Shadow Gate

25

'Forbidden you talk to these ones,' the old man said, taking hold of her mare's reins and drawing her away from the herd of captive boys before she could question them about their names, their tribes, their circumstances.

He set strict rules. She must ride in the front beside the old man and his younger associate all day as they plodded through the flat lands of the old lake bed. What grass there was snapped clean, and the vegetation bristled with thorns. The soggy swales where they watered stank of mildew and sour breath. Mostly the old man did

not speak to her, letting her ride in silence, which suited her bleak mood. He made cursory attempts to teach her words of demon language, although she wondered what the use of that was, since he could speak human speech.

Each evening when the caravan laid up for the night, he had his servants heat water in a copper tub – a most remarkable and luxurious item – which was set into a corner of his traveling tent and concealed by curtains. There, she must strip naked and wash herself by lantern light. That wasn't so bad, since dust settled everywhere and she liked to be clean.

The third night, hearing soft, grunting noises, she realized someone was watching her through a gap in the curtains. She splashed out of the tub and yanked the curtain aside.

There sat the old man, sitting relaxed on a stool with a look of calm appraisal on his face, and the young one, who was disheveled with trousers down by his knees and his left hand clutched tightly around his hard red member. Which spurted its milk, just then, as he groaned and gasped and grimaced, staring at her with a bold gaze that made her skin creep.

So stunned was she by this bizarre behavior that she stood there and gaped until the fat man, who was fussing with a pot by the entrance, gave a deep sigh and hurried over to push her back into the little alcove.

'Don't touch me!'

He snorted, a curt laugh. 'I am cut. No man parts.' He gestured to his groin. 'I not touch you. No love desire. Now, be good girl, be quiet. Be finish. Or the old master hit you.'

The next night, she was led again to the curtained tub.

'I won't do it! It's demeaning.'

The old man slapped her so hard it staggered her. 'You my servant. You do it.'

Shaking, she stripped off her jacket, then halted, because he still stood there. 'Go.'

He said, 'No. You do what thing I say.' He raised the hand he had hit her with, showed her the reddened palm.

The Orzhekov girl had been right to warn her. In demon land, anything could happen, the laws of the gods turned onto their

heads, made mock of, stripped and demeaned. How had she been so stupid as to believe it would be otherwise?

As she took off her clothes, he watched her not with sexual desire but with a different and no less intense desire, one she saw on the faces of small-minded women who saw their rivals wearing more golden jewelry than what they themselves possessed. When she was naked, he studied her as if she were horseflesh. He examined her rump, sidled around to scrutinize her flower, and frowned, and smiled, and rose, all without touching her.

'Now you bathe.' When he parted the curtain to go into the other section of the tent, she saw the younger one waiting there, already untying his trousers, and two other men beside him, their eager faces greasy with lust.

Furious, she stood in the tub and bathed herself, and this time she heard the grunts and their release clearly, as if the men had nothing to hide.

That night, she scraped away dirt to open a gap under the taut hem of the staked tent. She rolled off the pallet on which she slept, pulled what gear was left her against her torso, and squeezed into the open air. She squirmed on her stomach between tents and under wagons to the horse lines. It was easy to pick out the pretty mare. She whispered and coaxed her way along the lines without disturbing the other horses, and whispered and coaxed her way beyond the lines with the mare trusting her enough to come along after. The guards had fires lit at the van and rear, but the center remained murky. She led the mare out without being noticed, and for a long time they walked. Even out of the sight of camp they walked slowly because there wasn't much more than a quarter moon shining over the pale earth. The mare was uncomfortable walking in such poor light, but she trusted Kirya enough to attempt the journey. Anyway the ground was so flat that mostly they had only to avoid the occasional snackling stand of thorny brush and the seams and cracks that rutted the earth.

She heard the horns before dawn. There was, of course, nowhere to hide, so as soon as the landscape turned from night to gray she swung up on the mare and pushed westward. Dust soon coated her face and her tongue. The mare had a strong disposition and an eager heart, and for a while Kirya thought she might manage her

escape, but the old man sent the Qin soldiers after her with spare mounts, and if anyone could ride as well as a tribeswoman, it was their old enemy, the Qin.

In the end, when they caught up and surrounded her, she was too proud to weep or struggle. They did not laugh or show any sign of triumph. They kept their distance and offered her some dignity, that she might ride the blown mare slowly back to the caravan.

When they rode up to the tail of the caravan, every man there who could, turned to watch as the old man rode out to meet them. He had a whip in his hand. He slashed her across the shoulders so hard she screamed from the shock as pain cut deep. But even dizzied and stunned, she did not fall from the mare's back.

