Near the end of the performance, when most of the Ariaden were on stage, something drew Maskelle’s eyes to the bank below the outpost. The light from the lamps along the balconies didn’t fall there and the shadows were deep … The light. Maskelle sat up abruptly. There should be smaller lamps attached to the pilings, so a boat passing down the river during the night wouldn’t be in danger of striking them. There had been lamps, the last time she had noticed.
She got to her feet, her knees cracking in protest at her long immobility, and made a wide circle around the audience, out of the torchlight. Some boatmen were playing dice with the Mahlindi’s guards and drivers in the very back, and none of them looked up as she passed.
It was very dark near the bank, the shadow of the outpost blocking what little moonlight escaped past the clouds. She only knew how near she was by the sound of the river and the mud squelching underfoot. She found the water steps that led down to the bridges under the main building, crept down them to the first piling. She ran her hands around the rough splintered surface until she felt the cracked globe of the lamp; the glass was still warm.
So something came out of the river and put out the lamps, she thought, finding the steps again with her staff and climbing back up the bank. But where is it now?
The play had ended and the troupe were taking bows, the Mahlindi thumping their feet and shouting to show their appreciation. Maskelle moved away from the outpost as the crowd dispersed. She saw the factor’s assistant gesture emphatically at the pilings, calling an order to someone, and others ran to relight the safety lamps.
Maskelle withdrew all the way to the edge of the trees where she had a view of the whole camp. There was a group around the factor’s assistant now, pointing at each other and talking angrily; she took it that some blame was being passed around for allowing the lamps to go out. It would be nice to believe it was an accident or negligence, but she didn’t think she was so lucky.
It was late and the camp quieted down rapidly. The Ariaden were the first to retire, cranking down the shutters on their wagons against insects and the threat of rain. The boat people went back to their boats, and the Mahlindi and the other travelers gradually withdrew into their own wagons, the drivers wrapping up in blankets and stretching out on the seats or tailgates. The factor’s guards were all stationed inside the post; the Mahlindi had sentries, but they were all watching the merchants’ cargo wagons.
Maskelle paid special attention to a trader’s wagon nearby. Before retiring he filled a lamp with oil from a large gourd that hung on the sideboard of his wagon. He had also banked his cooking fire badly. Water spirits could be driven off by fire, especially if they could be lured too far away from a source of running water.
A little time passed and the lights inside the outpost went out, one by one.
Sitting on the damp ground under a breadfruit tree, in the dark and quiet, Maskelle began to feel the night come alive around her. She felt the wind breathe through the heavy leaves above her; the impatient river water lap and tug at the pilings and the ropes; the weight of the wagons on the ground; the stamp of the oxen’s feet. Felt that she wasn’t alone.
He was about twenty feet from her, crouching at the base of a tree at the edge of the compound. Hah, she thought, easing silently to her feet.
She made it to within five steps of him before his head turned sharply. “Surprise,” Maskelle said, a barely voiced whisper.
She had surprised her swordsman this time, she felt, and annoyed him too, though it was too dark to read his expression. He was sitting among the knobs at the base of an old cypress, the sheathed siri on the ground in front of him. This close to him she could still sense the scent of the Temple of the Sare on his skin, from when he had bathed in the sacred baray. He didn’t say anything as she settled next to him, but after a moment he evidently decided not to hold it against her, and whispered, “It hasn’t moved since it came out of the river.”
Maskelle hadn’t expected to see whatever spirit had come ashore earlier, at least not until it moved into the compound. “How long have you been watching it?”
She could feel him looking at her. “Since the middle of the play.” Shifting to face forward again, he added, “I saw the lamps go out, too.”
She decided not to correct his impression that she had seen the lamps blown out and not belatedly noticed the absence of light. She scanned the bank, but still couldn’t see where the damn thing was. Giving in, she said, “Where is it?”
There was a snort of exasperation and he leaned closer to her to point. “There, next to the boat with the broken hull, in the reeds,” he said.
She squinted. She could see the beached boat, a narrow-hulled slip used for quick travel. There was a crack in the hull and it had been left abandoned in the reeds on the bank, far from the occupied boats. After a moment she was able to discern a shape crouching near the bow. She gave the man next to her a sideways look, impressed. She had known it was somewhere along the bank, but she would never have seen it on her own, not without the Adversary’s help.
“What is it waiting for?” he asked, still watching her.
“Me,” she said, and stood slowly.
As soon as she stretched her senses toward it, it moved. It stood too and came toward her up the bank. A large dark shape, at least the size of a big man and roughly human-shaped, but its form seemed to flow and shift with the shadows. Maskelle frowned, staring incredulously. Water spirits were small, the size of children. They were little gray-green creatures, dangerous to sleeping people or animals, but easily frightened by fire.
