Cordimancy (21 page)

“When the novelty of his animal forms wore off, he turned to human hosts, and at last the people rebelled. Led by a courtier with stolen keys, they chose an opportune night to enter the castle. They were unsure which form he inhabited, so they slew everything that moved inside the walls, every bird that overflew the ramparts, every mouse that scurried away from their torches. Oreni’s underlings died as well. But when they got to the raja’s bedchambers, they found only a mildewing corpse.”

Silence prevailed as Shivi’s tale wound down.

“Remember, Toril, when I told you that Gorumim was evil?” Malena eventually asked. Her voice was steady now; she felt cold inside.

Oji cleared his throat. “My people speak of Oreni as myth; rumors of blood eyes have been laugh-dismissed for a thousand years. But the moment I found those wolves, I smelled their wrongness. Their stares at the children chilled my blood. They took instructions like a human. I knew the children needed help, but I feared to leave until the wolves left, too. Then, when I followed them, my fear grew. I saw how they never howled, never left their course, never stopped running. And I understood in my heart that Oreni’s shadow had touched the land again.”

The
boxy silhouette of a wagon broke the hilltop as Malena rounded a bend in the trail and squinted at the orange glow on the horizon.

Toril and Oji were already off their horse.

She spurred her pony, heart pounding.

Even as her feet vaulted onto the heath, she saw bodies, sprawled in indiscriminate grotesqueness. One draped over a wheel; another curled fetus-fashion in a splash of red, at the end of a trail of bent and bloody weeds.

Five of them.

She held her breath until she’d surveyed them all.

They were not children. And none were her parents.

She sank to her knees, awash with relief. The pounding in her ears receded.

A faint, high-pitched whine intruded on her consciousness. It flirted at the limits of her hearing, fading in and out, and it seemed to be coming from a rocky knoll fifty or sixty paces away. Toril showed no awareness, but she saw Oji scanning the knoll with a puzzled look.

Could it be the keening of a child?

Unable to help herself, Malena found her feet walking, then running through goldenrod and clover. She was sick with terror, but visions of her sister crowded out all reason.

Toril called for her to stop. She heard footsteps.

She kept accelerating.

Tupa!

Oji skidded to a stop beside her as she crested the rise and jerked out of motion.

A wolf lay in the hollow beyond the rocks. Its forepaws reached in one direction, while its hind legs stretched backward in full extension, in a mockery of the canine laze that she’d often seen when dogs woke from a nap.

Its back had been broken. She watched it scrabble with its front legs as the rear half of its body remained motionless.

Its belly was slashed; a wet mass of intestine and membrane dragged behind it on the shale.

It continued to whine. Its eyes were half-open, filled with a combination of misery and defiance. Its snout quivered.

In a swift, fluid motion, Oji drew his shortsword and severed the creature’s spinal cord just behind the skull. It slumped. The whine faded.

Malena reeled sideways a few steps, stumbled over another human corpse, and staggered wildly. Once she regained her balance, she froze, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched.

Breathe. Control.

Gradually, she realized that the breeze was masked by the hum of flies. Above the morbid background noise, she heard Toril approach, followed by hooves. An odor—part rot, part mold, part sweat, part feces—assaulted her nostrils.

“These were the possessors of the wolves,” Shivi said, her voice thin from atop the horse that she and Paka had been sharing.

Malena forced herself to look. The corpse she’d almost stepped on was a man—but perhaps the most inhuman, twisted face she’d ever seen. The cheeks were scarred, the lips covered with sores. A matted beard, long and ragged, ran down his throat and seemed to merge with abundant hair on his chest. Irregular gray lumps protruded from his gums where teeth should have been. His eyes were open, the irises bleached and bleary; they’d rolled up and back, exposing mostly cornea with caked blood along the lids.

He was naked, except for a soiled loincloth and a collar around his neck.

A wave of revulsion made her jaw spasm. She swayed blindly away and tripped on a rock.

Toril caught her as she fell. The sensation of his hands on her ribs and hips triggered a wholly different sort of panic, and without thinking, she cried out and swung her fists.

