Diadem from the Stars (14 page)

“That looks interesting, mi-muklis mayal. Bet you both could do with some rest and food.” She kicked her heels into the mare's sides and started her downstream, the stallion following calmly behind.

After about half an hour, the ground leveled out and Aleytys sighed with relief. She straightened herself in the saddle and looked around with lively interest. The ground in the little valley was more or less level and lushly upholstered with khiragrass, which shone bright green in the lurid morning light. On her right, around the far edge of the meadow, rose a thick growth of ballut and bydarrakh. No horans.

No horans. She sighed. The absence of the shining trees brought a sense of loss oddly sharp, oddly worse than the loss of Vajd. For the first time she felt in the core of her being the loss of her home. There was a deep marrow-of-the-bones comprehension that she would live on alien soil the rest of her life, that she would never again have a place where she fit without strain. She shrugged and turned her back on the trees.

The left side of the valley was a precipitous cliff—the wall of the ravine grown at least fifty meters high. Interest sparked in her as she saw what looked to be a deep hollow near the ground, half hidden behind a skirt of prickle bushes and a few lean ironwoods.

She nudged the mare forward and edged cautiously past the needle-pointed leaves of the bushes. Next to the cliff she found a short climb like a meter-high ramp. She urged the mare up and halted under the curving roof of the hollow. It was like standing in a stone bubble. The top arched over her head and dipped back into chilly, red-tinted shadows. The bubble was about three meters high, three wide, and about double that deep. The floor was more or less level, covered with decayed leaves and miscellaneous debris.

She leaned forward and scratched the mare along her mane. “Not much, is it, Pari? But better than a night in the rainstorm.” Once again she straightened her tired back. “Aziz-mi, how'm I going to get way down there?” She eyed the floor with distaste. “My legs don't seem to want to work.”

Holding on to the saddle horn, she tilted over until she slid from the saddle to collapse in a rubber-legged heap on the floor in the middle of a pile of pricklethorn. The spines punched into her, stinging her onto her hands and knees. Clumsily she crawled to the mare and pulled herself erect until she stood clinging to the saddle, meagerly supported by legs that kept bending in the middle.

She wiggled her toes and flexed the muscles in her legs until the feeling flowed back into them. Letting go of the saddle, she stumbled over to the stallion.

After wrestling the pack to the floor, she stripped off his gear, chuckling as she scratched his head under his forelock, tottering back as the stallion bumped her affectionately in the chest. “Ahi, muklis, watch it—my poor old legs haven't got much spring left in them.”

With a last rub of his shoulder, she sent him out into the meadow. Then she stripped the mare and released her to run free.

She shuffled wearily to the front of the hollow. Over the top of the pricklebushes she watched the horses run, prancing, kicking out fore and hind feet alternately, whinnying exuberantly. She smiled, catching a little of the mood. Then she sighed and turned back to the pile of gear.

Walking with her legs bowed out so that the inner surfaces of her thighs would not touch, Aleytys dragged the packs as far back in the hollow as she could, brushing away the sticks, thorns, and the winter's casting of desiccated leaves. After tidying the pile, she took a bottle of ointment Vajd had given her and walked down to the front of the bubble.

With morning birds whose names she didn't know chirruping merrily around her, she edged through the pricklebushes and tottered over to the dancing water of the stream. Seating herself on a rock in the full light of the two suns just lifting their tops above the trees, she pulled off the creased and stained abba so that she sat naked in the growing warmth of the morning.

She looked down at her legs and gasped. They were stained with blood from knee to crotch. “Qudda Madar!” she breathed. She dipped her hand into the water. “Ahai! Ice!” she yelped. Slowly, letting her flesh adjust to the chill, she dropped her feet into the clear cold stream and stood up. With a groan, she bent and scooped up handfuls of water, splashing it over the torn skin, wincing and squeaking each time the icy fluid hit her tender flesh.

Once the blood was washed off she shuffled back to the rock and dabbed on a thick slathering of the ointment. With another chorus of groans and moans she crawled out of the water onto the rock and stretched herself out in the sunslight, bunching up her abba for a pillow.

