‘Oh, good, there you are,’ Ammadin said. ‘You’re coming with me to the White Ruins.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Zayn said. ‘I was afraid you were going to go off alone.’
‘No, I promised you I wouldn’t. I’ll need another guard, too, Dallador probably. We’re not going far.’
‘All right. Can I ask you what you’re going to do? If you’re wearing your cloak, it must be important.’
‘It is.’ Ammadin was rummaging in her saddlebags. ‘Ah, here we are.’
She held up a brooch about the size of her palm and shaped like the spiral of the Herd, made of transparent tubing filled with blue liquid. As the sunlight touched it, the liquid turned a deep cobalt blue and glowed.
‘What is that?’ Zayn said.
‘Something from the Ancients. It must be magic, but I don’t know what it does exactly. The person I’m giving it to might know.’
‘And that person is?’
‘Do you remember when I told you about the three female ChaMeech who seemed to be following Warkannan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Actually, they were following me. They need my help, their leader told me, against Soutan, so we’re meeting to discuss it.’
‘ChaMeech? You’re going to traffic with ChaMeech?’
‘Traffic with?’ Ammadin looked up, puzzled.
‘Yes, just that. Collude with them, scheme with them –’
Ammadin laid a firm hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You smell furious.’
Zayn realized then that he was trembling, his jaw set tight, his hands clasping into fists. The memories of his ordeal as a ChaMeech prisoner were rising beyond his power to stop them: the endless run through the grass, panting, gasping, his lungs burning, the searing pain of leather thongs biting into his wrists and the sound of ChaMeech laughter screeching around him. His memory – his damned foul memory, he termed it – had preserved every minute of those days, vivid, agonizing still. Ammadin shook his arm hard.
‘Zayn, what is it? You’ve gone off somewhere.’
He looked around, dazed, panting for breath, then found he could still speak. ‘I am furious,’ he said. ‘How could you have anything to do with slime like that?’
‘What do you mean? My people – your people now too – don’t have any feud with the ChaMeech, just with some of their young males. If you Kazraks hadn’t driven them off their land, they wouldn’t be feuding with you, either.’
‘Oh? It’s not just the Kazraks. What about N’Dosha? How many people did they kill there?’
‘Well, yes, hundreds. That’s very true. But if this ChaMeech is telling me the truth, she’s trying to avoid more wars and more deaths.’
‘Truth? ChaMeech? You must be naive if you think –’
‘Stop it!’ Ammadin held her hand up flat for silence. ‘Are you even capable of thinking clearly about this?’
‘Probably not. I’ve spent a lot of years hating them.’
‘Well, consider this. This particular ChaMeech is a female, a true Chiri Michi with her two female servants, and she considers Soutan her enemy.’
‘All right. That’s a point in her favour. But how do you know she’s not just bait, drawing you into an ambush?’
‘Because if she were, I’d have seen the ambushers in my crystal.’
Zayn winced; he was forgetting the obvious, a dangerous symptom.
‘But now that I know how you feel about the ChaMeech,’ Ammadin went on, ‘I’ll take Dallador and Grenidor, and you can stay here.’
‘What? No! It’s my job, protecting you.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since my being here put you in danger.’
Ammadin considered for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I don’t want you doing anything stupid,’ she said. ‘You hate the ChaMeech, so fine, I’ll get someone else.’
‘What in hell do you mean, do something stupid?’
‘I’m not sure. Charge them maybe, or insult them.’ Ammadin tipped her head to one side and stared at him through half-closed eyes. ‘I can smell rage pouring off you. It’s amazing.’
Zayn took a deep breath, then another, calling on all his training to calm himself, to bury the rage deep, to lock the memories back up where he would no longer feel them. Ammadin waited, saying nothing, until he finally could force his voice to stay steady.
‘I’m sorry, Spirit Rider,’ Zayn said. ‘You’re right. I’ll stay here and take care of the tent and the horses.’
‘Good. Later we can talk. Were you wounded in a fight with ChaMeech? Or lose a friend to them?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It’ll eat you alive until you do.’
Zayn turned on his heel and strode off. He kept himself busy with the horses until he could be sure that Ammadin and her guards had ridden away.
