City of Sorcerers (14 page)

Kelene pulled them on, and with the judicious use of her small dagger, she altered them enough to fit her shorter legs. She tied the waist strings tight around her slender waist and nodded. The pants were baggy, but they would do. A bright red tunic laced down the front and her soft leather boots finished her outfit.

After that, she packed more carefully, taking only a thick blanket to sleep on, a few clean short tunics, the split-legged skirt her mother had made for her, and some basic necessities. Last of all she tucked in the leather medicine bag the healer Piers had given her many years ago. She usually used the contents only on her horses, but the bag might be useful on a trip like this.

Just before she left the tent, Kelene coiled her hair behind her head to get it out of the way and grabbed her golden clan cloak and her packs. Backward glances were for weaklings, she decided on her way out. Yet she paused at the tent flap and glanced around at the empty home. So many frightening thoughts crowded into her mind of what she could find here when she returned---if she returned---that she wanted to dash back inside and tie the tent flap tight against the future.

Unfortunately that would be useless, she thought, giving her head a rueful shake.

They would only send Savaron to drag her out. She shouldered her pack and limped slowly down the path toward the council grove beside the sparkling rivers.

By the time she arrived at the edge of the grove, a group of clanspeople and the rest of the party were already waiting for her. Savaron was there and Sayyed, whom Kelene had expected, as well as three other magic-wielders she knew from when they studied with her mother. They all greeted her, and she was about to return their greeting when she saw Rafnir mounted, packed, and obviously ready to go. Her heart sank. She was going to be stuck on a long, dangerous journey with her arch rival? The obnoxious, crop-toting rogue who took malicious delight in annoying her at every opportunity?

Already he was giving her clothes an appreciative grin, albeit a tired one. "Want to ride with me?" he called.

"I'd rather walk," Kelene snapped and wondered if she could change her mind about going. She would be useless on this journey, a cripple who wouldn't wield magic. What had her mother been thinking?

As if reading her daughter's thoughts, Gabria came up behind Kelene and said quietly, "I won't hug you because I am unclean, but I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you for going."

"I didn't have much choice," Kelene pointed out irritably, turning to face her mother.

Gabria nodded sadly. "Yes, you did. You have never done anything in your life that you did not agree to."

"But why do you want me to go? If you're trying to get me out of the plague, it won't work. Savaron, Sayyed, and I have all been close to sick people."

"No, I'm not trying to send you to safety. If I wanted that, I wouldn't have suggested that you go over two hundred leagues away to a ruin guarded by a crazy stone lion." Gabria lifted her hand as if to reach out to her daughter. "You have reached a difficult place in your life, Kelene, where you must choose a place for yourself in the clans. There is more to your womanhood than racing horses. I hope perhaps this journey will help you decide what you want to do." Kelene made a sound like a half-laugh, half-snort of disbelief, and Gabria smiled a weary grimace. "You'll understand someday. Just say I sent you to take care of your brother. He can't boil water to feed himself." She paused and brought out a wrapped bundle. "I brought some angelica for you. I want you to take it, just in case. Now I have only one more thing to add." She took two brooches from the pouch on her belt and held them up to the sun. Two dazzling, scintillating lights flashed in her hands. "This is the Fallen Star given to your grandfather by Lord Medb, and this is the Watcher that we found after Medb's death. Do you remember?"

Kelene nodded. The magnificent gems were a part of the stories she had grown up with. They were ensorcelled with a spell that enabled the bearer of the Watcher to see through the two gems to the wearer of the Fallen Star. Amazement warmed her when Gabria tucked the Watcher into the bundle of angelica and tossed it into Kelene's hands.

"Don't worry," Gabria said lightly. "You do not need to use magic to make this work. Simply concentrate on its center, and it will show you what the Star sees." She fastened the other brooch to her own dress and tapped its brilliant surface. "We won't be able to talk to one another, bur as long as the Star's light is bright, I will know you are alive. Any time you want to check on us, you have only to look."

Kelene pinned the brooch to her tunic, trying hard to keep the tears from her eyes.