The man beside her stood, his sheathed sword in one hand. “Magic would be helpful now,” he suggested, eyeing the thing that stalked up the bank.
“I’m not a wizard, I’m a priestess,” Maskelle said, not taking her eyes off the creature. It’s not a water spirit. It was something new. Ancestors, what a thought. After all this time, I’d have sworn I’d seen everything. It was within thirty feet of them now and she hastily rearranged her plans. “Get it to follow you back through the trees.”
“Fine.” He sounded exasperated.
“It’s not human,” she cautioned him, as he started to move away.
There was a lamp hanging from a pole at the top of the water steps, one of those the factor’s assistant had relit. As the shape from the river drew near it, the light reflected off and through it, as though the creature was made of black glass. The flame winked out as the thing passed.
Her swordsman stopped long enough to say, “No, really?” before slipping away.
Maskelle moved back into the trees, watching his progress. He went down toward the river, coming at the creature from the side and slightly behind it. She saw him bend and scoop up something from the ground, then shy it at the creature’s back.
Maskelle glanced upward, appealing to the Infinite. He threw a rock at it. Rastim could have done that.
The creature didn’t so much turn around as reverse its direction, moving with the smooth rapidity of rushing water, abruptly closing the distance between itself and the man. He dodged backward, made sure its attention was focused on him, then bolted for the trees.
Maskelle moved rapidly herself, tucking her staff back among the cypress knobs and running toward the compound. She went to the sloppy trader’s wagon she had spotted earlier and found the large gourd tied to the sideboard. Sniffing it to make sure it contained lamp oil, she cut it free, slicing a finger in her haste and need for silence. Then she found a metal cup abandoned nearby and scooped up a quantity of coals from the banked fire.
When she came back around the wagons, she saw the creature had halted at the edge of the trees. The swordsman stopped and threw another rock at it, and it couldn’t resist the challenge. It flowed forward, losing some of its shape as it crossed the invisible boundary into the forest.
Very good, Maskelle thought. At least it behaved like a water spirit. Maybe it also scented the temple on the swordsman, just the way she had. She followed hurriedly as it moved farther into the grove, wedging the gourd under her arm so she could work the cork out while still keeping hold of the cup, which was steadily burning her hand.
She caught up to them just as her swordsman turned at bay in a little clearing. The creature rushed for him, still eerily silent. He ducked and dodged, then turned and caught it with an upward stroke of the siri that would have disemboweled a man. The metal split the black surface with no discernible effect. Rastim couldn’t have done that, Maskelle thought, impressed.
She crouched down, dumping gourd and cup on the ground, knowing he couldn’t keep that up for long. She tore her sleeve off and shoved it into the open neck of the gourd, then held the cup up to it. This better work.
She looked up in time to see her swordsman bowled over backward as the water creature rushed him. It towered over him, and she shouted, “Over here! You’ve got the wrong one!”
It hesitated for a breath, then rushed back toward her.
She had time for the thought that it hadn’t seemed to move this fast when it was after someone else. The rag caught when the creature was right on top of her. She slung the gourd into it and threw the cup too for good measure. The gourd dissolved when it passed through the creature’s translucent skin and the oil spread out in a cloudy wave. She ducked an angry swipe from a limb, and for a tense moment she thought the oil hadn’t had time to catch. Then fire swept up over its skin and the creature tore away, thrashing and whirling.
Maskelle scrambled back. The creature was a cloudy mass of dark swirling vapor, fire running in glowing rivulets over its body. It heaved and struggled, losing more of its shape every moment, until it burst and vanished in a spray of water.
Maskelle scrubbed the droplets off her face with her remaining sleeve. The water tasted muddy and foul, like the bottom of the river. Across the clearing, her swordsman rolled to his feet and came toward her. He stared at her, breathing hard, then said, “That wasn’t enough heat to boil away all that water.”
Maskelle sighed. She would have preferred to be admired for her cleverness instead of questioned for her lack of logic. Sucking on her cut finger, she said, “That was its own stupidity. It panicked and dissipated itself.” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t have followed you in here, it should have stayed out there and made me come after it. But there’s not much brain mixed into all that water.” Thank the Ancestors for once. “It wasn’t an ordinary water spirit, so we’re lucky this worked at all.”
He looked down at the disappearing puddle, then knelt and ran his hand over the grass curiously, cupping the water in his palm. “How does it kill people?”
“The little ones lay down on sleeping people and drown them. This one … could do just about anything it wanted, I think.”
