Stonewiser (11 page)

“That's progress, I suppose. Why would you kill someone you like, I wonder?”

“’Cause I swore to.”

“Makes sense.” Sariah resumed her stitching. “Oaths I understand.”

“You do?” The woman seemed perplexed.

“Of course I do. I'm a stonewiser. Do cheer up, Delis. At least you're alive. It's something to celebrate, isn't it?”

The woman dismissed her with a muted
tsk
.

“Here's something I don't understand. If you were sent to kill me, why did you give me that stone to use against the mob the other day?”

“’Cause I'
m
supposed to kill you,” Delis said.

She was an odd one, earnest in an impalpable way, yet grim. Sariah was glad Kael had checked the knots on Delis's ties before he left to find the forester's post. She calculated the time. It was early afternoon. He had left at first light, if one could call the green grayness of this day such. Sariah worried, especially because he had left without a deck, claiming he was well weaved and could take refuge on the woods’ buttress roots if necessary. The Domain was an unforgiving place even when you wandered it with a deck. If something happened to him…

He would be fine. He had promised. He should be there by now, hopefully safe and talking to his friend, warming himself against a real wood fire, with a cup of hot spiced wine between his hands and a generous bowl steaming in front of him. She found herself salivating at the thought. Delis interrupted her pleasant musings.

“There's a way,” she said.

“A way to do what?”

“A way for me not to kill you.”

Sariah was curious. “And what would that be?”

“An oath over an oath.”

“Would that be like a nail taking out another nail?”

She wouldn't call it quite a smile, but the twitch on Delis's lips was the next best thing.

“I'm of the Inkes. You know the Inkes?”

Not really, but Sariah nodded politely.

“We live by the three oaths. First oath, kin. Second, more important, craft. I'm an executioner. If I had to kill my father I would, because second oath trumps first oath.”

“Very interesting.”

“Third oath is over second oath. Third oath is to…” she struggled to find the right word.

“To a lease maybe?” Sariah tried to help.

“No, not to a lease. You would have to be
Inkes-donatis
in the old language. Donnis.”

“Donnis?” Sariah consulted her memory for any mention of the strange word in the stone tales. “I don't know donnis. Sorry. Is it like an oath of friendship maybe?”

“Friendship?” The woman smiled, the first true smile she had offered since they met. “Sort of like friends, but not quite, although sometimes it is so.”

Delis and her Inkes were surely the strangest people Sariah had encountered. “I don't suppose it would be an easy matter to become donnis and end your quest to kill me?”

“Easy, yes. If Delis wants, Delis does. And Delis wants.”

Something about the woman's intensity warned Sariah. “It's not like a lease, right? Because I quit my lease some time ago and I don't intend to live like that ever again.”

Delis growled like an irritated weasel. “I said no lease.”

“Watch your temper, will you?”

“Will you be my donnis?”

She had deep reservations. Delis didn't strike her with her good manners or her unwillingness to explain. “Perhaps it's not such a good idea—”

“Decide.”

Sariah's own dirk was at her throat. Delis's ties were gone. She had Sariah pinned down against the buttress roots. How?

Delis must have been working on her ties all day, rubbing the rope against the deck, taking advantage of Kael's absence and Sariah's sloppy good will. She had lessened her vigilance because she believed that, despite her claims to the opposite, the woman was grateful for her help. She had been wrong.

“Decide,” Delis said. “Now.”

The fanged dirk was cold against her throat. Sariah didn't want to swallow for fear of cutting herself. “You don't want me to swear to something I don't understand.”

“If you don't swear, you die.”

“I won't honor an oath under duress.”

“But I will.”

The blade tickled Sariah's mad pulse. A drop of liquid warmth trickled down her neck. The fog parted to reveal the tall tupelo towering above her, branches swaying with a sudden breeze. For four hundred chills the massive tree had survived the rot, defying destruction through accommodation with its lethally changing environs. Under the circumstances, it was a lesson worth noting, even though Sariah didn't think she could stomach accommodation over defiance just then.

“Swear.” The woman was shaking like the tupelo's sparing leaves. “I don't want to kill you, kitten, but I will if I must.”

Sariah saw the pain in the other woman's eyes, the ingrained sense of duty prevailing over will, the settlement with death, even when death was not desired. She knew the meaning of blind obedience. She understood duty's clash with choice.

“Please? Swear. For me?”

Despite the bile churning in her gut, despite herself, Delis's plea, her familiar pain, trumped Sariah's resolve. “Fine. Have it your way. I swear. To what, who knows, but don't expect me to like it. The blade is no substitute for a free oath, but you know that.”

“You swore.” Delis dropped the dirk. “You'll live.”

Delis hugged her, a violent squeeze that wrenched the breath out of Sariah. She planted a sudden kiss on her lips. “You won't regret your oath, my donnis. I promise.”

By Meliahs. A kiss and an oath. A troublesome combination by any measure. Just in case, Sariah grabbed her dirk from the floor and tucked it securely in her belt.

“You what?” Kael stared at Sariah in disbelief. “The bitch did what?”

“Calm down, Kael, it all has come to naught. I'm fine and Delis is happy, and we won't have to worry about her killing me anymore. Isn't that right, Delis?”

“Of course, my donnis,” Delis said, oddly adoringly.

Kael met Delis's defying stare. “You and I. Our day is coming.”

“I'm not afraid of you.” Delis bared a row of crowded teeth. “You're but an old wasp hanging about the hive seeking to gorge on honey.”

