Traitors Gate

19

North of the Liya Hills lay the plain of Herelia, its fertile fields fed by the River Vessi and its tributaries. Marit didn't know Herelia well; it hadn't been in her patrol territory. Its two major towns were Malinna and Laripa; its port city Dast Elia. At the base of the Liya Pass Road, the messenger turned in the direction of

Laripa, riding through well-tended countryside as Marit kept pace above.

Two days later, on a bright and pleasant morning, they approached a town still under construction on the banks of the River Vessi. She raced ahead; at his lagging pace, he would not reach Wedrewe until midday. She flew a circuit over the town's layers: outermost, a swath of woodland clearly off-limits to felling where a hunting party crashed in pursuit of game, horns blatting; deep within the forest cover pits had been dug and filled over with loose soil, although from the height it was difficult to figure what they were for. At the woodland edge stood a perimeter fence and guard towers enclosing fields and orchards and corrals and gardens and tanning yards and smithies. On a backwater shore, rafts of logs lashed together were being beached and hauled up to lumberyards. A second wall ringed districts of humble row houses, its access funneled through guard gates. The third wall marked out open ground where company upon company of men drilled. Barracks and storehouses ran in ranks along the outside of the fourth and innermost wall, within which lay spacious grounds and gardens that resembled the temples of the gods and yet showed no allegiance to any. This vast inner compound was square, like Kotaru's forts, approached through triple-linteled gates as were Ilu's temples. It was roofed with green slate to reflect the Witherer's fecundity, and boasted handsome private gardens as in Ushara's realm. The symmetry of the buildings reflected Sapanasu's orderliness, and a young Ladytree, Atiratu's refuge, had been planted beside each of the four gates. In the center of all lay a walled garden surrounded by covered porch on all sides whose open ground was neatly raked around a flat-topped boulder — like those sacred to Hasibal, the Formless One — half buried in the ground.

She saw not a single temple or even a humble roofed altar. There was no Sorrowing Tower to lay the dead, and no Assizes Tower for justice, but there were watchtowers in plenty.

The inner compound hummed with the buzz of steady work being carried on beneath tiled roofs: the brush of scribes writing, the clacking of beads on counting racks, the beat of a stamp pressing metal for coins or medallions. Now and again a person garbed in a fine silk jacket or taloos made his or her way from one building to another, or passed a token to the guards at a gate in order to descend into the outer rings of the city. Wagons moved goods

into storehouses whose roofs were still being tiled. In one of the private gardens, straddling a bench, a man and a woman were engaged in strenuous sex. In another, a pair of men moved stones on a checkerboard, at their ease under an awning while out in the sun slaves made sticks of incense.

In the deserted central garden, she brought Warning down. The mare's hooves stirred up the neatly raked lines in the gravel. She dismounted and led the horse over to and up onto one of the four long porches that faced the courtyard, Standing at the mare's head, she embraced the beauty of the humble garden as she inhaled the scent of late-blooming sweet-gold.

A whiff of fetid air brushed her nose. A whisper hissed and faded. She was not alone.

On three sides the porches were lined with barred doors built with hinges like smaller models of the hinged double gate in the northeast corner. Mark paced the length of the porch. Behind every hinged door was confined one, sometimes two, people: sleeping, weeping, moaning, muttering disjointed words, some mute with a despair that stung like poison on her skin. This was no meditative court, remarkable for its exquisite tranquillity. It was a prison.

At the end of porch lay a storeroom with racks of shelves. She grabbed a rake and erased hoof- and footprints until Warning gave a snort that cut through her crazed fit. What in the hells was she doing? Best just to get out of here. She raked her way back to the porch anyway. As she was hanging the rake back up on its pegs she heard voices and the thump of a door. The storeroom was large enough to accommodate Warning, and the mare ducked into the space willingly, as into a stall. Windows cut under the eaves allowed light and air to enter; she could count the shelves and the gardening tools and the other implements; there were many knives, lovingly polished and cradled on silk, and bundles of short staffs. Reeve batons. Ten bundles, at least. How in the hells did they have a hundred or more reeve batons?

'Who are you?' A man's muffled voice came from the adjoining cell. 'You're not one of the guards.'

Aui! 'I'm — eh — a gardener.'

'You aren't. There's a horse with you, yet the gates didn't open.'

'Are you a prisoner?'

'I am. There are forty-three prisoners being held here, maybe

more. The cells opposite are for criminals. To the left are rebels. This wing is meant for those accused of being gods-touched, which they call cursed, but they killed two some days ago and there's been none brought in since. Now they've an overflow of other folk stuck on this side.'

'And what are you? A criminal, a rebel, or gods-touched? You've an odd way of speaking, ver.'

'I'm an outlander. Who are you, with your horse who can enter a courtyard through closed gates? Who hides her horse in a storeroom, and rakes away the tracks she's left on the gravel?'

