In the Ruins (76 page)

“She walked the spheres!”

“As did you, Daughter! Think of this: the rope that bound us to the aether is severed. No one can ascend that ladder again. She is not our enemy.”

“Who is blinded by brilliance now?” demanded Feather Cloak. “I say, capture her, and give her to the blood knives.”

The priests nodded eagerly.

“Let us defeat all of humankind and then I’ll
eat
the Pale Sun Dog for supper,” said Fox Mask with a coarse laugh that made half of her companions chortle and slap the backs of their hands together to show their appreciation for her wit.

Secha did not find her amusing. “Revenge, like jealousy, makes slaves of those who cling to it.”

Zuangua stepped forward to cut off the eruption of commentary. “Then what do we bargain with, since she is the only thing this Pale Dog wants?”

“Is it worth bargaining at all?” asked the blood knives. “How can this spell he speaks of be used as a weapon?”

The warriors laughed. They already knew.

Zuangua shook his head, frowning at the blood knives as if he could not understand their ignorance. “If it is true that he knows how to move where he wills and when he wills, this is a sword as powerful as the mystery of iron.”

Cat Mask stepped forward. “Strike quickly and decisively! I said so all along!”

“Strike in small groups!” said Lizard Mask as he stepped up alongside his rival. “I said so all along”!

“My question is not answered,” said Secha, watching the pale sun man watch his enemies and thereby learn. She thought that he was probably learning far more about them than they had so far learned about him. “How can we trust him? He might send our war bands to the bottom of the sea or into the heart of a mountain to be entombed in stone.”

“Is that possible?” asked Zuangua, interested. “A good tactic!”

“I don’t think it is possible,” said Feather Cloak. “The weaving links the crowns, nothing else.”

Secha went on stubbornly. “He might weave us so we are lost in these days and months that pass within the crowns. The tide of days could ebb and flow around our warriors and they would be lost, just as we were lost in exile.”

“You can weave the crowns, Feather Cloak,” said Cat Mask to Feather Cloak. “Why do we need him?”

Kansi shook her head. Each time, Secha saw her speak in a different way as the angle of her head and the tilt of her neck and the frown on her lips revealed a new emotion. “I could walk between Earth and exile because I could call the burning stone, which was a gateway. Yet I have not seen the burning stone since we returned to Earth. My father is right. That ladder is broken, as far as I know. As for the other, I do not know the secret of weaving between the crowns on Earth.”

“Let his skill be tested before we make any bargain,” said Zuangua. “I’ll go, with the pick of my warriors. You can keep the child and his other servants as hostage against our safe return.”

Above, the thin veil of clouds that had shielded the sky parted. Stars shone through in ragged patches. Wind chased chaff into the flames, where it flashed and died.

Eldest Uncle shut his eyes and bowed his head.

“It is risky,” said Feather Cloak.

“Yes,” agreed Zuangua, showing his teeth.

His warriors, led by Fox Mask, crowded up behind him, all grinning with that same reckless smile. They were restless, shoulders twitching, heels bouncing, elbows shifting as though they were about to burst into a run.

“We have waited long enough. We are ready to go to war.”

UNDER guard, Lord Hugh’s company marched into the land of the Cursed Ones. Anna stuck close to Blessing in case Lord Hugh meant to hit the child again. She stuck close because she feared the way the girl stared admiringly, hungrily, at the Ashioi.

“Do you hear what they’re talking about?” the girl asked her, but all that streamed from those foreign mouths sounded to Anna no different than the chirping of birds and the howling of dogs. Blessing understood it all. It seemed that her father’s blood, or her mother’s sorcery, or the aetherical milk she had suckled as a child, or all of these combined, had opened her ears to the Ashioi language.

Anna envied her.

The child had learned from her abduction. She kept silent about her unexpected skill. She let no one except Anna know, because she wasn’t sure who was her friend and who her enemy. After several days they were delivered to a prison. It had a high stone wall and raised towers where guards stood watch. Through the gate lay a dusty courtyard and a dozen shelters. They were only stone platforms raised above the level of the earth. Posts set in the ground supported crude roofs. There were no walls. It was an awful place. It made her want to cry, but she could not cry, because she had to take care of Blessing.

