Shadow Gate

28

In the hundred, in the season of the Flower Rains, the rains bloomed and withered in erratic patterns that depended on the topography and how far west or north or east or south you stood. If you knew your geography, you could anticipate the weather. In the Barrens, a person could lie in a stupor out in the open for days, and still not get wet.

When at last the girl roused, she stared at the envoy of Ilu with a changed look. Sometimes a person knows who they are and wishes they did not. Ignoring his tentative greeting, she saddled Seeing and rode away without saddling Telling in turn.

'The hells!' By the time he got Telling saddled, she'd flown out of sight into the wispy clouds crowding the mountains.

He flew in sweeps, even near enough to survey the campsite where outlanders and local hirelings were digging a ditch and berm around a pair of hills. He searched but did not find her. Long after the light failed, he returned to the altar. With fumbling hands, he cared for the horse and released it. He collected firewood to augment an old stack piled here by another reeve, possibly himself. Disturbed by this activity, rodents and spiders fled.

He had failed her. He sank onto the sitting stone beneath the overhang and stared as the red coals faded to ashes.

She woke him by touching his hand. As he started into awareness, she pressed an irregular oval object into his palm.

'Here, Uncle. It's sweet.'

He studied the fruit. The morning light described its lumps and hollows, the way its smooth skin gave slightly. Delighted, he laughed. 'I haven't tasted a sunfruit for years! My favorite! Where did you find it? They don't grow in the Barrens.'

She gestured further into the foothills. 'There's a valley with many trees, and water. Someone was hiding there, but all I saw were threads like silk blown in the wind. The fruit is good. Try it.'

The sweetness cooled his dry mouth, and an odd expression

creased her face: she was trying to smile, to show she was pleased that she had pleased him.

'What is your name, lass?'

She backed away, unsaddled Seeing, and busied herself grooming. Ox-footed fool! He had shouldered in too quickly. He finished the fruit, wiped his hands and, because he had to do something lest he start jabbering again, began whittling.

After a while, still brushing the horses, she said in a low voice, 'What is the twisting path? When we walked on it, I saw other places.'

He kept up his stroke with the knife. 'There are a hundred and one altars spread across the land. Any Guardian, at one altar, can speak to any Guardian at another altar at the crossroads where our paths meet. You and I must beware, because the others who are like us wish to do us harm.'

She paused to look at him. 'The horses have wings.'

'Yes.'

'We are demons, aren't we?'

'No. Ghosts of a kind, perhaps. But alive in our own way.'

She resumed brushing. 'When I was a human, I had a mirror. Every girl is given a mirror when she comes into her blood. A mirror is a woman's strength. But they took mine.' She dropped the brush. Seeing sidestepped away from her as she fumbled into her sleeve and brought out the mirror and stared at her ghost face. 'Why did you make me look? Why did you give me this mirror?'

He set down the knife and rose. 'The mirror is your staff. Each Guardian has a staff, each according to the nature of the cloak that Guardian wears. I have a staff, as you see-' He picked up his stout, beribboned staff from the ground. '-although I admit I am the only Guardian with a staff that is actually a walking staff. You have a mirror. Death – you saw her – should carry a sword, appropriate to death, I am sure. The sun with his fiery arrow. The earth with her deadly snake. And the others, so on. There is a great deal to teach you, lass. Tell me when you are ready to hear more.'

The weary despair in those demon-blue eyes made him wish to weep for whatever misery she had endured. 'Why did you make me remember?'

'The altar made you remember. And the mirror did as well, by

strengthening your connection to the altar. A Guardian's staff has many uses. One is to aid a new Guardian in awakening. By fully knowing what you were, you can perhaps accept what you are now, what is right and what is wrong, and where your duty lies.'

'I want to go back to my tribe.'

A rising wind rumbled over the saddle, promising rain. He tasted its sweetness on his lips.

'I want to go home,' she said as the first falling raindrops slid down her face.

