Madbond (31 page)

“We will see,” Kor said quietly.

Tass snorted like a horse. “You are a cockproud ass! If—”

Kor interrupted, though without heat. “I meant what I said just as I said it. We will see. If we gain nothing else, we will gain knowledge.”

“Much good it will do if it dies with you at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Be of better hope, Tass!” he protested.

“Dolt,” stated Tass, and she got up and strode off between the trunks of the great yellow pines until we could no longer see her. Kor sighed with exasperation.

“Do you want her to come with us?” he asked me, not turning to look at me.

I grimaced, for it was a vexed question. Being without her was perhaps less of a torment than being with her. “She plans to have neither of us,” I said.

“Truly?”

“Yes. It is perhaps a mercy. If anything could turn us against each other, it would be she.”

“I think nothing can. And I wonder what is her reason for refusing us.” Kor was still staring straight ahead. “Do you want her with us? In some ways she is wise. And she will never betray us.”

“Blast it.…” My thoughts floundered helplessly. I took joy in seeing Tass, in hearing her, in being near her. Not joy enough to ease my thwarted desire, but still … “How am I to say I do not want her with us,” I burst out, “when I long for her?”

“I have seen you looking at her. Well, we still make a matched pair of fools, then, Dan.” Kor smiled and stretched as if waking from sleep. “I will ask her when she comes back.”

He and I sat companionably, stirring the stew from time to time, heating the stones to cook it, dropping them in with the willow loops. Afternoon passed. Sometimes he dozed in the warm sunlight. Sometimes we talked. Evening drew near, and the sun sank, heart red, toward the snowpeaks. Silently we sat, side by side, and watched it.

Color flamed through the sky. By Kor's side, the stone in the pommel of his sword blazed red, seeming to answer the sinking sun.

As if something had spoken to him, he picked up the sword and with both hands held it before him by the cross of the hilt, blade down so that the tip rested on earth. Like a young shaman taking vigil he sat holding it thus, his face uplifted to it and to the sunset light and to the blood-red light of the jewel. His dark eyes seemed to see far, forever, and his look was rapt.

“Zaneb,” he said.

The name of the sword. And I knew it was not a name he had made for the weapon, but a name he had found. Sundown, it meant, and sun sank behind the eversnow as he said it. But as it vanished a glory went up, as if to crown the mountainpeaks, a splendor of the purest glowing amaranthine light, a half-circle flash of that unheard-of color, and then gone.… The blessing of Sakeema in the sunset, his greeting, gone. Long shadow of evening fell over us, and out of that sudden dusk strode Tassida.

And the heart-red jewel in the hilt of the sword in Kor's hands gave forth light like a bubble of blood that burst skyward, as if yearning for the lost sun. And Tassida stopped in her tracks.

But Kor was not looking at her. Softly he laid his sword down on the ground. “Zaneb,” he hailed it, and lightly she rose and presented her hilt to his hand.

“How did you know her name?” I breathed.

“It came to me, as the sword came to me in the tarn.”

“You would have known Alar's in like wise,” said Tass, “had you not been so afraid.” By the scorn that roughened her voice I knew that she was herself afraid. But some nameless sadness was on me so that I did not answer her. Zaneb. Sundown.… I sat gazing at Kor as he held the sword, I felt the touch of something beautiful, yet—fated.…

“Dan,” Kor said to me easily, quietly, as if I had spoken to him, “there's a notion I want out of your head.”

“I cannot help what I see as truth,” I told him just as quietly, “but if it distresses you, I will say no more of it.” All powers be thanked, not even Kor could read thoughts. Or so I believed.

“Well enough,” he said.

We ate in silence, watching the snowpeaks turn dusky purple and disappear into nighttime sky. The stew was thick and fragrant. Kor and I used the last of the millet to make flatbread, which we toasted on the hot stones. We all ate ravenously. Only after every scrap was gone, except the chunks of cooked meat meant for the morrow, did Kor break silence.

“Ready to ride on the morrow?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Truly? You feel strong and well?”

“As well as I ever have. You?”

“The same.” He turned to Tassida. “Tass,” he proposed calmly, formally, “travel with us, be our comrade again.”

