Rai-Kirah - Transformation Part 28

"Are you sure there's nothing?" I said one day after an hour's halt to allow his arm to return to human proportion.

Aleksander shook his head and mounted Musa. "I dream shengar dreams.

Sometimes I think there is more of it than me anymore."

I was afraid he was right. From the beginning of our journey he had eaten only meat, refusing cheese and bread and even the dried dates and figs that Derzhi considered the foundation of any diet. As the days pa.s.sed after the transformation, he could no longer stomach anything cooked, but cut his portion from our day's kill before we put it on the fire, and ate it without looking at any of us. He kept his hood drawn over his face in the daylight, saying the sun pained his eyes, and he began to leave Musa's care to Hoffyd, as he could no longer settle the beast with his touch, only put it in a nervous frenzy. I think that distressed Aleksander beyond anything, but he would not say it. He said very little at all.

"You must not yield, my lord. We will find a way."

I was not yet capable of healing him. Though I had taken the largest step to regain my power-I still had unsettling dreams of my dive from the precipice-I needed time and practice to build it back to what it had been. Every day as we rode, Catrin drilled me on more and more complex enchantments and the patterns of thought required to create or destroy them, as well as the other skills I needed to fight again as a Warden. Every evening after we had eaten and helped Aleksander to sleep, she had me running and climbing, jumping, stretching, and practicing with sword and knife. She was very determined ...

and very good at the business.

I quickly dismissed any idea that she would somehow be easier or kinder or more understanding than her grandfather. Rather she was stern and demanding, and invited no intimacy of any kind. In our first days on the trail, Aleksander swore that she and Hoffyd were lovers. I told him that she could stand likai for an entire Derzhi legion, and was no more likely to be anyone's lover than such a one. I had come to believe that the care I'd felt from her beyond the portal was only old friends.h.i.+p and her concern for our success in the coming battle. She certainly did her best to make sure I had no time to consider anything beyond our work.

On one afternoon we camped earlier than usual. Another league would take us into the rolling gra.s.slands that skirted the mountains, stretching all the way from Avenkhar to Parnifour, but we preferred to sleep one more night in the safer hiding of the foothills. Hoffyd took his usual uninven-tive turn at cooking, while a silent Aleksander huddled in his cloak by the fire. It was a fine afternoon and would be a lovely evening, with the light lingering noticeably later than just a few days earlier-perhaps because it had finally stopped raining. The hills were sculpted by the afternoon shadows, the velvety new green touched with gold. The tangy air was cool and washed clean, leaving every rock and tree and blade of gra.s.s sharp-edged all the way to the horizon.

Catrin was in no mood to take note of the pleasant weather, and she had no intention of letting me waste the extra hours. Ten days had pa.s.sed since Rhys's last battle, and we still had more than two weeks to Pamifour. Without waiting for Aleksander to sleep, she commanded me to run ten times up and down a short, steep hill, carrying two of our saddle packs with fully extended arms. When I came down the tenth time, proud of myself because I was not out of breath and my arms were not quite at the point of breaking off, Aleksander stared at me, puzzled enough to break his day's silence. "What are you doing? Have you gone mad while I wasn't looking?"

I had told Aleksander nothing of my experience beyond the portal. All he knew was that Galadon was dead, Ysanne and Rhys determined to be rid of us, and that we were seeking a remedy for his enchantment in Parnifour. "We don't know what we'll run into up ahead. I deemed it best to be fit, at least," I said.

"If demons run footraces with goatherds, you'll do fine." He hunched his blanket up around his shoulders.

"Have you ever run a race where the other runners did not let you win?" I said, more irritably than I should have.

"Indeed! Your tongue is very bold tonight." It was the first sign of spirit I'd seen for five days.

"I've run up this thing ten times already while you've reclined quite royally here by the fire. Do you think you can take me? Ah, no." I threw up my hands in mock denial. "You're likely still weak from your wound."

"d.a.m.n your insolence!" The Prince threw off his blanket and his cloak, pulled off his boots and stockings, and stripped off his s.h.i.+rt. "I'll be back here in my boots before you reach the top."

If it had been a higher hill or a smoother path he might have done it. His stride was long and graceful, and with every step he gained a half step on me.

But rocks and roots on the upper half disrupted his rhythm, while I sprang easily from one to the other. He was two strides ahead by the top, but I beat him down by four. And he was winded.

"Wretched . . . b.l.o.o.d.y . . ." He leaned over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. "All that wallowing in bed ... disgrace .. . goatherd." Just then the enchantment came over him again, fully half his body wavering between man and beast. He clenched his fists and cried out in pain and fury, "No, I will not!" For the moment his determination won out. The illusion faded, and he downed his sleeping draught with shaking hands. "I will not," he mumbled as he dropped off into death-like sleep.

