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‘I have no idea.’
‘Neither do we.’
He waited for her to say more, but she merely finished her meal. When she handed him the dirty bowl he went to wash it out in the stream. Night had fallen, and the storm clouds had broken up. He could see the last of them off to the north, a lighter smudge on a dark horizon. When he turned to the east he saw the Spider glittering in the sky, a huge spiral of distant light, but the Flies had already set.
Zayn hunkered down at the stream bed and scrubbed the remnants of food out of the bowl with the side of his hand. Little flashes of blue light in the water greeted this gift from the heavens – tiny fish, dotted with luminescence, snapped at the crumbs as they sank. As a boy he’d wondered if the animals in grass and stream believed that their gods were the humans, those baffling beings who fed them or killed them according to some whim. We’d look just as strange to them as those bizarre little fetishes do to me, he thought. And what of Ammadin’s remark? Neither do we. Somehow, he knew, it held a challenge.
With the rising of the pale sun the comnee struck camp and moved on. Since the day promised heat, Ammadin folded up her saurskin cloak and put it away in its special tent bag. She had Zayn saddle her grey gelding, then rode out ahead, where she could think away from the noise and dust of the herds and wagons. No one, of course, questioned her leaving. Her people assumed that on her lonely rides Ammadin worked magic for the good of the comnee, perhaps invoking spirits to gain hidden knowledge or maybe driving away evil with powerful spells. In one way she was riding alone for their good, she supposed. How would it affect her people if they knew that their spirit rider, the guardian of their gods, their defender from dark forces, their healer and spiritual leader, was rapidly losing her faith in gods and magic both? Better that she take herself away than let her doubts show.
All around her the lavender grasslands stretched out to an endless horizon. As she rode, the grass crackled under her horse’s hooves. Yellabuhs swarmed but never bit. Now and again turquoise-blue winged lizards leapt from the grass and flew off, buzzing furiously at these huge intruders. Otherwise, nothing moved in the summer heat, nothing made a sound. Here and there she saw a cluster of blood-red pillars rising from the grass that meant distant spear trees and thus water. Eventually, when the sun was reaching its zenith, she headed for one of the groves to give her horse and herself some relief from the sun.
Along a violet stream bank, the red spears leapt from the earth and towered, far taller than a rider on horseback. Close up they appeared to have grown as a single leaf, wound around and around on itself to the thickness of a child’s waist, but down at the base, hidden by a clutter of mosses and ferns, were the traces of old leaves that had died back and withered. The spears grew in clumps from long tuberous roots, spiralling out from a mother plant. How the mother plants got their start, no one knew.
Ammadin unsaddled her gelding and let him roll, then led him to the stream to drink. When he finished she got a tin cup from her saddlebags and scooped up water for herself. She drank, then took off her floppy leather hat and poured a couple of cups of water over her head. While the horse grazed she sat on the bank in the blessed shade and gazed into the stream, running clear over pale sand. In a little eddy grew skinny reddish-brown leaves, trailing in the current, and among the leaves lay a clutch of spirit pearls, milky-white spheres about the size of a closed fist, that were absolute Bane for anyone, even a spirit rider, to harm in any way. Rarely did one find them in a stream this small and this far west of the Great River.
Ammadin ached to know what lay inside them. Something alive, like a lizard chick in its egg? It seemed a good guess. The name, spirit pearl, made no sense. Down at the southern seacoast there were Kazraks who dove to bring up shells with pearls inside – hard little things, no bigger than a fingernail. But since spirits had no bodies, they could never lay eggs, no matter how much like eggs these seemed. At times, when the sun struck the water very late or very early in the day, and a spirit pearl sat in just the right place, the light would seem to flow through it, and then she would see the faint shadow of something that might have been a curled chick. If she could only lift one out and hold it up to the light of a lamp, like the farmers on the Kazrak side of the border did with the eggs of their chickens and meat lizards, she would be able to settle the question once and for all, but the Bane upon them stopped her.
Bane ruled the life of the plains. This plant must never be eaten, that stream must never be forded. If anyone found a pure white stone, he had to leave it in place. Spirits lived in certain fern trees and might offer a shaman help. Other spirits in other trees were pure evil and had to be avoided at all costs. If anyone found a green plant, whether grass or flower, growing outside of Kazraki gardens, she had to pull it up immediately and throw it onto the next fire she saw. For years as a child she had memorized lists of these Banes and learned how to place them into her memory in such an organized way that she could sort through them at need. She remembered the boredom of those years so well that she felt like weeping still.
Why not just write them down, as the Kazraks wrote their lore? That, too, was Bane. The lists of Banes existed only in the spirit language, which could never be written down.
