Читать книгу The Windsingers - Megan Lindholm - Страница 7

The mellow sunlight of autumn slanted yellow across the wagon trail. ‘Trail!’ Ki snorted to herself at granting it such a title. Twin dents in the sod of the forest ran off ahead of her. Small bushes grew in between the tracks, to brush the bottom of her freight wagon as she passed over them. White birches dripping golden leaves, interspersed with cotton wood and tangles of willow, edged the side of the track. The occasional Harp tree stood foreign and speechless in the still warmth of the afternoon. She breathed the mossy forest scents and leaned back lazily on the cuddy door. She was rich, for today, in both time and wealth.

She felt only a small pang of conscience at dawdling. It was not for the sake of her customer. She could camp tonight and easily deliver her freight on time tomorrow. But there was Vandien to consider. He had not pressed her, but she knew he would welcome her in False Harbor. She would have gone, and speedily, if only it were not such a fool’s errand. She bit her lip, watching the steady undulation of muscles in the grey backs before her. She added up the days; six days since Vandien had left for False Harbor. He would be there by now, unless his luck had deserted him. As for herself, Ki could halt early tonight, and make a leisurely day of tomorrow, to bring in her freight on the fourth day’s afternoon.

Or, she reminded herself, she could stir up her team and push them on into Bitters before the middle of the night had passed. Bitters was spread out, a farming place, not a fortified town. There would be no city gates or guards to stop her. Yes, she could do that, and then push on to False Harbor – say a day and a half – and be there in plenty of time, but…damn the man! Here she was, chewing over his little predicament as if she were obliged to wrest him out of it. His own tongue had gotten him into it. He had taken care of himself for many years upon the road before taking up with her. Let him get himself out of this one. Perhaps he would not so lightly volunteer her team the next time. A little sweat would do him good. A wry grin replaced the worried look on Ki’s face. Let him stew it out. She’d meet him there, on the eleventh day perhaps, when he’d be properly thankful to see her. Let the little cockerel get his feathers wet first.

Ki’s nose twitched. She rose to stand on the wagon’s plank seat. Her slim body swayed to the steady rhythm of the wagon as she stretched the kinks from her limbs. Her green eyes narrowed as she tried to pierce the forest growth ahead of her. The trail was too winding. She could not yet see the river, but she sensed it, in the damp tang that came to her nostrils and by the pricked ears of her team. Long habit made her glance at the sun; she shrugged nonchalantly. She’d camp by the river tonight. Bitters could wait. She’d make camp while the sun was in the sky and take the time to wash and sluice the dust from her hair. It would be good to feel clean again. She settled on the seat.

As she approached the river, the trees thinned and receded to a wide grassy area, fringed with brush and vines. Dead branches and debris marked the edge of the river’s spring flood margin. The turning of the season had painted the river grasses in warm yellows and browns. Ki turned her team into them, pulling off the seldom used trail and paralleling the river. The tall wheels of her wagon crunched the dry standing grasses. The horses tossed their great heads, unhappy at encountering the extra resistance. But she urged them on until she found what she sought; a secluded clearing fronting on the river. Here was grass for the team, and a shallow area of quiet water where she could bathe.

The afternoon sun was still slanting warmly down when she finished unhitching the team. The big greys moved about freely in the tall grass. Staid Sigmund munched steadily at this coarse fare, but Sigurd dropped and rolled luxuriously in the scratchy stuff. Ki smiled. They would not stray. They knew no home but the wagon they pulled.

Her camp was made swiftly. She made a routine check of her freight, tugging at ropes to be sure they had not frayed or loosened from the day’s jolting. All was secure. The rest of the afternoon and the long evening were hers.

She climbed back to the wagon seat and slid open the cuddy’s wooden door, blinking her eyes to adjust them to the dim interior. A little sunlight trickled in through the shuttered window. Ki turned the four catches that secured it in place, and lifted the shutter down. The afternoon breeze came in the window hole; with winter coming, she would have to buy a piece of greased skin, to cover that hole and still admit light. Glass was too expensive, and could not withstand the heave and give of the wagon. But for now she refused to worry about it.