From that evening on he went through every physical exercise with me. I even taught him the kyanar, the slow, repet.i.tive martial disciplines to which Galadon had introduced me in my youth. They were designed to draw one's being together in the center of the body, to create a harmony such that the mind and body could work as a seamless whole. Only when I brought out a knife or a sword would the Prince sit back and watch. Though my training was different from his own, he was able to see the flaws and rough spots in my technique. He quite enjoyed pointing them out.

Whether it was the physical activity or the fact that we were soon on the flatlands and could easily cover ten leagues in a day instead of two, the Prince became more cheerful and more alert. The incidents of transformation continued unabated, however. We no longer dared wake him with a touch. Catrin already wore a long sc.r.a.pe on one arm from a raking claw. And we kept close watch on him at night. The sleeping draught had less and less effect, leaving him at the mercy of demon-wrought dreams. His moans were terrible to hear, and we began to consider whether we should bind him at night to prevent him harming himself or us.

But I watched the Prince bring all his stubborn strength to bear on his deterioration, refusing to shrink into terror or silence or low spirits as he had early in the journey. If it had been possible to reverse the curse by will alone, he could have done it. At least he felt like he was fighting again. He was more like himself, and began to pester me about our plans. It might have been safer to keep him in ignorance. Hoffyd and Catrin were of that mind. But I still had the conviction that the Prince had an important part to play in the Second Battle-I just didn't know what it was. His feadnach yet burned, as unlikely in the rotting devastation of his soul as an unbroken crystal winegla.s.s in a war- ravaged village.

The matter came up on the star-filled evening that we camped in a treeless hollow two leagues from Avenkhar. We had run almost to the city gates and back, and sat devouring a pair of rabbits that Catrin had snared while we ran.

"So you've found your wings again, eh?" he said.

I looked up, startled. "What do you mean by that?" I'd never been sure whether he believed what he had said about the tapestry ... or what I had answered.

He laughed. "You still don't say what you're thinking, but you show it very clearly these days. You're worried, but you carry a confidence backed up by more than a stout heart. It has not escaped my notice that you could be quite a formidable warrior . . . even without the possibility of such mobility or the sorcery it implies. So are you ever going to show me?"

"I can't... I mean ..." This wasn't how I was planning to tell him ... fl.u.s.tered with ridiculous embarra.s.sment. "... it only happens in the place where I work...."

I told him all of it. About portals and demon battles. About the night when I was eighteen and in the most desperate battle of my experience, the night when I discovered that I could transform myself into a caer gw.i.l.l.yn, a winged defender, a legend so old it was only a sketch on a crumbling scroll. I told him of Galadon's claims that my melydda still lived even after the Rites of Balthar, and of our long nights of work while he-Aleksander-slept. And I told him of my final lesson, where I learned the full measure of Rhys's and Ysanne's treachery. Catrin was near apoplectic with my telling. She kept interrupting, commanding me to silence, and calling me a fool. But once I was started, I could not stop.

Aleksander summed it up nicely. "So your treacherous lover will create this ...

battlefield ... in Kastavan's head, and your treacherous friend will meet this Demon Lord, probably the most powerful one they've got. The demons will win and do as they please with the Khelid, meaning they can use foul enchantments like this that crazes me to do as they please with my Empire.

And you are going to try to sneak in some back door, grow wings, avoid getting slaughtered, and prevent the whole thing."

"Sounds fairly unlikely, I suppose." I sipped the dregs from our last wineskin and wished I had a full one. Perhaps draining another might make our plan sound more reasonable.

"Unlikely is not the word I would choose." He was reclining on the gra.s.s, leaning on his elbow. "But even if, by some chance, you were to win, the Khelid would not die. And from what you've told me, they were no models of virtue to get themselves so entangled with demons. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"So we will have Khelid warriors in every major city of the Empire, believing they have to fight to get what they planned to obtain through guile."

I had not considered what would happen beyond the battle. Always in the past, defeating the demon had been enough.

"I need to warn . . ." Aleksander could not go on. He shuddered and rolled over onto all fours as his shoulders and arms and head blurred and s.h.i.+fted into grotesque combinations of man and beast. The surrounding air was drained of warmth, while searing heat poured from his body. But after five minutes' struggle and a roar, not of b.e.s.t.i.a.l fury, but of defiance and determination, all traces of the shengar vanished, and he was himself again.

He had stopped it. He sat back on his knees, sweat dripping from his face, and he rubbed his eyes tiredly, taking up the conversation right where he had left it. "I've got to warn them, but d.a.m.ned if I know how. No one will listen to me now Dmitri's gone. Vel-dar was his friend. Zarrakat had him stand likai to his son. The Mezzrahn generals bear a bit of a grudge. None of the northern marshals will give me hearing."

I swallowed my astonishment at his act of will and tried to follow his thought.

"Is there no one to speak for you? No one with influence who might put concern for the realm above their grievances with you?"

