A Gathering of Wings (21 page)

She starts down the other side of the dune. She proceeds up one dune and down the next, the scent growing stronger with every dune she puts behind her. As soon as the sun sets, the air turns chilly. She stops at the top of a dune, digging herself a nest in the warm sand. After eating some of the fish and berries and drinking some of the water, she falls into a deep and surprisingly restful sleep.

She wakes up the next morning and digs herself out of the sand, her muscles sore. She freezes midstretch when she sees it to the north, glinting like a wedge of beaten silver between two dunes: the sea. From somewhere between her and the sea, woodsmoke curls into the sky. She heads toward the smoke.

By midday, the dunes have begun to harden to a combination of clay and sand, sprouting dune grass that cuts into the soles of her bare feet. Why didn’t I ask Lume for some shoes? she thinks. He must have a barrel of them stashed away.
Still wary of sinkholes, she walks, cane-first, like an old woman, with her eyes on the ground. She is concentrating so hard on where she sets her feet that she fails to hear the whistling sound overhead. By the time she hears it, the noose is already over her head and down around her shoulders, tightening, pinning her arms to her sides. She pulls back with her full weight, only to be yanked off her feet, flipped onto her back, and dragged up the next bluff, stones and bushes and needle-sharp grass cutting and bruising and gouging her flesh. When she finally comes to rest on her back, covered with sand and dust, she starts to wriggle free of the rope but a hoof comes down on her chest and stops her.

She stares up into the beard-wreathed face of a wild centaur. There is not a scrap of clothing on his body, which is as sunburned as his face, scarred and painted as intricately as any temple in Mount Kheiron, his nipples pierced with small ivory bars with chains hanging down from them. Elaborate patterns are shaven into his horsehide and dyed in bright colors. His hair is gathered into a high tail the same color and texture as his horsetail and the effect of these twin tails is as dramatic and wildly beautiful as the rest of him. In spite of all these exotic trappings, Malora recognizes her captor.

“Mather Silvermane!”

“Mather Silvermane is no longer my name,” the centaur says. “My herd name … is Balaal.”

“Balaal,” Malora says, “can you please get your hoof off my chest?”

“Sorry,” he says, lifting his hoof. “I was so excited to have actually
caught
something. I never dreamed it would be you. I’m supposed to be out here roping wild horses.”

“Horses? I haven’t seen any horses,” she says.

“That would be just my luck,” he says. “To be sent out when there are no horses to be had. You can be sure the herd will find a way to blame me for that.”

“It’s hard to imagine you roping horses,” Malora tells him.

Mather gathers up the rope into a tangled ball. “I’m not very good at it. And as you know, I don’t share the Kheironite fondness for horses.”

“I’d forgotten that,” Malora says. Although he once confided in her his fear of horses, he had hidden it well from
everyone else. She sees he has made a mess of the rope, so she takes it from him and coils it properly.

“These horses are even more frightened than I am,” Mather says, “which makes them quite treacherous.”

“So,” says Malora, handing him back the neat circle of rope. “You’re a wild centaur now.”

“As wild as I am able to manage,” Mather says pitifully. “I tell you, there is not a single Edict we do not trample to dust on a daily basis. But if it weren’t for the wild centaurs, I’d be a pile of bones in the bush. This is the home of all the centaurs who have ever been turned out from Mount Kheiron, going back generations. It is also home to centaurs for whom life in Mount Kheiron may not have been the ideal, those who were thought to have been ravaged by hippos or lions or other beasts of the bush.”

Malora seizes upon these last words. “Does this include Athen Silvermane?” she asks.

Mather rolls his eyes. “Oh, Athen is not only here, he is the leader, the Alpha Stallion. He may have been a disappointment to the Apex, slow to learn, quick of temper, and fickle, but here he is loved and respected and wields immense authority.”

“Herself will be so happy to learn that he is alive,” Malora says. She imagines returning to Mount Kheiron with the news, banishing the look of sadness from the eyes of the Lady Hylonome.

“Oh, you mustn’t tell her, Malora!” Mather pleads. “Athen would spit me over a bonfire. While I dream every night of returning to the Land of Beauty and Enlightenment, Athen quite likes his life here. As Alpha Stallion, he is as powerful as
the Apex. His rule is based not on the Edicts, but on the so-called Principles of Freedom of the Natural Centaur. In Mount Kheiron, it was our human halves that we treasured, but here the horse half is held in high esteem.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Malora says.