The big gates ground open. The prisoner ceased speaking as feet tramped in, marching in unison, and ceased their march with the clap of a command.

'Bring out the condemned,' said a woman.

Warning nipped at Marit's sleeve. She, too, knew that voice: it was the cloak of Night.

Bolts clicked; bars scraped; doors bumped open. Gibbering and weeping and begging rose to a tumult as folk were dragged into the courtyard. Then, as the last door was shut, a fearful silence fell. Through a gap under the eaves behind her, she heard the huffing and puffing of that cursed man and woman having at the Devourer in the adjoining garden, in mocking counter-rhythm to the ragged breathing of the prisoners.

'You are brought before me, who are condemned,' said Night. More fool Marit for venturing into the center of the pit. 'The punishment for your crime is cleansing.'

A wail rose among the prisoners: 'Please just kill me quickly I beg you!' 'I'm innocent! I never did it!' 'She murdered my brother for his coin and laid the blame on me!'

'Enough! All is known to me already.'

'Then you know I didn't do it!' shouted a man. 'Your gods-rotted cronies laid claim to our clan's land and sent me here to die because I wouldn't shut up and lie down and take it. And you let it happen. You're a lilu, a cursed-' He grunted. His voice ceased.

She continued speaking without any change of tone. 'Without order, there can be no justice. Those who foment trouble disturb what is orderly. They cannot be allowed to damage the peace the rest have so laboriously constructed. Yet I am inclined to mercy, when mercy has been earned. Bring forward these to the stone of judgment.'

She spoke five names, none of which meant anything to Marit,

but one at a time Marit heard sobbing, the crunch of footsteps on gravel, and after the cessation of movement a sudden burning cut shivered the air as if the wind had been sliced with a fearsome blade. Spirit shaved from body. The Spirit Gate unfolds, and the departing spirit passes beneath to the other side.

Night had wielded her staff and killed them.

'The rest must be cleansed as an example. Transfer them to Malinna for execution.'

'You're as corrupt as those who ser-ye you!' shouted the man who had cursed her before. 'The orphaned girl would weep, seeing what had become of the Guardians she begged the gods to raise!'

'Kill him,' said Night in a deadly quiet voice. 'Let him be bathed in his own blood in exchange for his crude words.'

The killing was swift: the salt of the man's blood released into the air by a blade's cut. In the adjoining cell, the outlander slammed foot or- shoulder into the wall, as in anger, and it seemed the entire building shuddered. Warning bobbed her head. A feather glimmered in the air, and Marit caught it before it touched the ground; she tucked its length inside her jacket.

Eihi! How then the others begged for such a merciful, swift release. How they debased themselves with frantic words and desperate pleas. Marit burned with humiliation, because she could do nothing as they were hauled away to whatever transport wagons awaited them. How useless the power the gods had conferred on her. All for nothing! Cloak of Night could not execute her without five staffs, but what if she ordered her servants to stab Marit and remove her cloak? She had almost certainly destroyed other cloaks in exactly that way. The cloak of Night was old beyond measure and so corrupt that she appeared sweet to the eye and kind to the ear. It seemed unlikely to Marit that she knew anything about cloaks that Night had not already considered.

'What of those accused of being gods-cursed, Holy One? We've brought in eleven since you were here last-' Running footsteps interrupted the officer. 'The hells! You know better than to burst in-'

'Let the messenger approach, Captain Tomash. What is your name?'

'Peri, Holy One,' he said in a voice choked with fear. 'Sent from Stragglewood with all urgency. The guards let me through when I explained-'

'Look at me.'

Feet shifted on gravel. A man coughed uneasily. The lad sobbed once, then was silent.

Night spoke. 'We must march to Stragglewood at once. Captain Tomash, make ready your company. The impostor wearing the cloak of Death has walked into their town and demanded to preside over their assizes. Can the news I received at dawn be a coincidence?'

'What news is that, Holy One?'

'Ah. I had not yet told you that I may send you and an entire cohort to High Haldia?'

'High Haldia is a cursed long way, Holy One.'

'So it is, but I need someone sensible and competent to lead an extended hunt. At dawn, Lord Bevard informed me he has seen and spoken to two cloaks in Heaven's Reach. One of them is Sky! Long thought lost, and yet now in company with the renegade outlander demon who has stolen the cloak of Mist. Crags is several months' journey on earth, and they'll already be running, yet does it not seem to you, Captain, that suddenly the whole lies within our grasp? Lord Radas also communicated with me at dawn. The traitors in Nessumara will be dealt with as soon as agents infiltrate the city. Meanwhile, his cohorts are bringing lower Haldia and Istria under our complete control as we take direct action against the reeves. Steward Kallonin, when will the other cohorts requested by Lord Radas be ready to march south?'

'The Thirteenth Cohort has already marched, lady. On the usual route.'