Not until he brought the whip down a second time, and a third and fourth and fifth and more. The pain of lashing washed her entire body and her hands went numb and her legs lost all feeling. She tumbled to the ground, and struck her head.

A silver mist, sparkling with bright flecks of burning ash, swallowed her in its pale wings. She blacked out.

Vomiting, she came to, the vile liquid spitting down her chin. She was splayed on her stomach on the hard floorboards of one of the wagons. Sun shone in her eyes, making her gag and retch.

The young man was yelling at the old man. 'Yah yah yah! Yah yah yah!'

The old one shouted back. 'Yah yah yah! Yah yah yah!'

The wagon shifted as the young man clambered up and tugged at her felt jacket, then grabbed the waistband of her trousers and yanked.

She kicked. The old man connected with the whip, and the crack made her wheeze with fear and pain, only it hadn't hit her. The young one shrieked, gabbling, and the old man yahhed furiously. The curtain dropped, cutting off the painful light, and she was left alone. Her head throbbed so badly. Men yelled in the distance, echoing and buzzing.

The wagon lurched forward. She coughed and spat, and her insides clenched. Bile spewed. Ashamed of her weakness, she wept.

She slipped out of sleep in a drowsy half-awareness. A wagon rocked beneath her with the comforting rhythm of home. Except

the air smelled wrong, too dusty, too bitter. Iron braces shackled her wrists. Tugging, she came up short like a hobbled horse. What nightmare was this?

When she opened her eyes, a sea of cloth billowed around her. Her stomach roiled. Dizzy, she retched until nothing was left to bring up, and then kept retching because her body would not stop trying to cast up its leavings. Or its heart. Or its soul.

She was trapped in demon land.

She smelled the place before they reached it. The air stank of manure and urine, of an overhanging mildew and the rotting sweet corruption of garbage left in the sun. The dust tasted as if it had been crushed too many times beneath the haunches of dogs and the thighs of dirt-stained women who never were allowed to wash.

She heard such a clamor beyond the accustomed tromping and scraping of the caravan that she wondered what battle they had wandered into, but from within her cage she could see through only a slit in the canvas that widened and narrowed as the wagon jounced. A tent wall. A child's dirty face. More tents, oddly textured and aligned, not proper tents at all. A woman walking with a basket balanced atop her head. A flowering tree splendidly clothed in stark white blooms, a thing of rare beauty that made her close her eyes because it hurt to see beautiful things in demon land.

They rattled to a stop. Men shouted in tough, argumentative voices. A whip cracked. She flinched, but no cord struck her.

She tested the limits of her chains, pushing with her feet, pulling and tugging while careful not to make the sores at her wrists worse than they already were, for they were raw and weeping. The peg fixing one chain shifted, like a breath let out. She jerked with all her might.

The wagon lurched forward, pitching her onto the floorboards. She tasted blood on her lip, licked it, savoring the flavor. What lives, bleeds. As long as she bled, she had not lost her soul.

She counted back days, so she would not forget. Probably the eastern merchant meant to cheat her; he could not be trusted. One year held eighteen passages of the moon, and each passage of the moon held twenty-four dawns. She had been careful to keep count

as the caravan rumbled east out of the lake bed and up into new country.

Twenty days she had been chained in the wagon, allowed out at dusk to walk around under heavy guard. Three days before that she had watched her brother ride away. Today was a new day, the end of her first month of being a servant. If she had survived this, she could survive another seventeen months.

They passed into shadow, as though night had fallen. Then they emerged into light, and through the slit she saw they were in a confluence more crowded than the assembly at the Targit River. Stiff tents raised out of wood were packed one up against another. Truly, who ever thought there was so much wood in the world? Other tents were built of stone, just as it said in the tales, or of a clay-red rock with squared corners. No one raised proper tents here.

Folk moved along the open spaces, thoroughfares packed with people trudging and carrying and pushing wheeled carts and barking dogs and crying children until her head hurt. The howl never let up, only muted when they came around several corners and thence past a wall and into a quieter enclosure. The wagon halted. The dray beasts were unhitched; they crunched away over dirt to slobber at a trough. The smell of water was like sweetest honey on her tongue, for she'd had nothing to drink that day.

She set to work on the peg, bracing her feet against the wagon, straining, pulling, until she was sweating and in a rage with frustration. Her left wrist had begun to bleed.

Blood means life.

She heard the old man's voice, answered by that of a woman. She swung around to face the approaching threat. The entrance flap was untied and swept back.