She caught up a clean tunic from a hook, and a leather belt to buckle it about her waist. She hesitated, then dug in the drawer for the vial of oil of Vanilly. It had been an extravagance, she knew, and it would be a vanity extreme to use it out here, with no one to smell it but herself. But small vanities were due to oneself, now and then.

On the riverbank she kicked off her boots, stripped her blouse off over her head and let the skirts fall in a puddle about her feet. She stepped out of them, and set the clean tunic and the vial of perfume on top of them. She freed her hair from the two thick braids that kept it free of snarls while she traveled, shaking it loose in a thick brown mass that fell just past her shoulders. It smelled like dust and sweat.

The cool air from the river pinched her skin up in goose flesh. Ki steeled herself, shivering, and then pranced out over the rounded gravel into the river and threw herself flat in it. She came up puffing and blowing from the shock of the cold water. Breathing in gasps, she gathered a handful of black sand from the river bottom and scoured herself with it. Soon her body gleamed pink with scrubbing and chill.

She glanced at her grazing team, and then waded out into deeper water. She ducked repeatedly until her hair hung flat and streaming. The river water finally dripped off it clean, untinged by road dust. Ki was satisfied. She moved through the water in a less businesslike manner now, kicking up splashes and sometimes ducking under just for the pleasure of feeling the water slide from her skin.

A final duck and plunge, and Ki came up headed for the bank. From the clear afternoon sky came suddenly a long note. It was a pure sound, pure as a bird’s call, but long and more rounded than a beaked creature would give. It was sourceless, seeming to originate from the sky itself. Ki stood very still, senses straining as the cold river water lapped about her thighs. She made no futile effort to cover herself, but wished desperately that the rapier were on the riverbank instead of in the wagon. She preferred to be armed against the unknown.

The call died away slowly. Ki hoped it had been some long-winded river bird. She still saw no movement of living creature. Even the horses were frozen, heads up and ears pricked. Indeed, the only motion seemed to be that of the wind, come up suddenly. She shivered and hastened to the shore.

The wind grew in intensity, whipping her wet hair across her face. Ki found herself fighting for balance as she sought the riverbank. Out of the water, the chill bit her more fiercely. She began to dry herself on her dirty skirt, but the rising wind and a nervous whinny from Sigurd prompted her to pull the clean tunic hastily over her wet body.

She paused to wring her mop of hair. The wind hit her harder, pelting her with leaves ripped from the trees. She was buckling her leather belt with numbed fingers when a gust of blasting force knocked her to the ground. Ki crouched beneath its onslaught, struggling to hold her hair out of her eyes with one hand. She scrabbled across to her soiled clothes and vial of Vanilly and boots. Clutching them to her, she lurched to her feet, battling the strange air currents. She ran heavily toward her wagon. It was rocking on its tall yellow wheels. Even as Ki staggered toward it, she heard the twang of a snapping rope. One of the boxes of cargo bounced free. The rough wood slats split as it struck the earth.

A sudden stench struck Ki with the force of a physical blow. She gagged, and held her wadded clothes to her nose and mouth. Wildly she stared about, seeking a source for the odor. There was none. The reek grew stronger, foul as old blood. But it came, like the wind, from nowhere. A strange prickling of foreboding raised the hair on Ki’s chilled skin even higher. The stench was like a curtain across Ki’s nose and mouth; she felt she would strangle on it. Sigmund screamed. Sigurd reared and pawed as if to strike the reek from the sky. Lather showed on his grey hide. As he came down, he wheeled and fled. She heard the thunder of his hooves through the forest as he vanished into the waving trees. The odor went with him. Ki cursed him savagely.

She tossed her bundled clothes in the hatch of the wagon, stooped to draw on her boots, then turned her attention to her freight. The crate that had fallen was a small one. She picked it up. Black enamel inlaid with small stones showed through the broken wood. Ki was gentle with it as she mounted her still rocking wagon and set it inside the cuddy. Firmly she slid the door shut.

The other ropes seemed to be holding. The rest of the crates were larger, unlikely to be tumbled about by the wind. The persistent wind stirred and eddied about her, buffeting her as she moved around her wagon. Yet the sky remained clear and blue.

