Diadem from the Stars (40 page)

A spear whipped by her so close it dragged away her headcloth. Before it struck the sidewall of the ravine she was tumbling off the sesmat, clutching her baby to her breast and scrambling into the shelter of one of the huge boulders lining the path.

In her uneasy sleep Aleytys huddled, knees against her breasts, head rolling back and forth on the coarse cloth covering the thin mattress. “No,” she moaned. “No.…”

They drove her from the rocks, faces grinning and sweating in their lust for her death. Drove her to Myawo her enemy.

And then the diadem chimed. She watched her hands hold a short spear and push-pull it again and again into the hard muscled chests of men who couldn't even know they were dead until the time spell lifted. Saw her hands drop the spear and turn to the men in front of her. Saw her hands pull a knife from unresisting fingers and carve new mouths in four more necks. Heard the diadem chime again. Heard dead men fall around her. She screamed. One, two, three, four. Screamed. One, two, three, four.…

“Aleytys!” Kale bent over her, his hand leaving her shoulder. “You were dreaming.”

She sat up, eyes heavy, head aching from the harrowing of the nightmare memories. “Thanks,” she muttered. The air inside the caravan pressed around her, hot, stifling, used up. She blinked repeatedly and pushed her hands through her sweaty hair. “Do we stop here?”

“No. But you were making so much noise.…”

“Oh.” She staggered to her feet. “Let me drive a while. I need to clear my head.” She moved clumsily through the curtains, swung around the seat, and dumped herself down. As soon as she was settled, she looked around at the wagon stopped behind. Stavver seemed half asleep himself, his long, thin body bowed forward over the reins, following her lead without comment.

She sighed and leaned against the age-polished slats, grateful for the fugitive current of air flowing past her sticky face. “What about Maissa?” Lazily she watched Kale stretch out his legs and lean back. “Didn't she have something to say about us stopping?”

Kale yawned. “She's probably asleep. She's drugged.”

“Oh.”

“Better get going.” Kale folded his arms across his chest then sent a sliding glance at her. “What were you dreaming about?” As she sent the horses into a steady walk he stared at her, dark eyes glinting with curiosity. “At the end you were counting. Loud enough to wake the dead.”

“The dead.” Aleytys swallowed painfully. “A good choice of words. I was counting the ghosts I drag behind me.”

His face paled and a shiver ran through his body. With a sudden, swift gesture he touched eyes, nose, mouth with middle finger pressed on top of forefinger. “Riding the nightmare. Bad luck when the sun's still high.”

Shaking off the lingering wisps of the dreams, Aleytys laughed raggedly. “Bad luck anytime, Kale, for the one who suffers them. Poor Miks. He's had to deal with my dreams a dozen times. Ahai, I wish I could forget.…”

Lids lowered over heavy eyes, she settled into the rhythms of the drive as the hours passed.

The sun shone almost flat into her eyes when the caravan tilted up a gentle slope. Black specks circling in front of the color streaks ahead caught her eye. “Kale?”

He broke a snore in half and came reluctantly awake. “What is it?”

“Those birds.” She pointed. “What are they doing?”

He looked blearily along her arm. “Ah. I see. Scavengers. They wait for something to die.”

“I thought so.” As the horses moved steadily along toward the hovering birds, she said sharply, “It's still alive?”

“As long as they stay up there.”

The caravan tilted down then curved around a sandy hillock covered with sparse clumps of dusty grass. Beside the road ahead a bony, sway-backed nag stood head down, cropping with soremouthed care at tough, spindly grass that half obscured a narrow form lying face down.

Aleytys pulled herself onto her feet, clutching with her free hand at the carving along the side of the caravan to steady herself. “That's a man!” She dropped the reins and started to jump down.

“Wait.” Kale caught at her arm and pulled her back. “Let me look.”

She frowned. “Ahai, Kale. I'm no fragile flower.”

“Aleytys,” he said patiently, “this is my world.”

She looked silently at him for a minute then sat down on the edge of the seat, pulling the horses to a stop beside the scrawny nag. Still silent, she watched as he swung down and strode to the recumbent figure.

He stopped short, stared a minute, then walked rapidly back. Without a waste motion he pulled himself onto the seat. “Go on.”