She seemed taken aback, and edged away from the fire. “I—I don't know.”

“I promise you, I will not importune you in any other way.” He turned to me. “Dan?”

It was a promise not lightly to be given, but I nodded. “As a comrade, Tass,” I told her. “Just as we were before.”

“You know that is not possible,” she said.

“As close as we can make it, then. Tass?”

“I don't know,” she muttered. “I must think. Or listen. To whatever it is that guides me.” She walked off into the darkness.

She was gone all night, though I awoke from time to time and fed the fire to keep it blazing, making of it a beacon to guide her back to us. I daresay she knew the way well enough without it. Kor poked at the fire from time to time also, and prowled about, and he was up before the dawn, waiting. Which was well thought of, because it was not long after first light that Tassida came back and began gathering her gear stealthily, as if she did not wish to awaken us, though in fact we were awake already.

Kor stood up and faced her, his eyes grave. Only then did she speak in answer to his mute question.

“I must go my own way,” she said softly.

“And what way is that?” he asked just as softly.

“For the time, back the way you have just come. I wish to see this pool of vision.”

I had come stumbling to my feet. “We could show you.”

“No. I will find it.” She turned away, whistling for her gelding.

“Why off so early, Tass?” I was honestly puzzled—my wits are not at their best when I am half-asleep. “It is not yet sunrise! Stay awhile, eat with us.”

“No. My thanks, but no. I am going now.” The handsome black Calimir appeared at her side, his white legs and mane and white-spotted belly glowing eerily bright in the dim light.

“Let me get you a packet of meat, then.”

I started rooting about for something to wrap it with. But Kor stood motionless where he was, and his voice when he spoke was low.

“You are frightened of us.”

I listened for a snort, a scornful reply, but they did not come. There was nothing from Tass but silence.

“Frightened of us, since we know you for a maiden! Tass, why? What have we ever done to you but honor you?”

I straightened to look at her, food forgotten. She was strapping on her wolfskin riding pelt, tying her pouches to it, fastening the cordgrass bridle, all in haste, as if she were fleeing from a real danger, and her eyes in the dim light looked haunted.

Kor took a step forward, and she froze as if he had rendered her too terrified to move. But his gaze caught hers, and she answered him.

“Nothing,” she said, her voice so struggling we could scarcely hear it. “You have done nothing to hurt me. You just—are.”

“Are what?”

She jerked her head away from his glance and vaulted to the horse's back. Kor caught hold of her reins, and I stepped to his side. “Careful,” I warned, trying to ease what was happening with a jest. “She'll have her knife out in a moment.”

“No!” Tass seemed jolted into speech at my words. Protests spilled out of her, and tears started from her eyes. “Dan, that was an accident—I thought you knew! I wanted only to cut the reins and get away—”

“I know, I know!” I hastened to reassure her.

“I never meant to hurt you.” But she brushed away the tears impatiently with the back of one hand.

Kor stood beside me, holding the reins so hard that his knuckles whitened, and abruptly he asked a strange question.

“Tassida. Who gelded Calimir?”

She stared dumbly at him, and I turned to stare too. His changeable eyes were dark, purple-gray and stormy, and as deep as the stormy sea.

“You have told us there are no other tribes but the six I know. No person of any of them would geld a stallion, not even those slave-keeping Fanged Horse scum. And Calimir is not a fanged steed nor yet a curly-haired Red Hart pony. You have told us that horses of beauty, of the old breed, run wild on the dry plains east of the thunder cones. You must have caught Calimir there. But who gelded him?”

I looked back at her, seeing a trapped fear, seeing a secret too terrible to speak, and I felt a chill.

“Do you not think you owe us some small measure of truth?” Kor demanded.

Slowly, as if she could not help herself, she drew her knife of sharp blackstone. “I deem—you already know. Turn loose my reins.”

Neither Kor nor I moved. “She did it herself?” I murmured to him, too stunned to speak louder.

“She must have.”

“I saved his life, raised him from a tiny foal!” Tass cried suddenly. “He followed me like a dog, he was as gentle as a dove. But when his neck began to swell, he grew hot and mettlesome, and I didn't—I couldn't—”

“Didn't want him acting like a stud,” said Kor, his voice careful, colorless.