No time to ponder strange weather. Ki whistled to Sigmund. Twice he pranced flirtatiously away from her before she could grasp a handful of mane and scrabble up the tall shoulder and onto his back. Vab, how she hated to ride these beasts! There was no comfortable way to straddle him. He was simply too wide. She set her heels to him and grasped a double handful of mane. Sigmund shook his head, not liking her on his back any more than she liked to be there, but he was resigned to it, and moved off with Ki clinging like a monkey. Sigurd’s trail was plain. Great chunks of forest floor had been thrown up by his flying hooves, and his body had parted the brush as he passed. Following him was no problem. Catching up was the task. She urged Sigmund to go faster, and clung low to avoid the scratching limbs of the trees.

It was past full dark when a weary and bedraggled Ki, still following Sigurd’s trail, rode back into her own camp. Sigurd had changed direction numerous times, and forded the river twice. She could only believe that he had been harried about by something, yet there had been no tracks in the earth but Sigurd’s own. She could not account for it. It was all a mystery. A damnable, unpleasant, inconvenient mystery.

Right now she did not care to consider it. She was scratched from overhanging branches, and filthy where she had been swept from Sigmund’s back into a swampy area. Sigmund was as scratched and muddied as Ki. She returned now to a camp unlit by fire. The day that had started off as a holiday had become a dreary day of pointless and fruitless effort. She slid from Sigmund’s back.

Sigurd stood, head adroop, near the tongue of the wagon, as if taking comfort from its familiar presence. His coat showed traces of dried lather. As she approached him, he put his muzzle down and rubbed the side of his face slowly against his foreleg. If a horse could look abashed, he did. Ki ran a hand over his rough damp coat. They both needed another grooming tonight. All three of us, she amended, as she ran a hand through her own tangled mane.

At least the wind had died. It was now a quiet autumn night, with a sliver of moon that served more to confuse than to light. Her camp chest was a lumpy shadow on the ground. Bone weary, Ki stumbled toward it. First, she planned, the fire, then wash, then groom beasts, then eat, and lastly, consider that one of the seals on her freight was broken.

The familiar catch on the chest sprang open at her touch. From it she took the pouch that contained her tinder materials. A twist of dry river grass ignited readily. She heaped on the blaze the small dry branches she had gathered earlier; the welcome light of the little fire pushed back the dark, and made it easier to pretend that tomorrow would be better. Ki stretched her abused body as she rose from her fire-making and turned to her wagon.

She cursed. Sigurd put his ears back at the long low stream of invective she unleashed. When she ran out of breath, she folded her lips tightly shut and advanced to where her entire cargo lay tumbled and split open behind her wagon. She returned to the fire for a brand, and made her inspection. The light did not make it any better. Of the seven crates, four remained. All four had been split open, to reveal a strange trove of common earth and stones. There was enough wood to account for two more crates, but nothing to show what they had contained. The clean slice marks on the coarse wood showed that no wind had cracked these crates open. Ki glared at the wreckage impotently. There was nothing she could do to salvage this haul.

Household goods! Ki snorted, and wished she could have felt surprised. Four crates of dirt and rocks. Why? And wind sorcery undertaken to divest her of her cargo. Expensive sorcery, that. Ki moved carefully away from the scattered crates, setting her feet lightly. In the morning sun, she should be able to read something from the ground. Methodically she turned to grooming her horses. Much to their disgust, she then improvised picket lines from the snapped cargo ropes, lest winds and odors return.

When she climbed the tall wheel of her wagon and slid open the door of the cuddy, a powerful blast of Vanilly hit her. The glass vial of concentrated oil; of course, it, too, would have to break when she had tossed it in with her clothes. No sense in having bad luck by halves. Holding her breath, she moved inside the cuddy to lift her last tunic off its hook.

For the second time that day, Ki bathed and washed her hair in the now dark and freezing river. She mumbled curses as she knelt shivering in the shallows to scrub out her soiled clothes. She doubted that the blue blouse and skirt would ever be free of the scent of Vanilly. As she worked, she thought of alternatives. She had none. She would go on to Bitters. She did not have enough coin to pay back the six dru of the advance. It would make a lively scene with the owners. But there was no advantage to putting it off.