At the gate, Feather Cloak waited with her entourage. Inside, lord Hugh called them together. “I must leave,” he said to them. Their expressions were anxious, but they listened
obediently. “I have sworn to these Ashioi that I will not teach them or aid them if any of you are harmed. I stand by that. You will be protected.” He smiled gently. “Yet make yourselves useful. If you have marketable skills, let yourselves be coaxed into sharing.”

“Any chance we can share with the women?” asked Theodore. “They sure look at us invitingly, if I must say so.”

“And them wearing almost nothing but the skin they were born in,” said Scarred John appreciatively.

The others chuckled, and then looked downcast.

“Would it be going against God, my lord?” asked Theodore. “They’re heathens. It might be wrong.”

“Yes, they are heathens. Therefore we are enjoined to bring them into the Circle of Unity. Do not fear to associate with them. But only if they ask first, lest you unwittingly break their laws.”

This command the soldiers liked well enough, but Anna clutched Blessing’s arm and wished only to be allowed to sit down in the shade. The heat made her dizzy.

Lord Hugh departed, but as the men spread out to explore the courtyard, the handsome man appeared at the gate. Anna had figured out that the man was Blessing’s great-great-uncle. Like Prince Sanglant, he was restless, even impatient. His gaze roved, and he spotted Blessing. He called out, “Come!”

Anna knew that word well enough! “What does he want?” she asked Blessing.

The girl considered her uncle with an eagle’s brooding gaze. She bit her lip. She grasped Anna’s wrist and tugged her closer to the gate. He scared Anna. He was fierce and he looked unkind, but Blessing walked right up to him and spoke in the language of the Ashioi. He laughed, and it was obvious even to Anna that these fluent words did not surprise him; he had guessed all along. When he spoke, replying, Blessing gasped out loud. She yelped with joy. She released Anna’s arm and hopped in a circle.

“He says he’ll take me, he’ll train me in arms to be a mask warrior, like the others. Right now! So I can kill bad people. He won’t make me wait, not like my daddy did.”

“You can’t go with them, Your Highness!”

“Why not? I can go! I hate it here. He’s given me a new name, and I like it better!”

“What name?” she asked, as her voice was throttled by fear. The uncle did not even look at her, because she didn’t matter to him. He only looked at Blessing, with a cruel smile.

“He calls me ‘Little Beast.’ I like that name!” She danced over to his side, and he was so delighted that he tousled her dark hair as if with affection.

“You’re too young!” cried Anna.

The girl took her uncle’s hand and, without a backward glance, walked through the gate.

“Then let me come with you!”

But Blessing was already gone, and the masked warriors pushed Anna back into her prison and shut the gate.

“WE have waited long enough,” said the blood knives. “We marched out here into the wilderness, Feather Cloak. We are exposed, we might be attacked, we risked contagion through contact with the corpses of the Pale Dogs. Now we have waited six nights and a day. Those who crossed through the loom have not returned.”

Feather Cloak was drawing with a stick in the dirt, as she had been for the last six days, trying to understand the threads and angles by which the Pale Sun Dog had woven a gateway through the standing stones. The blood knives drew off to one side and began muttering together.

Secha dropped into a crouch beside Feather Cloak. “The sky counters are displeased with you, Feather Cloak.”

“What do you think?” The other woman paused with the stick hovering above the earth. “Is the angle there sharp enough?”

Secha had already drawn the pattern; she had seen its
measure at once, watching the sorcerer draw the bright threads down off the stars. It amused her that Feather Cloak struggled even though she had proved herself strong in the deep magic known to those who walked the spheres. Feather Cloak could reach into a thing and draw its qualities out of it, twist them and turn them. She could cause fog to rise out of the ground, or earth to crack, or vines to curl around the limbs of her enemy. When they had lived in exile, she had called the burning stone out of the aether and walked through it onto Earth. But angles and numbers defeated her. She looked very annoyed.

“What are you come here for?” she demanded, when Secha made no answer.

“To tell you that the work crew has cleared the bodies out of the village and cleansed them. The pit where the dead flesh is buried is ringed with death stones. Their spirits can’t walk, to haunt us.”

