Reclamation (57 page)

The boy sprinted down the street. “Muster!” he cried out at the top of his lungs. “Muster!”

“Holding, find General Glass and bring him here.” King Silver pulled her riding gloves out of her belt and pulled them onto her hands. They were dust-colored leather with her hand marks reproduced on their backs.

“Majesty.” Holding the Keys raised his hands briefly and hurried off after the boy.

Alone for at least a few seconds, Silver smiled a slow, hard smile toward the clouds.

“Be careful not to give me too much time, Skymen,” she said. “I’ll make you regret it.”

“
Do not cling too tightly to the products of your cleverness. What you create, however precious, you may some day be forced to destroy.”

Fragment from “The Beginning of the Flight,” from the Rhudolant Vitae private history Archives

E
RIC CROUCHED ON IRON
Shaper’s floor, lashing the roll he’d made from a Narroways soldier’s blanket and sleeping mat with a braid of reed fibers. Once the rain had passed, he spent a good part of the previous afternoon helping Jay and Heart load the major share of the booty onto the clan’s rafts. In theory, the gesture would help the clan’s good will remain good in case something unpredicted happened.

While the Teachers had loaded the rafts, the clan had stripped their village with impressive speed and thoroughness. Even Shaper’s hearthstone was gone, because the Lif marshes were the one place in the Realm where stones were a rarity.

Eric slung his roll over his shoulder, picked up his pack of clothes and gear, and stepped through the empty doorway.

Arla and Heart were harnessing mismatched teams of oxen to equally mismatched sledges. Thanks to the soldiers, the clan now owned a herd of oxen big enough to slow their exodus down, so it hadn’t taken much to convince them to give over four animals to make the two teams. The sledges had been more of a problem. The Narroways soldiers had carried their supplies on their backs or on their saddles and had only had one sledge to be plundered. The clan owned one more. It had taken both Arla and Eyes Above a half hour’s arguing to wrangle it out of their hands so Arla would be able to drive Jay where they needed to go.

Jay stood near Heart, a respectful distance from the oxen, Eric noticed. His mouth was moving and Heart was nodding. The Skyman was probably giving the Teacher last-minute advice or instructions.

I hope I remember how to drive,
Eric thought resignedly.
I’d rather not spend two days as baggage.

The shadows around the huts had shortened a full inch since sunshowing. Except for Storm Water and Eyes Above, they were the last in the village. The whole clan had departed, either on rafts or on foot, to catch up with the oldest and the youngest, who had left the day before. The noise of Arla scolding the oxen and Heart clucking at the state of the harness felt too faint next to the sound of the reeds and bamboo leaves rattling in the wind.

Eric picked his way through the reeds and grass to where Arla was checking the set of the yoke on the right-hand oxen’s shoulder. The beast snorted and slapped her face with its tail.

“Leave off, you.” Arla smacked its rump. She saw Eric coming and grinned. “I think I liked the
U-Kenai
better.” She gestured at the ramshackle sledge. It didn’t have a rain cover. Its one box-seat was chipped and splintered and the driver’s bracing listed dangerously to the right. Heart and Eric had drawn the good gear, since they had farther to go. “But since my Lord Skyman over there”—she jerked her chin toward Jay—“doesn’t ride, I’ve got no choice.”

“Well, you’re not too far from where you’re going.” Eric’s pack held a map that Jay had painstakingly sketched on a piece of worn leather so Heart and Eric could find the Unifier base after they’d finished in First City. The Skyman had not volunteered the information; Eric had demanded it.

“Promise me you’ll sleep with one eye open while you’re with him,” Eric whispered.

Arla smiled only for a split second. “You feel it too, do you? I had hoped it was just me.” Eric shook his head and she sighed. “If my Lord Teacher knows any options …” She paused just long enough to see that he wasn’t going to say anything. “Neither do I.” She stroked the ox’s side and turned to face him. “You be careful as well, Eric.”

Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close in a deep kiss. Startled by her intensity, it took him a moment to respond.

When she finally released him, he wished fiercely that there was something he could say. He wanted to give her some promise or meaningful speech that would give her courage and hope. Nothing came to him. He pulled away from her slowly, silently. She didn’t press him. She just let him go.

