Moonscatter (11 page)

“No.” She looked at the sword, shook her head wearily. “You can't think that's any use?”

Around them the hauhaus stopped grazing. As one they faced the gap. As one they groaned in shuddering, terror-filled hoots. As one they turned and galloped frantically away.

The malchiin trampled down the patch and stalked through the gap, a great black form shoulder high to a macai. A silver chain looped about its neck and lifted in a graceful curve to the black-gloved hand of the Norit who followed the demon through the gap, riding a macai mare who stepped with near daintiness into the interstices of the pole and wire mesh. The demon bounded forward, tugging at the chain, its red eyes fixed on Serroi, burning with eagerness to get at her. Foil to that eagerness, unhurried, savoring what he seemed to see as repayment for past humiliations, the Norit rode slowly toward them, stopped his mount a short distance from them, jerking the malchiin back onto its haunches, holding it there with a growled command. The malchiin sat with predator's patience beside the macai, black ears pricking, red tongue lolling from its chini mouth, its chini tearing teeth gleaming in the moonlight like bits of polished jet.

The Norit smiled. “Meie,” he said.

“Cetaj-nor.”

“He waits.”

“Let him wait.”

The Norit reached into his sleeve, took from it a chased silver collar with a delicate chain attached, its loops filling his palm and dripping in graceful cascades from each side, the silver very bright against his coal black skin. “Take it, meie.”

“No.” She looked past him, frowned as she listened to the noise of the mob. It was moving out from the court, coming toward them, getting louder, the torchlight brighter. She shifted her gaze back to his calm face. “You want me,” she snapped, hoping to goad him within reach, “you come fetch me.”

The Norit eyed her somberly, shook his head. With a quick jerk of the chain and a harsh word, he brought the great demon beast back onto four feet. “He has no use for the fat man. Come, or I loose the malchiin on him.”

Hern swore, took a step toward the demon, his sword lifting, balanced lightly in his hand. “Loose that thing and lose it,” he said briskly. The past hour had provided a nasty series of shocks to his amour-propre. Accustomed to deference however hypocritical, accustomed to having his own way with little struggle, he'd found himself reduced to a despised appendage, forced to follow passively where another led. To him, despite Serroi's babbling of demons from Zhagdeep, the beast was only an overgrown chini. He knew his own skills and was confident in them.

“Hern!”

“Stay clear, meie.”

“Don't be a fool. Steel won't touch him.”

“We'll see.” He eyed the panting malchiin with anticipation. “Try me, Nor.”

The Norit ignored him. “Come here, little misborn.” The Norit's voice was a whisper of silver sound in silver moonlight, spider silk whipping about its chosen victim.

“Never.” She leaped in front of Hern as the Norit dropped the chain and hissed the beast at him. Two swift strides and it was leaping at her. Hern's hand closed on her arm, he meant to sweep her aside, there was no time for that, no time, she reached out small hands dusky grey in moonlight that leached the color from everything but the glare of the malchiin's eyes, she leaned into the leap of the malchiin, feeling heat surge up through her body and into her hand, a heat so intense she couldn't bear the pain of it but she did bear the pain and, bearing it, she thrust out her hands and touched the malchiin, touched the stone-hard flesh, the horrible cold flesh, she felt a numbing blow against her hands, a blow that sent her stumbling back against Hern, the heat gone from her, gone suddenly, wholly out of her. The malchiin hung in place an instant longer, a hollow chini shape, mouth gaping on nothing.

Then the shape was gone, the eerie silence was gone, what was left of the malchiin fell to earth in a dusting of black ash.

Serroi thought she heard a whimper as the chini shape collapsed, as if the fragment of chini soul trapped inside at last won free of its torment and returned to the Maiden.

She felt herself shoved aside, fell as legs too weak to hold her collapsed under her, lay shaking on the grass as Hern lunged at a Norit numbed by shock, as startled as she by his attack. Before he could calm himself enough to call on his magic, Hern sprang from the ground, caught his arm, fell back, toppling him from the saddle. Hern came down light and sure on his feet but the Norit crashed on one leg which folded under him, bone cracking under the sudden weight put on it, the sudden pain disorienting him yet more. He shrieked and fell silent, eyes rolling back in his head, mouth falling open. Hern sliced his head neatly from his shoulders.

