The Water Road (24 page)

Antrey nodded, still reluctant to
give him the benefit of the doubt.

“No, my belief about the Maker of
Worlds did not come to be in some instant flash of revelation. I only came to
it after years of travel amongst many of the clans. Listening to the Speakers
of Time. Learning about how the clans do, or do not, interact with their
protectors,” he said.

“I’ll admit, that is a relief,”
Antrey said.

“I imagine it is,” Goshen said.
“Over those years, it became clear to me that each clan’s protector operates in
more or less the same way, as an aspect of the physical world. They do not
overlap or stray into each other’s territories, much like the clans themselves,
in theory. Just as the clans are, for all their differences, all Neldathi, so
too are all the gods and goddesses the Maker of Worlds.”

Antrey picked up the theme. “So
where most people see division and difference between the gods and the clans,
you see—”

He cut her off again. “I see the
oneness of all Neldathi and the one true god who created them.”

Antrey sat on the stool and
processed all this and had her own instant flash of insight. “That’s why you’re
so interested in what’s written in my journal. About what I learned before I,”
she paused for a moment, nearly choking on the words, “before I killed Alban.”

He nodded. “Yes. But my interest is
not just in what you learned before that fateful moment. I am also intrigued by
what you plan to do with that knowledge.”

“You mean try and bring the clans
together?” Antrey asked. She honestly could not remember writing it down. She
looked away from Goshen, down into the cooling bowl before her. “It’s not
really a plan. There is no reason to think anyone could unify the clans, much
less me.”

“No, no, no, that is where you are
wrong,” Goshen said, shaking his head vigorously back and forth. “You, Antrey,
are the
only
person who can bring the clans together. It is imperative
that you know that to be true in your heart, for that is the only way justice
and unity can be achieved.”

She took a long, slow swallow of the
stew, but did not say any more.

Goshen walked over to her and
looked down at her, a gleam of light dancing in his eyes. “You and I are going
to help each other a great deal, I think, Antrey. I will go first and convince
Ushan to let you remain with the clan.”

Goshen never told Antrey exactly
what he said or did to convince Ushan to withdraw her edict. Regardless, the
days passed and the clan did not cast her aside, even as they began moving
further along their circuit. She had not seen Ushan or Kajtan, or even Hirrek,
since the initial meeting in the tent. Goshen had convinced her not to seek
them out, but also not to simply disappear into the mass of the clan. It felt
good to Antrey to belong somewhere, no matter how tenuously.

It had been several days since the
clan broke camp and began to move slowly down the slope of the mountains,
towards the south. Antrey wondered if they were chasing the winter, which
should be on the verge of breaking soon. Frost still crunched underfoot and
Antrey’s breath made wisps of white vapor in the air, even as they sank further
and further into the valley below.

Progress was slow. There was little
to aid the clan in their travels aside from their own feet. There were beasts
of burden in the column, but they were large, lumbering creatures lashed to
laden carts and wagons. Aside from a few older and younger people, and the
clan’s leadership, who rode in the wagons where there was room, everyone
walked. It took Antrey a few days to appreciate the fact that there were no
horses around. She wondered if that, too, was a conscious choice of the clans,
or simply a matter of their survival in this climate.

Given the slow progress, the column
was much more organized than Antrey imagined it would be. Far from the unsorted
mass of people on foot with some vehicles scattered about, it was a
well-organized and logically planned thing. The wagon in which Ushan and her
inner circle rode was in the center of the column, pulled by a pair of enormous
wooly beasts that looked to Antrey to be the Neldathi cousin to the common cow.
At the front of the column was a mixture of scouts, guides, and skirmishers who
plotted a course through the thick forest and assured nothing lurked in their
path. Hirrek and some of the other hunters circled the column briskly, on the
watch for stragglers or deserters.

Antrey had taken up a position near
the rear of the column, along with Goshen. He walked, as the rest of them did,
but he had a small cart pulled by some kind of donkey in which he carried his
books and papers. From that vantage point, Antrey could see the serpentine
column stretch out down the slope in front of her, a tapering line of pale blue
figures. She estimated there were about eighty thousand people in the column,
although she had no idea what its demographic might be. In an emergency, she
imagined the Dost could field an army of twenty thousand, and it was one of the
smaller clans. If she could bring all eleven of them together and each could
provide half that amount, it would be a fighting force to be reckoned with.

