"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c09_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)9 MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER
Questions chirped by curious birds punctuated Jordam’s delirium. He heard their hungry speculation as to which parts of his paralyzed shape would taste best. A bold raven’s talons pricked his forearm while her beak tore out tufts of hair for a nest. He mustered enough will to hate the bird, then sank back into unconsciousness. Once he thought he heard Bel Amican soldiers beneath the coil tree. He pried his eyes open to find his brothers pointing up at him, laughing, and gloating that they had gone to drink the Essence without him. They are not here. This is the poison, he told himself. Goreth would not laugh at me. But he knew that this second day apart from his brothers would try Mordafey’s patience. As the daylight dimmed, the night flowers bloomed again. He could see cool blue light through closed eyelids, which brought O-raya back into his dreams. “It’s the color of the lake right before dark.” Calmed by the soft blue colors she was stirring in a bowl, he could concentrate on every word she said, stepping from one to the other as if walking up a steep, rocky path toward a view. “What does this blue look like?” she asked. As he searched for an answer, she offered him a paintbrush. “You know what to do,” she said. “You’ve been watching me. Make something.” He stared at the brush, alarmed, as if she were threatening him. “Go ahead. I want to see what’s inside you, Hairy. Give it a shape.” He tried to take the brush, but that invisible shell of Bel Amican poison held him fast. As he strained against its merciless grip, O-raya’s image faded, and he awoke in a world of white. Snow had dusted the coil-tree boughs and the glen’s grassy floor. Soldiers’ bootprints crisscrossed the clearing. He marveled that they had walked beneath his tree. Faint traces of their passage remained in the air—leather, metal, weedsmoke. But they were already far away. The sky was pregnant with purple storms. O-raya’s questions came back to him. “What does this look like?” He wondered how he would answer. Like…like… His gaze drifted down to the apple tree in the glen. Plums, he thought. Storms look like piles of plums under plum trees. He thought some more. Coals. Coals gone cold. Such thinking felt unfamiliar, as if he were chewing on something with an awkward shape. But O-raya had talked like this. And there was nothing wrong with her, save for her smallness and weakness. He searched the glen, distracting himself from the maddening paralysis with the play of this like that and this like that. He thought of his brothers. Goreth, like a dog, vicious but faithful. Jorn, like a weasel or a wild pig. Mordafey, a bear or a prongbull. Mordafey, a thunderstorm. Jorn, a miserable blast of sleet. Goreth, maybe a tumbleweed. Staring at his hands, he thought of how much his claws glinted like daggers. Listening to the wind moan, he thought of Goreth snoring in the brothers’ hideaway. Watching bright, precise snowflakes flurry against the dusk, he thought of glowflies. The well, a strange campfire. His aching belly, an empty cave. He caught a few snowflakes on his pink tongue, imperceptible and flavorless. Like ash, he thought. They were worse than nothing. They reminded him of a better, but unattainable source—the well, right there in the glen. A rustling in the bushes and then a gorrel—no, the gorrel—timidly emerged. Having survived its terrifying ordeal with the dogs and washed Jordam’s blood from its fur, the animal crawled homeward, gaze fixed upon the tree’s high hollow. Its nose wiggled, its tail twitched. He could hear its faltering heartbeat, smell the blood that coursed beneath its furry hide. As the gorrel arrived at the base of the tree, Jordam focused on moving his feet. Pushing with all his might, he inched to the edge of the branch, desperate to catch some food. The gorrel stood on the tree’s tangled black roots and squinted up into the boughs. It leapt, clung to the trunk with its claws, then slowly lost its hold and scrabbled at the bark until it fell. Shaking itself off, the animal bunched up for another spring, and this time could not even manage a grip. Jordam felt the pulse of his hunger falter. The gorrel circled the tree. Its furry sides pumped as it fought for breath. Clearly it was injured or exhausted.
Like me, he thought. Like me, hurt and tired in O-raya’s caves. Jordam’s lips quivered. He would never get out of here if he entertained such useless thoughts. His brothers would drink the Essence without him. They would get stronger while he wasted away in a tree. He kicked against the tree trunk, shoved himself free of the branch, and began to fall, limbs spread. His growing shadow startled the gorrel. It dodged, escaping by a whisker, and ran screaming back into the forest. Facedown on the cold knobs of the roots, Jordam was sure that he lay in pieces. Like the barrel at the bottom of the Abascar stair, he thought. Broken.
