Winds Of Fate v(mw-1 Page 30

  But the Shin'a'in were proving horribly hard to find. It seemed that no matter where she went, they had either been and gone, or they had not yet appeared.

  "Cakes yesterday, cakes tomorrow, but never cakes today," she muttered to herself, keeping one eye on Skif as she paid for the leather pouch and attached it to her belt. Clever pouch; well worth having, with a catch designed to foil pickpockets, and a belt loop with woven wire glued between two layers of leather, to outwit cutpurses.

  Well, she wasn't going to get anywhere today. The leather market was as empty of contacts as any other. It was time to try something else.

  But before she did that, she was going to have to deal with Skif. Before he drove her to give him a bloody nose.

  The crowds hadn't thinned any; sometimes she wondered what they were all doing here, they couldn't all be selling to each other, or there wouldn't be anyone in the booths. But there were smaller merchants who had no booths, picking up bargains for the luxury trade; there were plenty of people who seemed to be here just to shop and enjoy themselves.

  Kata'shin'a'in seemed to provide a kind of ongoing Fair that lasted for months. The security provided by the discreet bazaar guards encouraged folk to wear their finery and indulge themselves. She headed back to the inn with her other purchases, fruit and cheese and fresh bread, in a string bag at her side. She moved through the crowd briskly, at a fast walk, taking Skif by surprise so that she managed to lose him around a corner.

  Well, while he had been busy following her, she had been paying attention to the layout of the bazaar. She took a shortcut through the saddlers, coming out in the midst of the rug sellers; from there it was a another skip across to the food vendors. She stopped just long enough to buy a parchment bag full of sugared fried cakes; her nose caught the scent and she discovered she couldn't resist the rich, sweet odor. Then she cut down the aisle of the scent sellers and from there, she strolled directly into the inn.

  She unlocked the door of their room; and as she had expected, she had beaten him back. Since he was supposed to have been taking a nap" I wish you'd take me with you," Need said querulously, from beneath the bed. "It may be just a bazaar, but you know very well there are people who are out there looking for you." Wonderful. Another mother hen. "I can't take you with me," she said, trying to keep her patience intact. "It's bazaar rules; no long weapons in the bazaar, nothing longer than a knife, unless it's a purchase, and then it has to be wrapped up.

  :You could carry me wrapped,: the blade suggested hopefully :there wouldn't be any problem then.:

  "Then you'd do me about as much good as a stick," she snorted. less; you're not much good as a stick, you're too awkward and[ not long enough." Before the sword could retort, there was a sound of a key in the door, and it opened as soon as the lock disengaged.

  "Welcome back," she said dryly.

  "Uh. Hello," Skif said, first startled, then sheepish.

  "I suppose you couldn't sleep, hmm?" She put her purchases on the rickety little table that was supplied with the room. "You know, there's a little story I've been meaning to tell you-I wonder if you've ever heard it? It's about Herald Rana and her old suitor from home." He shook his head, baffled.

  "You're a cruel child," said Gwena.

  "I'm getting tired of this," she replied.

  "Herald Rana went back home for a visit last year, and a young Man who wouldn't give her a second glance back when she was the cheesemaker's daughter decided that she was the most wonderful woman he'd ever seen." She shrugged. "It might have been the Whites, it might have been that she'd matured quite a bit since the last time he saw her.

  It really doesn't matter. He followed her back to Haven and then out on her circuit. He got to be such a nuisance that she decided to do something about him. So the next time he came up behind her in a market and put his arms around her, she put him to the ground." She raised one eyebrow at him. "That wasn't enough for him, apparently, because he kept following her, but at a distance. So she waited until he followed her out into the forest when she went to hunt a little fresh meat." She paused, significantly.

  "Well?" Skif finally responded.

  "She ambushed him and planted an arrow right between his legs. I'm given to understand that she came close enough to his assets to shave them." Skif gulped.

