Kasha leaned forward in her chair and shook her head in pure wonder. "You're how old?" she asked the nomad boy.
"Fourteen," Yuchai replied in nearly unaccented Trade-tongue, feeling worried. "Am I—am I learning too slowly?" He clutched his Ancas primer so hard his knuckles were white. Trade-tongue was very like the speech of Ancas, and he was making—he thought—reasonable progress in learning that language. But this business of equating sounds with marks on a page was very new to him. The idea that words could be saved, forever and ever, unchanged, had excited him so much he resented every moment not spent in learning how to decipher those marks.
"Gods above and below," Kasha laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Too slowly? Anything but that! You're learning as quickly as a very young child—and that's supposed to be impossible for a boy your age. You already speak Trade-tongue as well as I do, and you're learning Ancas as fast as I can pour it into you."
Yuchai relaxed, and sagged back into the pillows that had been piled behind him so that he could sit up. "It is that I have very little else to do except learn, gadjeia Kasha," he said. "And I—have pleasure in this learning. Besides, I certainly cannot practice the warrior arts from a bed."
Kasha snorted and made a sour face. "If I have my way you won't be practicing the 'warrior arts' at all, young man. You've too good a mind. I'd cripple you myself before I'd see you die by the hand of some stupid ox who happens to outweigh you by three times."
Yuchai felt a strange apprehension at her words. For so long he had wanted to be a great warrior like Jegrai—and yet the great warrior he admired would have been happier if he'd never touched a weapon. And now this fighting-woman who said the same thing; she was very good—he'd watched her at practice from his huge window, for besides the mountains you could look right down into the courtyard of the Sword-folk, if you stood—or in his case, sat—close to the edge. Would she do such a thing? To keep him a scholar—scholars were forbidden weapons. Was that her purpose, to see that he did not violate that law? He licked his dry lips. "That—that is similar to what Khene Jegrai tells me," he ventured. "But, forgive me, honored teacher, but Vredai needs warriors. Vredai does not need a man who is neither feeble nor crippled, yet who cannot raise a blade in his own defense—"
"Yuchai, do you really enjoy fighting?" she asked, her face gone quiet and very serious.
"I—I—the moving, like dancing, doing it well—I like that," he temporized.
"I'm not talking about that," she said, frowning. "I'm talking about fighting. Killing, trying not to be killed. Do you find that . . . attractive? Some do; acts on them like wine. Nothing sinful about that, nothing wrong, just the way some people are made."
"No—I—I haven't seen much of fighting, but—they always set me to guarding the Clan heart, the children, you know? The fighting got that far, once or twice. I—the closer it got, the sicker I got." He hung his head, admitting his shame, the weakness he had confessed to no one but Shaman Northwind. "When I closed, the moment before, you know, I almost couldn't hold my sword for wanting to throw up. But—Vredai has a Singer. They don't need another fool that can't even defend himself."
He colored as he realized that he had just slandered his own father.
"Did I say you shouldn't know how to defend yourself?" Kasha demanded. "Have you ever once heard me say anything like that? I'm no fool, Yuchai—your people are warriors by their nature. Wherever you go, there's likely to be fighting. There's no harm in knowing weaponry—every member of the Order knows bow, at least. I'm just saying you don't belong on a battlefield, except in a case of last resort."
"Everyone—in the Order—knows weaponry?" Yuchai's thoughts went whirling as if they'd been caught in a dust-demon. "But—except for those of the Sword, are you all not as Singers? Is it not forbidden among you for Singers to touch a weapon?"
Kasha's mouth twisted as she labored to disentangle that last sentence. "No, it's not forbidden!" she exclaimed when she had the sense of it. "Great good gods, we'd have been slaughtered a dozen times over if we held that rule! If a novice from one of the other chapters wants to spend his free time learning Swordways, that's his business. We've actually had one or two Masters that could have been both Sword and either Book or Tower by earned skill-level if they'd chosen to ask for the Sword badge as well as their own."
"You—have?" He felt rather as if he'd fallen on his head again.
"I take it that it's very much forbidden among your people."
"One must choose," he replied carefully. "The Singer must never touch a weapon; the Wind Lords favor the wise, but—you know that among us the wise one is almost sacred? It is a terrible thing for a man to raise his hand against a scholar; the Wind Lords will surely curse him for it. So—for a wise one to bear a weapon, to fight with a weapon—that is taking dishonorable advantage."
