The Outskirter's Secret (5 page)

"That's right." She could see Bel speaking
earnestly to a warrior seated next to her; his reply consisted of a
head shake, a scornful twist of the mouth, and a dismissive hand
gesture.

"Strange company for a steerswoman."

"She's very good company indeed. And the best
I could ask for, if I'm to get to where I'm going, and find what
I'm looking for."

"Going and finding?" He made a show of
surprise; Rowan began to find annoying his faint air of
condescension. "I thought the way of steerswomen was to walk
wherever the wind took them, and ask too many questions along the
way."

Rowan necessarily conceded the substance of
his remark. "Generally, something like that is the case. Although
we move less randomly than you might think." She took a moment to
miss her past life: roaming through the green wildlands, wandering
into welcoming villages, charting, noticing, questioning and
answering, making endless discoveries, large and small. Now she sat
in a barbarian encampment on the edge of the dangerous Outskirts,
on a journey to find the source of magical jewels. It seemed a very
unlikely situation.

She shook her head. Her old life now seemed
distant, poignant, carefree. "Lately," she told the seyoh, "I seem
always to be searching for something in particular."

His smile was indulgent. "And what do you
search for, steerswoman?"

Rowan said wryly, aware of how odd it would
sound, "A Guidestar."

A warrior seated nearby, who had been
following the conversation, interjected a comment. "Ha. Look
up."

Involuntarily, she did so. The sky was near
fully dark, with only one Guidestar, the Eastern, visible, hanging
eternally motionless against the sky over the shadowy meadow. Its
twin, the Western Guidestar, was hidden by the overhanging branches
of the forest. Stable, immobile, unchanging, these two points of
light were the markers by which humankind located itself on the
surface of the world, counting the passage of time as each night
the slow constellations marched across the sky behind them.

Rowan prepared a reply to the warrior. "I'm
not looking for the ones you can see," she began.

"If you can't see them, you can't find them."
One of his cohorts gave him a friendly shove in appreciation of the
joke.

"I'm looking," Rowan replied patiently, "for
one that has never been seen—from here."

This was greeted with silent thought. "They
can both be seen, everywhere," another person ventured.

"No." Looking around, she discovered herself
to be a center of attention. Despite the unlikely setting, the
situation was one she understood, and she easily stepped into her
role.

She shifted position back a bit and, leaning
forward, drew a circle in the dirt between herself and the seyoh.
"Look. Here's the world, as if we're looking down at the pole. And
here are the Eastern and Western Guidestars." Two dots. "Can you
see? If you travel far enough in either direction, one or the other
will be left behind, around the curve of the world." She added two
more dots. "And you'll see a new Guidestar, in the opposite
direction."

They puzzled over the diagram. One man leaned
over to trace the circle with his finger, eyes squinted with the
unaccustomed effort of abstraction. "That's the world?" He seemed
unconvinced.

Another, more quick, ventured, "We've
traveled a fair bit. Why has no one never seen that happen?"

From over Rowan's shoulder, a creaking voice
spoke. "It's too far."

Rowan turned and found the old healer leaning
above her. Abandoning dignity, he eased himself to his knees,
scuffled over to the drawing, and pointed, as pleased as a child.
"Look at that. You'd have to go . . ." He thought, his watery eyes
flickering. ". . . near a quarter the whole way around the world to
see the next Guidestar." He settled himself more comfortably,
cradling his pouch of medicines in his lap, and looked up at Rowan
with a bright gaze, curious and expectant. Someone tapped him, then
rudely gestured him to leave. He stubbornly ignored the
request.

"That's close," Rowan replied. The others
present appeared skeptical. "But," she added, holding up one
finger, "if in fact you traveled that far, you might not see one,
after all." She reached down and smoothed the dust over one of the
secret Guidestars. "One has fallen."

More faces, pale in firelight, turned toward
Rowan, then turned among themselves in puzzlement, and some
argument.

"They can't fall," one warrior woman loudly
replied to the man beside her. "They can't fall—they're
stars
."

"But if they
did
," he protested, appalled by the idea.