With her near the back of the
column were a group of common people, most into middle age but none of them old
enough to take advantage of an empty spot on a wagon. There were also
stragglers and those who wandered off in one direction or another before the
hunters could corral them. Antrey thought she fit in there quite well, but
wondered what Goshen was doing among the riffraff. She quickened her pace to
catch up with him. “Shouldn’t you be up there with the Great Mother?” she
asked, pointing downhill towards the circle of spears that marked Ushan’s
guards.

“Why would you think that?” he
asked without much thought.

“You’re one of her most trusted
advisors, aren’t you? You were there in the meeting tent when she spoke to me.
And I was recovering in your tent before that. I assumed you were part of the
elite of the clan.”

Goshen sighed. “What I provide to
the Great Mother is honest advice and learned counsel. However, honest advice
and learned counsel only go so far in the face of blood and heritage.”

Antrey didn’t know what to say to
that and so remained silent.

“Remember, Antrey, I am very much
like you,” he said. “I do not belong to this clan. I belong to no clan at all.
I would like to think that I belong to all of the clans equally, but that is
not the truth of things. I have the Great Mother’s ear on some matters not
because I am Dost, but in spite of the fact that I am not. There are others in
the clan who do not appreciate my influence, so it is better to stay away from the
trappings of power as much as possible. It is well worth the petty indignities
to be able to speak with Ushan honestly and directly when the need arises.”

“That seems like a poor way to
govern,” Antrey said.

“Governance has little to do with
doing the right things,” he said. “It is much more important, in most areas, to
be perceived to be doing the correct things for the correct reasons. Many in
the column, many who walk around us right now, believe me to be a blasphemer.
As such, I am as ill suited to the role of counselor to their thek as any
Altrerian would be. I do not make offerings to Var, the way they do. To them, I
am simply different. An outsider. And I always will be, I fear.”

“Surely Ushan doesn’t think you are
a blasphemer?” Antrey asked.

Goshen shrugged. “To speak
honestly, I am not certain what the Great Mother thinks of my beliefs. It is
not my role to advise her on such things and I do not try to do so. I provide
her concrete services. I write. I read. I have access to the wisdom of the ages,
those that her Speakers of Time do not know. My desire is to see all Neldathi
united in their worship of the Maker of Worlds. I recognize that her desire is
altogether different.”

“Maybe she’ll change her mind one
day,” Antrey said.

“I do not think that is likely,”
Goshen said, shaking his head. “I only hope she finds me useful for long enough
to believe in you, Antrey, if not the Maker of Worlds.”

“In me?” Antrey asked.

“If not in you, then in your
cause,” he said. “In the reason you are with us here.”

They walked in silence for a few
moments, Antrey unsure how to respond to that. She was aware that, at some
point, if she wished to bring the clans together in light of what the
Triumvirate had done to them, she would have to convince others to believe in
her. But, until now, she had never heard the idea pass from the lips of someone
else. It made the idea more real and more necessary.

As they walked, Hirrek jogged up
from down the mountain and fell in beside Goshen’s cart. He said something,
primarily to Goshen, although he shifted his gaze from the holy man to Antrey
and back again several times. Goshen said something briefly in response, then
Hirrek ran back down the slope towards the front of the column.

“What was that all about?” Antrey
asked.

“Hirrek says that the front of the
column has reached the valley,” Goshen said. “The meeting tent will be set up
there, next to a spring. While it is being assembled, the Great Mother will
have an audience with us.”

“An audience?” Antrey asked. “About
what?”

