Diadem from the Stars (24 page)

Without any further hesitation she thrust the bit of fish into her mouth and chewed determinedly. To her surprise the raw fish had a cool clean taste, not strong at all, and a delicate chewy texture. Hungrily, she slivered off more fish until all she had left was a little pile of cleaned-off bones in front of her. Her stomach clamored for more.

She waded into the water and summoned another fish and another, scooping them up, tossing them onto the bank. When she reached out for a third, she stopped.
A little at a time,
she thought.
No use taking more than I can eat.
She released the captive fish and watched it dart away.

The last bites of the fish were a little hard to swallow. Looking at a pink-veined fragment, she sighed and tossed it into the river. After she cleaned up the bones and skin, she washed her hands and the knife, then lay on the grass and watched Mulak graze. He looked better already. “Mmm, that's nice, isn't it, aziz-mi?” Flipping onto her back with a laugh, she stretched and stretched until she felt her bones cracking. “Ahai, mi-muklis, I'm so tired of running … and running.…”

The last tip of Horli slid down behind the edge of the world and the sky bloomed purple, red, gold. “I'd better put those filthy rags back on.” She shivered as the evening breeze slid over her bare skin. “If I just had time to wash them,” she moaned. “Or something else to put on.” Mouth pursed with distaste, she slid back into the sweat-stained, dirt-stiff clothes. Weariness splashed around in her, as if she walked six inches under water—she could almost feel waves sloshing up and down on top of her skull. With a sigh, she pulled up the saddle, wiggled around on the grass until she found a reasonably comfortable position, pulled the sweaty saddle blanket over her shoulders, and closed her eyes. As she drifted to sleep she felt a faint amusement as images of her first nights on the trail contrasted with her present destitution.

A neighing broke through the darkness, followed by a vast rough something that rubbed damply across her face. Aleytys opened gritty eyes and focused on a black muzzle inches from her face. Once more Mulak shoved at her with his nose.

She pushed his head aside and sat up, wiping her sleeve across her face. “Ahai, I could have slept another whole week.” She rolled over onto her knees and got stiffly to her feet.

The night's rest had worked marvels for the big animal. As Aleytys settled in the saddle a little later, he snorted and pranced about like a colt. She laughed with delight and kneed him forward. As she took off downtrail she glanced back over her shoulder. Horli had thrust her rim above the eastern mountains.
Hesh will be coming out today,
she thought and shivered. She swiveled around again and patted the horse on his arching neck. “No use moaning,” she said. “Look on the bright side, Leyta. We'll have to stop longer at midday and so will he. Be better for both of us.”

Whistling cheerily, she rode down the rutted road, reveling in a reborn sense of well-being. Then the black wings fluttered behind her again.

14

On the twenty-first day of her escape, she rode out from under the trees as Horli—with Hesh back on the north snuggling beside her belly—slanted down to the hazy western horizon. The tijarat fields spread over acres and acres of flat land. Great circles of posts joined by long split poles. Rows of tables weathered by the years to a velvety gray. Flattened spaces of stone-hard earth. Stone troughs at each of the circles fed by flumes leading to the river and a series of waterwheels.

Aleytys sat numbly on Mulak's back, hands gripping the saddle horn so tightly her fingers ached.

One of the waterwheels was broken, another completely washed away, leaving only a spindly frame.

The troughs were empty of water but filled with dust and debris.

The wind from the plains blew across the empty tables.

No one.

Nothing.

The ghost of a dream.

The shadows of the nomad wagons slid over the close-cropped grass as Horli crept behind the horizon. The thief grunted and collapsed on the leather in front of his battered chon, finding a measure of relief in the shade as he massaged his aching legs and frowned fretfully at the busy nomads.

Khateyat came around the chon. He looked up and saw her, sighed, and levered himself onto his feet.

She nodded quietly in response to his grudging greeting. “Take the yoke and fetch water from the river,” she said crisply. “Bring it to my chon and wait standing until I come for you. Do not let the buckets touch the ground. Do you understand?”

