On his left, the jagged peaks of the Akrotir Mountains rose in sharp relief against the blue sky. He had never thought of the mountains as ominous before, but now, stripped by the long drought of the greenery that normally covered their slopes, the bare gray stone depressed him. A subtle mist clung to the highest points, not yet dissipated by the swelling heat. Some breeze that played among the peaks stirred and churned those wisps and sent pale streamers drifting outward to diffuse into nothingness.
A pair of birds flew overhead, their calls loud in the crisp air as they spiraled and looped and chased one another. Innowen almost unbalanced himself as he twisted his head around to observe their mating flight.
With a gasp, he caught a double handful of the horse's mane in his right hand and managed to redistribute his weight.
He knew he should find a place to dismount, a safe place where he could sleep the day away. If the horse misstepped, or if he grew careless again and fell off, he wouldn't be able to get back up. For that matter, he thought with a frown, the only way he was going to get down when he did find such a place was to let go and fall.
He looked at the ground and bit his lip. The earth was hard and rocky, as gray as the mountains, with only a few tufts of spiky weeds poking up here and there to remind him mockingly of what grass had once looked like. He decided to push ahead. He would find a better place, if he just didn't fall.
His head still swam with images from the night before. The Witch's murder of the drugged soldier, the bloody lovemaking with her son, a
snowfever
petal clinging to her lip, a pink tongue gathering and drawing it into her mouth; these visions played over and over again in his mind.
There were other visions, too. Parendur at night, transformed into a kind of black, silent hell. The old man beaten to death in the street outside his home, and Innowen's killing of two of the attackers. He didn't like killing, and yet he had done that so easily.
Over it all lingered one other image, of himself, seen without benefit of a mirror, as only his mind could conjure it, in the Witch's armor, moving like a ghost through a sleeping city, among men who dared not look at him.
Minowee. He whispered the name in his mind, though he dared not speak it aloud, even so far from Parendur, for fear she might somehow hear. Minowee, he thought again, remembering how she had come to him out of the storm on a forest road long ago, remembering her as she had addressed him last night, covered in crimson, deep in the
feverdream.
He strove with all his understanding to reconcile the images.
The wind blew down from the peaks and rumpled his hair, brushed over his throat, teased his nipples to tiny erections. The sound it made as it whistled down out of the gray, lonely peaks was the sound of her name,
Minoweeeee.
"No!" Innowen shouted in sudden defiance, waving a hand before his face as if he might bat the wind away. "You won't possess me! I'm free of you now!"
He gripped the horse's mane tightly in both hands, tangling the reins in his fingers, and nudged the beast to a faster pace. He soon slowed again. With no feeling below his waist, he had no sense of a rider's rhythm, and the bouncing promised to unseat him no matter how he held on with his hands. He licked his lips and felt his breath quicken. An old sense of helplessness threatened him once more.
He rode carefully down one slope and up the next. At its summit, he paused. In the distance, a brown ribbon wound among the hills, all that remained of the Kashoki River, which originated at a point further ahead in the Akrotir foothills and flowed outward across the plains toward the heart of Ispor to join with the River Semene. In normal times, the Kashoki was a great and swift-running river. Now, there was very little water at all between its muddy banks.
A powerful thirst came upon him. He had neither wine nor water with him and had wet his mouth with nothing since that stolen sip from a soldier's bota in the palace courtyard. He steered his horse toward the river, cutting an angling course down the slope and hanging on with all his strength.
Overhead, birds circled in greater numbers, drawn by the river. Unlike the pair he had observed earlier, these were silent in their flight, as if a call or a song was too great an expenditure of energy. He heard them, though, heard the beat of their pinions, heard the rush of the wind through their feathers, and he envied them, who had no fear of falling.
He thought of her again, thought of the soldier's blood pumping onto her heaving, groaning body while Vashni rode her.