Ruined.
But as evening deepened, he felt a dull throbbing in his thumbs. The feeling spread to his fingers. He clutched at the tree’s tangled tendrils. He dug his toes into the frost and forced his groaning carcass forward about the measure of a maple leaf. The scent of water lured him, and the shining blue flowers pulsed a persistent invitation. Claws digging into the earth, he pulled himself forward. By the time he grasped the well’s low boulders, night had conquered the sky. Snow fell steadily on the forest, but the well was almost warm. Snowflakes melted when they touched the stones. Steam seeped out around the edges of the lid. He dragged the wreckage of his body up against them and rested there awhile. In the blue glow he could study the weathered paint of the wellstones. It made him feel close to O-raya. When he could muster the strength, he dragged the cover from the well. The sound of an underground river roared. On his knees he looked through thick vapor into the well’s throat and found the bucket’s rope bound to an iron ring. Hanging on the ring next to the rope was the woman’s pack. He pulled the pack out and set it beside the well. He was curious to know its contents, but thirst compelled him more. He pulled at the rope. Seizing the bucket, he gulped until it was empty. The warm water stung his cracked tongue, scorched his parched throat, burnt all the way down his gullet, shocking his limbs back to life. He lay back, surprised by the feeling of strength that spread from his belly to his fingertips and toes. He found a fallen apple, chewed twice, and swallowed. It was flavorless, a withered remnant of summer. But it was food. Cautious, curious, he took a single, velvet petal from one of the blue flowers, just as the Bel Amican woman had done. He held it to his nose, sniffed it, found nothing of interest. It seemed ordinary. It left a bitter taste that wrinkled the span of his snout. Then he drew the bucket again, drank some more, and poured the rest across his ankle where the arrow had struck. The wound burnt, but it did not bleed. He looked up through the snowfall to the tower’s silhouette and saw the figure in the window again. He crawled out of the well’s glow and lay in the lee of the crumbling wall, spent from his ordeal. When he woke again, he felt a peace that had eluded him since his visits to O-raya’s caves. She might be close, he thought. I should stay here awhile.
Hide in the trees. Drink from the well.
He wiped at his nose and discovered a dark, oily secretion on his face, like the drops he had seen on the Bel Amican woman’s brow. The flowers, he thought. Whatever was happening to him, he liked it. He felt lighter, stronger, and his senses were sharper. The glen all around him seemed a concert of life—the rush of the underground river, the scritch-scratch of barkbugs, the raucous clamor of clumpfrogs, and the jabber of dreaming gorrels. He heard the Bel Amican flags whipped by the wind atop the tower. And then he heard another rustle of cloth. He looked up through the straying fog to see a brown woodscloak hanging in the maple tree. It had not been there before. His hands clutched the stones of the crumbling wall. His heartbeat broke into a run. And then he heard the first note of a tetherwing’s alarm. The breeze grabbed the fog as if it were a curtain and pulled it aside, laying everything bare. She stood in the grass beside the open tetherwing basket. She was a slight figure in an ordinary shift of grey. She did not see him, for she stood facing the cloudgrasper tree, drawing out the contents of her pack and hanging them on the green boughs. Already she had arranged a colorful gallery—a hat with a long golden feather, an ornate shield, a toy boat with a sweeping white sail, and an arm-length, serpentine pipe that gave off the spiced scent of old smoke. Jordam was more concerned about the dagger lying at her feet. He tensed to make a dash for higher ground but worried that he might not even manage to walk. A tetherwing let loose another cry. The woman paused. Perhaps she was waiting for a third call, a confirmation that a predator was close at hand. Perhaps she was too afraid to move. She busied herself again, anxious and hurried, drawing out more offerings for the tree. A silver-webbed fishing net. A silver chain bearing an emblem of an eagle with outstretched wings and a fish in its talons. She pushed heaps of dry twigs against the base of the tree. At last she dropped to her knees and struck a firestick against a stone. It flared up bright and orange, and she held it high. “In the name of Tammos Raak,” she murmured, her voice trembling, “I summon King Helpryn, master of the sea. I summon Partayn ker Helpryn, master of music. I summon Deuneroi ker Bekenyr, master of the court.” Jordam blinked, cupping his ears toward her. “Come and visit me here,” she said, raising her voice with increasing confidence. “House Bel Amica has fallen from wisdom. They’re abandoning the old ways. The