And why did that particular Bane exist? Her teacher had told her that the spirits disliked having their language frozen into letters, something that made no sense to Ammadin, not that she would have dared to say so. After all, the spirits never minded that shamans spoke their language to talk together about the most mundane things; some even used it to tell funny stories about Kazraks. Still, Bane was Bane, beyond argument.
Who laid down the Banes? The gods, of course. Of course. She remembered Zayn, making a clumsy attempt to hide his bad manners. At least he’d tried. Every other Kazrak she’d ever met had dismissed the tribal gods as stones and sticks and nothing more. Idols, they called them. But what if they were right? Just whom, or what, did those figures represent, then?
Ammadin got to her feet and looked out over the purple grass, shimmering under the summer sun. If there were no gods, then there were no spirits. If there were no spirits, then how could there be magic? Yet the magic worked. The Tribes people rarely fell ill, the spirit crystals told her things she needed to know, the holy herbs had exactly the effects they were supposed to have. How could there not be spirits and gods?
Or so thought every other shaman out on the grass. None of them shared her doubts, and yet her doubts remained. She could think of only one remedy – to find another spirit rider to watch over her comnee while she herself rode off alone on a spirit quest similar to those she had undertaken as part of her training. If she suffered enough, if she mounted a vigil for long enough, if she had the right dreams, if she saw the right visions, perhaps they would answer the question that had come to consume her life: who were the gods? why did they give us magic?
If she could see them, if they would come to her in vision, once again she could believe. But if they didn’t? If she discovered that her doubts were true? Fear clotted in her throat like dried moss.
By late afternoon the heat had grown so bad that the women began to worry about the pregnant mares and new foals. Along a good-sized stream they made an early camp. While the men raised the tents, the women drove the herd into the shade of a stand of spear trees. After the herd had drunk its fill, they tethered the vulnerable mares and foals in the shade and the rest of the herd, as usual, out in the grass. When Zayn offered to help, they laughed at him and sent him back to Dallador’s fire.
In a few minutes Apanador joined them, and Dallador brought out a skin of keese and three bowls. In daylight it was allowable to talk over drink, and Dallador and Apanador discussed the long summer ahead while Zayn merely listened.
‘When we reach the Great River,’ Apanador said, ‘we’ll have to be careful. We can’t turn directly south. Ricador’s comnee will be coming up from the coast about then.’
‘They’ll want another fight, that’s for sure,’ Dallador said. ‘We beat the shit out of them last time.’ He glanced at Zayn. ‘They tried to steal some of our women’s horses.’
‘Ah.’ Zayn had heard of the feuding out on the plains. ‘Do they always ride north the same way?’
‘Yes, they have a Bane on them.’ Apanador hesitated, then shrugged. ‘You don’t need to know more.’
‘Whatever you say.’ Zayn bobbed his head in the chief’s direction.
‘The hunting should be good this summer.’ Apanador changed the subject. ‘We’ll have to teach you how to handle a bow from horseback.’
‘I’d like that,’ Zayn said. ‘I’ve always loved hunting.’
‘The wild saurs came with us from the spirit country at the birth of the world,’ Apanador went on. ‘In time you’ll learn all about them, Zayn. The gods gave horses to women, and the saurs to us. Horses are fit for women, because they come when they’re called. But a man has to hunt his gifts, with the bow we received from the Father of Arrows, back in the dawn of time.’
‘I’ve heard a little about him. He’s not a god, is he?’
‘No. He was the first comnee man, and his wife was the first comnee woman – Lisadin, Mother of Horses. So you see, there’s a lot for you to learn.’
‘I’m just grateful you’ll teach me.’
‘You’re the first Kazrak I’ve ever met who admitted he had things to learn.’
‘Well, the only people you’ve come across are the cavalry. I’ll admit it: we’re an arrogant lot. Or I was, until I learned what it means to own nothing but dishonour and the charity of strangers.’
Apanador nodded in silent sympathy.
‘Ah, you can’t judge a herd by the geldings,’ Dallador remarked. ‘You can’t all be like that. I’ve heard about Kazraki poets, and wise men who write in books, and beautiful women.’
‘But they don’t come to the border. Come to think of it, I don’t suppose any other Kazrak has ever ridden with a comnee before.’ Zayn was only speaking idly, but the answer he got sent his mind racing.
‘There was one once,’ Apanador said. ‘I can’t remember his name, because he rode with another comnee in the south grazing, and he only stayed with them one summer.’ He glanced Dallador’s way. ‘You were still a boy then.’
‘If I heard the story, I don’t remember it.’
‘Kind of interesting, though,’ Zayn remarked. ‘What kind of man was he? Another cashiered officer?’
