The Jack of Souls (24 page)

Through the yard they raced with the thunder of twenty horses behind them. Three stable boys cheered as they cornered the yard and dove into the road behind the inn, galloping for the gate. Caris passed him on her own mare, Rag, which she must have saddled while Harric emptied the stalls. From that moment Harric made no effort to steer, for he knew the stallion followed Caris, and it was just as well, for its jarring stride sent stabs of pain through his ribs, and it required his full attention to minimize the jolts without stirrups.

With every stride the witch-stone in the cargo slip of his tunic also swung against his ribs like the clapper of a bell, but he dared not remove a hand from the mane to detain it. He managed to hunch his shoulders and cave his chest in such a way that the tunic cradled it far from his skin, but the jolts still tortured his sides, and there was nothing he could do to keep the claws of the moon cat from needling at his collar.

The gates stood open, as the old knight had promised. They dashed through and onto the Hanging Road carved from cliff above the river, now bloodied by the light of the Mad Moon glaring over the Godswall. Four-score iron-shod hooves sparked and rang up the hard rock grade, then thundered across the trestles over canyons. To their left, the vast black gulf of air above the river; to their right, vast curtains of echoing stone.

A bubble of triumph rose from Harric’s lungs and escaped in a shout of joy.

Free! He’d done it, and he was free!

He lifted a hand to the cat, which had clambered to a more comfortable station in the crook of his neck and shoulder. “And you, my little beast, are free to stay on!”

After a mile, the road rounded a bluff and dropped toward a wooded valley intersecting the main river from the east. As they curved down toward the forest, Harric gazed across the valley to the far side where the road rose up again, resuming its course across the cliff face and burning in the light of the Mad Moon like a path of fire.

When the road dove beneath the canopy of trees, the herd slowed, hoofbeats abruptly muted on earthen road. Splashes of red moonlight illumined the path, and soon the camps of emigrants sprouted along the landward side. Men and women stood at fires, faces reflecting firelight and curiosity as they peered to the road. At one, he glimpsed the unmistakable figure of the peasant priest in his tentlike smothercoat, squinting out with worried brow.

The camps dwindled, and they rode through stump lands where wood had been cleared to fuel waterwheels. On the water side they passed a tooler’s yard with docks and the makeshift structures of its tiny wharf.

As soon as they crossed the rocky ridge near the middle of the valley, the caravan camps ceased altogether, and Caris finally slowed the herd to a walk. She stopped them in a shallow stream that crossed the road, where they stood blowing and snorting like tooler’s bellows. The Iberg’s stallion’s neck steamed with sweat. Harric’s ribs blazed with pain from the jarring, and his legs ached from clasping without stirrups. He groaned in general misery.

Behind them, the distinctive cadence of the Phyros grew louder beyond the crest of the ridge. The herd began to shy. Caris maneuvered Rag beside Harric and motioned for him to climb over to sit behind her saddle. He guessed that calming the whole herd would be too difficult near a Phyros.

“What about Jack?” He indicated his horse, still wearing his saddle.

She shook her head, expression strained. “Can’t.”

He sensed her urgency, so in spite of the pain it caused his ribs, he wrapped his fist in her cloak, placed one foot in the stirrup she offered, and hauled himself across.

The Phyros exploded over the crest of the hill, and Caris gasped as if in pain. The herd shuddered, then shied. Almost as one, they bolted away up the road. Caris sagged, letting out a long sigh of relief. Rag still breathed in great gusts, but otherwise seemed unfrightened as the Phyros slowed to a walk behind them.

“Bye, Jack,” Harric muttered, as his horse disappeared with his saddle.

He arranged himself on the blanket behind Caris’s bulky saddle and laid his hands on her waist, where the curves of metal felt hard and strange beneath his palms. The moon cat sniffed at her hair from his shoulder, and peered into Harric’s face. Its eyes looked blind—milk white, without pupils—but it seemed to gaze about like any other cat. It had probably been asleep near the witch’s saddle when Harric moved the stallion and disturbed it. The cat sniffed his nose, and Harric stared back, amused. “I name you Spook,” he murmured. “You’re my pet now.”

Caris jerked her head. “Mm?”

The towering shadow of the Phyros approached, with Brolli’s pony clattering down the ridge behind it, Brolli bouncing awkwardly in the saddle. When he stopped beside them he seemed dazed by the ride, hunched and panting as if it had been as hard on him as on Harric.

“Bravely done, lads,” the old man said, emerging in a patch of ruddy moonlight. His bald head shone faintly. “Now that ring. Let’s have it.” He extended an armored hand from the intimidating height of the Phyros.

Caris was so horse-tied she showed no evidence of hearing.

Harric frowned. He cleared his throat. “What ring?”

“Don’t play daft,” the knight growled. “I’ve been more than patient with your foolery. I mean the ring in the nut box.”

“There was a ring in the nut?” Harric indicated Caris with a nod. “Then she’s got it.”

“
She?
” The old knight scanned her armor, and another qualm of disgust crossed his face. “
She,
is it!”

“Yes. She.”

“Well, girl? Where is it?”

Caris returned his gaze abstractedly, like a ragleaf smoker who’d had more than strictly necessary.

“She’s concentrating on keeping her horse calm,” Harric said, not wanting to interrupt her trance. “She’s probably got it in her pack, unless she figured out it was a box and opened it.” That struck Harric as mildly funny. He’d left her the nut as a joke, but had actually given her a valuable ring. “Maybe she’s wearing it. I’ll see if I can get her glove off.”

As Harric moved to find Caris’s hand, the old man’s jaw dropped, and his ragleaf tumbled from his lips into the stream, where it snuffed with a tiny sigh. A qualm of doubt rippled through Harric. What if Caris had rejected the trinket as she did the squire’s silver? She might have thrown them out the window and into the river, or simply left them on the floor of his chambers.

