have named you wildings or the lendings as demons, but here it seems demons have a human face.'
Brah indicated Shai and circled the oval of his face.
'A human face like mine?' said Shai. 'Except I'm not a demon.'
Brah nodded. Yes. You.
'I'm not a demon!'
Sis trotted out of the darkness and grabbed Shai's arm, swinging him around. A taper was descending from the canopy. A mature wilding appeared in its aura and indicated a basket. Brah and Sis, much subdued now, led Shai over and watched as he settled in. He was lifted, the basket swaying as it rose higher and higher until he wondered if he would reach the stars. Fortunately it was too dark for him to see the ground, but the night-watch fires were growing frighteningly small.
The basket lurched to a halt and strong wilding hands helped him clamber onto a net. His right foot slipped through the netting and he caught himself on his knees, gulping. There was nothing below him but air. He murmured a prayer to the Merciful One and slowly his racing heart calmed and he raised his eyes. The conclave flowed away along the net like a festival of lights. He crawled to get away from that horrifying edge before settling cross-legged. The wildings appeared as smudges against the canopy, but the old woman was clearly lit by tapers hung from even higher branches, as if they wanted to keep her well in sight.
Her voice, like her frame, was thin but her gaze was bright in the manner of a crow's. 'Outlander, I journeyed a long way in desperate circumstances to ask my cousins the wildings for aid in finding a safe haven for innocent folk who are in danger. But they refuse to hear me or heed me. Instead, these cousins have accused me of coming to kill you. Is it true you witnessed a woman wearing a Guardian's cloak give the order for a demon to be killed?'
'A demon? I don't know about that, but I've seen a Guardian order the deaths of many people, most innocent and some criminals. As for the gods-touched, with my own eyes I saw her captain kill a young gods-touched woman named Navita. With my ears, trapped in a cell, I heard her order soldiers to kill others whose only crime in her eyes was in being gods-touched.'
'So besides inflicting harm on humankind, this cloaked one has ordered the death of demons. Ones like you.'
'I'm not a demon! Among my people, demons are-' The word in his grandmother's tongue, the old speech of Kartu Town that had been outlawed in favor of the trade speech Kartu's conquerors preferred, had no corresponding word: evil. 'Demons are beings who are corrupt in their heart, in their flesh, in their spirit.'
Her frown cut him. That quickly, he disliked her. 'Outlanders have a perilous and imperfect understanding of the world, it is true. I suppose that is why the Four Mothers did their best to protect the Hundred against the flood of unwanted humanity that must continually wash in on the tide of years. Eight varieties of children were born to the Mothers: firelings, wildings, delvings, merlings, lendings, dragonlings, demons, and humankind. Once they were equal in numbers, and each had their role to play in the life of the Hundred: humankind, with their busy hands; the merlings in the sea and the delvings in the stone; the lendings to walk the boundary between earth and sky, and the wildings to tend the net that binds the Hundred, all that lives and grows and changes. The firelings, who are the thread that binds spirit and flesh, the keepers of the Spirit Gate. The dragonlings have vanished and are seen no more, while demons are rarest of all. It's true demons are often born to humans, and like humans may be bold or timid, cruel or kind, silent or talkative, hungry or satiated. They even look like humans. But you are veiled to my Guardian's sight.
Therefore you are a demon. Has no one told you?' Her smile mocked him.
He said nothing.
'Do you even know the tales of the Hundred, outlander?'
'One of Hasibal's pilgrims taught me a few refrains,' he said, thinking of Eridit.
'Why do youths like you blush when thinking of sex?' she said with a snort.
His flush deepened as heat scalded his.,cheeks. 'How did-?'
She was a sarcastic old woman, the worst kind. 'Easy to know such signs when you have lived as long as I have. Listen, boy, the wildings recognize a demon when they see one.'
'Is that why they rescued me?' He gestured more broadly, to show the conclave that he was addressing them, not the cloak. 'Were Brah and Sis out looking for demons to rescue?'
He waited as the old woman talked in gestures to the conclave.
She laughed curtly. 'It seems that, like many youthful ones, they ranged out'to have a little fun. An adventure. Instead, they discovered humans up to worse trouble even than usual. And they discovered Guardians killing demons, which runs quite against what the gods intended. The justice of the Guardians was meant only for humankind. That's why they brought you back. To save a cousin. They would have saved others, had they been able to do so. The elders tell me they are curious as to why you — an outlander — were spared when other demons were killed.'
The stars burned, distant lamps illuminating the mercy of the Merciful One, which is infinite. The wildings moved closer, more of them coming into view within the aura of the tapers.
'My brother Harishil is a Guardian. He wears the cloak of Twilight. Night kept me as a hostage, because Hari does not cooperate with her as she wishes him to do. Otherwise, she would have killed me as she did the others. I came to the north to find him, and he tried to get me out of the camp of Lord Radas's army before one of the other cloaks caught me. He knew they were killing those who are veiled to their sight. Hari got me smuggled out. How the rebels who took me in got ambushed I don't know. I really don't. But Night and her soldiers caught me. They took me to Wedrewe. Brah and Sis found me there.'
'How did you escape Wedrewe?'
'In the back of a wagon of corpses.'
'They say you wish to go to a reeve hall. What will you do, if
they convey you to a reeve hall? Where will you go? Back to the land you came from?'
He shook his head. 'Kartu Town is no longer my home. Maybe that's the secret of demons, that they have no true home, always wandering.'
She laughed. 'Not so witless after all. Why do you want to go to the reeves? Where do you expect the reeves to take you?'
He folded his hands in his lap, thinking of the demon who had taken the form of Cornflower and murdered Qin soldiers. Thinking of angry Yordenas, and that pervert Bevard. Thinking of Lord Radas's poisonous voice, and Night's terrible, twisted heart. Even Hari, torn between honor and fear. 'I cannot trust you, because you are a Guardian.'
On her lap a snake raised its hooded head and hissed softly, but a rustling sounded among the branches as the wildings objected, and the snake subsided at the touch of her hand.
'You say so, to me? I, who am the last true Guardian?'
'That means nothing to me,' said Shai. 'I'm just an outlander. All I can judge is by what I have seen the cloaks do.'
'Enough!' She spoke past Shai, addressing the conclave. 'I came in respect and in humility, cousins, and now I am to be subjected to this outlander's insults? What do you want of me? I beg you, you who know the map of the Hundred better than any others can, all its forgotten caves and old ruins and secret glades and hidden valleys, grant me at least this much, that you tell me of some haven where the people I have sheltered can live in peace.'
'No one can hope to live in peace,' cried Shai, 'until Lord Radas's cruel army and the cloak of Night's twisted plans are defeated! Hide if you wish. But in the end, if you do nothing, they will find you anyway. And then there will be no one left to turn to.'
The ears of the elder wildings flicked high and flattened low, a sign of displeasure, but he plunged on.
'I must leave the Wild. I did not betray the rebels, nor will I ever betray the wildings, because they saved me and have shown me hospitality. But I must go to join those who fight Lord Radas's army. To say more would be to betray their secrets. Put me on the road to a reeve hall, or a port, any place not overrun by Lord Radas's army. All of this I have said already, a hundred times. What else must I say?'
She watched the elders, then spoke. 'Where did Lord Radas's army come from?'
Startled, he tugged on an ear. 'I truly don't know. That all happened long before I came to the Hundred. There's a camp in Walshow. Isn't that in the north? And the town called Wedrewe, in Herelia. That's some kind of headquarters.'