'Come, lass, take cover.' He indicated the overhang.

But even after the horses wisely broke for shelter, she remained out in the open while the rain hammered her, as if she were praying for obliteration.

The rain slackened to a drizzle, which faded to drips, and a ray of sun lightened the blooming terraces of veil of mercy and hundred-petaled butter-bright until the colors dazzled. In Argent Hall, Joss sat cross-legged at his desk, looking out through the open doors at the marshal's garden and the two reeve hopefuls who had been put to work weeding. The young men talked together in the way of new acquaintances who have discovered they like the same things: the best kind of hook for catching white-mouth, the best weight of stick for a casual game of hooks-and-ropes, the best fertilizer if you wanted a better yield from your jabi bushes. Farm boys.

'Marshal?' The clerk sat with hands folded in his lap. He was a slender lad with a narrow face, dark eyes, and a freshly shaved head with a healing nick over behind the left ear. 'Was there more?'

'Neh, not if you got that lot of correspondence complete. You can go, Udad.'

'Yes, Marshal.' He hesitated, not gathering up his supplies.

The lad had an inability to ask questions directly that Joss found exceedingly tiresome. 'I meant you were free for the rest of the day. Do you want to go back to Olossi?'

'Not if you need me, Marshal.'

Joss surveyed the neat stacks of correspondence ready to be carried by eagle to their intended recipients, and the striking lack of mess in the chamber. A cupboard divided into shelves and cubbies

was organized according to subject matter and sender or some other arcane system Joss hoped he would never have to decipher. 'We've done enough. Take a pair of free days, if that's what you'd like.'

'If you're sure it's not too much trouble, Marshal.'

'If I did, I wouldn't offer,' said Joss dryly. 'Be back by twilight on Resting Snake. That'll give you three free days in Olossi.'

'Thank you!' Still, he did not rise.

'Is there something else?'

Siras was sitting by the door, idly chiseling patterns in a broken plank. Without looking up, he said, 'I think Udad is hoping a reeve can ferry him to Olossi.'

'Of course! You'll go with the correspondence. You can deliver it yourself tonight. Otherwise, you'd spend your three days' leave walking there and back.' With an eagle always at his disposal, it was difficult for Joss to remember how long it took other people to get around.

'Thank you, Marshal!' Flushed, but grinning, the lad unrolled his work cloth and set the drying inkstone in its box, the brushes and other scribe's tools in their sleeves. Joss watched, caught between admiration and an intense relief that he himself need not be so tidy.

As soon as Udad clattered down the stairs, Siras said, 'If you had him tending your sleeping chamber, it wouldn't be such a wreck.'

'If I were another man, you'd be whipped for your impertinence.'

'As you say, Marshal.' He grinned without looking up from his work.

'What are you doing?'

Siras set the chisel aside and displayed the plank, salvaged from an outbuilding that had collapsed during Yordenas's brief tenure as marshal. A row of flowers bloomed across the top of the wood.

'That's quite good.'

Siras laughed. 'Didn't think I had any talents, did you? Both my mother and father are woodcarvers. That's what I always thought I would do.'

'How did you get to Argent Hall?'

Siras gestured toward the men working through the herb bed, bands plucking and tossing the always verminous weeds. 'Came to try my luck, same as many do. My clan didn't want me to go, but my mother told them to let me try. Thought when I spent my

months here and nothing came of it, I could come back to my true work.'

'A wise woman, your mother. Was she quite irritated it didn't work out as she planned?'

Siras smiled, but instead of answering he swept up the bits and dust of wood and scattered this debris in the flower beds, to the laughing protests of the farm boys. A bell rang, signaling the end of drill.

'Bring tea, will you? The fawkners and trainers will be here shortly. And tell those lads they're finished for the day.'

Siras tucked the chisel into his sleeve and the plank under his arm. Joss heard him exchange words with the youths outside, who -like the responsible farm lads they were – said they'd finish the one herb terrace they were on before they left it for the day, thank you.

