Snare

‘Do you think she’ll take it?’ Zayn asked.

‘Why not?’ Apanador glanced his way. ‘I know her, and she’ll be pleased to get any kind of blood price. By rights, we don’t have to offer her anything at all since her son was bent on murder.’

‘Zayn?’ Dallador broke in. ‘But do you want retribution? For the broken vision quest, I mean.’

‘No,’ Zayn said. ‘I just wish it hadn’t happened. I didn’t want to kill anyone, much less him.’

Ammadin and Apanador exchanged a satisfied glance. As the crowd broke up, Dallador came over to Zayn and laid a friendly hand on his arm.

‘Not bad,’ Dallador said. ‘A man’s hunting you with a bow, and you’ve only got a knife, but you managed to kill him anyway.’

‘You gave me a good knife, that’s why.’

Dallador grinned.

‘Palindor used to eat at your fire, didn’t he?’ Zayn went on. ‘Am I still a friend of yours?’

‘What happened was between you and him, and he was in the wrong, anyway.’

‘Thanks, but still –’

‘Let me tell you something.’ Dallador held up his hand for silence. ‘The comnees don’t count cowards as men. Palindor was a coward, so he’s no friend of mine, and he’s not worth mourning. Let me warn you: the comnees demand more from a man than you Kazraks ever would.’ He waved his hand vaguely at the encircling darkness. ‘Out here, mistakes mean death. A man who makes mistakes has no place in the comnee. Do you understand?’

‘Oh yes. And I’ll tell you something. I like it.’

They shared an easy smile.

In Ammadin’s tent a ball of pale light hung on the ridge pole like a lantern. As part of the ritual, Zayn had to describe his visions, and as she waited, watching him, her eyes seemed to look through, not at him. Safe, warm at last, well-fed, Zayn was too blurry with sleep-longing to think of any convincing lie.

‘I saw a spirit crane. It met me on the lake shore and took me to the island for my vigil. Then later it kept coming back.’

‘Wonderful! Did it leave you a gift?’

‘No, but I was going to stay all night until the arrows started flying.’

‘Ah, damn Palindor! The crane would have given you a gift if only he and his Kazraks hadn’t got in the way.’

‘Got in the way? That’s one way of putting it.’

‘From now on, cranes are Bane for you,’ Ammadin went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You must never kill one – never, do you hear me? Don’t disturb a nest, either. Any crane you see means an omen, and you must greet them and speak to them. If you find a dead one, you must bury it properly.’

‘I promise, and I mean it, because that crane saved my life out there. It showed me a vision, too. My father came to me.’

‘His ghost? Is he dead?’

‘No. I guess it was just an image of him.’

‘That’s good enough. Did he have some advice for you?’

‘You don’t understand. My father hates me. I was nothing but one disappointment after the other.’

Ammadin stared, visibly shocked. ‘Did he curse you?’ she said at last. ‘In the vision, I mean.’

‘No. He had the usual look on his face, like a man who’s just stepped in fresh horseshit with a bare foot.’

‘Why did he hate you?’

‘The Lord means everything to him. He kept our household as pure as he could make it, until I came along.’

‘Your people can be harsh, when it comes to your religion. It must be that book you read.’

‘He read it all the time, that’s for sure. He wanted me to memorize it, you see, and so I did.’

‘Wait a minute. Why would he get angry if you did what he wanted?’

Zayn felt cold fear clutch him. He’d blundered, and badly. Back in the khanate that lapse might have led to his unmasking and, ultimately, his death. Ammadin raised one eyebrow but waited for him to speak. He wanted a lie, could think of none.

‘Uh well,’ Zayn said. ‘I did it in a single afternoon. I mean, I read through it, and I knew it off by heart, all of it. I was eight, maybe.’

‘Well, so?’

‘Don’t you know what that means?’

‘No. I should think he’d have been proud of you, a child that young, laying up holy words in his heart.’

‘But –’ He hesitated.

‘But what?’ Ammadin leaned forward, staring into his eyes. ‘What does it mean, then?’

