Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (20 page)

           
"This is very different,"
Calandryll agreed. "But still I do not understand why it is so important a
warrior's face be hidden."

           
"Because," said Ochen, his
voice patient, his expression amused, "there are some spirits that wax
vengeful. The Zajan-ma is a place of waiting— think of it as a chamber with
many doors, from which a soul sufficiently misguided, sufficiently determined,
may flee. So, does that spirit know the face of its body's destroyer, it might
seek revenge. Might return to haunt the one who slew its body. Better, then, it
does not see the face; and that is why the kotu conceal their faces."

           
"And yet," Calandryll
murmured, "you do not cover your face. But you have told us your magic may
be used belligerent."

           
"This," Ochen returned
with massive confidence, "is my final cycle upon the land. Those gifted
with the occult talent are in their last existence and need no longer fear the
petty vengeances of ghosts."

           
"What of us?" Calandryll
gestured to where Bracht and Katya lay upon their blankets, speaking softly,
privately, together,- to Cennaire, who sat a little way off, listening to the
conversation. "Shall we go to Haruga-Kita, do we die along this road? Or
shall we come back?"

           
Ochen's face grew thoughtful then
and for a time he stared at the sparks drifting from the fires. "I do not
know," he said at last. "Perhaps you shall each go to your own gods.
Or perhaps this is your last life. I know only the beliefs of my own
land."

           
Calandryll thought a moment, then
asked: "Are you afraid of dying?"

           
"Of dying, no," answered
Ochen soberly. "Of the manner of it, aye. I am no more immune to pain than
any other man, and I should much sooner breathe my last in some comfortable
bed, with friendly faces all about me, than, oh, say slain along this road by
tensai arrows."

           
"Think you that is
likely?" Mention of the tensai shifted Calandryll's thoughts from the
metaphysical to the more immediate dangers of the journey. "Would tensai
attack such a band as this?"

           
"Were theirs large
enough," said Ochen, "or hungry enough."

           
His tone remained cheerful,
dismissive of such danger, or philosophical. Calandryll's grip tightened on the
hilt of the straightsword, his eyes moving automatically from the wazir's face
to the guards pacing the camp's perimeter, the moonlit shadows beyond. Ochen
saw his gaze and chuckled.

           
"Fear not," he said.
"At least, not yet. We stand too close to the keep that danger should
threaten. Do tensai look to attack, that will come later."

           
"Later?" Calandryll found
poor reassurance in the sorcerer's words. "How much later?"

           
"Perhaps two days,"
returned Ochen. "Ere long this flat country breaks up into hills and
valleys, better watered than this plain, more fertile. There are villages
there, settlements of gettu the tensai find easy prey. Usually, the warriors of
Pamur-teng hold the bandits in check, but with this cursed war ..." He
paused, his manner become suddenly somber. "I fear the patrols are called
to fight, and the tensai thus ride free. Horul! The Mad God thrives on blood and
chaos, and it would seem this land of mine descends into that morass."

           
"Do the gettu not fight?"
Calandryll asked.

           
"The gettu? They are
farmers," Ochen said, his tone akin to Chazali's, earlier. Then he shook
his head, chuckling, and said, "Forgive me, I forget how little you know
these Jesseryte domains. The gettu do not fight because Horul has assigned them
the duty of farming, not that of bearing arms. Theirs is to raise crops,
cattle—those things farmers do—not to fight; and so they rely on the kotu to
defend them. Does that prove impossible, they give the tensai what the tensai
demand."

           
Calandryll pondered that
explanation, bemused by so strict a social structure, one that seemed, to him,
overly rigid, designed—by the Jesserytes
⁷
god, or by the holders of
power?—to favor those born into the warrior caste. That whole villages should
meekly submit to the depredations of outlaws seemed an affront, an abomination.
In Lysse all men were free to bear arms, and what few outlaws existed were soon
enough brought to justice either by the city legions or the local inhabitants.

           
He forbore to question Ochen on
that, for fear of giving offense, and asked instead, "And the tensai? Are
they assigned their role by Horul? Does the god give them the duty of
outlawry?"

           
Some measure of doubt, of innate
disbelief, remained in his voice, for Ochen eyed him a moment, and he was
reminded of his tutors in Secca, when he had asked some question that ran
wither- shins to their formal discourse.

           
He was relieved when the wazir
smiled and said, "Two schools of thought exist concerning that. Some claim
it so—that Horul makes souls tensai; the other that they are dissatisfied
spirits escaped from Zajan-ma to claim what life they can."

           
"And you?" asked
Calandryll. "To which school do you belong?"

           
"A third," said Ochen
blandly. "A very small, dissenting school that allows for doubt. In a
nutshell—I do not know."

           
His wrinkled face contorted in a
huge smile, so friendly that Calandryll could do little but return it, laughing
as the wazir laughed and added, "And every hour I spend with you—your
comrades— prompts me to doubt more. I suspect, my friend, that your presence
here will change this land beyond imagining. Look you, even now Chazali accepts
that your women bear arms—an unprecedent thing!—and that you ride unmasked. He
acknowledges you equal to kotu-zen or wazir—and he has never laid eyes on
foreigners before, already you change his way of thinking! And mine."

           
This last was said softer,
thoughtfully, and Calandryll inquired, "How so?"

           
"Your questions." Ochen
shrugged, his expression become pensive now. "You prompt me to consider
ways of life I had not before thought much about. You prompt me to wonder why
outlanders come to battle with the Mad God. Why was that undertaking not given
to we Jesserytes? We wazirs, the wazir-narimasu, all know of Tharn, yet when
this Rhythamun threatens to awake the god, who comes? An outlawed prince of
Lysse,- a clansman of Cuan na'For,- a warrior woman out of Vanu."

