Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound

by Mercedes Lackey

Introduction

This is the tale of an unlikely partnership, that

of the Shin'a'in swordswoman and celibate

Kal'enedral, Tarma shena Tale'sedrin and the nobly-

born sorceress Kethry, member of the White Winds

school, whose devotees were sworn to wander the

world using their talents for the greatest good. How

these two met is told in the tale "Sword Sworn,"

published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's anthology

SWORD AND SORCERESS III. A second of the accounts

of their wandering life will be seen in the fourth

volume of that series. But this story begins where

that first tale left off, when they have recovered

from their ordeal and are making their way back to

the Dhorisha Plains and Tarma's home.

One

The sky was overcast, a solid gray sheet that

seemed to hang just barely above the treetops,

with no sign of a break in the clouds anywhere.

The sun was no more than a dimly glowing spot

near the western horizon, framed by a lattice of

bare black branches. Snow lay at least half a foot

thick everywhere in the forest, muffling sound. A

bird flying high on the winter wind took dim notice

that the forest below him extended nearly as far as

he could see no matter which way he looked, but

was neatly bisected by the Trade Road immedi-

ately below him. Had he flown a little higher (for

the clouds were not as low as they looked), he

might have seen the rooftops and smokes of a city

at the southern end of the road, hard against the

forest. Although the Trade Road had seen enough

travelers of late that the snow covering it was packed

hard, there were only two on it now. They had

stopped in the clearing halfway through the forest

that normally saw heavy use as an overnighting

point. One was setting up camp under the shelter

of a half-cave of rock and tree trunks piled together—

partially the work of man, partially of nature. The

other was a short distance away, in a growth-free

pocket just off the main area, picketing their beasts.

The bird circled for a moment, swooping lower,

eyeing the pair with dim speculation. Humans some-

times meant food—

But there was no food in sight, at least not that

the bird recognized as such. And as he came lower

still, the one with the beasts looked up at him

suddenly, and reached for something slung at her

saddlebow.

The bird had been the target of arrows often

enough to recognize a bow when he saw one. With a

squawk of dismay, he veered off, flapping his wings

with all his might, and tracing a twisty, convoluted

course out of range. He wanted to be the eater, not

the eaten!

Tarma sighed as the bird sped out of range, un-

strung her bow, and stowed it back in the saddle-

quiver. She hunched her shoulder a little beneath

her heavy wool coat to keep her sword from shift-

ing on her back, and went back to her task of scrap-

ing the snow away from the grass buried beneath it

with gloved hands. Somewhere off in the far dis-

tance she could hear a pair of ravens calling to each

other, but otherwise the only sounds were the sough

of wind in branches and the blowing of her horse

and Kethry's mule. The Shin'a'in place of eternal

punishment was purported to be cold; now she had

an idea why.

She tried to ignore the ice-edged wind that seemed

to cut right through the worn places in her nonde-

script brown clothing. This was no place for a

Shin'a'in of the Plains, this frozen northern forest.

She had no business being here. Her garments, more

than adequate to the milder winters in the south,

were just not up to the rigors of the cold season

here.

Her eyes stung, and not from the icy wind.

Home—Warrior Dark, she wanted to be home! Home,

away from these alien forests with their unfriendly

weather, away from outClansmen with no under-

standing and no manners . .. home. ...

Her little mare whickered at her, and strained

against her lead rope, her breath steaming and her

muzzle edged with frost. She was no fonder of this

chilled wilderness than Tarma was. Even the

Shin'a'in winter pastures never got this cold, and

what little snow fell on them was soon melted. The

mare's sense of what was "right" was deeply of-

fended by all this frigid white stuff.

"Kathal, dester'edra," Tarma said to the ears that

pricked forward at the first sound of her harsh

voice. "Gently, windborn-sister. I'm nearly finished

here."

Kessira snorted back at her, and Tarma's usually

solemn expression lightened with an affectionate

smile.

"Li'ha'eer, it is ice-demons that dwell in this place,

and nothing else."

When she figured that she had enough of the

grass cleared off to at least help to satisfy her mare's

hunger, she heaped the rest of her foragings into

the center of the area, topping the heap with a

carefully measured portion of mixed grains and a

little salt. What she'd managed to find was poor

enough, and not at all what her training would

have preferred—some dead seed grasses with the

heads still on them, the tender tips from the

branches of those trees and bushes she recognized

as being nourishing, even some dormant cress and

cattail roots from the stream. It was scarcely enough

to keep the mare from starving, and not anywhere

near enough to provide her with the energy she

needed to carry Tarma on at the pace she and her

partner Kethry had been making up until now.

She loosed little Kessira from her tethering and

picketed her in the middle of the space she'd cleared.

It showed the measure of the mare's hunger that

she tore eagerly into the fodder, poor as it was.

There had been a time when Kessira would have

turned up her nose in disdain at being offered such

inferior provender.

"Ai, we've come on strange times, haven't we,

you and I," Tarma sighed. She tucked a stray lock

of crow-wing-black hair back under her hood, and

put her right arm over Kessira's shoulder, resting

against the warm bulk of her. "Me with no Clan

but one weirdling outlander, you so far from the

Plains and your sibs."

Not that long ago they'd been just as any other

youngling of the nomadic Shin'a'in and her saddle

mare; Tarma learning the mastery of sword, song,

and steed, Kessira running free except when the

lessoning involved her. Both of them had been safe

and contented in the heart of Clan Tale'sedrin—

true, free Children of the Hawk.

Tarma rubbed her cheek against Kessira's furry

shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of clean

horse that was so much a part of what had been

home. Oh, but they'd been happy; Tarma had been

the pet of the Clan, with her flute-clear voice and

her perfect memory for song and tale, and Kessira

had been so well-matched for her rider that she

almost seemed the "four-footed sister" that Tarma

frequently named her. Their lives had been so close

to perfect—in all ways. The king-stallion of the

herd had begun courting Kessira that spring, and

Tarma had had Dharin; nothing could have spoiled

what seemed to be their secure future.

Then the raiders had come upon the Clan; and

all that carefree life was gone in an instant beneath

their swords.

Tarma's eyes stung again. Even full revenge

couldn't take away the ache of losing them, all,

all-

  In one candlemark all that Tarma had ever known

or cared about had been wiped from the face of the

earth.

"What price your blood, my people? A few pounds

of silver? Goddess, the dishonor that your people

were counted so cheaply!"

The slaughter of Tale'sedrin had been the more

vicious because they'd taken the entire Clan un-

awares and unarmed in the midst of celebration;

totally unarmed, as Shin'a'in seldom were. They

had trusted to the vigilance of their sentries.

But the cleverest sentry cannot defeat foul magic

that creeps upon him out of the dark and smothers

the breath in his throat ere he can cry out.