His grip seemed to tighten with the blows. “It’s all right,” she heard him murmur.

“Let go of me!” she shrilled, gasping. “Let go!” She wrenched away.

Silence fell as her sobbing breaths petered out.

Toril wiped at a trickle of blood on his neck. She realized she’d scratched him in her hysteria. His eyes were fastened on his boots.

Malena turned to the sunset.

“After we killed the hosts, I guess Gorumim had no use for these oreni,” Oji murmured. “The men wouldn’t die, but it would take years to make new hosts.”

“Why drag a wagon of useless slaves across the wilderness?” Shivi agreed. “They would just slow him down and drain his supplies.”

Malena imagined Tupa in the company of these perverted husks of humanity—and the ruthless men who’d butchered them. Her skin crawled.

22

an end to secrets ~ Malena

“
Wind’s
picking up. Stand a little closer.”

Malena shuffled forward, draping a corner of her cloak around Toril’s back to block the slanting mizzle.

Her husband was long since soaked; Malena’s assignment was not to shelter
him
, but rather the tinder box over which he knelt. He’d been scratching and muttering and striking for perhaps a quarter of an hour, unable to overcome the damp that had penetrated his charcloth by the time they stopped.

She shivered. When raindrops had begun falling, around sunset, she hadn’t raised the hood on her cloak soon enough; now trickles escaped her braid from time to time, to slide coldly between shoulder blades to the small of her back. Autumnal equinox was still weeks away, but already the clouds at this altitude hinted of frigid weather to come.

Oji crouched beneath a fir tree, shivering violently. Like all of his kind, he had little tolerance for low temperatures. Toril had donated the jacket that he’d claimed from among Paka’s scrounged gear, and didn’t seem much affected by the loss—but even through two layers of leather and wool, the warrior looked miserable and drained.

Was Tupa huddled out there in this same rain?

The inexplicable feelings that came to her at times, when she thought about certain people, were always reliable. At the outset of their journey she’d been positive that her sister lay ahead. But what about her parents? About them, she felt confusion. Oji had reported no adult captives. Was she hoping in vain?

How much distance separated them now? Since yesterday evening, when they’d found death on the hilltop, they’d pushed hard, trying to close the gap. Normally, a small mounted party like theirs should have made up distance on a larger group with wagons, but Gorumim seemed to be driving his group relentlessly; no matter how fast they moved, the imprint of hooves and an occasional wheel ran on ahead of them.

They were now flanking the Kestrel Mountains in an arc that Toril speculated would intersect with the river town of Two Forks in another couple days. It made no sense. Gorumim didn’t really think he could walk into a populated area with dozens of captive children and an illegal osipi escort, and nobody would notice—did he? If the priest had done even a part of his job in Sotalio, news of the kidnapping would be transmitted by Voice long before he arrived...

Did they want to confront Gorumim in the wilderness? The pace had worn everyone thin. With five riders and three saddles, they’d often ridden double since Oji’s arrival; despite stretches on foot to give the horses a rest, even the animals were weary. If they only napped and caught their breath, and then pushed hard through the night, it was conceivable that they’d overtake their quarry sometime tomorrow. But would they be in any condition to fight, or even to snoop effectively?

Maybe it was wiser—although the prospect of delay was agony to Malena—to risk a reasonable rest, in the hopes that they’d predicted Gorumim’s trajectory correctly, and would soon have a town of backup to stage an intervention. That plan appeared to appeal to her husband.

Or maybe the question was moot.

Oji was in no condition to move in this rain, and Shivi and Paka, huddled together beneath one of the horses, didn’t seem much better. Toril himself was moving in slow motion. Only Malena felt any sort of energy or will to continue. The poorly understood power that Toril had used to banish death and cure her wounds still seemed to be feeding health to her body in an unusual way. Already the bandage around her forearm had been removed, and she felt little fatigue or stiffness.