It didn't take his tutor long to fathom the meaning of that. "Uh-huh," Kasha said, nodding. "Yes, I see what you mean. It's like a whole man taking on one with no legs. The opponent of a scholar in a fight has a choice between being dead and being cursed."
"Exactly so," Yuchai said with a sigh.
"Well, we don't have that particular restriction, and it doesn't look like the Wind Lords have cursed us yet." Kasha settled back in her bedside chair and put her hands behind her head. "My friend, if you want to go trade bruises with me or anyone else in Sword and you happen to have landed in Tower or Book, feel free to come to us in your spare time. We're always looking for new sparring partners, and I'll wager you could show us a few things new to us. And if you don't happen to tell the Wind Lords—" she grinned "—neither will I."
Yuchai felt his breath stick somewhere in his throat. It took him a moment to get it moving again. "I may?" he asked.
"You may. But not at the moment." Kasha pulled one hand out and wagged an admonishing finger at him. "At the moment you can barely hold up that book, and it takes Zorsha to get you to the privy."
He felt a blush crawling up his face.
"So at the moment, my friend, you'd best keep your attentions on that primer."
He gladly buried his nose in the book, hoping Kasha hadn't noticed his blushing.
"So, if the world is round, like a ball, why don't we fall off of it?" the boy asked. "And if it's spinning, why aren't we flung off of it?"
Zorsha grinned. At first he'd thought this notion of Felaras's—to teach a wild nomad boy—was going to be sheer torture for both of them.
It was turning out to be sheer pleasure. The boy drank in everything Zorsha could teach as thirsty ground drank spring rains. There was such a need in him to know—sometimes Zorsha could almost see him physically beating against the walls of his limitations of language and understanding. And every day those walls crumbled a little more; one day there would be nothing to stop him.
"Because," he said, answering the question with an example, "we think, Yuchai, that when something gets big enough, it attracts smaller things to it—the way this bit of amber picks up a feather after I rub it with the silk."
Zorsha took an amber bead from the box of oddments he'd brought with him, and rubbed it vigorously with a scrap of silk cloth. He put a feather on the comforter, and brought the bead close to it. The boy watched, his eyes bright with intense fascination, as the feather leapt to cling to the bead.
The boy reached out and pulled the feather away, then let it go, and watched it return to the bead.
"We think," Zorsha said, "that the force I generated in the amber and the force that holds us on the world are similar, though not the same. We call the first 'electricity' and the second 'gravity.'"
The boy's lips moved a little as he committed the words to his memory. "But—why don't you think they're the same if they both make things stick to other things?"
Zorsha chuckled, put the feather away, and rubbed the amber again, briskly. "I'll show you—hold out your finger."
Yuchai did, and Zorsha brought the amber in close enough to the boy's fingertip that a spark leapt from the bead to the outstretched finger. The boy yelped in surprise and jerked his hand back.
"Now, since we don't keep getting stung by sparks all the time, we probably aren't being held to the world by electricity," Zorsha told him, putting the amber and silk away.
Yuchai cocked his head to one side and stared over Zorsha's shoulder, out the window at the mountains. The Hand had noticed that Yuchai always stared at the mountains when he was thinking. His brow was creased—but not in puzzlement. "That . . . spark . . . that was like a tiny piece of lightning," he said after a moment, making it a statement and not a question.
"Very like," Zorsha agreed.
"Is the spark you made the same stuff as lightning—only small?"
"We think so."
"There's always a lot of lightning in the mountains," Yuchai mused. "Could . . . lightning happen because—because clouds rub against the ground, the way you rubbed the silk on the amber?"
Zorsha felt his eyes widening in surprise. I hadn't expected that jump of reasoning! Good for him!
"That's one idea," he agreed. "There are lots of possible explanations, and that's one of them."
"But clouds are only air and water," Yuchai said, turning puzzled eyes on his teacher. "How could they rub against the ground when there's nothing there to rub with?"
"Are you sure that air is nothing?" Zorsha countered.
