The Seer: Chapter Eleven

    Amarta tentatively put weight on her injured ankle, suppressing a wince. Dirina helped her from the horse to one of the covered wagons.

    “We take a chance with you,” said Jolon, the small man they had spoken with at Nesmar Port. He lifted Pas from where he stood next to Dirina and set him inside the wagon.

    “You won’t be sorry,” Dirina said with conviction as she helped Amarta limp forward.

    “We hope this is so,” replied the woman who had come back for them, Mara, with a sober glance at each of them.

    Amarta did, too. Having left Enana and her family in the path of the shadow hunter, she wondered just how safe it was to help them.

    With Mara’s help she climbed up into the wagon, finding an open spot among casks and sacks of grain, bails of hay in the corners, and blankets wadded into the spaces between. Through a rip in the wagon’s tarp, in the twilight, she saw another of the small, striped horses walking by. They settled in and then, from all around the wagon, voices began a trilling soot-soot-soot half-song. The wagon jerked forward and began to roll.

    “Where are we going?” Amarta asked Dirina as her sister took Pas into her lap.

    “Away from here,” Dirina said adamantly.

    Away was a good direction. But he would follow, surely.

    She could imagine him arriving at the riverside barge dock the next morning. But so many people had walked and rode and wheeled up and away from the dock, across banks and river rock. Surely he could not track them among all the others’ footprints.

    He could have lost their track anywhere between the farmhouse and Nesmar Port. In the forest. At crossroads. Surely it would be impossible for him to determine what direction they had gone, let alone that they had climbed into a wagon.

    Just as it was impossible to know the gender of a foal whose mother did not yet even show her pregnancy?

    With that troubling thought, Amarta lay back on the blankets.

 

---

 

    The wagon stopped suddenly. Amarta sat up, waking, not remembering falling asleep. Outside, it was full dark.

    Mara opened the tarp flap at the back, a lamp in her hand. “Come,” she said.

    They climbed out. Dirina took Pas off to a nearby tree.

    Around the wagons, the small tribespeople in their odd rag and leather clothes were making camp, feeding and watering their carthorses and the smaller ones with stripes. A fire was going, and someone was preparing food.

    Mara looked at her. “We will feed you, too, lost girl. To sit here.” She took Amarta’s arm and helped her limp over to a fallen log.

    Her mind was on their pursuer. He might even believe that they had gotten on the barge that they had just missed.

    Somehow she didn’t think so.

    Around her, tribespeople were making camp with a practiced ease that she had never seen before. They had grown up together, she supposed, surprised at the intensity of the ache of envy she felt.

    Jolon sat beside her on the log, a lamp in one hand, bread in the other. He handed her the bread, which she nibbled gratefully. “Do you still hurt?”

    For a moment she was stunned — how could he know?

    He meant the ankle.

    “Much better, thank you,” she lied. They could not afford to be thought of as a burden. Even if they were.

    “Those you run from. You worry. It is not needful.”

    She shook her head, denying the worry, denying the assurance, not sure how much to admit. She looked for Dirina for guidance, but her sister was elsewhere with Pas, helping prepare the food.

    And that was good: they must seem useful enough to be worth the risk, and hide the trouble they really were. Amarta saw another tribeswomen kneeling to talk to Pas, smiling, and she felt relief; if Pas were sweet, that might be one more reason not to leave them by the side of the road. Which they probably should.

    She realized that Jolon was still watching her. She hoped she hadn’t shown too much of what she’d been thinking. “Where are we going?” she asked.

    He smiled. “Somewhere safe.” He considered a moment, then crouched down in front of her, set his lamp on the ground, and motioned her close. Smoothing a bit of dirt flat, he drew an oval with a finger. On the lower side of the shape he made a long, thick, wavy line. “We follow the river road, here.” On the near end of the oval he made a small mark. “This is where we camp now. This –” at the far end of the oval, he pointed, “is where we took you with us, at Nesmar Port. Where are the ones who follow you?”

    Hesitantly she pointed to an area to the side of the oval. “He was here, I think.”

    “He? You mean he is one man?” At her nod, he gave a short laugh. “One is not enough. No more worry for you. We are Teva.” At her look, he made a thoughtful noise. “You have not heard of us?”

    She shook her head.

    “We are Teva,” he repeated, sitting back on his heels, a playful smile on his face. “We are so fierce that Arunkel kings and queens bribe us to be on their side. Some say it is our clever nature. Some say it is our laughter. Some say it is shaota.”

    “Shaota?”

    “The horse you called pregnant. And her brothers.” He gestured to the striped horses.

    Amarta looked over at the small creatures, nibbling at grass. “You don’t halter or tether them. Won’t they wander away?”

    “No, they…” He seemed to consider a moment, then stopped himself. “Yes, sometimes, it is true. But rarely. It is not like…” He moved a hand in the air, searching for words. “They are not slaves, like the carthorses. They belong to themselves.”

    “To themselves?” She had never before heard of such a thing. “Then why do they not leave?”

    He frowned a little, his gaze on the horses. He made a guttural chuffing sound, and one of the horses turned her head to regard him for a moment before she turned back to the ground cover. He suppressed a chuckle.

    “They like us,” he said with a shrug. “We are Teva. Who does not like Teva?”

 

---

 

    The wagons continued south. Some days later, Dirina asked for and gained from the Teva thread and needle to repair the various tears in the seams on both sides of the wagon’s tarp. Amarta watched her fiddle, thinking it more likely, given the rattling and swaying of the wagon, that she’d stab herself than mend anything.

    But Dirina was right to try. The more useful they were, the better.