His pale eyes tightened into slits while the small muscles at the corners of his thin mouth hardened into knots. “I understand,” he muttered.

With a last warning glance, she turned away and disappeared around the chon. Stavver went to the back of the Shemqya herret and lifted the yoke from its hooks, letting the buckets swing until they clacked harshly together.

When he came back from the river with the dripping buckets swinging from the yoke on his shoulders, he stared thoughtfully at the ground, wanting to drag them across the earth to spite Khateyat. But he knew the futility of that.
No way of fooling these witches.
He grunted.
She'd make me fetch more after pouring it out on my feet.
He stopped in front of Khateyat's tent and waited for her to come out.

Khateyat swung, gracefully through the low entrance and nodded to him to follow her. She walked briskly out of the camp and climbed a low grassy knoll. The other Shemqya sat in a circle, eyes following their progress.

Khateyat stopped him in the center of the circle. “Don't move and don't speak. N'frat. The basin.”

“Yes, R'eKhateyat.” The girl jumped to her feet, lifting the large basin she had held in her lap. She brought it to Khateyat and stood in eager alertness' and waited for the next exciting happenings in a life she found full of extraordinary and fascinating events.

“Shanat.” Khateyat swept her eyes around the group. She frowned slightly at Raqat, then her eyes rested on the youngest one. “R'prat.” She beckoned them to the center. “Support the basin with N'frat.”

“Yes, R'eKhateyat.”

The thief could feel a growing tension in the air. More magic to twist and confuse his mind. He saw and felt the consequences of the incomprehensible things they did, but still couldn't quite believe in them.

“Move back a trifle,” Khateyat told him. “The water has not touched ground?”

“No.” He tried to sneer but it didn't come off.

She looked at the buckets and nodded. “That is so. And good. There would be danger otherwise.” She moved him so that the left bucket was nearest the basin being held by the three girls. “Stand thus. And be silent. What we do is none of your concern. If you interfere in things you know nothing of, your reward will be most unpleasant.” She lifted the bucket and poured the water into the basin.

The interior of the heavy metal dish was a sooty black that turned the crystalline water into an unsteady mirror. The thief watched with covert interest as Khateyat bent over the mirror and whispered soft sibilant words that chilled the movement of the water until it reflected the gently floating clouds of the sunset sky. The whisper continued, going on and on until the first star in the darkening sky was imaged in the water.

Khateyat straightened. “R'nenawatalawa,” she said softly. “Come.” Her voice was like a breath of wind sliding across the mirror. “You called me. Speak. Show us what we need to know. Show.”

The water rippled. At first the thief thought the girls who held the basin had grown tired and faltered in their task. But the mirror rapidly cleared
.

Instead of the sky he was startled to see the image of a red-haired woman riding down a rutted road on a magnificent black stallion. She was thin and tanned, dressed in filthy rags, hair streaming behind her like a crimson flag. Pulling the horse to a stop, she looked around. The thief could see the river, the waterwheels, the deserted corrals as her eyes swept over them. Though the image was tiny, the outline of her form spoke eloquently of her despair. She dismounted slowly and stripped the saddle from the stallion's back. For a moment she stood at his side gently stroking his neck. Then she slid the bridle off his head and slapped him on the flank so that he kicked up his heels and ran off. He didn't go far, but settled down to a steady cropping of the sun-bleached grass. The girl … she was young, the thief thought. Very young. Perhaps even pretty. It was hard to tell. The girl sat down on a rock and stared at the river. After a few minutes, she gathered a pile of pebbles and began flipping them in the river.

The water shivered. Streaks of silver crossed and recrossed the image, then coalesced into a glyph, shattered again, reformed into a second, shattered, formed a third. Then the images vanished and the water reflected merely the star-lit sky.

Khateyat stepped back. “Pour the water out.”

The three girls tilted the basin and let the water flow out of it so that it splashed over the grass, wetting the thief's ragged leather leggings.

N'frat held on to the edge of the basin and fidgeted eagerly. “Is she the one? Is she the redheaded one the R'nenawatalawa gave us the diadem for? Is she?”

