Red Country (17 page)

“After they helped me bury Zem,” I said, “there was no way they could go back to Everran. They were determined to see I came to no harm. And we all want to help fight Estar. To stop this—horrible thing.”

He studied the men again, while they did their best to sustain that probing, impassive stare. Then he said, “I am not fighting Estar. I am not fighting anyone—or anything.”

“You mean you'll let Kastir get away with murder? Foul, cold-blooded murder—your own brother's murder!” I could not help it, I had to erupt. “He deserves to be—”

His eyes were colder than a wall of ice. “Do you imagine I would sink to that? Pollute my brother's—my brother's!—grave with revenge? Pah!”

“What do you mean, sink?” Three years might never have been, we had barely exchanged ten words and already he had me fit to fly at his throat. “Any honest man—any woman!—would have the honor to avenge that! If I'd known you'd refuse I'd have done it myself! And you're an aedr! What are your powers for? Or don't you dare tackle that—that—”

“You have no idea what you're talking about, so have the sense to be quiet.” Three years ago he would not have lashed back at me, certainly not with that glare. “It's clear you know nothing of aedryx. And your own morals are unfit to mention. Revenge! I'd as soon wallow with a carrion pig!”

“Oh, I'm sure Zem would love to hear that—if he could hear!”

His eyes grew so fearful that inwardly I quailed.

“My brother Zem,” he cut out each word and spat it at me, “told me with his last thought,
Whatever you do, don't let this drive you to Ammath.
You wouldn't know what that means. I do. It means evil. Hatred. Revenge. If you imagine your ravings could make me flout my brother's last wish, reduce us both to such vileness, think again.” His eyes seared. “If you can think at all.”

“So you'll let this go on? Put your fine moral nose in the air and sit on your rump while Kastir ruins Hethria? Destroys it forever? Your land, I thought it was! And for the sake of a few stupid—stupid—scruples! you'll let it be wrecked before your eyes? Oh, by the Sky-lords' faces, aedr or no aedr, I thought you were more of a
man!
”

Through a haze of tears I saw his eyes narrow, shimmering, perfectly white. His voice was a slap.

“I shall save Hethria. I am the only one who can save it. And I won't do it by fighting, and I don't need help.”

Karyx and the rest, who had been looking mortally embarrassed and not a little pugnacious, collapsed into bitter disappointment. I was so furious I could feel nothing else.

“No doubt you'll do it by reason, or changing Kastir's mind? Well, that won't save anything! Kastir isn't even a figurehead, he's just a mask, and what's behind him is Estar, and if you think you'll change all those minds you've lost your own because by the time it's done there'll be nothing left of Hethria to save!”

He glared. I was too furious to stop.

“As for not fighting, just how will you manage that? Hethria's border is wide open, it hasn't a defense to its name except the Gebros and that'll be gone unless you do some stopping right now, it doesn't have an army, and if you think you can stand in the gates at Penhazad and Gebasterne and frighten back Estar's whole army, not to mention their migrants, their engineers and their money-makers, you'd better think again. Don't you know anything about Estar? And when these men have sacrificed their careers, their families, their country, risked their lives to come and offer you their help, you want to just turn them away! It's because they were brave and decent enough to throw all that away that your brother was buried at all!”

When I began his eyes grew cold enough to freeze my marrow. Before I was halfway through they had that molten, shivering glare I had seen by Tirien Neth. But at my last words he went white as a sheet and leapt to his feet, I heard his breath hiss in for more than a verbal explosion—and catch.

He fought himself then, physically, with a violence that scared me most of all, face red as it had been white, chest heaving with huge stertorous breaths. It took all my resolution not to cringe away like Karyx and the rest.

The crisis passed. He stood shaking, eyes inward bent and blind. Then he said between his teeth, “Don't ever—ever—tell me that again.”

My anger had already vanished; I knew what a nerve I must have jabbed and was piercingly sorry for it. But there was no chance to apologize.

Still breathing hard, he turned to the others and said in a strangled voice, “I am grateful. I owe you more than anyone could repay. I know it sounded like—like—” I had never before heard him grow incoherent. “It's not. You've misread the situation. You are soldiers. This won't be a war.”