He glanced up at her, then shook the moisture off his hand.
Maskelle started to speak, but the words caught in her throat. The sense of alarm was urgent again, was more intense with every breath. Idiot, this was a distraction. “There’s something else.”
He stood. “Where?”
She turned and ran back toward the compound, crashing through brush and tripping over roots. She swung by the cypress to grab up her staff, then ran flat out across the open ground toward the Ariaden’s camp. As she reached the edge of it, she heard the tailgate of a wagon creak.
As soon as she rounded the bulk of Firac’s wagon, she saw it. A figure stood on the now open tailgate of her wagon.
She was too far away. The figure turned toward her, raised its hand. Then her swordsman tore around the back of Rastim’s wagon, coming at the intruder from behind. He jumped and caught it in a tackle, and dragged it off the tailgate.
She reached them a heartbeat later. Her swordsman was holding the furiously struggling figure face down. Maskelle moved around, trying to get a better look at the intruder as he twisted his head back and forth in the wet grass, choking with rage. And it was a “he” she saw, and not an “it.” He was dressed in torn and dirty trousers like a fieldworker and he was wire-thin, the bones standing out in his outflung arms. There were no old rank designs on the scalp beneath the stringy dark hair, and there was no disguising the rough and calloused skin from long hours at outdoor labor. One of his outstretched hands clutched a small silver-glass globe.
Maskelle’s brows knit. “Motherless sons of pigs,” she muttered. The Ariaden, the Mahlindi, the boat people, everyone inside the post, they all would have been killed. She could feel the power inside the glass straining to break free, even as the fieldworker strained to break free from his captor. She stepped close and caught a handful of the boy’s greasy hair. He twisted away and spat at her, but she had already seen what she needed to see. The pupils of his eyes were as silver-gray as the surface of the globe, opaque and solid, not like human eyes at all.
Rastim tumbled out of his wagon and moved to stand beside her, scratching his head and looking down at their unwelcome visitor. Heads were peering out from the other wagons. She stepped back and said, “Kill him.”
There was a shocked word of protest from someone and Rastim stared at her.
Maskelle ignored him, looking down at the man who had caught the boy, preventing him from breaking the globe and setting the curse loose on the compound. He hadn’t bothered to draw the siri, which was sheathed again at his belt. He had his knees planted on the boy’s shoulders, keeping him pinned to the ground.
The others were silent now, aghast or baffled. The boy hadn’t reacted to Maskelle’s words, though she had spoken in Kushorit, except to make the same gasping, snarling noises he had made since he had been caught. Of course, in Teachings, the philosopher Arabad had theorized that speech was impossible without a soul. So the old fool was right about something, Maskelle thought dryly. I should write him a letter. She said, “Whoever sent him here tied his soul to the curse in the globe. He’s already dead, his body just doesn’t realize it yet.” It was an old magic, older than the temples, and a foul one.
Even though she had just told him to do it, the swiftness still surprised her. The snap of the boy’s neck was audible. The swordsman stood, stepping away from the now limp body. She recalled that this was the third time he had surprised her, and according to all reputable authorities three was a highly significant number.
She sat on her heels and pried the globe out of the boy’s hand, bending the dead fingers back to work it loose. She turned it over curiously. The glass was free of defect, the silver-gray pigment blended with it evenly. She knocked it against the wagon wheel.
The glass shattered and the contents spilled out on the grass. There was a general scramble among the Ariaden to move back. When nothing immediately disastrous happened, Rastim returned. “Dried snakes?” he asked, baffled. The globe had contained a bundle of what did appear to be small desiccated snakes, each no more than an inch or so long.
“Not snakes,” Maskelle said. “Tela worms.” The wisps that looked like dried skin were actually their wings. They swarmed like bees and their poison burned into the blood and made the body jerk and spasm. A few could kill a large person in minutes. It would have been an unlovely death for all of them. “If the globe had broken while he was still alive, his life would have fed theirs and they would have swarmed over everyone in the camp.”
“Gah,” Rastim said, or something like it.
Old Mali, ever practical, was approaching with a straw brush and a small shovel. Maskelle nodded for her to go ahead and the old woman swiftly scooped up all the dried worms. “The fire,” Maskelle said. Old Mali gave her a disgusted look, but carried the shovel to the cooking fire anyway and tipped its contents in.
Maskelle got to her feet again, unconsciously brushing her hands off on her robes. She turned and found herself eye to eye with the swordsman; they were exactly the same height.
He was watching her with an air of irony. He said, “The priests sent him to kill you because you’re a wizard.”