Light shimmered on the flowers. A haze of aroma and color seemed to rise out of them, and out of that incandescent blaze might walk Marit, to chide him for his faults. The hells! Was that what he had reduced his memories of her into? A lilu who wished not to seduce his body but to improve his character? She hadn't pinned him down that very first time, years ago, because she was interested in his character.

Fawkners and trainers arrived in a flood of chatter and complaints, with Volias slithering in their midst.

'Didn't I tell you to return to Clan Hall with a report?' Joss asked, singling him out as everyone else settled on pillows and mats.

'Going at dawn tomorrow,' muttered Volias, his usual snarl subdued. 'Just did another few sweeps looking for that cursed woman, Tumna's reeve.'

Joss was so surprised to hear this that he answered as he might any other person. 'She can't have got far. I don't believe she had any kin to turn to, or any place to go, really.'

'Yes,' agreed Volias. 'Which is what worries me.'

'Tumna's healing in the lofts. She'll do her own hunting once her wing is better.'

'If Nallo survives so long.'

When Volias glared at him, waiting for the sarcastic retort, Joss felt shame for snapping at the other reeve just because he himself was brooding. 'Everyone should be keeping such a close eye out for

her, it's true. Nevertheless, if she's gone to ground there's not much we can do. She's stubborn.'

Volias sat, elbow propped on bent knee and forehead resting on the back of a hand as he gazed out the open doors, as if hoping to see her walk in.

Aui! This was something.

Joss sat.

Verena rubbed an arm, smiling wryly. 'You look tired, Marshal.'

'So do we all, I am sure. How's your shoulder?'

'Healing more quickly than Tumna's wing.'

'What's new since this morning, then?'

'I am at the end of my wits,' said Askar. 'So many unjessed eagles descending all at once, looking for new reeves. Who must all spend months being trained. We can't do it all in this one place.'

'It's true,' said Verena. 'It's never happened before. Some of those eagles must have spent years in the mountains waiting to return.' She turned to the other two fawkners. 'Did you see Sweet? That sly old bird! I thought sure she was dead. I last saw her eight years ago, if a day.'

'Marshal Joss,' said Arda, the trainer sent from Clan Hall. She'd lived in the hall all her life and knew nothing but eagles and reeves. 'We must set up a camp elsewhere to keep the raptors out of each other's way until they're settled in and their new reeves have finished training. Until we get the rest of the eagles jessed.'

'We don't have the resources,' said Joss. 'And what about the safety of the new reeves and their eagles? How can we protect them until they're trained?'

'Three or four months for basic training,' said Arda. 'At last count we've got twenty-two new reeves-'

'-and at least forty more unjessed eagles passing by every day,' added Verena.

Askar said, 'Some of the eagles will simply not come in with so many other unjessed raptors, and with such a mob of folk churning about. We need that temporary camp, Marshal.'

Arda had known Joss a long time, and had besides never shown the slightest sexual interest in him, so it was easy for her to slip into the hectoring ways she had felt free to use when they'd both been at Clan Hall. 'It's not as if we haven't been telling you for the last

many days. I admit, I hoped the eagles would choose faster, but there's no reason to think they haven't looked over this crop and taken what suits them. Can't you get rid of these useless hangers-on?'

Govard, the steward, broke in, rubbing the short hair atop his head with a hand. 'And if I may speak to that, Marshal. I don't have room for all these cursed lads, the wrack and leftovers that have washed up in the hall. The young ones are the worst. Two fights today! Perhaps if you'd encourage them to give up and go back to their homes.'

'And leave us in peace with the overwhelming task we already have!' added Arda, in case Joss hadn't gotten the message.

Joss raised both hands. 'Calm down. Don't think I haven't been considering this.'

'Heya! Heya!' Running footsteps crackled on gravel. 'Marshal! Come quickly!'