"Yes!—No." The boy looked back over the mountains. "No, it can't be nothing, not when I've been in winds so strong they knocked me over, and wind is just air moving the way the Wind Lords tell it to. And when the wind blows like that, in a khemaseen or a syechali, it can pick up enough sand to strip the flesh from your bones, which means that it's holding the sand up. So air is something. Is—is air like water, only very, very thin?"
"We don't know," Zorsha admitted. "We used to think that all things were made of four elements—air, water, earth, and fire. Now we know they aren't: we know that what we call 'earth' is made of a great many things. We call those things elements now, because they are 'elementary,' which means they can't be broken down into anything smaller. We think water is made of several elements, but we can't tell what they are. We don't know about fire. Or air. Or light, like from the sun. Those might be what we call 'energies,' or we might be able to break them down into other things some day—or they may be elements."
"There's a lot you don't know," Yuchai observed, with a stare that had mischief lurking at the bottom of it.
Gods above and below—if I should have a son one day, grant me one like this!
"Oh, yes," Zorsha admitted cheerfully, "there's a great deal we don't know. That just makes a great deal for someone to find out. Maybe you. Hm?"
The boy returned his gaze to the clouds moving above the mountains.
"It might be. . . ." he whispered. "It might be me. . . ."
The Khene's tent was very crowded. Of all his advisors, only the Shaman sat beside him to hear what the most senior riders of the Clan had to say about the wizards—and the truce. Jegrai wished with one half of his mind that he had the others with him.
But the more reasoning half of his mind told him that this must be dealt with—and he alone must deal with it. Else the Clan might begin to wonder who was Khene—Jegrai, or Jegrai's advisors.
So he kept his face impassive and listened with patience that was mostly feigned to the arguments and threats of his most argumentative people.
"I tell you, we have them at our mercy!" shouted a stocky, round-faced rider with a strong and authoritative voice, a voice that almost forced one to listen to it. This was the Clan Singer, Yuchai's father, Jegrai's uncle Gortan. "These fools leave their gates open to us by day or night—there are not so many of them that a war party could not steal in under the cover of the darkness and force them to give us the secret of the lightning!"
"Pah! The secret of the lightning!" spat Jegrai's half-brother Iridai, a man so like Gortan that they could have been -brothers, save that Iridai did not have Gortan's power to ensorcel with his voice. "That is only too likely a secret the Wind Lords would curse us for having! If they did not curse us for taking it by force from these wizards! I would remind you all, these folk are too like the Holy Vedani for my comfort. I would be away from them, before we lose ourselves to them! Jegrai, we have the water-pledge, we have the truce—send back the envoys, take back our people, and let us be away from here! Their land-folk are creeping out of hiding, and there can be none who could hold us less than honorable if we moved on to other pickings. The old ways are the best ways—"
"Iridai, my brother," Jegrai said softly, but with veiled menace, "the old ways would have let Yuchai die, or left him a cripple. The old ways would reduce us to thieving swords of steel instead of honorably forging our own. Is that what you want?"
Iridai gaped at him in surprise; Jegrai was quite well aware that his brother had claimed one of the first new swords with the glee of a child claiming a honeycomb.
"And uncle," he continued, turning to face Gortan before he lost his advantage, his menace no longer veiled, "would you have us break water-pledge? Would you have us less in honor than the Talchai, cursed be their name and Clan?"
Gortan shrank visibly.
"You are Clan Singer—would you record treachery such as not even Khene Sen dared in the songs of Vredai?"
"No." Gortan shook his head. "Khene, it maddens me, this waiting at their table for crumbs—and their choice of what we shall have, and what we shall not have. They treat us as children, as fools."
Jegrai chose to keep silence upon that point, for it sometimes galled him as well. And it is well that Gortan does not know this. My friend Teo knows—but can do nothing. He is at the orders of his Khene, Master Felaras. And Master Felaras does things for reasons only she knows.
Shaman Northwind spoke up at this point. "Gortan," he said pleasantly, "if you were to train a child to wield a sword, would you place your brother's sharp new steel blade in his hands?"
The Clan Singer snorted. "Of course not! I would give him a weighted practice blade of wood suited to his age, and . . . ah. I think I see where your words take you, Northwind. You are -saying that these wizards teach us things that are like to a wooden practice blade."