“The priests didn’t send him,” she said, mock patiently. “And ‘wizard’ is a barbarian word.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, then suddenly turned, drawing the siri, facing the open area beyond the wagon. Maskelle stepped back, but she heard the footsteps and shouts a moment later. “Damn it, that’s the post guard,” she said.
Rastim was at her elbow. “Hide the body?” he asked, worried.
Maskelle hesitated. The Ariaden didn’t look like much of a match for an armed troop, but their profession made them quick-witted and used to moving swiftly in concert. Having seen them in action when the upper-level scenery had started to come apart during the climax of the performance of Otranto in Hisak City, she had no doubt of their ability to hide a fresh corpse from even a determined troop of guards. “Yes, hide the body.”
Rastim whirled around and gestured quickly. Her swordsman hopped out of the way as Gardick and Firac descended on the boy’s body. They swept it away and into Rastim’s wagon before the first of the guards came into view.
There were about ten of them, surrounding the wagons at a run. The Ariaden, who knew what part they had to play, milled around near the fire, looking as if nothing odd had happened.
One guard came forward and Maskelle went to meet him, leaning on her staff.
If he was the captain, he was surprisingly young. And he had intelligent eyes, not something she was glad to see. He said, “There was report of a disturbance here, Revered.”
“Oh, you mean, the screaming and thrashing around? They were rehearsing their next theatrical, that’s all,” Maskelle said, smiling, gesturing casually back at the Ariaden, who were doing a good imitation of a disturbed henroost. A rehearsal in the middle of the night, after a grueling day’s travel and a long play. At least it wasn’t pouring down rain.
Not surprisingly, this explanation failed to satisfy. He eyed her a moment, then said, “Who is that?”
“What?” Maskelle glanced behind her and almost dropped her staff. She had fully expected the swordsman to disappear; he had had more than enough time. But he stood a few paces behind her. He had, at least, sheathed the siri. “Oh, him.” She looked back at the guard captain. “He’s—”
Rastim materialized beside her. “We hired him to protect us on the road.”
Maskelle bit her tongue and managed to retain her smile. She had been about to say that he was just another traveler in the compound, drawn by the commotion. She reminded herself to tell Rastim that she had been lying to authority before he was conceived.
The guard captain said, “Then you don’t mind if we look around?”
“Not at all.” Maskelle shrugged.
Rastim gestured expansively. “Go right ahead.”
The captain turned and called to his men. “Search the wagons.”
So that’s how it is. Maskelle still kept her smile, despite the irrational urge to anger. She had planned for this, hadn’t she?
The other guards moved forward. Maskelle turned back to the wagons and found herself facing her swordsman again. He was looking at the guards with an intent expression that she had previously seen only on cats waiting for unwise lizards to venture out of woodwork, and he had his hand on the hilt of the siri. She waited until he met her eyes, and said, “Don’t draw that.”
His expression was reluctant, but he took his hand off the sword hilt. Maskelle walked back to the fire, aware he trailed after her.
He stood a pace behind her and to the side when she stopped by the fire, and she recognized it as the position someone who was acting as her bodyguard would rightfully adopt. Maskelle had only managed to keep soul and body together for the past few years by staying one step ahead of everyone else, or at least convincing them that she was. He had been helping her since she had found him with the raiders, and he seemed to think she should know the reason why. Pride and years of conscious and unconscious deception kept her from simply turning to him now and asking. Maybe pride, and maybe the fear that if she asked him, he would leave. It was almost funny.
The post guards weren’t all as diligent as their captain. Or as polite. Some were only desultorily poking around at the bundles and chests tied to the outside of the wagons; others were pushing their way inside. If that kept up, Maskelle was going to be very unamused.
One man tried to enter Killia’s wagon and she blocked him, trying to explain about the sick child inside. He refused to listen and grabbed her arm to shove her out of the way. Maskelle strode across the camp. “Leave her alone,” she said, giving him a prod with her staff.
The guard let go of Killia and stepped back, unhurt but startled.
“She’s afraid and I’ve just got her back to sleep,” Killia explained, exasperated. “They can look in if they just don’t wake—”
It happened so quickly Maskelle didn’t see it. She felt someone brush against her, and when she looked the guard was already on the ground, the bori club clattering off the wagon wheel. It was her swordsman who had pushed past her, who stood with his back to her, between her and the guard who was now scrambling to his feet. The guard must have reached for her arm or, Ancestors help him, made to swing the club at her.
The other guards were drawing weapons. She thumped the swordsman in the back to warn him, and he ducked as she swung her staff up.
Unlike the river raiders, the post guards knew what that meant. They hesitated, and that gave the captain time to react. He ran between them, flinging up his arms, and shouted, “Stop!”