Not quite soon enough, though. Eyes Above, leaning on Storm Water’s arm, pushed through the bamboo. Eric felt his face redden and his hands go cold at the same time. The old woman’s eyesight was bad, but it wasn’t that bad and she was, according to Arla, a strict interpreter of the Words. The boy had seen them, too. Eric could tell by the dubious frown on his face. His mother could get much the same look when she wasn’t sure about what was going on.

“Do not go too far in your task, Daughter,” Eyes Above admonished Arla, more softly than Eric had expected.

“I’ll try not to, Mother,” said Arla, but the look on her face told Eric she was thinking,
too late for that.

Arla leaned over and took her son’s square-jawed face in both hands. “I expect you to take good care and plenty of it, Storm Water
dena
Sharp Eyes in the Light,” she said. “I expect to hear you acted as a grown man in all things, or I shall have your father wrap you in diapers and spank you until you wail.”

Eric looked away, suddenly discomforted. As he did, he saw that Heart already stood in place in the sledge. He tapped his stick impatiently against the rail.

“Storm Water says it shall be so,” Arla’s son said. There was a lot of his father’s steadiness in his voice.

“Obey the Servant,” said Eyes Above, and Eric wondered why. “Find your sister, and find that she is still my daughter.”

“Stone in the Wall says it shall be so.” Arla climbed into her sledge too fast for Eric to see the look on her face. He strongly suspected that she did it on purpose. Jay dropped his bundle into the box and then sat carefully on the lid.

The thought of the Skyman with a backside full of splinters gave Eric a moment’s sour amusement.

“Yah!” Arla cracked the driving stick against the sledge’s rickety rails. “Get a move on! Get up there!”

The oxen snorted and ambled forward. The sledge jostled and jolted across the muddy ground. Arla and Jay would take the path at the base of the Lif wall, straight across the marshes until they hit the Narroways road. Eric and Heart would head in roughly the same direction for a while, except they would climb up the wall onto the heights in order to pick a route toward First City.

The bamboo leaves crackled as Arla’s team forced its way through. The greenery swallowed them up. The sound of skids and harness and hooves lasted a little while longer, but eventually the marshes swallowed that too.

Feeling strangely bereft, Eric faced Eyes Above and Storm Water. A second passed before he realized something was wrong. They had remained standing in front of him.

Arla’s family indeed.
The thought gave him a smile. He raised both his hands. “The Nameless speak of your deeds. They cannot be denied.”

Eyes Above inclined her head with a dignity that belonged to a King, not a Notouch. The gesture increased Eric’s discomfort as much as it touched his heart. Now he knew where Arla got it from.

“Hand on the Seablade!” called Heart. “Will we go before night hits?”

I preferred the U-Kenai too, Arla.
Eric trudged to join his brother-in-law.
Even Adu knew when not to interrupt.

The soldiers’ sledge did have a rain cover, but since it had been built to carry supplies, not passengers, its boxes had no padding on their lids. Eric stowed his pack and sat down at least as gingerly as Jay had.

Heart gave him a wry glance that Eric did not bother to return. Heart touched up the team and they lurched forward.

Eric leaned back against the support pole, fixed his gaze on the countryside that jiggled and skidded behind the sledge, and got ready to be bored. The noise and jostle of the sledge didn’t make for a conversational atmosphere, especially with Heart struggling to keep them on dry ground. Supposedly, an ox had a nose for deep water and wouldn’t stray off the dry paths, but Eric had more than once ministered to those who put too much faith in that theory, and so, he suspected, had Heart. It was much better to be silent and let his brother-in-law concentrate on keeping them out of the bogs.

It wasn’t as if he needed any news of the House. He wasn’t going to be staying in First City any longer than he needed to. He and Heart would deliver their information and then he’d be on his way to meet up with Arla. The politics of the house could go drown themselves.

I wish I’d had a chance to tell Arla the best part of it.
He rubbed his palms thoughtfully together.
With Jay here, we don’t have to stay in the Realm. Neither of us.

Jay would most certainly be calling the Unifiers as soon as he got back to his dome. When the Vitae had been dealt with, a Unifier ship could take Eric and Arla back to May 16. From there they could go anywhere in the Quarter Galaxy. She could bring her children if she wanted to. They’d thrive over the World’s Wall and they’d have what she really wished for. They would not be Notouch. The Little Eye and the younger boys wouldn’t ever even be marked.