'Send a messenger after them. Have them march instead through the Haya Gap. They can take what supplies they need as they march.'

'Yes, lady. The Fourteenth is in the field enduring their final initiation run. They will be ready to depart in one month. The Fifteenth will follow perhaps three months from now.'

'So long?'

'We learned with the disastrous expedition to Olo'osson that poorly trained troops are no better than untrained rabble. After the Fifteenth marches out, we must wait to see who among the new recruits survives the first phase. It would be useful if we could recruit from among those in Haldia and Istria who may be persuaded to join us. We continue to hear reports of a foreign captain training a significant militia in Olo'osson.'

'He is being dealt with. Are there any other reports I need hear before I depart for Stragglewood?'

'More depredations in the orchards, lady. We've flogged and caged suspects-'

'None I interrogated knew anything of the matter.'

'So it seems. No one knows who is stealing fruit, and in truth, lady, it seems a paltry crime.'

'Such small crimes, let go, turn into large ones. Find the culprits and cleanse them on Wedrewe's posts. Anything else?'

The steward cleared his throat uncomfortably. 'We've received an unsubstantiated report from the port of Lower Amatya that a reeve and eagle have been sighted over the Elia Sea. What is your command?'

'This is unwonted news,' she said in the tone of a woman who is not pleased to hear unwonted news, and the poor messenger — who had nothing to do with this distressing news — sobbed as if he'd been struck. 'There should be no more reeves in the far north. I must consider before I take action on the other fronts, but in this case, detach a cadre — no, a full company — of experienced men to investigate. Sail all the way to the Eagle's Claws, if necessary.'

'That is a month's hard journey or more, lady. Dangerous, and on treacherous seas. As I know from having taken the journey before.'

'You promised me there were no survivors. Go back and finish what you've left undone, Kallonin. Leave at once.'

'It is understood, lady,' he said in a flat tone that could not disguise his horror at the assignment.

Captain Tomash laughed. 'Suddenly High Haldia and Heaven's Reach don't seem so cursed far away, eh, Kal?'

'Bastard,' muttered the steward, but he, too, laughed, in the way of friendly rivals jesting with each other. 'Lady, I'll leave at once and travel night and day to Dast Elia, where I'll hire a ship. It's my mistake. I'll rectify it. Have you other orders?'

'None, for now.'

'When can Steward Hefar expect your return, lady? It's four days' journey each way over the Liya Pass to Stragglewood, I believe-'

'He can expect me when I arrive. Captain Tomash, I'll meet up with your company at dusk. Expect to march all night.'

The sigh and flutter of wings fell heavily as Night departed.

'The hells,' said the steward. 'We're in for it, eh? Eagle's Claws! Heaven's Reach!'

'Shut your complaining,' said the captain with another laugh. 'We've got the soldiers and the coin, never forget that.'

'I never do. Heya! Men! Get moving!'

The guards dispersed with heavy steps. Quiet settled. An insect buzzed.

A hand scratched at the wall, and the outlander whispered. 'You're that cursed cloak, aren't you? If you've come to preside over the assizes, you're too cursed late.'

'Why weren't you taken out to be judged?'

'I'm a hostage.'

'An outlander hostage! For whose good behavior?'

'My brother's,' he said bitterly.

She cracked the door and peered through. The courtyard was empty but for six corpses. Five sprawled on the gravel, seemingly untouched; they'd been killed by Night's staff. The sixth, collapsed atop the rock, was splashed by blood. Could a Guardian execute a man with her Guardian's staff on a whim, just because she wanted to, or only if that man was actually guilty of the crime he was accused of? Had the cloak of Night spared these five from the agony of the cleansing to be merciful? Or had the others been sent to be cleansed because they were not guilty of a crime she could execute them for?

The double gate was pushed open by a man dressed in humble laborer's garb. A cart creaked in, pulled by a second man walking between the shafts. Both men had the debt mark tattooed by their left eye: slaves, not hirelings. They slung the bodies into the cart like so much firewood.

'She was merciful, eh? Six spared from the cleansing. You have to rake, Erdi?'

'Neh, I'm not assigned that duty today, nor washing off the rock. I'm hells glad about that, eh, for that one sure bled. Look, we've got blood all over. I don't want it drying on my kilt. It's the only clothes I got.'

'Let's take a wash now. Corpses'll wait, eh?'

They grabbed up buckets from the end of the porch and trotted out the gates. Marit was out the door as soon as they were gone. The cell doors weren't locked, only barred. She shifted the heavy bar and shoved the door open. He emerged at once, holding a vest and a blanket in one hand. He pulled the door shut, set the bar in

place, glanced at the winged horse nosing out of the storeroom, then turned to confront Marit.

'The hells!' she said, retreating a step in shock. 'You look a cursed lot like an outlander named Hari. Could he be your brother?'

