Waterdance (9 page)

She was surprised by the pain in Atheris’s eyes before he glanced away, hiding his expression.

“It was—a temple matter,” he whispered. “It would make no sense to an outlander. Pardon me—I need to rest, conserve my strength for tonight.”

Peri ground her teeth in frustration, wanting to press Atheris for an explanation. Temple matter? Were these Bone Hunters not even associated with the Sarkondish military, but some kind of religious authority? Assassin priests, Atheris had said—and able to use magic as well. What kind of “temple matter” merited such pursuit? Peri wanted to shake Atheris, demand that he tell her—

But Atheris had already fallen into an exhausted slumber, and unwillingly Peri felt a pang of pity. He was weakened from spellcasting—part of it on her behalf—and recovering from a wound. Judging by what she’d learned of the Bone Hunters, he probably hadn’t had a good meal or a sound night’s sleep in days, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to wake him now.

Oh, well, no matter, Peri thought with a sigh. It looks like we’re going to have plenty of time to talk. And if it’s a “temple matter,” it’s got nothing to do with me anyway.

Time passed, the wagon jolting along, Peri thinking and watching Atheris or peeping cautiously out the side of the wagon. The farther they traveled from the Barrier, the more normal the land began to look—it was poor, thin steppes, cold and bone-dry and rocky, a little blighted-looking grass and a few scraggly brambles the only vegetation, but at least it was not utterly blasted and barren like the land farther south. Slowly the sun lowered in the sky.

It was midafternoon when the caravan caught up to the pilgrimage. Peri dared not raise her head to look out the front of the wagon, but she knew it when the wagon slowed and she heard the merchants and the guards shouting back and forth. At last, peering cautiously out under the edge of the wagon cloth, she saw the stragglers wandering in little groups of one or two or three off to the sides of the road, and she bit her lip, shocked to a silence greater than caution.

Bregond had no pilgrimages. The temples were not places of worship; they were the homes of the Orders where Bregond’s priests and priestesses were trained in the use of their magic, until they finished their training and left the temple to serve where they were most needed. In Agrond it was different; there were temples to many gods, and the priests and priestesses were only that, not necessarily mages, and there were pilgrimages to those temples. Once or twice Peri had seen such pilgrimages. She’d seen the weak and the sick, lepers and cripples being brought to the temples to pray to their gods for the miracles that healers could not provide.

This was different.

Peri’s first thought was that she no longer wondered why Atheris had so blithely assumed that she could swaddle herself in robes and rags without anyone questioning. Half the pilgrims she saw—and admittedly those were the stragglers, the weakest—were so smothered in ragged cloth that they could have been Agrond, Bregond, Sarkond, elves, demons. But those hidden ones were not the worst.

The worst were the ones Peri could see.

In Agrond Peri had lived at court, largely sheltered from such sights as this; as a member of the royal family it was too risky for her to ride through the worst sections of town where such unfortunate souls took refuge. In Bregond, among the horse clans for the most part, there were no such sights. Bregond was a harsh land that did not coddle the weak. The maimed, the diseased either recovered on their own, or were healed, or they died—of their disease or by their own hand. It was as simple as that. She had seen injuries, sometimes horrible injuries, hunting accidents, herding accidents.

She had never seen the aftermath of a war of magic, or the offspring of a magic-blighted land.

They were twisted, withered or bloated, covered with lumpy growths or running sores, too tall or too short, too pale or too dark, skin peeling or scaly or scabby or slick and bald. One such creature hobbling near the wagon—Peri could not tell whether it was male or female—had a stunted, twisted third arm curling out of its left armpit. A woman carried a baby with neither hands nor feet; the infant wailed continuously, waving withered stumps in the air. A tall, almost impossibly thin man covered with knobby tumors hobbled along on legs which terminated not in feet, but in birdlike three-toed claws. A young girl with snakelike scales covering her skin dragged herself along on two crutches with the aid of feeble pushes from boneless legs. Peri could not turn away from the sight; horrified but fascinated, she stared out through her peephole until the waning light told her that the caravan would soon stop.

“Lend me your dagger,” Atheris whispered, startling her.

Peri turned gratefully to face him, drawing the dagger but reluctant to surrender it.