Managing to sound both determined and pacific, Karyx straightened up. “Whatever you say, sir. But if it comes to being grateful, we only helped the princess Sellithar. And if it's not a war, could you explain just what it will be? Maybe we can still help. Somehow.”

Zam drew one last huge breath, and with it recovered his composure. Slowly, shakily, he sat down again, on the farther side of the fire.

After a moment he said, “We've begun at the wrong end. I'll go back to the beginning. When we—I—became an aedr, I was taught to follow Math. Aedryx have no gods, like yours, but they do have a code. Morals, if you like. It demands that we respect reality. That-which-is. Trees, rocks, sand, birds, beasts, men. That we are careful how we alter it. We are more firmly bound to that respect than any other creatures, because we have minds, like men, but we have more power, for good or evil, than any of humankind. That obligation is our bedrock. Not to be betrayed.”

He drew a little breath. “But Math also demands that we deny evil in ourselves. It's not enough to refrain from wantonly injuring reality. We must fight off hate and bloodlust and vengefulness, because to let the thoughts of Ammath into your mind is to corrupt your own reality. And then you betray Math as surely as if you stabbed a man in his bed.”

He looked about our faces. I was ignobly grateful that he included me.

“I could kill Kastir. I could kill him here and now, without lifting a finger. But if I do that, I am a murderer twice over. I'm worse than Kastir. I have succumbed to Ammath.”

We sat silent. He went on with less strain, but with enormous weariness.

“It was a great temptation. But you see why I refuse. For the same reason, I will not make this a war. I will not shed blood with my mind, or by the hand of anyone else. There are other ways to do the thing.” His jaw set, so for a moment he looked a much older man, a stranger, with a will of granite and that will bent immovably upon its goal.

After seeming quite over-awed, Karyx at last ventured to speak. “Yessir. But how?”

After a pause, Zam said, “The Gebros will be quite simple. I'll raise a sandstorm and keep it up for as long as it takes them to realize they can't pull the thing down.” Karyx's mouth fell open with the rest. “Oh yes, I can do that. It twists reality rather far to use the weather-words for such a purpose, but this is a Must. Better to tamper with sand than kill or coerce men.”

Karyx suddenly slapped his thigh and burst out in dazzled delight, “And by the Four, you couldn't have a better field for it! You'll make the blighted desert fight for you—Four above, sir, no wonder you don't need us with tricks like that!”

Zem would have laughed with him and added something witty. Zam shrugged and said, “It's a double-edged sword. Too much will damage Hethria. But I can't do it yet. First the hostages have to be brought out.”

Yngis said blankly, “Hostages?”

“Your families. All your families.” His eyes chilled with a sudden, appalling memory. “I'll have no reprisals this time. Once was enough.”

None of us dared ask, When? Karyx ventured, “Ah—how?”

“I can summon them. With a Command. Sellithar's people will be most at risk. It's a long way from Saphar, and I'll have to watch them every step. So it will be a while before I can start on the Gebros.” He shrugged again. “Once with the Sathellin they'll be safe. Then I can draw all the Sathellin out of Everran, stop the caravans, and wipe away the roads. They can live at the dassyx. It might be the best place for you as well. . . .” He broke off. “I'm—not ungrateful. But as you see, there's not much anyone can do to help.”

My voice sounded small and solitary. “At the first dassyk, I told the master to stop any more westbound caravans. And to pass the word on the other roads. Kastir said he had Sathellin spies.”

Those gray eyes were colder than ever. He said curtly, “I'll hold a caravan at Penhazad and one at Gebasterne. The rest can stand. I'll find the spies.” His eye turned on Karyx. “Quite easy. Read their minds.”

Karyx gaped, gasped, shivered. Zam looked nearly sardonic. “Yes, I can read yours too. Sure you want to help?”

Karyx's recovery took him several strides ahead. With satisfaction he said, “Then we won't need our own spies. We'll know their plans in the egg.” He paused, grown dubious.

Zam said stiffly, “What if it does take time?”