His body was lean and strong and, since he wore only a kilt, there was a lot of body to admire. But it was his stare — so intense she might have thought him half crazed — that disturbed her most, until she realized he was gods-touched. Veiled to her sight.

'Death's cloak,' he said. 'You're the one called Marit, aren't you? It's because of you the others don't trust Hari. What did he do? Seduce you?'

She grinned. 'Neh, nothing like that. I seduced him.' He almost grinned, but his was a serious face to go with that gods-rotted powerful body. 'Aui! Listen. There's no Sorrowing Tower in this town, which means they must take the dead beyond the walls. Hide under those corpses. The slaves will haul you out the gates. It's the best I can do.'

He reached for her arm, but before touching her he fisted his hand and tapped his chest. He wore two rings, with matching sigils. 'If you gave Hari even a moment's breath of happiness, then I thank you for it. Beware of Night. She'll kill you, if she catches you. How she'll do it I don't know, but she has a way.'

Hari's brother! Who knew where his loyalties lay?

'My thanks for the warning,' she said. 'Now, go.'

Except for the blood, it wasn't so bad getting him hidden in the wagon. Wings unfurled, Warning waited. Marit grimaced at the blood on her hands. It had gotten over everything. Aui! Never mind it. She dashed back into the storeroom and grabbed three knives and two batons. One baton and two knives she shoved under, into his hands. The other knife and baton she kept, to remind her that a reeve and eagle had been sighted over the Elia Sea.

The cloak wanted her steward to go all the way to the Eagle's Claws to find and kill that reeve. So be it. Marit would get there first.

She moved out cautiously, flying low, but saw no sign of the other Guardian. The lovers were, amazingly, still at it: such stamina! Neh, it was a different man at work on the same woman. Anyhow, both were oblivious of what had transpired so close beside them. Eihi!

Wedrewe's people worked on, all oblivious, or perhaps all too aware of how quickly death could strike.

In an outer courtyard, the chain of prisoners was being shoved into tiny cages on wagons and locked in. Knowing herself a fool, she circled low until she saw the wagon with its corpses clear the perimeter fence and head into the woods. After that, she flew to the Vessi Road and followed it downstream until she spotted the prison wagons. Herelia was well-settled country but nevertheless there were stretches of road with no habitation in sight. She bided her time for several mey. In the late afternoon she clattered to earth on an isolated stretch of road with broken woodland and meadows on one side and denser growth blocking her view of the river. The prison wagons rolled into sight, and their sergeant called his men to a halt as she rode toward him and caught his surprised gaze with her own.

He is a killer. He has killed men.

'What is your name?' she asked. His cadre hid their faces behind open hands.

'Bolen,' he said, the word squeezed from him by the strength of her gaze.

He spoke truth, which brightens you. His name, given to him by his mother, linked him to the Four Mothers, and deep within his essence which is body and spirit together, she saw, felt, heard, tasted, the thread that binds spirit and body into one creature. Easy enough, for her, to sever them, now that she saw their misty substance. She drew her sword. The soldiers cowered. The prisoners moaned. It was so easy, after all! She could cut away his life, send his spirit through the Spirit Gate. He was a killer. He had killed. She did not even have to touch him with her sword, only cut the threads that spun his shame and his wrongdoing into the pure air.

He hid his face.

'Release the prisoners,' she said.

'Better you execute me with a clean death, lady,' he said hoarsely, 'than I face punishment by cleansing for disobeying my orders.'

'Then it would be better for you not to serve unjust masters. These prisoners who face cleansing are assuredly not guilty or else they, too, would have been granted the mercy of a clean death at the hands of a Guardian.'

'They serve as examples because of their stubbornness, lady.'

'Release them.'

He stammered out the order, and his cadre fell over themselves to pull the pins on the cages.

The prisoners hesitated. Then one man pushed free of his confines, scrambling off the wagon, and tugged out two comrades. These three dragged out the others, all but one older man who refused to bolt.

'Run,' she said.

They ran, some into the brush toward the river and others into the woodland.

'You've done them and their clans no favors,' whispered the sergeant, 'nor me and my cadre, neither. Those who follow orders don't get hurt.'

She was a fool, showing herself like this. Even if the prisoners survived, how were they to make their way through a Herelia that was in a way a vast prison? How was Hari's brother to do so? But she could not live with herself if she did nothing, even if what little she did was not enough.

Slaves driving a wagonload of corpses weren't deemed suspicious in Wedrewe. At each gate, after an exchange of words, they rolled on. Shai breathed through the blanket that pressed over his mouth and nose. He kept his eyes shut and listened. Eventually, the roadbed changed from rumbling pavement to squeaky dirt, and despite the stiffening weight of the bodies, Shai felt the softening presence of trees. As the slaves chattered away about a tournament of hooks-and-ropes played last month and still in dispute, Shai wriggled backward out from under the dead ones and rolled off the back of the wagon onto a woodland path. The wagon trundled on. They didn't even look back as he scrambled into the nearest brush and lay still, leaves flashing above him. The noise of the wagon's passage faded.