"I am," the old man said, his eyes twinkling. "And it is a very humbling experience for a man of my years to find himself less in knowledge than the youngest novice in their Fortress. But a child must learn to walk ere he can run—and even I, perforce, must learn with the children before I can understand some of their mysteries." He sighed heavily. "Though it chafes at me, I have not the tools of understanding to compass much of what I have seen in their place of stone. I must wait to have those tools before I can understand what they do, and not simply mimic it."
Gortan mumbled something, still plainly unhappy.
But the Shaman continued, and his voice held a power no less persuasive than the Singer's. "We must work with these wizards of the Order, Gortan. There are many, many things they wish to learn of us, as well. You all know that I have spoken with Master Felaras at great length. I think, although I do not know, that she has some distant plan, a plan that involves both our peoples—but as allies, Gortan, as equals. And equality implies that we will have the secret of the lightnings, and certainly have it before the passing of too many seasons. I advise patience; and I shall take care to follow my own advice, hard though it may be."
Grumbling, Gortan, Iridai, and the others gathered to speak with their Khene agreed—
Or seemed to.
The tent was pitched on the edge of the camp, and with the edges raised for ventilation there was no chance anyone could overhear Halun's conversation without being seen. Halun sighed, and spread his hands helplessly. "I feared that would be the way of things when you told me of this meeting," he told Gortan. "Your Khene is a young man, and the young are easily influenced by flattery and won by promises. Master Felaras can be most persuasive when she chooses."
Persuasive. Gods above and below, how she would howl to hear me describe her as "persuasive"! Bullying yes, and outright threatening, but persuasive? Ha. But this Gortan doesn't know that, and it's not likely he'll get close enough to her to find out.
"So you think that your Khene Felaras has no intention of giving us the secret of the lightning?" Gortan asked, his usually impassive face reflecting strong emotion of some kind, though Halun was unable to tell what.
"Why should she? While she holds it, you fear to leave, for you fear she may strike you with it on your leaving—and you think that she may yet give it to you if you are patient and good, like obedient children, so you wait to see if it is yet forthcoming. As for the Master, well! While she has you at the foot of her mountain, she can use your warriors as an unspoken threat, a blade at the throats of the dukes of Ancas and the princes of Yazkirn."
"Ha!" the Singer barked in obvious satisfaction. "I wondered what her purpose was!"
"And I wonder somewhat at yours, Clan Singer," Halun replied, bending closer with a wince for his tender knees. After several weeks down here, he still wasn't used to sitting cross-legged on the ground. "Why is it that you wish the lightning so very much?"
The Singer stared at him for a moment, broodingly. "It is no secret that we have enemies," he stated.
"Indeed," Halun agreed.
"We have something of a blood-debt to pay those enemies. A great blood-debt. I wish to live to see the lightning pay that debt in the space of a single battle. I wish to see the Clan of Talchai without a single warrior left whole."
Halun gazed into those cold yet passionate eyes, and shuddered. This man was not mad, or even half-mad. He was terribly, terribly sane. But so single of purpose that Halun would far rather flee to the ends of the earth than stand between him and his goal.
It would be safer.
"I cannot tell you if you will live to see that come to pass, Singer Gortan," Halun said truthfully. "But my experience of Felaras . . ."
Again, he spread his hands, thinking, And the best lie is to tell the truth.
The stocky nomad grunted. "So you have said. I thank you, scholar. By your leave, I must go to tend my duties."
Halun bowed slightly, and the Singer backed out of the tent, courteously.
When he was gone, Halun stretched himself out on his pallet with a sigh for his aching joints.
It's working, he thought with satisfaction. They're unhappy, and the longer Felaras holds out on explosives, the unhappier they'll get. I venture to say that once the boy is healed and on his feet, Singer Gortan will make his move. And that move will be a direct assault on the Fortress by the dissidents.
He contemplated the roof of the tent, slowly turning a soft rose color as the sun set.
An assault doomed to failure, of course. The Sword doesn't let anything larger than a mouse past them after dark. But . . . an attack will throw a good fright into all of them. Just maybe a good enough fright to send them running to the caves. Felaras will find herself voted out of office, and her two candidates are too young—that leaves me. That is, assuming Zetren doesn't get her first.
He laughed silently. Oh, Felaras, Felaras, you're like a hare in a field full of traps! Whichever way you step, you're going to run into one! If only you knew who your opponent was—but I have no intention of giving you that weapon. And now that I think of it, I believe it is time to give poor Zetren another little prod.