‘No.’ Apanador thought for a moment. ‘Stranger than that. A hunting party found a half-dead Kazrak, just lying there bleeding in the grass. His wounds looked like they’d been made with a ChaMeech spear, but when they took him back to the tents, he told them that he was an enemy of your great chief, and the chief’s assassins had tried to kill him. He kept saying that he wanted to die because he had nothing to live for, but they bound his wounds and told him he’d change his mind later. So then, some of the young men found his horse. It must have fled when its rider fell, you see, and it was wandering around half-starved thanks to those metal bits you people use. Once he had the horse back, this Kazrak suddenly decided he wanted to live after all, because there was a piece of jewellery in his saddlebags that meant the world to him. If he ever said what it was, I never heard.’
‘That’s a damned strange story. Was he a travelling merchant, then?’
‘Oh no, one of your cavalry officers, which makes it even stranger.’ Apanador paused for a rueful sort of smile. ‘He was still afraid, though, that the great chief’s men would find him and finish their botched job, so when the comnee went east to trade, he found a patron in the Cantons and stayed behind.’
‘Well, let’s hope the poor bastard’s happy. He’s a long way from his enemies now.’
Unless of course one of them was, all unwittingly, coming after him. His superiors would want to know about this Kazrak, Zayn figured: someone who’d angered the Great Khan, someone who should have been killed, but a clumsy paid murderer had let him get away – and then there was that mysterious piece of jewellery.
‘Apanador?’ Zayn said. ‘Do you remember when that happened?’
‘When Dallador was still a boy.’
‘I know, but what year?’
Apanador blinked at him.
‘Sorry,’ Zayn said. ‘How big a boy?’
‘Let me think.’ Apanador did just that for a long moment. ‘It would have been right before he gained his rightful name.’
Dallador laughed. ‘Ask the Spirit Rider,’ he said. ‘She’s the only person I know, anyway, who can reckon years the way you Kazraks do.’
As soon as Ammadin returned to camp, Zayn jogged out to meet her, catching up to her when she was turning her horse into the herd. She listened patiently while he explained.
‘I heard that story at the time,’ Ammadin said. ‘When was it in years, you want to know?’
‘Well, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m curious about this fellow.’
‘I can’t blame you for that. Carry my saddle back to camp for me.’
He picked it up, but she took the saddlebags herself. As they strolled back to the tents, she suddenly spoke.
‘Ten of your years ago, that’s when.’
‘Ah! Thank you. It would have nagged at me, not knowing.’
‘Really?’ She stopped walking and turned to consider him.
‘Well, yes. I like to get things straight, that’s all. In my mind, I mean.’
She smiled, shrugged, and resumed walking. As he trailed after, Zayn was considering the date. Ten years ago Gemet Great Khan was purging his bloodlines to remove any disputes about his right to rule. That piece of jewellery might well have been the zalet khanej, the medallion that proved a man had been sanctified as a khan and thus as a rival for the Crescent Throne. Maybe. He knew nothing for certain, but that simple date shone like one of Ammadin’s crystals: hold it up, and it sent light sparkling in all directions.
When Warkannan and his men had turned east, they had left all of their plausible reasons for being on the road behind. They also traded the public roads for narrow dirt paths, and the constant rise of the land slowed them down as well. As long as they travelled through Kazrajistan proper, they rode at night and by day either camped well off the road or bribed some farmer to let them sleep in his barn. They avoided every town that was more than a village and kept clear of the military posts and courier stations that stood along the Darzet River.
After some days of this slow riding, they reached Andjaro, a province that had gone from being ChaMeech territory to an independent nation until, a mere hundred years ago, the khanate had decided that an independent nation on its border was a threat. The low hills angled from the north-east towards the south-west, so soft and regular that they reminded Warkannan of the folds a carpet forms when pushed and rumpled by a careless foot. Among these rolling purple downs, Warkannan had allies, and the allies, large landowners all, had private armies. Each night Warkannan and his party stayed in compounds surrounded by thousands of acres of purple grass, dotted with flocks of sheep. At each, Warkannan received coin for the journey, supplies of food and fuel, pack horses when he mentioned needing them, and the assurance that Jezro would have a place to hide when he came home.
Early on their third day in Andjaro, they crested a down and saw, stretching below them, a valley filled with green, billowing in the wind like clouds. Arkazo reined in his horse and stared, his mouth half-open.
‘What is that?’ he stammered. ‘Water?’
‘No,’ Warkannan said, grinning. ‘Trees.’
‘I’ve never seen so many in one place. All that green! And they grow so close together.’
‘How observant of you,’ Soutan drawled. ‘The word for a lot of them in one place is forest. That university of yours seems to have taught you little of value.’
‘We studied the works of the Three Prophets,’ Arkazo said. ‘Nothing’s of greater value. Not that an infidel like you would understand why.’
