that runs overland from Olossi around the eastern shore of the sea and then north through the valley of the River Ireni, that I just mentioned. Heaven's Ridge and the Spires meet northwest of there. It's possible to travel over the hump from there into the land beyond the Hundred, the white-grass plains, but it's so dry out there that no one goes that way except to trade with the barbarians — eiya! — that is, the folk who live on the plains.'
'Like the Qin.' That quirk in his lips was Anji's way of showing amusement.
Kesh found himself smiling. 'Like the Qin. Horses, hides, steel, gems, slaves.' The wind off the mountains brought a chill that crawled along his shoulders. He shuddered, thinking of the ghost girl he had brought out of the southern desert. 'I heard there are tribes of demons on the plains. You can tell them by their blue eyes and white- grass hair.'
Anji looked away from Kesh, and something about the way his shoulders stiffened and his jaw moved slightly, as though he was swallowing hatred, made Kesh wonder what the Qin captain was
thinking. 'Plenty of demons. We Qin have battled demons for generations.'
Caution stilled Keshad's tongue. The oily film oozed and bubbled on the rocks, and the smell hit so hard it was like tasting. Then a wave of salt water washed the edge of the shelf, changing the composition of the liquid, and the stink eased.
Anji said, 'You know a great deal about the trading routes in and around the Hundred.'
'How much I know might depend on what it's worth to me.'
Anji's smile made Kesh shiver. 'Your sister's life and freedom, perhaps?'
'You have no control over that!'
'Is that so? The Hieros placed you in my custody, and in my custody you'll remain until the transaction is complete. Yet what can you do? You're not a soldier, a farmer, a herdsman, a craftsman, a poet to weave songs and tales. A man who contributes nothing to the tribe is worthless. If he has his own tent and herd, he may survive on his own, but if hard times come — and they always do — he'll need the support of his kinsmen. You and your sister are alone, without tent or herds. That leaves you vulnerable.'
'Do you want something from me? Just say so!'
The sun set behind the mountains. A fire burned where the Qin soldiers had set up camp. Two guardsmen waited close by, arms crossed and shoulders slumped in a posture that to the untrained eye might appear as boredom, but Kesh knew from experience that the men who guarded Anji never relaxed.
Nor did Anji.
'You may carry an accounts bundle that marks you as a man freed of this debt obligation you Hundred folk call slavery. But a man is not free if his heart is not free. It seems to me, Keshad, that you are always carrying your chains. You trust no man because you cannot trust yourself.' He began to walk carefully along the rock shelf toward drier ground beyond.
Kesh hurried after him, sliding once, arms flailing, and righting himself. 'Why should I trust any man? What man has ever done right by me, or tried to do anything but exploit me?'
Anji's boots crunched on gritty earth. He flashed a grin over his shoulder for no reason Kesh could fathom. 'That's the first sensible
thing I've heard you say since we rode out on this expedition. Trust no man. No man except one who holds honor higher than his own life.'
'Where can I find a man like that?' demanded Kesh.
A cool wind chased down from the heights. The fading light cast a warm glow over peaks whose ragged contours were softened by the change of light. Over the sea, scraps of cloud drifted into shadow, but here there was no rain.
'Where, indeed? 'How?' is the question you should ask.'
A spark can touch off a conflagration. Kesh boiled with anger, not even knowing why. 'What makes you think there is a single honorable person in this world?'
The press of darkness swept over them, the bright fire their only beacon in an empty land. Anji spoke in a quiet voice that was nevertheless perfectly clear.
'Because I am married to her.'
18
No one disturbed their encampment in the wild lands bordering the northeastern shore of the Olo'o Sea. As one day passed into the next, the envoy of Ilu figured out how to help the girl in her work. He'd not grown up in the country, with country ways and country skills. He was a city boy by birth and training, accustomed to buying what he needed from the shops and artisans and craftsmen of Nessumara. Yet after so many years of wandering alone, he'd learned to survive.
He cleaned hide, a task he detested. Really, it was so unpleasant to get one's hands so slick and stinking. He wove a crude shelter of green saplings, and built a fire of greenwood to smoke the deer meat. He spent an entire afternoon scouring the stench of glue-making out of his precious iron pot, which had accompanied him tor so many years he sometimes thought of it as a congenial friend. 1 le left the horses to stand guard — for they would be sure to alert him if they sensed an enemy approaching — and ranged wide, gathering edible plants. He walked the shoreline until he found a place
where salt pans had formed. The deer's hooves were boiled, and antlers polished. When she vanished one day with Seeing, he took from Telling's calm manner a message, and he waited for her to return, which she did late in the day bearing the deer skin wrapped around a slimy collection of cattle parts: four horns, raw hide, intestines, sinew, heart, and the best cuts of meat. He asked no questions. She volunteered no answers.
She carved and shaped hooks and drills and points from bone; she chewed sinew to make it malleable, then rolled it into thread. She glued side strips of a denser red wood to the backbone of silver-bark, and in the shallow channel along each face, glued strips of horn. She carved out and smoothed a ring of bone to fit her right thumb.
He sat beside her. She showed him with her hands what she wanted him to do, and he did it: scraping, polishing, grinding, twisting, oiling. Talking, for he could not bear the lack of words.
'As it says in the Tale of Beginnings, 'We tell ourselves stories to make the time pass between birth and death'. But it's more than that. We tell tales to try to understand the world, the gods, and ourselves. Let me tell you a tale.'
He told the story punctuated by the most basic of gestures, enough to suggest the tale's outlines. As he spoke, she measured and she glued and she shaped, but he was not sure if she listened.
'Long ago, in the time of shadows, a bitter series of wars, feuds, and reprisals laid waste to the countryside and impoverished the lords and guildsmen and farmers and artisans of the Hundred. In the worst of days, an orphaned girl knelt at the shore of the lake sacred to the gods and prayed that peace might return to her land…'
The tale unfolded easily, but then, he had always found it easy to talk.
'… Now it so happened that the girl had walked as a mendicant in the service of the Lady of Beasts, and when the other gods departed, the Lady of Beasts remained behind.
' 'They are content,' said the Lady of Beasts, 'but I see with the sight of eagles and I listen with the heart of an ox. For this reason, I know that in the times to come the most beloved among the guardians will betray her companions.'
' 'Is there no hope, then, for the land and its people?'-'
He broke off, smiling humbly as he watched her hands.
At last he saw it take shape.
She was making a bow.
She looked up. The feverish gleam of those demon-blue eyes, touching his own gaze, startled him.
'A good bow demands patience,' she said, challenging his stare. 'This one-' She touched the bow at her right hand. '-I'll reflex on a form and store in a dry place for many months. Then maybe after two winters it will become a good bow. This other, if the glue sets properly and I give it more time, maybe it will serve until the other is properly cured. I'll make a pair of simple bows from staves. But a cured bow is best if you want to reliably kill a man.'