Innowen pushed the image violently from his mind, cursed her, and cursed himself. He had to concentrate to keep his balance. His arms were tiring rapidly from supporting all his weight, and his shoulders ached. It would only take a little mistake, and he'd wind up on the ground, flat on his back. What then? The birds above him weren't vultures, but it was easy to imagine they were.
The Kashoki River had dwindled to little more than a thin trickle. Innowen rode down an embankment onto a dry bed of sun-cracked mud. A swarm of gnats and flies buzzed up around his face suddenly. He waved a hand to drive them off. The silvery scaled remains of dead fish lay scattered about, half buried by the insects.
The ground became muddy as he approached the narrow ribbon of water. The tracks of other animals were visible, some still relatively fresh. At dawn and sundown, no doubt, this place teemed with life. He watched particularly for wolf-prints or signs of other predators.
The horse waded out into the river. It was only a stream now, barely deep enough to cover his fetlocks. The beast bent his head to drink, and Innowen nearly lost his seat again as the reins jerked in his hands. The horse didn't care. It was thirsty, and it lapped the water greedily.
Innowen, however, was faced with a problem. He couldn't get down to drink unless he let himself fall. If he did that, he wouldn't be able to mount again. He could smell the water, so close and yet so far, and his tongue rubbed against the dry roof of his mouth. He thought about his kilt. If he unwound it and dangled an end in the stream, he could soak up some water and suck it from the cloth. He didn't think he could do that without losing his balance on the horse. His breech cloth was useless for the same reason. Besides, he discovered when he felt it with a hand that it was saturated with the horse's lather. Possibly, too, with his own urine.
My belt, though, just might work.
Holding the reins in one hand and leaning on his mount's withers, he carefully recovered the two gold
cymorens
he had thrust down between the belt and his skin. These he also shoved into the fist that held the reins. Then, one-handed, he worked at the laces over his belly that held the belt in place. It was ridiculously hard work, as he seemed to be constantly teetering in the air, ready to plunge off. At last, he got it free.
He rested for a moment, putting his weight on both hands, before lowering himself slowly, cautiously forward until he was stretched out along the horse's neck. If the beast bucked up or tossed its head suddenly, it would unseat him for sure. But the smell of the water was too strong. He leaned down as far as he dared and dipped the end of his belt in the river and pulled it up.
He clung to the horse for balance now, one arm wrapped nearly around its long throat, as he raised the end of the belt to his lips. The droplets ran into his mouth, and his tongue strained to catch them all. They brought with them a muddy taste and the slightly bitter tang of leather and tanner's dye, but to Innowen nothing ever tasted so sweet or so good. He dipped the belt a second time and drank again.
It was a clumsy and arduous process, but he managed to refresh himself. At last, he pressed himself upright. He'd let the horse drink too much; he chided himself, as he struggled to wrap his belt around his waist. That only brought new frustration, for he couldn't do it with only one hand, not while the other had to hold the reins and the gold coins and keep his balance. Finally, muttering an oath, he tucked the belt between his thighs and the knot that tied the two bundles together. The coins he shoved down his breech cloth.
He had to find a place to sleep, or at least a place to rest, and he couldn't put it off much longer. Sooner or later, the horse was bound to misstep and throw him, or his own fatigue and carelessness would undo him. Better, instead, to find a safe spot and wait for the sunset to bring life back to his limbs.
He had planned the ride to Parendur with deliberate care, so there had always been a town or village or farm, someplace where he could rent a bed or beg a stable hayloft in which to sleep the day away. But he had fled Parendur in a panic. Only in the few brief moments he had spent atop a hill, watching the sun rise, feeling it warm his face as it chilled his legs, had he chosen a destination. No, not chosen.
Realized.
He'd realized where he'd been heading since leaving the Witch behind.
It was as if fate, a mightier river than the Kashoki had ever been, had swept him up in a current and carried him along. As if the gods of Ispor had set their hands on him and turned him where they wanted him to go.