"Kiril would do what he could ... if I could convince him to listen before sticking a knife in me to avenge Dmitri. But he's got no influence beyond the Parnifour garrison. I fought beside two or three of the southern marshals in Vy-gaard and eastern Fryth, but they're a long way from here."

"We're on the doorstep of Avenkhar. The Lady Lydia could convey a message if you could think of someone to send it to."

"Lydia." Aleksander pulled his hand from his haggard face. "Her father is the most respected tactician in the Twenty. He's got influence everywhere. In Zhagad. With Father. And one could say he has a great deal at stake in me, since he's planned to marry Lydia to me since she was born." He narrowed his eyes. "Would she do it? There's no love lost between us, as you saw."

"I would say you could leave your case in no surer hands."

I needed writing materials. Hoffyd carried a journal in which he recorded his observations of the natural world: the birds and beasts, their habits, the weather, the landforms, the patterns of the stars. From his studies he extracted a deep understanding of the mechanisms of the world that those with melydda used to build enchantments.

I begged a few blank pages from his journal and the use of his pen and ink, and I had Aleksander dictate his urgent instructions to certain Derzhi commanders on how to quietly prepare for a war starting some twelve days hence. I said I would go into Avenkhar and deliver it to the Lady.

Catrin and Hoffyd protested furiously as I sat beside the fire and cut off my hair. "Let him take his own messages," said Catrin, eyeing Aleksander who was sitting under a tree twenty paces away, his head buried in his arms. "Your work is far more important."

"He can't go. He could transform at any moment, and be killed or lost. He's right about the Khelid. Our war is with the demons, but there are other evils in the world and they are just as much our responsibility."

"Then Hoffyd or I will go. We can't risk losing you."

I exchanged my s.h.i.+rt for the slave tunic I still carried, and pulled off my boots and my breeches. Though the night was the warmest of the season, I felt cold and exposed. "Neither of you has any experience of cities or the Derzhi.

Neither of you could recognize a member of the Magician's Guild. If you're seen, you could be taken. I'll be in and out in a few hours."

"Then, at least wear something to cover-"

"I have to go as a slave. I am recognizably Ezzarian. If anyone decides to check, they'll find the marks and the rings. If I'm disguised ... I'm done for."

"I don't know why you've not had me get those despica- ble things off you," said Hoffyd quietly, trying to keep from staring at the steel bands about my wrists and ankles.

I had wondered about it myself. Aleksander could not prevent me, and I wasn't sure he would try. But on that night, as the first stars popped out of the deep turquoise of the sky, I finally understood my hesitation. Something extraordinary had come about between Aleksander and me. Something beyond oaths, beyond duty, beyond necessity and desperation. If the Prince unlocked my chains, I would not walk away. But until Aleksander believed it, I had no name for him but master, and no name for myself but slave. "I'll take them off when he tells me," I said, then I set off running for Avenkhar. The gates would be closed at the beginning of sixth watch. I had three hours.

Chapter 31.

It had been less than four weeks since our escape from Capharna. Not long enough for me to forget the unending fear of a slave's life. From the moment I slipped into the throng of drovers, wagons, slaves, and laborers of a fur trader's caravan just outside the gates of Avenkhar, I felt the walls of Balthar's coffin closing in on me again.

Eyes down. Weariness in your step. A hand on the mule's harness to make them think you belong. The drover can't see you in the darkness and confusion. Stay to the left of the beast to hide the mark on your face.

The voice in my head was calm and focused. The hand that held the mule's harness was steady. But my gut was in such a knot, the Weaver herself could not have untied it.

Through the gates. I ignored the sounds of painful las.h.i.+ng behind me in the caravan. No slave would look. Rather I waited until we turned into a narrow lane in the warehouse district near the Vodyna River, the broad sluggish watercourse that gave Avenkhar its prosperity, then slipped away into a dark alley that stunk of tanneries and fish markets and slaughterhouses. I tried not to consider the ankle-deep filth in which I waded with bare feet, but rather concentrate on Aleksander's instructions on how to find the town house of the First Lord of Marag, where lived his daughter, the Lady Lydia.

The house was on the southwestern edge of the city, where the airs were sweet off the mountains and the river still flowed clean before it flushed out the bowels of the city. I hurried head down through busy streets of prosperous shops and taverns. No one paid any attention to me in the crowds. It was only after I got into the wider streets of elegant houses with stone porticoes and carriage yards that I was stopped and questioned.

"Delivering a sword to Demyon the swordsmith for my lord, your wors.h.i.+p," I said to the mounted watchman who had slammed the shaft of his spear across my throat to bring me to a halt.

"And who is your lord, slave?"

"My Lord Rodya of the Fontezhi, sir, who has come from Capharna to stop with his cousin Lord Polyet." Aleksander had come up with the names to use.