    As she began to work on the tarp, Amarta curled around Pas on the blankets, awaking as the wagon suddenly jolted to a stop.

    Dirina hissed, sucking on a finger.

    Far distantly they could make out voices and shouts and something that might be screams. Dirina held her hands out for Pas. He crawled over to her. After a long moment, Jolon put his head in at the back of the wagon.

    “We come now to a town. There is no way around it. You stay inside and be silent, yes? No matter what, yes?”

    “Yes,” Dirina said.

    His eyes flickered quickly between them. “One last time I ask you. Tell me true. You do not run from Arunkel soldiers?”

    “No,” Dirina said firmly, and Amarta also shook her head, agreeing.

    “Good,” he said, but he seemed worried, and he looked at them a moment longer. To Pas: “You stay quiet, yes?”

    Pas nodded.

    Then Jolon left. The trilling soot-soot-soot song, and then the wagons jerked forward.

    What were they going into? What was about to happen?

    A pointing finger, followed by a shout. Hands grabbed for her, yanking her from the wagon. Sleeves of red and black. Dirina shouted. Pas screamed.

    Amarta scrambled over the straw and crates to the largest of the rips in the tarp and clamped it shut with her hand, looking out the tiny opening that remained.

    “Ama,” Dirina whispered.

    Amarta held a finger to her lips for silence.

    As the wagon rolled forward, the voices and shouts grew louder. Amarta smelled smoke, heard distant wailing. She made a gesture to Dirina to get down. Her sister wrapped her arms around Pas and burrowed into the blankets.

    A shout to halt. The wagons stopped. Horse snorts, footfalls. Amarta peeked through the pinhole opening.

    Two large horses. Then three. Men atop them, wearing red and black.

    “Identify yourselves,” said a male voice.

    “We are Jolon and Mara al Otevan,” answered Jolon, who was mounted on his shaota.

    “You have picked a poor time to visit Arteni, Jolon and Mara of the Teva. What is your business here?”

 

---

 

    At the sound of the voice, Amarta felt a shock of familiarity. Where had she heard it before? Memory of the past, or glimpse of the future? She could not tell.

    “No business here, ser. We only pass through.”

    Amarta tried to see the face of the large man atop the dark horse, but could not. His back was to her.

    “Where are you going?”

    “The markets of Munasee,” answered Jolon. “To trade and sell. If there is anything remaining, perhaps on to Perripur.”

    “Captain,” said a new voice, and Amarta managed to move a little to see a soldier on foot. “The town council and families have barricaded themselves in the basement of the mayor’s mansion.”

    “Did you explain that it is the king’s will that they put themselves in our custody?”

    “Yes, Captain.”

    “Say it again. Slowly and loudly, so there is no confusion.”

    “Then break down the door and drag them out?” The soldier’s voice had an eager edge to it.

    A pause. “No. Burn it.”

    “Ser?”

    “Give them a count of ten to come out and then burn the mansion.”

    “So that they come out, Captain?”

    “No, so that they die. No one comes out.”

    “But…” Another voice. “They have children there, too, ser.”

    “Good. I want the townspeople who are standing watching to clearly understand what comes of disobeying the king’s orders.”

    “Yes, ser.”

    Sound of footsteps departing.

    Another voice: “Shall we inspect the Teva wagons, Captain?”

    “What do you say?” This from Mara, who was standing just outside Amarta’s field of vision. “You cannot, we are –“, she stopped suddenly. From a slight movement, Amarta guessed Jolon put a hand on her shoulder. Jolon slipped off his horse to his feet and turned to the captain, hands wide and open.

    “We offer no challenge, Captain. We only want the road. We are Teva, friends to your king and empire some three hundred years.”

    “I know this,” the captain said. After a moment he tilted his head toward the wagon in which the three of them hid. “What exactly do you transport, Teva?”

    “Shall we take a quick look, Captain?” Again, the eager tone.

    Apparently the captain’s hesitation was taken as approval; one of his men dismounted and left Amarta’s sight, walking in the direction of their wagon. She pulled back, looking alarm at Dirina.

    Jolon laughed — a loud, hearty laugh, full of such sincerity that it drew Amarta back to the pinhole to look. Through the opening she saw that she was not alone in this; everyone had stopped to look at him. She very much hoped that included the man who had been walking toward them.

    “Let me show you, Captain,” Jolon said, still sounding amused.

    A long moment later the back flap pulled open. Dirina flattened and cringed, Pas tucked under her, while Amarta kept her hand clamped tight around the ripped opening.

    Jolon looked around inside the wagon as if they were not there at all. He dug under the hay and blankets, bringing out a cloth-wrapped package. Then he dropped the flaps and left.

    Back in front of the captain, all eyes were on Jolon as he unwrapped the item, then held it up.

    It was a hand-high statuette of a shaota horse, painted in chestnut and clay colors, the tones and stripes matching the animals, who looked on curiously. After a moment, the captain reached down and took the offered item.

    “Teva children,” Jolon explained, “they paint these. The figures are well-loved in Munasee and Perripur among the high houses.”

    “And anyone can have one,” the captain said. “Unlike the horses themselves.”

    Jolon ducked his head in agreement. “They sell so fast we cannot make enough. Also these flutes.” With this he held up a small, round item that hung around his neck. “I will play. It makes the shaota laugh. Watch?”

    Not far off, a shout turned into a shriek, then a keen howl, which cut off abruptly, sending chills down Amarta’s spine. She admired the way Jolon reacted not at all, simply waiting until the voice was done before he put the palm-sized oval to his lips and blew. It was a loud, high note, followed by a rapidly descending cascade of sounds. Behind him one of the shaota opened its mouth and made a similar throaty sound.