She looked at the circling cloud of scavengers. “Is he still alive? Or are we keeping them from their feast?”

“Forget it. Drive on.”

“No. Answer me. Is he dead?”

“Yes. Drive.”

She shook her head. “You can't lie to me, Kale. He's alive.”

“All right,” he said impatiently. “So he's alive now. He won't be for long. Better for him if he dies.”

“Dead is never better than living!” She swung around.

“No!” He caught her arm in a bruising grip. “He's pariah. Leave him.”

“My god—you
mean
that!” She pushed at his hand. “Let me go.”

“No. Keep away from him. If you touch him, we're all pariah. You hear me?” His fingers tightened further until she gasped with pain. Anger exploded in her.

“Take your hand off me.” Her eyes glittered. “Now.”

The Karkesh blade whispered out of the sheath. “Send the horses forward,” he said tensely.

“Kale, I told you.…”

“Drive!”

“Kale.” Stavver stood loose limbed and casual on Aleytys' side of the caravan, watching coolly as they clashed.

Kale glanced up briefly. “Keep out of this, thief.”

“I warn you, groundling. You'd better take your hand away.”

“So.” The sneer was heavy on Kale's dark face. “You plan to make me?”

“Me?” Stavver shrugged, amused contempt on his narrow face. “I don't give a damn how you ruin yourself, but Maissa seems to think we still need you. Let Aleytys loose or she'll kill you. I've seen her work, little man.”

Kale snorted his disbelief. Turning back to Aleytys, he touched the point of his knife to her throat, then pulled it down between her breasts maneuvering it so delicately that he never broke the skin. “Drive.”

A whisper of chimes broke the taut silence. Once again Aleytys felt the air congeal against her face while the single dominant note slid down-octave until it was a blurred vibration barely above the threshold of hearing. Prisoner again in her skull as the diadem took her body, Aleytys crouched in terror whispering soundless pleas—no, don't kill him, there's no need, no more killing, please, please.…

Her hands fluttered up and plucked the knife from Kale's hand. The pale, featureless landscape swung past her eyes, then she saw the knife released to hang floating in mid-air, close to Stavver's face. The grassy knolls flickered past again and she was looking at Kale. The hands reached out and pushed.

Slowly … slowly … painfully, slowly, like a stone dropping through gelatin, Kale toppled off the seat and sank towards the ground. The diadem waited, Aleytys waited. An eon passed and passed again and at long last Kale's stiff body touched the ground. His arms and legs unfolded slowly, slowly like the petals of a flower in a time-lapse sequence, until he was starred out on the ground. Aleytys whispered: “Thank you, thank you whoever you are, ah God I couldn't take any more killing.…”

The diadem chimed again. As the note slid up to its normal range, Aleytys thought she saw amber eyes open and smiling at her, then she forgot it as Kale leaped to his feet, his face contorted with terror.

“Kale.” She stood up, snapping, “Kale!”

Intelligence flowed back to replace the animal fear. He rubbed a trembling hand across his face and straightened slowly.

“Stavver warned you. I could have killed you. Don't try me again.”

“Si'a gikeria,” he said, his voice hoarse with sincerity, “Believe me, I won't.” He glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the body. “But …” After hesitating a minute he went on doggedly. “The boy is pariah. As are all who speak to him, feed him, help him in any way. Even a touch. Do you understand? If you try to help him, and I swear it's probably too late already, then we might as well get back to the ship and leave.”

“Sister.” The shrill, small voice startled all of them. “Take away the curse. You are gikena.” The speaker had crawled out of the caravan and sat perched precariously on the back of the driving bench. “Heal the boy and restore him to his people. That is your first task for Lakoe-heai.”

“So be it,” Aleytys said quietly. She turned cool eyes on Kale “You hear?”

Kale looked startled. “I forgot, woman. I forgot you were true gikena and kept thinking of you as offworlder.” He bowed his head stiffly. “I ask your forgiveness for my stupidity.”