The ointment sank in and did its healing work, while the warmth of the suns soothed her chill and aching body. Slowly her fatigue crept back and she drifted into a dim half-sleep. But Jaydugari are conditioned from birth to avoid sleeping in Heshlight, so, reluctantly, she pulled herself up again and lay down flat on her stomach to drink from the stream. The water had an astringent leaf-green taste that was refreshing and new to her.

Blinking repeatedly to keep her eyes open, Aleytys stumbled back into the shelter of the hollow. She spread out one of the sheets of tufan she had wrapped around the packs and dumped a blanket on top of it. Touching the fleecy pashmi of the blanket reminded her of the horse blankets and she wobbled over to the heaped-up packs and picked up the crumpled pads. She wrinkled her nose. Wet with sweat, exuding a dank musty smell, they needed airing like she needed sleep. She hung them over the pricklebushes where the suns could burn the stink out of them.

Almost before she could drop her head onto the rolled-up abba and pull the blanket across her shoulders, she was plummeting fathoms deep into sleep.

2

Aleytys sighed and sobbed. Deep in her sleep pictures formed in her mind.…

The tracker knelt on the ground and puzzled over the tracks. “Two stood here,” he said, glancing up at the glowering Azdar. “A woman. A man. Two horses.”

“A man!” Azdar swung down from his horse and stared at the trampled sand. “You sure? Who?”

The tracker shook his head. He prodded at the sand with his gnarled forefinger. “Too dry here, A man. See? Sandal mark. One of ours helped her. He turned here.” He hunched along over the sand and flicked at the prints with his finger. “Went back to the vadi.” He stood up slowly, dusting the sand from his legs. Eyes flat and emotionless as a snake, he looked down the back trail, then turned again to Azdar. “The woman, she went alone, that way.” He pointed south along the rutted wagon road.

Aleytys frowned in her sleep and made a vague sound of protest.

Mounting again, Azdar jerked his horse's head around. With the animal sidling restlessly in the middle of the road, he swung his head around and looked each man in the face out of bloodshot eyes. “A horse to every man if we catch her before the night,” he growled, his face twisted into a vindictive scowl. He slammed his heels into the gelding's sides and plunged off down the winding rutted track.

The men looked uneasily at one another. Their eyes kept sliding around to Chalak and slipping away. Nodding at the tracker, he said quietly, “Get started.” He mounted and started his horse south along the trade road, riding slowly. The other men fell in line behind him.

Aleytys sighed and turned onto her stomach, her lips moving soundlessly with her brother's name. Chalak … Chal … Ch …

The dream changed. The tracker grunted and held up a hand. He slid off the horse and squatted on the road and peered down at the hard rocky ground. “Missed her,” lie growled. The background was vague, misty, but what the dreamer saw of it was strange. The tracker stood and peered back down the back trail. “She turned off trail a while back.” Sourly he shot a glance at Azdar, red faced and impatient on his black gelding, then his eyes slid past and rested on Chalak's impassive face. “We come too fast.”

Azdar scowled. “Well?”

“Got an idea. Never been in the saddle before. If she wanted to turn off, would've took first open ground.” He spit thoughtfully, watching the spittle sizzle briefly on the rock. “Have to find cover soon. Coming up high heat.” He wiped the sweat from his wrinkled apricot face with the corner of his headcloth, then settled the bast cords that held the cloth on.

Azdar peered from under his cowl at the suns. Huge red Horli, with Hesh snuggled against her belly, floated up near zenith. He gnawed at his thumbnail in frustration. “How long before we reach where you think she turned off?”

“No use missing her again. We came too fast. Just waste time making the same mistake again.” The herdsman scuffed his feet thoughtfully over the hard ground. “I walk this time. How long?” He shrugged.

Chalak nodded. “Right,” he said softly. “We can lay up for high heat by that stream we passed a few miles back.”

The tracker spit again and started walking back, leading his horse and peering at each side of the trail, his dried-up face turning slowly from side to side.

The air inside the hollow began heating up as Hesh and Horli soared to zenith. Aleytys grumbled in her sleep and, arms moving clumsily, fumbled the blanket off her. Snoring slightly, she curled on her side and sank further into sleep.

