"Then I'm sure he didn't know I was there," I said confidently. "I've taught myself to be quiet and stealthy – you need to know how to act that way when you're a soldier, so that you can creep up on the enemy. But don't you see? The Jackal has made his lair in the cave! If we went there, we could ask the Jackal to make us his thieves, and we could begin fighting the Emorians now, before we became men."
"But the Jackal has been up north, harassing the Emorians who have settled in the conquered portions of Koretia," John said, a frown creasing his forehead. "Why would he be here?"
"Perhaps the Emorians are going to attack the capital next," I said in a matter-of-fact manner.
John stood very still, his empty dagger-hand hanging next to his free-man's blade. Seeing his face, I said hastily, "Don't worry – if that happened, I'd protect you. I wouldn't let the Emorians kill you."
"They'd kill other people," said John in a strained voice. "They'd kill lots of people, and if the city was captured, the Emorians would win the war. People are saying that our army can't hold out any longer in central Koretia – that the only reason our subcommander is still fighting is to keep the Emorians from reaching the capital."
"Well, they won't," I said, hastily grasping for words that would reassure John and prevent him from worrying about the merciless Emorian soldiers. "I heard a trader talking last night who had just come back from the north. He said that our army is continuing to hold the Emorians back and that the Chara is furious, because he has been fighting this war for twelve years now, and his army still can't reach the capital. The Chara thought he had won the war when he killed our King last autumn, but even with no one on the throne, the King's Council has been able to keep the war going. So there's no way that the Emorians will be able to attack the city any time soon."
John's expression eased somewhat, but he said, "The Emorians could cut across the border from Daxis. There are gaps in the mountain range not far from here."
"Daxis won't allow Emor to do that," I said patiently, drawing closer to John to place a reassuring hand on his. John had been standing in the sun all this while, and his skin was moist with the sweat that clothed all of us in the south from spring to autumn. I closed my palm hard over his loose hand, as though I were wrapping my hand around a dagger hilt, and said, "Koretia has an alliance with Daxis that forbids the Daxions from allowing passage to the Emorian army. And anyway, we have border guards at the mountain gaps who would raise the alarm if the Emorians came near. So the Emorians can't attack through Daxis from the south or the west, and unless the Chara has suddenly acquired a navy, his soldiers can't attack from the eastern sea-coast. And our army is holding the Emorians back in the north. So you see, we're quite safe from being conquered by that godless ruler."
John still had misery scribed upon his face, so I added, "I heard a new joke about the Chara."
John smiled tentatively. "Tell me."
"The joke asks: Which god does the Chara worship? The answer is: Only himself."
John laughed then, a laugh I heard so rarely that I had come to welcome it like a cool breeze on a heat-snared day. He said, "I learned something about the Chara today too, during my lessons. I learned all of his titles."
"What kind of lesson is that?" I asked, moving to where I could stare through the window to the city below. From this vantage point I could see the haphazard cluster of timber houses jammed into the tight noose of the block-and-mortar city wall. Toward the south end of the city, nearest to me, was the glowing face of the Council Hall, with its cavestone-paved courtyard shining like a gold piece under the sky's fire. Tiny figures moved back and forth over it like dust specks: lords or free-servants or slave-servants, going about their appointed tasks.
"It was a lesson in memorization. Listen to this . . ." John drew a deep breath and said, "Nicholas, the Great Chara of Emor and Its Dominions, Judge of the People, Commander of the Armies, Lord of the Marcadian Mountains, Ruler of the Arpeshian Nation, Master of the Koretian Land."
"Master of the Koretian Land!" This infuriated me so much that I jerked out my slingshot and flung a missile wildly through the window at nothing in particular. A bird squawked in protest, but I could see, as it flew past the window, that it had only lost a few of its tail-feathers, so I was not disturbed.
"Master of the Koretian Land." I snorted. "The Chara will never be master to me or any other loyal Koretian, not even if he wins this war. Now that the King is dead, our land belongs only to the gods. I can't see why Lovell made you memorize such a ridiculous set of titles."