“Yes, but
your
horses are
tame
, Malora,” Mather says. “One drunken feast night, Athen told me that the first time he felt truly alive was when he came to live with the herd. By the way, his herd name is Archon. And, Malora, I must tell you, Sky is in Ixion.”

“I know,” Malora says. “That’s why I’m here.”

His face falls. Then he looks suspicious. “How could you possibly know that?”

Electing not to tell Mather about Shrouk, she says, “A Dromadi hostler told me that the wild centaurs are horse rustlers and that they hold up the caravans for the best livestock.”

Mather stutters. “B-b-but no one knows it is us. Athen’s motto is strike hard, strike fast, and make for the Downs.
Oh, yes, and leave no witnesses to tell the tale
.”

“Apparently,” Malora says, “there was a survivor of a recent raid who has told the tale.”

Mather pounds his forehead with his fist. “Kheiron’s hocks! That fellow
promised
me!”

“What fellow?” Malora asks.

“The Dromad whose life I spared,” Mather says through his teeth. “It was my first raid. Athen ordered me to slay one of the Dromadi merchants. All the others in the caravan had already been slaughtered. I raised my sword to do the job, but I couldn’t, Malora! I couldn’t commit murder. It’s against everything I was taught to believe. All was chaos at the scene.
So I wiped some blood from another victim on my sword and put it on the Dromad, pretending to do the deed. We made a deal, in exchange for sparing his life he was to tell no one the identity of his attackers.”

Poor naive Mather, Malora thinks. “Well, the Dromad might not have held up his end of the deal, but you, Mather, were right to spare him.”

Droplets of sweat have begun to run down Mather’s tattooed face. He stares straight ahead of him at something terrifying. “If Archon ever finds out I was the one …”

Malora gently lays a hand on his shoulder, wary of startling him. “How could he possibly find out?” she asks.

He turns his eyes toward her, the tension in his features easing. “You’re right, of course.”

Malora takes one of the scraps of cloth Lume gave her and offers it to him. He swabs his face. When he is sufficiently calm again, Malora says, “I need you to take me to see Sky now, please.”

A fresh tide of panic overtakes him. “I can’t! And please don’t ask me.”

“Why can’t you?” she asks.

“Because Sky belongs to us now. His herd name is Belerephon.”

Sky, Belerephon; Mather, Balaal; Athen, Archon
. Malora says, “Does
everyone
here have two names?”

“
Most
everyone,” he says. “Except the broncs, those who are born and raised here. They get to keep the names they are born with. The broncs—broncos and broncas both—can also get away with subjecting themselves to less bodily mutilation, lucky them.”

This was all very interesting, but it wasn’t getting her closer to Sky. “Please take me to Sky,” she begs. “Now that your secret is out, it’s just a matter of time before the wild centaur way of life is undone.” Malora isn’t at all sure that this is true, but she will say anything to get his cooperation.

Mather nods rapidly to himself. “Of course. You are Malora Ironbound, and I am no match for your iron will. But Belerephon is not easily seen. Your horse has been deemed by Archon to be a living god.”

“I know that, too,” she says with an impatient wave of her hand.

Mather sputters, “But that is a secret known only to the herd! How can you possibly know this? Oh, never mind, I don’t want to know. At least the guilt for
that
does not weigh on my shoulders. I don’t suppose there is any harm in my taking you to see Sky. But only on one condition,” he says. “If you chance to fall into their hands, I will deny knowing you. And you must deny any knowledge of me. I mean it, Malora. My life will not be worth a horse’s turd if you implicate me.”

“Fair enough,” she says. “And in exchange for your help, I promise that when I return to Mount Kheiron I will plead with the Apex to let you return.”

His eyes widen. “You would do that?”

Malora shrugs. “I can try. The Apex favors me.”

Mather wags his head. “But look at me!” he says. “Even if he did take me back, how can I go, looking like this? My own mother would take one look at me and renounce me.”

“I’m sure she would be overjoyed to see you, no matter how you look. And, if it means anything to you, I think you
look very handsome.” She adds, “Zephele would declare your appearance oh so bold and daring. I can hear her now.”

“Really?” he asks uncertainly. “You don’t find my body glyphs off-putting?”

