Jaran

soul kissed by the gods that rejoices in their cares. That hardly does it justice. Words are too poor.'

'Excuse me,' said Tess in a small voice. She turned and walked away from them, cradling the saber against her like a baby.

Bakhtiian stared after her, motionless, his back to the sun, his face shadowed.

'Ilya,' said Yuri, 'that was your old saber you gave me for Tess when we left the tribe.'

Bakhtiian started and bent to hoist the bag, his face lit now as he turned into the sun. 'Let's take these down,' he said.

Tess spent the rest of the day with her saber, sharpening it, polishing it, turning it so that it flashed in the sun, convincing now this man, now that, to give her a short lesson in fighting. She slept with it that night and welcomed the dawn and their early departure because there was nothing more glorious to her at that moment than the feeling of her saber resting on her hip as she rode.

'I'd have brought you another,' said Bakhtiian, 'if I'd known you'd be so pleased with this one.'

Tess reined Myshla past a slight irregularity of ground and laughed. 'Gods! What would I do with two? There's enough to learn with one.'

Bakhtiian smiled. 'Watch yourself, or your brother won't recognize you when you reach Jeds.'

'Why not?'

'You've begun to swear in khush. The outer trappings of an alien culture are easily assumed, but when the inner workings begin to touch your own, then you're in danger.'

' 'In danger of what? Being consumed? Amnesia?''

'What is amnhesia?'

'Forgetting who you are.'

He considered. Tumbled boulders obscured the sides of the path. Plants thrust up from every cleft and crack in the stone, reaching for the light. 'There were times, in my three years in Jeds, when I felt confused as to who I was, but I was never in any danger of succumbing to that culture. I'm not very adaptable.'

'But that's not true, Ilya. You are.'

'Being able to understand alien ways, being able to accept the fact of them, is not necessarily adaptability. I am jaran heart and soul. Nothing will change that.'

The path snaked up to the top of a ridge, where they halted. Far below Tess saw the golden sheet of the plateau. They sat for a moment in silence and simply looked. He had killed a man-long ago it seemed now-for transgressing the code of jaran religion, for nothing more than killing a bird, and yet he struggled to understand Newton and was compelled to ask what amnesia was, hearing it mentioned. It was as if half of him questioned incessantly and the other half never questioned at all.

'Perhaps,' she replied at last. 'But many people would not be able to understand enough of the inner workings of another people to know that, say, the religious strictures of the khaja would be strong enough to stop them at the temple when-'

'Please.' Bakhtiian turned away from her, urging his black down the slope. 'It is my disgrace that I acted as I did. It is also improper for a man and a woman to speak of such a thing.'

'Forgive me,' said Tess coldly, but the comment was addressed to his back. She followed him as they descended into a long valley. A thin layer of clouds trailed along the horizon. A snake moved sluggishly off the white-soiled path, leaving an elegant line in the dust. Here, deep in the valley, there were few sounds.

After a long while, he spoke. 'Those clouds are no threat, but here in the hills, the weather can change very quickly.'

Tess, still angry at his rejection of her and feeling humiliated that she had stupidly broached a subject that offended him, did not reply. Instead, she pretended she was studying the lay of the land. The trail forked below where a huge rock outcropping thrust up from the ground. One path ran on toward the plateau, but the other ran up the opposite ridge and disappeared over its crest. Even so, she was surprised when he pulled up next to the split in the path. In the shadow of the rock lay a dead shrub, scattered and brittle. Bakhtiian dismounted and stacked a triangular pile of rocks on an area of flat ground to one side of the fork.

'What message are you leaving?' she asked, irritated that he had not volunteered the information.

He glanced up at her. 'These trails are too well worn. If the arenabekh knew about them, surely the khaja do, too. I want to scout the upper trail, see where it leads. But the jahar should go down. If we're attacked, better for us that we be in the open.' He hesitated, frowned, and looked away. 'We'll join them at nightfall. Of course.'

'Of course.' The sunlight stung her eyes. She shaded them with one hand.

'You can wait, if you wish, and ride with the jahar.'

'No,' said Tess, sure that he only wanted to be rid of her. 'I'm curious to see where the trail leads.'

He shrugged, and they went on. For a time they saw the second trail like a thread winding away beneath them before they topped the ridge. Beyond, the path dipped into a shallow, rocky canyon, climbing up the canyon's far slope in a series of gradual switchbacks. The sun rose steadily as they rode up to the far crest. Below them now lay a forested valley. Trees, touched orange and yellow on their leaves, stood in thick copses that thinned and dissipated into meadows and rock-littered open areas. Flashes of gray sheets of water showed here and there, streams and pools. It was nearing midday. In the distance, at the far end of the valley, smoke rose.

'Khaja,' said Bakhtiian. 'Some kind of settlement. Come on.' They rode down. The light, broken by leaves and branches, made patterns on their faces and hands. Reaching the valley floor, they found a thick grove of trees and dismounted and led their horses in. Tess tied them on long reins to a sturdy pair of trees within reach of grass and water. Bakhtiian left.

So much vegetation. Scents blended here, damped down by shadow. Moss hung from branches.

He reappeared presently, surprising her, his approach had been so quiet. 'I don't know. No doubt we'd be better off leaving, but I'd like to scout out that settlement. I can get there and back by mid-afternoon. We can still catch the jahar before the moon sets.'

'You can get there and back?' Water pooled and murmured near her feet, slipping in and out of light as leaves swayed in the breeze. 'I'm not staying here by myself.' 'Soerensen, I gave you the option of riding with the jahar. Now you can stay here with the horses. The settlement is at the other end of the valley, and not large, by the signs. You won't be found here.'

'Did Keregin say something about how the khaja hereabout treat their women? How do you suppose they would treat me, Bakhtiian, if they found me here alone?'

He flushed and looked away from her. 'Very well,' he said in a tight voice. 'The horses can protect themselves.' He began to walk away, halted, and glanced back at her as she followed him. 'But when we get close to the village, you'll stop where and when I tell you.'

'Agreed.'

But they had not gotten even a third of the way up the valley when Bakhtiian froze suddenly. Despite her efforts to move just as he did, Tess still made twice as much noise, shifting at the wrong moment, getting her hair caught in branches. When he stopped abruptly and put his hand back to warn her, she stiffened to a halt: following the line of his gaze, she saw the hunter.

The hunter could not have seen them yet, but he had certainly heard something. He turned his head this way and that, listening for further noise. Through the brown branches and fading green and yellow thickets their scarlet shirts would betray them. She dared not stir. She wanted to sneeze.

The hunter moved, shoulders twisting as he turned half round to look behind him. In a single movement, Bakhtiian stepped backward and pushed Tess down. She caught her weight on her hands and lowered herself to lie full on the ground. The leaves and moss smelled of moisture and rich soil. Bakhtiian lay beside her, barely breathing. His arm still lay across her back. His hand rested on her far shoulder. Her other shoulder pressed against his, her hand caught under his chest, party to the movement of his lungs, her hip and thigh warmed by his, her foot captured under his ankle.

The hunter whirled back, hearing the rustle. He checked his knife, drew an arrow from his quiver, and fitted it to his bow.

Bakhtiian's hand tightened on her shoulder, his thumb tracing the line of her shoulder blade through her shirt, up and down. A strange double awareness descended on her, an instant drawn out into eternity: the man tracking them; the weight of Ilya's arm on her back, the pressure of his fingers, the unintentional caress. Death stalked her in the guise of a black-haired, middle-aged khaja hunter. Desire had already trapped her, how long ago she did not know, only knowing now that her heart pounded so fiercely not just because she was afraid of being killed. If they