Her feet were cold and stone bruised. Aches twined through every muscle of her body as she came back into the circle of her firelight. In the wagon, the Vanilly was still overwhelming. Ki took a short breath and ducked in to gather up hard traveler’s bread, a sausage, a kettle, dry tea. She backed hastily out of the cuddy. On the seat of her wagon, she paused to bite off the end of the sausage. She stood chewing and considering. Then she reached into the cuddy and brought out the last box of her freight as well.

As she waited for her kettle to come to a boil, she took alternate bites of sausage and bread. She stared at the rough wooden crate at her feet. Through the crack, the stones on the enamelled box winked at her seductively. She put a measure of tea in the kettle and removed it from the fire. Her thoughts were tangled as she took an earthenware mug from her camp chest. She seated herself on the chest, poured her tea, and took a tentative sip. With a shrug, she picked up her knife. In a businesslike manner, she hunched over to pry open the rest of the rough wooden crate. The enamel box came free. She was going to have to pay full price for this misadventure. At least she would satisfy her own curiosity.

The last shard of splintery yellow wood dropped away. Ki filled her lap with the enamelled box. Turning it about, she found one plain side. She decided it was the bottom and oriented the box that way. Opening it was the problem now. There were no hinges, nor any discernible catch. Possibly it was hidden in the pattern of stones. Ki moved her hands lightly over the box, feeling for loose stones. None of those either.

She set the box down on the camp chest beside her. Sipping hot tea, she pondered. Was she being wise to even try to open it? But a stubbornness came over her. She would see what was inside it; dammit, she had paid for that much in nuisance already. She returned the box to her lap and took up her knife again.

A peculiar prickling sensation began in the fingers of her right hand. The knife fell from her lax fingers. The prickling raced up her arm. Coldness overtook Ki’s heart as she watched her arm drop away from the box, to dangle from her shoulder. A poison on the stones, she realized, and was surprised at her own cool logic. She waited with dread for the numbness to spread.

But her fingers suddenly flexed and stretched of their own volition. Her hand rose to rest once more on the box. One finger settled on a red stone. Ki did not even feel the touch as it pressed gently down on it. A white stone next to the red suddenly glowed. Ki watched a finger quickly cover it. A blue stone flashed, and her thumb settled on it. The stones seemed to seize the ends of her fingers. Her arm rose, and with it, the cover of the box. Her arm set down the five-sided cover gently, and returned to unwind swiftly a linen wrapping from whatever rested on the platform that had been the base of the enamel box. Her hand tucked the linen wrapping into the empty top of the box. Her hand came back to settle gently in her lap. The tingling returned for a moment, then left it again. Ki stared at her fingers for a long breath, then gingerly flexed them. Her hand was hers again.

Ki let out a long shuddering breath. Night pressed closer, to hover blackest over the pitiful light of her small fire. She licked her dry lips, and let her eyes be drawn back to the contents of the enamel box. It was a carved head. She set it carefully on the box beside her. Leaning back, she tilted her head to admire it.

The squat pedestal of the bust was a block of porous black stone, veined with red. Ki wondered briefly at the use of such a coarse stone as the base for such a creation. For a head as lifelike as this deserved a pedestal of crystal, a mounting of gold. In both carving and coloring, it mimicked life.

What stone was this, with a glow like warm flesh? What artist had produced the grey overcast that suggested the pallor of death? Straight black hair was combed flat to the head, to show the aristocratic shape of the skull. The eyes, pale grey, were slightly open, almost sleepily, beneath fine black brows. The nose was straight and strong above a mouth sensually full. It smiled at her, lips parted to reveal small even white teeth.

‘You’ve made a fine botch of a simple job, Ki,’ it said suddenly. The head twisted about on the block as if to limber up neck muscles stiff from confinement. ‘I expected some problems, but I confess this is a catastrophe beyond my wildest imaginings. Where are you going?’

At the first words, Ki had frozen. As the head continued to speak, she had scrambled to her feet and begun to back out of the fire’s circle of light.