They had reached the tax forests, stand after stand of true-oak, planted in regular rows and watched over by foresters. As part of their most solemn duty to the Great Khan, the border landowners put as many acres into the slow-growing forests as they could afford – more, in some cases. Although in the volcanic mountains every metal imaginable lay close to the surface in rich veins, fuel for the smelting of it was another thing entirely. So far at least, no one had ever found any of the fabled blackstone or blackwater that were supposed to burn twice as hot as true-oak charcoal. As a result, while any peasant could pan the easily-melted gold from a stream and work it, it took a lot of that gold to buy a little steel.
‘It’s a pity about our prospecting venture,’ Soutan remarked. ‘If we’d actually found blackstone we could have been as rich as a khan ourselves.’
‘If,’ Warkannan said, grinning. ‘Those maps of yours show likely spots, not sure things.’
‘Ah, but they’re copies of ancient maps – spirit maps, the Tribes would call them.’
‘Well, Nehzaym will take good care of them. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll have better odds backing Jezro Khan than looking for blackstone.’
Soutan turned in the saddle and considered him for a moment.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Soutan said at last. ‘Ancient writings exist that present strangely disturbing implications concerning the black marvels.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Your manners are painfully bad, Captain. I see no reason to speak further and be mocked.’
Soutan kicked his horse to walk, passed Warkannan, and headed downhill. For a moment Warkannan considered returning the insult, then shrugged the matter away. Most likely the sorcerer thought talking in riddles impressed people. Damned if he’d encourage him in it.
Entering the forest felt like plunging into the ocean, all cool air and deep green light. All along the narrow road grew ancient trees, twining their branches overhead. In a few minutes Soutan paused his horse in the dappled shade and let them catch up. They set off again, riding three abreast with the sorcerer in the middle.
‘A question for you, Captain,’ Soutan said. ‘Arkazo says that nothing’s more important than the books of the Prophets. Do you agree?’
‘Well, it seems extreme, I know, but actually I do.’
‘I suppose it’s a question of following the laws of God. But other prophets have written books of those laws for other peoples, after all.’
‘True. But our books, our way – that’s what makes us who we are. We follow the Three Prophets, and that sets us apart from people who follow other religious leaders. If I stopped following the laws, I wouldn’t know who I was any more.’
Soutan frankly stared. ‘You must love your god a great deal,’ he said at last.
‘I don’t know if I’d call it love, not like love for your family or for a woman. It’s more like – well, what?’ Warkannan thought for a moment. ‘More like a sense of mutual obligation. I have a duty to serve God but in return, that duty gives me a place in His universe.’
‘God as the supreme commander of a celestial cavalry?’ Soutan drawled. ‘It would make sense to you, I suppose.’
‘I don’t like your tone of voice.’
‘Sorry.’ Soutan shrugged. ‘Just a figure of speech.’
Two nights later they arrived at the last Kazraki villa. Kareem Alvado’s compound stretched out like a small town, with his mansion and gardens, the cottages of the craftsmen, the barracks for his private troops, and the dormitories for the workmen who tended the flocks and the tax forests. Since Warkannan had served on the border with Kareem, and Kareem’s son Tareev and Arkazo had attended university together, they stayed for two full days.
On their last evening, the men sat finishing their dinner around the true-oak table in the dining-hall, a long room with walls of purplish-red horsetail reeds, twined together with pale yellow vines. At regular intervals ChaMeech skulls, bleached white and bulbous, hung as trophies. The older men had been reminiscing about Jezro Khan when Tareev interrupted. Like many Andjaro families, Kareem’s had some comnee blood that gave father and son both pale grey eyes and dark, straight hair, and they turned to each other with the same tilt of the head, the same crook of a hand.
‘A favour to beg you, sir,’ Tareev said. ‘The captain’s going to have a hard time guarding our khan with just a couple of men. Let me go with them.’
Kareem’s heavy-set face turned unnaturally calm.
‘Why should Arkazo get all the glory?’ Tareev went on. ‘It’s unfair. Let me go and invite the khan here personally.’
‘Now listen, boy,’ Warkannan broke in. ‘This isn’t going to be some pleasant little ride.’
‘I know that, Captain,’ Tareev said, still grinning. ‘That’s why you need me along.’
‘It’s up to your father. There’ll be plenty for you to do once the war starts.’
Kareem had a sip of wine, his calloused fingers tight on the goblet.
‘What about that girl you promised to marry?’ Kareem said at last.
‘What would her father want with a coward?’
Kareem smiled, a weary twitch of his mouth. ‘Very well, then. But you’re riding under Warkannan’s orders. What he says, you do. Understand me?’
‘Yes sir, I do.’
