Snare (46 page)

Zayn whistled under his breath.

‘Not a nice fellow, Soutan.’ Onree stood up. ‘Spirit Rider, if you’d just hand me those sacks there?’

Ammadin helped him pick up the sacks and arrange them to his satisfaction, as he passed them from hand to hand and occasionally tried shoving one into a pocket. After a few confusions he decided that the arrangement would do.

‘My thanks,’ Ammadin said. ‘I appreciate your letting us know.’

‘So do I,’ Zayn said. ‘But one last question: how did you get here so fast?’

‘Fast? What do you mean, fast?’

‘We’ve got horses, and you don’t, but you reached Leen before us.’

Onree merely laughed and began shuffling towards the door. ‘Now Zayn, if you want to know more about Soutan, go see Loy Millou in Sarla. Got that? It’s a woman’s name, Loy.’

‘Loy Millou in Sarla,’ Zayn repeated. ‘All right. But who is she?’

Onree merely smiled, then turned and walked out. With a deft kick he shut the door behind him.

‘I think you’ve heard everything he’s going to tell,’ Ammadin said. ‘Criminal assault and rape. Your friend Warkannan’s riding with some grand company.’

‘If he finds out, Soutan’s not going to like his reaction. I know Idres, and I can guarantee it.’

They sat back down to finish their meal, but Zayn ate very little. As the light outside began to fade, Zayn rummaged through the room, found a pair of lamps and some oil, and set them up on the table. Ammadin began thinking of the comnee, travelling fast back to the Rift. One way or the other, they could take care of themselves – she had complete faith in them. If Alayn’s men wanted trouble, they would get the worst of it.

‘Is something wrong?’ Zayn said.

‘No. I was just wondering what Maddi was doing right now. It’s so strange, to be off alone like this.’

‘You’re not exactly alone.’

‘Well, no, sorry.’ She smiled at him. ‘To a comnee girl like me, two people count as alone.’

‘I can see that. I miss them all myself.’

‘You’re serious about coming back, aren’t you?’

‘If I can, yes. Until the Chosen find me, and it’s all over.’

‘What makes you think we’d let them kill you?’

Zayn shrugged and looked away. She could feel his despair, almost smell it – a cold thing, more the absence of a smell. Outside someone came tramping past, three or four men, heavy footed, laughing with one another and talking so fast she could barely understand a word.

‘Barge men,’ Zayn said. ‘There’s a tavern around here, from what they’re saying.’

They walked on by, the noise died, Zayn returned to staring at nothing. Ammadin rummaged through her saddlebags and took out her comb, carved from red grassar horn. She unbraided her hair and began combing it out. All at once she could smell his arousal. She looked up to find him watching her, the smile gone, with such an intensity of longing that she felt her treacherous body respond. Soon you’ll be parting ways, she reminded herself. It’s not like he’ll stay around to be a daily nuisance.

‘You know something, Ammi?’ Zayn said. ‘I don’t have any secrets from you any more. Do you remember what you told me once? That if I stopped lying you’d reconsider?’

‘Yes, I do remember that.’

She put the comb back into the saddlebag and set it on the floor. He sat unmoving, merely watched her, but he smelled so intensely male that she wanted to rub her face on his sweaty shirt. Instead she stayed where she was and waited. The silence lengthened between them, and he began to look – not exactly frightened, she decided, more frustrated, as if he were trying to think of something clever to say and failing. She stood up and ran her hands through her hair to push it back.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘if you were sleeping on the outside, I wouldn’t have to worry about rolling off the bed.’

The smile he gave her was so open, so heart-felt that the last
of her doubts vanished. He got up and walked round the table to stand in front of her. For a long moment he just smiled at her, then he laid his hands on either side of her face.

‘I like your hands,’ she said. ‘They’re warm and strong.’

‘Thank you.’

He leaned forward and kissed her. She’d never taken as much pleasure from a single kiss as she did from his. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat; she turned her head away with a little gasp.

‘Is something wrong?’ he said.

‘No. What made you think that?’

‘Well, I’ve never been with someone like – uh, well – you’re going to have to tell me what you like.’

‘I’ll be glad to.’ She took another kiss. ‘Let’s go lie down.’

Later, much later, as she lay drowsy in his arms and watched the shadows thrown by the lamps flicker across the room, she wondered if she’d done something dangerous, if she had finally found a man who threatened her desire to ride alone through her life. In a few more days they’d separate, each on their own road – in that, she felt, lay her safety. And if she never saw him again? What then? The thought made her flinch so sharply that for a moment she was afraid she’d woken him, but he sighed in his sleep and fell quiet again.

