Lamarchos Read online

  Maissa turned her head without moving her body and glanced at Kale from the corner of her eye. “Kale.”

  “Yes.”

  “What she says.”

  Kale jerked his gaze away from the impudent grin on Loahn’s narrow face. Reluctantly he nodded. “If we plan to continue, gikena’s got to lift the curse.”

  Maissa’s eyes flickered over Stavver, rested on him a minute while her fists closed and opened again, then faced Aleytys. Reluctantly she nodded. “We need you, woman. For the moment. Don’t push your luck. And keep that brat out of my sight.” She whipped around and scowled at Kale and Stavver. “What are you standing around for, fools? Do you want to waste more time?” She strode to her caravan, pulled herself tiger-fast and smooth onto the driver’s seat. Talking the whip from its loops she sat caressing the smooth braided coils. “Well?”

  As Aleytys walked to her caravan, she felt a sickness of the soul turn her knees weak and set a darkness behind her eyes as images of the battered horses Maissa had driven the first day on this world burned behind her eyelids. She stopped by Kale and laid a hand on his arm. “Let her alone,” she murmured.

  Kale looked startled.

  “The horses won’t suffer too long and she’ll wear the rage out. It won’t be pleasant, but.…” She shrugged. “When we stop for nooning, I’ll heal them.”

  His dark eyes met hers a minute. Then he nodded.

  “Good. Let her lead off. Tell her to take the first turning to the north.… a minute. Loahn.”

  He edged around the horse’s head, curiosity vivid in his face.

  “First turn to the north?”

  He nodded. Clearing his throat, he said hesitantly. “Then just follow the main ruts. Lake Po’s turn-off comes mid-morning the second day.”

  “Good. You understand. Kale?”

  Flicking a two-fingered salute to mark his understanding, Kale padded to Maissa, sliding over the ground like the hunting cat inked on his skin.

  Maissa lashed the whip across the flanks of the off-side horse, startling a pain-filled scream from the gelding. Her caravan rumbled past, swaying and rocking precariously. With an angry nausea turning her mouth sour, Aleytys swung up on the seat. “Drive, will you, Keon? Loahn, you’ll keep out of sight. Ride inside or sit in the back door. As you please.”

  He grinned at her, some of his usual self-possession returning. Aleytys frowned awfully at him. “Move, imp. Even the dust cloud’s disappearing.” Stavver chuckled and slapped the reins on the horses’ backs, starting them forward at a brisk trot. With a shout of laughter that was an affirmation of the soaring spirits in all three, Loahn raced around the caravan as it began to pick up speed and swung himself up into the interior.

  Aleytys leaned back, feeling a sudden lightness, her spirit floating like a bubble. “Miks, did you see her face. Ahhh.…” She giggled and stretched, wriggling on the hard plank of the seat.

  He reached out and flipped a stray curl off her face. “She never thought a barbarian land-grubber could handle her like that.”

  “Well, she was right, wasn’t she.” She wrinkled her nose at her hands. “I wasn’t the one working these.”

  Miks sobered. “In a way it’s too bad we couldn’t keep that card stashed for the future. Maissa’s a snake, Lee. She knows now she can’t take you from the front. You watch your back.”

  “I don’t understand.” She scratched at her knee with a forefinger, worrying at a small flake of dead skin. “You keep telling me how evil and cruel she is. All right. So she mistreats animals. Loses her temper easy. Tried to kill Loahn. None of that’s very sweet and gentle, but she hasn’t really done anything to us.”

  “She needs us now.”

  Mid morning, they swung off the main track onto a narrower lane, as deeply rutted but not so bare. Spindly weeds, dry and dusty as little old men, hunched between the whitish wheel tracks. The wind had turned and came to them from the north instead of the west, lakeland’s breath instead of the hot dry effluence from the stonelands. As they moved north the air grew progressively more humid, the tough, thin-bladed grass giving way to another species more succulent than herb, until the land was covered by a crunchy green carpet a double-handspan high. At intervals darker lines of green to the left or right marked one of the hundred lakes that gave this section of Lamarchos its name. Twice after they passed by branching tracks she caught glimpses of slender crimson towers swelling at the top to tulip shaped bells that looked open to the sky. She assumed that these marked towns or villages.

