Cordimancy (16 page)

To take her mind off the revulsion haunting her moonlit bath with a cold rag, Malena forced her thoughts elsewhere.

She hadn’t been very coherent for the past—what?—two days? But she remembered Tupa’s horse. What had happened to her sister? Had the bandits let her live? What about her parents? That was the concern, now. She could deal with her own problems later.

Visions of her sister flitted through her mind: Tupa bound and gagged; Tupa fleeing into forbidding forest while her parents lay motionless in pools of blood on a mountain trail; Tupa with an arrow through her chest; Tupa suffering the same fate that Malena had suffered at the hands of the bandits...

A sob broke from Malena’s throat. Her shoulders shook. She hunched over for a moment, then shook her head.

What about the little servant girl she’d met? Had she survived?

Another stifled sob.

What had her husband sacrificed to heal her? That should have been a scary question, but right now it felt safer than other topics...

From one perspective, Toril’s loyalty was welcome. If he had ridden off to solve problems, she would be dead now. But another part of Malena was angry. According to Shivi, he’d antagonized Gorumim at the council; somehow, Malena sensed that the destruction of Noemi and her own misery were connected to that behavior. Hadn’t she warned him to be careful? And now he wanted to rush in and rescue. She had not asked for such a gesture; she’d told him to let her die. If he’d respected her wishes, she wouldn’t be facing a life of crippling, haunted memories and shame. If he’d respected her wishes, maybe he would have found and rescued her sister by now.

What was this healing going to cost her, when all was said and done?

What was Toril thinking, trying to lead the clan? He was not his father. It did no good for him to take the staff if he couldn’t use it effectively. Was Toril just blinded by ambition? He’d been gone to a fruitless meeting when she needed him most, and now his lack of standing among the parijan heads was going to turn him—and her—into an outcast. So much for this marriage being a step up in the world.

Shivi said Toril had talked of a showdown with Rovin. Could he honestly contemplate such a thing when her sister was the pressing concern?

Malena completed her crude bath and flitted back to the safety of the bedchamber, glad to close and bar the door behind her. She realized she was trembling, and took several deep breaths to calm herself down.

Toril’s face looked troubled, even in repose. Malena reminded herself that he was shouldering burdens of his own, but it was an intellectual concession only. At the moment, being angry at him was safer than any of the other emotions she could muster. Safer than the terror, or the guilt, or the disgust...

She sat on the bed and began plaiting her hair into a marriage braid, her expression grim. If such braids were supposed to symbolize union between wife and husband, then this one was a hollow gesture indeed.

16

waifs ~ Toril

“
Not
that way, Hika.” Toril pulled back on the reins and called to the dog from atop his saddle. The rest of the group—Malena and Shivi, astride a spare horse from Vasari, and the priest and Paka, riding close together on a pair of sturdy ponies, also pulled up at the fork in the trail. The sun had burned off morning dew, and the acrid, putrid air of Noemi was well behind and below them now, on the far side of the valley.

Toril felt almost as wan and depleted as he had when he’d regained consciousness at daybreak—as if he’d just finished a grueling hike, or fasted for a day, or both. In point of fact, the exertion and the lack of food weren’t far from the truth.
But this weakness is different,
Toril thought.
It’s the price of my name. Will I feel this way all the time, now? What did it mean that Gitám unwove magic from my flesh?

He stole another glance at Malena. Her restored health was striking—skin unblemished by contusions, lips rosy and symmetrical instead of fattened by blows, eyes clear of bruising and jaundiced shadows, posture straight and easy. She was beautiful. He’d always known that, but now she almost seemed to sparkle in the sun. He found himself swallowing.

A part of him felt like singing when he saw her.

Anger dimmed her, though, and it was hard to get past that. She wouldn’t meet his eye.

When the others awoke, they’d held an informal council. Toril announced his intent to locate the mare he'd left hobbled at the edge of town, take the supplies and gear that Paka had scavenged, and ride for Sotalio immediately. The elderly couple wanted to make the journey as well; they’d lost all market for their weaving, and needed to trade to replace food that had been pillaged.

Malena had recounted seeing her sister’s pinto, and had argued that they needed to pursue the marauders to see if her parents and sister were alive. But she was overruled. The priest pointed out that if anybody had been kidnapped for ransom, the bandits would keep them safe, and that otherwise, they were dead already. Toril had been embarrassed by the clumsy logic—though he couldn't argue with the conclusions—so he'd added that if they pursued and found the bandits, a small band with no weapons could hardly effect a rescue. Their best course was to get reinforcements.

The logic seemed to offend Malena. After a protest, she retreated into resentful monosyllables. She had demanded to ride with Shivi, instead of in front of her husband, and she hadn't said a word on the trail.