Panting a little, he strolled back to Serroi, caught her hand and pulled her to her feet, grinning broadly. “Maybe not the malchiin, but steel worked well enough on that.”

Leaning against him, feeling her strength slowly creeping back into her, she matched his grin. “One of these days we just might make a good team.”

CHAPTER V:

THE MIJLOC

For three days the Agli's fist tightened about Cymbank until it was squeezed out of all semblance to its former shape. Peten Jerricks, the Townmaster, sat in one of his own cells, a look of astonishment permanently in his round eyes. The Scribe—tax gatherer, magistrate, Oras legate to the Taromate of RiverCym—hastily examined his soul then put on Follower black and the silvergilt badge of Soäreh.

The women in black chanted at Tuli as she stood with her wrists bound with soft leather straps to iron rings high off the floor:

There is a pattern for all things

Blessed be Soäreh the Light-giver

Every creature has a place, blessed be the place

Blessed be Soäreh the Pattern-giver

The broad soft strips of the five-tailed lash came down on her naked back. It stung a little but she lifted her head and laughed at them.

The guards quartered in the Center rode out in patrols, fetching the accused back to the Center, shoving them in cells with no pretense of trial. All that was required was an accusation from a Follower in good standing—an accusation of lewdness, blasphemy, secret Maiden worship, disloyalty to Floarin, cursing, a thousand other minor infractions of Soäreh's law. The guards had open warrants from Oras to preserve the outward look of legality, but there was no more law on Cimpia Plain, only the will of Floarin, and that, whether she knew it or not, was the will of the Aglim, the will of the Nearga-nor, the will—ultimately—of the Great Nor, Ser Noris, the unbeliever in anything but his manifest power.

The women chanted:

To man is given stewardship of field and beast

The beasts whose meat is red, the wildfowl and the wild beast

Is given to him

Blessed be Soäreh who makes man herder and hunter and tie

The lash fell again. Tuli locked her teeth together. Her back was a ladder of pain. She no longer felt like laughing.

The maiden Shrine was closed, the fountain dry, the vines uprooted. The columns with their carven maiden faces were still standing but smeared with thick black paint. Follower hands had used the same black paint to scrawl Soäreh's sigils across the delicate patterns of the tiled court. The Shrine Keeper had vanished into the Center—renamed the House of Repentance—and no one had heard her or seen her since.

The women chanted:

To woman is apointed house and household

Woman is given to man for his comfort and his use

She bears his children and ministers unto him

She is cherished and protected by his strength

She is guided by his wisdom

Blessed be Soäreh who makes woman teacher and tender and tie.

For a third time the lash fell. Her back was on fire. She gasped this time when the thongs came onto her flesh, then bit down hard on her lip, ashamed she'd let them draw even that small sound from her.

Center. Under its new name it was still the center of the town. It was the place where the “mistaken” were gently corrected and taught to see things right (right being whatever the Agli said). The taroms, the ties, the craftsmen and shopkeepers—they seethed and dithered and struck out clumsily and ineffectively. After so long a peace and so mild a rule, they were accustomed to obeying directions from Oras (not blindly, and not completely—they were independent hardheads all. They obeyed as far as they felt like. In the old days that was enough. Hern was too indolent to drive them hard and his fathers had been the same. Still—the habit was there. It was hard for them to think of rebelling; they turned at last to the old ways of dealing with intransigent Scribes: they dug in to wait it out, confident Floarin's aberration would go away eventually and things would return to the way they were when everyone was comfortable).

The women chanted:

Cursed be he who forsakes the pattern

Cursed be the man who puts on woman's ways

Cursed be the woman who usurps the role of man

Withered will they be

Root and branch they are cursed

Put the knife to the rotten roots

Tear the rotten places from the body

Tear the rotten places from the land

Blessed be Soäreh the Pattern-giver

The chant continued, led, after the first hour, by the silver-voiced acolyte. The long slow flogging continued with it. The words drove Tuli wild until the pain swamped her and she no longer heard anything over the pounding in her head. The tenth blow was the last, landing a good two hours after the first. Her mouth was bloody when it fell, her teeth cutting into her lip as she held back the foulest curses she knew, as she held back the cries of pain.