The White Ruins lay a few miles off the road at the edge of the ancient forest. Huge slabs of the same ceramic that the Ancients had used for the fort lay one on top of the other in a heap as high as a man’s head. Purple grass grew tall around them; orange puff fungus clung to the free-hanging edges of the slabs. A few feet away lay the sleeping tower, as Water Woman had called it, a white tube nearly a hundred feet in diameter and a good two hundred feet long. Over the years since the Ancients had abandoned their project, drifting leaves and grass had filled the tower, rotted, and collapsed to make room for more drift until it had become a warren of peat for tiny orange snakes.
As Ammadin and her two guards dismounted nearby, she could hear the tunlers shriek warnings against these intruders. In the hot humid air the tower colony stank like fresh excrement, but over that scent she could smell female ChaMeech, pungent but cleaner, somehow, than the male stink of a warparty. The horses also caught the smell and tossed their heads with a flourish of mane. From the way Dallador wrinkled his nose she could guess that he’d picked it up as well.
‘They’re close,’ Dallador said.
‘They said they’d be at the white stone,’ Ammadin said.
‘All right. Grenno, I’ll take the rear.’
‘No,’ Grenidor said. ‘It’s too dangerous, and you’re a married man. You go on ahead, and I’ll take the rear guard.’
Leading their horses, they walked on. Beyond the tower a narrow path took them into the forest, gone feral and tangled over the long years. The great oaks crowned far above them, their branches twined into a canopy that cast a deep and welcome shade. In the canopy, maroon leaveeders chirped and called. Bluebuhs swarmed in mid-air, darting from tree to tree. In the tangled ferns and vines, tiny grey skitters hissed as they passed. Big red poun-zers rustled through the debris on the forest floor as they fled the humans.
In less than a quarter of a mile the path snaked to the right and debouched into a clearing, bright with sun. In its centre sat a lustrous white sphere, four feet in diameter, half-buried in the earth and drifting leaves. On the far side three ChaMeech were sitting haunched, their pseudo-arms held up high, their people’s way of signalling peace. Two smaller grey females sat a little behind a larger, whose skin gleamed, oiled to a deep purple – Water Woman, Ammadin supposed, the true Chiri Michi.
In general they looked much like their males, but taller, stockier, in every way more solid, somehow, with their heavily muscled necks and strong legs. They had the same bulbous heads as the males, but a sharp thrust of cartilage defined their faces; their mouths and noses came to a point much like a beak, though their thin plates of lips were flexible enough to mimic human sounds. The two grey females wore nothing but strands of wooden beads and charms around their necks. Water Woman had tied blue-striped trade cloth around her midriff to form a loose skirt that covered her hindmost legs and fell to the ground. Instead of thongs, she wore around the base of her neck a scarf of red trade cloth, pinned with a long gold needle-like ornament. When she spoke, her throat sac pulsed scarlet.
‘I be Keevashartalchiri, Water Woman in your way of speaking. You come-now, Ammadin.’
&n
bsp; ‘I’ve come, yes, just like I said I would.’
Water Woman lowered her head and stretched her arms forward. ‘There be a great need for talk. I be very pleased to see you.’
‘I’m very glad to meet you as well. As you see, I’ve brought my two servants.’ Ammadin glanced back at Dallador and Grenidor. ‘Can you hear her?’
‘Just,’ Dallador said. ‘It’s almost too low but not quite.’
‘It’s more like I feel it,’ Grenidor said. ‘Like her voice is a humming sound or throbs or something.’
Water Woman stamped a front foot on the ground, the ChaMeech equivalent of laughter. ‘Your voices sound like the flying ones, I think you call them bluebuhs? A whine, very high.’
‘Bluebuhs, yes,’ Ammadin said, smiling, then turned back to the men. ‘Unsaddle the horses and let them rest.’
When Dallador and Grenidor led the horses away, Water Woman’s two servants retreated to their side of the clearing. Behind them, in among the trees, sat a heap of sacks and baskets.
‘Ammadin, come sit.’ Water Woman pointed at the white stone with one pseudo-hand. ‘You be-then as tall as I.’