The brigands had not so much as a drop of honor-

able blood among them; they knew had the Clan

been alerted they'd have had stood the robbers off,

even outnumbered as they were, so the bandit's

hired mage had cloaked their approach and stifled

the guards. And so the Clan had fought an unequal

battle, and so they had died; adults, oldsters, chil-

dren, all....

"Goddess, hold them—" she whispered, as she

did at least once each day. Every last member of

Tale'sedrin had died; most had died horribly. Ex-

cept Tarma. She should have died; and unaccount-

ably been left alive.

If you could call it living to have survived with

everything gone that had made life worth having.

Yes, she had been left alive—and utterly, utterly

alone. Left to live with a ruined voice that had once

been the pride of the Clans, with a ravaged body,

and most of all, a shattered heart and mind. There

had been nothing left to sustain her but a driving

will to wreak vengeance on those who had left her

Clanless.

She pulled a brush from an inside pocket of her

coat, and began needlessly grooming Kessira while

the mare ate. The firm strokes across the familiar

chestnut coat were soothing to both of them. She

had been left Clanless, and a Shin'a'in Clanless is

one without purpose in living. Clan is everything to

a Shin'a'in. Only one thing kept her from seeking

oblivion and death-willing herself, that burning need

to revenge her people.

But vengeance and blood-feud were denied the

Shin'a'in—the ordinary Shin'a'in. Else too many of

the people would have gone down on the knives of

their own folk, and to little purpose, for the God-

dess knew Her people and knew their tempers to

be short. Hence, Her law. Only those who were the

Kal'enedral of the Warrior—the Sword Sworn,

outClansmen called them, although the name meant

both "Children of Her Sword" and "Her Sword-

Brothers"—could cry blood-feud and take the trail

of vengeance. That was because of the nature of

their Oath to Her—first to the service of the God-

dess of the New Moon and South Wind, then to the

Clans as a whole, and only after those two to their own

particular Clan. Blood-feud did not serve the Clans

if the feud was between Shin'a'in and Shin'a'in;

keeping the privilege of calling for blood-price in

the hands of those by their very nature devoted to

the welfare of the Shin'a'in as a whole kept interClan

strife to a minimum.

"If it had been you, what would you have chosen,

hmm?" she asked the mare. "Her Oath isn't a light

one." Nor was it without cost—a cost some might

think far too high. Once Sworn, the Kal'enedral

became weapons in Her hand, and not unlike the

sexless, cold steel they wore. Hard, somewhat aloof,

and totally asexual were the Sword Sworn—and

this, too, ensured that their interests remained Hers

and kept them from becoming involved in interClan

rivalry. So it was not the kind of Oath one involved

in a simple feud was likely to even consider taking.

But the slaughter of the Tale'sedrin was not a

matter of private feud or Clan against Clan—this

was a matter of more, even, than personal ven-

geance. Had the brigands been allowed to escape

unpunished, would that not have told other wolf-

heads that the Clans were not invulnerable—would

there not have been another repetition of the slaugh-

ter? That may have been Her reasoning; Tarma

had only known that she was able to find no other

purpose in living, so she had offered her Oath to

the Star-Eyed so that she could pledge her life to

revenge her Clan. An insane plan—sprung out of a

mind that might be going mad with grief.

There were those who thought she was already

mad, who were certain She would accept no such

Oath given by one whose reason was gone. But

much to the amazement of nearly everyone in the

Clan Liha'irden who had succored, healed, and pro-

tected her, that Oath had been accepted. Only the

shamans had been unsurprised.

She had never in her wildest dreaming guessed

what would come of that Oath and that quest for

justice.

Kessira finished the pile of provender, and moved

on to tear hungrily at the lank, sere grasses. Be-

neath the thick coat of winter hair she had grown,

her bones were beginning to show in a way that

Tarma did not in the least like. She left off brush-

ing, and stroked the warm shoulder, and the mare

abandoned her feeding long enough to nuzzle her

rider's arm affectionately.

"Patient one, we shall do better by you, and soon,"

Tarma pledged her. She left the mare to her graz-

ing and went to check on Kethry's mule. That sturdy

beast was capable of getting nourishment from much

coarser material than Kessira, so Tarma had left

him tethered amid a thicket of sweetbark bushes.

He had stripped all within reach of last year's

growth, and was straining against his halter with

his tongue stretched out as far as it would reach for

a tasty morsel just out of his range.

"Greedy pig," she said with a chuckle, and moved

him again, giving him a bit more rope this time,

and leaving his own share of grain and foraged

weeds within reach. Like all his kind he was a

clever beast; smarter than any horse save one

Shin'a'in-bred. It was safe enough to give him plenty

of lead; if he tangled himself he'd untangle himself

just as readily. Nor would he eat to foundering, not

that there was enough browse here to do that. A

good, sturdy, gentle animal, and even-tempered, well

suited to an inexperienced rider like Kethry. She'd

been lucky to find him.

His tearing at the branches shook snow down on

her; with a shiver she brushed it off as her thoughts

turned back to the past. No, she would never have

guessed at the changes wrought in her life-path by

that Oath and her vow of vengeance.

"Jel'enedra, you think too much. It makes you

melancholy."

She recognized the faintly hollow-sounding tenor

at the first word; it was her chief sword-teacher.

This was the first time he'd come to her since the

last bandit had fallen beneath her sword. She had

begun to wonder if her teachers would ever come

back again.

All of them were unforgiving of mistakes, and

quick to chastise—this one more than all the rest

put together. So though he had startled her, though

she had hardly expected his appearance, she took

care not to display it.

"Ah?" she replied, turning slowly to face him.

Unfair that he had used his other-worldly powers

to come on her unawares, but he himself would

have been the first to tell her that life—as she well

knew—was unfair. She would not reveal that she

had not detected his presence until he spoke.

He had called her "younger sister," though, which

was an indication that he was pleased with her for

some reason. "Mostly you tell me I don't think

enough."

Standing in a clear spot amid the bushes was a

man, garbed in fighter's gear of deepest black, and

veiled. The ice-blue eyes, the sable hair, and the

cut of his close-wrapped clothing would have told

most folk that he was, like Tarma, Shin'a'in. The

color of the clothing would have told the more

knowledgeable—since most Shin'a'in preferred a car-

nival brightness in their garments—that he, too,

was Sword Sworn; Sword Sworn by custom wore

only stark black or dark brown. But only one very

sharp-eyed would have noticed that while he stood

amid the snow, he made no imprint upon it. It

seemed that he weighed hardly more than a shadow.

That was scarcely surprising since he had died

long before Tarma was born.

"Thinking to plan is one case; thinking to brood

is another," he replied. "You accomplish nothing

but to increase your sadness. You should be devis-

ing a means of filling your bellies and those of your

jel'suthro'edrin. You cannot reach the Plains if you

do not eat."