    Jolon had been right: it almost sounded like laughter.

    At this a few of the soldiers standing around also laughed.

    “Captain?” came a new voice.

    “What?”

    “This man is the grain silo keeper. He says he can give you a list of names of the guilty.”

    “I can!” A strained voice. “I want immunity, ser Captain. A full list — everyone who spoke in favor of breaking with the crown’s grain contract. Every name. I swear it on the harvest — all the harvests — for all of time, and –”

    “Yes, yes,” the captain said, waving the man to silence.

    He looked at Jolon thoughtfully a moment. “Be on your way, Teva. Nalas, take a demi-squad and escort them through town. Make sure they get through without incident.” He held the shaota casting down to Jolon from his horse.

    “No, no,” Jolon said, hands up to refuse. “A gift, Captain. For you. Or your king. As you see fit.” With that, Jolon gave a small bow.

 

---

 

    Only after the voices and smell of smoke were long gone did Amarta dare release the ripped seam she had been clamping shut with her hand all this time, and only then did Dirina let Pas out from under her.

    On they went, horses and wagons, continuing south. A day later, forest gave way to wide lakes and bogs, then a day more and it was farms and fields again, quiet pastures of goats and geese. Then the land turned rocky and spare, with scrub and thick, squat trees that hung low, offering up furry red berries. As the days passed, Dirina and Amarta managed to repair all the rips in the wagon tarp.

    Now the ground was a pale, milky-colored rock, dusted with sand, the grasses meager, the small plants few. At last they stopped.

    Jolon pulled back the opening. “We are arrived. Gather your things and come.”

    They emerged to find the wagons in a small clearing surrounded by rocky rises of gray and ocher rock shot through with lines of orange and tan. A crow called loudly; another answered.

    The shaota were gone, as were most of the Teva. Those remaining unhitched the wagon from the carthorses.

    Seeing her confused expression, Mara said, “You will see.”

    Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came a handful of people. Amarta stared at them in shock.

    Their hair was pale yellow, eyes the color of sky. Amarta had never seen such a thing before, had not even known it could exist. Dirina drew Pas close.

    “Mama?” Pas pointed and looked up at her.

    “Shh”, she replied, taking his pointing hand in her own.

    The pale-haired people and remaining Teva began to unload the barrels and sacks and hay that had been Amarta and Dirina’s home these last handful of days, hefting them on shoulders and into handcarts, then taking them along a path that vanished around a small rise. No one spoke.

    The carthorses were led away. Finally Jolon and Mara slung bags over their shoulders and motioned Amarta and Dirina and Pas to follow.

    Around the rise the land sloped steeply down a dry creekbed, rocky banks rising on either side. The ravine snaked through one blind curve after another and ended at a large boulder. Only when they reached the boulder did she see the small opening beyond. They followed the Teva into a cave.

    Mara took her hand as they walked in, indicating she should take Dirina’s, and led them into the darkness. The way led forward and down. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the pale-haired people moving around and watching them from openings in the walkway.

    Points of dim lamps. The flicker of candles. No voices.

    Mara’s hand stopped Amarta, and she in turn stopped Dirina. They were now in a large room with many low tables at which other of the pale-heads sat, now turning to look at them. Long shelves on the walls, filled with jars and cookpots and crates and barrels.

    They stood beside Mara and Jolon, facing five of the pale-headed people, whose heads seemed the brightest thing in this dim, lamp lit room. Pas clutched Amarta’s hand tightly.

    Of the five they faced only a woman rocking an infant in her arms smiled back at them. Her blond hair fell in long, snakelike ropes down her shoulders. Her baby gripped one.

    An elder man and woman spoke to Mara and Jolon in a language Amarta didn’t know. The woman’s pale hair was cut nearly to the scalp; the man’s was blond to the ends, where it went abruptly dark.

 

---

 

    Jolon answered back, and Amarta recognized their names. To them Jolon said: “These are the first and second of Kusan’s ten elders, Vatti and Astru.”

    The elder woman, Vatti, spoke. “Welcome to Kusan, sometimes called the hidden city. Do you know these names?”

    “No,” Dirina admitted.

    “Good,” the elder man, Astru, replied. “That is as it should be.”

    “I am Ksava,” said the woman with the long, ropelike gold hair, swaying slightly to rock the baby on her chest. She nodded at the other two, a boy and girl about Amarta’s age. “My brother, Darad. Our cousin, Nidem.”

    The girl’s cheekbones had three lines painted on one side and two on the other. She back at Amarta with a pointed, unfriendly expression. She addressed Jolon and Mara. “You bring strangers here? Do our lives mean so little to you?”

    “They seek a haven,” Jolon said. “We thought you might understand this.”

    “That’s a reassurance, then,” Nidem said nastily. “What do they bring us? Supplies? News of our beloveds in the cities? Or do they only take, like Arunkin do?”

    “Nidem,” said Astru, in what might have been a quiet rebuke.

    “We bring them,” Jolon said to her. “As we bring you bags of grain and salt and nuts, bottles of spice and oil — the many things you cannot get for yourselves, even in your out-trips.”

    “And in turn,” Vatti said to him, her voice mild, a contrast to Nidem’s venomous tone, “we supply you with water and hidden shelter for your people and your horses on your journeys north and south.”

    “Yes, and we are grateful to you — ” Jolon began.

    Vatti held up her hand to silence him, a firm gesture, and continued. “And you bring us coin when we need it. News of the world outside. Your counsel and knowledge.”

    Astru spoke. “Hear us clearly: the Teva are valued partners to the Emendi. You are welcome here.” He looked at Nidem. “Nidem is a child and does not speak for us.”