‘What can you do, Ki? Abandon me, your wagon and team, and flee into the woods? It wouldn’t free you of those who gave you the responsibility for my journey. It certainly wouldn’t do me any good. Although I retain some small powers in this diminished state, I would be vastly more comfortable with my own body beneath me, and my own hands at the ends of my arms. the body and hands, I might add, that you have so carelessly lost.’

Ki remained on the edge of the firelight. Every hair on her body was acrawl with dread. Yet she knew that face and voice if only she could place them. And she had to bow to the logic of his words, even in the weird circumstances in which he uttered them. Perhaps especially in those circumstances. She stared at him, unable to flee and unwilling to return.

‘Oh, come,’ he resumed condescendingly. ‘At least have some manners! I would greatly appreciate a sip of your tea. My bodily wants in this state are few, but the mouth does become dry. Surely you won’t let me, uh, sit here alone all evening.’

Ki straightened her shoulders and advanced with a bravado she did not feel. She picked up her mug. With hands that trembled only slightly, she held its rim to the head’s lips. He sipped. Ki set down her mug, and retreated to the other side of the fire.

‘That’s better,’ the head sighed. A little of the greyness seemed to leave his face. ‘But perhaps I am forgetting my manners as well. I am Dresh, lately a power of Dyal, soon to be, I hope, a power of Bitters. If, that is, you can live up to the terms of our bargain. You’ve made a fine mess of it so far. You realize that, don’t you?’

‘I realize that I was given a cargo I would not have chosen to carry, had I known its true nature!’ Ki snapped. She drowned her fear in anger. ‘And I remember your face now. You were the drunken tinker that stirred up the tavern at Dyal with your wild political cant about the Windsingers. You urged the farmers and weavers to rebel openly, to burn their crops and wool in the field before they paid tribute to the Windsingers. And when the brawl started, you left me to pay the damage!’

As Ki spoke to him, Dresh let his face slide into the tinker’s drunken scowl. His eyelids drooped, his cheeks sagged, he let his mouth dangle open. Then with a wink he straightened his features to handsomeness and grinned at her. Had the atmosphere been different, and the head atop a body, Ki might have warmed to that grin. But now it only fueled her anger.

‘Someone wants you, Dresh. Someone wants you badly enough to pay gold for wind spells. Such magic is not cheap. Whoever wants you has the wealth to buy his desires. And if he wants you all that badly, I do not think he will take kindly to my interference. You hired me as a teamster, not as a bodyguard.’

‘…to do all within my power to see that my freight reaches its destination safely.” And signed, not just with your name, but also with your status as a freeborn, and the attestation that your loyalty is only to yourself. That bit of braggadocio has bound you to me even more tightly than I could have engineered. And,’ a lifted eyebrow stemmed Ki’s outburst, ‘you may wish to consider this. You fear you have earned the enmity of certain wealthy and perhaps powerful persons who wish to do me harm. You have. The Windsingers. Themselves. Abandoning me here will not lessen their dislike of you. As you well know, they have never been overly fond of Romni. They will see your conveying of me from Dyal to here as an act of defiance, of open rebellion. So you may as well plot further with me as to how to restore myself. At least then you will be under my not inconsiderable protection.’

Ki sat glaring with narrow cat eyes, weighing the options he hadn’t mentioned. She could just load his head back into her wagon and haul it to Bitters. But that might mean facing whatever allies this Dresh might have waiting for him. She could seek out the Windsingers herself, and turn the head over to them, with humble apologies. If they would believe her. If they bothered to wait to hear out her story. If she found them before they found her. And, the biggest if, if she had not already given her word to paper that she would deliver this ‘freight’ safely. Gods, what a fix! He had her, thrice bound to him, by name, birth, and loyalty. And the Windsingers against them. Ki was in a game where the opening stakes were already too high for her purse. Dresh was the only way out.

She gave a curt nod to the head that was regarding her with a smug smile, as if he could follow the trail of her thoughts. Ki took a sip of her tea. ‘So. If I am to assist you in this madness, I think I must know what is going on. Let us have the whys of it.’