Hu! That had been the easy part.

He pulled on the vest, cut off a strip of the wool blanket to belt his knives and the reeve baton, and tied the blanket like a cloak at his shoulders. Then he considered the sun. When he'd been marched from Toskala's hinterlands to Wedrewe, a journey of nineteen days, he'd kept track of their general direction. Ignoring the drying stains and unpleasant smells on his skin and clothing, he began walking southwest, roughly parallel to the track. Twice he crossed streams, drinking before moving on, and he found late

season berries he'd seen mixed in with his porridge in the prison, easy to gather and tie up in a corner of his blanket. Were those triangular green leaves edible? Yes, he'd seen the children eating them.

At dusk he reached the end of the woodland and stood looking over tidy farmland where lanterns bobbed as folk hurried home. He sank to a crouch. As he scooped mashed berries, he considered the fields and the likelihood of barking dogs. Could he cross safely at night? Steal food, or even just a leather bottle to carry water?

A cough.

Before he even realized he'd been careless, they dropped down on either side of him with teeth bared in something that might have been meant to resemble a welcoming grin or a fierce menacing scowl. He grabbed a knife, and the female knocked him flat so fast, pinning him, that he began to laugh because he was exhausted and hungry and his feet were scraped and bleeding and he stank of corpse and he was stuck out in the middle of enemy territory with scant chance of reaching anyone he might call an ally.

So what in the hells were two wildings doing here?

The male gestured with its hands, tale telling as vivid as speaking: a cloak flowed from its shoulders; folk hid their eyes; Shai did not hide his eyes; the cloaked one kills those who do not hide their eyes.

'Hu!' whispered Shai. 'Did you follow me all that way? To get revenge? I didn't betray them. I had no idea your friends were going to be attacked. Or that poor gods-touched girl would be murdered just for being veiled. Please help me get to a reeve hall. That's all I ask-'

The male impatiently tapped its own chest, the female's shoulder, and finally indicated Shai: Us. You. Together.

Far in the distance, a horn's voice rose and faded.

Hurry.

The north is a bitter world. Beyond the confines of the deep waters of the Elia Sea, a long spout of a bay connected to the northern ocean by a narrow strait, the coastline crawled north

mey after dreary mey, violent ocean waves crashing at the base of rugged cliffs. In the pockets of shelter where safe anchorage might be found on a scrap of pebbled beach, fishing villages clung to the coast. Marit had never before seen houses in which folk nursed a hearth fire inside the same structure in which they slept, but the rock cottages breathed smoke as might any living body. Truly, it was as cold as the hells. She never stopped shivering. Who would want to live in this bleak landscape?

By the time she reached a wide ovai» peninsula the moon had blossomed to full and withered away. Here the land was rich in farm plots turned golden with harvest stubble. A pair of linked hills, steep enough to be called mountains, rose out of the peninsula's central rise; at their peaks glinted twin altars whose view thereby spanned the coast, one facing north and one south. Was this 'the Egg' described in the tales? She'd heard of the place but had never set foot here.

She landed in an isolated cove on the northern shore and released Warning. The craving for the altar's elixir made Marit lick parched lips, but she resolutely took the last swig of musty souring wine and walked along the sandy shore looking for a fresh stream. Sea wrack littered the sand; a tree trunk had washed up many years ago and was now a haven to numerous tough plants. Pine wood grew beyond the high-water line.

'Heya! Honored Guardian!' A stout woman strode out of the wood, waving a length of cloth to catch her attention. 'Greetings of the day!' The woman lifted both hands, palms open, to touch her forehead as a sign of respect before she extended her hands in welcome. She was smiling, her thoughts an unself-conscious tumult of astonishment, joy, and an old grievance over — Aui! — something to do with a pig. 'I'm called Fothino. Please, walk with me to the village. We will be honored to host you for the assizes.'

Marit sensed no danger. Of course, she'd sensed no danger on the day she'd been murdered. And yet she could not bear to live forever in suspicion of humankind.

'You honor me, verea.'

The woman's smile brightened. 'If you will be waiting just one breath so we may gather our things…' She walked briskly back into the trees and shouted in a strong voice. 'Ridarya! Malilhit!'

Marit followed cautiously. The woman had two adolescent daughters who prettily offered the same formal greeting. Like their mother, they wore not taloos but long jackets of rough hemp

thread closed with a sash and apron and, beneath all, a length of cloth wrapped to cover the legs.

'Finish you up quick now,' scolded their mother.

They promptly set to whispering as they finished scraping resin into a barrel.

'She doesn't look different than anyone else.'

'How could any ordinary person capture and ride a winged horse?'

The pine trees were being tapped, streaks of pale raw resin running down the wounded bark over a tin lip and into pots. The woman gathered up her cutting tools, wrapped them in burlap, and slung them over her back. 'Girls! Run you ahead and tell the village of our good fortune. Let there be a proper greeting.'