    “We will help however we can,” Dirina said quietly, respectfully.

    “We will work hard,” Amarta added quickly, looking between the elders and Nidem.

    “You had better,” Nidem said.

    A sigh from Astru. “You gift us with your companionship as well as your trade, Teva,” Astru said. “And now Nidem will gift us with her silence until she is told otherwise.”

    At that Nidem made a series of gestures with her hands and fingers. A clear signal, judging by the sharp reactions of those around her; Vatti pressed her lips together in what might have been annoyed forbearance, and Ksava suppressed a smile as she moved her baby to her shoulder. Astru looked long at Nidem, his eyes flickering back and forth.

    Nidem scowled and stamped out of the room.

    Astru made a gesture with both hands, a brushing of the air, somehow conveying a cleaning of the unpleasantness that had preceded. Vatti put her hands together at her chest, then reached out to Mara and Jolon in turn, fingers out. They met her fingers with their own.

    “We honor your presence here. Your friends are welcome in Kusan,” Vatti said.

    “Our gratitude to you,” Mara said.

    “Come,” Astru said, “show us what you have brought us.” Then, to Amarta and Dirina: “Ksava will show you how to conduct yourselves here. We will see you at the meal.”

    As they left, Jolon paused, put his arms lightly around Dirina and Amarta’s shoulders, head tipped downward, and said quietly: “Their forebears were enslaved by Arunkin. They can perhaps be forgiven for mistaking you for the enemy. Be patient with them.”

 

---

 

    “We have our meals here,” Ksava said, motioning to the large room. From the low, round tables scattered around the room, pale-headed adults and children watched them with expressions from curiosity to looks rather similar to Nidem’s. Amarta looked at Ksava rather than meet their eyes. “We eat two meals together each day. If you are hungry another time, go the kitchens back there. Someone is always present to help you find what you might like to eat.”

    What she might like to eat? This was wealth, to always have food, to be invited to have a preference. Her mouth watered, and she wondered if it was too soon to ask.

    She would wait.

    Ksava took a lamp from a nearby table. With Darad trailing behind, she led them down one of many bewildering cave tunnels. They passed numerous doorways, and she was soon lost, though she noticed letters carved into the stone at every juncture. As she stared at one of the signs, trying to sound it out, she noticed Nidem had joined Darad behind them.

    A hand sign from Darad brought a smirk to Nidem’s face that vanished when Amarta looked. Nidem gave her another hard glare.

    “There are those among us,” Ksava said, “who believe all Arunkin are slavers and not to be trusted. You are the first to visit Kusan in quite some time.”

    At this, Amarta moved a little closer to Dirina, wondering how long until they would be leaving.

    Ksava gestured to a door much like the last handful they had passed. “I sleep here with my family. You are welcome to join us, or stay with the Teva.” The room had six thick pallets across the floor, cabinets, and the soft sound of running water. Ksava motioned with her lamp toward the back of the room. “The water in the sleeping rooms is for drinking, not toilet or bath or clothes. I’ll show you that next.”

    They descended wide stairs that Pas insisted on taking himself. Amarta was glad for this slowing; as they walked, her foot hurt more. She was resolved not to limp.

    “The city descends many levels. Even we do not know the extent of the tunnels. Go nowhere on your own until you have learned all the ways. If ever you are lost, do this.”

    She sang out in a loud, clear, high tone that then dropped low, then climbed again. “Repeat that until you are found, yes?”

    They nodded.

    Motion at the floor of the corridor caught Amarta’s attention. Darad knelt to the ground, and a long, thin creature with a ratlike face ran to him, then up his arm and onto his shoulder, nose twitching, sniffing his ear. Pas was reaching upward and making wordless sounds of longing. Darad dropped down and let Pas pet the creature on his shoulder.

    “The ferrets are our companions,” Ksava said. “They find misplaced objects in dark corners. They bring us home when we are lost. They know the tunnels better than we ever will. Be good to them.”

    Darad let the animal back to the ground. It ran to the wall and then paused, standing up on back legs. Ksava brought out a piece of something and tossed it to the ferret, who caught it between handlike paws and transferred it to its mouth. In a twitch it was gone again, back into the dark.

    They descended another flight of stairs to a room with many holes, under which were the sounds of a rushing waterway.

    “These are the toilets.”

    “Oh!” said Pas, tugging on his mother’s hand.

    “Don’t drop anything in there,” Darad said with a grin. “It goes all the way out to the ocean. You’ll never see it again.”

    This was a toilet? Amarta looked around. Something was missing. “It doesn’t smell,” she said wonderingly.

    “The shiny areas around the holes are mage-made. Nothing sticks. This helps.”

    “Mage-made?” Amarta said. “But that’s…”

    “Yes?”

    “Isn’t that… doesn’t it bring death and bad fortune?”

    Ksava chuckled, handed her baby to Dirina. She took Pas’s hand, walking him to the edge of the hole, holding him while he peed into the hole. Pas laughed in delight.

    When she returned, she said, “My people were brought into the worst of bad fortune when we were abducted from our homeland and taken in chains across the sea and made into slaves. Kusan has been a sanctuary for a thousand years and more, older than the Arun Empire. The gifts that mages have left for us here have been far more welcoming than anything the Arunkin have done. Who brings death and bad fortune, Amarta?”

    To that Amarta had no answer.

    “Are there other mage-makings in Kusan?” Dirina asked.

    “Perhaps the waterways, but they may be simply cleverly made. It is hard to know.” Ksava returned Pas to his mother and led them out of the toilet room. “We Emendi have been here only some hundred years.”