  "I trust you take my point." She turned away from him, drew her knife, and lopped off the tip of the cheese roll with an obvious enthusiasm that made him wince. She stabbed the piece and offered it to him.

  He declined.

  "You are a very cruel child." Gwena sounded more amused than accusatory.

  Very practical," Need retorted, with a chuckle.

  "Very weary," she replied to both of them. And took the cheese herself.

  "Let's hope he gets the point-before I have to give it to him." The sword and Gwena joined in laughter. "oh, I think he did," Gwena chuckled. "I'll have a talk with Cymry and see if she can't have a word with him."

  "She'd better do something," Elspeth replied grimly. "Or I will. And this time, Herald or not, I'll be more direct."

  Priests and other religious travelers had their own special camping ground reserved for them away from the bazaar, on top of a rise. Shaman Kra'heera shena Tale'sedrin looked out over the crowded tents of the bazaar from his vantage point above it and smiled a little. Somewhere down there was a young woman, accompanied by a tall young man, who was looking for them.

  Not them, specifically. just the Tale'sedrin. Since he and Tre'valen had arrived late this afternoon, no less than four traders had come strolling up to their tent with the casually proffered information that someone was looking for Tale'sedrin.

  To each of those four, Kra'heera had said nothing. He had simply gone about his business of raising their tent. His apprentice, Tre'valen, had thanked them politely, but when he had shown no further interest in the subject, the four had strolled onward, ostensibly to visit some other tent dweller farther on. But Kra'heera read the set of their shoulders, and knew that they went away disappointed because he had not been interested in buying the rest of their information. There was as much traffic in information in the bazaars of Kata'shin'a'in as there was in material goods.

  He had not bought their intelligence because he did not need to. And he let them know by his manner, since they were no fools, that he had his own ways of information. Reinforcing the shamans' reputation for uncanny, timely knowledge never hurt.

  As sunset touched the tops of the tents with a sanguine glow, another visitor reached the encampment of the Shin'a'in, but this visitor had no interest in selling her information. Not to folk of the People of the Plains. not when her own son rode with them, adopted into the Clan of Tale'sedrin by marriage.

  This scarlet-clad visitor was welcomed within the newly-pitched tent with jokes and news; the brazier was fired for her, and cakes and sweet tea were offered and accepted. And when all the civilized amenities were completed, and only then, did rug seller Dira Crimson say what she came to say.

  She, Kra'heera, and Tre'valen sat comfortably on overstuffed cushions, placed on a carpet any of the rug traders would have offered their firstborn offspring for. "There is a girl," the woman said, her plump, weathered face crinkling with a smile as she arranged the folds of her scarlet skirt about her feet. "She is a stranger, and speaks with an accent that I would not know, had I not journeyed once into Valdemar with the Clan-where we had much profit, the gods be praised." Kra'heera's lips curled up in his own smile, and he filled her cup with more tea. "I think that the gods had less to do with that than your own wit and fine goods, trade-sister She waved the suggestion aside. "Na, na, one does one's best, and the gods decree the rest. So. There is a girl. There is a young man with her. She looks for Tale'sedrin. He watches her with the eyes of a young dog with his first bitch." Kra'heera laughed at the old woman's simile. There was no repressing Dira; she told things as she saw them, and if anyone objected, why, she felt they need not listen.

  "Young men are ever thus. W
hat of this girl of Valdemar, who seeks the Children of the Hawk?" he asked.

  "Well, it is said that she comes from Kerowyn, on whom be peace and profit, if such a thing is possible for one whose livelihood is by the sword. It is said that she bears the mage-sword given her from the hand of Kerowyn as a token of this." The old woman's black eyes peered at him sharply, from within a nest of wrinkles. "This is the sword of Clanmother Kethryveris, the blade called"Need."