Maskelle realized her arms were trembling, and not from the weight of the staff. Her heart pounded and the anger was a lump in her throat. That was a little close, she thought, sense returning. She lowered the staff. She said, “You’ve searched. Now go.”
The captain shook his head, breathing hard. He said, “What’s in that wagon?”
“A sick child,” Killia said, standing up and slapping the dirt off her pantaloons. She was too good an actress to sound angry, but the blood had drained from her face. “I told him he could look. I just didn’t want him to climb inside.”
The matter was settled an instant later when a round, wan face peered over the top of the tailgate at them and whimpered.
“See?” Killia said, dropping the tailgate and lifting the little girl into her arms.
The captain sighed and waved his men away. Some had the grace to look abashed, though the one who had started the trouble was belligerent and reluctant to withdraw. The captain waited until he had walked away before he said, “Sorry, Revered. It was a mistake.”
“It was almost a deadly mistake,” Maskelle told him, thinking, I’m not doing well at this so far. Haven’t reached the city yet and I’ve almost broken my oath twice.
He stared at her, uncomprehending, then shook his head and followed his men. As the guards returned to the post, Rastim let out his breath. Maskelle asked softly, “Where is he?”
“Firac’s wagon, in the lower bed.”
“I thought they put him in yours.”
“We did, but they were going to search it and we had to shift him.”
She shook her head. She hadn’t seen them do it, though she supposed they had taken advantage of the distraction. “We’ll give him a farewell tomorrow, after we cross the dike.” A funeral on the eve of entering the Temple City was not auspicious. She went back to the fire.
A very worried group of Ariaden gathered there. All told, they were not a prepossessing lot, but then for the Ariaden theater that hardly mattered. Killia hovered near the tailgate of her wagon, a blanket wrapped around her, obviously not wanting to stray too far from her child.
From the expressions on their faces, the way they kept sneaking looks past her, the swordsman had followed her and was standing a few paces behind her again. She realized that was the third time he had moved to defend or protect her. And there was that number three again. The Infinite had been producing a large number of odd conjunctions lately. It could feel free to stop at any time, as far as she was concerned.
She said, “Well?”
Gardick, who always had something to say, said, “Can we expect more of that tonight?”
“No, not tonight.” Maskelle hoped she was right.
There was an uncomfortable stirring. Firac, Doria, Therassa, the others—familiar faces after all these months. Not very many to perform some of the more elaborate productions, but the Imperial capital of Duvalpore would appreciate the intricacy of Ariaden theater where the provincial cities hadn’t. One or two wouldn’t meet her eyes, others looked worried, others merely tired.
Rastim cleared his throat. “I think we all know what sad condition we would be in but for the … but for Maskelle.”
She pushed her ragged hair back from her face, to cover her momentary smile. Her name still sounded odd, spoken in an Ariaden accent. More proof this land was in her blood; she had been foolish to ever leave.
Gardick said, “No one is saying different.” He looked around at the others, his expression combative. “But we don’t have to pretend to like it.”
Maskelle laughed. Sometimes she liked Gardick. Then Gardick said, “And who’s that?”
He pointed past her, at the swordsman. Maskelle pressed her lips together. And sometimes she didn’t like Gardick at all.
Rastim saved her from the embarrassing admission that she had no idea by stepping forward and saying, “Now, that’s Maskelle’s business, isn’t it? Why don’t we all get some rest? We have more travel tomorrow.”
That little speech should have occasioned a revolt, if not a small riot, but the troupe had become accustomed to accepting the impossible along with the unpleasant in the past few months. All they did was stamp and grumble, or exchange tired looks and roll their eyes.
As the others drifted back to their wagons, Rastim leaned close and out of the side of his mouth whispered, “Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered back.
He grimaced at her and she grimaced back. She patted him on the back and made shooing motions. Rastim went reluctantly, casting doubtful glances over his shoulder.
She turned back to her swordsman. He was ignoring the curiosity of the Ariaden and matter-of-factly studying a long slice on his forearm. The bori club must have grazed him. Well, you did tell him not to draw the sword. “Come with me, I’ll clean that up for you,” Maskelle said. Old Mali had left a brazier near the fire and she used one of the wicker pads to pick it up.
He gave her an odd look, but followed her back to her wagon obediently enough. She climbed in and lit two of the hanging cage lamps with the coals from the brazier, then set it in the padded holder on the shelf. He sat on the tailgate, looking over the interior of the wagon. It was furnished with castoffs and hand-me-downs and oddities collected in travel: frayed blankets and cushions of faded Tiengan weaving, a battered copper tea server, Nitaran puzzle boxes. He was looking up at the curved roof where about a dozen puppets hung, their painted faces pointing down like an audience of human-headed bats, their features lifelike in the dim light. They were being stored here because Maskelle had few possessions and the other wagons were overfull. There were also pieces of scenery folded up in the chests and under the bunk. Maskelle moved a stage tree aside to get to the clean rags and salve.
