Karavans (48 page)

Carrying poison.

It took effort to speak, to bring Rhuan fully out of his post-Hearing reverie. “I have Heard you,” he said quietly, “and the vows hold. What I tell Ferize will be free of opinion, of emotion. I will say what you have said, in the way that you have said it.” He waited until Rhuan opened his eyes. “But now I may say what is in
my
mind.” Brodhi replaced all objects he had removed from the beaded bag, carefully rerolled the section of hide and tied it off with a silken cord. That too went into the bag. A glance at Rhuan’s expression showed brows arched in faint curiosity as he came back into awareness. “Now,” Brodhi said, “I speak for myself. I have wanted to say this for a very long time. Now, I do it.” Again he waited, making certain he had all of Rhuan’s attention. He tucked the beaded bag under one arm and said, with exquisite clarity, “You are a monster.”

AFTER SAYING A VARIETY of prayers and petitions in her mind that she would be kept safe from whatever was behind the eyes, Audrun, still gripping the extinguished lantern, began very slowly to back away. With buskinned feet she felt for exposed roots, placing her feet carefully. A fall would be disastrous, laying her wide open to attack as well as risking the welfare of the unborn baby.

She would not call for Davyn. She would not turn and run. Four children slept in the wagon, and all of her instincts screamed out that she must first protect them. If she awakened the entire family, she could very well get them all injured or killed.

She stayed close to the tree, hoping it would at least shield her right side. But as she negotiated the tangle of roots and emerged onto level grassland once more, that protection ended. She was now surrounded by open air, by nothingness but the night.

Audrun did not turn. She refused to expose her back to the eyes. Still she carried the lantern away from her side, her fingers clamped upon the handle. A few more backward steps put her close to the wagon; she spun then, dropping the lantern, and fell onto her knees beside one of the big wheels. A scramble under the floorboards put her close to Davyn; she burrowed a hand through blankets to find and shake his shoulder.

“Davyn!” She kept her voice low. “Davyn!” When he did not waken, Audrun leaned close to his ear, putting command into the strident whisper. “
Davyn, wake up
!” And as he responded, coming fully awake, she said before he could ask, “There’s something out there.”

He rolled to his belly, stripping away blankets. He too kept his voice low. “Where?”

“In the trees.”

“Can you see it now?”

Audrun crawled out from under the wagon even as he did. “No. But it was back in the trees.”

Davyn rose. In the Maiden’s moonlight, Audrun saw the brief sheen of naked knife blade. “Guide me.”

She hesitated. “Should we go back there?”

He looked down at her. “Well, either we go see if whatever it is has departed, or we spend the rest of the night huddling under the wagon, too frightened to sleep.”

His point was well taken. Audrun sighed and moved beside him, remaining on his left so as not to impede his knife-arm. “This way.”

“Lantern?”

Quickly Audrun found and relighted it, hoping this time it would remain alight. Davyn nodded and stepped out.

She was no happier going toward the place where she had seen the eyes than when she backed away. But Davyn had always been a man who went
to
potential trouble, who resolved things rather than ignoring the problems and hoping they would go away.

Audrun stopped him at the big oak. Both of them kept their voices low. “I was here.” She searched the darkness. “The lantern went out; it looks different, now.” She opened
the small door to provide more illumination and raised the lantern. She heard the quiet breath expelled abruptly from Davyn’s mouth. “Are you
laughing
?”

“Audrun, you saw the oxen.” He gestured with the knife. “See?”

The flame guttered slightly as she turned the lantern so the open door faced the direction Davyn indicated. She saw the shadowed bulk of two fawn-colored bodies and the glint of huge bovine eyes as they looked toward the light.

But she was certain. “It wasn’t the oxen.”