    “Do you ever leave?” Amarta asked.

    “We visit the hidden gardens up top,” Darad said. “To see the sun, when the keepers allow.”

    Nidem tapped Darad and signed at him.

    “And,” Darad added, “the out-trips.”

    Ksava spoke: “We travel to nearby towns to buy those things we cannot make, grow, or hunt. Darad might do so. Even Nidem, in a few months, if they study the ways of the outside well enough.”

 

---

 

    “I’ll be in the trade wagon by year’s end, sister. Watch and see.”

    She reached over to him and rubbed his head affectionately, laughing a little. “We’ll see how your hair likes the walnut dye. Take Amarta to see if Nakaccha can look at why she’s limping.”

    “I’m fine,” Amarta said quickly. “It’s nothing, really.”

    “Then it won’t take long,” Ksava answered. “I’ll show Dirina and her young one the baths.”

 

---

 

    “She’s good at seeing things that you don’t want seen,” Darad said to Amarta as they made their slow way up the stairs.

    “But I’m fine.” Amarta glanced back to see if Nidem was following, felt relief that she was not.

    “Not me you need to convince. Oh, here,” he said, pausing at the door of a room and bringing out from the darkness a flat, hand-sized rock, handing her the rock. “A pillow for you to sleep on tonight.”

    “This? A pillow? What?”

    “Well, after it’s been softened, of course.”

    “What?” Amarta said, bewildered, examining the rock more closely.

    “Yes,” he said, taking the rock back, knocking his fist lightly against it, then knocking his own head. “Our blond hair, you see. It’s magic. It softens the rocks until they become so soft they’re pillows. Tell you what: I’ll give you my already-softened pillow for tonight and sleep on this one until it’s ready.”

    Amarta’s mouth hung open for a long moment.

    He grinned wider.

    “You’re fooling me?” she asked, stunned.

    He laughed. “Of course.” At her expression, he sobered, adding. “I’m playing. Don’t you play, sometimes?”

    She wasn’t sure how to answer that.

    “Perhaps later,” he said, giving her an odd expression. “Down this way to the hot springs. The soaking baths. Clothes washing. When was the last time you had a bath?”

    “You mean to be submerged in water?”

    “Warm water. You’ll like it. Now here, see this huge opening?” He waved his lantern so she could see over the lip of the opening, which dropped down sharply some ten feet. “This is the lesser canyon, which opens way back there into the greater one. We hunt in there, but only in large groups. Don’t go in here alone.”

    She peered into the darkness, for a moment thinking she saw distant movement, black on black.

    “What is that, back there?”

    “The ruins of old Kusan, now taken over by the night forest. It goes a long, long ways. There’s a lake back there. Cavewillows and white trout. On the hills we harvest mushrooms and nightberries. That’s where we hunt nightswine.”

    “Nightswine?”

    “You must have heard. No? Ah. Pigs. They get fat on cave-truffles, white thistle, the fruit of spider trees. They taste better than any pig in the world.”

    “You’re toying with me again.”

    “No, no. This is true. The Teva take our salted nightswine to the great markets in Munasee and Garaya. Sell it for us.”

    In the lamplight she gave him a suspicious look. “Truly?”

    “Ask the elders.” At that, his face broke into a grin. “You can ask them about the pillows, too.”

 

---

 

    At the meal, Amarta realized she had never before seen so many people gathered together in one place. Hundreds, it must be, all sitting around the large, low, circular tables.

    Ksava directed them to a table where the Teva and Darad and Nidem sat. The remaining open spaces were bounded on one side by Nidem, on the other by the Teva.

    Well, Nidem already hated her; no sense in putting Dirina in her path as well. So she chose the seat nearest to the other girl, letting Dirina sit by the Teva.

    They had come from visiting the woman named Nakaccha, who had taken Amarta’s ankle in her lap. She’d pressed gently in places, turned it a little, and told her that it would be fine in a day or two. To Amarta’s surprise, it felt better immediately.

    When she had thanked her, Nakaccha had responded: “It is what I am called to do, girl. That is the best any of us can hope for, to be called to our work. What is it you are called to do?”

    Amarta had mumbled that she didn’t know. The encounter left her unsettled. Whatever it was that she did, she must make sure to do it very quietly here. She felt watched keenly.

    Despite the hundreds gathered here in this cavernous room, there was no noise other than the soft sounds of wooden spoons against bowls, the brush of leather-clad or bare feet on stone floors. No one spoke.

    Nidem pushed a large, full bowl of something that smelled wonderful in front of her, somehow making the gesture convey no warmth.

    Mara crouched down behind her, hand on her shoulder. She said softly: “The Emendi are silent at meals, using only hands and eyes to speak.”

    “What should we do?” Dirina asked her in a whisper.

    Now that Amarta looked, she saw the fluttering, flickering motion of hands and eyes across the room. Silent, perhaps, but there was plenty of talk.

    “Speak if you wish,” Mara whispered, “but they will not, here at the meal. As slaves they were forced to hide voice and thought, and this practice honors their ancestors who gave their lives in silence and obedience. After dinner there will be other rooms, where there will be plenty of voices and singing.”

    At her side, Nidem was laughing voicelessly at something Darad had signed to her. Amarta felt a twinge of envy.

 

---

 

    After dinner, after the clearing and cleaning, the Emendi left in groups in various directions. Ksava invited the three of them into another, smaller room, while the Teva went with the elders.

    The Emendi began to array themselves across the floor on blankets. With a laugh, Darad offered her a pillow, a real one. A kind laugh, as if they shared a joke between them, not as if he mocked her. She smiled back, feeling herself warm.