He probably wouldn’t even have to see Lady Fire if he finished his end of this business quickly enough. Heart could stay behind to deal with the House and the Nobles.

Eric rested his elbows on this thighs.
It’ll be a few days of hard looks and long silences, at the worst.
He dropped his gaze to the two lines of pulverized reeds stretch out behind the sledge.
At the very worst.

He let his internal reassurances occupy him as the sledge rocked and rattled along. Outside, the ground dried out and the flat expanse of reeds and bamboo was replaced by tufts of grass sprouting between piles of boulders and thick puddles of moss. The Walls closed in overhead.

Balancing himself carefully and hanging on to the canvas’s support poles, Eric sidestepped to the rear of the sledge and leaned out. Despite his claim that he had lost all his geography, he retained enough to see that they were almost to Midway Breach, a ragged escarpment between the Broken Canyon and the Dead Sea Canyon. He squinted up at the line of the Walls. The Pinnacle was an arrow-shaped protrusion listing toward the Dead Sea. They’d have to follow it all the way down the canyon and skirt the salt flats before they came to the main road to First City.

The sledge ran over a larger than average bump. The shock sat Eric down hard on the nearest box, jarring his backbone.

“Sorry,” Heart called back.

Eric shifted his buttocks and started to say it was all right.

Heart cut him off. “We’ve been waiting for you to come back, you know.”

Eric raised his head slowly. Heart had a quarter profile turned toward him so he could see Eric with one eye and the oxen with the other. His elbows pumped and strained in response to the team tugging at the harness.

“Who has?” asked Eric. Heart’s blank look said he hadn’t heard. “Who has?” Eric called.

“Friends,” shouted Heart, dragging on the reins to force the oxen around a cluster of thorn trees. “Thinking men, discontented Teachers, our fellow Heretics.”

Eric felt his forehead furrow. He stood up and moved toward the front of the sledge again.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, clinging to the rails of the driver’s stand.

“We knew you’d gone over the World’s Wall. We’ve been ten years hoping you’d come back and tell us what’s out there.” Heart was barely watching the oxen now and no amount of noise could disguise the eagerness in his voice. “When we get back to First City, I’ll spread the word that …” The oxen ambled straight for a huge, moss-backed boulder.

“Look out!” Eric shouted.

Heart yanked his head back around. “Whoa!” he cried, pulling back on the reins until his elbows almost touched behind his back. The oxen snorted and stopped.

Eric ran his hand through his hair. “Keep your eyes on where you’re going, Heart,” he said, “and if you want stories, ask a librarian. They’ll be much more entertaining.”

“Garismit’s Eyes!” Heart slapped the reins against the railing. “Have you had yours put out? Don’t you see that this is our chance? After these Vitae are taken care of, there’s going to be chaos in the cities. If we’re ready for it, if we’re armed with the truth about the World’s Wall and the Words, we can gather support. You can talk to the ones who’ve got one foot in the stirrup. Tell them about the other Skymen and about how much they’d value …”

Eric stared at him, unable to think of one word to say.

Heart spread his hands. “We are dying, Hand on the Seablade. The Realm is dying. You know that. Every year more broken babies are born to die at our hands. We need the Skymen’s help if we’re going to survive.”

I don’t believe what I’m hearing.
Eric leaned his forearm against the support pole and stared out over the oxen’s backs. It was impossible to tell whether Heart actually believed what he said or if he was just trying to win Eric’s sympathies.

Gradually Eric became aware of a new noise under the perpetual rush of the wind. The sound drifted to him, over the stamping and blowing of the oxen, over the rustle of the leaves in the trees. It was familiar, but wrong somehow. It was a long, distant roar, like approaching thunder, but far too smooth.

Heart heard it too. “What is that n—”

Before he could finish, Eric jumped out of the sledge, his gaze glued to the sky. Islands of blue showed between the clouds. Eric stumbled forward, heading for a bare patch out from under the shadows of the trees.

The roar deepened until it echoed off the walls. Eric swiveled his neck toward what he thought was the right direction.