Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories (9 page)

He climbed up into the bed and groped for the blanket
when a hard shove to the ribs caught him by surprise. He fell back out of the
bed, landing on the hard floor with a thump. Angry, he scrambled to his feet,
glancing worriedly toward the uncurtained door. It led into the big echoing
kitchen, which had an archway out onto the portico, and he knew the sound
carried right out to the bedrooms. “Stop it,” he whispered harshly. “You want
to wake somebody up?”

“Get away,” Castor whispered back.

Ilias flung his arms up in bewildered fury. “I’m
supposed to sleep here, shithead.”

“Not anymore.” He heard the bed squeak and blankets
rustle as Castor must have rolled over to face the wall.

Ilias stood there a moment, baffled. Castor hated to
sleep alone. Most people did, but Castor had nightmares and cried. And Ilias’
blanket was on the bed, the one his mother had woven for him when he was born,
with the colors worked into galleys and whales and leviathans. It was a symbol
of Ilias’ status in the family, such as it was, and the one thing he would take
with him when someone finally bought him for a marriage. An event that couldn’t
happen fast enough as far as he was concerned at the moment. “Give me my
blanket.”

“It’s not here.” Castor’s voice came out of the dark,
rough and angry. “Niale took it.”

Ilias sneered, doubting it. If Niale had actually
stirred herself to help with the washing, it would have been the talk of
dinner. But he was tired and Castor would get paid back for this in the
morning. “Fine,” he said finally, “You stink anyway.”

Stiff with fury, he pulled his shirt and pants back on
and went out through the kitchen. He padded along the portico to the younger
girls’ room and slipped inside the door. The room was warmer and he could hear
a lot of sleepy breathing and Igenia’s snoring. Pausing to let his eyes adjust,
he made out the dim shapes of the three beds, the clothes chests and baskets. Stumbling
over piles of fabric and stubbing his toes on invisible objects, he made his
way to the bed Amari shared with Belia and Sirae. Fortunately, Amari slept on
the outside. He poked her tentatively.

Her head lifted, hair tousled with sleep. “What’s the
matter?” she whispered, blinking.

“Castor kicked me out of bed.”

Amari lifted the blanket, saying tiredly, “Come on.”

He climbed into the warm bed, snuggling up to her
side, telling himself this was better anyway. This bed had a feather-stuffed
mattress and his and Castor’s was filled with hay, which poked out through the
cloth cover and itched. And Amari smelled pleasantly of a recent bath and
gladiolus oil. But he couldn’t help whispering, “Was there another fight? Why
is Castor mad at me?”

Amari shifted to make more room for him, causing
muttering and grumbles from the bed’s other occupants. She wrapped an arm
around his waist and sighed into his hair. “No. Your mother called him in with
the others to talk, but there wasn’t any shouting. I don’t know what they said.”

Ilias put it down to Castor’s moodiness and subsided
into sleep.

* * *

Ilias didn’t wake early enough and got trapped into
being forced to wash and having his hair combed out and rebraided by Amari and
other assorted sisters and cousins. That was the problem with having older
girls in the house; either they were hostile like Niale or they wanted to treat
him like a practice baby. The benefit was that he got to share their breakfast
of pomegranates and bread with honey. It was so good he even let Igenia braid
in some red clay beads and a feather. Niale looked in once, her face turning
stony when she saw him. She twitched the door curtain closed again and they
heard her sandals stamp on the portico, causing Amari to mutter, “Bitch.” Igenia
and the others giggled in appreciation.

He escaped finally and walked out onto the portico to
find his mother, his father, and Niale standing in the atrium and staring at
him. He froze, startled, and his mother motioned for him to come to her.

Ilias went reluctantly, dragging his bare feet in the
grass. He had obviously done something. He saw Castor, watching from the other
side of the portico, and pointed at him, hoping to deflect attention. “He
pushed me out of bed.”

Castor just looked away.