‘The whys?’

‘Why are you in pieces? I dare not ask how. Why make this journey? Why pay me a premium price to haul dirt and stones? Why did you incite that riot in the tavern? Why didn’t they get your head when they got the rest of you? Why do they want you at all?’

‘Such a busy little mind to hide inside a Romni teamster’s head! Will you not just trust me, and do as you are told? Believe me when I tell you that knowledge without understanding can cause fear that is completely disproportionate to the realities involved. As a teamster, you must know that the blinkered team may go more steadily than…’

‘I am not a horse,’ Ki warned him.

‘No. I did not mean to imply that you were one. Only that the less you knew, the safer you might feel. If…’

‘You’re asking me to drive a strange trail by night, Dresh, and I…’

‘Ah, the quaint wordings of the Romni born. Almost like a subdialect of Common. You are stubborn, and I have no time for it. Know then, and wish you did not. It will take me less time to tell it than to talk you out of it. There is this. For some time, I have been a bother to the Windsingers. For one thing, I know too much about them, I know enough that I fear them in quite a different way from the way ordinary fools fear them. To say more would be to get into personal areas. That must content you. As to why I divided myself, let us say that I knew that the Windsingers had finally decided to free me from my mortal shell, to turn my soul adrift in the universe. The idea did not please me. The runings I had made about Dyal had grown old and were loosening. Too often had they been renewed. I need a new home, guarded by fresh runes. A suitable configuration occurred in Bitters. But there was the journey to Bitters to consider. To leave in my natural form would be useless. They would have had me before I was a step outside the gates. To leave in a disguise would make the game a little more interesting for them, but not for me. I am a wizard, Ki. That shape I project into the strata of power is distinctive. They know that shape as well as you know the scar down Vandien’s face.’

Dresh paused, smiling, to let Ki feel that little dart. ‘There are ways, but not many, to alter that configuration. I did not choose to invite a lesser spirit to join mine in my body. I did not choose to…well, let us not go into what else I did not choose. What I chose was to divide my body. Thus my shape on the power strata was also divided and would appear in new forms. For a while, it confused them. For a while, but not for as long as I had hoped.’ The head paused and sighed. Dresh licked his lips, stared at the fire thoughtfully.

Ki echoed his sigh. Without being asked, she circled the fire, poured more hot tea into her mug, and offered it to his lips. He drank sparingly, then watched her as she drank.

‘The boxes of earth were to throw them off. As was the use of the black house where you signed the contract. You carried too much freight for it to be the body of Dresh. But that, too, did not deceive them for long. As for why they did not get all of me…’ The fine white teeth nibbled thoughtfully at the full lower lip. ‘I think we may call it luck. They did not know how many pieces I was in. The creature they sent was of the basest level of intelligence, twice as primitive as a Romni teamster, even. It was probably told to fetch back the boxes that were enamelled. A necessary part of this magic, you will guess. My head box, within your wagon, escaped its attention. Luckily for us, they will not instantly know it is missing. Unlike some fools, they have too much respect for my boxes to try to pry one open with a knife. They will know the catch is in the jewels. Enough stones are set in each box that there are a large number of possible combinations. Yet not an infinite number, and they are determined to have them open. And they know that they have the most important ingredient of all. Time. There are definite limits to how long I can survive in this state. Time dribbles away from us already. Even now, I sense one of power busy at the box that holds my hands. A lesser one holds vigil over the box that holds my body. We must recover my parts as swiftly as possible. If they succeed in opening the boxes, they will drain me. I will die. Yet I must not act hastily and throw us into their hands. Sensing who has my parts is only half the puzzle. Now I must divine where.’

The head was still for a moment. Then, with a peculiar smile, Dresh nodded at the tea mug. Ki leaned down to put it to his lips. He sipped. Then, as Ki took the mug away, he whispered, ‘Kiss me, Ki.’

She bent forward to find his lips. They were cool beneath hers. For a long still moment his full soft lips held hers in a cold kiss. Then he broke it, and Ki jerked herself away from him.

She rocketed to her feet, the back of her hand flying to her mouth. She stared at him as if at a snake. Slowly her hand fell away. She spat on the earth before him.