He had used the Shin'a'in term for riding beasts

that meant "forever-younger-Clanschildren." Tarma

was dead certain he had picked that term with

utmost precision, to impress upon her that the wel-

fare of Kessira and Kethry's mule Rodi were as

important as her own—more so, since they could

not fend for themselves in this inhospitable place.

"With all respect, teacher, I am ... at a loss.

Once I had a purpose. Now?" She shook her head.

"Now I am certain of nothing. As you once told

me—"

"Li'sa'eer! Turn my own words against me, will

you?" he chided gently. "And have you nothing?"

"My she'enedra. But she is outClan, and strange

to me, for all that the Goddess blessed our oath-

binding with Her own fire. I know her but little.

I—only—"

"What, bright blade?"

"I wish—I wish to go home—" The longing she

felt rose in her throat and made it hard to speak.

"And so? What is there to hinder you?"

"There is," she replied, willing her eyes to stop

stinging, "the matter of money. Ours is nearly gone.

It is a long way to the Plains."

"So? Are you not now of the mercenary calling?"

"Well, unless there be some need for blades

hereabouts—the which I have seen no evidence for,

the only way to reprovision ourselves will be if my

she'enedra can turn her skill in magic to an honor-

able profit. For though I have masters of the best,"

she bowed her head in the little nod of homage a

Shin'a'in gave to a respected elder, "sent by the

Star-Eyed herself, what measure of attainment I

have acquired matters not if there is no market for

it."

"Hai'she'li! You should market that silver tongue,

jel'enedra!" he laughed. "Well, and well. Three things

I have come to tell you, which is why I arrive

out-of-time and not at moonrise. First, that there

will be storm tonight, and you should all shelter,

mounts and riders together. Second, that because of

the storm, we shall not teach you this night, though

you may expect our coming from this day on, every

night that you are not within walls."

He turned as if to leave, and she called out, "And

third?"

"Third?" he replied, looking back at her over his

shoulder. "Third—is that everyone has a past. Ere

you brood over your own, consider another's."

Before she had a chance to respond, he vanished,

melting into the wind.

Wrinkling her nose over that last, cryptic re-

mark, she went to find her she'enedra and partner.

Kethry was hovering over a tiny, nearly smoke-

less fire, skinning a pair of rabbits. Tarma almost

smiled at the frown of concentration she wore; she

was going at the task as if she were being rated on

the results! They were a study in contrasts, she

and her outClan blood-sister. Kethry was sweet-

faced and curvaceous, with masses of curling am-

ber hair and startling green eyes; she would have

looked far more at home in someone's court circle

as a pampered palace mage than she did here, at

their primitive hearth. Or even more to the point,

she would not have looked out of place as someone's

spoiled, indulged wife or concubine; she really

looked nothing at all like any mage Tarma had ever

seen. Tarma, on the other hand, with her hawklike

face, forbidding ice-blue eyes and nearly sexless

body, was hardly the sort of person one would ex-

pect a mage or woman like Kethry to choose as a

partner, much less as a friend. As a hireling,

perhaps—in which case it should have been Tarma

skinning the rabbits, for she looked to have been

specifically designed to endure hardship.

Oddly enough, it was Kethry who had taken to

this trip as if she were the born nomad, and Tarma

who was the one suffering the most from their

circumstances, although that was mainly due to the

unfamiliar weather.

Well, if she had not foreseen that becoming

Kal'enedral meant suddenly acquiring a bevy of

long-dead instructors, this partnership had come as

even more of a surprise. The more so as Tarma had

really not expected to survive the initial confronta-

tion with those who had destroyed her Clan.

"Do not reject aid unlooked-for," her instructor

had said the night before she set foot in the ban-

dit's town. And unlooked-for aid had materialized,

in the form of this unlikely sorceress. Kethry, too,

had her interests in seeing the murderers brought

low, so they had teamed together for the purpose of

doing just that. Together they had accomplished

what neither could have done alone—they had ut-

terly destroyed the brigands to the last man.

And so Tarma had lost her purpose. Now—now

there was only the driving need to get back to the

Plains; to return before the Tale'sedrin were deemed

a dead Clan. Farther than that she could not, would

not think or plan.

Kethry must have sensed Tarma's brooding eyes

on her, for she looked up and beckoned with her

skinning knife.

"Fairly good hunting," Tarma hunched as close

the fire as she could, wishing they dared build

something larger.

"Yes and no. I had to use magic to attract them,

poor things." Kethry shook her head regretfully as

she bundled the offal in the skins and buried the

remains in the snow to freeze hard. Once frozen,

she'd dispose of them away from the camp, to avoid

attracting scavengers. "I felt so guilty, but what

else was I to do? We ate the last of the bread

yesterday, and I didn't want to chance on the hunt-

ing luck of just one of us."

"You do what you have to, Keth. Well, we're able

to live off the land, but Kessira and Rodi can't,"

Tarma replied. "Our grain is almost gone, and we've

still a long way to go to get to the Plains. Keth, we

need money."

"I know."

"And you're the one of us best suited to earning

it. This land is too peaceful for the likes of me to

find a job—except for something involving at least

a one-year contract, and that's something we can't

afford to take the time for. I need to get back to the

Plains as soon as I can if I'm to raise Tale'sedrin's

banner again."

"I know that, too." Kethry's eyes had become

shadowed, the lines around her mouth showed strain.

"And I know that the only city close enough to

serve us is Mornedealth."

And there was no doubt in Tarma's mind that

Kethry would rather have died than set foot in that

city, though she hadn't the vaguest notion why.

Well, this didn't look to be the proper moment to

ask—

"Storm coming; a bad one," she said, changing

the subject. "I'll let the hooved ones forage for as

long as I dare, but by sunset I'll have to bring them

into camp. Our best bet is going to be to shelter all

together because I don't think a fire is going to

survive the blow."

"I wish I knew where you get your information,"

Kethry replied, frown smoothing into a wry half-

smile. "You certainly have me beat at weather-

witching."

"Call it Shin'a'in intuition," Tarma shrugged,

wishing she knew whether it was permitted to an

outland she'enedra—who was a magician to boot—to

know of the veiled ones. Would they object? Tarma

had no notion, and wasn't prepared to risk it. "Think

you can get our dinner cooked before the storm gets

here?"

"I may be able to do better than that, if I can

remember the spells." The mage disjointed the rab-

bits, and spitted the carcasses on twigs over the

fire. She stripped off her leather gloves, flexed her

bare fingers, then held her hands over the tiny fire

and began whispering under her breath. Her eyes

were half-slitted with concentration and there was

a faint line between her eyebrows. As Tarma

watched, fascinated, the fire and their dinner were

enclosed in a transparent shell of glowing gold mist.

"Very pretty; what's it good for?" Tarma asked

when she took her hands away.

"Well, for one thing, I've cut off the wind; for

another, the shield is concentrating the heat and

the meat will cook faster now."