Ammadin expected to slog her way through heaps of windblown detritus, but the leaves and suchlike turned out to be barely deep enough to rise above the soles of her boots. The sphere held other surprises. Despite its gleaming surface it felt rough, not smooth, and when Ammadin swung herself up, she felt it rock under her. Water Woman slumped a bit more so that their heads were level, and Ammadin could see her doubled eyes – a pair of ovals in each socket, with, in her case, the upper a solid pale blue, the lower a solid green. Whenever she blinked, the lids over the lower eyes flicked downwards, but on the upper eyes, lids of translucent membrane rolled up.
‘Neither of us knows the customs of the other,’ Ammadin said. ‘If I say something rude, please tell me.’
‘And if I say some rude thing, you tell-next me. Yes.’ Water Woman clasped her two-fingered hands together on her broad chest. ‘I repeat: I be so grateful you come-now to talk.’
‘Because of Soutan?’
‘Because of the Karshaks he bring-then bring-soon-again to our land. The Karshaks take-then-long-time-past so much land, kill so many of our men. They come-now east, and if so, hundreds die, not just us but Karshaks. Our men, they say-now they fight this time, no more pity, no more concessions.’
‘I can’t blame them, but I can understand why you’re frightened.’
‘And if our men, they lose-soon this war? Karshaks take-next our land, drive-next us east to the mountains.’ Water Woman leaned forward. ‘Beyond the mountains, farther east – there be no rivers. It be very dry land, little to eat, little water, much sand that the winds blow in huge storms. So: soon, there be-not Chiri Michi, there be-not Chur either.’
‘Which is something that would please most Kazraks. Did Soutan say he wanted to bring an army into your territory?’
‘No, he talk-then only of finding Ark. Our men, they who help-then him, insist he take-only Ark and go-next home. Maybe it be true. But if not true, then there be no more Chiri, no more Chur.’
‘It would be a huge risk to run. Why didn’t you just kill him? Soutan, I mean.’
‘Some want-then to do just that. But his followers from our men stand-next in the way and threaten-next bloodshed to protect him. We want-not deaths. Ammadin, there be less of us every year. We want-not a war. So, we let-then Soutan leave and keep-then a watch to make sure he come-not back. Sibyl watch-then too. Just-now-summer she see him coming back with Karshaks. I go-then with servants to find help.’
‘Wait a minute. Sibyl lives in your territory?’
‘Yes.’
‘But she saw Soutan riding on the grasslands?’
‘Yes. Sibyl have powers to do much that you, I have-power-never to do. I bring-now a token to prove this.’ Water Woman turned to her servants. ‘Bring the gift!’
One of the greys trotted forward, carrying a red and white grassar-skin sack in her pseudo-hands. She bent the knee of one foreleg and offered it to Ammadin.
‘This be from Sibyl,’ Water Woman said. ‘She tell-then me, give this to the spirit rider who helps-soon-next you. Tell her: if she come-some-time visit me, I give her more.’
Ammadin took the sack, opened it, and slid out a silver tube, about three feet long and a palm’s width in diameter, banded top and bottom with stripes of bright red metal.
‘The spirit command be “light”,’ Water Woman said. ‘Its spirits feed-must on sun, like all spirits. It has power to shine much light and for a long time. You say, light. You say-next, much light, little light. It give-next what you wish.’
‘A thousand thanks!’ Ammadin held the tube in one hand and with the other fished her gift out of her pocket. ‘And this is a token for you, a thing my teacher in magic gave me.’
‘Very precious!’ Water Woman took the glowing spiral brooch in both hands. ‘Beautiful and precious. I give you a thousand thanks.’
While Water Woman’s servant pinned the brooch onto her mistress’s red scarf, Ammadin examined the tube. The two metal bands sat loosely in some sort of track; they would turn one way for a few inches, then back the other. Under her hands the metal felt cool and almost oily. The servant bowed again, then scurried back to the edge of the clearing.
‘Water Woman,’ Ammadin said, ‘Sibyl must be rich to give away things like this.’
‘Very rich, and she be very eager to meet you. I too wish you come-might see Sibyl. If you want to come, I lead you there.’