As Toril bent to blow, yet again, on the scraps cupped in one hand, the incongruity of the exercise struck Malena. She’d never traveled with her husband before, never seen him wield magic except at her own healing—but certainly a lip of his reputation could enhance a few sparks. Why on earth had they been struggling in the rain for so long?

“Use your magic!” she hissed impatiently. Was the cold making him as dull-witted as she herself had been?

Toril continued to hunch, his shoulders deflating as he blew. After a few moments he fumbled a handful of pine needles out of his vest, and Malena heard a crackle.

When the flames leaped high enough to counter the moisture without help, Toril put hands on his knees and pushed himself into a standing position. He added an armful of twigs and branches and waved at Oji and the older couple. Hika shook herself in the darkness, then crept into the ring of firelight with a sigh.

Malena reached her hands into the warmth, felt fingers on her wrist, and looked up to see Toril staring at her intently.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “In private.”

Malena met his gaze for a moment, then looked down. “Can we do it later?” she asked. “I’m cold.”

Toril’s face flushed with anger. “Say goodbye to your dinner guests and find me in the stable,” he whispered.

Then he stalked off toward the horses.

Malena bit back an angry retort. Just because she’d been reluctant to talk at their wedding, and just because she wanted a little while to warm up now, didn’t mean she intended to slight him at every turn. Why did he have to treat her like an enemy?

To show her independence, she added some larger limbs to the fire, stepped closer to the heat, and watched steam rise from her cloak. She felt Shivi’s eyes on her—Oji’s, too—and wondered if they’d overheard. Did they think she was giving her husband the cold shoulder? Could they see that he was being demanding and unreasonable?

The lack of conversation around the flames became uncomfortable, and at last Malena bowed back into the darkness. She found her husband hobbling the mare, waited for him to notice that she’d arrived, and when recognition was not forthcoming, cleared her throat uncertainly.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Toril gestured to a boulder that looked marginally dry, in the lee of a hulking cedar. “Have a seat.”

Malena leaned against the rock and tucked the cloak around her knees. Something—langurs?—barked in the distance. When she felt her husband’s arms encircle her waist, and his chin rest on her shoulder, she stiffened abruptly.

“I wasn’t planning to kiss you,” Toril said, disgust at her reaction coloring his whisper. “I didn’t lure you into the dark with an ulterior motive. I just thought I could keep your back dry.”

Abruptly, Malena felt foolish. Maybe he’d been cranky, just now, but she was acting a bit prickly herself. She could do better than this. She would have to get used to this, right?

“I’m sorry,” she said impulsively. “I could have come when you first asked. I
was
cold, but I wasn’t being very cooperative.” She deliberately leaned into him, stifling her own instinct to pull back. “Will you forgive me?”

Toril was silent for a long time.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. He rested a wet cheek against her own. She felt him swallow. “I feel like everything I do makes things worse.”

Malena turned around to face him. “I haven’t been happy about everything you’ve done, but I’ve never doubted you mean well,” she said, realizing as she said it that it was true.

Toril blinked, eyes downcast.

She rested a hand against his cheek.
Is this what wives do when they love their husbands?
she wondered.

Toril put a hand over hers.

They stood there until Malena ached for the heat of the fire. “What did you want to talk about?” she prompted.

“Magic,” he said, voice cracking. “I want to talk about magic. You told me just now that I ought to be using it to start the fire.”

“Well, isn’t that something you can do?” Malena asked, surprised at the heaviness of his tone. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I heard a story about you once lighting random candles just to infuriate my uncle’s house servants.”

Toril did not laugh, as she’d hoped.

“I was just dripping there, in the rain, and I wondered why you needed the tinder box,” she added lamely.

“I’m not a lip,” Toril murmured. “Not anymore.”

Malena considered this statement for a while. It made no sense. Of course he was a lip. Everybody in the clan knew it.

“What do you mean?”

“When you were dying, I tried to use my magic to make you better. But I wasn’t very good at it, and it was so exhausting. I tried to think of another way—any other way at all—but it was all I could come up with.”

“Kavro shilmar?”

She felt him nod.