"And what's it costing you?" Tarma had been in

Kethry's company long enough now to know that

magic always had a price. And in Kethry's case,

that price was usually taken out of the resources of

the spell-caster.

Kethry smiled at her accusing tone. "Nowhere

near so much as you might think; this clearing has

been used for overnighting a great deal, and a good

many of those camping here have celebrated in one

way or another. There's lots of residual energy here,

energy only another mage could tap. Mages don't

take the Trade Road often, they take the Courier's

Road when they have to travel at all."

"So?"

"So there's more than enough energy here not

only to cook dinner but to give us a little more

protection from the weather than our bit of canvas."

Tarma nodded, momentarily satisfied that her

blood-sister wasn't exhausting herself just so they

could eat a little sooner. "Well, while I was scroung-

ing for the hooved ones, I found a bit for us, too—"

She began pulling cattail roots, mallow-pith, a

few nuts, and other edibles from the outer pockets

of her coat. "Not a lot there, but enough to supple-

ment dinner, and make a bit of breakfast besides."

"Bless you! These bunnies were a bit young and

small, and rather on the lean side—should this stuff

be cooked?"

"They're better raw, actually."

"Good enough; want to help with the shelter,

since we're expecting a blow?"

"Only if you tell me what to do. I've got no

notion of what these winter storms of yours are

like."

Kethry had already stretched their canvas tent

across the top and open side of the enclosure of

rocks and logs, stuffed brush and moss into the

chinks on the inside, packed snow into the chinks

from the outside, and layered the floor with pine

boughs to keep their own bodies off the snow. Tarma

helped her lash the canvas down tighter, then

weighted all the loose edges with packed-down snow

and what rocks they could find.

As they worked, the promised storm began to

give warning of its approach. The wind picked up

noticeably, and the northern horizon began to darken.

Tarma cast a wary eye at the darkening clouds. "I

hope you're done cooking because it doesn't look

like we have too much time left to get under cover."

"I think it's cooked through."

"And if not, it won't be the first time we've eaten

raw meat on this trip. I'd better get the grazers."

Tarma got the beasts one at a time; first the

mule, then her mare. She backed them right inside

the shelter, coaxing them to lie down inside, one on

either side of it, with their heads to the door-flap

just in case something should panic them. With the

two humans in the space in the middle, they should

all stay as close to warm as was possible. Once

again she breathed a little prayer of thankfulness

for the quality of mule she'd been able to find for

Kethry; with a balky beast or anything other than

another Shin'a'in-bred horse this arrangement would

have been impossible.

Kethry followed, grilled rabbit bundled into a

piece of leather. The rich odor made Tarma's mouth

water and reminded her that she hadn't eaten since

this morning. While Kethry wormed her way in

past her partner, Tarma lashed the door closed.

"Hold this, and find a comfortable spot," the

mage told her. While Tarma snuggled up against

Kessira's shoulder, Kethry knelt in the space re-

maining. She held her hands just at chin height,

palms facing outward, her eyes completely closed

and her face utterly vacant. By this Tarma knew

she was attempting a much more difficult bit of

magery than she had with their dinner.

She began an odd, singsong chant, swaying a lit-

tle in time to it. Tarma began to see a thin streak of

weak yellow light, like a watered-down sunbeam,

dancing before her. In fact, that was what she prob-

ably would have taken it for—except that the sun

was nearly down, not overhead.

As Kethry chanted, the light-beam increased in

strength and brightness. Then, at a sharp word

from her, it split into six. The six beams remained

where the one had been for a moment, perhaps a

little longer. Kethry began chanting again, a differ-

ent rhythm this time, and the six beams leapt to

the walls of their shelter, taking up positions spaced

equally apart.

When they moved so suddenly, Tarma had nearly

jumped out of her skin—especially since one of

them had actually passed through her. But when

she could feel no strangeness—and certainly no harm

from the encounter—she relaxed again. The ani-

mals appeared to be ignoring the things, whatever

they were.

Now little tendrils of light were spinning out

from each of the beams, reaching out until they met

in a kind of latticework. When this had spread to

the canvas overhead, Tarma began to notice that

the wind, which had been howling and tugging at

the canvas, had been cut off, and that the shelter

was noticeably warmer as a result.

Kethry sagged then, and allowed herself to half-

collapse against Rodi's bulk.

"Took less than I might think, hmm?"

"Any more comments like that and I'll make you

stay outside."

"First you'd have to fight Kessira. Have some

dinner." Tarma passed her half the rabbit; it was

still warm and amazingly juicy and both of them

wolfed down their portions with good appetite, nib-

bling the bones clean, then cracking them and suck-

ing out the last bit of marrow. With the bones

licked bare, they finished with the roots of Tarma's

gleaning, though more than half of Tarma's share

went surreptitiously to Kessira.

When they had finished, the sun was gone and

the storm building to full force. Tarma peeked out

the curtain of tent-canvas at the front of the shel-

ter; the fire was already smothered. Tarma noticed

then that the light-web gave off a faint illumina-

tion; not enough to read by, but enough to see by.

"What is—all this?" she asked, waving a hand at

the light-lattice. "Where'd it come from?"

"It's a variation of the fire-shield I raised; it's

magical energy manifesting itself in a physical fash-

ion. Part of that energy came from me, part of it

was here already and I just reshaped it. In essence,

I told it I thought it was a wall, and it believed me.

So now we have a 'wall' between us and the storm."

"Uh, right. You told that glowing thing you

thought it was a wall, and it believed you—"

Kethry managed a tired giggle at her partner's

expression. "That's why the most important tool a

magician has is his will; it has to be strong in order

to convince energy to be something else."

"Is that how you sorcerers work?"

"All sorcerers, or White Winds sorcerers?"

"There's more than one kind?"

"Where'd you think magicians came from any-

way? Left in the reeds for their patrons to find?"

Kethry giggled again.

"No, but the only 'magicians' the Clans have are

the shamans, and they don't do magic, much. Heal-

ing, acting as advisors, keepers of outClan know-

ledge—that's mostly what they do. When we need

magic, we ask Her for it."

"And She answers?" Kethry's eyes widened in

fascination.

"Unless She has a damn good reason not to. She's

very close to us—closer than most deities are to

their people, from what I've been able to judge. But

that may be because we don't ask Her for much, or

very often. There's a story—" Tarma half smiled.

"—there was a hunter who'd been very lucky and

had come to depend on that luck. When his luck

left him, his skills had gotten very rusty, and he

couldn't manage to make a kill. Finally he went to

the shaman, and asked him if he thought She would

listen to a plea for help. The shaman looked him up

and down, and finally said, 'You're not dead yet.' "

"Which means he hadn't been trying hard enough

by himself?"