“You can see he does not hold it against me.” She was weeping, her knife gripped hard in her hand.

“Of course not,” said Kor bitterly. “The creatures who befriend us, they are patient, mute, forgiving, they do what we ask of them without needing to understand. The horses, they let us ride them to war, through fire, beyond exhaustion unto death—”

Her head lifted with a snap at his tone, and her dark eyes flashed. She spun her knife briefly and raised it.

“Unhand my reins,” she ordered.

Kor let go and stepped back. His compliance seemed to startle her so that she did not ride away at once, but lingered, sheathing her stone blade.

“Do not think too badly of me,” she said softly at last, glancing at both of us equally.

“I cannot think too badly of you ever,” I said, though an odd sort of weight lay on my chest, hindering my breathing. “Gentle journey.”

“Gentle journey,” Kor echoed me.

“And the same to you both, and—good fortune of all sorts.…” She seemed about to say more, but then, abruptly, she wheeled Calimir and set off at a canter toward the east. I raised my hand in an awkward salute, and she returned it just as she disappeared between giant pines.

Kor and I kept a numb silence as we went about the business of breaking camp. Nor did we eat. Not until we were mounted and riding westward did we begin to speak.

“I would never have guessed it of her,” I said to Kor.

“You are trusting.”

“Fool, most folk say.”

“Special sort of courage, say I. But I have been a king for too long, and I always wonder, and suspect.…”

“She could be killed for it if folk knew. Stoned at the stake. Abomination …”

He made no reply except to shrug.

“It's as well she would not lie with you,” I said, trying to jest but not truly jesting. “You might have found yourself—altered. In the mid of night.”

He grimaced by way of answer. We rode on for a while, edging up the flanks of the mountains, making our way toward the Blackstone Path and the Blue Bear Pass.

“Why did you speak of it?”

“I wish I knew.” Kor sounded wry.

“You have more courage than I.”

“Less. I think I wanted—to stop loving her.”

Sakeema, his honesty. Understanding pierced me.

“It makes no difference,” I said softly after a moment. “Loving goes on.”

“I know. To my dismay.”

Chapter Three

Daily we wound our way higher on the long shoulders of the mountains. Yellow pine gave way to dense spearpine and aspen amid spines of rock. The going was hard, but we saved many miles by slanting our way north and westward toward the Blackstone Path, which would take us over the mountains. The name of it came not from the mountain stones, which were granite gray, but from the knife blades made of obsidian, the black stone, which my tribefellows would chip and carry to the Seal and Otter peoples to trade for fish oil—along the coast even flint was scarce, and folk made their knives of shell and bone. The Blackstone Path snaked steeply up to a high nagsback, scarcely to be called a pass, between the Chital and Shaman peaks. It would be a hard way for the horses, and for us, but we had decided to attempt it this time rather than brave the gentler Shappa Pass, where so much misfortune had befallen us.

Autumn comes early to the high slopes. Aspens were turning yellow by the time we neared the trail.

Kor made the best of traveling companions: steadfast, seldom complaining, dryly amusing at times, at other times content to be silent for half a day or more, giving the mind a chance to rest itself in dreams. What endeared him even more to me, every day's journey gave him fresh cause for wonder. My mountains amazed him at every turn anew, and his eyes sparkled as he looked about him. He gazed days on end at the yellowing of the aspens amid evergreens, and at the alp, the high meadow far above, already touched by frost or an autumn moon, glowing the color of embers beneath gray-blue crags.

Blue sky, white snowpeaks, green pines, and the smaller trees so yellow they seemed to shine as we came within sight of the Blackstone Path. A slate-blue hulk squatted amidst the boulders that marked the way upward to the pass. Kor frowned at the sight of the Cragsman.

“I hope there is no toll to pay this time,” he muttered.

But what could the Blue Bear require of us? Pajlat's steppes lay far away—no Fanged Horse raiders could be waiting in ambush. We knew better than to consort with the deer folk. And the Cragsmen had done no more than laugh at us before. Though Cragsmen were stony-hearted, capricious.…