A Gathering Of Stones

2

A persistent tickle woke her, something brushing again and again against her face. Shining like a ghost in the darkness, Ailiki scampered away as Korimenei sat up. The air was so cold it was knives in her lungs; the silence was spectral. She could hear her heart beating; Ailiki moved a foot and she could hear the faint scratch of the mahsar’s claws in the dirt. “What is it, Aili?”

The mahsar flicked her tail and pushed past the piece of canvas used as an inadequate seal to the shelter, a door of sorts; Korimenei hastily crafted a tiny will-o, set it up against the roof canvas so she could see what she was doing. Not relishing the thought of going outside, she pulled on her bootliners, boots, gloves, a sweater and her coat, wrapped a scarf about her neck and head and crawled reluctantly after Ailiki.

The wind had quit. Snow fell like feathers. There was already half an inch on the ground. “I suppose this means the festival is over,” she said aloud.

Ailiki clattered her teeth and lolloped off, looking over her shoulder now and then to see if Korimenei was following her.

When they reached the cliff edge, Korimenei dropped onto her knees and looked down. The canyon was as dark and silent as the slopes behind her. “How many hours till dawn?”

Ailiki drew three scratches in the snow, contemplated them a moment, then added a fourth, half the length of the others.

“Three and a half. Good. That’s time enough. Aili, I’m going to start down, you fetch the fake, will you?”

Following the glimmering Ailiki, Korimenei groped through the scattered corrals and barns, then past the line of long-houses, making her way to the small sod but off by itself where the Rushgaramuv shaman had gone to sing over his sacred fires, where he’d slept the past several nights, dreamwalking for the clan. She’d watched several women bring him his meals there, wives or female kin, she supposed. None of them went inside. The Siradar and his Elders made a ceremonial visit to the but on the first day of the rites; his headwife and the clan matrons went the next day. Now that the rites were finished… Gods! maybe he’d already moved back, it was snowing, the longhouses would be a lot warmer…

The snow fell thick and silent, soft as down against her skin until it melted, turning in an instant chill and harsh, leaching the warmth out of her. She followed Ailiki past the dance floor to the giant oak where the but was; it was very much like the dance ground in Owlyn Vale where she’d pranced the seasons in and out with her cousins under the guidance of the Chained God’s priest and AuntNurse Polatea, though the Valer’s celebrations were a lot more decorous than those she’d just witnessed. She frowned. Like all the other children she’d been sent to bed at sundown, maybe the decorum vanished with them. She shook her head. This wasn’t the time for such things. Hold hard, woman, she told herself. Stray thoughts mean straying emanations, you don’t want the old man waking.

She crept closer to the but and listened at the leather flap that closed off the low, square entrance hole. Snores. He was inside, all right, and very much asleep from the sound of it. She leaned against the sods and did a cautious bodyread of the man inside.

He was drugged out of his mind; a herd of boghans could stomp across him and he wouldn’t notice.

“Liki,” she murmured, “brighten up a bit, mmh⁹”

She lifted the flap and followed the mahsar inside. The air was hot and soupy with a mix of herbs and sweat and ancient urine; there was a small peat fire in a brazier putting out more smoke than heat; half that smoke was incense and the other half came from the remnants of the dried herbs that sent the shaman into his stupor. He was curled up on a pile of greasy leathers, snoring. He had some Talent, she’d smelled that on him from the cliff, but not much. Even if he woke, and found her here, he was no threat.

In spite of that, she was wary as she crawled over to him, shields up and as much I’m-not-here as she could smear over herself. Her precautions would’ve been pathetic if she’d been moving on Maksim, or even on the Shahntien, but it was good enough for this man.

He wore his torbaoz on a thong about his neck, an oiled leather pouch the length of her forearm. She touched it, pulled her hand back when his snore broke in the middle. She touched it again. He seemed uneasy, but he didn’t wake. Right, she thought, if I’m going to do it, better do it fast.

She memorized the knot, got it untied. After spreading the neck of the torbaoz, she dipped two fingers into the mess inside, felt the cool nubbiness of the silver chain. She got a finger hooked through it and began drawing it and what it held out of the pouch. The snores went on, more sputter to them now; there was a restlessness in the old man’s sleep that warned her she’d better hurry. He groaned but still didn’t wake as she freed Frunzacoache from a dried bat wing and some stalks of an anonymous plant; the exhaustion from six nights’ rituals were like chains on him.

She hung Frunzacoache around her neck, slipping it down inside her shirt to rest like a warm hand between her breasts, surprised at the temperature because the talisman was silver and crystal, neither of them welcoming to naked flesh. She took the copy she and Ailiki had made and eased it into the torbaoz, pushing it well down among the rest of the ritual objects. When she was satisfied with its set, she pulled the cords tight and worked the ends into as close a match to the original knot as she could manage. Waving Ailiki before her, she crawled from the hut.

The cold outside stunned her. A wind was rising, blowing snow into her face. Her elbows and her knees were like iced-over hinges; they’d break if she bent them. Ailiki came back to her, nuzzled her, sent a surge of fire through her that woke Frunzacoache from its passivity. The talisman spread warmth along her body, heated her joints enough to help her creak onto her feet. Walking eased her yet more. She followed Ailiki’s spriteglow through the blowing snow, stumbling past longhouses still dark and sodden with sleep, past corrals filled with white humps where sheep and oxen, geykers and boghan lay, down the treeless flats to the mouth of the canyon.

The climb to her camp was easier than she expected. The wind was at her back instead of blowing in her face, Ailiki shone like a small yellow sun so she could see where to put her feet and Frunzacoache radiated warmth through her body. She had little time for thinking as she struggled up the treacherous slopes, only enough to wonder at the bonding between her and the talisman; as soon as it settled against her it was as if it had always been there.

Tres eidolon appeared before her as she crawled into the shelter. “Well?”

She crouched on the groundsheet and stared at him. “I have it,” she said finally. “How long is this snow going to last?”

When he spoke, his mindvoice was flat and dull, scraped down to bone. He was answering her for one reason only, his report would get her to him faster. No, not her, the talisman. “It will be finished around sunup. The wind will blow hard after the snow stops falling, but you can ride in it; you had better ride in it, it will cover your tracks. It will drop after an hour or so, but there will be gusts of cold damp air, the kind that eat to the heart. You need to watch the ponies, do not override them. There is a road of sorts going south through the foothills, the Vanner Rukks use it in spring and summer, but they have settled for the winter so you will not see them. If you follow the road and make fair time you should reach a Gsany Rukk village by sundown. You can shelter for the night in the CommonHouse and buy more grain and tea there, they keep a supply for winter travelers. After that, you will have a week of clear, cold weather, then the next storm hits. You had better find shelter for that one, it is going to be a three-day blizzard; there are several Gsany villages close together, so you will have a choice of where to spend the waiting time. Come as quickly as you can, sister, I am very weary of this state.” The eidolon shimmered and was gone.

Korimenei sighed. “Well, Aili my Liki, looks like nothing’s changed. I’ll be happier’n he is when this is over. Every time I see him, I feel like he’s clawed me.” She smoothed her hand down the front of her coat, then scratched behind the mahsar’s ears. “We’ll go somewhere warm and friendly, my Aili, and wait for my daughter to be born.”