    A woman with hair in loose curls around her face put a long, thin, stringed wooden box across her lap and began to pluck out a tune. A young man about Dirina’s age brought out a small drum and began to lightly tap it with his fingers in time. Nidem sat in a corner, watching.

    “Do you come from Yarpin?” asked another girl, not quite Amarta’s age.

    “No,” Dirina answered, looking as ill at ease as Amarta felt, with the Emendi all watching them. Pas climbed off her lap, found a thick pile of blankets, and curled up there, asleep in minutes. At least one of the three of them was relaxed here.

    “My uncle is still there. At House Helata,” an older boy said. “Do you know it?”

    Dirina and Amarta shook their heads.

    Another spoke. “My mother escaped from transport when I was still in her belly.” His voice dropped. “My cousins didn’t. I hope they’re still alive.”

    “We’ve never been to Yarpin,” Amarta said again.

    “How about Munasee?” asked another eagerly, a boy, perhaps nine. “We had to leave my sister there. At the governor’s palace. She was young then, like your boy. She’d be eight now. If she — if she…” He fell silent.

    “We have never been to Munasee, either,” Amarta said, feeling oddly as if she should apologize.

    The room was quiet a moment.

    “Perripur, then? Sometimes they take us down there; some of the merchants there own us. They –”

    “They say they don’t,” said a young man with a scraggly, pale beard. “It’s a lie.”

    “They lie. They all lie. All Arunkin lie. What do you expect?” asked another.

    “No,” Amarta said. “We have never even been to Perripur –”

    “Yes, yes,” Nidem cut in from across the room. “We know now. You’ve never been anywhere. Why are you here?”

    Amarta started to blush, saw Darad watching her curiously. It was his look that decided her. Guests they might be, but Nidem was treating them as if they had enslaved all her people singlehandedly.

    Well, they were only here with the Emendi, whom she had never seen before, until they left with the Teva.

    “Why do you have marks on your face?” she asked Nidem. “With all the water you have running through Kusan, don’t you ever wash?”

    “Ama,” Dirina said, shocked, a hand on her arm, but it was Darad’s amused smirk at her response that she sought, that gave her some satisfaction.

    Nidem held up an index finger to the right side of her face. “Two generations free from my mother’s side.” She moved the finger to the other side. “Three from my father’s. How many lines of freedom would you have, Arunkin?”

    Anger flashed through Amarta as she struggled and failed to come up with a clever reply. She pulled her arm out of Dirina’s tightening, warning grip.

    “You have an odd way of welcoming strangers, Nidem,” said a man standing in the doorway, one of his arms ending in a stump above the elbow.

 

---

 

    “I don’t welcome them at all. Who knows what they will say once they leave? To trust the Teva is one thing. To trust Arunkin is folly. We should know this by now.”

    “It’s a little late to curse the door for letting in the wind,” Ksava observed mildly from where she sat, her baby at her breast.

    “Why would we say anything at all about you?” Amarta asked.

    The room fell silent, looks exchanged.

    The one-armed man sat down next to the young woman with the lap-harp. She handed it to him. Closer now, Amarta saw that his arm ended in a sort of crater, out of which poked a thumb’s width of yellowed bone. She struggled not to stare.

    He began to strum with his one hand, then stopped, meeting her look squarely. “Because we’re worth a fortune, girl.”

    “Oh,” Amarta responded, trying yet again not to stare at his arm. “But we would never do that.”

    “We know how to keep secrets,” Dirina added earnestly.

    “Go on, look at it.” He held up his stump for her to see. “The king’s law and justice, girl. Take a good long look.”

    Amarta was tired of being attacked, tired of being polite. “What did you do to earn it?” she found herself saying.

    Dirina hissed. “Ama –”

    He shook his head, negating Dirina’s reprimand. “It’s good she asks, woman. Some things should be said aloud.” He fixed Amarta with his startling blue eyes. “I escaped my owner, is what I did. When I was recaptured, he brought out his axe. Smiled while he cut my arm.”

    “But…” Amarta trailed off, confused.

    He waved his stump slowly in the air for her to continue.

    Amarta felt herself warm again, wishing she’d stayed silent.

    “Go on, girl. Ask your question.”

    Everyone was watching her. No one was smiling. She swallowed, hoping she wasn’t blushing too redly. “Don’t slaves need hands?” she asked.

    He barked a loud laugh that seemed to echoed off the cave walls, and then looked around the room, meeting the eyes of the others. When he looked back at Amarta, his eyes were dancing in dark amusement.

    “Some sorts of slaves need hands. Some don’t. It all depends on what kind of slaves they are. Me, I was used for –”

    “That’s enough.” Dirina said harshly.

    Startled, Amarta looked at her sister. “Diri?”

    “We don’t want to hear about it.”

    The man’s incredulous look matched Amarta’s. “Woman, this is the truth of the matter. We are all old enough to hear such truths. Why do you object?”

    “None of your business, man,” Dirina said, standing and grabbing up Pas from where he lay. Pas frowned furiously at being woken, his arms now wrapped around his mother’s neck, staring his displeasure at the room. Then Dirina grabbed Amarta’s hand and drew her along to the opening of the cave.

    “Diri,” Amarta whispered, resisting.

    “There are things it is better not to know. Yes?”

    Amarta thought about her visions. “Yes, of course, but –”

    “This is one of them.”

    Darad joined the three of them with a lantern.

    “I’ll take you to the sleeping room where the Teva are staying. You must be tired after your long journey.”

    Amarta abhorred his polite tone, ached for his teasing wit, and gave her sister a hard, resentful look.

