Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (48 page)

Alario smiled.

The step gave her somewhat of a higher vantage point than usual, with him. She stayed upon it, not stepping down to the earth.

“Will you come?” he asked.

She didn’t even trouble herself to ask where. “I will not.”

His smile remained in place. “I can show you places you’ve never seen before.”

Ilona lifted a brow. “So can my employer.”

“I need you, woman.”

“Woman.” And that was to impress. Ilona shook her head. “You don’t need me.”

“I do.”

“No. You merely need a womb.”

“Have you not asked yourself
why
I chose you? If it’s as you say, that I only need a womb, why do I come to you?”

“If I were younger,” Ilona said, “and more impressionable, I might surrender to your argument. I might feel most flattered. Were I were stupid and foolish. But I am neither that young, nor that impressionable, nor that easily flattered, and lately not at all stupid. Are you?”

He blinked. “Stupid?”

“Yes. Why else would you come to me again when you know I’m not interested?”

Though the sun was not yet gone, the lantern over the steps nonetheless painted him in highlights, russet, gold, and copper. Light ran like liquid over the warmth of his clothing, the sleek, supple scales of a long-dead beast. “What do you want, hand-reader?”

Ilona smiled. “Merely to be left alone. Truthfully, I can see how women give way to you. I dismiss none of your appeal, Alario. You have it in abundance … and much else to offer, I suspect, to a woman who answers to you. Just not to me.”

His smile had faded. Fire leaped in his eyes. “Are you cold to men?”

Ilona laughed. “No man I have been with would say so.”

He examined her the way other men had, men who claimed no courtesy. She was accustomed to that, as she drank ale in tents where other women did not, unless they be Sisters of the Road.

“There are women,” she said, “far more beautiful than I. Lusher of flesh than I. More accomodating than I. Seek one of them, Alario.”

But he had not surrendered. “I will take you to my son.”

She hoped very much she kept her reaction from showing on her face. “What, you think to win me with him? Why would I wish to go to him when you are right here?”

But neither was he a fool, Rhuan’s sire. “You desire the lesser being. You long for the
dioscuri
—while
I
am a god!”

Ilona smiled. “But I am only human. I would never look so high as to seek a god.”

The first flicker of red showed in his eyes. “He has married the woman.”

That reaction she feared very much he saw. “Then I wish him joy.”

“She is fecund.”

Still she held to her smile. “Then I wish him joy of children.”

Alario arched his brows. “Do you so? Another woman’s get?”

He was ruthless, and she knew it. He would tell her anything. Possibly even the truth. “Say what you like, Alario. I will not go with you.”

“You will.”

She stepped down to the ground. “I will not—”

He closed his hand around her throat. “No? You say me no? You defy
me
?”

Ilona shut her hands over the one embracing her throat.

Red flooded his eyes. “Then
say
no, woman. Say no to everyone!”

He flung her backward, hard, smashing her full force against the wagon steps.

“
A
UDRUN—”

She raised her voice over Rhuan’s, infusing it with more confidence, giving them arrogance for arrogance. “How sad that would be. How tragic. Not gods at all, but ordinary people—just like humans. Taken by the deepwood, just like humans. People who are helpless, just like humans, but who choose to name themselves gods because to be and to act otherwise is to admit the truth: that
Alisanos
is the god, and you are merely its toys.” She met the fierce eyes of the female who had questioned her and refused to give way. “Prove it,” she challenged directly. “Such a small thing for gods: bring children and the man who sired them to their mother.”

The female rose. She was quite tall, Audrun noted, certainly taller than she. And though she lacked the hard bulk of the males, she was clearly a very strong woman. The contours and angles of her face resembled those evident in the males, but there was a decidedly
female cast to her features. No one would mistake her for a man.

She strode forward, moving with a powerful grace. Braided sidelocks dangled from her temples, weighted with beading. The rest of her hair was gathered back from her face, comprised of long, ornate braids that were themselves braided into one another. Audrun recalled how much time was required to take down all of Rhuan’s braids.

The female circled Audrun and Rhuan. Audrun watched her, though Rhuan kept his eyes fixed on the rank of primaries immediately within his line of sight. He made no attempt to follow the female’s movements. Audrun was again put in mind of an animal examining another, assessing scent, posture, and other visual signals.

Then the female halted immediately in front of Rhuan. “I see you are no more reconciled to us than you were before you departed.”

“No, Ylarra,” Rhuan said.

“Your dam’s blood runs strong.”

“It does.”

“Alario is ashamed of you.”

“And I of him.”

“Do you want this woman?”

“Forgive me, Audrun,” he murmured quietly, then raised his voice. “I do not want this woman.”

“She’s human. Isn’t that what
you’d
prefer?”

“When the time comes to choose a woman, I will choose her for myself, not because she unknowingly
takes down my braids when I am unconscious. Ylarra, this woman has a husband. Let her keep him.”

The woman prowled, hands clasped behind her back. “Darmuth tells me you bed many human women.”

Audrun glanced at him sidelong. His mouth quirked. “Darmuth says too much.”