He closed his eyes, centered his will, and concentrated, and the tent, the camp-sounds, and all else faded into unimportance. There was only his will, and his wish.
I like this place. I like these people, Jegrai especially, Teo thought contentedly, as he and the Khene lounged together in Jegrai's tent, in unaccustomed idleness. It's almost like . . . like he was one of the Trinity. "You know, Jegrai, if I didn't know better, I'd swear Eriel is right," Teo chuckled, half sprawling over the saddle he was using as a prop.
"Oh? About what?"
Gods. He's got almost no accent anymore. He could walk into Targheiden in the right clothing and no one would look at him twice. "That you're one of us, reborn into a nomad body."
The Khene's brow wrinkled in perplexity. "Your pardon?"
Teo laughed outright. "That's Eriel's latest pet persuasion. That souls continue to be reborn into new bodies when the old ones die. She claims you're one of us, reborn into a nomad body, and she uses the speed at which you've picked up our tongue as proof."
"Tcha." The young man clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "But I have learned every tongue I have encountered with speed, even the Suno; and that, my friend, is a language only a nation of torturers could have devised. Which tells you all you need to know of the Suno. So, how would she explain that?"
"That you've been born into all of them at one time or another, I suppose," Teo replied, taking a hearty swig of khmass. Halun claimed even the smell of the fermented mares' milk made him want to vomit, but Teo rather liked it. He passed the skin back to the Khene, who squirted some down his own throat.
"She claims the reason I like your food and drink is that I'm a barbarian nomad reborn into a civilized hulk," Teo continued, still highly amused. "She was a little upset when I laughed at her."
"You? Who cannot even shoot from horseback?" Jegrai howled with laughter that was so infectious Teo joined him. "When even our maidens can stand upon the back of a galloping mare and hit the mark?"
"I didn't say it was logical," Teo protested, holding his sides. "I just said that was what she has for her latest pet notion."
"And I am not so quick with your written word," Jegrai pointed out with rueful chagrin, once he managed to get control of himself. "And to your folk, the written word holds equal importance with the spoken. How could I have been one of you, and still be wrestling with your children's books and making little sense of them?"
"It'll come, brother, it'll come," Teo said soothingly. "When it comes, it'll likely come all at once."
"Tcha. Yuchai already outstrips me, the Shaman tells me he begins to—"
"Yuchai is also a deal younger than you, brother, and in matters of language, the younger, the better. Trust me. Besides, he has very little to do besides lie in bed and put his mind to work. You have all of a Clan to govern."
Jegrai sighed at that, and stared into the flame of the oil lamp hung on the centerpole above their heads. "I wish that I had not," he replied softly. "I wish—tcha, it is no good wishing. I am Khene; that is what I must be. But Yuchai—" His expression hardened. "—Yuchai shall have what I cannot. For all that he wishes to be my shadow, he hates fighting, he hates death—he is like my father. He is made for other things."
Jegrai's expression turned to one of near-anguish. "Teo—Teo, my brother, will your people give him those things? The learning he starves for?"
Teo was growing used to these confidences, and the way the Khene spoke freely to him. It was logical; he was an outsider, safe to confide in, not someone Jegrai had to command. But there was something more than logic behind it, and the confidences hadn't been one-sided. He'd told Jegrai about Kasha—how on the one hand he longed for something deeper than friendship, and feared the changes that would bring—and on the other shied away from the commitment implied. And Jegrai had listened with a sympathy he'd hoped for, but hadn't actually expected.
They weren't so dissimilar, his people and the Vredai.
Neither were he and Jegrai.
"Jegrai, I speak as the brother you have called me," Teo said carefully. "If this path should take him away from the Vredai, perhaps for all time, would you still wish him to follow it?"
Jegrai bowed his head and was silent for a very long time, staring now at the floor of his tent Finally the words came; slowly, deeply thoughtful. "If he felt the calling—if he felt it was worth the sacrifice—how could I deny him?" The Khene raised his head and looked straight into Teo's eyes, and Teo could not help but see the pain there, and the longing.
If he could trade places with his cousin, he'd do it in an eyeblink. Gods. I can't give him everything he wants—but by all the gods—I'll give him what I can.