“Audrun—”

“It
wasn’t the oxen
. I know oxen, Davyn! And besides, the lantern went out; how am I to see the reflection of the oxen’s eyes in the darkness without a lantern? Under the trees, there isn’t enough moon for light.” She pointed to her left, away from the oxen. “It was there, Davyn. Over there.” Before he could respond, she added, “The oxen are hobbled. I would have heard them had they moved from there to here. They’re not quiet beasts.” It struck her as ludicrous that they would be arguing in whispers over draft animals in the middle of the night, but she stood firm. “What I saw came from
there
.”

“And is it there now?”

She clenched her teeth, hearing the note in his tone that divulged his continuing doubt. “No.”

Davyn said nothing for long moments, as if sorting through responses that wouldn’t hurt her feelings. “Well, it’s gone now. I guess we can go back to bed. Tomorrow we should reach the turnoff.”

Audrun didn’t budge. “I did see something, Davyn. Something that was indisputably not oxen.”

“All right. I believe you. Let’s go back.”

But he didn’t believe her, she knew. He still thought she had seen the oxen. And either they could continue to argue out here in the darkness or they could return to the wagon and attempt to salvage the remainder of their sleep.

“Here.” Audrun thrust the lantern toward him. “Hold this.” As he received the lantern, she began to gather up blanket and skirt folds.

“What are you doing?”

“I came out here to relieve myself,” she said sharply, “and I’m going to finish the task. The least you can do is stand guard, in case the oxen with glowing eyes decide to come trample me.”

Davyn’s laughter this time wasn’t so suppressed.

R
HUAN CAME BACK to himself, aware of Brodhi speaking. The first few words meant nothing because of passing disorientation, but as Brodhi assured him the vow would hold, that he would give Ferize the Hearing with no opinions expressed, he felt a sense of relief. Brodhi was one who highly valued the rituals of their people; if he swore a vow, he maintained it. And now the Hearing was completed, and he felt an overwhelming peacefulness in his spirit coupled with the weariness of a long-ignored duty discharged.

He opened his eyes, smiling, just as Brodhi said, “You are a monster.”

Smile, relief, and peacefulness fled.

“
What
—” But his kinsman was ducking under branches to vacate the space between trunk and low branches. “Brodhi!” Rhuan thrust a hand against the blankets and pushed himself upright, ripping aside the swaying branches. “Brodhi, wait—” Free of tangled branches at last, he saw his kinsman’s back, held very straight, as Brodhi strode away.

A monster?

You are a monster
.

Rhuan broke into a ragged run. As he reached Brodhi he put out a hand, clamped down on a forearm and yanked his kinsman partway around. It was the best he could do.

Brodhi shed the grasping hand easily, jerking his arm away, but he did stop and turn to face Rhuan fully. The campfires in the tent settlement were behind him, outlining his shoulders, glinting off braid ornamentation. They were nearly clear of the trees. “Oh, did you not hear me?” Brodhi asked with exquisite scorn.

Rhuan, nearly swaying with exhaustion, kept to his feet by sheer nerves and strength of will. “I heard you.”

“And you want to know why I would call you such a thing?” The tone remained delicately contemptuous.

“Brodhi—”

But Brodhi raised a silencing hand. “Let me ask this: How can you claim yourself the get of your sire? He is a lord over lesser lords …a
primary
, Rhuan! Yet you dismiss his blood and heritage as if they had no meaning, no weight in the world. Our world, Rhuan! This one is not. It belongs to the humans, given to them thousands of years ago, as the humans count time. This world is not for us. We are of different blood. We are of better blood. We are made to rule—”

Rhuan cut him off. “I don’t wish to rule.”

“And that’s part of it,” Brodhi declared, habitual self-control falling away. “You wish to be a servant. A plaything. A gamepiece on the board, instead of a primary working the board.”

“Not a servant,” Rhuan answered. “Precisely otherwise, in fact. I want freedom, Brodhi—”

“The kind the humans know?” Brodhi turned his head aside and spat. “I am ashamed of you. Shamed
by
you—”

Exhaustion dissipated in the rush of anger. “What I want has less than nothing to do with you, Brodhi! There is no shame when a man makes his own choices.”