  On either side of the road split rail fences, aged by time and weather to a velvety grey, shut in pasture land, the seried sections enclosing brood mares in one, then yearlings, then pihayo, mares again, stallions and geldings, pihayo, repeating the pattern over and over. A vine with heart-shaped leaves and trumpet flowers wound around the fence horizontals, cascades of leaves plunging in a ragged green fall, while the nodding fist-sized blooms released a flood of heavy sweet perfume. Hour on hour of vine. Hour on hour of sickening sweet perfume mixed with air that grew heavier and heavier with moisture so that the dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves and the iron-tired wheels clung like itching powder to bare skin.

  Occasionally a horse or two would come to the fence and watch them pass, wide dark eyes bright with interest, quivering nostrils snuffing and snorting in nervous excitement. Once something spooked a small herd of two-year-olds, all sorrels with blazed faces, so that they wheeled, galloping off, tails high, manes whipping the air. Aleytys exclaimed with pleasure then met Stavver’s laughing eyes, feeling a warm complicity in their shared enjoyment.

  Several times they saw distant riders, but none near enough to show interest in the travellers.

  Just before nooning they moved past a field with a herd of grazing pihayo. This time the odd-looking creatures were close enough to examine in some detail. They were heavy animals with massive thighs and wide muscular bodies, looking at first glance like dirty tan sheep grown outsize. Instead of a sheep’s close curled wool, their thick hair was straight, long and shaggy, heavy with oil. Their sharp rancid stench was strong enough to break through even the overpowering perfume of the trumpet flowers. Aleytys wrinkled her nose, slightly sick at the thought of eating meat that smelled so bad on the hoof.

  When the sun’s glow spot crossed zenith in the circustent sky, they came on Maissa’s caravan pulled to one side in a lay-by, a circle of trees drooping over weathered tables, benches and a flat-roofed structure held up by a series of wide flat poles carved into stylized, simplified animal forms. Maissa sat on the edge of a stone-lined well, her back to the road, staring out across the rolling swells of the grassland. As Aleytys watched, she flipped a small yellow capsule into her mouth. Immediately Aleytys could sense the drug slipping into the woman’s veins, feel it with sudden acuity, feel it so strongly it dizzied her until she could jerk herself free.

  Wiping her hands fastidiously together figuratively cleansing herself of the slime bubbling out of the depths of Maissa’s soul, Aleytys went quietly to the horses standing head down, skin twitching, too beaten down to move from the spot. She put her hands on them, taking away the pain, healing the torn bruised flesh, soothing the hurts in them as best she could. When she looked up, Kale was leaning against one of the pillars watching her.

  Once again she brushed her hands together. “You think you could do the driving the rest of the day?” She examined her palms thoughtfully. “Without precipitating a crisis?”

  “Not if you suggest it to her.”

  Aleytys laughed. “Right. I’ll keep out of the way.”

  “The drug should help. She won’t eat anything, probably sleep most of the time.” He rubbed his hard back slowly against the post, glowering at her in a kind of irritated compassion. “Why?” he burst out. “Why let her control you?”

  Aleytys spread her hands out, shrugged. “She has the ship.”

  “You cut loose from her, you could get passage on another ship. With your power.… And you wouldn’t
have to deal with her. Or you could stay here. I don’t know why you’re star-hopping, but.…”

  Aleytys twitched her shoulders, brushed at the dust on her body. “Ay-mi, Kale, I dream of a bath. To soak my neck deep in warm soapy water. To wash my awful hair and spread it in warm sun to dry. Ah well, I’m hungry. Have you eaten?”

  He watched her a minute, then nodded. “We got in about an hour before you.”

  Aleytys nodded and left him to rejoin Loahn and Stavver.

  When they went on again Aleytys chased Loahn out of the back and settled herself on the mattress, lying out flat, letting her body adjust to the jerk and sway of the caravan. Out front Loahn and Stavver were talking quietly, their words mingling with the rumble of the wheels and the steady clop clop of the horses’ hooves.