Harric teased her left hand from the reins. Then he coaxed the gauntlet off. On her smallest finger, three interlaced rings of witch-silver glowed as if red hot in the light of the Mad Moon. Harric smiled in relief. “There. See?”

The old man released a string of blistering oaths.

Brolli’s laugh barked in the darkness. “She isn’t your sister, is she?”

“No. Why? What’s wrong?”

Caris put her warm hand on Harric’s and drew it tighter around her waist, then lower, below her belt. It was a gesture that came from her horse-tied self: an animal urge, unconscious, and so without the charged meaning it would otherwise have. Even so, it sent a buzz of excitement through Harric, and he wondered if she would remember it when she was back in the human world.

“It’s not a problem, sir,” he said, retracting his hand to return her gauntlet. “When she’s ready she’ll take them off and return them.”

“Bolts and shackles!” the old man spat. “You
can’t
take them off!”

“Why not?”

The old man’s gust of cursing prevented further response.

“The ring is a love charm of my people,” Brolli said. “A wedding ring. It is stuck on her finger, and she is stuck on who gave them to her.
You
, yes?”

Harric blinked, and Caris’s mouth hung mute, as if she’d heard what Brolli said but was too horse-tied to respond.

“Look, you two, I’m sorry,” said the old man. “We’ve rather made a mess of things today—”

“
We?
” said Brolli. “You give a love charm to a bachelor, but
we
make a mess?”

Caris frowned, eyes still distant. “I’ve felt so…different. This is why?”

“Now, girl, don’t panic—this magic is
good
magic,” the knight said, misreading her expression as Arkendian panic over magic. “Kwendi magic isn’t like Iberg magic at all—”

“You’re saying you gave me a love charm without telling me?” Harric said.

“It was a mistake, son. I was tired—grabbed the wrong purse, you see, and…” The old knight rubbed his eyes and sighed.

Caris twisted around in her saddle to meet Harric’s eyes. Her gaze was distant, as if still deep in concentration on the horses, but seemed to focus on him. “You gave me a love charm?”

“Caris, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Her brow furrowed as the meaning of the words began to reach her.

“More than a love charm, really,” said Brolli. “It is to make a marriage.”

“A
marriage
?” Harric said.

Pointed canines flashed in Brolli’s grin. “
Force
a marriage, yes. The magic makes sure it can’t be removed.”

Rag shied as Caris came fully into focus on Harric, and slugged him in the thigh.
“It won’t come off?”

“Ow! Caris, I didn’t know—”

“I killed for you tonight!”

Rag sidestepped the Phyros, and Caris struggled against the reins, seething.

“That was your choice,” Harric said. His pains made him petty. “You want to see what it’s like to love? Here’s your chance. But don’t blame this on me. Talk to these two about it.”

She clenched her teeth, eyes brimming. “I didn’t ask for this, Harric.”

“And I did?”

The Phyros shouldered against them, stumbling Rag sideways, and forcing Caris to concentrate on her mount. “Get a hold of yourselves,” said the knight. “We’re not out of danger. Is this the stream you had in mind? Girl! Is this the stream we follow to find your friend?”

“Yes. This is it.”

“Right. Brolli, you lead. Both of you follow. Now! And not a word till I say we’re clear.”

“Come on, you two.” Brolli grinned. “You can court later.”

—From
Arkendia’s Iron Age,
by Timus of Prand

The High Prince & the Hostess

M
other Ganner followed
two purple-liveried servants through the north wing of her lodge for an audience with the newly arrived prince. Krato’s Moon must’ve come early for a prince to stay in Gallows Ferry. He’d taken over the north wing with his army of servants. Yet his people were civil, paying twice the fee for his rooms and twice again to the lodgers he expelled. In the few hours since his arrival, his servants had transformed the place under a multitude of carpets and tapestries and scented candelabra so that she hardly recognized it. Even the door at which she waited to be announced had been nailed over with cloth of gold, as if no surface should meet his royal gaze unless it be a comfort to the eye.

Two stolid guards waited on her in the dimness of the foyer. Her chins quivered with fear, which made her curse herself for a fool. She hadn’t forgotten the pain of Bannus’s blow, and the likelihood he’d kill her if he saw her again. But it was her own house, wasn’t it? No matter if a prince waited beyond that door,
she
was queen here.

“His Highness will see you,” a guard said.

The words stole her breath like a plunge in cold water. She followed the guard into a bunkhouse transformed with gold candelabra, fine furniture, and wine-purple rugs and tapestries. The air seemed heavy with sweet, soothing scents. Lightheadedness came and went, and things around her took on a strangely sparkling clarity. She feared for a moment she might be fainting.

Another guard led her through a wall of hangings to a brightly lit alcove, where she found the prince upon a carven audience chair. A candelabrum stood on a gold-leaf table behind him, beside a glittering crystal liquor service.

At first he seemed no man at all, but a god—some separate race as far above men as mountains above mounds—for he wore naught but gold and violet, and his skin seemed flushed with lavender, as though his blood were truly the purple of the gods. Yet his stature was not great. She surely outweighed him. Nor was he tall or physically powerful; rather he was thin, almost waiflike in face and body, with fragile features and exceedingly fine white hair that fell straight to his shoulders.

The power of his presence came instead from a sense of calm that suffused the space around him like a perfume in a pleasant room. The calm violet eyes especially drew her. They did not judge her, nor prejudge anything, it seemed, but rather beheld each thing anew, seeing past the temporary to the eternal. He seemed to her somehow outside of time as she knew it, and things moved more slowly, and calmly, where he was. It calmed her nerves simply being near him—so much, she noticed, that her trembling ceased altogether.