Hika, Toril noticed, had trotted uphill half a dozen steps and then stopped with a yip. His eyebrows lifted. “C’mon, girl.” He gave a little whistle. “That’s not the trail we’re taking.”

“Let’s just go,” Paka suggested. “She’s bound to follow eventually.”

The dog yipped again and bent her head sideways, managing to convey an almost human negation. She turned back uphill, hopped once, and looked back over her shoulder.

“I don’t think she’s just exploring,” Toril said slowly. Still sore from his last extended ride, he leaned on the saddlehorn and swung a heel over the rump of his mount, glad for an excuse to stretch. Normally the movement would have been effortless; now he just managed to keep his knees from buckling as he hit the ground.

He covered by climbing toward the dog, leaning forward to dig his boots into the loose shale between the switchbacks. The dog bounded ahead, pausing after a moment to make sure Toril was still following.

“Hika, we don’t have... time...” Toril panted, his ears reddening in embarrassment at his weakness. Why hadn’t he just stayed on the horse?

Rounding a copse of poplar and scrub oak, he stopped moving.

A protracted delay followed—so long that Shivi’s voice, when it came, sounded worried. “What’s up there, Toril?”

Toril finally took a step forward. Hika was whining. He stroked her head as he waved the flies away.

“More of the brigands’ handiwork,” he managed, before doubling over to heave into the weeds.

By the time he straightened up, Malena was dismounting, her face white with anxiety.

“It’s not Tupa,” he said shakily. “It’s a girl, but not her.” He’d just spent two days burning the dead; he’d thought he was past this kind of reaction, but now he found there was still plenty of room for horror in his heart.

Malena brushed past his outstretched hand, then stopped abruptly, turned back, and hid her face.

They built a pyre at a level, wide place in the trail. The girl was light, but Toril still stumbled as he carried her. Despite fierce blinking, he could scarcely see. Dried rivulets in the dust on the girl’s cheeks provoked a speechless bitterness that surpassed even the emotion he’d felt as he buried his father.

As flames rose, Shivi stepped forward. “Her name was Vahunira,” she murmured. “I helped birth her, and her twin brother.”

After a time, Paka lifted his sitar from a saddlebag and began to pluck the strings. The tone was minor, the arpeggios slow. The quaver in his tenor was eloquent:

Seed is sown ‘gainst winter’s grief,

Sun and moisture soak the soil.

Grain soon shows its bravest leaf,

Then greens its way through wind and toil.

Some strong of stem by fowl removed,

Some withered in the field,

Some, flood- or pestilence-consumed,

Diminish autumn’s yield.

Five above, with wisdom’s eye,

See our tears and hear our prayer,

Glean the fallen in your harvest;

Sheaves together bind us there.

Toril tried to join in, but he found himself capable of only broken croaking—or maybe, a full-throated scream. His hands were clenched; he could feel a pulse racing in his throat. He kicked at a rock on the trail, felt the sting in his toe. The pain brought his anger to a head. He kicked another rock, then bent to grab a branch and began beating it against the ground. The blows reverberated through his shoulders, straining muscle and tendon; the wood, as thick as his upper arm, had little give, and the bones in his hands and wrists shivered with each rebound.

The resistance made him hit harder. He could hear himself sobbing, realized with a dull weariness that he looked crazy to his companions—but he couldn’t stop. He needed—needed!—to make the branch bend, break it to his will.

The wood didn’t yield. He felt his muscles growing weary, felt blisters forming on his hands. Barely knowing what he was doing, he flung the branch down the mountainside with a shout of fury that sounded wild, even to his own ears, and bent forward, hands on his knees, his chest heaving.

The blood left his face. His ears stopped pounding. He sensed a movement at his side, felt a touch on his arm.

“Amen,” Shivi murmured, tears streaming down her own cheeks. “I couldn’t have prayed that better myself.”

Toril
was just swinging back into the saddle when he noticed an adult figure hurrying up the trail with a couple smaller shapes in tow. They were on foot, still far enough away to be anonymous—but they had apparently seen him, and waved to catch the riders’ attention.

He glanced at his companions. Now that they’d done their duty to the dead child, everyone seemed eager to head for Sotalio. The sooner they left Noemi’s bones and smoke behind and surrounded themselves with normal human experience, the better.

Paka grimaced. The priest shrugged his shoulders. Shivi nodded. Malena still wouldn’t meet his eye.

He kicked his heels against the horse’s side and turned downhill with a sigh. Better to get this over with fast.

In a short time he was facing a lean, salt-and-pepper bearded man sporting the knee-high boots and staff preferred by the goatherds that frequented the hills above town. Two gaunt, wide-eyed waifs peeked around his waist, mostly hidden by his patchwork cloak.