An old woman with a commanding bearing stared belligerently in at her. She was dressed in such an astounding wealth of silk that Kirya knew she must be a headwoman of great consequence. The old one grunted with displeasure, and another woman clambered into the wagon to unlock the chains. Cautiously, Kirya crawled out of the wagon. She stood in a space surrounded on all sides by high walls. Dusty green trees shaded the trough at which dray beasts watered. A boy swept fresh droppings into a pan, but when he saw her, he stopped working to stare with mouth dropped open.

Grooms turned, pointing and whispering. A girl half hidden in a doorway stepped out into the sun to squint at her.

'Yah yah!' yelled the old woman at the loiterers.

Folk abandoned the open space. Only the old merchant, the headwoman, and a trio of cousins remained. The women in their embroidered caps and bright silks looked very much alike with broad faces and reddish-clay complexions.

'Are you human, or demon?' Kirya asked.

The old woman grabbed her hands, clucking over the sores on her wrists as she scolded the old man in a withering harangue which he ended by throwing up his hands and walking away. This impertinence toward the headwoman passed without comment. Kirya found herself led to a long wooden tent with a narrow door guarded by two men holding staffs and barred by wooden beams that must be shifted before the door could be opened.

Inside was a confusing mash of walls, women, cloth, and doors, and beyond it a space surrounded by a high wall. Girls and young women pressed forward to touch her as she was led through their ranks into a place with a pair of vast copper tubs. Now, again, she must strip and bathe, only this time twenty or more females, mostly young but some old, sat on or stood behind benches and stared with eyes wide and whispered comments but not a breath of laughter. The tub soon muddied, and she stepped out to stand dripping on cold tiles. A child brought a cloth, and she dried herself. The old woman fanned herself on a stool as she examined Kirya with the implacable gaze of a headwoman who considers the impact of a stranger come into her tribe.

She gestured. A girl hurried forward to collect Kirya's discarded clothing. Kirya grabbed for it, but the old woman slapped her on the wrists with a quirt – right where the sores made them most raw -and Kirya yelped and withdrew her hands as she was left naked.

A girl brought perfumed soap, and indicated the other tub, filled with clean water. While Kirya washed herself again, and washed the grime out of her hair, the old woman searched through the soft leather pouch that held Kirya's mirror, her comb, her cup and spoon, and the beaded nets Mariya had given her. The old woman handled these things and set them aside as of no value. No doubt she could not respect a woman without bow and knife.

Silks were brought, and their colors held up against Kirya's body, and comments made – yes or no by the swaying of heads and clatter of hands and excited whispers. They dressed her in silk of unspeakable softness, underclothing so smooth it seemed to have the weight of a cloud; loose trousers and a knee-length overtunic slit for walking in a cloth the color of the sky before dawn, more gray than pink. The old woman brushed a gooey salve onto the sores that circled her wrists. It stung, but then the spicy scent relaxed her. The old woman gestured to show she must sit on a stool with arms extended, so the salve could dry.

Giggling, three girls approached her. One had black hair and black eyes, one brown hair and brown eyes, and one hair streaked with a reddish-brown color that matched her complexion.

'Mima. Mima,' said the black haired girl, tapping her chest. She pointed to the others. 'Ebba. Ebba. Noria. Noria.' Then she pointed to Kirya. 'Yah? Yah?'

Kirya knew better than to give her name to demons.

Mima smiled kindly. 'Yah yah yah,' she added. She displayed a metal comb and mimed combing hair.

Behind, the other young women and girls hissed and hooted, or coughed and sneered. Several girls just sat there staring blindly at nothing, and one girl rocked obsessively side to side, but she sat away by herself, no one close by her. Yet none of them left. They wanted to watch as when, the only other time Kirya had seen a foreign person in the tribes, all the children had followed the foreign person around the entire time that person had walked within camp.

Kirya shrugged, to show acquiescence. Anyway, Mima's pretty smile reminded her of Mariya. Was it so bad to want a person to be friendly with, even if it was a demon?

Hesitantly, Mima reached for Kirya's hair, but withdrew her hand without touching it. The old woman snapped out words. Mima fixed a nervous smile on her face, and tapped the hair as if it might burn her. Her companions squealed, and giggled, and Kirya grinned, just a little, because they were so funny.

'Yah yah yah,' said Mima with a giggle. She began to work through the long tangles. As she worked, the place quieted while every soul there, except for the girl who rocked side to side, watched

and exclaimed as if they expected the color to change with every stroke, only of course it did not.

They were dark, some like Mima handsome in the manner of Mariya and some demon-scratched like the Qin, while others had a clay-red complexion or a pleasing brown one, and one pair of girls had skin so black that Kirya wondered if the color had been painted on. But no one else was like her, a woman of the tribes with pale hair and pale skin.

A low clang shivered through the air. The old woman clapped her hands, and the girls and young women hurried away, some gabbling but most silent. Several girls lifted up and then pushed along the girl who had been rocking side to side; she was like a sleepwalker.