"They're not stars, they're objects." Rowan
had to raise her voice. "They're things. Stars move across the sky
at night. The Guidestars seem not to move, unless you move yourself
beneath them. They are different."

"They are stars." The arguing woman turned
toward her. She had a narrow face, sharp as a hatchet. "They're
special stars, there's only two, and they haven't fallen. They
can't
."

The healer was watching Rowan in fascination.
She was tempted to speak directly to him, to offer her information
only to that old, quick mind behind the sunburned wrinkles; but her
duties were not just to one person.

She changed her method. Speaking to the
woman, she said, "Why only two?"

"Two is all we need."

"Need for what?"

"Direction. To tell where we're going."

"To say that they're for something is to say
that they exist for your benefit."

"Why else?"

"And that they were put there."

"Yes . . ."

"By whom?"

"By gods."

Rowan leaned back. "They
were
put there. By wizards, and for their use." A
certain category of simple spells, Corvus had told her, required
the presence of at least one Guidestar. Certain larger spells, he
had speculated, probably required the presence of all of them.

"By wizards? Wizard things, up in the sky?"
The idea was beyond credibility. "No. There's no wizards out
here."

"Olin's not far," Hanlys pointed out, jerking
his head to indicate direction: west. The limits of Olin's holding,
always vague, might come as near as the western bank of
Greyriver.

"We're Outskirters," the woman stressed.
"Wizards leave the Outskirts alone. We're not their goats, like
Inner Lands folk."

A part of Rowan resented the metaphor; but as
a steerswoman, she conceded its truth. "You're fortunate in that."
She considered the diagram in the dirt, then wiped it clean with a
sweep of her hand. "And without meaning any insult, it doesn't much
matter if you believe me or not. I know where the Guidestar has
fallen, and that's where I'm going."

The healer studied the blank space as if the
marks were still there. "Long trip, just to look at something," he
commented.

She smiled at him. "Long trips are the best
kind."

Across the fire, Rowan noticed Bel standing
among her own small audience, speaking to a female warrior while
four men listened with expressions respectively dubious, bored,
scornful, and annoyed. Some comment of Bel's made the young woman
look at her in sudden surprise, then laugh and—to Rowan's
astonishment—pat Bel's shoulder as if comforting a child. Bel
stiffened, eyes cold.

With a gesture, Rowan caught her glance and
beckoned. Bel was not a person to take insult casually, and Rowan
thought it best to distract her as quickly as possible. Bel turned
her glare unaltered on the steerswoman, but approached, edging her
way through the seated warriors. The healer departed, with some
reluctance, at a gesture from the seyoh.

Bel seated herself beside Hanlys, glumly.
"What?"

Rowan addressed both Outskirters. "As I
understand it, the assistance we gave the wounded warriors, and the
fact that Jermyn willingly asked for my name, give us the right to
assistance in turn. This tribe is going east, Bel; I assume you
want us to travel with it?"

"Until they choose another direction, yes,"
Bel said, looking with sidelong dislike at the seyoh.

Her unspoken opinion was wasted on him. He
rubbed his sharp nose. "And you're welcome to. If nothing else,
you're both amusing."

Bel gathered herself to retort, but Rowan
spoke first. "Sometimes I think that half of the Inner Landers'
interest in steerswomen is the diversion we supply," she
admitted.

Bel quieted herself. "And these people know
the lay of the land," she added, reluctantly. "You might ask for
information to add to your empty maps, the parts we won't see
ourselves."

Hanlys replied to Rowan's questioning glance.
"Of course. Can't hurt us any. Let's do it now."

Rowan rose, intending to fetch her pack, but
the seyoh waved her to sit, then caught the attention of the
serving woman, whose duties were now finished. "Ho, you! The
steerswoman's gear!" The woman delivered a flat glare, then
wandered off.

Rowan noticed the healer standing to one side
near a particularly tattered tent, conversing with a pair of
elderly persons of indeterminate gender. All three wore ill-fitting
clothing, ancient, barely serviceable, and unclean, save in the
healer's case. The steerswoman recollected from Bel's coaching that
there existed two categories of Outskirters within a tribe:
warriors, who defended the tribe and its flock and conducted raids;
and mertutials, who did not fight, but attended to matters of daily
maintenance—cooking, cleaning, various kinds of service. These
then, with the woman fetching Rowan's gear, and two others tending
the sleeping children in their tent, comprised this tribe's
mertutials. Bel had not mentioned that the work carried so little
prestige.

