While the water heated, Yen Olass reviewed the names of potential culprits. Yoz Doy? No, he was in the south, with Khmar. What about Ulan Ti? No, he was too old, and too sensible. Chonjara, perhaps? Chonjara was wild enough… but it could not possibly be him. Though many of the Yarglat had succumbed to the cosmopolitan trends of agnosticism or outright atheism, Chonjara remained true to the beliefs of his northern homelands. He had even suggested that the horse cult of Noth should become the state religion of the Collosnon Empire, replacing the multitude of faiths which now lay within its borders – though even the Lord Emperor Khmar had not been prepared to go that far.
When the water had boiled, and Yen Olass had heated up some milk curds, she gave her only spoon to the Ondrask, letting him eat first. She watched while he ate. He left her less than half. To let a slave witness such a breach of etiquette, he must have been very hungry indeed. When Yen Olass had finished what was left, she asked him directly:
'So what did happen to your horses?' 'Chonjara ate them,' said the Ondrask. 'I beg your pardon?' 'Chonjara ate them!’
'So you tell me,' said Yen Olass politely, knowing an impossibility when she heard one.
'Chonjara held a banquet to celebrate his father's year seventy. He was in the market for some horsemeat. Only the best for his father! Haveros sold him three horses – my horses!’
'Ah,' said Yen Olass, for now all was explained. 20
Over the protests of his father Lonth Denesk, Haveros had abandoned the worship of the horse gods, and had espoused some trivial little local religion. Chonjara had criticized him for that in public, and now Haveros had taken revenge.
'Since you can't get your horses back…’
'I want an apology. And not in private, either. I want Haveros muck-down grovelling, with the whole city watching.’
'That might be difficult,' said Yen Olass. 'But you'll arrange it.’
'My writ doesn't run that far,' said Yen Olass. 'In fact, my writ doesn't run at all.’
'Lord Alagrace said you'd help.’
'Any oracle can give you a reading,' said Yen Olass. 'There's no need to come chasing out here just for a reading.’
'I told Alagrace an oracle couldn't help me. I told him I wasn't interested in a reading. But he told me you'd do better than that. He told me you'd fix it.’
'What?' said Yen Olass.
She was genuinely shocked, and it took a lot to shock her. How old was Lord Alagrace? Sixty-five? Not old enough to be going senile, surely?
'I'm sure Lord Alagrace couldn't have said anything like that,' said Yen Olass.
'He said exactly that,' said the Ondrask. 'His very words were: she will fix it.’
The words quoted by the Ondrask were unambiguous: 'Sklo do-pla san t'lay', translating as 'Originating from her will be a fixing.' The word used for 'fixing' implied the use of money, blackmail, trickery or political influence. Or black magic. Yen Olass was furious. Was Alagrace stark staring raving mad? There was no way she could possibly help the Ondrask, who, when he discovered the truth, was going to be very, very angry.
'So what are you going to do about Haveros?' said the Ondrask.
This was very difficult.
'There are always possibilities,' said Yen Olass. 'Your knife may know at least one of them already.’
'My blade has been conscrated to a higher purpose,' said the Ondrask. 'We have to find another way.’
'And we will,' said Yen Olass.
Though her chances of solving the problem were close to zero, she could hardly tell the Ondrask to horse off backwards until he bogged himself. She had to show willing.
'Let's hear the details,' said Yen Olass. 'Start right from the very beginning.’
'The beginning,' said the Ondrask, staring into the fire. 'The beginning was… when I came south.’
'Oh, I'm sure you can start further back than that,' said Yen Olass.
The Ondrask, failing to catch the mild note of sarcasm in her voice, raised his head and looked at her. 'Where should I start then?’
'If you're really stuck for an opening,' said Yen Olass easily, 'start with the beginning of time, for all I care.’
The Ondrask closed his eyes. He was very weary. At first, she thought he was going to drift off into dreamland then and there, but after a while he opened his eyes again. When he spoke, his voice was low; she had to lean forward to hear it, because the wind was competing in the background.
'Not many people ask about the first things,' said the Ondrask, in the voice of a man who has a story to tell. 'Not many people care to know any more.’
Yen Olass began to suspect that her little joke about the beginning of time had been unwise.
'Not many people care to know, but the knowledge is there for those who wish to know. This is the way it was. In the beginning, there was a barren plain where the wind moved from itself and to itself, and the wind was dark and light in one. The wind was both horse and rider.’
Yen Olass recognised the creation myth of the Yarglat.
He really had started at the beginning. Having asked for this, she dared not complain as the Ondrask slowly worked his way through the tale of the First Things and the genealogies of the Horse who was Horse and the Rider who was Rider. It took quite some time.
As the Ondrask talked, telling now of the Last Ride of the Horse who was Horse and the Rider who was Rider, Yen Olass began to hear in his voice a measure of loss, of sorrow, of homesickness. And while she was not of the Yarglat, she was most certainly of the north, and she too began to yearn for those empty horizons, those high- hunting stars, those skies where the night veils infinity with curtains of green light, purple, red. She too yearned for the campfire where the talk goes back and forward in the long winter night, man and woman and horse and child all gathered together in the same communal warmth.
While the Ondrask talked, Yen Olass began to remember names and faces gone from her life for almost two decades. She realised now the true source of the Ondrask's rage. The high priest of the horse cult was suffering not just for the loss of his three horses, but for the loss of an entire way of life.
The Ondrask had reviewed an entire culture by the time he got to the story of his own birth.
'They named me Losh Negis. I was born in a tent on the barrens where the wind rolls forever, thinking the world downhill. I was weaned on mare's milk and boiled millet. By the time I could walk, I was learning to ride, clinging to the fleece of a sheep.’
Bit by bit, he created his world for her.
'At the age of fourteen, I was initiated into a raiding party. Six years after my spear was first blooded, I endured a vision. I knew the power then, or thought I did. What I knew was the shadow of a shadow. But I followed the Old One thereafter. I learnt of the Powers That Walk and then became them.
'My people listened to me when voices gathered. I both gave and received. For them, I endured the darkness. I talked with those who have no bones. I brought back much wisdom, and shared. In those days, my very shadow was worth more than a man. In the city here in the south, people looked on me as if I was an animal – and a poor- bred animal at that.’
The Ondrask paused. Yen Olass made no grunts of approval, no small encouraging sounds, no conversational noises. The Ondrask did not need them, and would not have welcomed them. He brooded for a long time, staring into the dying heart of the dying fire.
'The fathers of our grandfathers came south to conquer an empire,' said the Ondrask, 'but the empire conquered us. The Blood Purge changed nothing. We slaughtered real men, thinking to kill our enemy, but it was already too late for that. We were defeated by our victory, and Haveros is the measure of our defeat.’
The Ondrask said nothing more, and Yen Olass saw that his tale was at an end. He had still not answered her original question, but she knew he would no longer welcome being quizzed on the trivial details of who said what to whom and where and when. He had spoken of first and last things, and he had talked himself out.
But Yen Olass did have one question to ask before they slept. She had always wondered about it, but, till now, she had never met anyone who might know the answer. She dared her question.
'You were born in the north,' said Yen Olass, 'and so was Khmar. What does Khmar believe?’