“Why?” she asked softly.

“You do not need it to flee and hide,” Atheris said practically. “And you have a sword if you must defend yourself. But I may need a sharp blade to cast my spells. And if I have to crawl into a wagon from the side, do you want me to cut the thongs binding it to the frame or chew through them with my teeth?”

Peri clenched her jaws tightly but handed over the dagger.

“Try to find yourself a blade,” she hissed as Atheris tucked the dagger into his belt. “I cut food with that, you know.”

Atheris chuckled very quietly.

“Believe me,” he said, “that I am far more eager to hold steel of my own than you are to reclaim yours.”

Then they sat quietly, cataloging the sounds of the caravan setting up camp for the night. Fires were kindled; tents were pitched for merchants who did not sleep in wagons and pallets laid for the guards. Watches were assigned. Supper was cooked and eaten, and guards who were not on watch lingered by the fires, drinking and talking.

Later there were other sounds. There were whores among the pilgrims, and the whores came to the merchants’ fires in search of wealthier—and certainly healthier—bedmates. Sounds from the tents and pallets indicated that at least some were successful in their transactions. Peri wondered squeamishly whether the purchasers of the whores’ services bothered to inquire what manner of healing the whores were seeking at the temple. Slowly those sounds too faded, replaced only by the occasional snore.

“We can go now,” Atheris whispered very quietly. “Remember, make your way north of the camps as quickly as you can. I will get what we need and meet you there before sunrise so that we can join the pilgrim camp while the others are still asleep.”

Peri nodded, inspected her makeshift bundle of weapons and supplies to make sure nothing would rattle to betray her, and fastened it securely on her back. She timed the guard patrols and waited until one had just passed before she climbed out as quietly as she could. She was both glad and dismayed to find the night as overcast as her first in Sarkond—glad because the poor light would help conceal her departure; dismayed because it concealed her footing and path just as thoroughly. She did not bother watching which way Atheris went; right now her concern was to hide herself, and if Atheris got himself caught in the middle of all these people, there was nothing whatsoever she could do about it. She had only moments to spare before the next guard on patrol walked by.

She scampered away as quickly as she could, hand on the hilt of her sword in case she needed to draw and fight—although how she’d fight in near pitch darkness and on uncertain footing she had no idea—and hurried out of camp in what she hoped was the right direction. Thankfully the Sarkondish guards were in the same fix as she; actually, Peri realized, she had a slight advantage in that she knew they were there, while hopefully they had no idea that she was.

Once she moved away from the wagon, however, Peri did not totally lack for light. Some of the pilgrims had managed to build fires, probably burning droppings from past caravans, and there was sufficient glow from their fires to give her at least an indication of where the boundaries of the pilgrim camp were. There were no stars visible to show Peri north, but to the best of her knowledge the road had been heading slightly northwest, so she could at least estimate where she was supposed to be.

She’d made it nearly halfway around the perimeter of the camp when a figure came lurching through the darkness. Peri froze, her hand tightening on the hilt of her sword, but the man only continued past her; a moment later she heard a telltale splatter of liquid and chuckled to herself. In her sudden fear she’d nearly done the same, but without benefit of a waterskin this time.

It was quite a job, avoiding the camp and the occasional nighttime wanderers, trying to mind her footing lest she make some noise falling, trying to locate some ridge or hollow large enough to hide her. At least she was no longer stumbling through ash and sand and sharp rock-glass. Finally she found a hollow deep enough (she hoped) to hide her, Atheris, and a couple of packs. She settled herself as comfortably as she could and waited; if she was honest, she was waiting to hear an outcry, either from the caravan camp or the pilgrims, indicating that Atheris had been discovered and captured. But there was no outcry, and after an uneasily long time, Peri heard soft, careful footsteps.

“Peri?” Atheris whispered.

“Over here,” she murmured back, almost dismayingly glad to hear his voice. “Sounds like you’re heading right for me. Just follow my voice straight on.”

Atheris nearly fell over her; his arms were loaded, and Peri hurriedly relieved him of some of his burdens.

“Stay down and quiet,” she whispered. “I want to make sure nobody heard you.”

They listened for several moments, straining their ears, but at last Peri sighed.

“All right,” she said. “I think we got away clean. What did you manage to take?”