‘How did you do that?’ she demanded in a low growl.

‘You will forgive me, I trust. Much of a wizard’s power is housed in his body and hands. It was just a small test to determine how much I retain. I will confess it is an experiment that has tempted me since I saw you in the tavern. You would not find it so distasteful were my body beneath my head and my hands at the ends of my arms. You have the Romni distrust for magicking. But, lacking a body, a head must do the best it can.’

Dresh laughed merrily. Ki did not join in. ‘I am bound to you,’ she admitted softly. ‘But use me as a toy and you shall regret it. For perhaps I could buy the favor of the Windsingers with your head.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ asserted the head calmly. ‘You are thrice bound.’

‘Perhaps not. But what would stop me from delivering your head to Bitters, refunding the advance, and leaving?’

‘Your pride, my dear. And you lack the cash. But, I hasten to add, I shall not trifle with you so lightly again. ‘Twas but a whim. I know what I wished to know. We have no more time for it now. As for when I do have a body under me again, well, you will find you feel differently. I am not a badly made man, when I am all in one piece. I have small clever hands, softer than yours, narrow hips, and shoulders wider than that vagabond Vandien’s…’

‘What do you know of Vandien?’ Ki cut in to demand.

‘Ki, be assured that I know as much of you and your friend as any do. When I pick a teamster to haul my bones, I do not act without thought. As I was saying, small feet, and a flat belly. A slight scar across my left breast, but some women have assured me that it but adds to…where are you going now?’

‘To bed. I may have to help you recover your parts, but nothing binds me to listen to an inventory of them.’

‘Ki, you are a basic little creature, aren’t you. Lacking a course of action, and being satiated with food, you think only of sleep. But surely you do not intend to sleep within the wagon?’

‘And why not?’

‘It stinks awfully in there. Your Vanilly came closer to extinguishing my breath than any wind magic tonight. Bring your blankets out here, my dear. I shall watch over you.’

‘I bet you would.’

To Ki’s disgust, she found Dresh’s words true. Vanilly in excess was scarcely alluring. She gathered her bedding and tucked the sheathed rapier under her arm. The one time when she might have wished for Vandien’s skilled hand on the hilt of it, and he takes a seaside holiday. Her own thrusts and parries were nothing to take pride in. But it was the only weapon in the wagon. She sat on the plank seat to close the cuddy door behind her.

The strangeness of the tableau seized her. Ki crouched a moment on the wagon seat, staring. There were the small flames of her campfire, made even smaller by the immense black dome of night arching over all. The few stars did nothing to illuminate the scene. They were impartial eyes watching from an immeasurable distance. The river was a flowing sheet of darkness beyond her fire. And before her fire, silhouetted by the moving flames, was the head on its block of stone, ensconced on the camp chest.

The shiver that raced over Ki’s back was not from cold. She wished fervently to be out of this whole situation. She knew of no good ever brought by magic. As for Windsinger magic: could there be a worse kind to pit her puniness against? Were not they renowned for their heartlessness and casual cruelty towards mortals, Humans in particular? Yet a large proportion of Windsingers began their lives as Human females. Ki’s fear of them was tinged with disgust at the way they could turn on their own species.

She tossed her bedding down beside the fire. Not even bothering to tug off her boots, she rolled up in the bedding fully clothed. She had a feeling she might wish to move quickly. Dresh did not speak. He stared hypnotically at the flames. Ki followed his eyes. She mused sleepily on the dancing towers of flame and the crumbling ember towns. When she closed her eyes, bright afterimages of the flames danced on the inside of her eyelids.

‘Ki! Awake! I have need of your hands!’

Ki was jerked from her dreams into the stranger reality. Dresh’s voice was urgent; his dark brows were knotted.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ki wriggled out of her blankets, coming to her feet alert, the sheathed rapier gripped in one hand. She peered in vain into the darkness about the fallen fire. Her team grazed peacefully. ‘Where is it? What?’