The attendants closed in on either side of Kirya, gripped her elbows. They steered her down a long narrow place fenced by high walls and a roof, and into a big place, like a headwoman's spacious tent, only this tent with its unmoving walls had benches set on a raised platform and other places to sit heaped with pillows. Lamps hissed. A sharp perfume smoking up from piles of incense made her eyes water and her nostrils sting.

They sat her on a stool on the platform. An attendant tucked a startlingly beautiful white flower between Kirya's hair and ear. In twos and fours, the other girls and young women filed into the room, some with eyes cast down and shoulders hunched and others with bold, hard laughter and snatches of song. So much bright silk dazzled Kirya. This was a rich tribe, indeed, that all its daughters and even a servant like herself were dressed in precious cloth.

Wood clappers snapped out a staccato rhythm. A pair of older women pulled back the purple curtains to reveal doors. A pair of stocky men armed with staffs came out of the shadows and opened the doors. Twilight swirled in on a dusty breeze, and on its wings tramped a horde of jabbering men who, as they settled inside, fell quiet suddenly and stared at her so brazenly that after all they were not proper men who knew better than to stare but must be demons, even if they looked mostly like men.

There came the old merchant from the journey, and the young one flushed and drunk in his wake, scratching at his groin again, that itch having come back. What animals they were!

The old woman strode to the dais and gave a lengthy speech

which every man there followed with avid attention. Then she raised a hand. At once they began shouting at her and shaking pouches at her, one overtopping the next. The young merchant cursed in a loud voice and stormed out; the old merchant faded to the back to watch. The clamor looked a lot like haggling at a confluence when one tribe was trying to get more hides or saddle blankets in exchange for dyestuffs or a particular stud.

A shout of triumph from one of the men. A groan from the others, and suppressed if intense whispering among the girls as the triumphant man strutted forward and dropped a heavy bag at the old woman's feet. An attendant counted out bars of silver from the bag he'd tossed down.

The behavior of demons made no sense at all, so Kirya was relieved when the attendants pulled on her elbows and made it known she could get out of that unpleasant, crowded place and go away into a different one. They led her past a curtain into a cave of tiny places like narrow cages with high walls. They pressed her into one of these narrow places. A lamp burned on either side, hanging from the low ceiling. She stood on a strip of worn carpet, nothing special; she'd felted better patterns as a little girl. A cot set against one wall filled half the space.

The attendants backed out, and the man who had thrown down the bag of silver bars sauntered in, grinning. He was a burly, middle-aged fellow dressed in a silk robe belted with a polished gold buckle. A curtain slipped down behind him, cutting them off from everywhere else. They were alone.

'Whew!' he said in a friendly way. He plucked the flower from her ear.

Abruptly, it all made sense. He thought she was offering him her Flower Night.

'No!' She took a step back. 'You are not my choice!'

He laughed. 'Yah yah yah,' he said jovially as he walked to her, driving her back until she bumped into the wall and could retreat no farther. His heavy hands settled on her shoulders. He fumbled at her hair, bringing strands to his face, closing his eyes, and taking in a breath. She wedged her arms up between them, and shoved.

'Oof! Heh!' He stumbled back a few steps. He chuckled at first,

but then he frowned, and then he furrowed his brow, and then he called out in an annoyed tone.

The old woman appeared, mouth pressed tight.

'Yah yah yah,' he complained, gesturing and grimacing.

She grunted, went out past the curtain, and returned with a quirt in her hand. This she raised threateningly. For that first instant, Kirya was so greatly relieved that the headwoman of the tribe had come to teach this outrageously behaved man some manners. As if he could just walk in and demand her Flower Night, when it was hers to offer, not his to take!

The quirt whipped down onto her forearms. She yelped, more angry than hurt. Again, it slapped down, and this time she kicked out to defend herself. Her foot met flesh, and the old woman shrieked. The quirt thwacked into the side of Kirya's head, staggering her. The man was scolding in a loud voice as shouts and questions flew from outside, and the quirt slapped into her calves so hard Kirya fell. She hit, hard, on her back, breath punched out of her lungs, dazed and dizzy and utterly confused.

He was taking his clothes off.

She struggled to sit, but the quirt slapped her down again, and this time she shouted with rage, coming up fighting. Attendants swarmed in, bound her raw and aching wrists and her ankles with rope, and tied her to the cot, and then they departed, not even angry about her kicking and punching, as if tying down a screaming, struggling girl who was about to be forced against her will was something they were accustomed to doing every day.

After that, there was nothing she could do to stop him. Or the next one. Or the next one. Or the next one.