Seers deceive them. I come in secret to offer this sign of gratitude for all you have done and to bid you a proper farewell. Come and take these, your belongings. I speak for many who dare not join me here.” Ornaments in the tree swung on the wind-troubled boughs. The woman cupped a hand around the flaming firestick. “Are you there?” she asked. “Are you listening?” She touched the firestick to a scrap of kindling. The flame caught and spread along an arching line of bramble, flaring up and dancing. “Take these treasures as a show of our love and remembrance.” She stared into the line of flame. “And then…if you would…” She took up the dagger. “Honor my longing, and consider my loneliness. I have no purpose here. I’m a prisoner. I’ve nothing left to give.” Jordam felt a tremor in the ground. Then another. He recognized the quakes, and he turned his gaze to the trees above the glen, terrified. But no shadow emerged, no great wings were spread against the sky. Still, the wind that roared into the glen felt familiar, as if the Keeper might be answering a summons. The cloudgrasper swayed. The musical instrument fell from the branch, and when its wooden bowl struck the ground, the strings rang out in a dissonant chord. Buffeted and ripped, the flames flickered and went out. The wind diminished, calming as quickly as it had arrived. The woman’s shoulders sank. She bowed her head, whether in frustration, grief, or exhaustion, Jordam could not tell. He could not see her face. Tetherwings began to hoot, sounding alarms urgent and sad, as though they knew it was too late for their song. Their tiny, beady eyes glared down at him from their perches. The woman turned and shuddered when she saw him. Her gaze made him uneasy, for she was such a different creature. In this light she was like O-raya, small but strong. Older, though, and cloaked in a different kind of costume. Painted by the light of the opening flowers, she was right as green leaves, right as a river. Her skin, red with the cold. Her black hair, bound up in a cloth and pinned with sharp black rods, crowned with the grey tetherwing feathers. Her chin was small as a child’s, her lips seemed drawn by the merest tip of a brush. Like the girl at the lake, she was graceful in a way that frightened him. His fear kindled another feeling—shame. In their hunts he and his brothers reveled in destroying what they did not understand. They enjoyed distorting anything untouched by the influence of the Cent Regus Essence. Jordam hated his victims because they were weak. But here he knew that he hated the weakerfolk because the Essence had taken something away from him, something he could not get back. She did not scream. She did not attack. Instead, she smiled in resignation. Her tense body relaxed, a burdensome question answered. The dagger fell, leaving a cut where she had pressed it through her shift. She placed the feathered crown in the basket. She took the golden vial and tipped it over the basket, letting one glistening drop fall. A pungent, smoky perfume spread, and Jordam’s nostrils tingled. Slumberseed oil. Then she corked the vial, set it aside, and whistled as she had the night before. Tetherwings gathered in a reluctant, mournful spiral, descending one by one into the open basket. “Be still,” she whispered. “Be still.” The tetherwings quieted as she closed the lid. He waited for her to run, but she stayed. Black, shiny drops beaded across her brow. She reached up and clasped the eagle emblem on the silver chain the way she might reach for someone’s hand. He recognized the emblem.
“rrDoon-roy,” he said softly, as surprised to hear his own voice as she was. Her eyes widened. “Was it you? Were you there?” She seemed to flicker like a dying light. Like O-raya, he thought. Like O-raya before she left. “Do to me what you did to him,” she continued. “I can’t do it. It’s like…like he’s watching me.” She gestured to the tower. “They won’t understand. Finish me. Let me join the others you’ve taken.” In a strange dizziness—whether from the water or from the bitter flowers, from the poison or from the exhaustion, he did not know—Jordam clung to her words. Do to me what you did to him. He understood. Can’t do it. Finish me. The words knotted together into a net, caught meaning. He lurched to his feet. She seemed so small, trembling there. She bowed and waited, fingers curling into fists. “rrNo.” Speaking to her in Common words was like sorting through loot, trying to discern the use of unfamiliar tools. “No hurt. No finish.” He remembered how she had reached out to the fox. He found words there. “Won’t hurt you,” he said. Her fear, it covered her. Like a blanket. He growled at the nagging sense that inclined him to find comparisons. She had offered the fox a flower. He stepped to the well and grasped the rope, pulling the bucket up the shaft. “rrGood water. Drink.” And then another word presented itself. “Help,” he said, just as he had heard so many victims cry out. “Help.” He