‘Nowhere on this plane, dolt! The Windsingers have sent for one of power, great power! I heard their call. Before her, my boxes will be more useless than cobwebs. She will see right through them. But their calling has showed me where they are. I must act now, or forsake all hope. I need hands. I lack them. I shall use yours in place of my own, seeing as how you were responsible for my loss. Do all exactly as I tell you. Put your left hand on my head, extend your right arm and hand vertically…’

Ki remained motionless, frowning.

‘Make haste, woman!’

‘Tell me first what magic we work. Then I shall decide if I want a part in it.’

‘We summon a creature to make a way for us. I have located where they hold my parts. We shall go to reclaim them. Now, your left hand on my…’

‘I wonder if I wish to go with you? Shall I leave my wagon and team here, prey to the first wandering thief?’

‘I have already circled them with what power I can. Not enough to hold off a Windsinger, but more than enough to ward off the casual thief. Think you I slept as you did? Now, place your left…’

‘What sort of creature do we summon?’

‘One that moves between levels, a jointer of worlds. Must we waste time so? Can words describe colors to the born blind? Neither can they describe creatures your mind is not disciplined to see. Now please! Your left hand on my head!’

‘Please,’ Ki whispered softly with sarcastic satisfaction. Slowly she moved to obey.

‘And your right hand aloft, perpendicular to the earth. Separate your fingers as widely as you can. Blank your mind if you are capable. I do not wish your thoughts to pollute the sending. Now!’

Strange it was to let her hand rest on the soft dark hair of the wizard’s head. It curled beneath her left hand, silky with warmth, a slight cushion between her hand and his smooth skull. She had a strange impulse to stroke it away from his eyes as she might pet a street child for some small favor. She resisted the impulse, but looking down into his grey eyes she felt he might have read the momentary urge. She strove to blank out her mind, only to become more and more conscious of Dresh’s hair beneath her hand.

‘First questions, now flattery! Was ever a power at such a disadvantage? Enough of that! Now, reach your right hand straight over your head, touching the middle finger to the palm of your hand while keeping the other fingers stretched out straight.’

Ki tried to comply, but the hand position was difficult. Her smallest finger leaned far back from the rest of her hand. She felt an immediate cramp across her knuckles.

‘Straighten those fingers!’ Dresh barked. ‘So!’

One moment her hand nestled in his soft hair. The next it was encased in a grip of ice. Cold emanated from the top of his skull, to creep up inside her arm. A sluggishly moving icy jelly was being forced up through her bones. Her fingers went numb. The feeling in her arm was lost to her. Elbow and shoulder, gone. A web of icy tendrils crept like a living mantle across her shoulders, ventured up her raised right arm. Fear hammered inside her, and she decided to pull free, to escape this loathsome inner touching. But it was as if she heard of someone else’s fear and desire to flee. Her body did not move. The terror raced hopelessly around within her own mind. She was Dresh’s tool, her own will impotent. Cold slugs inched into the bones of her right hand, filled her fingers. She felt the fingers straighten into the correct alignment. Surely her tendons must tear themselves loose from the bones they gripped, but now, they relaxed, and seemed to recall an earlier limberness that Ki had never possessed. The sign was made.

A needle of hot acid ripped up from Dresh’s skull. It shrieked through Ki’s body, traveling swiftly through her marrow. It tore across her shoulders and shot up her reaching arm in a spasm of agony beyond words or cries. She made no sound. Her mouth stretched wide and tortured, but was mute to her body’s torment. The pain exploded from her reaching fingertips, to spray out in a four-fingered jet of agony across the night sky. Ki saw no sight, she heard no sound, but she sensed the signal sent through her. In some far realm there was a being that would answer such a call. Ki pictured a vulture suddenly looping and settling.

‘Rest now.’ She knew it was Dresh, but could not tell if he spoke to her as if she simply heard him. A haze of pain and confusion scattered her thoughts. A strength not her own entered her body. She staggered forward three short steps. Then it forsook her, to let her tumble onto her bedding like a marionette whose strings are cut. Somewhere in Ki, someone was angry, was furious with Dresh. Someone would kill him, as soon as she could find her strength. But Ki was too weary to listen to her rant. She closed her eyes and sank into depths past sleep.