“But that is Darmuth’s duty, Rhuan. To observe you, and to report to us. How you conduct yourself is very much a part of this journey.” The female—Ylarra—glanced at Audrun. “Your human husband is not, nor ever has been, in Alisanos. Whether he is alive or dead in your world is not known to us.”

Relief nearly took her legs out from under her. “Thank the Mother,” Audrun whispered as tears welled.

“Audrun.” Rhuan’s voice sounded odd. “Audrun, turn around. Look at the top of the steps.”

She did so, and cried out. At the top of the steps four of her children waited. Gillan stood with weight on one leg, Darmuth next to him. Ellica held what appeared to be a sapling wrapped in her skirts, cradled close to her breasts. Torvic stood beside Brodhi, who held Megritte in his arms. None of them spoke. All merely stared. But in Gillan’s eyes, in Torvic’s and Ellica’s, she saw a stark, desperate hunger for her presence.

“Wait.” Rhuan caught her arm as she began to move. “Audrun, wait.”

She tried to wrench free and couldn’t. “Let me go to them!”

His face was tense. “The primaries are not done with us, Audrun. This isn’t your world. We are not free to act as we will. Your children are safe for the moment. Let them be.”

“Wise words,” Ylarra said dryly. “And to think Alario believes you empty of them.” She walked around to stand in front of Audrun, blocking her view of the steps. “No doubt you wish to return to your husband and take your children with you.”

“Yes.”

Ylarra turned to the other primaries. “What say you?” She looked at one particular male. “Karadath?”

He rose. His eyes were those of a predator. “Alisanos took her. Alisanos keeps her.”

“My children,” Audrun appealed.

He met Audrun’s eyes, and she saw nothing of humanity in his. Only cruelty, as Rhuan had warned. “Alisanos took them. Alisanos keeps them.”

RHUAN SAW THE FURY rise up in Audrun. She was nearly incandescent with it, and in that moment every bit as commanding as a primary. He watched her let all of the anger, all of the frustration, all of the fear for her children build within her, and watched too as she let it flow into her voice. The scorn was so thick it was palpable.

She didn’t shout; she did not need to. “And so I am
proven right. You are
not
gods. Alisanos rules, and you and all of your people are its sycophants.”

Every primary rose. An angry, deep-throated roar filled the Kiba.

She had given him the opening. Rhuan raised his voice before Ylarra or Karadath could say anything. “This woman has challenged you within your own Kiba, questioning whether you are gods or no. In your own house, she challenges you. And I add my voice to hers:
prove yourselves.
”

He had surprised all of them: Audrun, Ylarra, Karadath.

“There is war in the human world,” Rhuan said. “One man has made himself a conqueror, claiming land that belongs to others. Thousands have died. Thousands have lost their homes, their livelihoods. More yet will die as this man enforces his rule. Because of him, folk like Audrun, alone and with their families, are fleeing their homeland to begin again in another. And it is because of this war that this family put itself in harm’s way. They had no wish to tempt Alisanos! But in their journey to escape the depredations of this conqueror, they ventured too close. The deepwood took them. And while I understand that what Alisanos takes, it keeps—there is a way to give this family back much of what it has lost.”

He saw the alarm in Audrun. “What are you saying?”

“In the human world, I am a guide,” Rhuan continued.
“And Brodhi is a courier. We were reared here in Alisanos, knowing that there are no fixed, reliable routes through the deepwood. But we have lived, too, in the human world, and now understand the value of such things. What I propose, then, is that you prove to this woman that you are indeed gods, not sycophants. Give her a road.”

Ylarra’s tone was startled. “A road?”

“If she and her children can’t return to the human world, let the human world come to them.”

Ylarra’s response was immediate. “Impossible!”

“Because you can’t do this thing, or because you refuse to?” He turned sharply as Karadath took two long strides into the center of the Kiba. “Will you say the same, uncle? Ah, forgive me, that is a human word. But will you admit before this human woman, in direct response to her challenge, that this is impossible?” He flung out an arm toward the steps, pointing. “Your own son, your last
dioscuri,
has returned before his time. Would you have said that
Brodhi
was capable of such a thing? Impossible, is it not, that he would do so. Yet here he stands.” He lowered his arm and looked again upon the primaries who stood within the Kiba. “Safe passage through Alisanos, to Atalanda province. That is the challenge.” He met Audrun’s eyes, lowering his voice. “Anyone who wishes it can be brought through. Undoubtedly Davyn will be first.”

“Through Alisanos?” Her voice trembled. “To what would you bring him and the others? To death? To physical transformation?”

“To safe passage, Audrun. Alive. Whole.
Human,
as long as they’re on the road.” He flicked a glance at Karadath, whose face was stone.

She was white to the lips. “You could do this thing? Make a road, and bring Davyn to us?”

“Not I.” Rhuan’s smile was wry. “I’m merely a
dioscuri,
and an inferior one at that. But yes,
they
can do this.” He glanced briefly at Ylarra, at Karadath. “Brodhi and I have private business, and you need to meet with your children. If given leave, I will come to you after.”

She heard something in his voice. She flicked considering glances at the two primaries standing closest, then looked back at him. “Are you in danger?”

“Among the primaries?” He smiled. “Always. But then, I have always refused to play the game.”