  "It is said?" Kra'heera pondered the information. "You have seen this?" Dira shook her head. "No, not with my own eyes. Nor have I heard her claim this with my own ears. I have spoken with her but briefly, a few words at most. She seems honest. That is all I can say." Kra'heera nodded, and Dira smiled her satisfaction. No Shin'a'in ever moved on purely hearsay evidence. No Shin'a'in dared move on hearsay.

  But Dira had reported what she knew, and Kra'heera would not be caught by surprise.

  The last of the light faded, and Tre'valen lit the scarlet lamps that marked the tent as priestly and not to be disturbed. They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and Dira took herself back to her own tent, somewhere in the labyrinthine recesses of the rug seller's bazaar.

  Kra'heera nodded to his apprentice to take her place beside the brazier. The elder shaman sat in thought while his apprentice seated himself. "Will you do nothing about this Outlander?" Tre'valen wondered aloud. "Will you seek her out?"

  "Perhaps." Kra'heera studied the bottom of his paper-thin porcelain teacup. "Perhaps. She may be of some use to us, whether she speaks the truth or no. But we have a more urgent appointment, you and I."

  "We do?" Tre'valen asked, surprised, his black brows arching upwards in surprise. Tre'valen was one of the pure-blood Shina'in-by no means the majority among the mixed-blood Clan of Tale'sedrin. His iceblue eyes were startling to an outsider, set beneath his raven-black hair, in an angular, golden-skinned face.

  "Surely you did not think that we came riding over the Plains in the heat of summer for the pleasure Of it?

  Kra'heera responded wryly. C'If that is so, you have an odd notion of pleasure." Tre'valen flushed a little but held his tongue. Kra'heera's wit sometimes tended to the acidic, but his apprentices had to grow used to it.

  That was part of becoming a shaman; to be able to face any temperament with calm.

  "We go out now," Kra'heera announced, standing up from his crosslegged position with an ease many younger men would envy. That took Tre'valen by surprise; the apprentice scrambled to his feet awkwardly, just in time to follow his superior out into the night. To Kra'heera's veiled amusement, Tre'valen first turned toward the bazaar, and only altered his steps when he realized that the shaman was heading into the Old City.

  And not just the Old City, but the oldest part of the city. The city swallowed them, wrapping them in a blanket of sound and lights.

  Kata'shin'a'in did not sleep in trade season; business went on as usual after nightfall, although the emphasis shifted from the general to the personal, from the mundane to the exotic. In the bazaar the perfume sellers, the jewelers, the traders in mage-goods would be doing brisk business. In the Old City, within the inn walls, food, drink, and personal services were being sold. Kra'heera wondered if his apprentice felt as odd as he did, moving silently between walls, with the sight of the land and much of the sky blocked out by masonry. The wind could not move freely here, and the earth beneath their feet had been pounded dead and lifeless by the countless hooves of passing beasts.

  Yet the Shin'a'in had once known cities-or rather a city, one that had once stood in the precise middle of the Dhorisha Plains. Once, and very long ago, that had been the home of the Kaled'a'in.

  Kra'heera led the way confidently between the walls of alien stone' through the scents and sounds that were just as alien, the evidences of Outlanders conducting further business-or pleasure. He moved without worry, for all the fact that he wore a sword at his back, for the rule of the bazaar did not apply to Shin'a'in; not here, in their own city, where they only visited, but never lived.

  The deeper they went into the core city, the darker and quieter it became-and the stranger grew the scents and the sounds. Voices babbling in chaos became voices chanting quietly in unison; raucous song became the sweet harmony of a pair of boy sopranos. The mingled scents of perfume, wine, and cookery gave way to the smoke of incense and the fragrance of flowers. This was the quarter of the temples, and the doors spilling forth yellow light yielded to those with lanterns on either side, held invitingly open for the would-be worshiper.

  Yet these were all Outlander places of worship, not places that belonged to the Shin'a'in. Kra'heera continued past them as Tre'valen gazed about in interest. The lanterns at the temple doors became fewer; the doors, closed and darkened, until there was no light at all except what came from the torches kept burning at intervals along the street.