Hanlys turned back to Rowan. "How far are you
going"

"Dust Ridge."

He shook his shaggy head. "Never heard of
it."

"Perhaps four months' travel, eastward,"
Rowan told him, "assuming we meet with few difficulties."

"A long way. I don't know anyone's been that
far."

"I do," Bel put in. "My father. And I've been
most of the way myself."

Behind Bel, three warriors adjusted their
positions and began gaming with a pair of dice. Jermyn, who had
been seated nearby, rose to leave, but they cajoled him and
beckoned. He hesitated, then joined the game with a studied gaiety
that did not reflect in his eyes.

The seyoh spoke to Bel, expressing his
opinion of the ways of her father's land. "A hard life, and hard
travels so far out." He shook his head. "Things needn't be so
difficult."

Bel leaned forward, brows knit. "A hard life
is good. It keeps a warrior strong."

"Ha. It's fighting makes a warrior strong.
And good fight deserves good reward." He tapped the ground between
them, where the diagram had been obscured, emphasizing his point.
"What do you gain when you battle out there, hey? A few more goats,
is all, and the right to run them in the direction you want. Till
you meet another tribe won't let you by, or wants a few more
stinking goats themselves."

Bel's answer was cold. "The herd is
life."

He laughed and spread his hands. "Not
here."

The mertutial woman reappeared, and Rowan
took the pack with an unthinking "Thank you," at which Hanlys
grunted amusement. Bel shot him a glance, but said nothing.

They spent an hour bent over the charts, as
the seyoh helped the steerswoman amend them. His knowledge,
supplemented by occasional comments by other warriors, included
eastward areas to the distance of perhaps eighty miles. Rowan had
been under the impression that Outskirter tribes generally covered
a wider range than this, but she forbore to mention it, not wishing
to prompt a possibly insulting response from Bel. Rowan also marked
areas to the north and south that she would not be crossing; the
more complete she could make her maps, the better for future
travelers. She became engrossed in her work.

Eventually Hanlys noted, "Your friend doesn't
seem very happy."

With some difficulty, Rowan pulled her
attention from the chart and saw that Bel had walked away from the
center of the camp to stand facing out into the darkness, alone. As
Rowan watched, Bel began walking slowly to the left, her face
invisible. "No," Rowan agreed, puzzled. "I should think she would
be. She's going home." She took a moment to wipe the ink from her
fingers with a rag from her kit, her eyes still on the lonely
figure.

The seyoh made a sound of resignation. "Well,
it's no surprise. She's not comfortable with us. She's different."
He shrugged, in a vaguely eastward direction. "Probably doesn't
understand our ways. Her people are far from civilization." He
caught Rowan's eye and winced apology at speaking against her
friend. "They're just a bit stiff-necked out there, old-fashioned,
see. They can't help it. Try not to hold it against her; I don't.
We've accepted you both, and you both have our hospitality. That's
Outskirter honor." And he nodded his head with careful dignity.

"I see." Rowan did not believe him; Bel was
anything but stiff-necked. Clearly something was bothering her that
she did not feel free to articulate.

Rowan considered. She wrapped her pen and
inkstone in the rag, rolled her charts, and returned them to their
case. "Excuse me," she said to the seyoh, and went to find her
friend.

In the dimness at the edge of camp, Bel was a
collection of gray, shifting shadows. Rowan found her more by
hearing than sight: the crunch of gravel beneath the Outskirter's
boots, the creak of leather and the soft hush of her breathing.

She was walking the limits of the camp,
slowly, moving quietly. Rowan heard the hiss of grass as the breeze
swept in from the meadow, the shivering rattle when it met the
forest's edge, and sensed Bel's attention shifting at small
inconsistencies of sound: a clattering as a dead twig tumbled from
the high branches, the fluttering pass of a trio of bats, the
rustle and snap as some tiny predator found tinier prey.