Karyx was apologetic. “Just that you've a pack-load to do, sir. A week's travel from Saphar to the Gebros to oversee, for a start. A lot of Sathellin—minds—to comb. It might hold up the sandstorm a fortnight or more. There's four demolition crews working now, shift for shift. In a fortnight—they could move a lot of stone.”

“Beryx,” I said on impulse. “Moriana. Surely they'd help this time?”

Zam replied curtly, “There's a murrain on Assharral. It started in Gjerven—the north—and it's spread like a torjer fire. Sheep take fever or just die, cattle die of the bloody scours, horses get colic and then die—and humans do as well. We don't know how it spreads among the beasts. We do know it's infectious or contagious or both, and there is no known cure. I was in Axaira to seal the border. Nothing goes in or out of Assharral while the murrain lasts.”

“But,” I protested, “thoughts—”

“Beryx hasn't a breath to spare. Half Gjerven ran south into Frimmor and Frimmor is firing them back or killing them or running too. The other half have caused an international incident by jumping the border into Phaxia. Tasmar started a witch hunt to kill their white minority—say they poisoned the wells. Thangar's in trouble with looters. Rumors are flying everywhere. Beryx told me he'd keep them out of Hethria. It's all he can do.”

“And Moriana?” I could not help this spiteful reminder that women counted too.

With a scathing look he retorted, “Do you think she'd desert him now?”

Though Karyx and company must have thought we were talking gibberish, their conclusions were plain. Zam too should have been half of a team, and he was not.

“Sir,” Karyx persisted, “are you sure you won't need
some
help?”

Zam sighed. Then he said, “Your rations will last a week. I have three days' worth. After that I must live off the land. In Hethria. You brought seven horses that all eat grass, I have twelve. This is high summer. The spring needs water. And the storms won't fall yet. I don't need scouts, I use farsight, I don't need a bodyguard, I can protect myself. If someone did attack, I'd be protecting you. I don't need soldiers. And you don't know the Arts.”

He paused. I knew he had changed to mindspeech by the flatness of his voice.

Before they had digested this, he added,

I opened my mouth and shut it again. Crestfallen but obedient, the men began to rise.

Zam's eyes went round their faces. Then he added softly, “Yes, you are enlisted. If there's more to do, you'll hear. Be sure of that.”

Their faces cleared. They saluted him, fully and formally, and as they began to disentangle bridles he looked back, in frigid surprise, to me.

“One question,” I said. “You have three days' rations, and my family will take a week to bring out. What will you eat for the other four?”

“I can manage.” He sounded stiff as a board.

“To be sure,” I said affably. “Just as you'll manage to cook as well. Or does your aedric food jump in a pot and cook itself?”

“One thing more,” I swept on as he opened his mouth, “this sandstorm will be Ruanbrarx, won't it? The same way you put out that fire?” He nodded. “And it'll have the same effect on you?”

“That's irrelevant.”

“Naturally. You'll just lie in a heap on the ground until you're strong enough to make the fire light and the kettle jump on it and the cup bring you the tea. And what happens if one of—that creature's—tools should get up here while you're lying about, weak as a baby, not even knowing who you are? Don't say they won't, because I don't underestimate Kastir like Zem did. Any dirty trick that's possible, he'll try.”

And,” I squashed the next protest, “I can't just cook and hunt and boil tea and shout if I see one coming. I know Everran's potential to the last ounce, and most of Estar's as well. And I know Kastir better than anyone alive. You can read his mind. I can tell you what he'll think. He was my tutor, he schooled me. And I was married to him for three mortal years.”

His reaction to this last arrant bombast startled me. He went stiff all over and sharply averted his head.

“What's more,” I made the most of it, “I didn't ride all this way to be packed off to a dassyk for the rest of—whatever it is if it isn't a war. You may be able to do it alone. But it's my fault Zem is dead, because I called him with that fire. And I let him go to Kastir. If it weren't for me”—my voice shook, his head jerked round, I controlled myself—“Zem would be here now. Nothing can bring him back. But I might feel more—more decent, if I could repay some of the debt.”