"Exactly. She is the very last resort—and you

had damned well better be careful what you ask

Her for—She'll give it to you, but in Her own way,

especially if you haven't been honest with Her or

with yourself. So mostly we don't ask." Tarma

warmed to Kethry's interest, and continued when

that interest didn't flag. This was the first chance

she'd had to explain her beliefs to Kethry; before

this, Kethry had either been otherwise occupied or

there hadn't been enough privacy. "The easiest of

Her faces to deal with are the Maiden and the

Mother, they're gentler, more forgiving; the hard-

est are the Warrior and the Crone. Maiden and

Mother don't take Oathbound to themselves, War-

rior and Crone do. Crone's Oathbound—no, I won't

tell you—you guess what they do."

"Uh," Kethry's brow furrowed in thought, and

she nibbled a hangnail. "Shamans?"

"Right! And Healers and the two Elders in each

Clan, who may or may not also be Healers or sha-

mans. Those the Crone Binds are Bound, like the

Kal'enedral, to the Clans as a whole, serving with

their minds and talents instead of their hands.

Now—you were saying about magicians?" She was

as curious to know about Kethry's teaching as Keth

seemed to be about her own.

"There's more than one school; mine is White

Winds. Um, let me go to the very basics. Magic has

three sources. The first is power from within the

sorcerer himself, and you have to have the Talent

to use that source—and even then it isn't fully

trained by anyone I know of. I've heard that up

north a good ways they use pure mind-magic, rather

than using the mind to find other sources of power."

"That would be—Valdemar, no?"

"Yes!" Kethry looked surprised at Tarma's knowl-

edge. "Well, the second is power created by living

things, rather like a fire creates light just by being

a fire. You have to have the Talent to sense that

power, but not to use it so long as you know it's

there. Death releases a lot of that energy in one

burst; that's why an unTalented sorcerer can turn

to dark wizardry; he knows the power will be there

when he kills something. The third source is from

creatures that live in places that aren't this world,

but touch this world—like pages in a book. Page one

isn't page two, but they touch all along each other.

Other Planes, we call them. There's one for each

element, one for what we call 'demons,' and one

for very powerful creatures that aren't quite gods,

but do seem kindly inclined to humans. There may

be more, but that's all anyone has ever discovered

that I know of. The creatures of the four Elemental

Planes can be bargained with—you can build up

credit with them by doing them little favors, or you

can promise them something they want from this

Plane."

"Was that what I saw fighting beside you when

you took out that wizard back in Brether's Cross-

roads ? Other-whatsit creatures ?"

"Exactly—and that fight is why my magic is so

limited at the moment—I used up all the credit I

had built with them in return for that help. Fortu-

nately I didn't have to go into debt to them, or we'd

probably be off trying to find snow-roses for the

Ethereal Varirs right now. There is another way of

dealing with them. You can coerce them with magi-

cal bindings or with your will. The creatures from

the Abyssal Plane can be bought with pain-energy

and death-energy—they feed off those—or coerced

if your will is strong enough, although the only way

you can 'bind' them magically is to hold them to

this Plane; you can't force them to do anything if

your own will isn't stronger than theirs. The crea-

tures of the Sixth Plane—we call it the 'Empyreal

Plane'—can't be coerced in any way, and they'll

only respond to a call if they feel like it. Any

magician can contact the Other-Planar creatures,

it's just a matter of knowing the spells that open

the boundaries between us and them. The thing

that makes schools of magic different is their eth-

ics, really. How they feel about the different kinds

of power and using them."

"So what does yours teach?" Tarma lay back

with her arms stretched along Kessira's back and

neck; she scratched gently behind the mare's ears

while Kessira nodded her head in drowsy content-

ment. This was the most she'd gotten out of Kethry

in the past six months.

"We don't coerce; not ever. We don't deal at all

with the entities of the Abyssal Planes except to

send them back—or destroy them if we can. We

don't deliberately gain use of energy by killing or

causing pain. We hold that our Talents have been

given us for a purpose; that purpose is to use them

for the greatest good. That's why we are wander-

ers, why we don't take up positions under perma-

nent patrons."

"Why you're dirt-poor and why there're so few of

you," Tarma interrupted genially.

" 'Fraid so," Kethry smiled. "No worldly sense,

that's us. But that's probably why Need picked

me."

"She'enedra, why don't you want to go to Morne-

dealth?"

"I---"

"And why haven't you ever told me about your

home and kin?" Tarma had been letting her spirit-

teacher's last remark stew in the back of her mind,

and when Kethry had begun giving her the "les-

son" in the ways of magic had realized she knew

next to nothing about her partner's antecedents.

She'd been brooding on her own sad memories, but

Kethry's avoidance of the subject of the past could

only mean that hers were as sorry. And Tarma

would be willing to bet the coin she didn't have

that the mystery was tied into Mornedealth.

Kethry's mouth had tightened with an emotion

Tarma recognized only too well. Pain.

"I'll have to know sooner or later, she'enedra. We

have no choice but to pass through Mornedealth,

and no choice but to try and raise money there, or

we'll starve. And if it's something I can do any-

thing about—well, I want doubly to know about it!

You're my Clan, and nobody hurts my Clan and

gets away with it!"

"It—it isn't anything you can deal with—"

"Let me be the judge of that, hmm?"

Kethry sighed, and visibly took herself in hand.

"I—I guess it's only fair. You know next to nothing

about me, but accepted me anyway."

"Not true," Tarma interrupted her, "She accepted

you when you oathbound yourself to me as blood-

sib. That's all I needed to know then. She wouldn't

bind two who didn't belong together."

"But circumstances change, I know, and it isn't

fair for me to keep making a big secret out of where

I come from. All right." Kethry nodded, as if mak-

ing up her mind to grasp the thorns. "The reason I

haven't told you anything is this; I'm a fugitive. I

grew up in Mornedealth; I'm a member of one of

the Fifty Noble Houses. My real name is Kethryveris

of House Pheregrul."

Tarma raised one eyebrow, but only said, "Do I

bow, or can I get by with just kissing your hand?"

Kethry almost smiled. "It's a pretty empty title

—or it was when I ran away. The House estates

had dwindled to nothing more than a decaying man-

sion in the Old City by my father's time, and the

House prerequisites to little more than an invita-

tion to all Court functions—which we generally

declined graciously—and permission to hunt the

Royal Forests—which kept us fed most of the year.

Father married mother for love, and it was a disas-

ter. Her family disowned her, she became ill and

wouldn't tell him. It was one of those long declin-

ing things, she just faded bit by bit, so gradually

that he, being absent-minded at best, really didn't

notice. She died three years after I was born. That

left just the three of us."

"Three?"

Kethry hadn't ever mentioned any sibs before.

"Father, my brother Kavin—that's Kavinestral—

and me. Kavin was eight years older than me, and

from what everyone said, the very image of Father

in his youth. Handsome—the word just isn't ade-

quate to describe Kavin. He looks like a god."

"And you worshiped him." Tarma had no trouble

reading that between the lines.