    “Yes, we are,” Dirina answered Darad, ignoring the look. “Thank you.”

 

---

 

    That night and the next day, Dirina looked so tired and downcast that, as annoyed as she was, Amarta could not bring herself to say anything about the night before.

    In truth, it was not her sister’s fault that they had come here, that they had been forced to leave the farm, that they were on the run again. That was entirely Amarta’s doing.

    She would, she resolved, hold her tongue. Treat her sister kindly. It was the least she could do.

    After the first silent meal of the day was done, Amarta happily fed with more wonderful food, she listened as the Teva discussed what goods they would leave here for the Emendi and what they would take forward with them to market. They mentioned cured nightswine jerky, which she found reassuring. Darad had been telling the truth about that, at least.

    “Let me do something useful,” she begged Jolon when he had a moment. He smiled and brought her to a well-lit room that had a loom and hand-mending tools. “I saw what you and Dirina did with the rips in our wagon covering. I think you can help them.” The other Emendi sitting there knitting and working the loom made her quietly welcome.

    For hours she sat there, absorbed by the work, relaxing for the first time since she had arrived. She repaired one shirt’s torn seam, then another. She picked up a sock and darned it, then looked for more work.

    “There you are,” Darad said from the doorway. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

    She leapt up to follow him into the hall.

    “How is your ankle?” he asked.

    She had not even thought of it today. “I think it is all better,” she said with surprise.

    “Nakaccha is skillful.” Then he took her hand, leading her along the stone tunnels. She was suddenly, keenly aware of the warmth of his fingers on hers. It felt very good.

    “Have you lived here your whole life?” she asked to make conversation, to cover the awkward feeling suddenly coming over her.

    “Kusan-born, yes. My grandmother came here after she was blinded by her owner. He wanted her eyes.”

    “Her eyes?”

    “Gold flecks in the blue, you see. Some of us have them. Look.” He stopped suddenly and held up the lantern. She looked into his eyes, which gave her an odd and not unpleasant feeling in her stomach.

    Until she remembered why.

    “That’s awful.”

    “Yes,” he agreed, simply, taking her hand again, resuming their walk. “She was lucky to find Kusan at all, blind as she was. Brave. So brave.”

    “Where are we going?”

    “You talk too much,” he said. But she could hear the smile in his voice that belied the words, and felt the squeeze of his hand.

    More minutes passed. They went from one tunnel to the next, and she wondered, though not very seriously, if he was going to lead her around in circles and leave her here in the dark. She quietly hummed the distress signal, and he laughed, squeezing her hand again, a reassurance.

    They entered a lamp lit room lined with shelves of folded burlap where some ten children sat around at a table. Nidem was among them.

    A silent conversation between Darad and Nidem commenced. Amarta was sure he could have more effectively used both hands, but he insisted on keeping hold of hers. At this she felt a sweet sense of something she had not felt before. He wanted her there. It was almost like belonging.

    Then she met Nidem’s look. She looked away at an open chair, then back to Amarta again. As Amarta watched this repeat, she realized that it was a direction, an invitation. Darad drew her with him to two open seats.

    “It is a game,” Darad said softly, his the only voice in the room. “A silent one. You’ll learn. I’ll help you.”

    With a combination of eye flickers and blinks and hand signs, they taught her the game, which turned out to be about moving each other from seat to seat with eyes and signs and rules that became clear to her as they played.

    Before she knew it, she was smiling. And now she did feel as if she belonged.

    Finally Darad let her hand go, but she was engrossed enough in the game that she hardly noticed.

 

---

 

    The next day and the next the two of them helped in the kitchen, cleaning and preparing vegetables, and then set about to help mend clothes.

    Every now and then she saw Dirina smile. So unusual, Amarta realized. Both of them were starting to relax, to breathe more easily. At meals Darad sat by her, teaching her more signs.

    At the evening meal of the third day, the annoying and ever-present Nidem broke in between his instruction, interrupting with her hands. Resentment flashed through Amarta, so it took her a moment to realize that Nidem was telling the very joke that she’d made the day Amarta arrived, when they were first introduced. That she was telling it now for Amarta’s benefit, repeating it slowly, making sure that Amarta understood.

    Then the three of them laughed, soundlessly, together, and Amarta felt a joy she had never felt before.

    She realized she hadn’t thought about her hunter since she had arrived.

    “Somewhere safe,” Jolon had said. Maybe he was right.

 

---

 

---

 

    On the fourth day at Kusan, Amarta was using the washroom for her own clothes, soaping at the lowest of the waterfall basins carved in the stone, rinsing upstream in successive basins. She had wrung out her shirt, then Dirina’s as well, and hung them to dry on lines strung across an opening overhead that brought in dry air from the outside.

    She sat on a low bench for a time and watched the Emendi across the room in their wash work.

    Jolon sat next to her. At their feet was a small puddle of water that had gathered during her washing. Very softly, so that only she could hear, he motioned to it and said, “Is it in such water that you see the future, Amarta?”

    Amarta kept her eyes on the puddle at her feet in which the lamps around the room reflected, points of light in dark water. “I don’t know what you mean.”

    “We keep it to ourselves, Mara and I, but we guess it is so. Is it magery?”

    “No,” she said sharply, realizing her answer for the admission it was, then pressed her lips tightly together.

    He brushed her shoulder. “I hear your words. That does not mean I believe them. No one else knows, and we keep secrets well.”

    She would say no more about it, she resolved. Not a word.

    “I am also here to say good-bye.” he said.

    “What?” Amarta scrambled to her feet. He stood with her.

    “We continue our journey south, to deliver the goods we have come to trade and sell.”

