Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (20 page)

“Bethid—it will be dangerous. For all we know, the road itself now lies in Alisanos.”

“But it’s visible, Brodhi said. If I see a forest where one wasn’t before, I’ll definitely know to avoid it!” She sipped her cooling tea. “I’ll go, and I promise I won’t take unnecessary risks.”

“Brodhi said
most
of it is visible,” Jorda clarified. Then he rose, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s too dangerous.” His abrupt gesture dismissed the idea. “We can hope Rhuan returns in a few days. That would be best.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but what about in the meantime? And if Rhuan
is
lost to us, which is certainly possible—he’s Shoia, not immortal—then we’ll have to
scout the borders ourselves at some point, anyway. And do it sooner than Brodhi can return from Cardatha.” She shrugged. “How would we feel if
children
wandered too close to a border none of us could see? Better to risk one person, I think, than several, be they children or adults. I do know the roads and routes, Jorda, and where the shortcuts lie.”

“Bethid—”

She cut him off. “I will do this. But if it would ease you, I’ll make a heartfelt vow to the Mother not to take unnecessary risks.” She grinned at him, patting the string of charms around her neck. “After all, I’m not Rhuan. I can’t die six times and revive. I’ll be most careful.”

Jorda passed a wide hand over his hair. “I don’t know … when I thought it through, I believed in the plan. But now, speaking of it with you, I’m not so certain.” He stared over her head into the wagon, brightening. “But if Ilona could read your hand, she might be able to provide an indication of the danger.” He nodded, clearly relieved. “That might be best.”

“Except,” Bethid said soberly, “she already tried it. She failed.”

Jorda was stunned. “She
still
can’t read a hand?”

“I told her it may be that she’s injured.” Bethid poured out the dregs of cold tea beside the steps, then shook the mug to rid it of residual moisture and set it on the floorboards. “And it may. She says she’s never been ill nor injured. I don’t know how a diviner’s gift works, but it seems logical to me that illness or injury
might interfere.” That prompted a memory. “She had me look for the dream-reader earlier. Lerin. I couldn’t find her.”

Jorda blew out a noisy breath. “Mikal did. She’s dead.”

“Oh.” That surprise pinched. “Well, surely there are other diviners here.
All
of them can’t be dead. You have two diviners in addition to Ilona, don’t you, for your karavans?”

His expression was grim. “Some diviners were culled by the Hecari. Then we told everyone to go east when the storm came down, but not all of those folk have returned. We can’t be certain they didn’t end up in Alisanos. Others … well, more bodies have been found. Lightning-struck, or crushed by falling trees. One man broke his neck, probably from falling off a frightened horse.” Jorda briefly touched the knot on his forehead, gained in his own fall. His voice was bleak. “Branca and Melior are also among the missing. To my knowledge, after a head count, Ilona is the only surviving diviner here.”

“Mother,” Bethid murmured in shock. “
No
diviners left?”

“One,” Jorda said grimly, “if her gift survives.”

A chill ran down Bethid’s spine. For a moment she scratched absently but vigorously at short hair, weighing consequences. “Jorda, without any diviners, we’re all of us in danger. If anyone dies, and there are no diviners, there can be no rites. Without those rites, the dead can’t cross the river. They’ll be denied an afterlife.
And we have bodies waiting already.” She felt sick to her stomach. “Oh Jorda, we can’t remain here if there are no diviners! We’ll have to leave, all of us, no matter the threat of Alisanos. The deepwood’s not a certainty. Without a diviner, damnation is.”

Green eyes were dark in low light. His voice was tight. “Then when you make your vow to the Mother not to take unnecessary risks, ask her to rekindle Ilona’s gift. If she is truly the only diviner, the fates of all of us, dead
and
alive, depend on her.”

I
LONA DREAMED OF A MAN. He was distant, and details could not be seen clearly, but she knew he was Rhuan. He came striding straight toward her, as if he knew she was waiting for him, and as he drew closer she realized he was not Rhuan after all. This man was taller, broader, older. But his skin was the same hue, his eyes the same warm cider brown, and he wore his pale coppery hair in ornamented and complex braid patterns. His features were markedly similar to Rhuan’s. But when he smiled, as he did in her dream, no dimples appeared. And she realized, as he smiled, that a flame burned within the man, hot and high. He wore power the way others wore clothing.

Closer yet he came.

His apparel was as striking as he was. He wore a tightfitting long-sleeved tunic and snug leggings made of a hide that was only a shade darker than his skin and hair, so that from head to toe he was a glossy pale russet, the color of autumn leaves. The clothing had a sheen to it, as if it were washed in gold, and wet. And then she realized, as the dream
became clearer yet, as he walked closer still, that he wore the hide of a beast who was—that had been—scaled. She saw the interlocking patterns now, the delicate juxtaposition of scale overlapping scale. In the light of two suns, beneath a sepia sky, he glowed. But the hide was not ornamented, not as Rhuan’s was, with shells and beads and fringe. The hide, in its clean, simple elegance, in the richness of its color and exquisite patterning, needed no adornment.