was not sure if he was speaking it as an offer or a plea. She bared her teeth the way a gorrel does when it does not know whether to flee or fight. “Help? I’ve told you how you can help.” “Help.” His voice weakened in his uncertainty. “Don’t you understand?” She reached for the knife, touched its hilt, and then tossed it across the grass to him. She pointed at the tower. “I can’t go back. There’s nothing for me there now.” He opened his hands and then spewed a gushing roar of language in the Cent Regus’ twisted tongue, raging about Mordafey, the pain in his head, the loss of O-raya and her colors. “Can’t go back,” he echoed to her, but he gestured to the darkness, not the tower. She fell forward onto her elbows and covered her head with her hands, frozen in place. Like a cornered animal. He knelt across from her. “Help,” he said. He unsheathed the knife strapped to his leg and cast it into the grass beside her. She stared at his weapon and its bloodstained hilt. She shook as if naked in cold water. He backed away toward the edge of the clearing and stood on the root-rumpled ground beneath the boughs of a young apple tree. He waited. “Won’t hurt you,” he said again. She stood, lifted the tetherwing basket, and moved toward the crumbling wall. “I don’t care if we were right,” she snapped. “It’s too late. Why couldn’t you have come before?” Panic seized him. He did not understand what he wanted, but he did not want to be alone. He stepped forward. “No… Stop…” His next step sounded a sudden crack. Rings of gleaming razor wire sprang up from the leaves with the ping of plucked strings. Pain seared his legs, arms, and neck, and a tremendous force drew him back hard against the apple tree. Six wire nooses tightened. The commotion ended as quickly as it had begun. Arms bound to his sides, he pushed against the wires but learned at once that the flesh-splitting lines responded to resistance by tightening further. He roared. Blinking, choking, he fought back against the pain. Blood beaded and spilled from the lacerations. The wires binding Jordam were held taut by a mechanism in a small metal flywheel that was pinned to the ground out of reach. He could bend his arms, but his hands could only clutch air. He could lift his feet by bending his knees. This gained him nothing. If he touched any of the main lines, the snare tightened, wire cutting closer to bone. Stuck. Again. He groped for clear thought. The soldiers. They were here. He met the woman’s gaze. He groped for a word that he could cast out to her as her image blurred. “Help.” 9 MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER
Questions chirped by curious birds punctuated Jordam’s delirium. He heard their hungry speculation as to which parts of his paralyzed shape would taste best. A bold raven’s talons pricked his forearm while her beak tore out tufts of hair for a nest. He mustered enough will to hate the bird, then sank back into unconsciousness. Once he thought he heard Bel Amican soldiers beneath the coil tree. He pried his eyes open to find his brothers pointing up at him, laughing, and gloating that they had gone to drink the Essence without him. They are not here. This is the poison, he told himself. Goreth would not laugh at me. But he knew that this second day apart from his brothers would try Mordafey’s patience. As the daylight dimmed, the night flowers bloomed again. He could see cool blue light through closed eyelids, which brought O-raya back into his dreams. “It’s the color of the lake right before dark.” Calmed by the soft blue colors she was stirring in a bowl, he could concentrate on every word she said, stepping from one to the other as if walking up a steep, rocky path toward a view. “What does this blue look like?” she asked. As he searched for an answer, she offered him a paintbrush. “You know what to do,” she said. “You’ve been watching me. Make something.” He stared at the brush, alarmed, as if she were threatening him. “Go ahead. I want to see what’s inside you, Hairy. Give it a shape.” He tried to take the brush, but that invisible shell of Bel Amican poison held him fast. As he strained against its merciless grip, O-raya’s image faded, and he awoke in a world of white. Snow had dusted the coil-tree boughs and the glen’s grassy floor. Soldiers’ bootprints crisscrossed the clearing. He marveled that they had walked beneath his tree. Faint traces of their passage remained in the air—leather, metal, weedsmoke. But they were already far away. The sky was pregnant with purple storms. O-raya’s questions came back to him. “What does this look like?” He wondered how he would answer. Like…like… His gaze drifted down to the apple tree in the glen. Plums, he thought. Storms look like piles of plums under plum trees. He thought some more. Coals. Coals gone cold. Such thinking felt unfamiliar, as if he were chewing on something with an awkward shape. But O-raya had talked like this. And there was nothing wrong with her, save for her smallness