She could neither foresee his death nor prevent it. Both of their fates lay with the gods, who had given them this brief moment of peace – like a tent safe and warm in the ocean of grass that made up the world. Thinking that, she could fall asleep, grateful.

In the rising light of dawn, Soutan came staggering back to camp, so exhausted that Arkazo ran to meet him and take his heavy box of crystals. Warkannan, who had been kneeling on the ground to roll up his bedroll, sat back on his heels.

‘Are you all right?’ Warkannan said.

‘Not really.’ Soutan sat down nearby. ‘I can’t stop worrying about that damned spirit rider. She could ruin everything.’

‘Do you have any evidence that she’s trying to?’

‘If I could only find them!’ Soutan ignored the question. ‘They must be in Leen, or at least, inside some sort of building. The crystals can’t see through roofs.’

‘They can’t?’ Arkazo put the box down next to Soutan. ‘Why not?’

‘The crystals are only receivers. Those moving points of light in the sky? The ones you Kazraks call the Phalanx? They’re actually some sort of transmitter. We think they’re a type of machine called a satellite. They travel around the world above the atmosphere, and when they’re visible in the sky, they capture pictures of the ground below them and transmit them to the crystals.’

‘You’re not sure what they are?’ Arkazo knelt down beside Warkannan. ‘It seems like a lot of knowledge has disappeared.’

‘That’s certainly true.’

‘But you Cantonneurs have books, and you send your children to school. Why wasn’t it all written down?’

‘Therein, my dear Kaz, lies a tale. A very long one, but at root simple. The Settlers destroyed a great deal of their own knowledge to ensure we wouldn’t have it. It’s in the Landfall Treaty. They were trying to protect the ChaMeech on the one hand and placate your Mullah Agvar on the other. I understand the former impulse, but why they bothered with the latter, I don’t know.’

Arkazo frowned and used his finger to draw in the dirt: a small circle above a long curve, and some dotted lines emanating from the circle to the ends of the curve.

‘Well, well, well,’ Soutan said, grinning. ‘I think you’re about to ask the crucial question. Sometimes you amaze me, Kaz.’

‘Thanks.’ Arkazo paused, smiling as if he’d been given a splendid gift. ‘Why are your crystals so limited? Is that the question you mean? You can only see for a few miles in any direction, but if these satellites are in the sky, by rights –’

‘I should be able to see from horizon to horizon, yes. We don’t know why they don’t work that way. Somehow or other, the crystals have a limited range, and that’s that.’

‘But it doesn’t make sense.’ Arkazo glanced at Warkannan.

‘Yes, even I can see that,’ Warkannan said. ‘But we don’t have time to worry about it now. Soutan, if the spirit rider’s far away, then she can’t be sneaking up on us, can she? Or whatever it is you’re so afraid of.’

‘She doesn’t need to be close by to ruin my crystals,’ Soutan said. ‘That’s what you don’t understand. But it’s not just her. God in heaven, I forgot – I need to – I’d better scan again.’ He stood up. ‘Kaz, hand me that box.’

‘Damn it,’ Warkannan snapped. ‘We need to get on the road. That’s what
you
don’t understand.’

Soutan clutched his box of crystals to his chest and walked away. Warkannan got up and started after him, but Arkazo caught his arm.

‘Uncle, if he scans now, it might save us time in the long run. If there’s some kind of trouble brewing, I mean, and he can see how to avoid it.’

‘You’re pretty impressed with Soutan, aren’t you?’

Arkazo shrugged and turned a little away. ‘Not so much impressed with him,’ he said at last, ‘as with the stuff he knows. I’ve always liked learning how things worked.’

‘That’s true.’ Warkannan could remember endless childhood questions, most of which he hadn’t been able to answer. ‘Let’s get the horses saddled up and ready.’

Apparently, however, Arkazo had hidden talent as an oracle. Soutan came rushing back in just a few minutes.

‘Oh my god!’ Soutan stammered. ‘It’s a very good thing I did take a look around. Kaz, you don’t dare ride into town today. It’s crawling with zhundars. They’re looking for Kazraks.’

‘How do you know that?’ Warkannan said.

‘Because one of my crystals can pick up sound. I heard them talking in the outdoor market.’