“You’re a healer, too?” he said, somewhat warily.
“Not really.” Old Mali had made the salve. Maskelle wasn’t going to mention that in case he had seen the old woman outside. Old Mali’s appearance didn’t exactly engender confidence in her skills as a physician, and she knew the Sintane was fairly civilized for the outer reaches. She looked up and saw he was still sitting on the tailgate. She lifted a brow. “I could toss it to you.”
He came farther into the wagon, taking a place on the bench almost within arm’s reach. But again she had no sense that he was afraid, just careful, like a strange cat that had chosen her for a companion.
She took his arm and wiped the blood away. He felt him react to the contact, just a slight start, perhaps because her hands were cold. His skin was very warm and she was more aware of the pulsebeat in his wrist than she should be. She noticed he was clean, or at least not filthier than she was from long days of travel, then remembered the midnight swim in the baray. That didn’t help her concentration any.
She was uncomfortably aware that the last time she had been this close to a man had been two months ago when she had helped hold Rastim down so Old Mali could lance his boil. Before that … Well, she wasn’t going to add up the days, but it had been a long time.
He had said nothing, and under the pressure of that silence, she found herself saying, “What’s your name?”
His eyes flicked up to meet hers. Green flecked with gold. “Rian.”
Caught unprepared by his willingness to give up that information so readily, she stared at him and he grinned at her, obviously conscious of having surprised her. Again. Inwardly cursing her susceptibility, she said, “Is that all? No family, no clan?” If she was remembering rightly, the Sitanese took the name of their local lord for a family name.
He turned his head and she noticed his right earlobe had the marks of at least four piercings for ornaments; she knew the Sitanese denoted rank in their warrior caste with ear studs, but she didn’t know what the number signified, if anything. He had laid the sheathed siri next to him on the bench. She had thought it without ornament, but this close she could see the ring and the hilt bore deep marks and gashes—not signs of use, but places where stones or figured metal had been removed. Had he sold everything valuable during his long journey, or carefully removed any mark of rank before he left? Maybe both, she thought. He was wearing an amulet around his neck, next to his skin. She knew it must be important to him, since he had sold or otherwise gotten rid of any other ornament. It was a small disk of fine white stone on a faded blue cord, inlaid with lapis in a runic figure. That doesn’t tell you much, she thought in wry self-disgust. Your education in the customs of lands outside the Empire might have been just a little better. But then she had never expected to have to wander them. He said, “Things are less complicated in the Sintane.”
“If the Sintane is so much better, why are you here?”
His voice was wry. “I didn’t say it was better, just less complicated.”
When she released his arm the warmth of his skin seemed to cling to her fingers. She took a tana leaf from the wrapped bundle under the salve jar. He watched with a somewhat bemused expression as she worked the sweet-smelling salve into the leaf. “You don’t want to know my name?” she asked.
“I know your name. You’re Maskelle.”
For an instant, she felt cold. “How do you know that?” Instead of betraying any guilt, he gave her that look she was beginning to be accustomed to, the what is wrong with your wits look, and explained, mock patiently, “You answer to it when the others yell it at you.”
“Oh.” Idiot, she told herself. “The others are the Corriaden Traveling Grand Theatrical, from Ariad.”
He frowned. “But you’re from Duvalpore.”
“Yes.” She took his arm again and laid the leaf along the cut, then bound it in place with a clean strip of cloth. She had to grit her teeth to hold back the impulse to explain that the tana had healing properties too; his opinion that she didn’t know what she was doing was as palpable as the dampness in the air. It had to be intentional.
He looked at her staff. “What’s a Voice of the Ancestors doing on the Great Road with a traveling Ariaden puppet show?”
“It’s not a puppet show.”
He looked up at the puppets suspended from the wagon’s ceiling, one eyebrow lifted in eloquent comment. “It’s not an ordinary puppet show,” she explained, tying off the bandage and aware she sounded like a fool. And that they had somewhat strayed from the subject at hand.
She looked at him. He looked back, still with that same air of ironic comment. He wasn’t afraid of her at all. Careful, but not afraid. That might be ignorance, but he had called her a wizard, and if she understood what the Sitanese meant by the word, then he should have been. She asked, “Why did you follow me? You were avoiding the road, weren’t you? Why come to the Sare and risk the temple guards?”
