scanning the tree line as if for trouble. Kesh swatted away a swarm of gnats. A pair of dark shapes glided out of the trees and swooped over him, through the heart of the swarm. He threw himself flat, and Bai, turning, laughed.
'Just senny lizards,' she said. 'And a good thing. Sennies will keep the bugs off us tonight. What seems strange to me?'
'How little traffic is on the road.'
She shrugged, then walked over to stand beside Magic, looking in the same direction as the ginny. 'Everyone says the roads are no longer safe. That no one dares walk into the north, past Horn and the Aua Gap. Maybe we shouldn't have taken West Track at all. Maybe we should have walked into the northwest along the Rice Walk.'
'We already talked this over. There aren't any real towns to the northwest where newcomers can set up in business. You know how villagers are. Close-minded, close-fisted, and they smell, too.'
She looked at him. 'I thought from the way you were talking that you'd been up West Track recently.'
'No. Better profits to be made trading south into the empire.'
She grunted. 'Those empire men-drovers, mostly, and mercenaries guarding the caravans-they would come sometimes to the temple. It isn't the law of the Merciless One to turn any devoured man or woman away, but I tell you, those empire men were dogs. It was just a dirty hump to them, nothing sacred. They would say all kinds of prayers afterward, like they were ashamed of what they'd done! Anyway, they didn't smell good. I don't know how you could stand trading with them.'
'My last drover was a good man. He kept silence for the whole trip, and he saved my life by sticking by me when he could have run.'
'Maybe.' With a shrug, she dismissed him.
'Why don't you believe me? Without Tebedir, you wouldn't be free!'
'Never mind. It doesn't matter, Kesh. What matters is that you're finally free, and I'm with you. For a few days at least.'
'A few days? I don't have any intention of indenturing us out, not when we're free of debt.'
'That's not what I meant.' She paused to look down at the male ginny. Magic gave a slight head-shake, then bobbed his head, as if he were actually communicating with her. She walked back to the cold hearth and set the walking stick on the ground. Both ginnies followed her. The sun had set below the trees, and the entire clearing had turned soft and handsome, like an eager lover glimpsed in shadow. 'Help me walk the boundaries. I want to pray.'
'I won't.'
'I can't do it alone!'
'How can you worship her? After what she did to you?'
'What she did to me? The Devourer has kept faith with me. It was that old bitch who runs the temple who cheated me and abused me!' She crossed her forearms out in front of her chest in the warding sign. 'That's what you don't understand, Kesh. They'll try anything to get me back. We're not free of them.'
He patted their packs. 'We have our accounts bundles. It's legal. There's nothing they can do.'
'Don't believe it!'
'Why do they want you back? You're a good-looking girl, Bai, I'm sure, but there were plenty of sexier women there.'
'Like Walla?' she said with an annoying laugh. 'I saw you sizing her up. She's a real devourer, though. You have to be careful of them, they like to chew men up.'
'Why would they want you back, if you're not a 'real devourer' like Walla?'
'Because I'm the best.'
'Been sucking up too much sap lately?'
'Don't give me that look. I'm not some vain hierodule who serves the goddess for a year in order to have men drunk on wine and fumes worship her as if she was the Merciless One herself. My redemption price would have been much higher-'
'It was robbery!'
'— would have been much higher. You don't know how hard I worked, the things I agreed to do. Gods, Kesh! You don't know the things I did just in the days right before you arrived. All that, just to pay off the debits that accrued from my training.'
'How could your debt have cost more to pay off than it already did?'
That shrug was her way of casting him off, like slipping a cloak when you don't want to wear it anymore. 'Let it go. The faster we walk away from Olossi, the better for us.'
'If we don't starve along the way, or puke out our guts from drinking bad water because we can't afford decent wine.'
She circled back to Kesh. Mischief scuttled alongside, and Magic hesitated only long enough to give one last intense stare toward the trees before hustling after the two females before they got too far away.
Crouching, Bai grabbed Kesh's wrist. Her grip was strong. 'We did it, Kesh. Let that be enough for today. We did what we swore when the aunts and uncle shoved us up on the block and started counting their profit. They had enough, they could have kept us and raised us with their own. I'd like to spit in their faces.'
'It wouldn't be worth it.'
Her jaw was tight. She had braided back her hair so no curl or wisp strayed, and then coiled it up atop her head, out of her way. All of her was like that now, streamlined, efficient, sleek, and without ornament. Her expression was unreadable to him. His little sister's face stared at him, grown up and filled out, with that bruise she wouldn't discuss. Little whiny weepy sweet-hearted Zubaidit had gone through a transformation and he did not know the woman before him.
She released his wrist. 'No, it would be foolish. We'll walk, and leave the old life behind.' She cocked her head to one side. 'About that ghost you brought out of the south… or is she a demon?'
'Don't speak of it. Let it go.'
'Why not? She was so… so…'She raised a shoulder, shifted her hip, scratched her bare knee. 'Seeing her, I just wondered what it would be like-'
'Leave it!'
She rocked back at his tone. Both ginnies hissed at him. They had fierce-looking teeth, and their bite was said to be infectious.
'Heya!' he yelped, taken aback.
'Hush.' She stroked Mischief under the jaw, and the female lifted her chin a little and 'smiled' warmly. Magic got a spot on his forehead rubbed. While they were looking at her, she gestured. 'Go on, then. Brother's just jumpy, that's all.'
Mischief moved off, but Magic looked right at Kesh and bobbed his head decisively, as if to remind him who was in charge.
'Heya,' said Bai with a little more force. Magic moved after Mischief.
'Listen,' said Kesh, surprised at how powerfully his anger had erupted. 'Let's not argue. I'm sorry.'
'No. You're right. Let it all be gone. Leave the aunts and uncle and ghosts and bitches and masters to the dying moon where they belong. Our old life is dead twice over, once on the block, and once in inner court three days back.' She rose from a crouch to the balls of her feet, swaying like a woman drunk on fumes. 'Gone gone gone. Gone altogether.'
Branches rustled. Both ginnies stopped, and looked in that direction, but neither seemed alarmed when an apparition draped in rags stumbled into the clearing.
'Gone. Gone. Gone altogether beyond,' it echoed, spinning entirely around, arms pinwheeling. Its voice was a crazed whisper.
Kesh jumped to his feet and drew his sword, but Bai stepped inside his guard and pressed a palm against his chest.
It faced them, rheumy eyes blinking. It was a very old person, as thin as if built of sticks, with skin weathered from sun and wind and hair turned entirely to silver, not even one strand of black to be seen. Kesh could not tell if it was male or female.
'Walking north,' it said in a voice all raspy, neither high nor low. 'Best not go that way. It's all run to blood.'
'Where's your string?' Bai whispered into Kesh's ear. He had closed the string of coins into his weaponless
