Shadow Gate (52 page)

“There,” said the captain, shouldering aside an onlooker—a hireling by the cut of his threadbare tunic—to give Joss room.

Joss did not have a great deal of experience of horses, but he had ridden them for about a year during his apprenticeship as a messenger to Ilu, the Herald. He had an idea that the stout Qin horses were the most phlegmatic, and toughest, equines known to humankind. But they were definitely scared of the big eagles.

The company of thirty men Anji had ridden in with had scattered to a safer distance, although all had bows at the ready, waiting for the command to shoot. One poor fellow had been thrown from his panicked horse and left on the road facing down a handsome female eagle. Joss had to admire the way the lad stood his ground, not sure whether to bolt or brazen it out, but sticking with the latter course of action in the face of the imposing head and wicked talons.

“What do you make of that?” Anji asked with the same admirable calm.

“Does anything shock you?” Joss asked him.

“It might, if I had noticed you were worried, but since you are not, then I assume you know what is going on. That's one of my tailmen, Pil. What do you make of it?”

“The western shore of the Olo'o Sea is not all that far as the eagle flies, if she flies, as she can, from Olossi across the sea rather than being forced to walk roads and tracks the long way around the shore and through the
wild lands. There are boats that usually ply the eastern shore, that could haul supplies to the west. I'll argue before the council in favor of your claim, if you'll help me build a temporary reeve hall in the Barrens for my flight of new reeves. Like that lad, there. What did you say his name was?”

Ha! Now he had surprised Anji.

“Pil? What are you saying, Marshal?”

“You live in the Hundred now. If you mean to make this your home, then you have to abide by our laws. That eagle has made her choice. She's chosen one of your soldiers.”

The envoy of Ilu did his best to track the girl on her journeys around the Barrens without hounding her. Sometimes she hunted, or practiced her archery at a target she set up at the base of the hill, where the winds weren't so strong. Sometimes she returned to the hidden valley, with its unseasonable harvest of fruits and nuts and the strange, glittering threads drifting in the air. Sometimes she scouted the outlanders' building activity, and the nearby hills. He kept his eye on her from a distance, because he knew absolutely that to try to force her to accept what she had become would be the ruin of his hopes.

One day she returned in the late afternoon in the teeth of an unexpected cloudburst. This time of year, an unusual pressure of storms boomed out of the Spires, strong weather pushed over the mountains from foreign climes. Under the overhang, he coaxed the coals into a brisk fire, and after she had cared for the horses she sat down on a rock opposite him.

“The fire will dry out your clothes,” he said. “Not that you can precisely catch your death and die of a fever,”
he added as she turned her mirror to catch the flames in its reflection.

Moisture rose like mist from her clothes. “Could you see what the mirror forced me to remember?”

“No. Guardians are veiled each to the other.”

She looked up sharply. “Tell me the truth, Uncle. Am I still a slave?”

He studied the half-finished carving he held in his right hand, a sinuous otter with laughter carved into its curves. “Now, there is an interesting question. What is a Guardian, if we were formed by the gods to serve the land?”

“Why should I be forced to serve your land?”

“Why were you chosen? There is a question I cannot guess at, unless you tell me your tale.”

She said, to the fire, “There are men not so very far from here, building a compound. Did you see them?”

“I saw them. They don't know we are here. In any case it's unlikely they can climb to an altar even if they would be bold enough to break the boundaries of what is forbidden.”

“There are eagles, too. Huge eagles.”

“Yes. I've seen them. The eagles will ignore us, but their reeves might spot us. It would be prudent to move on.”

“Some of the men there are Qin. I recognize them.”

“The Qin are outlanders, pasture-dwellers like the lendings here in the Hundred, only unlike the lendings the Qin look perfectly human to me. What do you know of the Qin?”

“They are my enemies. They call my people demons. But that's not what I mean. I mean, I know those particular Qin. Because I traveled with them.”

“You've surprised me!” He set down the half-carved otter and picked up his staff, resting it on his thighs. The wood was as smooth as silk under his hands from untold years of handling. “When did you travel with them?”