"Felaras pledged he'd be taught as one of our own, Jegrai. She meant it. Knowledge, learning—they're close to being sacred things for us. She doesn't make pledges like that lightly."
Jegrai let out the breath he'd been holding in a hiss, and nodded. His hand fell on the skin of khmass, and he looked at it as if he was surprised to find it there.
"You know, we have a saying. 'In drink, there is sometimes truth.' Do you feel up to more truth, Teo? Or shall we speak of the weather, or of horses?" He drank, then held out the skin, and his hand was steady.
Teo took it, took a long pull himself, and ignored the little chill that went down his neck. "Truth. If you really want to hear it." He passed the skin back.
"Northwind thinks that your Master has a plan that involves all of us—as allies. What do you say to that?"
"That your Shaman is a very wise man. And a very perceptive one."
"And my brother says as much by what he does not say as by the words he chooses," Jegrai replied sardonically, drinking and returning the khmass.
Teo shrugged, drank, and handed it back.
"So. And what if we, too, have plans—involving all of us as allies? Hm?" Jegrai demanded. "How would your Master reply to that?"
"It would depend, I think, on what the plans were, and in which direction those plans turned," Teo said as cautiously as he could, while Jegrai drank with one eye on him. "There are things we—the Order—had rather not do. And if that was your direction, well, there would be trouble. I should not tell you this, but . . . my brother, this is not to go beyond your ears. The Master does not rule unopposed. She can be replaced by another if it is the will of the majority of the Order. And Felaras is not altogether the most popular of Masters." He took back the khmass, feeling the need for it.
Jegrai's eyes went wide with surprise, then narrow with speculation. Finally he nodded as he accepted back the skin. "Let me say that Khenes have met with challenge also—and . . . 'accidents.' There are those who do not favor the path I have chosen for Vredai. And this is not to go beyond your ears. We walk a narrow bridge, I think, both of us. I shall have to think upon this." He shook the bag of khmass; it was as flat as a child's chest. "I think we have had enough of truth and drink for one night, hm?"
Teo stifled a yawn and nodded. "As it is, I'm going to wish to die in the morning. I am not entirely certain that I will remember my body finding my bed!"
But as he walked back to his tent in the cool night air, Teo knew he had spoken something less than the truth about being weary. Certainly his body longed for rest, and he was assuredly feeling the impact of the liquor, but his mind buzzed with unwelcome thoughts that kept him thinking even as he crawled into his bed.
Those uncomfortable speculations kept him staring up into the darkness long after he should have been asleep.
So. Jegrai has plans, too. That shouldn't have surprised me. And if those plans involve getting rid of whoever or whatever it was that chased him and his Clan west—I'm all for helping him. But what if that isn't the direction he's looking? What if he's figuring on cutting himself new territory? Like in Ancas? Or Yazkirn? What the hell should I do if I find that out? Should I tell Felaras? Do I tell her my suspicions now?
The night-sounds of the nomad camp soothed him, and reminded him of how little he had in common with those to the west and south of the Pass. And how little good the folk of those nations had done for the Order. And how much harm.
What's the rest of the world ever done besides give us grief, cast us out of our homes and livelihoods, even murder us in our beds?
The horses stirred restlessly on their picket, and a voice lifted in soft—but alien—song to soothe them.
These people—what did he really see of them past their surface? They had no written tradition at all; a reverence for learning, yes, but they had remained unchanged for hundreds of years, while the Order spawned change. Gods. How can we side with illiterate barbarians with the intent of taking down civilized nations?
Teo turned on his side; he could see the watchfire that flickered in front of the Khene's tent through the gauze of the insect-screen covering the entrance to his own. Jegrai won't be illiterate for long—if he has his way, we'll be teaching every member of Vredai who wants to learn. He favors us the way nobody in those so-called civilized lands ever has. And he's a good man.
But the Order had to look beyond the present.
What if the next Khene is a despot? Gods, where should my loyalties lie?
Halun lay unsleeping, staring at a single star, one that seemed to have been caught in the smoke-hole of his tent. There had been another meeting tonight, this one with not only Gortan, but the Khene's own brother, Iridai, and a handful of disgruntled nomads whom the Shaman had passed over in favor of the young man now calling himself Demonsbane. On a hunch, Halun had tested them, and found they had considerable raw, if untrained, power in the wizardry of ill-wishing.