But Innowen put little stock in fate or gods. If he wanted, he could turn his horse aside. He could choose another course and still find his way to Whisperstone.
He followed the foothills northward because he wanted to. It was his own morbid desire that drove him, nothing to blame on fate or gods.
He turned his left hand over and stared at the thin black streak just under the skin of his palm. The splinter no longer pained him unless he made a fist. It was an evil reminder, though, that a god had, in fact, touched him. What good was all his arrogance and disdain for the gods? He himself was proof of their power.
Still, he lifted his head, and something of a sneer flickered across his lips. None of it mattered. Whether it was his will, or the will of the gods, he knew where he was going.
* * *
Night descended softly, splendidly, over Ispor. The Crown of the Gods made a milky blaze across the sky, and in the north, the Great Scythe carved a lazy swath. In the south, the Red Beast clawed its way into the heavens; its curling tail, however, anchored it forever to the earth; the harder it strove, the brighter burned the single, bright crimson star, which scholars called Antarios, that made its head. Directly overhead, the Great Swan kept watch over the poor people of the earth and brought them a peaceful summer night's sleep.
Innowen felt some measure of that peace as he followed the Kashoki River northward. Life had returned to his legs again, and he had danced a slow and graceful dance high atop one of the Akrotir foothills as the earliest stars winked into view. It was for them he'd danced, and he'd called them by name, the ones he knew, conjuring them to appear, each in their proper places, to bejewel the night.
He had not slept, though. Perhaps that explained the languid peace that filled him. Or perhaps it was the gentle, rolling motion of the horse that lulled him. Maybe it was the easy trickling of the Kashoki as it purled between its banks. This far north, where the river flowed among the foothills, it carried more water than farther out on the plain where he had first drunk from it.
He had passed the afternoon in nervous watchfulness atop a high hill where he could see in all directions, afraid of wild animals, half afraid that the Witch might somehow find him. By now, she must know of her missing armor. She might have noticed the missing dolls. Perhaps she remembered the dream that had visited her in her sleep. Innowen had no clear idea of the extent of her powers, or if distance was any safeguard against her retaliation. He hadn't thought too much about it in the morning, when balancing on his horse without the benefit of his legs had taken most of his concentration. But in the afternoon, when he had hoped to rest, it had prevented him from ever closing his eyes.
He had decided it was a fear born out of his vulnerability, for as the use of his legs had returned to him, the fear had melted away. Now he thought mostly about his hunger, about his destination, and about the stars that burned so brilliantly, like lamps in the heavens to light his way, and he wished Razkili were at his side to see such stars.
The Great Scythe disappeared as the river took a sudden bend and cut deeper into the foothills. The Kashoki was still little more than a stream. A few good strides would take him to the opposite bank. But it was cleaner, unsullied by the mud of the plains. He stopped, took a drink and let his horse drink, then mounted again and continued onward.
The river led him into a shallow valley, and Innowen paused to study the village nestled there. Lamplights shone in the windows of some homes even at such a late hour, but most dwellings were utterly dark. He rode forward cautiously, nudging his horse with his heels, staying close to the river.
An abandoned pier rose on the opposite bank, and the corpses of broken boats lay scattered about it, half buried in the mud. Once, the Kashoki had been large enough for small boats to navigate, and goods had been shipped up and down the waterway. The drought had put an end to that.
Innowen steered his mount across the river—the water barely came to the horse's knees at its deepest point—and up the other embankment. The horse's hooves clattered loudly as he rode across the land-anchored end of the pier. A few bundles were still piled there, but it was too dark to see what they were, and he had no interest at all in the spilled contents of a pair of shattered barrels.
He followed the river, which flowed into the heart of the village. Empty warehouses rose up on his right side, their great doors open to any who cared to enter, or hanging crookedly on worn hinges. An arched stone bridge was a useless monument to the former greatness of the Kashoki. On his left, more boats lay piled up on the muddy shore, arranged neatly like the bodies of soldiers after a battle.