As if she hadn’t spoken, he said, “If it wasn’t the priests that sent that boy, who was it?”
Since Maskelle had left Duvalpore years ago, no one had spoken to her with this sort of directness. If they believed her guise as a traveling Koshan nun, they treated her with the deference due a religious under the protection of the Celestial Empire and the temples. If they knew who or what she really was, they were afraid. Even Rastim and Old Mali, her best friends among the Ariaden, never questioned her like this, possibly because they dreaded to hear the answers.
No one in years had told her she was wrong, or so much as inferred that her judgment was wanting. She found herself grinning. “It wasn’t the priests. One of the most sacred duties of the Koshan is to serve the Voices. That’s why the head priest of the Temple of the Sare offered me hospitality, though he knew what he was letting himself in for, from his own people and from the one who sent the boy.”
He stared at her. She knew she had the satisfaction of finally really startling him, though she wasn’t sure how. He said, “Are you a nun?”
“Once. Not now.” She adopted a bemused expression, though she hadn’t much confidence in it.
“Are Voices celibate?”
“No.” She had actually opened her mouth for an explanation of the Koshan Order and how the Voices were lifted above it when they were chosen, when he kissed her.
A persistent rapping at the side of the wagon interrupted them. Maskelle sat back from Rian and saw an eye peering cautiously at them through a gap in the partly closed flap. Rastim’s voice said, “Excuse me.”
Maskelle got up and tore the flap open. “What, what, what?”
Rastim stepped back, pointing across the compound. “The guards are still watching us,” he whispered urgently. She looked past the wagons toward the post and saw several of the guards at the bottom of the stairs, apparently in idle conversation. Stepping out onto the tailboard, she could see the flickering lights of small handlamps around the compound between the Mahlindi’s wagons and theirs and also at the edge of the trees and up at the road. Rian leaned on the gate beside her and pointed out, “They would have to be moon-crazy not to watch us.”
“That’s true,” Maskelle said, trying not to be distracted by the warm presence next to her thigh. “They’ll keep anything else from coming into the camp tonight, Rastim.”
“I did realize that, thank you both very much,” Rastim said through gritted teeth. “But there’s something else.”
Damn Ariaden anyway, Maskelle thought, resting her forehead against the rough wood. “Just tell me, Rastim, really.”
Rastim cast a worried look at Rian, then lowered his voice and said, “It’s knocking.”
“What’s…?” Maskelle frowned. “Oh. It.” Of course it was knocking. The damn thing had an instinct for when to cause trouble.
“I’m afraid they’ll hear it,” Rastim elaborated.
Maskelle sighed. “Yes, I’ve got the idea now.”
Rian looked from one to the other. “Hear what?”
Grimly, she climbed down out of the wagon. “All right. Let’s go do something about it.”
Rian jumped down behind her and followed them over to Rastim’s wagon. Within a few steps, Maskelle heard the knocking. If it got any louder, the post guards would hear it, too.
Firac and Therassa stood near the box where it hung beneath the wagon bed. Maskelle folded her arms and contemplated it with annoyance. The knocking was slow and paced evenly, with a funereal quality. She glanced at Rian, who stood at her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if he had seen its performance during the play or if he had already left to stalk the river creature by that point. She said, “It’s a puppet.”
Rian frowned at the box, then frowned at her. “It’s moving.”
“Well, they don’t in the normal course of things, that’s true,” Rastim said, sighing in resignation and scratching his head. “It’s…”
“Under a curse,” Maskelle finished, knowing how long it could take Rastim to get to the point. Some of the provincials the Ariaden performed for had seen so little of puppets they hadn’t yet grasped the fact that the wooden constructions needed a human actor to move; she had thought the Sintane would be among them, but evidently Rian knew better. “We need to shut it up.” The knocking was getting louder already.
“We could wrap blankets around it…” Therassa suggested. “Or bang the drums, that would cover the noise.”
“And wake everyone? Again?” Rastim asked. “The traders would kill us—and who could blame them?”
“Maskelle, can’t you do something?” Firac asked, worried.
“The puppet that walked out by itself during the play?” Rian persisted.
“Yes.” Maskelle rubbed her forehead. If she used her power, it would just draw more unwelcome attention from the spirits of the river and the jungle, and there was too strong a chance of other attacks tonight as it was.
Rian folded his arms. “If you tell me why it’s cursed, I’ll tell you how to stop the knocking.”
They all stared at him. Maskelle raised a brow and looked at Rastim, who shrugged doubtfully. It was obvious he didn’t think Rian could fulfill the bargain. She said, “They were performing in Corvalent and had heard stories of a man called Magister Acavir their whole way through the province. He had a reputation as a penurious tyrant.”
