The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (64 page)

Not looking at the demons, looking at her; at her face; at whatever, at that moment, her expression revealed to him.

She saw him jerk, saw him gasp, draw a breath, heard him shout,
“NO!”
He snatched out; she moved the sword out of his reach.

But it was the talisman he went for; snatched it from her hand; flung it over the den roofs. Then he stood, shuddering, half bent, fists clenched, eyes closed, making wordless sounds—

And the demons came.

Rowan shouted, turned, struck out, contacted nothing, and fell, wondering why she fell.

Then she had no room left in her mind to wonder; all she knew was pain.

43

R
owan fought.

She twisted, flailed, struck out at the bodies around her, clutched and tore at the fingers gripping her. Her feet scrabbled on the ground, but whenever she put weight on her left leg, something sharp and bright flared in her brain, blinding every sense, and she ceased, briefly, to think at all.

She fought nonetheless. She heard a sound, loud: it was her own voice. She was shouting, cursing. The curses became more vicious, her voice wilder, and her words evolved until she said, in more a scream than a shout,
“I am not a wild animal!”

Then stop acting like one.

She relaxed so abruptly that the demon who held her staggered and nearly fell. Narrow, taloned hands reached out from all around, caught, and steadied them both. The steerswoman shut her eyes, blindly searched for her balance, could find it only with one leg. She stood canted, half propped against the chill, smooth demon body behind her.

She opened her eyes to a forest of arms. The sun was too bright; the dusty air felt like lemons on her skin. She was dizzy and nauseated. She was shuddering with cold, despite the fact that she seemed, somehow, to be standing in fire.

She said, in a voice thick in the confines of her own skull, “Very well. You have me. Exactly what are you intending to do with me?”

But the demons’ attention was elsewhere.

Down below, at the focus of the amphitheater, Tan was demolishing her construction.

Tan’s fingers pried and tore. She hurled the fragments out into the crowd. Where the pieces fell, demons stepped quickly back. Along the slopes, the movements of arms told of shock, distress.

Tan cleared the stage completely of the remnants of her great statement. Then she spoke again: one small case-object.

That said, she stepped aside, sat, arms knotted above her maw.

As one, the audience entered into Regard and then Contemplate. At the edge of the amphitheater, Rowan stood among demons, held by demons, and tried, with strange difficulty, to focus.

Burned; she had been burned. She looked down, and discovered the damage. She must do something.

Her arms were held close to her body, but her hands were free. She clutched the water sack, tore the mouthpiece from it completely, pulled the opening wider, aimed as best she could manage, and emptied it.

There was darkness.

There was light. She was standing. The steerswoman lifted her head.

A demon stood before her. Rowan recognized Tan, and said weakly, “Oh . . .”

She looked down: on the dirt, a case-object. She looked up again. “I— I don’t understand.” She tried to study Tan’s pose, the movement of her arms, for clues as to thought, emotion.

Waiting. Tan was waiting.

Rowan shifted, found that some demon was holding her, from behind. It was the only reason she was able to stand.

Two female demons stood near Tan, also waiting.

Past Tan: more demons. Left, and right: demons.

Rowan was at the bottom of the amphitheater.

“I can’t answer,” Rowan said to Tan, helplessly. “I can’t speak as you do . . . I’d have to speak like a man.”

One of the two other females made a statement. All present Regarded, then Contemplated. Rowan gazed about, blinking in the glaring, painful sunlight.

The demon holding her, a female, had three companions, also female. All four stood tense and alert, their attention apparently only on Rowan. Close by: another group, in a similar configuration, with Janus at its center. He had lost the pack but seemed unhurt, but Rowan could not be certain— she could not see well, it was too bright, there was no air . . .

Rowan turned away, suddenly dizzy and unable, for a moment, to understand why she hurt so much. She closed her eyes, forced her breathing steady.

When she next looked, Tan had spoken to her again. The case-object resembled nothing Rowan could identify. The three demons with Tan still waited.

Rowan said, through clenched teeth, “This won’t work!”

Prove you are a person.
But Rowan could not.

The ring; the steerswoman’s ring had impressed Tan, whatever she had thought its meaning. Tan’s men had taken it. Tan must get the ring or send one of her men—

To the secret place? Now, with the whole city watching?

No. That should not be done.

“Then say the word, the word that protects, the talisman. We’ll take it, we’ll leave you . . .”

But demons did not understand about the word, did not know what drove them from it.

But where had it come from? How had it ever been spoken?

The two females with Tan ceased to wait and now displayed anger. Tan tried once again, and this time, Rowan recognized the word.

A small word: a tiny human shape. Rowan herself.

What else did people do? Rowan scanned the crowd wildly. Other than speech, what showed these people as thinking beings?

Rowan’s guard still held her; but Rowan now found that when she moved, the guard permitted it. Awkward on one leg, leaning back against the demon, weak with pain and shock, the steerswoman raised her arms. As best as a human being could, she entered into the demon stance of Regard and then, Contemplate.

Startlement, like a wave moving up the slopes of the amphitheater. Then, arm-weaving, the sequential lift and fall, all around each demon’s body.

Wonder, Rowan suddenly understood, that’s
Wonder.

Her guard released her, stepped back. Rowan fell; and for an unknown space of time, could not think.

When next she could see again, there were many more words on the ground than before; more people had spoken. But Tan— Tan strode among the statements, tossing them away with her hands, kicking them with her broad, taloned feet.