The girls raced away, barefoot despite the cold weather. Marit accompanied Fothino at a more sedate pace on a path winding through the woods.

'It seems peaceful here,' Marit said.

'Eiya! Peaceful is as peaceful does. We're a quiet place far from anywhere else, I grant you. But folk will quarrel and bicker. Me no less than anyone, I tell you honestly, Guardian.' The words she spoke were recognizable but accented, making her a bit difficult to understand. T sent my good son all the way to Rulla Village just last year to live with his young wife's family just because he and me, we quarreled so much after my good husband's spirit departed through the gate. Girls are easier to raise, neh?'

'I don't know.'

'Neh, forgive me if I've asked what I should not.'

'Ask me anything you wish.'

'Well, then, I will so. With your permission.'

'You have it.'

'According to the records kept in Sapanasu's temple, a Guardian invokes an assizes every seven years. Yet we've seen no Guardian for ever so many years, not since my mother was a child. Folk they pretty much thought we'd never see a Guardian ever again.'

'That wasn't precisely a question. How far back do the records of your Lantern's temple go?'

T wouldn't know, me being apprenticed to the Witherer in my time. But my lad, the older boy, the one who died, he was a Lantern clerk for three years. He one time told me the records in

the temple went back to the very first day folk built the temple here. So it surely is very very old.'

'Very old, indeed. I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune, losing the child.'

Her stride continued unchecked. 'He was a good peaceful boy. But I'm fortunate, even so. I've birthed nine children and only lost three, and two of those before their first moon's turning. So really, the gods have blessed me, nay?'

They passed a row of squat charcoal* kilns built of earth and stone, empty and cold. Goats chewed at brambles grown around the brick. 'There was a dispute over the ownership of these kilns,' added Fothino, sliding so smoothly into this new subject that it seemed of equal importance to the death of her children, and in the life of the village, no doubt it was.

'Was it resolved?'

'Nay. Now we buy from Mussa Village, so it costs us more. It would be good if we could get these kilns running, but no one wants to open the dispute. There was a killing done over it.'

'A killing!'

'A man died up on Curling Beach who was one of them arguing over kiln rights. Maybe he drowned, or maybe he was hexed, or maybe he was stealing from the trade offering left for the merlings — that's what I think he was doing, for he was a sneaking sort of man. That was four years back. Those two clans involved barely speak to each other to this day.'

'A trade offering left for the merlings?' Marit had heard of this ancient custom in tales. 'Do you folk still make such offerings?'

'Don't all folk do so? How can the proper balance be held, if the trade offerings aren't made to the other children of the Mothers? We share with each other, just as it says in the tales.'

The woods gave way to sheep pasture and orchard. 'How often do you see outsiders?'

'Outsiders? Like outlanders? A fishing boat or two, every year, from up north-away. They are very ugly people, skin like a white-fish's underbelly and — although I admit it is difficult to believe — some have red hair.'

'Red hair?'

'Like flames.'

Marit shook her head, unable to envision red hair. 'What of folk from the Hundred?'

'There's a regular trader what comes in from High Point off

Little Amartya once a year. Sometimes fisherfolk bide over here in a storm.'

'You're well cut off.'

'Are we? From what?'

They approached on a path through neat garden strips, the sturdy long houses rising beyond. The whole village had turned out, frail elders, wriggling little ones, restless youth, and stolid mature women and men. Singing and gesturing in a talking line, they chanted the familiar closing scene from the tale of the Silk Slippers in which the innocent girl is welcomed at long last to her home.

'Come in, come in, we welcome you with garlands Come in, come in, at long last you return Food and wine we will bring you Sit with us, for we have been waiting Come in, come in'

A girl child and boy child were urged forward with a bucket of water and juniper soap so she could wash face and hands. A second pair offered a ladle of fresh water to rinse her mouth. A third presented her with a garland of aromatic maile. The porch of the most prosperous family in the village — they were proud to tell her they were blacksmiths who worked metal for most of the peninsula — had been hastily garlanded with kuka nut and myrtle wreaths. A low eating table and pillow had been set out where she sat. An elderly man ceremonially wiped out a drinking bowl of fine white ceramic, small enough to cup in her hand, a piece of exceptional beauty in such an isolated village. A woman carried in a vessel of heated rice wine, and some rice cakes arranged on a wooden platter. A different woman, head shaved in the manner of the Lantern's clerks, murmured over these offerings a blessing so ancient Mark had never heard it outside of tales: Let the breath of the Mothers enter. Let the breath of the Mothers invest all things. Had she walked into the past, through an unseen gate? The master blacksmith himself knelt humbly and poured out the wine. He stepped back.

'Let me not sit alone,' Mark said.