“About your cause, of course,”
Goshen said. “It would be best if you took the time until we arrive to think
about precisely what you might say to her. The fate of our common cause,” he
paused and placed a hand on her shoulder, “may depend on what you say.”

~~~~~

It took considerably longer for
Antrey and Goshen to reach the valley floor than Hirrek had estimated. By the
time they arrived, the frosty plain that bumped up against the face of the
mountain was a hive of activity, with people spread out as far as Antrey could
see. The tens of thousands had neatly divided into smaller and smaller
subgroups and had begun making camp, defining the boundary of this moving city
that would exist for only a few days. Again, the organization and
well-practiced precision of it all took Antrey by surprise, for which she
scolded herself.

At the base of the mountain was a
brilliant blue pool fed by several small streams that ran down the slope. A
stand of evergreens ringed the pool, providing a natural way to set off Ushan
and her advisors. They had made a hasty lean-to against the weather there, to
make do while tents were assembled. While the lean-to was barely a structure at
all, it still had a regal air to it, as the ornate chairs that Antrey had first
seen in the meeting tent were there, placed under its cover. Ushan and Kajtan
were already there, sitting patiently behind a small fire that crackled and
hissed in the dying sun. On the other side of the fire was a mat, spread out on
the snowy ground, where those addressing the Great Mother could sit or stand.

Hirrek, who was standing outside
the ring of evergreens when Antrey and Goshen arrived, shot them an angry look.
Antrey was grateful she could not speak to him directly, as she would have no
doubt said something inappropriate about his time-estimation skills. Instead,
she smiled and nodded slightly as Goshen led her through the trees to where
Ushan was sitting. They walked over to the mat and bowed.

Goshen said something to Ushan,
then turned halfway to Antrey to translate. “Thank you, Great Mother, for
granting us your audience,” he said.

Kajtan blurted out a series of
short, angry words. “Your delay has tried our patience,” Goshen said for him.

Goshen responded to Kajtan first,
then told Antrey, “Accept our apologies, General. We came as quickly as
possible. The clan grows larger and stronger with each passing day under the
Guidance of the Great Mother. Sometimes that gift leads to progress being
slowed.”

Kajtan grumbled, but didn’t say anything
else to Goshen. At least nothing that Goshen felt the need to translate for
Antrey.

Ushan took up the conversation,
calming her husband with the wave of a hand. She said something to Goshen in
much more calm, slow, lilting tones. “There are times when these things cannot
be helped,” Goshen translated. “The delay does not suit us, but it does us no
harm. Please be seated.” When Goshen was finished, Ushan gestured for Antrey
and Goshen to sit on the mat in front of the fire.

Once they were seated, Ushan began
to speak in those same long, almost sung phrases. Goshen translated every few
seconds. “Antrey, you have remained with us much longer that I originally
intended. It has been against my better judgment to allow you to do so.”

Antrey began to apologize, but
before she got a word out Ushan cut her off as she had done with Kajtan a few
moments earlier. “Do not worry,” she said, via Goshen’s translation. “I am not
accusing you of any wrongdoing. I am merely stating the truth that, had my
original order had been implemented, you would no longer be with us. Goshen, in
his persistent way, has convinced me otherwise. He has told me your story more
than once. I know how you came to be among us. I know how and I understand why
you killed this man,” Goshen paused as Ushan stumbled over the name.

“Alban,” Antrey said, her gut
twisting just a bit as she did.

Ushan nodded and said, slowly,
“Alban,” before returning to her own language. Goshen translated, “He kept the
books of the Triumvirate. He guarded their secrets.”

Antrey nodded. It was as good a
description as any.

She continued, “I understand what
you discovered, about how the Triumvirate has done such wicked things to our
people. Were it I who found out such things, I would have reacted the same way.
But why did you do so? You are not Neldathi. You are not one of us. Why so much
anger about what was done?”

Antrey thought about the question,
for it was one that she had not considered before. On the long walk from
Tolenor she had examined almost every detail of the incident comprehensively,
but she had always taken her reaction upon learning of the Triumvirate program
for granted. It seemed natural to her. She turned to Goshen. “How do I say I
was angry?” she asked him. He provided a quick lesson. Antrey turned back to
Ushan and said, “I was angry, Great Mother.”

Ushan smiled at Antrey’s use of
their language. She shifted her focus to Goshen and said something in an
exasperated tone. “That much is obvious,” he said on her behalf. “But why were
you so angry? What wrong had been done to you?”

Antrey did not quite grasp what
Ushan was getting at, but decided it was better to talk it out rather than sit
and overthink it. She turned to Goshen, who translated every few words for Ushan,
and said, “Great Mother, I have no people. I am not Neldathi. I belong to no
clan. Nor am I Altrerian. No nation of the Triumvirate would claim me. When I
read about what the Triumvirate had done to the Neldathi, I was not thinking
about it in terms of a wrong done by others to my ancestors. What I read made
my heart ache, for both parts of my being. My Neldathi half felt pity and
sorrow and rage on behalf of what has happened to your people. My Altrerian
half felt the fear of those people in the wake of the Rising, but also shame
for how they allowed that fear to drive their actions. I have always been
uneasy with my place in this world. But on the inside, I never felt truly
conflicted about who I am or what I am. My two halves have never been at war.
But outside, they are locked in a deadly game of deceit, mayhem, and death.”

She paused for a moment to let
Goshen catch up and make sure Ushan understood what she was saying. When Antrey
saw recognition in her eyes, she continued, “I weighed my feelings after I fled
Tolenor to save my own life. I decided that my future, my fate, lay with you.
With those who had been abused for so long. Only a unified Neldathi can
confront the Triumvirate and seek justice for what has been done to them. In
the very simplest of terms, Great Mother, I learned of a great wrong and I
decided I must do what I can to put it right.”