and weakness. He searched the glen, distracting himself from the maddening paralysis with the play of this like that and this like that. He thought of his brothers. Goreth, like a dog, vicious but faithful. Jorn, like a weasel or a wild pig. Mordafey, a bear or a prongbull. Mordafey, a thunderstorm. Jorn, a miserable blast of sleet. Goreth, maybe a tumbleweed. Staring at his hands, he thought of how much his claws glinted like daggers. Listening to the wind moan, he thought of Goreth snoring in the brothers’ hideaway. Watching bright, precise snowflakes flurry against the dusk, he thought of glowflies. The well, a strange campfire. His aching belly, an empty cave. He caught a few snowflakes on his pink tongue, imperceptible and flavorless. Like ash, he thought. They were worse than nothing. They reminded him of a better, but unattainable source—the well, right there in the glen. A rustling in the bushes and then a gorrel—no, the gorrel—timidly emerged. Having survived its terrifying ordeal with the dogs and washed Jordam’s blood from its fur, the animal crawled homeward, gaze fixed upon the tree’s high hollow. Its nose wiggled, its tail twitched. He could hear its faltering heartbeat, smell the blood that coursed beneath its furry hide. As the gorrel arrived at the base of the tree, Jordam focused on moving his feet. Pushing with all his might, he inched to the edge of the branch, desperate to catch some food. The gorrel stood on the tree’s tangled black roots and squinted up into the boughs. It leapt, clung to the trunk with its claws, then slowly lost its hold and scrabbled at the bark until it fell. Shaking itself off, the animal bunched up for another spring, and this time could not even manage a grip. Jordam felt the pulse of his hunger falter. The gorrel circled the tree. Its furry sides pumped as it fought for breath. Clearly it was injured or exhausted.
Like me, he thought. Like me, hurt and tired in O-raya’s caves. Jordam’s lips quivered. He would never get out of here if he entertained such useless thoughts. His brothers would drink the Essence without him. They would get stronger while he wasted away in a tree. He kicked against the tree trunk, shoved himself free of the branch, and began to fall, limbs spread. His growing shadow startled the gorrel. It dodged, escaping by a whisker, and ran screaming back into the forest. Facedown on the cold knobs of the roots, Jordam was sure that he lay in pieces. Like the barrel at the bottom of the Abascar stair, he thought. Broken.
Ruined.
But as evening deepened, he felt a dull throbbing in his thumbs. The feeling spread to his fingers. He clutched at the tree’s tangled tendrils. He dug his toes into the frost and forced his groaning carcass forward about the measure of a maple leaf. The scent of water lured him, and the shining blue flowers pulsed a persistent invitation. Claws digging into the earth, he pulled himself forward. By the time he grasped the well’s low boulders, night had conquered the sky. Snow fell steadily on the forest, but the well was almost warm. Snowflakes melted when they touched the stones. Steam seeped out around the edges of the lid. He dragged the wreckage of his body up against them and rested there awhile. In the blue glow he could study the weathered paint of the wellstones. It made him feel close to O-raya. When he could muster the strength, he dragged the cover from the well. The sound of an underground river roared. On his knees he looked through thick vapor into the well’s throat and found the bucket’s rope bound to an iron ring. Hanging on the ring next to the rope was the woman’s pack. He pulled the pack out and set it beside the well. He was curious to know its contents, but thirst compelled him more. He pulled at the rope. Seizing the bucket, he gulped until it was empty. The warm water stung his cracked tongue, scorched his parched throat, burnt all the way down his gullet, shocking his limbs back to life. He lay back, surprised by the feeling of strength that spread from his belly to his fingertips and toes. He found a fallen apple, chewed twice, and swallowed. It was flavorless, a withered remnant of summer. But it was food. Cautious, curious, he took a single, velvet petal from one of the blue flowers, just as the Bel Amican woman had done. He held it to his nose, sniffed it, found nothing of interest. It seemed ordinary. It left a bitter taste that wrinkled the span of his snout. Then he drew the bucket again, drank some more, and poured the rest across his ankle where the arrow had struck. The wound burnt, but it did not bleed. He looked up through the snowfall to the tower’s silhouette and saw the figure in the window again. He crawled out of the well’s glow and lay in the lee of the crumbling wall, spent from his ordeal. When he woke again, he felt a peace that had eluded him since his visits to O-raya’s caves. She might be close, he thought. I should stay here awhile.
Hide in the trees. Drink from the well.