           
"Only we three?"
Calandryll studied the old man, turned his eyes toward Cennaire, who rested
silent on her blanket, seemingly intent on the examination of her clothing.
"Are we not now augmented?"

           
Ochen followed the direction of his
gaze. "Perhaps," he said. "Certainly I think all have a part to
play. But at the end ...·?"

           
He shrugged again, noncommittal, his
features suddenly enigmatic. Calandryll would have questioned him further, but
just then Chazali approached, asking that the wazir employ his magic to guard
the camp and Ochen excused himself, going off with the kiriwashen to set
warding cantrips about the perimeters, leaving Calandryll alone.

           
He looked about, seeing each fire
surrounded by a group of kotu-zen. Sometimes a face would turn, inscrutable,
toward the outlanders, but none moved to join them, or engage them in
conversation, for all they must have appeared as fabulous to the Jesserytes as
did those warriors to them. The fire beside which he sat seemed boundaried by
some unspoken, invisible fence, left to those not born on the Jesseryn Plain,
Ochen the only one readily willing to bridge the gap established by their
different cultures, their mores and beliefs.

           
Those differences had been
emphasized that dawn, as they prepared to depart the keep. Kotu-ji had stood
with waiting horses, some even bold—or dutiful—enough that they held the
Kernish animals, each beast flanked by a second grey-clad man. As the group
approached, those had dropped on hands and knees, human mounting stools for the
kotu-zen. Chazali and his warriors had used them unthinking, stepping from yard
to back to saddle with the casual assumption of habit. Calandryll had stared at
the man kneeling beside his chestnut, and Bracht had scowled and asked,
"Why do they so debase themselves?" Fortunately, he had thought to
speak in his own tongue, so the precise meaning of his words had gone unknown.
But not the import, for Chazali had glanced down from his saddle, and while his
expression was hidden by his helmet's veil, the angle of his head, the set of
his armored shoulders, had radiated disapproval. In the Jesseryte language
Bracht had said, "Get up, man. I need no aid to mount my horse," and
the kotu-ji had stared, uncomprehending and, so Calandryll felt, afraid. For
his own part he had thought an instant that he might—perhaps should—follow the
custom of the land, but it had seemed so great an affront to another living
being that he should so use a man that he had beckoned the kotu-ji away, bowing
in Chazali's direction and saying, "It is our custom to mount unaided."
He had feared then that offense was taken, but Ochen had spoken briefly and
softly with the kiriwashen, and Chazali had grunted and barked orders that the
kneeling kotu-ji remove themselves, and the out- landers had sprung unhelped
astride their animals.

           
No further mention had been made of
the incident, and Chazali had remained courteous, but Calandryll felt the
kiriwashen observed them somewhat askance. Difference piled on difference, he
thought, and must surely continue so: he prayed their alliance should not be
threatened.

           
"You are pensive."

           
Cennaire's voice brought him from
contemplation and he smiled, turning toward the woman. She sat studying him,
fireglow dancing in her raven hair, her dark skin ruddy in the light. Her eyes
seemed huge as.he looked into them.

           
"I thought on all the things
that separate us from our newfound friends," he murmured. "How
different our ways are, and how easy it is to offend them."

           
Cennaire nodded solemnly, thinking
that he looked very young as he frowned; and very handsome. She said,
"They are a strange folk, but surely they make allowance for our
ways."

           
"So far, aye," he
returned. "But when we reach Pamur-teng, what then? A city will surely
impose far greater formality than the trail."

           
Cennaire shrugged carelessly: a
courtesan grew accustomed to difference, to accommodating differing habits,
else she did not prosper long. "We shall likely learn their ways as we
travel," she suggested, "and in Pamur-teng we must go carefully.
Observe, and perhaps change our ways."

           
Calandryll nodded, then grinned as
he ducked his

           
head in Bracht's direction. "I
am not so sure that Bracht will agree," he said.

           
"Bracht, too, must learn,"
she responded.

           
Calandryll shrugged tentative
agreement. "We must all learn, I suppose. But even so ..." He frowned
again, shaking his head in rue and reluctance. "I cannot bring myself to
use a man as a mounting stool, and that is but one small thing the Jesserytes
take for granted."

           
Cennaire, that morning, had been
perfectly willing to use the kotu-ji. It seemed to her that if such were the
custom of the land, then it was no more than polite acceptance to follow that
custom. She had abstained only because the others had done so. Now she wondered
if she should voice such opinions, or if that expression would distance
Calandryll. She opted for tact and said mildly, "If that is their way
..."

           
Distaste showed on Calandryll's face
and she fell silent. He said, "No," firmly, "I cannot use a man
so. I cannot agree with that."

           
"Then in Pamur-teng we had best
be on our guard," she said.

           
"Aye," he agreed.
"And likely we shall not remain there long."

           
Cennaire was uncertain whether he
spoke of himself, Bracht and Katya, or of them all, and that doubt troubled
her. She could not allow herself interred in the city, but for now could find
no sound argument to convince him she should remain with the questers. The only
certainty was that she must be present when—if!—they secured the Arcanum.
Somehow, therefore, she must find a reason to continue in their company,* but
what that reason might be, she could not for now decide. Did she seduce him, he
might well still insist she remain in Pamur-teng—indeed, would likely feel the
greater need to see her safe, were he finally infatuated— and that she could
not countenance. Somehow she must find a reason. It came to her that Ochen
might well be helpful in the matter, for it seemed the enigmatic wazir had his
own reasons for keeping her present, and perhaps he would furnish the
justification. Pragmatic, she decided to wait: the city lay long leagues
distant, and before they reached the teng she trusted she should find a way.