It wasn't just the dim light that was making

Kethry look pale. "How could I not? Father died

when I was ten, and Kavin was all I had left, and

when he exerted himself he could charm the moss

off the wall. We were fine until Father died; he'd

had some income or other that kept the house going,

well, that dried up when he was gone. That left

Kavin and me with no income and nowhere to go

but a falling-down monstrosity that we couldn't

even sell, because it's against the law for the Fifty

Families to sell the ancestral homes. We let the few

servants we had go—all but one, my old nurse Tildy.

She wouldn't leave me. So Tildy and I struggled to

run the household and keep us all clothed and fed.

Kavin hunted the Royal Forests when he got hun-

gry enough, and spent the rest of his time being

Kavin. Which, to me, meant being perfection."

"Until you got fed up and ran away?" Tarma

hazarded, when Kethry's silence had gone too long.

She knew it it wasn't the right answer, but she

hoped it would prod Kethry back into speaking.

"Hardly." Kethry's eyes and mouth were bitter.

"He had me neatly twined 'round his finger. No,

things went on like that until I was twelve, and

just barely pubescent. Two things happened then

that I had no knowledge of. The first was that

Kavin himself became fed up with life on the edge,

and looked around for something to make him a lot

of money quickly. The second was that on one of

his dips in the stews with his friends, he acciden-

tally encountered the richest banker in Mornedealth

and found out exactly what his secret vice was.

Kavin may have been lazy, but he wasn't stupid.

He was fully able to put facts together. He also

knew that Wethes Goldmarchant, like all the other

New Money moguls, wanted the one thing that all

his money couldn't buy him—he wanted inside the

Fifty Families. He wanted those Court invitations

we declined; wanted them so badly it made him

ache. And he'd never get them—not unless he some-

how saved the realm single-handedly, which wasn't

bloody likely."

Kethry's hands were clenched tightly in her lap,

she stared at them as if they were the most fasci-

nating things in the universe. "I knew nothing of

all this, of course, mewed up in the house all day

and daydreaming about finding a hidden cache of

gold and gems and being able to pour them in Kavin's

lap and make him smile at me. Then one day he did

smile at me; he told me he had a surprise for me. I

went with him, trusting as a lamb. Next thing I

knew, he was handing me over to Wethes; the mar-

riage ceremony had already taken place by proxy.

You see, Wethes' secret vice was little girls—and

with me, he got both his ambition and his lust

satisfied. It was a bargain too good for either of

them to resist—"

Kethry's voice broke in something like a sob;

Tarma leaned forward and put one hard, long hand

on the pair clenched white-knuckled in her part-

ner's lap.

"So your brother sold you, hmm? Well, give him a

little credit, she'enedra; he might have thought he

was doing you a favor. The merchant would give

you every luxury, after all; you'd be a valued and

precious possession."

"I'd like to believe that, but I can't. Kavin saw

some of those little girls Wethes was in the habit of

despoiling. He knew what he was selling me into,

and he didn't care, he plainly did not care. The

only difference between them and me was that the

chains and manacles he used on me were solid gold,

and I was raped on silk sheets instead of linen. And

it was rape, nothing else! I wanted to die; I prayed

I would die. I didn't understand anything of what

had happened to me. I only knew that the brother I

worshiped had betrayed me." Her voice wavered a

moment, and faded against the howl of the storm-

winds outside their shelter. Tarma had to strain to

hear her.

Then she seemed to recover, and her voice streng-

thened again. "But although I had been betrayed, I

hadn't been forgotten. My old nurse managed to

sneak her way into the house on the strength of the

fact that she was my nurse; nobody thought to deny

her entry. When Wethes was finished with me, she

waited until he had left and went inquiring for me.

When she found me, she freed me and smuggled

me out."

Kethry finally brought her eyes up to meet her

partner's; there was pain there, but also a hint of

ironic humor. "You'd probably like her; she also

stole every bit of gold and jewelry she found with

me and carried them off, too."

"A practical woman; you're right, I think I would

like her. I take it she had somewhere to hide you?"

"Her brother's farm—it's east of here. Well, I

wasn't exactly in my right mind for a while, but

she managed to help with that for a bit. But then—

then I started having nightmares, and when I did,

every movable thing in my room would go flying

about. Mind you, I never broke anything—"

"Since I gather this was a 'flying about' without

benefit of hands, I would think it would be rather

unnerving."

"Tildy knew she hadn't any way of coping with

me then, so she took me to the nearest mage-school

she knew, which was White Winds. It only took one

nightmare to convince them that I needed help—

and that I was going to be a pretty good mage after I

got that help. That's where I got Need."

Kethry's hands unclenched, and one of them

strayed to the hilt of a plain short-sword wedged in

among the supplies tucked into the shelter.

"Now that's another tale you never told me."

"Not for any reason, just because there isn't much

to tell. We had a guard there, an old mercenary

who'd been hired on to give us a bit of protection,

and to give her a kind of semi-retirement. Baryl

Longarm was her name. When I was ready to take

the roads, she called me into her rooms."

"That must have had you puzzled."

"Since she didn't have a reputation for chasing

other females, it certainly did. Thank goodness she

didn't leave me wondering for long. 'You're the

first wench we've had going out for a dog's age,' she

said, 'and there's something I want you to have. It's

time it went out again, anyway, and you'll probably

have to use it before you're gone a month.' She took

down this sword from the wall, unsheathed it, and

laid it in my hands. And the runes appeared on the

blade."

"I remember when you showed me. 'Woman's

Need calls me, as Woman's Need made me. Her

Need I will answer as my maker bade me.' " Tarma

glanced at Kethry's hand on the hilt. "Gave me a

fair turn, I can tell you. I always thought magic

blades were gold-hiked and jewel-bedecked."

"Then she told me what little she knew—that

the sword's name was Need, that she was in-

destructible so far as Baryl had been able to tell.

That she only served women. And that her service

was such that she only gave what you yourself did

not already have. That to her, a fighter, Need gave

a virtual immunity to all magic, but didn't add so

much as a fillip to her fighting skills—but that for

me, a mage, if I let it take control when it needed

to, it would make me a master swordswoman, though

it wouldn't make the least difference to any spell I

cast. And that it would help Heal anything short of

a death-wound."

"Rather like one of Her gifts, you know?" Tarma

interrupted. "Makes you do your utmost, to the

best of your abilities, but bails you out when you're

out of your depth."

"I never thought about it that way, but you're

right. Is there any way Need could be Shin'a'in?"

"Huh-uh. We've few metal-workers, and none of

them mages—and we don't go in for short-swords,

anyway. Now, what's the problem with you going

back to Mornedealth? Changing the subject isn't

going to change my wanting to know."

"Well, you can't blame me for trying—she'enedra,

I have angered a very powerful man, my husband—"

"Crap! He's no more your husband than I am, no

matter what charade he went through."

