A Gathering Of Stones

4

He slammed down on the backward-facing seat of a closed carriage, a traveling gada, he thought. The woman settled herself opposite him, knocked on the window shutter beside her and braced herself as the gada started moving over a rutted track about as bad as any road he’d ever tried out. The gada swayed wildly enough to nauseate him, lurched and jolted even though the team that drew it was moving at a walk.

He was stiff, cold, filthy, half-starved, and half-crazy with thirst.

On top of that, he was a brittle shell of himself and his body was already beginning the slow agonizing death of the unsouled.

He sat staring at the veiled woman without really seeing her, trying to work out his next move.

Somehow he had to get hold of Massulit and take his souls back with his own hands.

Oath or no oath, he couldn’t trust any of them to leave him alive once they had Shaddalakh.

Massulit and Shaddalakh. What talisman did they send Brann after? That at least was clear to him. Someone, something, was gathering the Great Stones.

Who? And did it matter?

All knowledge mattered. How could he plan without a basic piece of information like that?

He scowled at the woman. Geniod?

Who or what were geniod?

Kin to the demons his Master had controlled. Yes. That he’d believe.

He passed his hand across his face, his dehydrated palm rasping across the dry leathery skin. No stubble, thank his unknown father for that and the M’darj absence of face hair.

The geniod woman wore the gauzy voluminous trousers, the tight bodice and silken head veil of a Jorpashil courte-

san, having acquired all of these in mid-passage between the cavern and the carriage. She swept the veil aside, let him see her astonishingly beautiful face, skin like cream velvet, brilliant blue-green eyes, hair the color of dark honey falling about her face in dozens of fine braids threaded with amber beads that matched the amber lights the lamps on the carriage wall woke in that honey hair. There was nothing to tell Maksim’s ordinary senses or his sorceror’s nose that she was demon, not mortal. He found that astonishing also. She smiled and lowered her eyes; one lovely tapering hand played with the amber beads that fell onto the swell of her breasts. She was a superb artifact, a perfect example of what she pretended to be. He suppressed a smile. If she was supposed to be an added inducement, that was one mistake they’d made. Perhaps because I’ve been living with Brann, he thought. Something else I owe my Thomlet.

He thought about that Thing on the Throne and decided he’d been too precipitous in accepting appearances. He settled himself to endure his physical hardships. I’ll beat the bastards yet.

The geniod stopped smiling when he didn’t respond. She took a fur rug from the seat beside her and tossed it to him. “Wrap this around you and stop shivering,” she said. “You look like a simm kit in a wetfall.”

He eased the rug around him and sighed with pleasure as warmth began to spread through his battered body. A moment later the carriage swung about and climbed at a steep angle; it turned again and seemed to glide along. Road, he thought, some kind of highroad with a metalled surface. It was like being in a cradle; the sway was steady and soothing. He began to feel sleepy; his eyelids were so heavy he could barely keep them lifted.

“Stay awake,” she said; she kicked his shin hard enough to draw a grunt from him. “Listen. My name is Palami Kumindri. I am Chuttar of the first rank.”

“Courtesan,” he murmured.

“Yes. I’m taking you into Jorpashil. You will not speak to anyone while you’re there, not to people in the street, not even to my servants. I have my choice of lovers, Settsiuiaksimin, and I choose the most powerful and they do whatever I ask of them; they will not believe anything you say about me, they will have your head off before you get two words out. Remember that. Yes?”

“Yes.” Maksim wondered drowsily why she was saying any of this; she was powerful enough to lay down her own rules for what was, after all, her game. He was too sleepy to ask.

“My doulahar is on the edge of the Kuna Coru. Yes, I have a doulahar and it is larger and richer than any other in all of Jorpashil. I have gardens and slaves enough to keep them groomed. I am rich, Settsimaksimin. And I am going to be richer. I am powerful, Settsimaksimin, and I am going to be more so. We are going to my doulahar, Settsimaksimin, slave.” She played with her hairbeads and watched him like a cat with aquamarine eyes. “Take note of my doulahar, slave; that’s where you will bring the talisman.”

“I hear.” Maksim struggled to make his mind work through the waves of sleep. Not to the cavern? Are they going to bring Massulit into that house so they can resoul me? Maybe they’re not even going to make a pretense of keeping their oath. Can’t think. My brain is like stale mush.

She left him alone after that and he slept until her servants were hauling him out of the carriage, taking no pains to be gentle about it. He stumbled into the room she assigned him and fell on the bed. In minutes he was drowned in sleep.