They had set up camp on level ground outside the ditch that ringed the deserted human village. It was a bare landscape that reminded her of exile, pale grass, brittle shrubs, and the long sweep of hills. On the seven days’ march here they had seen no sign of human life, but birds flocked in great numbers out of the south where they had taken refuge in the Ashioi country. Small animals abounded, and they feasted on the little spitted creatures every night.

She rose. The grave site lay almost out of the site to the west, just off the trail that led onward into the enemy’s lands. A few mask warriors were still piling stones on the mound, but it was well sealed according to the old custom.

“I think the stones are unnecessary,” Secha commented.

Feather Cloak stood. She was not, in fact, wearing the feathered cloak; on the march out here she had set it aside as too cumbersome, despite the sky counters’ protest. “Let them have their ceremonies,” she said dismissively.

“If you do not show them respect, they will come to hate you.”

Feather Cloak looked sidelong at her, and that intense gaze sharpened. She had a way of tightening her jaw that
made her look very threatening. “Why this concern, Secha? You’ve never liked me. Not even when we were children together.”

“You do not know me very well.”

“That is your answer, then. The blood knives do not know me very well.” She ran a dusty foot over the dirt to erase the crooked hatch work she had drawn.

“The priests told me that the soles of the feet must never touch the ground, lest the sacred energy coiled within be released into the earth.”

“My power is greater than the priests’ ignorance. They know that, so they do not challenge me.”

“Not yet.”

“If you cannot help, then leave me alone.”

“As you command, Feather Cloak.”

She walked down the path to the village, crossed the bridge of logs laid across the ditch, and passed through the open gate. A third of the company was resting in camp, a third was on guard, and the rest were roaming through the abandoned houses and sheds, looking for anything valuable. The biggest crowd had gathered around one long stone building set a little ways away from the others, with a monstrous stone hearth at the back. Here she found her daughters, one carried by her son and the other by their father.

Her son saw her immediately, and he ran over to her. He was such a good-looking boy, and although he was short and slender because of the years of deprivation, he was clever, and he was eating a lot these days and putting on weight.

The baby was awake. She reached for her mother as soon as she came close. Secha took her and settled her on her hip as the youth circled, unable to stand still.

“The mask warriors are saying that according to the old custom, I’m old enough to be shield carrier now.”

“That’s what you want?” she asked him, although she already knew his answer, and he only grinned, knowing she knew. “It’s important to choose carefully who you bind yourself to as an apprentice,” she added. “You want the
best training, and a chance to prove yourself when you’re ready, but not before.”

But he was already dashing off, no doubt to spill the good news to that young mask warrior he had been following around. Well. She would make sure that he wasn’t put in
that
unit. He would need a trustworthy mentor, someone steady and experienced.

The warriors parted respectfully to let her through into the stone building. It had a stone floor, and a tile roof that had collapsed in one corner. All the windows had lost their shutters. The stones were blackened along one wall, heavy roof beams scorched. Charcoal and other debris littered the floor. It looked as though the place had burned. On the side opposite the massive hearth, shelves had collapsed, and broken pottery made the footing tricky. A pair of mask warriors were picking through the debris by the shelves, although she had no idea what they hoped to find.

Rain had the other baby slung on his back. He was scavenging through the tools near the stone hearth, which was built rather like a little house, open on one side. In some cases these metal implements were merely rims of metal whose bodies of wood had burned away. But there was a massive hammerhead with a hole for a haft, a pair of black iron spears no longer than his arm, tongs and rings, and a spray of spear points and ax and adze heads scattered on the stone floor beside heaps of slag and crumbling charcoal dust.

Seeing her, he smiled.

“This was a forge,” he said, displaying a lump of melted bronze on his palm. He set it back down and picked up three wedges in turn, each one bigger than the one before. “Look at the strength of this metal. This must be iron! My master always said iron was impossible to work, yet here it’s been done. There’s a quarry a short walk from here, and I think they were mining up in the hills. We could make an outpost here, start a mining operation of our own. There’s trees enough for charcoal. If we only had the smithing magic.” He hefted the massive hammerhead in both hands.
“To be able to forge iron like this … well, they say the raiding parties in the east are looking for blacksmiths.”