    “We can be ready in minutes. We –”

    “No. We do not take you with us. Stay here. The Emendi have no more desire to be found than you do.”

    “They won’t let us stay without you.”

    “They will. You work hard. They see this. We have spoken for you.”

    Spoken for them? Vouched for strangers they had known mere days? Jolon and Mara could not know what they had saved her from, but until this moment, it had not occurred to her how much they had risked in bringing them here.

    But to be left here?

    Her mind raced. She thought of Darad, of laughing with him. With Nidem. “Jolon, you have been so good to us. Why?”

    He made a thoughtful sound, then drew a large circle in the air with a forefinger and jabbed at a point along the circumference. “Today you need something, so we give it to you.” His finger continued along the circle, stopping at another point along the arc. “Another day you give something to someone who does not have what you do. That other, perhaps –” his finger traveled further and stopped. “gives to another. And then” — his finger went back to the first spot — “who can say? It is a better place, the world, when we give what we can. But there is another reason.”

    “What?”

    His face turned sad. “Long ago,” he said, “a force came to Otevan, bearing weapons, claiming our lands. Before blood was shed, we showed them what we and the shaota do together. Not in challenge, but in display, you understand?”

    She nodded.

    “They saw the wisdom of having us by their side. So we fought with Arunkel and helped them take the lands, one hill after another.” His eyes narrowed, the ends of his mouth turned down. “We sold ourselves for freedom. For some of us, it is a great sorrow and a sharp shame that our ancestors did this.”

    “But you had to, or –”

    “Yes, it seemed so. But if we had all faced the invader as one? It cannot be known.” He sighed. “Now we have a debt. To those who come to us in need, we give what we can.”

    “But it wasn’t your decision. It was your ancestors’. How is it your debt?”

    “What affects one Teva affects all. With you and your sister it is the same, yes?”

    She hadn’t thought about it that way, but now she could see it was so: Amarta’s visions caused Dirina and Pas to suffer. “But if you leave us here –”

    “We come back to Kusan next year. If you wish to leave then, perhaps we can take you. Yes?”

    “We’ll be here,” Amarta said, but even as she said it, the words echoed hollowly. She pushed away the tickle of vision that wanted to deny her words. No; they would stay or go as they decided.

    Jolon gestured to the puddle below them. “I have heard this is how the future is seen, in still water. It is not so?”

    Amarta thought of those who had come to her across the years with dead rabbits and birds. “No. Nor thrown sticks, nor animal entrails.”

    “Then — since no blood or water is needed, will you tell me something of what is to come?”

    She owed the Teva a debt, greater than they knew, but to foresee now felt like she was bringing her curse here into the tunnels, where she had the last few days felt safe and more.

    Amarta glanced at the rest of the hall to be sure no one was listening. “I will,” she said, a soft whisper.

    “Those who we meet in Perripur, can we trust them?”

    Amarta took a deep breath. As she let it out, she cast her mind into the open space that was the future.

    Perripur, he said.

    A world of green and brown. Air wet and warm, full of scent. Walking and more walking. A dark-skinned woman by her side.

    No, no — not for herself. For Jolon and Mara. She reached out a hand to Jolon’s arm, to help her focus. She saw the inked scars that circled his forearm and hesitated.

    “Yes,” Jolon said, offering his arm forward for her examination.

    “What are those?” Amarta asked of the circles around his arm.

    “We call them limisatae. Life-doors we pass through. Our first shaota. The first mate. The first child.” He met Amarta’s eyes, and she saw for a moment a flicker of something she could not name. “A life taken to keep our people whole. That is limisatae as well.”

    “What are yours for?” she asked.

    He shook his head. “It is for me. Not about the telling, but the being.”

    Not about the telling.

    That she could understand.

    “Do you have a life-door to mark, Amarta?”

    She thought of Enana. Of her parents. Of the attack she had thwarted in the forest. Had any of it changed her as his three marks must have changed him? “I don’t think so.”

    “In time, I think.” He took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Will you tell now? Those we meet in Perripur? How much caution? How much trust?”

    With her fingers on his arm, she reached into his future.

    Faint smells of flowers, spice, smoke, fish. A collection of people standing in a circle. Voices.

    “This is your first meeting with them?”

    “It is.”

    A knife separated links of heavy twine; a roughspun pouch opened. A deep-throated woman’s voice, another language. Words, back and forth. Dark faces turning away, smirking. Secrets.

    Amarta opened her eyes to the dark and drip of the cave, the images already fading, the meaning sorting itself out in her mind. Trust was too big a word for this meeting, too wide a river to cross. “I think you will offer them a lot. Too much?”

    She closed her eyes again, tried to find the place in time where she had seen the dark faces, to see if another outcome might change their expression. It was hard to hold, hard to see.

    The same faces, different expressions. Fewer bags.

    “Keep back more of what you brought to trade. The bags of…” She tried to remember what she’d seen. “Rocks? See what they offer for a smaller set first.”

    “Then we will know what the rest is worth. I see. Thank you for that good counsel.” He clasped her shoulder and gave her a gentle smile. “Amarta, if hundreds of Emendi are safe here, you might be, too. Kusan has stood for centuries. You are safer here than anywhere in the world.”

    Could he be right? Here in the dark, underground, might she be safe from the hunter who pursued above?

    “Now I must ask another thing of you,” he said.

    “What is it?”

    “Nidem was not wrong to doubt us, bringing you here. The Emendi are safe only as long as Kusan is also secret. We have trusted you very much.”

    “We are grateful. We –”

    “Yes, this I know. But Amarta, whatever it is you run from, do not bring it here.”

    “I won’t. I promise.”