Aui! Everyone crowded forward; the frail elders were brought up onto the porch and helped to sit on frayed pillows brought by children racing away to other houses to fetch extra; children and

youths hunkered down in a crouch, arms hooked over knees; the others stood or sat or crouched according to their wish. But she must drink and eat alone, regardless, their gazes intent on her in a way startling to her after all this time with folk avoiding her gaze. She was careful to look no person straight in the eye, and yet their fascination did not overwhelm her. Not that they were innocent; far from it! But they did not fear her. It was fear that made the intimacy of the exchange so invasive and horrible.

Their silence lasted as long as the rice cakes.

'Honored Guardian,' said the clerk, 'we have sent runners to the other villages. Do you wish to visit each village separately, or meet at some central place? If I could recommend the Lantern's temple in Mulla-'

'Nay,' objected the blacksmith, 'the Devourer's temple is more appropriate.'

'Only because your cousin is hieros there,' said the clerk.

'Begging your pardon, honored Guardian,' said Fothino. 'What is your Wish?'

T have to go,' said Marit, surprised by their assumption that she had come on purpose to preside over an assizes. Yet why not? They knew no other story here, where they saw one trading vessel every year and, perhaps, a few flame-headed barbarians. Here came a Guardian, so naturally she would preside over an assizes.

'I have to go,' she continued, 'in another day. Best call for the assizes tomorrow at a location folk can easily walk or ride to.'

'Begging your pardon, Guardian,' said Fothino, 'but the folk from Rulla Village will take an entire day to walk even to Hasibal's stone. Can you not preside for two days at the assizes?'

They watched so expectantly and with so much hope.

A company from Wedrewe must march overland to the port of Dast Elia before sailing up the length of the Elia Sea and along a coast known for its rocky dangers and intemperate seas.

'Two days.' She could say nothing else.

Long into the night the villagers chanted and danced, and golden mead and an amber ale with the essence of pears flowed as freely as if it were festival time.

Warning returned to her at dawn, an event that silenced the merrymaking. Leading the horse, she walked with the entire village singing and clapping in procession along a path that wound inland

through woodland. Before midday, they arrived in a meadow partway up the slope of the northern peak. In this vale of the Formless One dwelt an ancient stone sacred to Hasibal; flowers had been left as offerings on its flat water-pocked surface: a pair of fresh wreaths, withering bouquets, a desiccated necklace of blooms almost ground to dust.

She knew nothing about the rituals attendant on a Guardian assizes, but here the priests could recite the forms from memory. According to the gathered priests, the Guardian's seating place must face south in the morning and north in the afternoon; those who came to watch must stand at a distance; those who brought their cases must enter in groups and wait their turn at specific stations according to the nature of their complaint and whether they were accuser or accused. For the aged, pillows to sit on under shade; for young people come in from distant villages who could expect to meet and mingle with other young folk, a discreetly blind eye turned to the usual activities of youth. A makeshift market sprang up under the shadow of the wood.

No offerings of any kind were allowed, to avoid the appearance of bribery, and every village was expected to contribute food and drink in proportion to the number of people attending from that village. Folk must eat! For herself, she sipped at juice and ale, nibbled at flat bread, white pears, and a fish stewed with barley and some spices for which she had no name.

A pig had broken into a garden one too many times, destroying several crops of tubers, and the gardener had finally in a rage killed it and eaten it. The owner wanted damages paid; the gardener blamed the owner for not penning the pig properly after multiple warnings and demanded damages equal to her loss of crops. Five years had passed in which the dispute curdled on like a sour taste.

'What would content you?' In the face of her piercing gaze they agreed it was foolish not to have settled the matter much sooner: a piglet delivered to the owner in recompense for the lost meat; a stout pen built by the owner to avoid another incident, together with two baskets of pears, fifty tey of barley, and a bundle of sour-wort leaves in exchange for the produce lost.

The placement of boundary stones must be reconsidered. Accusations of theft years old, suspicion still festering. Two bolts of good dyed linen cloth filched a mere ten days ago. Inheritance squabbles were the worst; she knew that already from her years as

a reeve. One group dragged on its self-serving arguments for so long she lost her temper and let them know in detail the scope of their manifold faults. How they then scrambled to seek a grudging solution, having lost face so nakedly before the entire assembly!

Night came on, and torches were lit, and still they came, patiently waiting their turn, more folk straggling in from distant villages to set up awnings as they accepted a place in line. Yet she did not tire. The pleas and arguments, even at their worst, were like nourishment.

A man was accused of hexing a fatal illness onto a woman's three children; he had become outcast and yet he was innocent of the deed.

'There's an old feud here,' Marit said as torches crackled, 'that you are all covering up. I want the truth.'

The truth can be ugly. It was at last revealed that the woman knew who had poisoned her children: her husband had done it himself, because he knew that another man had fathered two of them and he did not want the shame and dishonor revealed as they grew into their adult faces. But his clan was powerful and wealthy — by local standards — and she was afraid to accuse him and yet must accuse someone — a man of no wealth and no connections — lest she herself be condemned.