  Sound faded; now they heard the dull scuff of their own boot soles along the hard-packed dirt of the street.

  Finally they reached their goal, near where the street ended in a blank wall; a single, closed door, with a lantern burning low beside it. ir m'heera knocked in a pattern long familiar to his apprentice as the beginning of one of the drum chants.

  The door opened, and Kra'heera again hid his amusement to see Tre'valen's shock. She who opened the door for them was Kal'enedral, Swordsworn-and at first glance, she looked to be garbed in black, the color of blood-feud.

  A closer look as she closed the door behind them, however, showed Tre'valen what Kra'heera already knew; the color of her costume was not black, nor brown, but deep midnight blue.

  Which was not a color that Swordsworn ever wore.

  "What-" said Tre'valen.

  "She is special," Kra'heera said, anticipating his question. "She is Sworn, not only to the Warrior, but the Crone as well. She bears her blade-but she uses it to guard wisdom. There are a dozen more like her here, and this is the only place where you will find them." The Kal'enedral led them down the corridor, into a single, square room, with a roof made of tiny, square panes of glass set in a latticework of lead. The full moon had just begun to peer through the farther edge of the window-roof. Tre'valen stared at it in fascination; glass windows were a wonder to a Shin'a'in, and a glass roof a marvel past expectation.

  He almost stumbled onto the weaving carpeting the floor of the room; Kra'heera caught him before his foot touched the fragile threads, and steadied him as he looked down in confusion.

  "It is too old to hang," he explained. "And besides, as you know, there are things that need the moon to unlock." The Kal'enedral slipped out of the room unnoticed; Kra'heera took a seat on one of the many cushions placed around the woven tapestry at the periphery of the room. After a moment's hesitation, Tre'valen joined him.

  "You know the story of our people," Kra'heera said softly, as he waited for the moon to sail above the walls, shine down through the window, and touch the threads of the weaving. "Let me remind you again, to set your mind upon the proper paths." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tre'valen nod, and waited for a moment, absorbing the silence-and the dust of centuries rising from the weaving.

  "In the long-ago time, we and the Hawkbrothers were one people' the Kaled'a'in. We served and loved an overlord, one of the Great Mages, and when he became drawn into a war, so, too, did we. The end of that war brought great destruction, so great that it destroyed our homeland.

  The mage himself had great care for his people, and he gave the warning and the means for us to escape before the destruction itself was wrought.

  It took us many years to return from whence we had escaped; when we came here, to this very spot-" The moon crept through the roof-window; it had been edging down toward the weaving. He had paced his words to coincide with it reaching the first threads of the border, as he reached with the power She gave her shamans, and invoked the magic of the weaving.

  "-this is what we saw."

  Shaman Ravenwing passed her hand over her eyes, wishing she could change the reality as
she blotted out the sight. ir way here, the flattened trees, IWE debris that they had encountered on the complete absence of animal and bird life, the closer they came to the site, had given them some warning. The ridge of earth they had approached had told them more. But nothing prepared them for the reality.

  There was no homeland. Only a vast crater, as far as the eye could see, dug many, many man-heights into the ravaged earth. So intense had been the heat of the blast that had caused it, that the earth at the bottom had been fused into a lumpy sheet of glassy rock.

  Ravenwing took her hand from her eyes and looked again. It was no better at second viewing, and Ravenwing reached out blindly for the two Clansfolk standing beside her. She stood with her arms about their shoulders, theirs about hers; and her eyes streamed tears as she forced herself to face the death of all she had ever known.

  She sat inside the hastily-pitched Clan Council tent. erected to provide shade-and to block the sight of the destruction. With her sat the shamans, the Clan Elders, every leader of every Clan of the Kaled'a'in. They were here to make decisions-and possibly, to settle a rift that was threatening to split the People in twain.