Addressing the restless flames, she began to talk. “One
never knows the gifts a stranger brings. My cousin Mariya and I were out hunting. She showed me the gift a lad from another tribe—a lover—had given her, even though he ought not have done so. It was bold of him, not proper. Little nets woven with lapis lazuli, very pretty, to bind the ends of your braids. . . .”

A
STORM PASSED
, and night fell with sheets of rain as she talked. Later, the clouds parted, and the Embers Moon rose late, a stroke against the sky.

“. . . M
ASTER
G
IRISH WAS
dead. They knew I killed him. When a slave kills a master, then the slave must die.”

“So you drank the rest of the poison.”

“I drank the poison.” It was remarkable how calm she sounded, but her hands were wrapped tightly over the mirror, hiding her reflection.

“Is that when you died?”

She blinked. “I died when I walked into demon land.”

“When did the cloak return to you?”

She lifted the fabric to the wind and watched the air flow silver within the night. “How do you know it is the same cloak?”

“I knew the Guardian who wore it before you. She walked out of the Hundred because she wanted to die in a place far away from our enemies where they would never find her. Or, if her cloak passed to another Guardian, then she hoped I would have a chance of reaching the newly awakened one first. To that end, she left three things with me. The first was the mirror.”

“What are the other two?”

“An offering bowl, the gift of Hasibal, the Formless One. Also I have for you the gift of Sapanasu, the Lantern. Look.” Beyond the fire's light the darkness crowded them, creeping closer when the flames subsided
and slinking back when he placed more sticks on the fire. He raised his right hand, clenched it, opened it. Light shone from his palm, illuminating the rocky curve of the overhang above and the dusty ground with its neat piles of gear below.

“Aui.” It stung. He closed his hand, and the darkness leaped back in.

“I like that! How can I do that?”

He caught a smile before it betrayed him. “I know a bit about these particular Qin. I heard the tale of how they saved Olossi.”

She opened and closed a hand, then looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Is the light demon's sorcery?”

Rats were known as good merchants because they weren't afraid to bargain. “How do the Qin enter your story?”

She remained silent for so long he thought she had decided not to answer. This late in the night, sliding toward dawn, the wind's moan took on a eerier tone, or perhaps the angle of shifting winds just made it rub up against the slope of the rock differently.

“After Girish died, the women of the house took pity on me. The men did not.” Abruptly she was panting, as if running from a beast that meant to rip her apart, and she shut her eyes and fought down memories until she breathed normally. “The women took pity on me, anyway. They hated Girish because they had no power to stop him. It was their idea to send me away with Master Shai.”

He had questions, but he dared not interrupt.

“When the sandstorm came, the Qin captain saw his chance to be rid of me. He hated demons. He pulled the beads off my hair and threw them to the ground like they were poison. He told me he would not let me destroy his troop, because everyone knows demons bring ill luck. He made me walk naked into the storm.”

“Eiya!”

Her gaze was a thousand mey away. “I was happy to do it. I could hear their voices.”

“Whose voices?”

“My mother and my father and my older sister, my cousins, Uncle Olig and Feder the Cripple, all the dead ones from my tribe. They called me. They asked me to come home. So I was happy to go to them.”

“Perhaps they were demons,” he said kindly.

She rocked side to side. “Are there demons? Or is it just a story we tell?”

“Eiya! Certainly there are demons in this world. Some are human, and some are not.”

She jumped to her feet. “I am a demon! Everyone said so!”

“You are not a demon, lass. You never were. You are a Guardian.”

“What is a Guardian?”

“Heh.” His Rat's mind was pleased at this small victory. “A difficult question, one that in the end must be answered by what you do, not by what I tell you. The Guardians were placed in the Hundred by the gods to bring justice to the land. To preside at the assizes, the local courts, so that those who commit crimes are punished properly and those who are innocent are not wrongly charged.”

“I want justice.”

“Of course. We become Guardians because we sought justice—indeed, gave our life in seeking justice on behalf of others. As you did for your brother and the other children.”