  Sharl woke and announced discomfort with an angry imperative howl. Laughing, Aleytys sat up and swung her feet over the edge of the bunk. After pinning on a clean dry diaper she poured water into a bucket, added a pinch of soap powder, washed the soiled diaper, rinsed it in fresh water, then hung it out the back to bleach and dry in the sunlight. All the while Sharl babbled happily, kicking his feet vigorously, clutching at any hold that offered itself to groping hands, not caring whether it was a portion of his own anatomy or something extraneous.

  Aleytys wiped her hands and picked the baby up. She rocked him a few minutes then put him down on the mattress. Kneeling beside the bunk she played with him until he was worn out with laughing. Then she fluffed the blankets in the drawer and laid him down to sleep.

  She watched him a few moments then climbed back on the mattress and stretched out, staring blindly at the swaying ceiling.

  All right, she thought. You in my head. I’m not a terrified ignorant child now. She chuckled. At least, not so ignorant as I was. First time I thought I was dreaming you. Not now. I saw your eyes opening … amber … black.… you should make up your mind.… god, it makes me feel dizzy.… are you.… what are you? She closed her eyes and waited. The caravan rumbled along the road swaying and jerking over the ruts. Once more she became aware of Stavver and Loahn talking casually, intermittently, words lost in the steady plodding beat of the hooves, punctuated by an occasional shrill bugle from a stallion running along the fence issuing his challenge to a placid and uncomprehending world.

  The muscles in her shoulders began to ache from the tension that rapidly tightened around her. “Ahai,” she muttered, “It’s been a long time … too long.” Forcing her mind back to the valley of the Raqsidan, she painstakingly recreated the mind and body relaxers Vajd had taught her so long … she thought suddenly … not so long, only a year and a standard year at that … I can’t believe it … no … that’s not true. It’s a different kind of time that’s passed for me. Not simple seconds minutes hours, but time measured by the changes … big and little changes … in me … by that measure, the span of time since I left the Raqsidan is a hundred times my whole lifetime in the valley. Raqsidan … she smiled remembering the clean cold water of the mountain river, crystal clear sliding green on green.… dancing water white on the rapids and rainbowed in the mist of the two-meter waterfall below the bridge … abruptly she was wretchedly miserably homesick.…

  She wrenched her mind from its destructive cycle and disciplined herself into the first and simplest of the exercises … watching the breath flow in and out counting exhalation one through ten one through ten.… The grim determination with which she began, a self-defeating tension itself, slowly … too slowly … evaporated and her mind grew calm. She lay, heartbeat slow and powerful like a long distance runner’s, mind detached and serene, body attuned to its surroundings so thoroughly it adjusted itself to the bumps and shudders without intruding more than minimally on her thoughts.…

  I open myself to you … come … we share my body … once I was angry and disturbed by you—I am no longer. I accept you … I must … knowing I can do nothing else … you hear me.…

  Tension jarred the placid surface of her mind, then died away. She lay close to coma, life a faint glow somewhere far off. Amber and black flickered like witchfire across the back of her eyelids then died away … she breathed slow, slow.… The witchfire flared again. Dimly she felt … something … something struggling toward her, but as in a nightmare the struggle went on and on endlessly and fruitlessly.… The thing that struggled cried out in frustration a soundless echo that throbbed across her brain and … retreated … leaving that feeling behind, frustration carried to the point of exhaustion.…

  She closed her hand into a fist, the small movement started her blood flowing faster, her breath deepening and quickening. Sighing, she opened her eyes, pushed her tired body up so that she could swing her feet over the edge of the bunk. Her head throbbed with a pulsing ache that blurred eyesight and hampered thought. She rubbed her temples and winced at the answering chimes.

  Sharl whimpered in his sleep. Aleytys straightened him out and smoothed the blankets around him. “Not so long ago, baby, I thought having this thing riding me was the end of living. Funny what one can get used to.…” She rubbed the back of her head where her skull joined her spine, then massaged her temples with the heels of her hands, ignoring the slight sounds this produced. “Now that I know it hears me,” she went on slowly, fluffing his curls with a forefinger, “it’s not so bad. Makes me not quite so much a slave, baby. I know one thing from this. I’d hate being somebody’s slave.” She yawned. “Ahhhhgh, I need some fresh air.” Fingers cupping to touch his small warm body, she murmured, “We’ve got some interesting times ahead of us, baby.”