His mother lifted one of his braids, looking at the
beads and feather. He looked up at her, proud of the fact that she was far more
beautiful than the Chosen Vessel’s mother. She wore a light lavender gown,
sleeveless to reveal the olive leaf designs on her copper and silver armbands. Her
hair was a rich dark brown, caught up with clasps set with polished purple
stones. He knew she liked the girls better and that was the way of the world,
but he sensed a chance to ingratiate himself and leaned against her skirts. He
knew he was too big to be picked up but he was hoping for something. Instead
she stepped away, asking him, “Did you eat this morning?”

“No,” Ilias said earnestly. The only good thing about
having so many siblings and cousins was that in the general confusion it was
sometimes possible to get fed two or three times for a single meal.

But his mother and father only exchanged an opaque look.
His father said quietly, “You’re certain? You won’t change your mind?”

His mother’s expression turned cold. “I’ve told you
what I want. If you can’t do it, I’ll send you back to your family and find a
man who can.”

His father didn’t reply, and his mother drew her
skirts up and walked away. Then his father put a hand on Ilias’ shoulder. “Come
on, you can come into town with me.”

Ilias threw an arch look at Castor, but his brother
was staring at the paving stones between his feet.

He followed his father down the portico and out
through the back entrance of the house. Ilias was surprised to see the gelding
already saddled and waiting, its reins looped over the gate that kept the goats
out of the other cistern. He ran to pet its nose and it dropped its head to
investigate his hands for treats. It had a light brown coat, with a dark
pattern of spots speckling its back and rear haunches. It was the horse he had
had his first riding lessons on, and he dearly wanted it to be his someday,
though realistically he knew it would be Castor’s first.

He waited until his father settled into the light
saddle, then reached up to be hauled on behind him. They rode out of the yard,
past the herd pens and onto the track through the forest.

The sun broke through the scattered beeches and as the
trail curved up the hill, Ilias craned his neck for his first view of the sea.

His father, who seldom said anything to him beyond “go
here” and “do this,” said suddenly, “You know you’re not my son.”

Ilias nodded, still trying to get a glimpse of blue
water and breakers past the trees. “Yes. Castor and I are Timeron’s sons,
mother’s second husband that died.” It was why they looked different from all
the others, but Ilias had only the vaguest memory of his birth father. Prominent
women might have two or even three husbands. Though she wasn’t particularly
prominent, Delniea, Amari’s mother, had two, Vendiead and Safronias. Niale had
said it was why Delniea had lost her land, but the two men had been a great
help in getting the hay in this season. “But there’s always just been you,” he
added with a shrug.

His father made a noise as if he was about to speak,
but said nothing.

They didn’t take the quick way into town, but a
smaller road that went up into the deep forest over the hills. Without a chance
of glimpsing a galley on the open sea heading toward Cineth’s harbor, Ilias
drifted off, leaning against his father’s back. He woke up when his father
reined in.

They were in a clearing near the rocky top of a hill,
surrounded by pine on all sides. His father reached back for his arm, sliding
him off the horse and depositing him on the gravelly dirt. “I need to do some
business with the hunters. You wait for me here.”

“All right.” Ilias looked up at him, shaking the hair
out of his eyes. He wanted to see the hunters too, but he knew appeals like
that wouldn’t be welcome. He glanced around at the rocky hilltop, at the pines
clinging to the slopes above it. “Where are they?”

“Just past that hill there.” His father pointed, but
didn’t look down at him, just turning the gelding and walking it away.

Ilias hopped a few steps, brushing the gravel off his
feet, realizing that nobody had bothered to make him fetch his sandals. He
wandered around a little, but the rock-studded outcrop didn’t have much
entertainment value about it. The wind pulled at his hair and blew dust, and it
would probably be more comfortable down under the trees, but his father had
said to stay here. And he didn’t want to miss a chance to go to the market
without Castor. He threw pebbles for a while, bored, then became intrigued by
some oddly shaped stones and began to build a fort.