“Toril ur Hasha?” the man said.

“Yes.”

“I live over by the copper mine.” He gestured to the children. “Niece and nephew survived the attack, and an old couple brought ‘em to me.” He looked up the trail over Toril’s shoulder, noticed Paka and Shivi, and nodded at them.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry Hasha walked the lone road,” the man said. “He was more than a good parijan head or clan chief; he was kind and fair. I met ‘im a time or two.”

“Thank you,” Toril said. “I agree.”

“Well. I came to tell you somethin’. Saw your smoke and realized I had to hurry or I’d miss my chance. I expect you’ll know what to do about it. Maybe you can pass it along to the clan chief when they pick a new one.”

Toril raised his eyebrows, not wanting to detour into the current state of politics.

“The kids don’t say much. Too scared. They hid under a bed while the bandits killed their parents. Heard the whole thing, and saw enough to give ‘em nightmares.”

Toril said nothing.

“Anyways, last night the girl mumbled somethin’ in her sleep that got me thinkin’. She said, ‘Don’t take him!’, over and over again, and then she woke up screamin’ and wouldn’t calm down till she saw her brother sleepin’ safe beside her.

“I asked her ‘bout it this mornin’. She said she was dreamin’ that they took her brother like they took the others.”

Toril waited for more explanation. When none was forthcoming, he frowned.

“What others?”

“That’s what I said. Took me a while to pry it out of her, but I guess she saw the robbers roundin’ up a few of the children.”

“You mean they corralled some kids to make the killing easier?” Toril asked, his voice trembling.

The goatherd shook his head. “No. She says men tied their hands together and threw them on horses like baggage.”

“The children were
alive
?” Toril asked. “The bandits carried them off?” He looked at the girl, who had grabbed a corner of the goatherd’s coat and pulled it across her face, leaving only eyes and a tangle of ebony curls exposed.

“Tupa!” Malena whispered hoarsely.

Toril nodded to acknowledge the idea.

The goatherd cleared his throat. “’Course, could just be the girl’s imagination,” he observed. “No doubt it’s easier to remember kids alive behind a saddle than dead in the streets. But I thought someone oughta know.”

“Why would the bandits do such a thing?” Toril wondered aloud. “If they killed all the parents, they couldn’t hope for ransom. The kids would just slow them down on the trail...” He looked back at the smoke rising from the pyre, then at Malena. Dismounting again, he took a few steps and knelt in front of the girl. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice soft.

The girl nodded, then shrank behind her uncle.

“This is important,” Toril continued, still addressing the girl. “I need to know what you saw. As much as you can tell me.”

He waited for a moment.

“Could it have been a grown-up that you saw tied up? Somebody short? Or could it have been one of the golden ones?”

“They took Sahanir,” the girl whispered, shaking her head.

“Sahanir?”

“My friend. And Riva. And Tixepal. Children.” The girl had dropped the corner of the coat; her lips trembled.

“I’m sorry,” Toril said gently. “I’m so glad you’re brave enough to tell me this.”

“Can you get them back?” the girl asked, wiping a hand at the trickle on her cheek.

“I can try,” Toril offered, unwilling to destroy her hope. “Maybe I can get some other men to help me. I wish I understood why the bandits would carry off a handful of kids.”

“Lots,” the girl corrected. “Not a handful.”

“Lots?”

“Every man took one on his horse.”

“
We’re
not going to Sotalio now,” Malena insisted. “There’s no time.”

“Nothing has changed!” Toril spluttered. “Before we heard the goatherd’s news, we knew we needed help to mount a rescue—and that’s still the case. In fact, it’s even more the case. You think we’re just going to sneak up on scores of the same men who burnt Noemi to the ground, snatch a bunch of children away, and ride off without a fight?”

“We could do it at night. Be gone by morning.”

“We’re going to wake kids up without a single one of them making a peep? Just slip away like phantoms? Think what it would be like to travel with children, Malena—dozens of them, maybe. We couldn’t go fast. They’d be terrified, hungry. What would we feed them? Out of the ashes in the valley, we scrounged enough food and gear for ourselves, not for lots of little ones. We only have the three horses, but even if we had horses for everyone, would they be able to ride well enough to follow? If they travelled on foot, they’d be painfully slow. We couldn’t cover their tracks. The bandits could sleep till noon and still catch us at their leisure.”

Malena, who had dismounted while Toril was interviewing the goatherd, approached her husband and put the palms of her hands on his chest.

“Use your magic,” she said. “They say you’re the strongest lip Kelun has seen in the last three centuries. You defeated your father in a duel. You brought me back! You’ll think of a way to use that power for the children.”