‘I want to meet Sibyl, but the comnee, the H’mai I ride with, I can’t just ride off and leave them. I need to find another spirit rider before I can leave.’
‘I puzzle over your words.’
‘My comnee must have a spirit rider to guide them. I am the one, their only spirit rider. I cannot leave them because I am the only –’
‘I understand-now. Then I wait till you find second spirit woman, but I have-not the power to travel with you now. Danger lie-always in the town, Nannes. I go-not there. I go-not close there.’
‘I know that the Cantons don’t welcome your people.’ Ammadin tapped the light tube against her palm while she thought things through. Honesty, she decided, was crucial. ‘Not all of the killing’s been done by the Kazraks, has it? Four hundred years ago, your people destroyed one of the cantons.’
Water Woman moaned, a long, deep throb of her throat sac, so low-pitched that Ammadin felt rather than heard it. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘It be for the sake of our children, who die-then. We had-then no choice.’
‘You told me once that the children are dying now, too. What do you mean?’
‘We be-must on the sea beaches to get our children back again.’ Water Woman paused for a long moment. ‘I tell-next a secret. Please, promise me you tell-never any other comnee person and never never a Karshak. Sorcerers in Cantons, they know, but that matter-not. If Karshaks learn this, disaster!’
‘All right, I promise. You have my word before all of our gods.’
Still, Water Woman hesitated. She reached up and caught the edge of her scarf between her finger and thumb, twisted it tight in an oddly human gesture, then let it go.
‘Our children begin life in the Great Swamp, the one you call the Mistlands,’ she said at last. ‘We birth them in the warm waters. They travel-next to the sea.’
‘Spirit pearls!’
‘You know-then them, yes. We, true Chiri Michi, give birth in the place you call Mistlands. Hundreds of children each, thousands of children we birth there. The rivers take them to the southern seas. In the salt water they change. The pearl splits, they swim out. They stay some few years, but many die there. There are the zalotlan, there are the silamintrinik, our names for the enemies who eat them. Only the best children, the most intelligent, the strongest, survive. One summer they come-then back to us, the strong ones, the smart ones, they who survive-then the sea. Some hundreds, not thousands, come back to us. They are very small, and we n
eed-then greet them. Without us, the kri altri – you call them birds – come to the shore to hunt them.’
‘And they kill –?’
‘Kill and eat, yes. Now, if we be-not there, there be a few children who be smart enough to dodge the birds and reach the trees. But most – they die.’
‘Do you remember any of this? Do you remember being in the sea and breathing water?’
‘Only a few –’ Water Woman paused to wag her pseudo-hands in the air as if the gesture helped her think, ‘– a few broken memories. Like dreams. Your people, they dream not dream? When they sleep?’
‘Oh yes, we dream, too.’
‘Good. Then you know-now what I mean. Water memories they be like dreams, very small and very hard to see, just pictures, pieces of pictures. But the air memories, riding waves and breathing air, yes, they stay-now with me. I remember-too the terror I feel-then, when I see at last how dangerous be the waters. Something inside me said-then, go to land, hurry to land. I remember the sand, and the seeing of my people, and knowing, somehow I know-then they were mine – I have-then-not speech or words, but I know-somehow they be mine, and I run so very hard and they run to me, waving spears to scare off the birds overhead, the birds, nasty nasty birds!’ She shuddered with a toss of her massive head. ‘So you see, we be-must there when the children, they come out of water.’
‘I do see, yes.’
‘So.’ Water Woman held up one pseudo-hand. ‘We have-must coast land. We have-must roads to coast land. Karshaks took-then the south coast, the north coast. They keep-then us from coast of the west lands. We have-must roads in our east lands, like you see-now.’
‘And the Cantonneurs closed the roads?’
‘Not exactly. Those years you speak of, many earthquakes come-then, and finally the earth give birth to a mountain of fire. The rock blood pour-then and cover-then all our roads. Death air spew-then too. We can-then-not travel-then on old roads. You see? We need-then travel on Canton roads. We ask-then them. They say-then no.’
‘The Cantonneurs say your people never asked them anything. They say they just attacked.’