He stopped before her, close enough that she might touch him, that he might touch her. He did not. He smiled into her eyes, then lifted his arms over his head, palms turned up, as if to say “Behold.”

She looked up, as he meant her to.

Above him, in the sky, beneath the double suns, winged beasts rose. That they did so to mate, she thought at first; but no.

To fight.

Still he smiled at her. “This is for you.”

JUST BEFORE DAWN, Brodhi was wrenched out of sleep. Images impinged on his consciousness, flooding his mind. He sat bolt upright, staring into thinning darkness, and saw Alisanos. Was
in
Alisanos.

No. No. His body remained in the human world; only his eyes were in the deepwood.

Immediately he knew the instigator. Furious, frustrated, Brodhi clamped both hands over his face. “
Curse
you, Rhuan!”

His awareness of the human world attenuated, then snapped. With eyes closed, hands pressed against his eyelids, he nonetheless saw the pale trunks of the dreya ring, the leafy silver canopy spreading high against the sky, the light of two suns glittering among stems and branches. He saw the dappled depths, the shadows, felt a familiarity that reached out to him to yank demandingly at his spirit. He ached with yearning. For too long, much too long, he had been away. Brodhi longed to go home.

Then the view altered. He saw a booted foot—no,
two
booted feet—leather-clad legs, punctures in the leggings, and blood.

And blood.

The image shifted. Slid sideways. He had a cramped view of bare abdomen, and deep, ragged gashes.

Rhuan was not only in Alisanos, but
hurt
in Alisanos. And clearly was asking for help.

Brodhi already felt the first warning throb of the headache to come. Forced sendings always resulted in such. A moment later his skull felt like someone was pounding a tent peg into it. He leaned forward, clutching his head, and hissed through clenched teeth. “I know …” He swore viciously. “I see, Rhuan … yes, you’re hurt; I see that. I see where you are.
Stop
.”

Rhuan didn’t. A sending didn’t work that way. They could not communicate beyond sharing, in silence, what Rhuan’s eyes saw. Ordinarily a sending was indicated by a feathering of inquiry, a request for contact.
But when forced upon a man, its repercussions were violent.

Brodhi thrust himself to his feet, blinded by pain, blinded by darkness, and stumbled forward. He reeled sideways a step, then staggered into the cookfire, knocking down the spit and the remains of the deer carcass. He swore, felt heat beneath his boot soles, and leaped forward to escape the coals. Tripping, he ended up on one knee, one hand thrust against the ground to hold himself upright. The other hand clutched at his brow.

Dreya ring.

Torn and bloodied leggings.

Torn and bloodied flesh.

He toppled to one hip, then down onto his side. He could not prevent his body’s desperate bid for an interior escape as it curled upon itself. Childlike, he rocked back and forth, trying to stem the pain, or at least to assimilate it.

Rhuan’s sending ended. Alisanos was gone. Brodhi saw night again, the crescent of Maiden Moon, the first faint thinning presaging dawn. Some distance away, tied to a tree, his horse snorted at him warily. A flood of invective fell from Brodhi’s mouth, and all of it had to do with his kin-in-kind, the fool who’d forced a sending upon him.

When next he saw Rhuan,
if
he saw Rhuan, he’d murder him.

That is, if Rhuan didn’t die of his wounds first.

Brodhi rolled onto his back. Ground chill seeped up
through his clothing, sheathing his flesh. He stared up into the sky, willing the pain to diminish, knowing it would require more time than he had before departing on his journey to Cardatha. He used the moon as proxy for his kinsman. “I’m
here
, not there, for all I wish our roles were reversed. And if you truly think I would go into Alisanos before my time and risk my ascension, then you don’t deserve to live because you’re too stupid!” Now, he was sweating. He felt sick to his stomach. “If you need help so badly, contact the primaries. Contact Alario. You know the way. You have the means. You don’t want to ascend anyway—what would it matter?”

But it would. He seriously doubted Rhuan wished to be a neuter any more than he did. Which is why Rhuan had undertaken the sending. It truly was a cry for help.

“No,” Brodhi declared. “It was your choice to put yourself so close to the deepwood as it went active. As the humans would say, you reap what you sow. I remain here.”

Rhuan could not hear him, of course. But Brodhi’s decision would be known when he failed to appear in Alisanos, in the dreya ring, and Rhuan would realize his fate was his own to make.

No, Rhuan would contact no one else for aid. Better to die intact than to live a neuter.

Sweat was drying on Brodhi’s face. He lay sprawled and very still, afraid to move lest it make the headache worse. There beneath the Maiden he resolved yet
again, more determinedly than ever, to become what he so badly wanted—needed—to become. Alario would lose a son, but his brother Karadath would have
his
son, his
dioscuri
, who would rise as the sire had risen.

Ascension.

THE SENDING WAS done. Rhuan could well imagine Brodhi’s reaction. He did hold some faint hope that Brodhi might shock him and actually answer the plea for assistance, but doubt was foremost. Were Brodhi in the human world, he would not enter Alisanos and risk ending his journey prematurely. He
might
answer the sending if he were in the deepwood. But Rhuan doubted it. There had been distance in the sending, weakness in the blood-bond that allowed the one-way communication.