‘Wait,’ Arkazo broke in. ‘If these satellites are above the atmosphere, how can they pick up people talking?’

‘I don’t know. The Settlers were immensely advanced. We think that –’

‘Stop worrying about the lousy Settlers!’ Warkannan stepped in between them. ‘We need grain for the horses and food for ourselves. How are we going to get it? That’s the only problem we have time to worry about right now.’

Much to Warkannan’s surprise, Soutan nodded his agreement.

‘We’ll have to stick to the back roads and buy from farmers,’ Soutan said. ‘Eventually, I suppose, the zhundars will start searching the countryside, but since I can see them coming, we should be able to avoid them. It’s going to add a lot of miles to our journey, but if we all get arrested, the delay could be permanent.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Arkazo said. ‘Why are they looking for Kazraks?’

‘Because of me. They know that I’m riding with a pair of them.’ Soutan turned dead-white and began to sweat. ‘I told you I had powerful enemies. Somehow or other, they know I’m back.’

Loy Millou, tenured professor of ancient history at the College of Sarla, swept into her office at the guildhall and slammed the door behind her. She threw the book she carried, a copy of
The Sibylline Prophecies,
onto her desk so hard that a pile of student essays slid and cascaded onto the floor. The unlit candles wobbled, but she caught the silver candelabra before it fell.

‘Oh damn it all!’

She pulled her brown robe over her head and hung it on the hook beside the door. Her white shirt had ridden up, as shirts did under robes. She yanked it down over her saurskin leggings, then flopped into the swivel chair behind her desk. Late afternoon sunlight poured through the unglazed window and fell across the tiled floor. Dust motes danced in the shaft of light, and so did a swarm of yellabuhs, flying endless figure eights.

‘You never get anywhere, do you?’ Loy remarked. ‘I’m beginning to feel the same.’

A knock on the door, which opened before she could call out – Wan Mendis stuck his timid bald head into the room.

‘You must have heard the news,’ Wan said.

‘About Yarl Soutan? Yes, unfortunately. The foetid stinking nerve of the man!’

Wan came in and shut the door behind him. When Loy waved in the direction of the extra chair, he sat down, glancing at the pile of rushi on the floor. He bent over and began gathering the essays.

‘Thank you,’ Loy said. ‘What I really wonder about is the pair of Kazraks that are riding with him.’

‘Me too,’ Wan said. ‘Old Onree’s report said the older one rode like a cavalry officer.’ He sat back up and laid the rushi sheets onto the corner of the desk. ‘Student work?’

‘Final exams in Settler history.’

Wan frowned at the top rushi. ‘Their Tekspeak is very bad.’

‘They’re first years, that’s why. They’ll get you next term, and you can whip them into shape.’

Wan smiled, then let it fade. ‘It must strike you particularly hard,’ he said, ‘Yarl’s return, I mean.’

‘After what he did to my daughter? Oh yes. I have fantasies about killing him, you know.’

‘I can’t blame you. Er, how is Rozi, these days?’

‘Still lost somewhere in herself.’ Loy felt her throat tighten. ‘Still doesn’t laugh at anything, still doesn’t want to eat.’

‘Still?’

‘Still. She believed in his impossible scheme, you know, heart and soul. She thought he was going to save us all. That’s what made it so horrible.’

‘Well, it’s a very attractive premise, a distant paradise that should by rights be ours.’

‘And he milked it for all it was worth, the rotten bastard.’

‘One reason that men go into the prophet business seems to be the women.’ Wan paused for a sigh. ‘Look at all those stories about Mullah Agvar and his followers’ wives.’

‘True. But Rozi wasn’t a woman then. She was a girl.’

‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’ Wan arranged the pile of rushis on her desk. ‘So very very sorry. But if the authorities catch him, the guild has to execute him legally, you know.’

‘I told you my murderous impulses were fantasies. But when they hang him, I get to watch.’

‘No one would deny you that.’

‘If the authorities catch him.’ Loy looked away and watched the yellabuhs, endlessly dancing. ‘They did a rotten job last time.’

‘Things are different this time. We know about the mask now, and Commiz Duhmars has been told what to look for.’

‘No more hiding in plain sight? Well, let’s hope.’

‘Speaking of Duhmars, the guildmaster sent me to ask you something. He would have come himself, but there are zhundars in his office. They’re taking a statement or some such thing.’

The point of this talk, at last! Loy looked back and found Wan leaning forward, his eyes solemn.