He wiped at his nose and discovered a dark, oily secretion on his face, like the drops he had seen on the Bel Amican woman’s brow. The flowers, he thought. Whatever was happening to him, he liked it. He felt lighter, stronger, and his senses were sharper. The glen all around him seemed a concert of life—the rush of the underground river, the scritch-scratch of barkbugs, the raucous clamor of clumpfrogs, and the jabber of dreaming gorrels. He heard the Bel Amican flags whipped by the wind atop the tower. And then he heard another rustle of cloth. He looked up through the straying fog to see a brown woodscloak hanging in the maple tree. It had not been there before. His hands clutched the stones of the crumbling wall. His heartbeat broke into a run. And then he heard the first note of a tetherwing’s alarm. The breeze grabbed the fog as if it were a curtain and pulled it aside, laying everything bare. She stood in the grass beside the open tetherwing basket. She was a slight figure in an ordinary shift of grey. She did not see him, for she stood facing the cloudgrasper tree, drawing out the contents of her pack and hanging them on the green boughs. Already she had arranged a colorful gallery—a hat with a long golden feather, an ornate shield, a toy boat with a sweeping white sail, and an arm-length, serpentine pipe that gave off the spiced scent of old smoke. Jordam was more concerned about the dagger lying at her feet. He tensed to make a dash for higher ground but worried that he might not even manage to walk. A tetherwing let loose another cry. The woman paused. Perhaps she was waiting for a third call, a confirmation that a predator was close at hand. Perhaps she was too afraid to move. She busied herself again, anxious and hurried, drawing out more offerings for the tree. A silver-webbed fishing net. A silver chain bearing an emblem of an eagle with outstretched wings and a fish in its talons. She pushed heaps of dry twigs against the base of the tree. At last she dropped to her knees and struck a firestick against a stone. It flared up bright and orange, and she held it high. “In the name of Tammos Raak,” she murmured, her voice trembling, “I summon King Helpryn, master of the sea. I summon Partayn ker Helpryn, master of music. I summon Deuneroi ker Bekenyr, master of the court.” Jordam blinked, cupping his ears toward her. “Come and visit me here,” she said, raising her voice with increasing confidence. “House Bel Amica has fallen from wisdom. They’re abandoning the old ways. The Seers deceive them. I come in secret to offer this sign of gratitude for all you have done and to bid you a proper farewell. Come and take these, your belongings. I speak for many who dare not join me here.” Ornaments in the tree swung on the wind-troubled boughs. The woman cupped a hand around the flaming firestick. “Are you there?” she asked. “Are you listening?” She touched the firestick to a scrap of kindling. The flame caught and spread along an arching line of bramble, flaring up and dancing. “Take these treasures as a show of our love and remembrance.” She stared into the line of flame. “And then…if you would…” She took up the dagger. “Honor my longing, and consider my loneliness. I have no purpose here. I’m a prisoner. I’ve nothing left to give.” Jordam felt a tremor in the ground. Then another. He recognized the quakes, and he turned his gaze to the trees above the glen, terrified. But no shadow emerged, no great wings were spread against the sky. Still, the wind that roared into the glen felt familiar, as if the Keeper might be answering a summons. The cloudgrasper swayed. The musical instrument fell from the branch, and when its wooden bowl struck the ground, the strings rang out in a dissonant chord. Buffeted and ripped, the flames flickered and went out. The wind diminished, calming as quickly as it had arrived. The woman’s shoulders sank. She bowed her head, whether in frustration, grief, or exhaustion, Jordam could not tell. He could not see her face. Tetherwings began to hoot, sounding alarms urgent and sad, as though they knew it was too late for their song. Their tiny, beady eyes glared down at him from their perches. The woman turned and shuddered when she saw him. Her gaze made him uneasy, for she was such a different creature. In this light she was like O-raya, small but strong. Older, though, and cloaked in a different kind of costume. Painted by the light of the opening flowers, she was right as green leaves, right as a river. Her skin, red with the cold. Her black hair, bound up in a cloth and pinned with sharp black rods, crowned with the grey tetherwing feathers. Her chin was small as a child’s, her lips seemed drawn by the merest tip of a brush. Like the girl at the lake, she was graceful in a way that frightened him. His fear kindled another feeling—shame. In their hunts he and his brothers reveled in destroying what they did not understand. They enjoyed distorting anything untouched by the influence of the Cent Regus Essence. Jordam hated his victims because they were weak. But here he knew that he hated the weakerfolk because the Essence had taken something away from him, something he could not get back. She did not scream. She did not attack. Instead, she smiled in resignation. Her tense body relaxed, a burdensome question answered. The dagger fell, leaving a cut where she had pressed it through her shift. She placed the feathered crown in the basket. She took the golden vial and tipped it over the basket, letting one glistening drop fall. A pungent, smoky perfume spread, and Jordam’s nostrils tingled. Slumberseed oil. Then she corked the vial, set it aside, and whistled as she had the night before. Tetherwings gathered in a reluctant, mournful spiral, descending one by one into the open basket. “Be still,” she whispered. “Be still.” The tetherwings quieted as she closed the lid. He waited for her to run, but she stayed. Black, shiny drops beaded across her brow. She reached up and clasped the eagle emblem on the silver chain the way she might reach for someone’s hand. He recognized the emblem.