Rian looked at Rastim, who muttered, “I thought it was just a myth.”
“The Ariaden treat their rulers with less deference and it’s very common to make fun of them at public plays and festivals. A sense of humor is considered very important in any high official. So one night, to please a balky audience, they substituted the name Magister Acavir for some bumbling court official in one of their Ariaden plays. It worked, the audience did love it. And guess who was there in the very town they were performing in.”
There was some feet shuffling and Therassa sighed. “The knocking?” Rastim prompted.
Rian shook his head, as if reconsidering his association with them. “Put the box underwater. It’ll muffle the noise.”
Maskelle rubbed the bridge of her nose. Good. Now I feel like a fool, too. Rian didn’t realize the full efficacy of his suggestion. Water wouldn’t only muffle the sound, it would provide a barrier that the curse’s power couldn’t penetrate. “Not the river.” Running water would be best, but she didn’t want to see Magister Acavir’s curse and the river in its current state brought together, and they needed to be able to move quickly. Stagnant water would eventually lose its power to seal the curse in, but it would buy time to get away from the post before the creature thought of a way to bring the guards down on them. “If we unloaded one of the bigger puppet boxes and filled it with water, we could put Gisar’s box inside it.” All the puppet boxes were proofed with tar and lined with padded silk to keep water out; they should keep water in just as well.
Unpacking one of the larger puppets and hauling out its box presented no problem, but filling it with water and lowering Gisar’s box into it was problematic, or at least the Ariaden thought so. The water trough allotted to their camp was about twenty yards past their wagons, in the direction of the post. The oxen had been watered earlier and were hobbled nearby.
Rastim and Gardick carried the large box over to the trough and filled it. The others brought Gisar’s box and a lamp to see by, singing to cover the increasingly frantic knocking inside, Firac banging on the lid in apparently impromptu accompaniment.
Maskelle stood in the shadow of Rastim’s wagon, shaking her head. If the post guards thought the inhabitants of the Ariaden camp more than a little deranged, now they had ample proof to support their opinions. Rian leaned against the sideboard next to her. “They’re overdoing it just a little,” he commented. It was too dark to read his expression, but the sardonic note in his voice said everything.
“They always overdo things.” Maskelle had gotten used to it over time. “It has something to do with being actors.”
“Why are you with them?”
She glanced sideways at him. “I met them in Corvalent.” Firac and Killia pretended to stagger, and Gisar’s box tipped into the larger box, splashing Rastim and the others. The guards, watching from the steps of the post, didn’t react except to exchange glances. Probably struck dumb with amazement, Maskelle thought.
“The performance that Magister Acavir objected to?” Rian asked.
“Yes. I was in the audience, too.” Acavir hadn’t wanted to listen to reason and Maskelle had had to frighten him a little to discourage him from violence. Another small violation of her oath. Perhaps the Ancestors would consider it small, as well. And perhaps it had escaped the Ancestors’ notice how much she had enjoyed it. Not likely. Rian was still looking at her. “He wanted to kill them. The curse was a compromise.”
The Ariaden carried the large box back to the wagons slowly, probably prepared to burst into song if the knocking was still audible. But at this distance, the water muffled the noise admirably. Maskelle knew they would have a needlessly elaborate story to explain their actions if anyone asked. She glanced briefly upward in wordless appeal to the Ancestors. Who are probably laughing Themselves sick, she thought. “They’ve made too much out of this since it happened. You’d think a cursed puppet was the end of the world.” She needed to stop trying to think of a way to lure Rian back into her wagon and focus on the present situation. The continued interest of the post guards was a problem, considering the activity of Gisar the puppet. Putting it in the second box was a good stopgap measure, but it would only work until the creature thought of something else.
“Why are they going to Duvalpore?” Rian asked.
“To get the curse on the puppet removed.” She watched him carefully, and added, “I’m going to Duvalpore because the Celestial One asked me to.”
Rian shifted against the wagon. “And you thought no one would look for you in a troupe of play actors.”
“No one did, not all the way from Corvalent, and I’d had a great deal of trouble before then.” She let out her breath. The dark spirits that hunted her had been confused by the presence of so many other living beings around her; they had been long used to her traveling alone, and it had taken them until now to find her again. She added, “So I’m dragging them along with me for their own good and mine, whether they like it or not.”
Rian said nothing for a moment, then, “Why don’t you use your magic?”
Maskelle smiled to herself. The night was turning wild, the wind was up, and the river still rushed through the pylons supporting the post. She said, “It’s not mine to use,” and walked away.