"Thank you, Mother," she said. She surreptitiously wiped her face and added, "But I still don't have a mount."

Gabria chuckled. "I wondered about that, too. Savaron's Hunnuli could carry you, but it would be hard on him to carry a double load on such a long journey."

"So?" Kelene nudged.

"So. We found a volunteer."

"Who?" There were only a few young Hunnuli in the clans who had not already befriended a magic-wielder, and the others would never willingly leave their riders for any length of time.

"Demira," answered her mother.

"Demira! She's only a two-year-old."

But I'm a strong two-year-old,
a light, distinctly feminine voice spoke in Kelene's mind.
And don't forget, my dam's second-born went all the way to Pra Desh when he
was only a baby.
The black filly came up beside Kelene and shook her head in greeting, her mane rippling like ebony water.

The young woman looked full into the Hunnuli's large, lustrous eyes. "You wish to bear me all the way to Moy Tura?"

Yes.

"I cannot promise you anything more than good care and companionship. I am not a magic-wielder."

A wise light, almost like a glint of humor, shifted in Demira's eyes.
I know.

"Walk with Amara, my daughter," Gabria said to Kelene, then she backed away so Athlone and Lymira could come to say goodbye. Quietly the chieftain helped cinch the saddle pad to Demira's back. Hunnuli usually did not tolerate a bridle or saddle, but on long journeys they accepted a blanket or saddle pad for their riders' comfort and their own. Demira, though, had never worn any kind of tack before, and she snorted as Athlone pulled the cinch tight around her barrel. Kelene's pack and two saddlebags of supplies were added to the load.

Kelene patted Demira's neck. "Are you sure about this?"

Just get on!
was the filly's tart reply.

Kelene looked up at the Hunnuli's broad back and grimaced. Although only two, Demira's withers were already level with Kelene's eyes. This horse was quite a bit taller than Ishtak, and that could pose a problem. When Athlone offered her a leg up, however, she declined. "I have to learn to do this eventually," she said.

Grabbing the filly's mane in one hand and the saddle pad in the other, she hopped high on her good foot, then hauled herself up with her arms until she could hook her crippled foot over the Hunnuli's other side. It wasn't graceful, but it worked. She settled down onto Demira's back.

Relax,
the filly told her
. You're as stiff as a tent pole.

''It's just odd not to have reins in my hands," Kelene said uneasily. To give her hands something to do, she reached down and rubbed Demira's neck, missing the look of satisfaction that passed between her parents.

After that, the good-byes went quickly, and Kelene rode over to join the others who had just finished dividing the rest of the supplies. Sayyed, with a glazed, distant look in his eyes, sat motionless on Afer, waiting patiently to leave. The white cat sat on the blanket in front of him. As soon as Kelene joined the group, Sayyed raised his fist to salute Lord Athlone.

"Farewell on your journey, clansmen!" Athlone responded, returning the salute.

Other well-wishers shouted their blessings and good-byes as the little group began to trot from the grove toward the north. No one said a word about the dread feelings in their hearts that perhaps this was the last time they would see one another.

Gabria watched her children go---like two arrows that she and Athlone had smoothed and shaped and at last let fly.

Would their flights be straight and true or wobbly and torn by the winds of fate?

Where would they land, those two precious arrows? She found herself crying soundless tears. She watched the black Hunnuli through her blurry, sparkling tears until they were mere dots against the golden hills far away. Then she drew a long breath and tried to bury her anxiety within. There were many troubles close at hand that required attention; she should not waste her strength fretting about something over which she had no control.

Gabria was about to return to her littlest child when something made her pause.

She stopped, her head high, her attention searching inward to seek for the odd sensation that disturbed her mind.

Athlone noticed the strange look in her face and came as close as he dared. As chieftain, he had decided to keep himself separate from those tending the sick so he could continue to help the other chiefs and maintain order in his clan. But that didn't mean he liked the distance he was forced to keep from his wife and son. At that moment, he wanted desperately to take Gabria in his arms. "What is it?" he called to her.

