Waterdance (21 page)

“So we’ve been traveling toward Rocarran ever since?” Peri asked softly at last.

Atheris nodded.

“The others have been very kind,” he said. “They gave me blankets and furs to keep you warm, broth to feed you, a lantern, even a small brazier for our tent.”

“Comparing the cost of a sound horse to a tent, they can afford to be kind,” Peri said wryly. “How much farther is it to Rocarran, do you know?”

“Three more days, or so I am told,” Atheris said softly. “The road is very poor for wagons and our progress has been slow. Peri, even if we had horses, I do not see how you would be able to make such a ride as we had planned, not within that time.”

“Half-dead or sound asleep, I can ride if I have to,” Peri said grimly. “We’ll steal the horses back if we must.” Mahdha forgive me, look what I’m becoming—a thief robbing half-starved pilgrims who helped save my life.

Atheris must have had some similar thought, for he gave her an odd look.

“First you must regain your strength,” he said slowly. “If I bring you food, can you eat?”

Peri chuckled dryly.

“To tell you the truth, if our horses had gone into the stew-pot, I’d hold out my bowl and ask for seconds,” she said. “Bring it on.”

To Peri’s surprise there was meat in the thick soup Atheris brought her and carefully fed her, but she knew old, stringy chicken when she tasted it and didn’t bother to inquire after the horses’ health. The soup, the tent, the wagons, though—those added up to give her pause. Obviously these pilgrims were of a much wealthier class than those she’d seen previously.

“Yes, these are not ordinary pilgrims,” Atheris said rather shortly when Peri asked. “These are lesser priests and acolytes from Tarabin.”

“It seems like everyone and their fifth cousin is on the road to Rocarran,” Peri said, scowling. “What’s happening there?”

This time Atheris hesitated a long time before answering; he gave Peri another odd look.

“It is an important time in the temple,” he said. “They come to make sacrifice and hear the words of the Whore.”

“The what?” Peri murmured disbelievingly.

“A priestess and prophet,” Atheris said slowly. “In the temple we show her respect and call her the Golden One, but she is better known among the people as Eregis’s Whore. Eregis speaks through her, and she attends over the sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices?” Peri said, remembering what he had said once. “Blood sacrifice?” Then she saw the expression in Atheris’s averted eyes and something inside her went cold.

“Human?” she whispered.

Atheris’s lips thinned.

“I cannot discuss the mysteries of the temple with a non-believer,” he said rather stiffly. “Perhaps I have said too much already.” Then his expression softened slightly. “Besides, you should rest. You must regain your strength if—if we are to attempt to leave for Bregond before reaching Rocarran.”

His words made sense, and Peri did not object as Atheris covered her warmly, extinguishing the lantern, but she was troubled nonetheless. Something in his attitude had changed since Darnalek in a way she did not entirely like. Obviously the encounter at the fortune-teller’s and later with the Bone Hunter had affected him strongly. Well, no surprise in that; it had affected her strongly, too, and she’d trained and prepared for such attacks all her life. Atheris had led a far more sheltered life than she; the Bone Hunter was probably his first kill, too. And it had been an agent of his own temple—and not even to save his own life, but in defense of Peri, a Bregond, an enemy. She had certainly felt guilt chewing at her stomach often enough since she’d rescued Atheris; not too surprising if he was starting to feel the sharpness of those teeth himself.

Despite her weakness Peri slept poorly, feeling unaccountably more threatened and vulnerable than she had in days; when she half roused during the night she saw Atheris sitting at the tent flap gazing out, and she wondered dimly whether he felt uneasy, too.

In the morning Atheris helped Peri don her bandage disguise and, despite her protests, picked her up and lifted her carefully into the wagon, where a comfortable pallet had already been prepared for her. Apparently the priests and acolytes were in a hurry, for the caravan set out as soon as there was light enough to see the road. An acolyte riding on a mule passed from wagon to wagon, distributing bowls; to Peri’s surprise there was a share for her and Atheris as well. The bowls contained reasonably fresh bread, sharp cheese, and an unappetizing-looking but fragrant mishmash which Atheris explained absently was dried fruit fermented in honey and wine. Peri had never heard of eating such a thing for breakfast, but the stuff was a perfect vehicle for the restorative mix of herbs she needed to take with food, and it turned out to be the tastiest meal she’d had since she left Tarkesh. She reflected with some amusement that in this respect at least Sarkond was closer to Agrond than to Bregond—rather than practicing any form of self-denial, priests here appeared to live more comfortably than the worshipers who supported them.