  She thrust her head out between Stavver and Loahn. Shadows were rapidly lengthening and merging as the sun squashed down past the western horizon. Overhead, clouds were blowing together into a purple-pink mass. Above and around the true clouds the aerial bacteria were clotting into their nightly clumps. “Will it rain?” She raised her voice so that Loahn could hear her over the rumble of the wheels and the howl of the rising wind that blew scraps of debris around them.

  “Sometime tonight.”

  “Then you better come in with us.” She touched Stavver’s shoulder. “That all right?”

  His mouth twitched down, then he shrugged. “Why not.”

  She tightened her fingers briefly in appreciation, then was intensely aware of the texture of the flesh under her hands, sorry immediately that she had succumbed to pity.

  Stavver tilted his head back so he could see her face. He grinned sardonically at her, appreciating her sudden flash of regret. He stood up, motioning Aleytys back inside the caravan. Then he handed the reins to Loahn. “Take care of things.”

  The boy flashed an impudent grin at him. Gathering the reins into one hand, he closed the other into a fist, thumb projecting upward. “Hard and long,” he said cheerfully.

  Stavver threw back his head and laughed. “Keep your mind on your job, boy, and let a man do a man’s business.” He ducked his head and vanished inside the caravan.

  Loahn snorted and gave the two inside a rough several minutes as he slapped the horses into a trot, sending them slaloming back and forth across the ruts: Then he let them slow until the caravan rolled placidly along in the’ darkening twilight.

  Chapter VIII

  Grey and massive city walls rose ponderously from a low cliff that overlooked Lake Po, but despite this evidence of concern for defense the iron-bound double doors stood wide open. She pulled the horses to a stop and eyed the mosaic pavement that began at the outer edge of the walls. “It looks like the inside of someone’s house. You sure we just drive in?”

  Invisible inside the caravan, Loahn answered her impatiently. “Like I told you. Straight ahead to the square.”

  “Here we go.” She slapped the reins on sweaty flanks, starting the horses forward at a slow walk.

  The wide avenue was paved with small black and white tiles in a stylized pattern taken from the creepervine covering the fences that lined the road. On either side of the wide street the houses were blank
and enigmatic walls that had no windows on the lower two floors, only a heavy, iron-bound door. Like the city gates these doors stood open to the vagrant breeze that stirred the hot humid mid-afternoon air. As the horses clopped past, Aleytys caught glimpses of green and lovely courtyards, sometimes with a part of a fountain visible. People were strolling in both directions, chatting leisurely, even those with definite destinations or errands unhurried and ready to stand staring at the newcomers. By the time Aleytys drove into the central square a number of the curious were following, eyes fixed on the two caravans.

  The black and white design split into two sections forming a wreath around a tall slender minaret rising nearly a hundred meters before it flared out into the tulipflower capital, reminding her of the crimson towers she had seen occasionally in the past days. Now that she was close to one of them she could see that the color wasn’t solid, but resulted from thousands of square crimson tiles set in a white matrix. The tower rose like an exotic flower among the starker realities of the blunt-faced buildings and the black and white pavement. Winding in a spiral around the minaret a set of steps delicate as white lace climbed to the watch platform at the top. Just below that the tower was pierced by an oval hole. A large, bronze bell hung massively motionless in the opening.

  From small open-faced shops and eating places scenting the air with the smell of meat and new-baked bread and this world’s version of tea, people came out to view the arrival of the strangers. No one spoke directly to Aleytys or the others. They circled and speculated but waited for her to make the first move, to indicate who she was and what she wanted.

  Aleytys stopped the horses by the minaret. She wound the reins around the cleat and turned to Stavver. “Time to ring the bell. You ready?”

  He nodded then swung down from the seat. Hitching up the sagging batik he strode briskly to the tower, pulled the bell rope free and tugged vigorously on it.