That had not been the only surprise of the evening. Gortan had made him a proposition: a strange and very seductive proposition.
Help us, the nomad had urged. Help us to raise discontent with Jegrai. You say you wish to teach us many things, but may be forbidden to teach them by your Khene. So; help us to be rid of Jegrai, then we will go from here, and you may come with us, you will be the right hand of the Khene, who will heed you in all things. You will teach us what you will, and we will honor you above even the Khene.
He cradled the back of his head on his arms and tried to think things through logically. He had, by the gods, not expected that particular offer.
And in many ways it was a sweeter plum than the Master's seat. As Master, he would have to cajole, bully, and placate his fellows even as Felaras did now. He would be honored—when it suited them. He would be obeyed—if it suited them. He would rule only by consent.
But with the nomads he would be . . .
He would be a power in his own right. So, they were warriors by nature, well, that thought didn't cause him any misgivings. In fact there was a great deal he could accomplish, given a free hand with them. Granted, he knew nothing of warfare—but he knew weapons. He could make this loose aggregation of fighters into a terrible power.
With the tools they already have, we could make explosives, mortars, small cannon. Those are all portable enough to carry on horseback. Mortar-fire to demoralize and scatter the enemy—then the nomads charge with those wicked little bows of theirs. Most armies would think demons had hit them.
The star moved out of sight, but another was taking its place.
If Jegrai were to be deposed by his own folk, that would frighten the breeches off of most of my colleagues. Having the nomads turn up armed with explosives would drive them right underground. It wouldn't matter if Felaras was Master or not; she'd be overruled. That would put them right where they belong: in hiding. Safe, as this policy of Felaras's can never make them. And I—I would be—
A shiver ran over his skin. I would be isolated from my own kind. Likely enough I'd never see them again.
The star glittering down at him looked very, very lonely.
There was one candle burning at his bedside, but dimly. The view out the great window was as beautiful and alien as only the mountains could be to a boy used to the flat of the steppes. Yuchai stared at the cold jewels that were stars, suspended above the black bulk of the mountains, and tried not to cry. He was healing—quickly, according to both Boitan and Shenshu—but there were times when his injuries still gave him a lot of pain, and the pain was worse at night.
Worse than the pain, though, was the loneliness. Somewhere down there—and not even in the direction his window faced—were his people. His cousin, his father; his former playmates, those who weren't dead. They might as well have been up in the sky with those stars for all that he could reach them.
What if something happens? he thought, for the hundredth time. What if they leave me here? What if the Talchai come? They'd have to abandon me here, I can't even walk, much less ride.
Kasha was wonderful, and Zorsha was nearly as high in Yuchai's regard as his cousin—but they weren't Clan. Their tongue was alien, and it either did not have words he longed to say, or he hadn't yet learned them. Their concerns, their way of life, the very food they ate was alien.
And Shenshu, Losha, Demonsbane—they're so excited, so involved in learning new things—they hardly ever have time to just talk. I'm just a child, anyway, to them. I'm not really very important, and I don't have much to talk about. They've got more things to worry about than me. More important things.
He sniffled, and scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes. The whole day had been like this; loneliness had made a lump in his throat that had made it hard to eat and drink, and the peculiar round-eyed faces of his new friends had given no comfort. The feeling would pass, it always did—but for now, he ached, he ached so. . . .
There was a tap at his door; someone had seen that he still had a candle lit, no doubt. He scrubbed at his face again, hastily, and whispered a "Come" that didn't quaver too noticeably.
"Still awake?" someone called softly. Then that someone eased around the edge of the door, and Yuchai saw that his visitor was Zorsha, carrying a pair of baskets.
"Thought you might be."
Before Yuchai could say anything, Zorsha came right over to the bed and sat down on the foot of it.
"I saw you had a candle," he said softly, "and—you know, Yuchai, I wasn't born here, like most of the rest were. I'm from a good bit further west. I never knew my mother; lost my father when I was younger than you. One of the sister-houses took me in, decided I had a few wits, sent me on here. I loved it, I really did—but it wasn't home, you know? There were times when the food would just stick in my throat, it just didn't taste right. Seemed to me like you were having a little touch of that today yourself."