In three days the Maiden was thrown down and Soäreh elevated in her place. The Taromate was disbanded. The customs and institutions of centuries were overturned and replaced. Those three days Annic Gradin and her younger daughters spent in a small dirty cell with a rickety cot and thin straw pallets and a stinking slop bucket in one corner, in hard and meaningless labor, in a constant din of instruction until they were angry, disturbed, and most of all afraid. Teras Gradinson spent the days in the same way, packed in with a dozen boys his age. Nilis Gradindaughter kept Dris (the baby) at the Tar, since he was presumably young and uncorrupt enough to be reeducated to the service of Soäreh.

After the tenth stroke they cut her down. She tried to stand but anger and pride were no substitute for strength. Her knees folded under her and she found herself crouching at the acolyte's feet. One of the chanters brought her the dingy black blouse she was forced to wear in this place. She fumbled her arms into the sleeves and managed somehow to button up the front. Her warders waited with enraging patience for her to finish, then the two women took her arms and lifted her to her feet. She refused to cry out though the pain in her shoulders was greater than that in her back. Because they were under Alma Yastria's angry gaze she expected them to handle her roughly, but they were gentle and considerate, walking slowly and carefully so she could stumble along and not be dragged, speaking to her in soft tender voices, telling her … telling her … she missed the first sentences, protected from what would be an intolerable irritation by the pain that ran like fire through her body, by her need to concentrate on moving legs and feet that seemed to belong to someone else, but as her strength came back, she heard them murmuring lessons of obedience and submission, telling her over and over of the true womanliness of yielding, going on and on, meek and mild, until she wanted to scream. And yet—that would be a victory for them, an acknowledgment that she heard them, so she fought with her fury; she said nothing, tried to pretend she didn't notice them, but she couldn't prevent the stiffening of her body, the silent but fierce denial of everything they wanted from her. She knew they had to feel this, but they changed nothing, not the firm but gentle hold on her arms, not their soft-voiced exhortations.

The way back to her cell seemed endless, but all things end at last. One of her warders unbarred the door and pulled it open, the second guided her inside, silent at last. Tuli gathered herself, stood very erect, swaying a little as the woman took her hands away and left her. She didn't move when she heard the door close behind her with a tidy click. Her eyes flew to her mother's. Annic sat unmoving on the cot, smiling a little. Sanani stood beside her, hands opening and closing, full lips pressed together, dark eyes shining. The three of them waited together.

Several minutes passed. Tuli's hands closed into fists when she heard the scrape of a sandal outside the door. After another minute she heard soft footsteps as the two women walked away.

Tuli staggered toward her mother, fell on her knees, pressing her face against her mother's thighs, muffling the scream of rage that tore from her. Annic smoothed her short brown hair as she shuddered and raved and sobbed. Sanani eased off the blouse. With a small clicking of her tongue she used a bit of rag and water from the drinking bucket to bathe the weals crisscrossing Tuli's slim back, trying to draw away the heat in them and with it some of the pain before Tuli dissipated her fury enough to notice the pain once more.

After a few minutes Tuli's shuddering eased and her sobs quieted. When she lifted her head, Annic took the rag from Sanani and wiped away the tear stains. Pride gleamed in her eyes as she smiled down at Tuli. “You were splendid, little firehead,” she murmured. “Oh I did laugh at that dirty water streaming down Yastria's ugly face and oh my child, you must learn to stay your hands because they won't stay theirs.”

Tuli shook her head. “I can't, Mama.”

Sanani began bathing Tuli's back once more. “House of Repentance! Lock-up for rowdy drunks, that's where we are.” Tuli winced as the rag moved across the weals with a bit too much force. “Sorry. It's just … just everything. The Scribe's the Agli's thing, you saw what they did to the Maiden Shrine. They showed us, Maiden curse them, like they were proud of what they did.” She dipped the rag in the bucket and wrung it dry, the water making its own music, the only music in the small grim room. “Everything gone, taken apart, thrown away like five hundred years was worth nothing. The world has turned a page and everything is changed but us, we're left over from the old page.” Her usually gentle voice held a colder anger than anything Tuli knew. She glanced over her shoulder, surprised. “Repentance.” Sanoni looked down at the rag in her hand, threw it across the cell. “For what!”