not many Navorans are bad.”

“The ones who come looking for slaves are bad,” he said.

“Maybe they're afraid to disobey their Emperor,” I said, thinking of the soldier called Embry. “If Mudiwar was a very cruel and powerful chieftain, you'd be honor bound to obey him, even if you didn't like what he told you to do. And the Igaal keep slaves, Ishtok. Am I not one?”

He thought for a while, stroking my hand gently, and I felt the little calluses and scars on his palm from his carving knives.

“The Hena priest, Sakalendu, came to visit us, with my Hena tribe,” he said. “I talked a long time with him. I told him about your Shinali prophecy, about the Time of the Eagle. He said he has had many dreams this winter past, of a giant eagle flying in high winds, swooping down across the lands, across the old Shinali plain, and over the stone city. He said there are great things spoken of in the stars, signifying that a mighty battle is about to take place. He has gone back now to make the Hena tribes ready.”

I was silent, humbled, remembering what Taliesin had said about the success of my work perhaps depending on the service of a friend I might never meet. As I thought of the lone seer-priest in the far-off Hena marshlands, preparing his people to play their
part in the fulfillment of our Shinali prophecy, I was swept over by awe and gratitude.

“Sakalendu was right,” I said, “there are great things in the stars, huge forces gathering. Not just for the Hena and my people and yours, but for the Navorans, too. The Time of the Eagle is bigger than I ever dreamed it would be, Ishtok. It will change our world forever. There won't be the old strife, the divisions among the tribes, and between us and Navora. We will have a common battle, and a common peace after. But before any of it can happen, there is something I must do. I don't know yet what that work is, I only know that when it becomes clear I must do it, and it may demand all my strength for a time.”

He let go of my hand and stood very still, looking across the lake, his moonlit face troubled and unquiet, his dark eyes moist.

“Will you go away again?” he asked.

“In the Time of the Eagle,” I said, “I will be with my own people.”

“On your Shinali land?”

“It won't be Shinali land. It will belong to all of us.”

“And the stone city? How much is that your home? Who are your people, Avala—the Shinali, or the Navorans? Will you be living with your tribe, or in the stone city with your Navoran friends?”

“In the time to come,” I said, very low, “I hoped that I would be with you.”

“Is hope enough?” he asked, and I heard a bitter edge in his voice. “What of destiny? As a seer, can you foretell that we'll be together?”

“Even a seer can't foretell the workings of human hearts,” I
replied. “And despite destiny, each of us has free will, the power to choose. I know what I would choose. But what is your will, Ishtok? What do you want?”

He stood in front of me, put his right hand behind my neck, and gently drew me to him. I could hardly breathe, for the longing and ecstasy that swept through me. Slowly, slowly, he kissed my face, first my brow, down along my nose and chin, then both my cheeks. Tender he was, his lips soft, light as moth wings on my skin. On the edge of my mouth he stopped, leaving me aching, wanting; but he put his arms about me and held me very close, his cheek against my hair. I could feel our hearts beating.

He said, hoarsely, “My will, Avala? Fate has never considered my will to be of importance, and the things that I would have kept have always been torn from me. I asked you before if you will ever go away again. You did not give me a straight answer. If I love you, will I be left again without you? Will I be cast off when you go back to your own people, whoever they are? In the Time of the Eagle, will you be lost in the battle?”

I shook my head, having no answer.

He went on, anguished. “I've had loss, Avala. As much loss as I can bear. I was ten summers old when I was sent to the Hena. When I came back here to my father's tent, my mother had died, all was changed. It was no more my home. Then my heart hungered for my Hena tribe again. Just as I grew to love my blood-kin here, two of my older brothers, and kin-children I loved, were taken as slaves. Then you came, and I tried very hard not to love you. You, too, went away, and every day you were gone I grieved, and all the tribe knew it. This is what happens with my loves, Avala—they go, or are taken from me. Since I was a child
I have been lost, not knowing where my home is, or which love will be taken from me next. And now you ask what my will is, about us. Does it matter, my will?

“While you were away you were in another world, a secret world from which I am shut out. In that other world of yours there were many high and destined things, great things to do with the freedom of many people. You're a seer now; you see beyond my father's tribe, beyond even your own Shinali lands. I can't begin to see what you can see, to know what you must know. These are big things, things to do with nations. Things to do with your destiny, with the destiny of many tribes. In the hugeness of all those things, my will is a grain of sand, and what I want is worth nothing more than the scratch of a bird's wing across the sky.”

He fell silent, his breaths torn and full of pain.

“That scratch across the sky,” I said, “is a tear across my heart. Your will means everything to me, Ishtok. If you wanted me—if I knew you wanted me—I would never leave again.”

“That is a promise you can't make,” he said. “If your destiny demanded it, you would go, and I would be the first to say you must. I do want you, Avala, and I love you with every breath. But what I want more is for you to be free to do those things you spoke of, that are your destiny. I don't want to complicate your life or make your path more difficult. I won't ask anything of you except your company. If you want more than that of me, you will have to be the one to speak first, to say when you're ready. But know this: I will help you all I can, in this work you have to do. Whatever you do, wherever you go, I will be beside you. In the Time of the Eagle, when you go to your battleground, I will be
there with you. And if the gods decree that you die in battle, I will die defending you. I swear this, with
sharleema
.”

I nodded, too moved to speak.

Smiling, he kissed my lips, then put his arm around me, and we walked back to Mudiwar's tent.

Above our heads hung the gray world of Erdelan with its four moons and bands of stormy cloud, looking like a great and steady star.