Surprised at this unexpected support, Marit smiled at her, but the girl had fixed her gaze on the man. Grotesque she might be, with that ghastly pallid complexion and those demon-blue eyes and the serious frown of a youth who has forgotten how to play, but there was something reassuring in the way she watched Jothinin.
She is trying to remember how to be human. She thinks he can teach her how.
'How can I possibly find the cloak of Earth?' he added. 'A woman named Eyasad wore Earth's cloak when I last saw it. A young woman, small, vibrantly plump. With black hair like silk spun by the wildings out of forest spiders' soft webbing. Easy to become entangled in.' His expression softened as his gaze turned inward toward memory.
'And did you become entangled?'
'Eiya! I would have liked to have done, but she was not fashioned that way. Anyhow, why should she trust me now? I suspect, with the exceptional hindsight I possess, that Eyasad perceived the threat before the other cloaks believed it might be possible Night could have fallen so far into the shadows despite honey
smiles and generous gestures. That was a great round of years or more ago. Twelve rounds of twelve years, a very long time. Her cloak may have passed to another, or she may be in hiding still. So how am I to find her if, after all this time, I have not already done so wandering the Hundred as an envoy of Ilu?'
'Because you have a reeve as your ally,' said Marit with a grin. 'A cursed observant reeve, if I may say so. You said one time that the cloak of Earth carries a staff which is also a snake. I now understand I spent many years awakening, wandering on the paths between death and life. Early on, before I comprehended what was happening to me, I encountered a shepherd boy in the mountains south of here. It was near an altar set into a ledge on a black cliff face, rising out of the wooded hill.'
'In Heaven's Ridge? These western mountains? Above the altar where lies only rock, and the cliff ends in jagged teeth?'
'That sounds right.'
'You must be speaking of Crags. What has that to do with Earth?'
T saw into the boy's heart. I didn't know at the time what I was seeing, but he and his village had a measure of protection set over them. He thought of a snake.'
'I've seen her staff appear as a hooded cobra.'
Marit shuddered. 'I'd have remembered seeing a venomous snake.'
'But it appears also more benignly as a garden snake, if those who come before her for judgment have committed no serious crime.'
'It is worth seeking, is it not? Just as Hari may be willing to listen to me because we shared- Aui!' She blushed, recalling Hari's grin, his attractive body. Jothinin waved away smoke, trying not to laugh, and it made her happy to see his melancholia slide away. 'We shared what two lonely people who find each other attractive may share. He will at least listen to me.'
Then he did laugh. 'As a man, I can assure you, he will. If you call that listening.' He wiped grease from his lips, and looked at Kirit. The outlander in her cloak of Mist nodded at his unspoken question. 'Very well. Kirit and I will go south, to Crags, and see what we can find. Is that the whole of your plan, Marit?'
Marit sat on the rock and, suddenly voracious, ripped apart a coney.
Kirit said, 'Tell a story, Uncle.'
'A difficult task for a water-born Blue Rat, who loves nothing more than to talk,' he said, smiling. 'Give me a moment to think. Hmm.'
'Tell me again the story of how this wide salty lake up here was made,' Kirit said.
The morning sun lanced over the waters and the rocky ridge that rimmed the plateau, which the delvings, according to the tale, had built as a vast salty prison for a merling they had taken captive. In the gulf beyond the ridge, scraps of cloud floated so close it seemed to Marit that she might comb out cloud-silk from which to weave a pillow for a lover. Why must she think of Joss? She imagined him young and vibrantly alive as he had been twenty years ago, and then older and still handsome, as he was now. She had seen into Joss's heart, and she did not want to look there again because she did not want to know: that he had loved her, so long ago his memories of her were a tangle of regret and nostalgia overlaid with years of fleeting relationships with other women and a cursed lot of cordial and rice wine. It was his life, not hers. It could never be hers.
She realized Jothinin had fallen silent when he grasped her forearm as an uncle might, to comfort a distraught niece. She had to choke down the taste of dreams, the life she had once thought she would have.
Let it go.
'Uncle,' she said.
He released her arm. 'What is the rest of the plan?'
'You'll seek Earth. I'll look for Hari. I'll seek what information I can about Night. We'll meet here at the end of the year. If we gain a majority on the council, it may be possible to resolve this without killing. But we must have a second plan, if this one does not work.'
Kirit pulled her bow into her lap. Jothinin shut his eyes.
'Lord Radas commanded a guardsman to stab Hari. To inflict a mortal wound, knowing Hari would suffer as he died and healed. So that means if that guardsman could do it, others could as well. A Guardian could be mortally wounded, if taken by surprise, and their cloak stripped off when they fall into the healing trance. As Kirit did. If we can't kill them, someone else will have to.'
The fire popped. A puff of ashes rose and settled.
He opened his eyes. 'Do you believe there are any who can be
trusted with this knowledge? To kill for us? On our behalf? And not turn against us afterward, once they know it can be done?' 'One man might.'
17
For the Qin, the pace of travel from training camp to militia fort and on around the wide plain of Olo'osson was slow. For poor Miravia, who had never before ridden a horse, it was brutal. They arrived at Candra Crossing in the rain six days after they departed Olossi, a pace of about six mey each day. The folk busy thinning burgeoning rice and nai fields ignored them, but once in town people emerged onto the porches of the shops and inns and warehouses to gesture a welcome. The river crossing, glimpsed through gaps between buildings, was lined with sodden flags; a flat-bottomed ferry crammed with wagons and livestock was being winched across toward people huddled beneath a shelter on the far shore.
'Was this place attacked?' Miravia asked as they approached the center of town.
'The temples and council house were damaged,' said Anji, 'and a few buildings burned, but otherwise the enemy pushed through here so quickly they hadn't time to do permanent harm.'
He rode ahead to the militia encampment east of town, leaving the women and their escort, commanded by Chief Tuvi, at the council hall. They dismounted in a courtyard flanked by two wings, one braced with scaffolding. Men set down planking for a floor. A trio of council members greeted the party and showed Mai onto a porch out of the rain and thence into a suite of rooms in the travelers' wing.
'It's small,' said their escort, 'but the other rooms are occupied.'
The outer room was floored only with refurbished planks but the two sleeping rooms had fresh floor mats. The walls were washed white, as stark as the furnishings: pallets rolled up along one wall, a long low table, a stack of pillows, and an unlit brazier set in a corner next to a covered bucket.
'Will this suit you, verea?' asked the eldest, a woman so old that her back was bent, although her walk was spry. 'We haven't the fine furnishings and silks rich folk in Olossi can afford.'
'It's very pleasant,' said Mai with a smile. 'You have my thanks. If we might have water to wash in?'
'There's good baths in town, verea.' The old woman's gaze strayed to Miravia, and a frown flickered and vanished.
'If there is time, I'll go gladly to the baths,' said Mai, 'but for now, a basin of water to wash off the worst of the dirt would be much appreciated. And kama or sunfruit juice, if you've any. Khaif, perhaps? What is the market price here?'
'Neh, verea. The council will feed and house you. Without Captain Anji's militia, we'd not be back in our