Engrossed in it, he constructed the palisade, the
boatsheds and the causeway. Then his stomach grumbled and he noticed the sun
had moved to directly overhead. He frowned up at it, squinting, thinking,
There’s
not going to be much of the day left for the market
. And it was time for
the noon meal, though he couldn’t smell anything cooking from the direction of
the hunters’ camp. His father had probably changed his mind about the market,
but Ilias could always lie and tell Castor they went anyway.

Ilias looked around, finding he had run out of stones
and pebbles in his immediate area. He dusted his hands off on his equally dusty
pants and went to look for sticks to make the war galleys.

He scuffed his feet in the dirt, wandering around the
craggy outcrop. Following it around the top of the little hill, he realized he
had been in the lee; this side was much windier and seemed to be drawing cold
right off the snow-capped tops of the distant mountains. He shivered but the
ground here was covered with bleached twigs and sticks, just what he needed.

He stared down for a moment, frowning.
No, it’s
bones.
He sat on his heels, poking at them thoughtfully, picking up one
with a delicate curve, like the fastener of a hair clasp. They were animal
bones or fish bones, like those the little water lizards left beside streams. He
investigated further, poking into nooks and crannies, searching for some
evidence of the small predator that lived here. Then he picked up a smooth
round rock.

Looking at it, seeing and not seeing the holes for
eyes and nose, it seemed a long time before he admitted to himself that what he
was holding was a small human skull.

Ilias set it down with care, not wanting to make
anything angry. Unburied or unburned bodies meant no rites had been done, and
the dead person’s shade must still wander this area. But how could bodies go
unburied when the hunters’ camp was so close? He stood up, moving carefully
over the gravel and rocks. But he hadn’t heard anyone, couldn’t smell any
woodsmoke, and no one had passed by.

He counted six more skulls, none quite as large as
his.

He stood still for a long time, biting his lip, then
started toward the hill his father had pointed out, where the camp should be.
I
just want to look at it. I won’t go down and bother him.

It wasn’t a long walk, but the rocks were beginning to
hurt his feet, and he should have been wearing boots for it. He had a
hand-me-down pair from Castor at home, as useful there as his forgotten
sandals. As the hill steepened up into a cliff face, the walk became a
scramble, and he dug his fingers into the dirt and dried grass. He reached the
top, relieved, and looked out over the little valley.

The empty little valley. There was a meadow with high
grass, undisturbed by horses or people, and a stream near the far end, spilling
over rocks to disappear into the trees down the slope. There hadn’t been a camp
here for days, from the look of the undisturbed grass. Ilias shifted uneasily,
unwilling to admit that there was a cold chill creeping up his back.

He climbed down and went around the rocks, back to the
fort. He sat in the dirt next to it, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.
His eyes stung from unshed tears though he wouldn’t tell himself why he wanted
to cry.  
It’s a mistake,
he repeated, over and over again.
Or you
didn’t understand
. Adults said things all the time that didn’t mean what
you thought they meant.
He’ll be back.
After a time, when the sun had
moved further into afternoon, he wiped his nose on his sleeve and went back to
work on the fort. 

But the afternoon lengthened into twilight and his
father didn’t return.

The light was starting to fail, and Ilias’ stomach was
cramping with hunger and his throat was dry. He was still pretending to play
with the fort when the breeze turned unexpectedly chill, lifting his hair and
cutting right through his lightly woven shirt. He looked up, shivering, and saw
another boy crouched in the dirt, not ten paces away.

Something told Ilias immediately that he was looking
at a shade. The boy was crouched in the lee of a rock, as if trying to find
protection from the wind. He was much younger than Ilias, maybe Taelis’ age, if
that. His skin was a pearly pale, like the inside of a seashell, but tinged
with blue, his hair dark and matted. He wore only a light tunic, grubby and
torn. Ilias met his eyes, and they were old and knowing. Those eyes said,
You’re
big enough to walk down off this hill. I wasn’t
.