“I dared not steal a sword,” Atheris apologized. “I wanted this to seem a simple theft by one of the pilgrims. But I have a good dagger, food and water and a blanket, a pouch of money that felt heavy—although it could be all coppers—and I have robes for us both and bandages for you.”

Peri unwrapped the heavy bundle, wondering at its weight and Atheris’s ability to carry it. She would have thought the magic he’d said he would use would have exhausted him, but on the contrary, he sounded strong and alert—if anything, stronger than before.

Peri touched the robes a little hesitantly.

“The people you took these from,” she said. “They weren’t—uh—diseased, were they?”

Atheris chuckled wryly.

“Perian, I did not stop to inquire into their state of health,” he said. “Nor are the robes clean. I was in no position to be selective. Wear them over your clothes and be thankful if they fit.”

“What now, then?” Peri asked, taking the robe before squeamishness could win over reason. “Move into the camp?”

Atheris nodded.

“Tonight we will lay our blanket at the edge of the camp,” he said. “But as soon as possible tomorrow we should move deeper into the crowd for better concealment.”

Peri thought of the people she’d seen today and shivered with a horrified pity that made the tiny hint of healer’s magic in her ache with frustration.

“You know,” Atheris said gently, “you should let me carry your sword.”

Peri froze.

“Never,” she said flatly. “Not until the day it falls from my cold, dead hand.”

Atheris sighed with resignation.

“Then you must hide it well under your robe,” he said. “Or—we could wrap you more thoroughly and pretend you are a burned and disfigured man. That would not be so difficult,” he added thoughtfully. “You are tall and well-muscled, and you must not speak anyway, or your accent would be noticeable.”

“Fine,” Peri said shortly. “I’m a man, then.” She almost chuckled at the thought. There’d been times when she—and probably Danber, too—had wished she was a man in fact.

Fortunately Peri had always followed the Bregondish belief that a good blade needed no ornamentation; her own sword and dagger, while of excellent-quality steel and wonderfully balanced, had plain leather-wound hilts and plain scabbards well battered and scarred from riding through Bregond’s tall grasses. No one would look at them twice. Her clothing was more of a problem; she’d have to be sure to keep it covered with the robe at all times when someone might see her. Her tunic and trousers were functional rather than decorative, too, plain sensible outdoor gear, but they were obviously Bregondish in style. The leather jaffs which had protected her legs when riding through the sharp-edged Bregondish grasses she merely packed into their bundle of goods. They were useless in Sarkond and would certainly appear unusual to anyone who saw them. At least she could cut them up for leather if she had to. Her boots, thankfully, were well-worn and unremarkable. Many of the pilgrims were probably barefoot, but Peri had no desire to emulate them!

Only a few hours remained before dawn, and nobody took notice as Peri and Atheris worked their way closer to the pilgrims’ camp, laying their blanket down close enough to appear to be part of the camp. There were no guards; why guard a crowd of sick and impoverished pilgrims? There were rocks aplenty to weight the corners of the blankets, but no sticks to hold up a tent, so Peri and Atheris simply spread their blanket and lay down on it. At least this area appeared dry enough that Peri doubted they’d be drenched with rain, despite the thick cloud cover. Atheris fell asleep quickly, but Peri had never felt less like sleep in her life, especially after her long sleep in the wagon not long ago.

Hours passed. Pilgrims turned, snored, gasped, wheezed, coughed, moaned weakly, wept. The sheer miasma of human misery around her made Peri sick. The sun rose almost reluctantly behind dense gray clouds. At “dawn” the camp’s inhabitants began to stir, taking no notice of Peri and Atheris.

Atheris woke quickly, and Peri confirmed her puzzling observation of the night before—he not only sounded stronger, but looked it. Maybe simply freeing himself from the drain of the concealing spell helped; she couldn’t imagine what he could have done to so replenish his strength otherwise. He moved quickly and efficiently, helping her to divide their belongings into two neat bundles, and, to Peri’s combined annoyance and amusement, insisted on taking the heavier load himself. He’d obviously never carried a load without a pack before; Peri had to show him how to roll the bundle narrowly and sling it diagonally across his back, cloth ends over one shoulder and under the other arm and tying in the front.