“Hush, child.” Kheprat smiled affectionately into the eager young face, her blind eyes glinting white in the starlight. “Use your head. Why else would they show us her? Khateyat, what did the runes say?”

Khateyat frowned at the thief. “Take the water and pour the rest of it in the casks. Then you can rest till time for the evening meal. Go now.”

Stavver shook himself out of his astonishment and trudged down the gentle slope, glancing repeatedly behind him at the silent standing figures.

Khateyat watched him until he disappeared behind the herret. Then she turned to the others. “Kepri, the woman is in danger and hungry. The R'nenawatalawa send us to her. We leave in the morning with the diadem.”

Part III

THE DIADEM

1

Aleytys flipped the pebble into the river and listened to it plop. She sat on a rock beside the Mulukaneh Rud, its deep silent water flowing past her dusty toes, with Tarnsian's mind-touch prodding at the edge of her awareness. She lifted another pebble off the pile and tossed it in the water. The feel of him had an aura of triumph, as if he knew she'd come to the end of her resources.

After the last pebble sailed lazily into the cool green and disappeared, Aleytys said softly, “The end. That's all there is.” She pulled her feet up onto the rock, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her head on her knees.

Time drifted past. She watched the shadows shorten and creep up past her toes as Horli and Hesh slid lightly up the arch of the sky. She was drifting in a half-doze when a series of scrabbling sounds broke through the placid morning hum. She listened a moment, puzzled vaguely. The sounds were coming from the wrong direction for it to be Tarnsian. Besides, she couldn't feel him, if he was that close, he'd have her tied in knots by now. She scrambled to her feet and stood poised on her toes, watching the line of shrubbery growing a few meters higher up the bank. The wind over the river nudged at her matted hair and so she brushed it impatiently out of her face and held it in a club on her neck as she scanned the bushes apprehensively.

At first she saw nothing, then a shaggy triangular head thrust around a pricklebush. A woman mounted on a yara rode onto the bank.

Dropping her heels back on the rock, Aleytys crossed her arms over her breasts and watched in quiet despair as five others joined the first. The leader wore a tasseled cloth on her head, held in place by an intricately knotted cord. On either side of her impassive red-brown face hung heavy white-streaked black braids tied off with red cords ending in small tassels. She wore a loose tunic of a fine white material heavily embroidered at the hem and cuffs. Her hands were hidden in gloves of fine soft black leather as her feet were in soft black leather boots. She wore voluminous trousers in blue-dyed sueded leather. They were gathered in at the ankles over the boots, tied off with tassled cords. Aleytys watched that one and the other five dressed like her pull up in a line and halt, dark eyes on her with daunting steadiness. Still dazed and sluggish in reaction, she swallowed and breathed rapidly, a fugitive hope sparking in her.

At that moment Tarnsian struck.

Aleytys staggered and fell to her knees, sickly horrified at the oily malevolence that poured over her.
Worse,
she thought.
He's become worse.
She moaned and wrapped her arms around her head as she fought back, forgetting everything but that threatening blackness flooding her.

She knelt in a silvery bubble, inside swirling, battering black forces … no escape … no … and it was pressing in … creeping like oily smoke … creeping in through interstices in her awareness. She fought, watching the shining bubble sag and begin to wrinkle. Frantically she propped the weak spot, then another section began to sag, and another. She raced her mind around in her bubble, stopping up drip after drip, and still the attack continued. She was so tired … so tired … and she held on desperately … so tired … so tired. Then a calm quiet strength poured into her, confidence. She drove the bubble out … but … out … against all the efforts of the attacker. Abruptly, without fanfare, the barrage was gone. Aleytys lifted her aching head.

She felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to face the calm woman kneeling beside her. “You helped me,” Aleytys said wonderingly.

The strange woman smiled, the corners of her mouth wrinkling into gentleness and acceptance. Aleytys felt like a flower turning its face to the sun. “I help,” the woman said. “Yes. Is bad, him.”