He cocked his head sideways, inquiringly, and his silky, strange gold hair fell over one shoulder and into his eye before he flicked it back with an impatient jerk of his head.
Yuchai nodded, unable to speak around the lump of unhappiness in his throat.
"Thought so; said as much to that Demonsbane lad. Did you know he's one damn fine cook?" Zorsha grinned. "Says it's because Shamans aren't supposed to have to depend on anybody. We—ah—went on down to the kitchen and did a little experimenting down there when the cooking crew cleared out. Losha had some of your spices in his kit. Anyway, Demonsbane says to try these."
Zorsha flicked the cloth off the top of the first basket, and Yuchai smelled home—the flat, tough bread that seemed to take days to chew, the savory, highly spiced, chopped mutton to fill it, and a chunk of raw honeycomb.
He started to stutter out his thanks, and found that he couldn't. Because Zorsha had snagged one of the rounds of bread, filled it with meat as neatly as if he were nomad-born, rolled it, and stuffed it into his mouth as soon as he opened it.
"Eat," he said, grinning. "You haven't done more than pick at your food for two days. And if you pine away on me, Boitan will murder me."
He ate, finding himself ravenous, devouring the food as shamelessly as a beggar at a feast. It wasn't until the last of the crumbs were gone, and he was sucking his fingers clean of the faintest hint of honey, that Zorsha replaced the first basket with the second.
"When I got half sick for home, it was old Ardun who brought me Ancas honeycakes and fried pies. And he brought me something else. 'You know,' he said, 'in Ancas they got gold hair like yours, the Yazkirn got noses you could split wood with, and us that were Sabirn are like little brown weeds—but no matter where I been, somehow a puppy is still a puppy, and boys and puppies seem to belong together.'"
With that, Zorsha upended the basket and tilted a warm, sleepy ball of soft golden-brown fur into Yuchai's lap. A round, fuzzy head, all floppy ears and eyes, lifted from enormous paws to yawn at him.
Yuchai froze, hardly able to believe his eyes. The Vredai had had dogs—just like they'd had flocks and herds. All were gone, lost in the flight west.
Yuchai had lost his own hound, Jumper, in the first flight. Jumper had been out minding Yuchai's little flock of sheep when the Talchai had attacked. Yuchai hoped he'd been driven off, and not killed, but he would never really know what happened to him. Jumper's loss would have broken his heart had there not been so much else to mourn.
Boy and puppy looked into each other's surprised eyes. It was the puppy who made the first move. He sniffed Yuchai's nose with great care, found him good, and sealed the decision with a wet, warm, pink tongue—which incidentally disposed of any remaining stickiness from the honey. Yuchai threw his arms around the puppy's neck, speechless with happiness.
"I'd have brought him sooner," Zorsha said apologetically, as Yuchai hugged, and the pup squirmed and licked, "but I was housebreaking him. If Boitan came in and stepped in puppy-mess, he'd murder both of us! Well?"
Yuchai could only stare and try to get something out as tears started to spill out of his eyes, and the pup cleaned them off his cheeks with proprietary pleasure.
Zorsha seemed to understand.
"You see if you can get some sleep, all right?" he said softly. "I'll come around in the morning and take him out for his walk. You can tell me what you're going to call him then."
He gathered up the baskets and left, giving Yuchai a last wink as he picked up the candle to take with him on his way out the door. The puppy took the extinguishing of the light as the signal to resume his interrupted dreams; he flopped down beside Yuchai with a weary, contented sigh. Yuchai gathered him close, and the pup snuggled into the circle of his arms, pressing his warm little body up against Yuchai's side. And like any young thing, he was asleep within a few breaths.
Yuchai stroked the silky little head and long, floppy ears, not knowing how Zorsha had known of his unhappiness, and unsure how to properly thank him for the curing of it. I'd like to call you "Zorsha," he told the pup silently, but then you'd get confused. He almost laughed. And Zorsha might not realize I mean it as thanks.
He thought over the proper name for a long time. How about "Lajas"—that's "Seeker." He thought about it a moment longer, and nodded with satisfaction. I think, yes. It's perfect. And Zorsha will know what I mean, won't he, Lajas? He settled a little farther under the comforter, and the pup snuggled closer, laying his head just under Yuchai's chin. Yuchai continued to stroke the soft fur, and never quite noticed when he finally fell asleep.