Shadow Gate

17

The Barrens were a dry and brutal place, thoroughly unpleasant. Kcshad winced as he walked down to the shore of the Olo'o Sea. The air stank, and his eyes watered, but the tears came mostly because of the stabbing pains in his buttocks and thighs.

'You're not accustomed to riding.' Captain Anji halted on a slick shelf of rock lapped by oily water.

'I was a slave,' said Kesh irritably. 'Slaves walk, or at least they do in the Hundred.'

'Yet you walked south over the Kandaran Pass many times in order to trade, and returned safely each time. That suggests you are hardier than you act, and smarter than your sulks and dagger's tongue make you appear.'

Kesh eyed the Qin captain in the last light of the day, with the sun pouring light across the calm salt sea. Anji was a* man of medium height, with the coloring and broad cheekbones common to his Qin tribesmen but a sharp-hooked nose more usually seen among the Sirniakans of the empire. He intimidated Kesh far more than his old master, Feden, ever had, because while Feden had been a tyrant, a man of pouts and rages, he was also a man whose pouting and raging made him vulnerable. As he had been in the end, for the price he had paid for selling out Olossi to the northern army was his own life.

Anji had none of those weaknesses. Kesh was sore not so much because they had been traveling for ten days but because they had pushed on, with a string of mounts for each man, at such a blistering pace. He was rubbed raw in places he did not want to think about. But in this group he would never dream of complaining. Under Anji's leadership, no one complained. They just got on with it.

Now they were many days' ride west of Olossi, having rounded the southern limit of the Olo'o Sea and ridden north into the Barrens with the land-locked sea stretching away to the east and the jagged Spires rising abruptly in the west. Broken tableland bridged the transition between mountains and water.

'You can't farm this land,' said Kesh. 'Not like that estate on the West Spur we stopped at. At least that had a substantial olive grove.' He crouched, drew a finger across flat rock, and tasted the substance on his tongue. It was oily, salty, and entirely nasty. He spat. 'But there are unexploited seeps of oil of naya everywhere in this region, if hard to reach and transport.'

'There's enough grass for sheep and goats to graze. Streams coming down out of the mountains, and other sources of water to be channeled. There may be water and forage enough for horses and even cattle, maybe even fields.' The captain scanned the landscape. 'Maybe a spring is hidden out there.'

They had left West Spur days ago and ridden north-northeast on

a cart track past a few villages and hamlets so isolated that everyone had come to stand at the side of the track to watch fifty Qin soldiers ride past. The locals had been wary, but not scared; as the local experts in oil of naya and pitch, they didn't expect trouble, even from foreigners.

More fools they, thought Kesh. The Qin could have slaughtered them without breaking a sweat.

'There's no one living this far out,' added Anji. 'I haven't even seen herdsmen with flocks.'

'All the villages we passed trade in oil and pitch. There are enough seeps and sinks south of here to keep them in livelihood. I'm sure traders send expeditions into this region occasionally, but it's difficult to transport.' Kesh shaded his eyes. 'If you keep riding north, if there's a path, which I doubt there is, you'll eventually reach the valley of the River Ireni. Ten or twenty days' walk, I'm not sure.'

Anji indicated the sea. 'Has no one thought of sailing from here to Olossi?'

'Trade over the water is expensive to maintain, and anyway there's nothing much to trade. There's a route that runs overland from Olossi around the eastern shore of the sea and then north through the valley of the River Ireni, that I just mentioned. Heaven's Ridge and the Spires meet northwest of there. It's possible to travel over the hump from there into the land beyond the Hundred, the white-grass plains, but it's so dry out there that no one goes that way except to trade with the barbarians – eiya! – that is, the folk who live on the plains.'

'Like the Qin.' That quirk in his lips was Anji's way of showing amusement.

Kesh found himself smiling. 'Like the Qin. Horses, hides, steel, gems, slaves.' The wind off the mountains brought a chill that crawled along his shoulders. He shuddered, thinking of the ghost girl he had brought out of the southern desert. 'I heard there are tribes of demons on the plains. You can tell them by their blue eyes and white-grass hair.'

Anji looked away from Kesh, and something about the way his shoulders stiffened and his jaw moved slightly, as though he was swallowing hatred, made Kesh wonder what the Qin captain was

thinking. 'Plenty of demons. We Qin have battled demons for generations.'

Caution stilled Keshad's tongue. The oily film oozed and bubbled on the rocks, and the smell hit so hard it was like tasting. Then a wave of salt water washed the edge of the shelf, changing the composition of the liquid, and the stink eased.

Anji said, 'You know a great deal about the trading routes in and around the Hundred.'

'How much I know might depend on what it's worth to me.'

Anji's smile made Kesh shiver. 'Your sister's life and freedom, perhaps?'

'You have no control over that!'

'Is that so? The Hieros placed you in my custody, and in my custody you'll remain until the transaction is complete. Yet what can you do? You're not a soldier, a farmer, a herdsman, a craftsman, a poet to weave songs and tales. A man who contributes nothing to the tribe is worthless. If he has his own tent and herd, he may survive on his own, but if hard times come – and they always do – he'll need the support of his kinsmen. You and your sister are alone, without tent or herds. That leaves you vulnerable.'

'Do you want something from me? Just say so!'

The sun set behind the mountains. A fire burned where the Qin soldiers had set up camp. Two guardsmen waited close by, arms crossed and shoulders slumped in a posture that to the untrained eye might appear as boredom, but Kesh knew from experience that the men who guarded Anji never relaxed.

Nor did Anji.

'You may carry an accounts bundle that marks you as a man freed of this debt obligation you Hundred folk call slavery. But a man is not free if his heart is not free. It seems to me, Keshad, that you are always carrying your chains. You trust no man because you cannot trust yourself.' He began to walk carefully along the rock shelf toward drier ground beyond.

Kesh hurried after him, sliding once, arms flailing, and righting himself. 'Why should I trust any man? What man has ever done right by me, or tried to do anything but exploit me?'

Anji's boots crunched on gritty earth. He flashed a grin over his shoulder for no reason Kesh could fathom. 'That's the first sensible

thing I've heard you say since we rode out on this expedition. Trust no man. No man except one who holds honor higher than his own life.'

'Where can I find a man like that?' demanded Kesh.

A cool wind chased down from the heights. The fading light cast a warm glow over peaks whose ragged contours were softened by the change of light. Over the sea, scraps of cloud drifted into shadow, but here there was no rain.

'Where, indeed? "How?" is the question you should ask.'

A spark can touch off a conflagration. Kesh boiled with anger, not even knowing why. 'What makes you think there is a single honorable person in this world?'

The press of darkness swept over them, the bright fire their only beacon in an empty land. Anji spoke in a quiet voice that was nevertheless perfectly clear.

'Because I am married to her.'