“A
dioscuri
,” Brodhi stated. “The moment your sire’s seed took root, you were a
dioscuri
.
More
than man.”

“Not my choice,” Rhuan said evenly. “But I am given a choice now—or will be, when my journey is completed. In the confines of the Hearing, you know what that choice is.”

“Monster.”

“No, Brodhi—”

But Brodhi, ablaze with righteous fury, overrode him. “You shame your sire, you shame me, you shame my sire! You shame every one of our people!”

“I do no such thing! I make a choice, nothing more. Do you think I am the first to do so? To make such a choice?”

“Millennia!” Brodhi used the human term. “Not in millennia has such a choice been made.”

“But the point of the journey is to make that choice, Brodhi. To know fully what one wishes. To understand what one is. To select a future.” Rhuan barely managed a casual half-shrug. “It shouldn’t matter to you what my choice is. Our sires have many children.”

“But not
dioscuri
,” Brodhi said. “You know that. We were born to be what our sires are, not what the other children are. They are as nothing.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Let them remain as they are. Servants. Unblooded. Impure. But we
have
the blood, Rhuan! There is only one choice for
dioscuri
. And you throw it away!”

“While you throw away the value of the choice,” Rhuan retorted. “You devalue the journey, the meaning of the word. We are sent on this journey so that we can be certain of our futures, of our self-worth.”

“I was certain of my future and my self-worth from the time I was a youngling,” Brodhi declared. “I told the primaries that. I told them there was no need.”

“And perhaps that’s why they set you
on
the journey.” Rhuan grinned reflexively, though it held little humor. “They don’t want you swearing yourself to them, to
be
one of them, when you know nothing else.”

“From the cradle I’ve known what I am meant to be.”

“What you think you’re meant to be,” Rhuan corrected. “Your arrogance blinds you to anything else.”

Brodhi expelled a blurt of incredulous laughter. “Arrogance? I’m
dioscuri
.”

“And thus superior to everyone else in the world save the primaries. Save your own sire.”

“Yes,” Brodhi said.

Rhuan sighed. Weariness threatened his ability to think, to speak clearly. “Take comfort, then, in your conviction.
Know before completion what choice you will make. Be certain that you will one day be a primary yourself.”

“I do. I will be.”

“And I will complete an honest journey, so that when the day comes to tell the primaries what I wish for my future they will know I make that choice out of experience, out of understanding, not out of self-delusion.”

Brodhi shook his head. “You shame me.”

“Ah.” Rhuan nodded. “Well, be pleased, then, that we will not share status—nor one another’s presence—when we have achieved completion. Your path leads one way, mine another.”

Brodhi’s tone was clipped. “As it does now.”

Rhuan watched him spin and walk away. He let him go, making no more attempt to hold him back. Brodhi at his most stubborn was impossible.

Monster
.

“No,” he said aloud in the wake of Brodhi’s departure. “My worth is not measured by you. My decision is not to be questioned by you. There is no shame attached to the choice I will make at the end of the journey. There is no shame.”

Rhuan pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He could barely think straight.

Well, Brodhi had taken himself and his ritual objects away, but the blankets and oilcloth remained. Rhuan made his way back to the tree and pulled branches aside, ducking down into the womblike area between limbs and trunk.

He knelt down with care upon the blankets, facing the tree trunk. With equal care he set both hands and his brow against the trunk in supplication.

Rhuan closed his eyes.
So weary
… “Elderling,” he said shakily in the tongue of his people, “bear watch over me this night. Share with me your tranquility.”

A HORRIFIC HOWLING startled Audrun out of the light doze she had eventually achieved following
the incident with the eyes. She started to sit bolt upright and very nearly smacked her head against the floorboards of the wagon before recalling there wasn’t enough headroom. Davyn too was awake, attempting to untangle himself from blankets.