Peri was surprised when the caravan stopped at midday—not for dinner, as she might have expected, but for prayer. There was some elaborate little ritual that took place outside of her view, although she saw that one of the acolytes left with a live piglet and returned with a dead one. Peri certainly wasn’t bothered by the sacrifice of a pig that was probably destined for the stewpot anyway—the Bright Ones knew there were messier and more wasteful sacrifices in some of the temples in Tarkesh—but this time, in light of what Atheris had said (or avoided saying), she found it rather disturbing. He had said that male mages raised power by the release of life energies, and what greater release could there be than at the moment of death?

And if such animal sacrifices served to raise power for the priests, what manner of magical operation could the release of energy from a human sacrifice empower?

Atheris stayed with Peri rather than joining the priests at their worship, and Peri wondered briefly at his motives. Perhaps he found the practice somewhat distasteful himself; perhaps those feelings had formed part of the reason he’d attempted the dangerous experiment with his cousin. She fervently hoped so. The Bright Ones knew Atheris had had plenty of opportunities to raise a little power of his own in a far more bloody manner if he’d chosen to do so, either in Darnalek or when they were with the—

With the—

Peri froze, her mouth suddenly dry.

Someone died in the night. It is not uncommon in such pilgrimages, with so many sick.

Peri suddenly felt her gorge rising.

Mahdha spare me, she thought sickly. Bright Ones look with mercy upon me. Oh, gods, all the gods—any gods—grant that I haven’t been a party to cold-blooded murder.

“Peri?” Atheris said quietly. “Are you unwell? You suddenly went pale.”

Peri swallowed hard. She couldn’t confront Atheris now, not when she had to keep her voice low and controlled for fear of the priest in the wagon seat hearing her.

Mahdha forgive me, I can hardly bring myself to think about it, Peri thought.

“I’m all right,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear her. “Just... tired.”

Atheris’s expression softened.

“Sleep, then,” he said gently. “There is nothing else for you to do while we travel.”

Peri closed her eyes, but sleep eluded her.

I’ve shared my bed with this man. He’s saved my life, protected me when he had no reason to stay and every reason to go, faced me honestly on the practice floor. He’s tended my wounds, fed me—and kept me clean, too, or I’d stink of my own waste. If he could be such a monster as I hardly dare imagine—what does that make me?

The afternoon passed with excruciating slowness; exhausted, Peri finally drowsed uneasily, but she jolted awake when the wagon stopped. The sun was almost completely down. The priests must indeed be hurrying, to push on so late that they had to make camp in the dark.

Atheris set up their tent—to Peri’s relief, well apart from the others—and returned to help her out of the wagon. Peri had almost worked up her nerve to ask about the dead pilgrims, however much she dreaded Atheris’s answer, but as soon as he settled her comfortably in the tent, he hurried back out to fetch fuel for their brazier, water, and blankets for Peri. He returned only long enough to make up her pallet, light the brazier, and set a pot of water to boil; then he left again to fetch back their supper—as Peri had expected, tender young pork, cut into small pieces and threaded on skewers to roast quickly.

The food and herbs had helped; this time Peri, to her considerable relief, felt strong enough to sit up on her own and feed herself, and she thought she might even be able to walk a little once her supper had settled. She finished the food, bracing herself to ask—

“Peri,” Atheris said suddenly, not meeting her eyes, “while you were fevered, you said many things, but what did you mean when you spoke of grieving for your dead?”

She shrugged uncomfortably.

“That Bone Hunter was the first human being I’ve ever killed,” she said. “A dear friend of mine once told me that when you kill, you drink in a little of the death, and if you don’t grieve it out, it poisons you.”

Atheris grimaced.