The pursuit crawled along at a walk with Chalak serving as the butt of his father's ill humor. The dreamer smiled in her sleep, feeling his grim satisfaction at their creeping progress.

The dream scene shifted again.

Under purple-blue towering clouds the group of men inched down the mountainside, winding through the scattered ironwood trees. “Wait.” The tracker pushed through the spindly brush and stepped onto the splash of sand slanting down the bank and under the stream. The dreamer jerked with a twinge of fear as she recognized the spot.

He knelt a moment beside the smudgy prints, then squinted across at the sand on the other side. “She stayed in the water.” He led his horse into the stream and started pacing slowly downhill.

“Just a moment,” Chalak said abruptly, drawing a smile from the dreamer. The tracker turned. “How do you know which way she went?” He shifted in the saddle and pointed back toward the road. “Shouldn't we check the other way first?”

The tracker looked at him impassively. “No,” he said after a moment.

Aleytys stirred restlessly and moved to another spot on the tufan out of the pooled sweat collected from her steaming body. In her sleep she smiled, recognizing Chalak's efforts to hold back these tracking her. Her lips moved. “Chalak … Chala … Cha …”

The sky was darker as the cloud curtain thickened across Horli's fat red face. The tracker waded through the cold water, eyes moving steadily from bank to bank. Behind him the other men walked their horses along both banks. Each time the tracker came to a stretch of rock he flicked up a warning hand,” stopping the twin lines of men, then he crawled out onto the rock, his nose so close to the surface he seemed to be sniffing it like some hunting animal. Each time, after a few minutes, he stood up, shook his head, and splashed back into the water.

The wind strengthened. As the light reddened and dimmed, Azdar growled under his breath, then called impatiently, “Time's wasting. Move faster!”

The tracker lifted his head and looked impassively at the Azdar. With maddening deliberation he considered the clan head's angry face. When he spoke his voice-was dry and derisive. “We missed her before. You want to take the chance?”

Chalak nodded earnestly, stifling the satisfaction he felt at this unexpected and unconscious support. “He's right, abru sar,” he said quietly. “The light is getting bad. He could easily miss her turn-off.”

Azdar snorted. “The light's going. What difference's it make we lose her by missing her or because the rain washed out her trail? Move faster!” he rasped.

The tracker shrugged and started on downstream in a long steady lope.

Finally, on a wide lumpy apron of stone, he fingered a short scratch, flicked away a small pebble sitting with its lichen side down, and nodded his head.

The dreamer cried out in fear, her whole body shuddering under the prod of her uneasiness.

Azdar jerked his horse's head around and brought him rattling and scraping up onto the rock. The tracker frowned in irritation and waved him back.

On hands and knees, nose once more nearly to the stone, he crawled forward, sniffing out the almost invisible trail. Then, with a low grunt of satisfaction, he stood up and stepped off the far edge of the rock, pointing at deep indentations in the soft black earth. He studied the tracks for a few strides, then looked up at the sky.

Azdar slid off his horse and examined the prints. “How far ahead is she?”

The tracker paced off a few more meters along the trail with Azdar following close behind; “The woman is letting the horse choose its own path,” he said slowly. “You See?” He pointed but the short distance between the prints and the rather erratic line of travel. “Could be, she didn't go much farther.” He dropped down and squatted beside the tracks, prodding at them with thumb and finger. “Made late last night, 'bout dawn, I'd say.” He squinted up at the sky. “Going to rain soon. Got 'bout half a chance to catch her. Depends how much farther she went.” He stood up, looked around briefly, then began loping smoothly along the trail, pulling his mount into a trot beside him.

The file of men moved over the slope, winding between the clustering circles of sinaubar. Only the softness of the black mountain topsoil under the matted roots of the webgrass made any tracking possible in the dim musty light trickling through the lowering clouds.

Then big scattered drops of rain began splashing down, coming faster and faster as the minutes passed. The tracker cursed softly and slowed to a stop. Azdar halted beside him. “There was a chance,” he said bitterly.

The tracker shrugged. “I go on tomorrow.” He rested his hand on the knife and let his fingers caress the hilt. “You do what you want.”