“Yes, of course.” As she spoke Aleytys swung down from the seat. Without waiting for his answer she ran to the boy and knelt beside him. A quiet relief spread through her as she saw his skeletal body still moving as he struggled to breathe. She swallowed painfully as she saw the broken stump of an arrow protruding from his back just under the shoulder blade, the skin around it swollen and yellow with ominous red streaks running like a star of death from the central wound.

Carefully she laid her hands on his back drawing a moan of pain from him in spite of the gentleness of her touch. She spread her hands around the arrow so that it was the center of a rough triangle formed by her thumbs and forefingers. Gladness warmed in her as she felt the strong steady pulse of life in him. He was badly hurt and nearly starved but the will to live burned so strong in him that he was far from dying.

Aleytys sucked in the hot, dusty air and let it out in small discrete bundles, sucked in another breath, and let it out, her body slowing into tranquility. Into a quiet oneness with the air and earth. She closed her eyes and reached for the river of black water winding between the stars, her symbolic image of the power that fed her talents. Tapping into the river she sent the power flowing through her arms into the shuddering body beneath her hands. Time passed, how long she had no idea, then she knew the healing was done.

With a sigh she lifted leaden arms and straightened her aching back. The boy was sleeping heavily, the wound a pale pink star, vivid against the sun-bronzed skin of his back. Lying flat beside the wound the broken arrow moved gently up and down with the boy's breathing, gummy with blood and pus, having worked itself free as the wound healed behind it.

She picked it up and tossed it aside into the grass. “Why is his head shaved?”

Kale stared down at the boy. “He will live?”

“Why not? I'm a damn good healer. Why is his head shaved?” She cupped her hand tenderly over the short bright stubble.

“Before his people cast him out, they shaved the hair off his head and body to mark him.” He shifted uneasily. “The stealing … what we plan … it doesn't bother you?”

“The Lakoe-heai know we come as thieves. I don't like it, but what can I do?” She sensed his growing uneasiness around her. “Relax, Kale. They've got some kind of plan to use us. They won't interfere.”

“Oh.” He glanced at the boy again, chewed a minute on his full lower lip, then walked nervously away to look down the road. “There's no need for a guide,” he muttered half to himself. “The road's clear.”

Aleytys stretched and laughed. “All right. All right, Kale. You change places with Stavver if it makes you feel better. The boy can ride with Sharl.”

Maissa came striding around the caravan, her delicate, pointed face drawn into an angry scowl. “What's holding us up?” she demanded.

Aleytys met the cold glare with a quiet smile. “We stopped to help the boy.”

“Well?” The small woman came mincing across the rough soil with its sharp stubs of last year's grass, not yet accustomed to walking barefoot. She stopped beside the boy's body and thrust an impatient toe into his protruding ribs. “A waste of time. You finished?”

“The healing's done. When he wakes, he comes with us.”

“Nonsense! Get back on the wagon and let's get going. We don't need a strange pair of eyes to spy on us.”

Aleytys sighed. “Maissa, if I'm supposed to be gikena, let me be. If we go off and leave him, we'll be outcast ourselves. To take the curse off him, he has to serve me for a time. Anyway, he's a guarantee the others will accept us as what we pretend to be.”

“I'm sure you thought of that all the time. Huh!” She turned and picked her way carefully back to her caravan. She paused at the big wheel and looked back at Aleytys, her dark eyes glinting hardly. “I boss this job—you remember that.”

Behind her Aleytys heard a rustle in the grass and turned around to find the boy sitting up staring at her, his brown eyes huge in his thin face. “Welcome back to the living,” she said briskly. “How'd you get in this mess?”

His white-caked tongue moved painfully over cracked lips. “Pariah,” he muttered hoarsely.

“Miks.”

“What?”

“Bring the waterskin, will you. Our new friend's got a big thirst.”

“Right.” The thief came around the back end of the caravan, swinging the well filled waterskin from its wide, leather strap.

The boy watched the dripping, cool bladder with desperate burning eyes, then he held up trembling hands palm out warning them off. “Pariah,” he repeated, his voice breaking painfully.

Aleytys smiled at him and took his shaking hand in hers despite his attempt to avoid her touch. “I am gikena, boy. When you've had the water, we'll see about taking away the curse on your head. Do you understand? I've already cured the wound in your back. Have you forgotten that?”