'I wish I was dead with my little ones,' she sobbed.

So on through the night, so many grievances smoldering over the years and decades that folk did want, no matter the cost, to bring into the light. Marit wondered if the truth would ever be known about the man dead in the surf at Curling Beach. Maybe he was best left dead, his dying a mystery. Is this one of the truths that Guardians must learn? That the truth does not always bring closure?

Yet folk will go on with life, as a new day will dawn.

'But I don't want to marry him!' exclaimed the young woman, a strapping, beautiful creature with such an immense weight of self-satisfaction that it was like swallowing honey laced with garlic. 'I want to marry his brother.'

'His brother does not want to marry you,' observed Marit, who did not even need to call for the brother's testimony. He was a handsome lad, one she would have liked to have tumbled when she was younger, but his embarrassment was apparent. 'He was a kalos at the temple, not a suitor. He slept with you in the courtyard of the Devourer.'

'Yes! Oh! Yes!' She gazed adoringly at the hapless youth. He looked away, helplessly, toward his disgusted family.

'Lust does not make a marriage.' Yet she thought of Joss as she spoke the words. Had it been only lust she'd nurtured for Joss? They had spoken of bearing a child together. That was cursed serious, especially for reeves who served the gods and the Hundred; they didn't expect a normal life. 'Daughter, you think too well of yourself. Refuse to marry the young man offered to you and have your clan look elsewhere. That is your right. But do not pretend that the worship shared in the Devourer's temple is meant to be carried outside the temple walls. The gods recognize that we are human in our greed and our lust and our joy and our striving, in the ways in which we fight and hate and nurture and love, in the ways we tend our fields with hard work or steal that which belongs to others when we know it is wrong. The laws of the Hundred allow us to live in harmony when otherwise all around us might fall into chaos and conflict. Marriage is for the clan. Desire belongs in the Merciless One's precincts, not in the village street.'

The young woman burst into flamboyant sobbing, aware of how fetching she looked in her misery. Her doting friends led her away.

'Make the marriage, or do not,' said Marit to the clans. 'But I advise you to make your decision quickly. Seal the agreement, or make a clean break and go your ways without blame. This is a small matter. Don't let it fester until it becomes a big one.'

In the end it took three days to get through all the cases people were willing to bring before her. In the afternoon of the third day Warning paced up to the rock and dipped her head, and Marit said to the assembly, 'Now I must go.'

They offered their thanks and, as they would with a reeve, a bundle of provisions for her trouble. She wanted nothing else, nor did she expect it. They had given her their trust; there was no better gift.

She and Warning rode into the sky as the gathering watched her depart. Down to the shore they flew. Was that a pod of mer-lings skimming the ocean's surface just beyond Curling Beach, where the waves formed tunnels? Was that smoke coming from caves along the northern shore just beyond the the thin ridge that connected the peninsula to the mainland? Did an outpost of delv-ings make their home in these far reaches, as Fothino had implied?

It was as if she had entered the Hundred at long last and now must leave it to return to lands where rot had wormed its way deep into the heart of what had once been solid.

Our thanks to you, Guardian.

For days onward these words sustained her.

You could know a lot about the wildings' moods from their ears. As they walked along a deer track through one of the thick stands of woodland where Shai now felt safest, Brah's ears rose, flicked, and lowered halfway. Sis (Shai had started calling them Brah and Sis, names which amused them) was up in the trees, unseen, but she hooted softly. Brah brushed an ear with a hand, to say, 'Do you hear?'

Shai did hear a sound like a murmur vibrating through the soles of his feet: they were coming to a big river.

They had trekked for over a month, first creeping and crawling through cultivated Herelia, stealing fruit from orchards and forgotten radishes from last season's gardens, and later hiking through forested hills until they reached what Shai figured was the Haldian plain. Twice, in the hills, they'd been caught out by local woodsmen, but both times he'd managed to drop to the dirt before being spotted while the presence of a wilding caused the folk to stammer formal greetings and back away.

Brah tapped Shai's shoulder in the gesture that meant: Move.

After a while, they halted at the woodland's edge and looked over cleared fields to a well-maintained road and, beyond it, a swift-flowing river. The current looked plenty strong and it seemed deep, too, cut by powerful waters with a hard blue tinge. Beyond the river lay more woodland, changing color as the afternoon shadows deepened, yet this wall of greenery made him uneasy: It was like seeing foothills and sensing that behind them lay mountains as mighty as the Spires, a wilderness impossible for humankind to penetrate.

Sis dropped out of the trees with a fearsome display of incisors. Her hands moved through gestures so fast that Brah flicked his ears in dismissal as if to say: 'No use, he can't understand you.'

But Shai did understand. 'Is that your home?'