The two females nearby were watching, one quivering with rage; she entered attack stance.

A guard moved forward and quickly, smoothly, efficiently, killed her.

All present paused to eat. Those nearby politely passed portions to those further away. Tan dropped a choice segment down her maw, and stood chewing slowly and, it seemed to Rowan, thoughtfully.

When she was finished, Tan began to speak again. Rowan pushed herself up on her hands to watch.

One case-object; another, attaching to the first; a third, joining them at the top . . . Tan proceeded to construct a new statement. The crowd displayed Watching-with-interest.

But the slain female’s companion did not wait for Tan to finish. She uttered a small statement of her own, and stepped away from it, sat, her arms tucked above her maw.

Regard, from the audience. Contemplate. Tan paused.

Tan spoke again: a single, self-contained utterance.

Regard. Contemplate.

And, at the top of the slope, at the edge of the crowd: movement, a small pocket of agitation.

The dissenting female unknotted her arms, rose, approached Tan’s new statement. She uttered a case-object, attached it directly to Tan’s. Both stood considering the result.

The motion moved down the slope, though the crowd, toward the stage. Annoyance from those its passing disturbed.

Tan’s opponent took advantage of the pause in the proceedings. She stepped to the edge of the crowd, selected a male, and engaged in intercourse.

Tan continued to consider the combined statement. Then her arms lifted slightly as she, and simultaneously Rowan, recognized the demon pushing through the crowd toward the stage. The Thief of Words.

It came to Rowan that she must stand; if the Thief were bringing her ring, then whatever mysterious and important statement it would convey to the demons, Rowan must at the least be standing when they saw it.

She was half sprawled on the ground. She looked about: her guard was still beside her. As if it were the most natural act in the world, the steerswoman reached up, grasped one of the demon’s arms, and tried to pull herself to her feet.

She nearly fell again; the alteration in the pain in her leg made it seem new, and it nearly overpowered her.

But she found herself standing, the guard demon supporting her with all four hands. Rowan stopped the strange sound that was coming from the back of her own throat, gasped, breathed deeply, and said, “Thank you.” Painfully, and needing great concentration to do so, she managed to turn around to face the audience.

The Thief of Words arrived at the stage. None of the demons watching approved of this, and Tan’s opponent was herself so amazed that she ceased mating, and her arms quivered anger.

The Thief’s hands were empty. Rowan was suddenly shaking and found herself pleading, so breathlessly even she could not hear, “No, no, don’t take it from your mouth . . .”

In the sight of fully half the city, the Thief reached up and down into his maw; not with one hand but four.

Four words. He reached again.

He did not complete the motion.

From the edge of the stage moving inward, from behind Rowan moving forward, from all about, demons converged on the Thief. They did not spray: they slashed with talons, tore with thin, strong fingers. He fell, and Rowan could see him no longer.

Then one was thrown back, violently, and another, and another. The rest, startled and panicking, retreated—

And it was Tan, alone beside the fallen Thief, holding the killers back with an attack stance so wide and high that it seemed to be directed at the entire city.

Startlement, all around, in a visual stutter, as the crowd showed surprise— showed it over and over, as if there were no way to move past an astonishment so great.

But Tan was too late; the Thief of Words lay, legs tangled, arms sprawled, a spread of bloody viscera fanning out beside him on the dirt. The words he had not spoken lay spilled between his arms, mute and meaningless.

Keeping three arms raised, Tan reached down with the fourth, twined her fingers among Thief’s limp ones, gently lifted the slack hand. She stood a moment so, with all the people watching in stuttering startlement, and slowly, eventually, in stillness.

Then she dropped the hand and stepped over the corpse. Using all four of her hands, Tan laid out the words the Thief had brought.

One long arc of nine discrete utterances. Within the curve: a second, small arc of three simple words. Tan took two steps to one side, stood quietly, passively; and even her body no longer spoke to Rowan.

But the steerswoman understood. With a sudden, glowing clarity, she knew— not the meaning of the words but the meaning of the act.

She knew exactly what to do.

Her breath was shuddering; she had not noticed. It was from pain; but pain was irrelevant. When she took a step forward, the pain flared through her, inhabited her completely, drove out thought. But that did not matter; she did not need to think to do this.

Standing free of her guard, in the center of the stage, the steerswoman threw up her arms.

She waved them, she twisted them, writhed them. She curled and uncurled her fingers, straining toward the glaring blue sky above. She swayed.

And it seemed to her that it now took no effort to do this; she could not stop if she wished. She shut her eyes; she gave herself to it. It was right, it was pure and true, and it was the one way to express this emotion.

She knew what it meant. She had seen it done twice:

For the child she had seen in the amphitheater; for Rowan herself, in the cave. She knew what it meant:

First words.

One who was silent has spoken.

One we had thought without thought, now shows us, now shares with us, the thought that is within him.

He is like us. He is one of us.

Rowan said, gasping, “Welcome,” through the pain and through the joy, “oh, welcome . . .”

When she opened her eyes and saw the demons again, it was through tears. When she shook the tears away, she saw, across the amphitheater, isolated spots of wild motion, waving, twisting. And when she looked again, more: every male present, and females— a few, and then more, and then more . . .

One who was silent has spoken. Welcome.

But on the stage, in the midst of the great and joyful motion all around, Tan herself did not join in. She merely stood beside the words quietly, and it seemed to Rowan, with immense dignity: accepting, in her husband’s place, the welcome of his people.