“You grieved,” he said disbelievingly, “for a Bone Hunter, an assassin who nearly killed you?”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Peri said shortly. “I didn’t grieve for him. I grieved because I had to kill him.”

“I. . . see,” Atheris said remotely. “And this cleanses you?”

Peri sighed.

“That’s the idea,” she said.

He was silent for a long time, staring into the brazier.

“There are not enough tears in the world,” he said at last, very softly, “to cleanse me of what I have done.”

Peri swallowed hard, taking a deep breath.

“And what’s that?” she asked, barely loud enough to be heard over the crackle of fire in the brazier.

Atheris gazed at her a long moment, his eyes unreadable.

“I am a traitor,” he whispered, “to everything I believe.”

And when Peri would have asked him what he meant, his lips on hers silenced her; and when his skin was hot against hers, she told herself she was too weak to fend him off, and too cold and frightened and alone to try.

But later, in the silence before sleep, sharing his warmth under the blankets, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes and felt the presence of a poison that she, too, had not tears enough to wash away. He’s a traitor, she thought numbly. And so am I.

Chapter Six

Thanks to her restorative herbs, Peri was able to sit up in the wagon the next day. For once she had no difficulty maintaining the silence her disguise demanded; she felt no desire whatsoever for conversation. She simply sat on her pallet and stared moodily out the back as the wagon jolted onward.

The landscape here differed little from the lands just south of Darnalek—not absolutely barren and blasted, but rocky and poor, the scant vegetation pallid and sickly looking. Peri sighed, hating to admit that Atheris had been right about the horses. Maybe Tajin, bred to manage on little water and poor fodder, could have survived a few days in this barren country—and then again, maybe not. The already underfed nags she and Atheris had bought in Darnalek would certainly have starved, if they didn’t die of thirst first.

Peri stared at the sickly land, thought about the implications of it, and shivered. Was all this land sucked utterly dry of life, too, during the war, or had it been this bad before? Was drought alone responsible? Surely not; compared with this barren territory, even Bregond’s dry, harsh plains fairly teemed with life. Surely no land could be this dead short of curse or blight or something of the sort. The thought didn’t rest easily in her mind.

What if it WAS this bad before the war? Compared with this, even Bregond is a paradise. What if the raids, the invasions, even the war, were never about greed and conquest, only about desperation and survival?

Would anyone in Agrond or Bregond have even cared about the distinction?

Peri rubbed her eyes wearily.

It doesn’t matter. Unless the northern lands are just amazingly fertile and productive, there’s no way they can grow enough crops or breed enough livestock to feed the people. If they weren’t desperate before, they certainly are now—at least those who aren’t too hopeless even for desperation. And desperate people are dangerous. They’ll do anything, take any risk, because they’ve got nothing left to lose.

She glanced at Atheris; he was also gazing out the back of the wagon, brooding at the barren land.

A desperate religion might cling to outrageous prophecies to keep its people’s hope alive. A desperate temple might make human sacrifice in the hope of waking a god who has abandoned his worshipers. A desperate priest and priestess might risk their lives experimenting with forbidden magic. Oh, Bright Ones, what have I blundered into here? What pot’s about to boil over at this temple in Rocarran? And if they knew the daughter of the High Lord and Lady of Agrond and the Heir to Bregond was being dragged all but helpless through their country, would that add another coal to the fire under that pot? Oh, Bright Ones, Peri thought helplessly. I’ve GOT to get out of here.

Whatever thoughts troubled Atheris, he kept them to himself. In silence they rode from sunrise to midday; in silence they sat in the wagon while the priests performed their worship; in silence they rode again from midday to sunset. Then there was the tent to set up in the twilight, and Peri even managed to help a bit, although Atheris had to bring their packs from the wagon, fetch fuel for the brazier and dinner for them, and make up their pallets as before.

“Tonight,” Peri said, finally breaking the awkward silence after they’d eaten. “We’ve got to get the horses back and get out of here tonight.” To her unease, another small group of pilgrims had joined the caravan at a crossroads not long after midday; she assumed that the closer they got to Rocarran, the more frequent such meetings might be.

Atheris sighed patiently, staring resolutely at the glowing coals in the brazier.