“And I suppose you're the honey bee?” Kael said.

Delis was on her feet and ready to pounce.

Sariah snapped. “Stop it, you two.”

“As you wish, my donnis.” Delis sat back on her haunches, eyeing Kael dangerously.

Kael eased out of his fight stance and turned to Sariah. “Did you really—?”

“Aye, but the oath is of no practical consequence and all is well.”

“Ah.” Kael shook his head as if dispelling a cloud of the Domain's worse gnats. “Of no practical consequence, you say? Hardly. All is not well, not with you, not with her, and certainly, not with me.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“What's a donnis, Sariah?”

“Oh, that. Well, I don't really understand the notion, but I gather it's something harmless, like a friendship oath, some trick of the Inkes’ oath order which frees Delis from her duty to kill me.”

“Harmless, you say?”

“Can't you see Delis is no longer our enemy?”

“You mean
your
enemy?”

Had the man turned daft and blind at the same time? “She's no longer a threat to us. She won't harm me. Or you. Won't you, Delis?”

“Of course not, my donnis. Not as long as you wish the old wasp unharmed.”

It was hardly an assurance, but it was better than none.

Kael insisted. “Tell me again, Sariah. Do you know what a donnis is? Do you have cause to know the ways of the Inkes?”

“Not really.”

“On both counts?”

“On both counts.”

The terrible frown lifted from his brow. His mood lightened and the wicked grin made its notorious appearance. He was acting stranger than a tomcat with burnt whiskers.

“Sit, wiser.” He pulled her down on his lap. “I won't have you kick the bitch to death.”

“She's my donnis,” Delis protested.

Kael fired his most contemptuous glare. “You didn't tell Sariah what she should have known before she swore you that mockery of an oath. And you would have killed her. That's enough evil for me.”

“Whatever is wrong with you?” Sariah said.

“The old tongue is a tricky language,” he said. “There isn't a word that fairly translates the term
donnis
to our speech. However, there is one word in our language which most people readily comprehend and does justice to such a notion. Do you know what it is?”

“Obviously, no.”

“Would you like to tell the wiser, Delis?”

Delis sank in her heels, averting her eyes from Sariah.

“Delis?” Sariah was suddenly alarmed.

“
Pet
,” Kael spat. “The correct translation for the word
donnis
is ‘pet.’”

Nine

 

S
ARIAH FINISHED KNOTTING
the last of the thickly pleated weave warps to the lower beam. She ran her hands through the tightly strewn warps and tested them for strength. Good. They were tight and sturdy. Her hands ached, her fingers were chapped and blistered, and her fingertips were numb, but instead of taking a rest, she turned her attention to the other side of the frame where Kael had just finished cutting the notches into the side beams. She threaded the first horizontal row through the upper notch and began plaiting it over-and-under the vertically strewn warps, tightening the weft with short, angry pulls.

Kael took a long draft from his new leather flask, a gift from his friend, the forester. “That will make a fine wall for the new deck when you're done with it. Shame you'll have only shreds of your hands left for your wisings.”

“I want this damn wall finished and the deck done. We've wasted enough time as it is. At this pace, Leandro will die of old age in his atorium's bed.”

“Have a drink.” Kael handed her the flask. “It's hotter than a rot pit today.”

Sariah choked on the lukewarm ale. “Ugh. It's like drinking soup. How can it be this hot? Just a few days ago, we were freezing. I know the weather is whimsical in the Domain, but this is ridiculous.” Sariah capped the flask and returned it to Kael. “I just hope it doesn't get cold again. We need to reach Leandro with all haste.”

“We will.” Kael took a warp from the lot and threaded the next notch down from the one Sariah was working on. “The shelter will be done as soon as we install this last wall. And now that we have a good deck, we can travel faster.”

Sariah took stock of their work thus far. Three walls rose in the middle of the new deck. A half-thatched roof rested beside the frame of the last wall, now in progress. The fragrant scent of recently cut wood perfumed the air, a lovely reprieve from the flat's acid smell.

“The forester was very kind,” she said, resuming her work. “No one I know at the Guild would have given us a brand new deck and the fixings to build a shelter without a good amount of coin or a hefty debt.”

“The forester is an old friend,” Kael said, without looking up from his task. “We've had our share of adventures together.”

“Friendship, the next best thing to kin in the Domain.”

“What's the matter with her?” Kael had stopped working and was now squinting into the flats, sheltering his eyes from the sun with a hand over his sweaty brow.

“Her?” A frantic Delis was running toward them. “I couldn't care less.”

“I don't see traces of eels or rotfish,” Kael said, “and I don't smell the belch either. What's wrong with her?”

“Her head,” Sariah said crossly. “Anyone who collects you know what for a living is wrong in the head.”

“Donnis?”

“Don't even say it.”

Sariah was still furious. Kael had taken to assigning Delis tasks like foraging for food and water, keeping her away from Sariah. Surprisingly, Delis complied, eyeing her with a hint of supplication in her eyes, as if teaching her newest pet the virtue of obedience through devout example. Well, let her demonstrate all she wanted. She was no one's damn pet.

As if reading her thoughts, Kael flashed his wickedest grin. Sariah stuck her tongue out at him. He chuckled, but she wasn't confusing his equanimity with tame acceptance. Sariah was unconvinced by his behavior. Although he acted amused by the situation, he also refused to allow her to probe him. What dark emotions stirred beneath his calm demeanor?