“What was it like?”

“The memories of it are... slippery. Half of what I said and did disappeared the minute I walked out of the paoro. It comes back to me in snatches.”

Malena waited for him to supply more detail.

“I knew one other person who vowed,” she finally said. “The seamstress who used to come to our home for a few weeks each year. She was a quiet woman. Very private. Intense.”

“No flamboyant story to feed the gossip?” Toril asked.

“No. In fact, I didn’t even know she’d done the Ordeal of Names until her last visit, when Mother commissioned my wedding sari. She insisted she’d do the bead work for free. I asked her why, and she said it was part of the price of her name. At the time I shrugged it off as an odd comment, but when I laid eyes on what she’d made I knew the name she had in mind was no ordinary thing.”

“The sari was exquisite,” Toril whispered. “And so was the woman who wore it.”

Malena blinked hard. She’d seen loose beads on the floor of her bedchamber after Toril healed her. “So was the woman who made it. I guessed that she’d burned a scroll, and she did not deny it, but she just teared up when I asked for more explanation. I couldn’t get a lot out of her, except that her ordeal is ongoing, not a thing she completed long ago.”

She felt a tenseness from Toril.

“For you, too?”

He sighed an acknowledgment.

“Can you tell me your name?” she ventured.

“I asked that very question,” Toril said slowly. “That part, I
do
remember.” She felt him shift his legs and lean away. “I was told that if I complete the ordeal, you’ll know the name, and if I don’t, the name was never mine to begin with. I’m supposed to leave it at that.”

Malena dissected this. She’d always pictured the ordeal as a ceremony where a priest posed hard questions, or maybe invoked some supernatural power to prove the supplicant’s integrity of purpose. Why would that be hard to remember? And why would the seamstress and Toril both claim their ordeal wasn’t over? Something about her husband’s tone made her feel like the priest hadn’t been the other party in the conversation he was reporting. He hadn’t really talked with a Speaker, had he? That only happened at High Days, when a priest or priestess addressed all the people together, in trance.

“What price did you pay, exactly, to burn your scroll?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

“When you say you’re no longer a lip, you mean you sacrificed your magic?”

She felt him nod again.

“But how did you heal me? I saw you speak the words, saw you glowing with power as you called me back...”

“It had to be something precious. Worthy of the blessing I sought. The words I spoke to heal you were the last I’ll use as a magic wielder.”

She grew still. Then, abruptly, she stepped back a step, eyes wide. “But how are we going to rescue the children?”

Toril stared back, his face inscrutable in the deep shadows. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “Before we left the valley.”

“You said nothing!” Malena whispered back. She could feel hostility and panic rising.

“I said I couldn’t pull off a rescue by myself,” Toril hissed. “I said I needed reinforcements. But you wouldn’t listen.” His voice cracked at the end.

“You didn’t say you were... crippled!” Malena shot back. She heard echoes of her mother in the last word, and a part of her cringed. The woman had been so proud of her gifted son-in-law—but strip away the wealth, the reputation, and the talent, and Malena could imagine her mother’s dismay. Was she, herself, worried about such shallow considerations—even as she claimed concern for the children?

“I guess I came because part of your argument made sense,” Toril responded. “Besides, what was I supposed to do? Humiliate myself by begging you? Blab my most private secrets in front of complete strangers? Even if I’d wanted to, kavro shilmar is supposed to be sacred, between me and a Speaker. What I did there should be shared with nobody. I’m only telling you because you’re directly affected.”

“Children’s lives are at stake!” She heard desperation in her voice.

“You think I don’t know that? You think I’ve thought about anything else while we’ve ridden into the wilderness?”

“If I’d known, I would have gone to Sotalio,” Malena retorted, her voice quivering with indignation.

“You would?”

Despite her anger, Malena found herself digesting the question. A part of her was remembering Shivi’s assessment from the other night. Malena and her husband had both been right, according to the old woman. At the time, the ambivalence had seemed comforting; she’d needed to hear that her own motives for dashing into the wilderness were not foolish.