"—and a very ruthless one, my brother. I don't

know what either of them would do if they learned

I was within their reach again." Kethry shuddered,

and Tarma reached forward and clasped both her

hands in her own.

"I have only one question, my sister and my

friend," she said, so earnestly that Kethry came out

of her own fear and looked deeply into the shad-

owed eyes that met hers. "And that is this; which

way do you want them sliced—lengthwise, or

widthwise?"

"Tarma!" The sober question struck Kethry as so

absurd that she actually began laughing weakly.

"In all seriousness, I much doubt that either of

them is going to recognize you; think about it, you're

a woman grown now, not a half-starved child. But

if they do, that's what I'm here for. If they try

anything, I'll ask you that question again, and you'd

best have a quick answer for me. Now, are you

satisfied?"

"You are insane!"

"I am Shin'a'in; some say there is little differ-

ence. I am also Kal'enedral, and most say there is

no difference. So believe me; no one is going to

touch you with impunity. I am just crazed enough

to cut the city apart in revenge."

"And this is supposed to make me feel better?"

"You're smiling, aren't you?"

"Well," Kethry admitted reluctantly, "I guess I

am."

"When a child of the Clans falls off her horse, we

make her get right back on again. She'enedra, don't

you think it's time you remounted this one?"

"I--"

 "Or do you prefer to live your life with them

dictating that you shall not return to your own

city?"

Her chin came up; a stubborn and angry light

smoldered in her eyes. "No."

"Then we face this city of yours and we face it to-

gether. For now, make a mattress of Rodi, she'enedra;

and sleep peacefully. I intend to do the same. To-

morrow we go to Mornedealth and make it deal

with us on our terms. Hai?"

Kethry nodded, convinced almost against her will,

and beginning to view the inevitable encounter with

something a little more like confidence.

"Hai," she agreed.

Two

Kethry envied her partner's ability to drop

immediately into sleep under almost any cir-

cumstances. Her own thoughts were enough to keep

her wakeful; add to them the snoring of her mule

and the wailing of the wind outside their shelter,

and Kethry had a foolproof recipe for insomnia.

She wanted to avoid Mornedealth no matter what

the cost. Just the thought that she might encounter

Wethes was enough to make her shudder almost

uncontrollably. In no way was she prepared to deal

with him, and she wondered now if she would ever

be....

And yet, Tarma was right. She would never truly

be "free" unless she dealt with her fear. She would

never truly be her own woman if she allowed fear

and old memories to dictate where she would or

would not go.

The disciplines of the Order of White Winds

mandated self-knowledge and self-mastery. She had

deceived herself into thinking she had achieved

that mastery of self; Tarma had just shown her

how wrong she was.

It's been seven years, she thought bitterly. Seven

long years—and those bastards still have power over

me. And I'll never be an adept until I break that power.

For that, after all, was the heart of the White

Winds discipline; that no negative tie be permitted

to bind the sorcerer in any way. Positive ties—like

the oath of she'enedran she had sworn with Tarma,

like the bond of lover to lover or parent to child—

were encouraged to flourish, for the sorcerer could

draw confidence and strength from them. But the

negative bonds of fear, hatred, or greed must be

rooted out and destroyed, for they would actually

drain the magician of needed energy.

Sometimes Tarma can be so surprising, see things so

clearly. And yet she has such peculiar blind spots. Or

does she? Does she realize that she's driving us both to

the Plains as if she was geas-bound? She's like a

messenger-bird, unable to travel in any direction but

the one appointed.

Kethry hadn't much cared where she wandered;

this was her time of journey, she wouldn't settle in

any one place until she reached the proficiency of

an Adept. Then she would either found a school of

her own, or find a place in an established White

Winds enclave. So Tarma's overwhelming need to

return home had suited her as well as anything

else.

Until she had realized that the road they were on

led directly to Mornedealth.

It all comes back to that, doesn't it? And until I face

it, I'm stalemated. Dammit, Tarma's right. I'm a full

sorceress, I'm a full adult, and I have one damned fine

swordswoman for a partner. What in Teslat's name am

I afraid of? There is nothing under the law that they

can really do to me—I've been separated from Wethes

for seven years, and three is enough to unmake the

marriage, assuming there really was one. I'm not going

in under my full name, and I've changed so much. How

are they even going to recognize me?

Across the shelter Tarma stirred, and curled her-

self into a tighter ball. Kethry smiled and shook her

head, thinking about her partner's words on the

subject.

"Do you want them sliced lengthwise or widthwise"

—Windborn, she is such a bundle of contradictions.

We have got to start talking; we hardly know anything

about one another. Up until now, we've had our hands

full of bandit-extermination, then there just wasn't the

privacy. But if I'd had all the world to choose a sister

from, I would have picked her over any other. Goddess-

oath and all, I would have chosen her. Though that

Warrior of hers certainly took the decision right out of

our hands.

Kethry contemplated the sleeping face of her part-

ner. In repose she lost a great deal of the cold

harshness her expression carried when she was

awake. She looked, in fact, a great deal younger

than Kethry was.

When she sleeps, she's the child she was before she

lost her Clan. When she's awake—I'm not sure what

she is. She eats, drinks and breathes the Warrior, that's

for certain, yet she hasn't made any move to convert

me. I know it would please her if I did, and it wouldn't

be any great change to do so; her Goddess just seems to

me to be one more face of the Windborn Soulshaper.

She seems like any other mercenary hire-sword—insisting

on simple solutions to complicated problems, mostly

involving the application of steel to offending party.

Then she turns around and hits me with a sophisticated

proverb, or some really esoteric knowledge—like know-

ing that mind-magic is used in Valdemar. And she's

hiding something from me; something to do with that

Goddess of hers, I think. And not because she doesn't

trust me . . . maybe because I don't share her faith. Her

people—nobody really knows too much about the

Shin'a'in; they keep pretty much to themselves. Of

course that shouldn't be too surprising; anyone who

knew the Dhorisha Plains the way they do could dive

into the grass and never be seen again, if that's what he

wanted to do. You could hide the armies of a dozen

nations out there, and they'd likely never run into each

other. Assuming the Shin'a'in would let them past the

Border. 1 suspect if Tale'sedrin had been on the Plains

instead of camped on the road to the Great Horse Fair

the bandits would be dead and the Hawk's Children

still riding. And I would be out a sister.

Kethry shook her head. Well, what happened, hap-

pened. Now I have to think about riding into Morne-

dealth tomorrow. Under a glamour?

She considered the notion for a moment, then

discarded it. No. I'll go in wearing my own face,

dammit! Besides, the first sorcerer who sees I'm wear-

ing a glamour is likely to want to know why—and

likely to try to find out. If I'm luckly, he'll come to us

with his hand out. If I'm not, he'll go to Wethes or

Kavin. No, a glamour would only cause trouble, not

avoid it. I think Tarma's right; we'll go in as a merce-

nary team, no more, no less, and under her Clanname.