"I was asking him about the Chara," John said, staring so pointedly at my slingshot that I thrust it back under my belt. "Lovell says that the Emorian council gave the Chara that last title this spring in anticipation of the end of this war. Lovell thinks Koretia should become a dominion of the Emorian Empire – I wanted to know why."
"May the Jackal eat his dead!" I said, losing hold of my temper entirely. "How could Lovell say such a thing?"
John's breath whistled in. "You shouldn't swear such words," he said softly. "It's not wise to call down the god's vengeance without reason."
"I'm sorry," I said, instantly chastened, as I always was when John scolded me. Then, wishing to make reparation, I said, "Well, tell me – what did Lovell say?"
"He said that the Emorians would end the blood feuds – that in the conquered areas of Koretia, the Emorians have forbidden men from making blood vows to murder, and because of this, whole families aren't wiped out while fighting each other in feuds."
I creased my brow in puzzlement. "But what about when somebody breaks the gods' law and refuses to submit himself to his god's judgment? How can people avenge crimes without taking blood vows to kill the law-breaker?"
John leaned against the window jamb, folding his arms and cocking his head to one side. The long hair of his boyhood brushed against his shoulder. Already he was talking of having it cut and going through the coming-of-age ceremony several years early. Somehow I had not been surprised to learn that John was eager to become a man.
"That's what I don't understand entirely," he said. "It has to do with one of the Chara's titles: 'Judge of the People.' Apparently, in Emor, the Chara and a few other men working under him are given the right to decide whether men have broken the law and what punishment they should undergo."
"But that's awful!" I exploded. "The Chara isn't a priest – the gods don't tell him whether their laws are broken. When we take a blood vow to murder, we know that the gods will punish us if we break our vows or fulfill our vows against the wrong people, but what's to prevent the Chara from punishing the innocent or giving law-breakers harsh punishments just because he doesn't like them?"
"That's what puzzled me," John replied. "Lovell said it had to do with the law – not the gods' law, but Emorian law. But he couldn't explain to me how the Emorians have laws when they have no gods. Some day I'd like to learn more about the Emorians. Maybe they're not as evil as everyone says. Maybe our lands don't have to be fighting each other."
"That's—!" I stopped. A look of quiet stubbornness had entered into John's eyes that I recognized well. Knowing that I would not win any battle I now waged, I graciously admitted defeat. "I suppose there must be
something
good about the Chara and his people, or they wouldn't have conquered most of the Great Peninsula. But Daxis is still free, and so is Koretia, and we'll never let the Chara be our ruler. We don't need his law. We have our gods, and they watch over us. Like the Jackal," I added, impatiently prodding the conversation back to where it belonged.
"The Jackal," John murmured. I could see the glint of interest in his eyes.
"He'd make us his thieves, I'm sure he would," I said. "Wouldn't that be a treasuresome experience, speaking to the god and pledging ourselves to his service?"
"I wouldn't want to kill anyone," John demurred. "I'm not sure it's right to kill a man."
"I don't suppose all of his thieves kill Emorians," I said. "Armies have men who don't fight, and I imagine that the Jackal does as well. Maybe he needs doctors to tend his thieves' wounds – you're good at that, thanks to your training."
I could see enthusiasm fighting across John's face in an attempt to defeat uncertainty, so I said, "We could just ask him. If he didn't want us, we'd go away, but at least we would have the chance to talk to a god."
"Well . . ."
In that single word I read a slip into assent. I leapt toward the door, shouting, "I'll race you to the cave!" Without looking back, I darted from the sanctuary, charged out of the gods' house, and began running down the northern slope of Capital Mountain, toward the cave entrance.
o—o—o
The impact of my leather sandals striking the forest floor was the softest noise on the mountainside. That sound was cowed into submissive silence by the force of the cicadas' song, the ravens' hoarse cries, and the harrowing call of a jackal who had started his night-prowl early.
I passed a patrol on the way. The dozen soldiers were sitting on logs, chatting with each other as they ate a mid-afternoon meal. They greeted me in a friendly manner with fingers against heart and forehead, and then continued their talk.
They did not look eager to return to patrolling. I could not blame them. Because it had been centuries since the Daxion army had last invaded us, and since most Daxions who tried to breach the border did so at the gaps on either side of this mountain, the patrol guards' main duty on this mountain was to track the Jackal, who was periodically rumored to make his lair near the city. They might as well track a shadow on a moonless night.