Volias was already on his feet. The rest of the group crowded onto the porch as Siras sprinted up. Overhead, a thick spiral of eagles had massed.

Three Qin strode out of the alley that led between storehouses and lofts from the marshal's garden to the parade ground. Joss pushed past the others, slipped on sandals, and jumped down the stairs to the path, then hurried over to greet the visitors beside the fountain.

'Captain Anji. Greetings of the afternoon.'

'Greetings of the afternoon, Marshal. If you will come with me, I need to show you something.'

As Joss walked beside the captain, the others maintained a gap between themselves and the pair of dour guards who attended the captain everywhere he went. They passed into the shadowed alley.

'You came sooner than I expected,' said Joss.

'I have my own difficulties.' Anji scanned the storehouse doors, all tightly shut against the rains, and the freshly painted braceworks. 'The Olossi council is reluctant to grant me the resources I need to build an effective fighting force. Will you come to the council meeting on-' Joss could almost track the captain's thoughts as he picked through unfamiliar words to pluck the right one. 'Wakened Rat, the last day of the month. Ten days from today.'

'How can I help you?'

'I've scouted out lands in the Barrens, on the western shore of the Olo'o Sea. Good pastureland, sufficient water, and mostly uninhabited. Familiar territory for Qin seeking to make new homes for themselves.'

'Unaccountably close to sinks of oil of naya.'

Anji smiled. 'So it is. We will put forward our claim to the land at the next council. Meanwhile, I tell them they must expand the militia to an army on a permanent footing, but they don't want to hear. I refuse to waste my efforts on this-this-' He struggled for words. 'Rags and scraps hastily tied together do not make a fine gown any more than rags and scraps hastily placed in marching order make an army. Here we are. Now you'll see.'

They strode into the parade ground, where five horses were being held by two grooms in the shade. The perches were empty; all the eagles had flown, as they were likely to do when things got too exciting. Every person there meanwhile was crowding the landward ramparts and staring toward the fields. Without pushing or saying, indeed, a single word aloud, the two Qin soldiers opened a path for the captain and the marshal to a steep stair that led up to the rampart walk. Joss clambered with the ease of long practice, fawkners crowding up behind him. Everyone was talking, exclaiming, and a few of the newcomers, young men who'd come with the hope of jessing an eagle and gotten no satisfaction, were mumbling complaints.

'There,' said the captain, shouldering aside an onlooker – a hireling by the cut of his threadbare tunic – to give Joss room.

Joss did not have a great deal of experience of horses, but he had ridden them for about a year during his apprenticeship as a messenger to Ilu, the Herald. He had an idea that the stout Qin horses were the most phlegmatic, and toughest, equines known to humankind. But they were definitely scared of the big eagles.

The company of thirty men Anji had ridden in with had scattered to a safer distance, although all had bows at the ready, waiting for the command to shoot. One poor fellow had been thrown from his panicked horse and left on the road facing down a handsome female eagle. Joss had to admire the way the lad stood his ground, not sure whether to bolt or brazen it out, but sticking with the latter course of action in the face of the imposing head and wicked talons.

'What do you make of that?' Anji asked with the same admirable calm.

'Does anything shock you?' Joss asked him.

'It might, if I had noticed you were worried, but since you are not, then I assume you know what is going on. That's one of my tailmen, Pil. What do you make of it?'

'The western shore of the Olo'o Sea is not all that far as the eagle flies, if she flies, as she can, from Olossi across the sea rather than being forced to walk roads and tracks the long way around the shore and through the wild lands. There are boats that usually ply the eastern shore, that could haul supplies to the west. I'll argue before the council in favor of your claim, if you'll help me build a temporary reeve hall in the Barrens for my flight of new reeves. Like that lad, there. What did you say his name was?'

Ha! Now he had surprised Anji.

'Pil? What are you saying, Marshal?'

'You live in the Hundred now. If you mean to make this your home, then you have to abide by our laws. That eagle has made her choice. She's chosen one of your soldiers.'