We'll stay quiet, draw no attention to ourselves, and

maybe avoid trouble altogether. The more complicated

a plan is, the more likely it is to go wrong. . . .

Kethry began formulating some simple story for

her putative background, but the very act of having

faced and made the decision to go in had freed her

of the tension that was keeping her sleepless. She

had hardly begun, when her weariness claimed her.

The blizzard cleared by morning. Dawn brought

cloudless skies, brilliant sun, and still, cold air that

made everything look sharp-edged and brightly-

painted. They cleared camp and rode off into a

world that seemed completely new-made.

Tarma was taken totally by surprise by the change-

ling forest; she forgot her homesickness, forgot her

worry over Kethry, even temporarily forgot how

cold she was.

Birdcalls echoed for miles through the forest, as

did the steady, muffled clop of their mounts' hooves.

The storm had brought a fine, powder like snow,

snow that frosted every branch and coated the un-

derbrush, so that the whole forest reflected the

sunlight and glowed so that they were surrounded

by a haze of pearly light. Best of all, at least to

Tarma's mind, the soft snow was easy for the beasts

to move through, so they made good time. Just past

midafternoon, glimpses of the buildings and walls

of Mornedealth could be seen above and through

the trees.

It was a city made of the wood that was its staple

in trade; weathered, silver-gray wooden palisades,

wooden walls, wooden buildings; only the founda-

tions of a building were ever made of stone. The

outer wall that encircled it was a monument to

man's ingenuity and Mornedealth's woodworkers;

it was two stories tall, and as strong as any corres-

ponding wall of stone. Granted, it would never

survive being set afire, as would inevitably happen

in a siege, but the wall had never been built with

sieges in mind. It was intended to keep the beasts

of the forest out of the city when the hardships of

winter made their fear of man less than their hun-

ger, and to keep the comings and goings of strang-

ers limited to specific checkpoints. If an enemy

penetrated this realm so far as to threaten Morne-

dealth, all was lost anyway, and there would be

nothing for it but surrender.

Since the only city Tarma had ever spent any

length of time in was Brether's Crossroads—less

than half the size of Mornedealth—the Shin'a'in

confessed to Kethry that she was suitably impressed

by it long before they ever entered the gates.

"But you spent more than a year hunting down

Gregoth and his band. Surely you—"

"Don't remember much of that, she'enedra. It was

a bit like being in a drug haze. I only really came

awake when I was tr—" she suddenly recalled that

Kethry knew nothing of her faceless trainers and

what they were, and decided that discretion was in

order. "When I had to. To question someone, or to

read a trail. The rest of the time, I might just as

well not have been there, and I surely wasn't in any

kind of mood for seeing sights."

"No—you wouldn't be. I'm sorry; I wasn't think-

ing at all."

"Nothing to apologize for. Just tell me what I'm

getting into here. You're the native; where are we

going?"

Kethry reined in, a startled look on her face.

"I—I've spent so much time thinking about Kavin

and Wethes . . ."

"Li'sa'eer!" Tarma exclaimed in exasperation, pull-

ing Kessira up beside her. "Well, think about it

now, dammit!" She kneed her mare slightly; Kessira

obeyed the subtle signal and shouldered Rodi to

one side until both of the beasts had gotten off onto

the shoulder of the road, out of the way of traffic.

There wasn't anybody in sight, but Tarma had had

yuthi'so'coro—road-courtesy—hammered into her

from the time she was old enough to sit a horse

unaided. No Shin'a'in omitted road-courtesy while

journeying, not even when among deadly enemies.

And road-courtesy dictated that if you were going

to sit and chat, you didn't block the progress of

others while you were doing it.

"We'll have to use the Stranger's Gate," Kethry

said after long thought, staring at the point where

the walls of Mornedealth began paralleling the road.

"That's no hardship, it's right on the Trade Road.

But we'll have to register with the Gate Guard,

give him our names, where we're from, where we're

going, and our business here."

"Warrior's Oath! What do they want, to write a

book about us?" Tarma replied with impatience.

"Look, this is as much for our sakes as theirs.

Would you want total strangers loose in your Clan

territory?"

"Sa-hai. You're right. Not that strangers ever get

past the Border, but you're right."

"The trouble is, I daren't tell them what I really

am, but I don't want to get caught in a complicated

falsehood."

"Now that's no problem," Tarma nodded. "We

just tell him a careful mixture of the truth with

enough lie in it to keep your enemies off the track.

Then?"

"There are specific inns for travelers; we'll have

to use one of them. They won't ask us to pay straight

off, we'll have three days to find work and get our

reckoning taken care of. After that, they confiscate

everything we own except what we're wearing."

Tarma snorted a little with contempt, which ob-

viously surprised Kethry.

"I thought you'd throw a fit over the notion of

someone taking Kessira."

"I'd rather like to see them try. You've never

seen her with a stranger. She's not a battle-steed,

but nobody lays a finger on her without my permis-

sion. Let a stranger put one hand on her rein and

he'll come away with a bloody stump. And while

he's opening his mouth to yell about it, she'll be off

down the street, headed for the nearest gate. If I

were hurt and gave her the command to run for it,

she'd carry me to the closest exit she could remem-

ber without any direction from me. And if she

couldn't find one, she might well make one. No, I've

no fear of anyone confiscating her. One touch, and

they wouldn't want her. Besides, I have something I

can leave in pledge—I'd rather not lose it, but it's

better than causing a scene."

Tarma took off her leather glove, reached into

the bottom of her saddlebag and felt for a knobby,

silk-wrapped bundle. She brought the palm-sized

package out and unwrapped it carefully, uncover-

ing to the brilliant sunlight an amber necklace. It

was made of round beads alternating with carved

claws or teeth; it glowed on the brown silk draped

over her hand like an ornament of hardened sun-

beams.

"Osberg wore that!"

"He stole it from me. I took it back off his dead

body. It was the last thing Dharin gave me. Our

pledge-gift. I never found the knife I gave him."

Kethry said nothing; Tarma regarded the neck-

lace with a stony-cold expression that belied the

ache in her heart, then rewrapped it and stowed it

away. "As I said, I'd rather not lose it, but losing

it's better than causing a riot. Now how do we find

work?"

"We'd be safest going to a Hiring Hall. They

charge employers a fee to find people with special

talents."

"Well, that's us."

"Of course, that's money we won't see. We could

get better fees if we went out looking on our own,

but it would probably take longer."

"Hiring Hall; better the safe course."

"I agree, but they're sure to notice at the gate

that my accent is native. Would you mind doing the

talking?"

Tarma managed a quirk of the lips that approxi-

mated a half-smile. "All right, I'll do all the talking

at the gate. Look stupid and sweet, and let them

think you're my lover. Unless that could get us in

trouble."