"Lord Polyet told my master that Demyon was the finest sword smith in the Empire, and that my lord could get his sword balanced properly and have a new guard put on it that would-"

"All right. Enough of your blathering. Get back to your master. We don't like slaves loose in the streets."

"Of course, your wors.h.i.+p."

He gave me a boot in the back as he rode past. I commanded my heart to slow down, and in a quarter of an hour I stood at the kitchen door of the House of Marag.

"I was told to ask for Hazzire," I said to the rosy-cheeked serving girl.

"Hazzire?"

"It's most urgent that I speak with him."

"Most urgent?" She sounded like the echoes in Galadon's grotto.

"Most urgent," I said, trying to hold patience. "I must deliver this message and be back to my master before he takes offense at my delay. Please try to understand."

"Oh. I suppose it's all right, then." She scratched her head. "I'll bring him.

Don't want such as you in the house." She sniffed and glanced at my feet before closing the door in my face. No hope that she would be quick.

I sat in the doorway and began to review the twenty-six steps a Searcher used to verify demon possession and the history, reasoning, and tests for each.

Antipathy for water... Blood in the bodily fluids... Craving for salt...

Enlargement of the pupils... I was on the twenty-first when a slender man with a dark, curling beard opened the door and almost stepped on me.

"Oh!" He stepped back and allowed me to get up and bow. "I am Hazzire. Who asks for me?"

"I bring an urgent message from one known as 'the lady's foreign friend.' I was told you would accept it."

The man's dark, intelligent eyes drilled into me. "Indeed. I can see such a message to its destination."

I gave him the letter. "The one who sends me cannot stress enough the importance and the secret nature of this message, sir."

"You need have no concern. Is there anything I may do for you? I was instructed that if ever such a messenger came..."

'Thank you, but no. My only need is a safe exit from the city before the gates are closed for the night."

"Alas, I cannot help you there," he said. "It is well-known that the House of Marag owns no slaves. For me to provide safe pa.s.sage for you would attract more attention than you want, I think."

I had expected as much. "Then, I'll be on my way."

"So the letter is all?"

'Tell the recipient 'he ages well.'"

He smiled kindly. "I will deliver the report. May the hand of Athos defend you, good messenger."

I bowed and hurried away, back the way I'd come, staying in the shadows while not appearing to hide, holding the path to the gates in my head. I had a close call when a brawl spilled out of a backstreet tavern just as I pa.s.sed. Five large hairy fellows, stinking of sour ale, burst through a broken door and fell on top of me and two other pa.s.sersby. There were too many flailing fists and flying knife blades for my comfort, and a crowd of onlookers was gathering like ants to spilled wine. I hoped the brawlers were too drunk to notice that the hand that disarmed three of them and broke quite a number of their fingers belonged to a slave. I poked fingers in two bloodshot eyes, squeezed out from under the noisy pile, and ducked into an alley.

I thought I'd got out of it very well as I retraced my steps through the warehouse district and slipped around behind the stables into the shadows of the gate towers. But then I had to wait. No one was going out of the gates, only in. Six guards arrived to take the next watch. They would close the gates at the change of the guard.

A large party of Chastouain came crowding through the arched gateway at the last minute. Chastouain were wandering tribal herdsmen who bought and sold the desert beasts- from whom they claimed direct descent-to caravan owners. Everywhere they went, Chastouain dragged their wives (three or four apiece) and children, their grandparents and cousins, their tents and wagons, and of course, their herds. They considered solid roofs as profane, and thus pitched their tents in city marketplaces when they came for a fair or a sale.

The confusion of their arrival looked to be the best chance I was going to get. I darted from my hiding place right into the middle of the milling crowd of bleating chastou, whip-toting herdsmen, and uncountable women and children carrying heavy baskets of their household belongings on their backs.

Chastouain considered it unworthy to burden their beasts with their possessions-after all, they were relatives. They only sold the animals to other men who were perhaps not relatives and would do as they wished with the beasts. I pushed against the flow, doing my best to avoid being noticed, trampled, or carried back into the city by the sheer force of their movement.

I was under the ma.s.sive granite arch of the gates, ready to take an easy breath, when my good fortune came to an end. A loop of rope was dropped over my head and yanked tight enough to pull me backward through the crowd. I fought to keep my balance and loosen the rope, even while b.u.mping into cursing, hard-faced women and spitting chastou, and bruising my shoulder on the corner of a cart. But I soon lost my footing and was dragged, choking, between the feet of the chastou herd and the wheels of the Chastouain wagons. I threw my arms over my head and drew up into a ball.

The noose only came loose when I b.u.mped to a stop on the edge of the crowd in the yellow, hissing light of a torch. "I do believe I've found me a runaway,"

said a weedy voice from above my head. "Watched him sneaking through the alleys for an hour, waiting for his chance. There's new rewards out for runaway slaves."