"Something has changed," Gabria answered, her voice puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

Her shoulders shifted slightly. 'Tm not sure. It's as if some feeling has left me."

"That's odd. Are you sure it isn't just the relief of sending someone out to do something that might be helpful?"

"There is that, but this is different. . . like the ease of an apprehension or fear I'd grown used to."

Athlone sent her a tired grin. "Maybe that's a good sign."

The sorceress took one last look to the north where the travelers had disappeared.

"I hope," she said aloud. But even from fifteen paces away, Athlone heard the doubt in her voice.

* * * * *

As soon as they left the gathering, the seven Hunnuli found the faint trail that pointed north, and they stretched out into a smooth canter. League after league through the hot summer afternoon the horses ran, as tireless as the endless winds that chased the dust of their passing. They soon left the valley of the Tir Samod behind and came up onto the long, rolling grasslands that stretched unbroken to the horizon and beyond. To their left flowed the Isin River in a silvery trail of shallow white rapids, dark green pools, and mud bars where otters and muskrats played. Overhead was the great blue bowl of the sky.

Many people who traveled the scattered trails and caravan routes that crisscrossed the high plains found the Ramtharin grasslands desolate and empty beyond tolerance.

Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and often dangerous, the plains did not attract large numbers of settlers. Yet the nomadic clanspeople who had lived with this land for five hundred years could not imagine living anywhere else. The land had become their bones, the rivers and streams their blood, and the vast, wind-sung spaces had become their souls. As tough and enduring as the plains they loved, the people of Valorian had made this realm of wind and grass an inseparable part of themselves.

They had survived drought, floods, storms, blizzards, war, and rebellion to spread to the far corners of the plains and build a society that was strong in kinship and tradition.

But, Kelene wondered to herself while she rode beside the Isin River, would those strengths be enough to save the clanspeople in their present disaster? Would the ties of blood and custom hold the clans together in the face of such a devastating plague long enough for help to be found?

She had never given much thought to the clans' past or future. Her people had always just been there, the unheralded backbone of her life. But now they were facing possible extinction. The notion of all eleven clans disappearing from the Ramtharin Plains frightened her more than she imagined. That couldn't happen! Some people had to be saved to carry on the blood and traditions and history that went back beyond Moy Tura, beyond Valorian and the Tarn Empire, back to a long-forgotten time when the first clanspeople befriended a horse and began to move east. That ancient society was worth preserving.

All at once Kelene chuckled at herself. This was a change. It had been a long time since her introspection had moved beyond horses, racing, and her foot. In fact, this afternoon was full of changes: leaving her parents and her clan for the first time and riding on a mission with a company of magic-wielders. It was enough to turn anyone's mind to unfamiliar musings.

It was very different, too, to be sitting on a horse that did not try to throw her into a patch of prickly pear or jar her spine to jelly. She had never ridden a horse whose gait was so smooth or whose back fit her seat so comfortably. After Ishtak, Demira seemed to float effortlessly over the ground like a black cloud scudding before the wind.

The filly seemed to sense her thoughts, for she asked with a hint of wistfulness,
Do you like to run?

Kelene threw her dark musings to the wind. "Yes!"

Then hold on.

Demira lunged forward into a full gallop over the treeless ground. Her neck stretched out; her nostrils flared to catch the air; her stride lengthened until her legs were a blur and only their shadows kept pace.

Kelene's breath was snatched away by the speed of the Hunnuli's run. She felt Demira's mane whip her face and the wind burn her ~yes, but she paid no attention.

She had never experienced anything like this! This incredible, exhilarating, delirious speed. Ishtak was fast, but Demira was an arrow. On the filly's back the young woman knew grace and speed and freedom like an eagle in the sun. Kelene flung out her arms, threw back her head, and laughed as she had not laughed for years.

Far behind them, Sayyed watched the girl and the Hunnuli go and made no move to bring them back. He knew the filly was too sensible to get lost. Although he wasn't sure why Gabria had insisted that Kelene come with him, he thought he began to understand when she and Demira finally came back, panting, sweating, and thoroughly pleased with themselves.