“rrDoon-roy,” he said softly, as surprised to hear his own voice as she was. Her eyes widened. “Was it you? Were you there?” She seemed to flicker like a dying light. Like O-raya, he thought. Like O-raya before she left. “Do to me what you did to him,” she continued. “I can’t do it. It’s like…like he’s watching me.” She gestured to the tower. “They won’t understand. Finish me. Let me join the others you’ve taken.” In a strange dizziness—whether from the water or from the bitter flowers, from the poison or from the exhaustion, he did not know—Jordam clung to her words. Do to me what you did to him. He understood. Can’t do it. Finish me. The words knotted together into a net, caught meaning. He lurched to his feet. She seemed so small, trembling there. She bowed and waited, fingers curling into fists. “rrNo.” Speaking to her in Common words was like sorting through loot, trying to discern the use of unfamiliar tools. “No hurt. No finish.” He remembered how she had reached out to the fox. He found words there. “Won’t hurt you,” he said. Her fear, it covered her. Like a blanket. He growled at the nagging sense that inclined him to find comparisons. She had offered the fox a flower. He stepped to the well and grasped the rope, pulling the bucket up the shaft. “rrGood water. Drink.” And then another word presented itself. “Help,” he said, just as he had heard so many victims cry out. “Help.” He was not sure if he was speaking it as an offer or a plea. She bared her teeth the way a gorrel does when it does not know whether to flee or fight. “Help? I’ve told you how you can help.” “Help.” His voice weakened in his uncertainty. “Don’t you understand?” She reached for the knife, touched its hilt, and then tossed it across the grass to him. She pointed at the tower. “I can’t go back. There’s nothing for me there now.” He opened his hands and then spewed a gushing roar of language in the Cent Regus’ twisted tongue, raging about Mordafey, the pain in his head, the loss of O-raya and her colors. “Can’t go back,” he echoed to her, but he gestured to the darkness, not the tower. She fell forward onto her elbows and covered her head with her hands, frozen in place. Like a cornered animal. He knelt across from her. “Help,” he said. He unsheathed the knife strapped to his leg and cast it into the grass beside her. She stared at his weapon and its bloodstained hilt. She shook as if naked in cold water. He backed away toward the edge of the clearing and stood on the root-rumpled ground beneath the boughs of a young apple tree. He waited. “Won’t hurt you,” he said again. She stood, lifted the tetherwing basket, and moved toward the crumbling wall. “I don’t care if we were right,” she snapped. “It’s too late. Why couldn’t you have come before?” Panic seized him. He did not understand what he wanted, but he did not want to be alone. He stepped forward. “No… Stop…” His next step sounded a sudden crack. Rings of gleaming razor wire sprang up from the leaves with the ping of plucked strings. Pain seared his legs, arms, and neck, and a tremendous force drew him back hard against the apple tree. Six wire nooses tightened. The commotion ended as quickly as it had begun. Arms bound to his sides, he pushed against the wires but learned at once that the flesh-splitting lines responded to resistance by tightening further. He roared. Blinking, choking, he fought back against the pain. Blood beaded and spilled from the lacerations. The wires binding Jordam were held taut by a mechanism in a small metal flywheel that was pinned to the ground out of reach. He could bend his arms, but his hands could only clutch air. He could lift his feet by bending his knees. This gained him nothing. If he touched any of the main lines, the snare tightened, wire cutting closer to bone. Stuck. Again. He groped for clear thought. The soldiers. They were here. He met the woman’s gaze. He groped for a word that he could cast out to her as her image blurred. “Help.” |
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