She wants him calm and collected when he takes her to see Sky, and so she takes a few moments, circling him slowly to admire the long, lithe body of the tigress that is tattooed down his right arm, with her head on the back of his hand and her claws embracing his forearm, and the body of a leopardess than runs down his left arm. The cats’ tails intertwine in a graceful knot across his back and shoulders. “Is this decoration permanent?” she asks.

“They use the spines from a small sea creature to puncture the skin and inject the dyes. My skin will carry these markings for life. It took several sessions to complete. I must have imbibed half a cask of ferna each session.”

“Ferna?” Malora asks.

“The herd’s preferred festival beverage. A very strong yam brandy brewed by the Pantherians. Under the circumstances,” he says, rubbing his arms, “it seemed necessary and appropriate.”

“Well,” she says, “your body now reminds me of the most impressive-looking edifices in Mount Kheiron … thoroughly decorated.”

“Even though you may be saying this to make me feel better, I appreciate your kind words,” he says. “If I knew that Canda Blackmane would feel the same, I’d have reason to hope that I have a future beyond this brutal place.”

A brawl with a Flatlander over Canda Blackmane was the
cause of Mather’s being turned out. “I think Canda Blackmane would like the new you.” Malora has no idea whether this is true, but Mather looks so forlorn that she would tell him anything to cheer him up. “Can you
please
take me to see my horse now?”

He gazes up at the sky. “Soon they will retire to their stables for their afternoon rest,” he says. Seeing the look of impatience on her face, he says, “Believe me, you don’t want to risk running into one of them.”

Malora sighs. “I believe you. So you live in
stables
?” she asks with a wry smile, thinking the wild centaurs have carried the horse culture perhaps a tad too far.

He nods. “Our domiciles are called stables. They are as crude as they sound. I sleep on a bed of straw—yes,
straw—
dreaming of the down-filled mattresses of Mount Kheiron!” He sighs wistfully. “The herd will be wondering where I am. I will say that I got my rope tangled in the horns of a wild pig, and they will believe me.”

“Tell me, do you race the horses you rustle?” Malora asks.

“Not exactly,” he says.

“What do you do with them?”

Mather turns away. “It is better that you not know what we do with the horses,” he says sullenly.

Over the sudden roaring in her ears, Malora hears herself say “You eat them, don’t you?”

“Ugh, no! What a revolting thing to say! We might be wild, but we’re not
depraved
!”

The roaring in Malora’s ears abruptly stops. She exhales. Well then, she thinks, what could be so bad?

Mather says, “We eat crabs, snakes, rats, rabbits, and deer.
And great quantities of fish. The fish is the worst. I prefer rat to fish. That’s what I’ve come to. I’m a rat-eater.” He shudders.

Malora tugs at his beard to make him meet her gaze. “Mather, please tell me. What happens to the horses?”

Mather sighs. “You will find out soon enough, so I might as well tell you. They are sacrificed to the Beast from Below.”

Malora closes her eyes, then opens them again, not altogether certain that she heard him correctly. “The
what
?”

He nods, matter of fact. “A hideous monster lives beneath the sands of Ixion. In order to keep it at bay, the herd sacrifices a horse to it every seven days. Rumors have circulated that there is more than one beast, but one is quite sufficient for me to contemplate.”

“What kind of beast is this that is so fond of horseflesh?” she asks. “A lion?”

“Oh, would that it were! We could send
you
after it, then—couldn’t we?—and be done with it.”

“Then what is it?”

“I personally have never laid eyes on it, thank you, Kheiron. It comes up through the sands of the Paddock, grabs its sacrifice, and disappears back the way it came. In the old days, they tell me, before I came here, it was so much worse. Every full moon, the herd would draw stones. The one who drew the white stone from among the black offered him- or herself up to the Beast from Below. Then Archon came to Ixion and had a brilliant idea that will make him a legend in time, which was to sacrifice
horses
instead of centaurs. The meat would taste more or less the same, he reasoned, the Beast would be none the wiser, and the centaurs would not only no longer be
in danger of sacrifice, they had the satisfaction of outwitting the Beast. There was only one problem: horses weren’t as filling as centaurs. Now the Beast comes to feed four times in every moon cycle instead of once. Every seven days a horse must be served up, so we keep a robust supply of them on hand, if you see what I mean. Or else …” He trails off with a shrug.