Many minutes later, as I neared the clearing that led to the mouth of the cave, I glanced over my shoulder to see whether John was following. He was close behind, making no effort to overtake me. My brief look nearly caused me to tumble over a log, but with a crow of laughter I jumped over the obstacle, spreading my arms like wings as I soared through the air. Then, in a very few steps, I could see the cave entrance.
Like the rest of Capital Mountain, it was composed of a pale sandstone too soft to be used as building material. The main cavern, I knew, was made of a stone that glowed a soft gold – not through any power of its own, but because of the algae that grew upon it. "Jackal's fire" the algae was commonly called. Yet beneath the algae, the stone was golden as well, and reflected brightly when brought into sunlight. This golden stone had been used to construct the walls and courtyard pavement of the Koretian Council Hall, though it was so hard to remove from the cave walls that most of the glowing stone had been left in the cave where it formed.
I flung myself behind the ridge of rock that partly obscured the entrance on both sides, and then stood on tiptoe and peered over the ridge to watch John run the remaining ground with easy grace. As he reached me, I turned toward the main tunnel. After an eternity of winding, the tunnel would eventually reach the main cavern. But John caught hold of my sleeve and said, "Wait."
"Why?" I asked, trying to pull myself free. Then I saw his face and ceased to struggle.
He said quietly, "I thought about it more while we were running. The stories always say that the Jackal summons his thieves into service. I've never heard of a case where anyone came to him and begged to be taken into his service. The Jackal knows who we are and what we have to offer. If he wants us as his thieves, he'll let us know."
"But you said before that his godly powers might not tell him everything, so—" I stopped. John had made no protest at my words, nor even moved, but the look in his eyes made me feel uneasy. I said quickly, "You know best about such matters. But couldn't we just watch him?"
"Spy on the god?" John gave a relaxed smile. "You're braver than I am. I wouldn't want to face the hunting god with explanations if he caught me in such an act. Come on, let's go to the sanctuary."
I shrugged to hide my disappointment and followed John as he slipped through the boy-sized hole that was hidden in a shadow of the hollowed-out entrance area. The light-truant passage that lay beyond the hole was a shortcut to the main cavern, but we rarely used it as such. It was not safe to do so.
The land of Daxis lay to the west and southwest of Koretia, with the Daxions' capital city on the south side of the mountain. The cave – actually a series of caverns that had been carved through the mountain by men long ago – ran north-south from Koretia to Daxis.
Both lands could see the strategic importance of the cave. Both wanted the cave. Various skirmishes had taken place over the centuries to determine who claimed this territory. At present, at least in theory, the cave was divided between the two southern lands of the Great Peninsula, with guards posted in the middle to prevent crossings over the border.
It made no difference. Though the Daxion guards were skilled at keeping back genuine border-breachers, they had a tendency to turn a blind eye to men who wished to slip temporarily over the border from Daxis in order to cause trouble within the cave. As a result, Daxion troublemakers were wont to drill arrows into Koretians that they found in any part of the cave.
The Koretian border guards in this cave, frustrated at their inability to prevent a conspiracy between the Daxion border guards and the troublemakers, were rumored to have called for a larger force of guards at this border. But the attention of the King's Council had for some time been focussed on the far more important border between Koretia and Emor, which was slipping south day by day.
In the meantime, the arrow-drilling continued. So John and I would usually stop halfway down the passage in an area that John had christened the sanctuary: a small, round nook, like a bead on the string of the passage. It was located directly under a breach between the mountainside and the passage, and it therefore received a bit of the sun's light.
It was here I had first met John two years before, on a day when I discovered the passage entrance, too small for a man and therefore of interest to no one except myself. Or so I had thought, until I reached the sanctuary. Furious at finding my new hideout claimed, I had offered to fight John for possession of the site, but had been discouraged to find that he both refused to fight and refused to leave. I had therefore taken out my frustration by asserting one of my radical new beliefs – that men, like women, should marry upon coming of age, rather than waiting several years, as was customary.