She looked away.

“What is your name?” he asked gently.

She turned back. “I want the offering bowl, and the lantern.”

Her bold demand pleased him. Something of the self-sufficient girl he had glimpsed in her tale sparked in her expression as she regarded him with hand outstretched.

So be it.

“Here, the bowl.” He handed it over. “There's a loop to fasten it on your belt. I will place a stone in your palm. I can't predict how it will affect you. I fainted for days, but Mist—who came before you—told me she merely felt a sting.”

“I'm not afraid,” she said, by which he suspected she meant: I'm not afraid of that kind of pain, having endured something much worse.

He fished in his sleeve and drew out the black stone, as smooth as a river pebble and smaller than a warbler's egg. “Which is your strong hand?”

“My right.”

“Hold out your left, then. Palm up.” She watched him. Those demon-blue eyes were unnerving, if you stopped to think about their watery pallor. But that did not matter. She was part of the Hundred now, and if he did not teach her properly the others would find her and corrupt her, and he would be the last one left.

He placed the stone in her palm.

Light flared, so bright he shut his eyes.

When he opened them, she was still sitting there, hand clenched in a fist. The fire crackled as if nothing had happened.

“Ouch.” With beads of sweat on her upper lip, she cautiously opened her hand. Light pierced the darkness, and she giggled unexpectedly, sounding like a girl.

Of course, she was just a girl.

“Do you know in what year you were born?” he asked her, not sure if demons counted the years as humans did.

“I'm a Hawk!” She grinned, fisting her hand and opening it to see no light, and then fisting and opening to bring light.

“There is no Year of the Hawk.”

“Of course there is! The hawk flies after the deer and before the ox.”

“Ah! A Crane, then.” With the turn of the year, she had made nineteen years.

“What is a crane?”

“The crane is a bird. She is orderly, cautious, honest, and kindhearted. Yet once Cranes have developed an opinion of somebody, it is difficult for them to change it. What is your name, lass, so I may call you something?”

“Kirya,” she said, still playing with the opening and closing of her hand, the word tossed carelessly.

“Kirya, eh?” It was a workable name; so many foreign names were simply impossible. “Dedicated to the Fire Mother at birth.”

“Not fire!” Fragile lines of confidence deepened as she frowned disapproval. “Fire is sacred to the gods. It is not for us to claim we are part of the gods.”

“How can we be separated from the land, and the land from the gods?” He had lost her. “Maybe so, yet in our country the name Kirya will be understood as partaking of fire.”

“Why?”

“Because it's a Fire-born name. If you don't like it—eh, had you a pet name your family called you?”

“Kiri.”

“That's a man's name. Water-born. Yet what of this? Water-born, you would be Kirit. How do you like that?”

“Kirit.” She rolled it on her tongue as she might test the flavor of spiced barsh.

“A Water-born Crane, orderly in its nature but made adaptable by its heart of Water. Born in the Year of the Red Crane, which adds energy and intensity to your nature, and also—well, let's leave that for another time. The Red Crane is known to be passionate in its opinions, and ruthless in its quest for justice if an injustice had been done.”

The wind soughed and the fire slumbered, popping once, ash settling. The clouds were shredding to bits on the peaks, and in the east the stars began to fade into a gloom presaging day.

Blinking, she said, “Why do you talk so much?”

He laughed. “Because I am a Water-born Blue Rat,
dedicated to Ilu, the Herald. Also, there is so much to say. Here, now, let me tell you the Tale of the Guardians again. That is the best place to start.”

But she rose as the twilight before dawn, mist-silver cloak flowing around her. She paced along the rim of the height, below which the slope was so slick with rubble that a single step would send you plunging. With her head turned eastward, she scanned lands broken by furrows and gullies and the occasional tabletop plateau, that sloped to the mantle of darkness marking the distant sea. Returning, she saddled Seeing. When he realized she was loading all her gear into the saddlebags and leaving his particular things behind, he scrambled to pack.