Caught – how could he tell her? But how could he refuse? She waited patiently, her expression gentle, concerned.

‘Ah well,’ Zayn said at last. ‘It means I’m demon spawn, of course.’

‘What? That makes no sense at all.’

‘A memory like mine, it’s one of the twelve times twelve forbidden talents. So Father tried to exorcize the demon part of me, and when that didn’t work, he took me on quite a journey. We went to mosque after mosque, holy man after holy man. He was trying to find one who had the power to cure demon blood, you see. Finally I realized what he wanted, and so I pretended I was cured. But he never really trusted me.’

‘I still don’t –’

‘You must have heard of the forbidden talents.’

‘No, I haven’t. Are they like Banes?’

‘Yes, exactly. But –’ Zayn caught himself just in time. Why was he babbling like this? The face of the man in his vision rose in his memory. For a moment he thought he saw it floating like a mask in front of him, a smug face, twisted and gloating over secrets held too long.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ammadin rose to a kneel. ‘Are you going to throw up?’

He shook his head. ‘The talents, they’re Bane, all right,’ he said. ‘But you’re born with them. If you have one, it marks you as demon spawn. Most fathers kill children like that, but I was his only son. So he didn’t. I learned to hide it.’

‘Demon spawn? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Back in the old country, across the sea where we came from, there were demons. They were impure, and they had the forbidden talents. But some of our women slept with them and had children, impure children. That’s one reason we left the old country and came here, so we could be pure again.’

‘Are the demons supposed to have come with you?’

‘No. It’s just that those women must have hidden some of their children, you see, so the mullahs couldn’t kill them. And those children would have grown up and passed the taint on to their children, and so on. And now, people like me still have demon blood in us. My mother must have carried it.’

Ammadin considered him for so long that he assumed she, like all the others, despised him. Finally she shook her head and spoke. ‘That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Demons can’t sire children. They don’t have bodies.’

He gaped, knew his mouth was hanging open like some idiot child’s, tried to find words, and realized at length that he was shaking.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ Ammadin said.

‘Of course I do. The mullahs and my father – they always warned us against demons, the gennies, they called them. They could look like real people, but they weren’t. They were spirits, and their bodies were just illusions.’

‘Well, then, how is one of these illusions supposed to get a woman pregnant?’

He could only stare at her. He wanted to say ‘of course they can’t, you’re right, it’s ridiculous,’ but his mouth refused to form the words. He hadn’t seen. Why hadn’t he seen? He hadn’t dared to see. What if he’d tried this piece of logic on his father? The old man might have killed him. He’d come close to killing his tainted son as it was, with his beatings and periods of forced starvation.

‘What a waste!’ Ammadin went on. ‘Your people could use a memory like yours. They’ve got so many laws and prayers.’

He nodded. ‘Look, Spirit Rider, Wise One, if I’m not demon spawn, then what am I?’

‘A man like any other, I suppose, with an odd turn of mind. Some men are good with a bow; others can’t shoot to save their lives but ride like they’re half-horse. Some men would forget their own names if they lived alone; others can remember every horse their wives have sold to the Kazraks in the last thirty years.’

‘But the forbidden talents –’

‘– are on some list one of your holy men made up a long time ago. I have no idea why he did it or why he put having an amazing memory on it, but I think he was born a few pages short of a holy book, if you take my meaning.’

Zayn laughed, softly at first, then louder, realized that his eyes were filling with tears, but the laughter kept coming, making him tremble until Ammadin reached over, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him.

‘I’m sorry, Wise One.’ He was gasping for breath. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘It’s the shock. You’ve spent your life guarding this evil secret, haven’t you? Wondering what would happen if someone knew?’

‘Just that. Yes.’

‘And now I tell you that it’s not evil and shouldn’t be a secret. Why wouldn’t you be shocked?’

‘I see your point, yes.’ Zayn managed to smile. ‘I wish I could go back to the Mistlands. I never thought I’d say it, but I want to see more.’

‘It’s too dangerous. I haven’t forgotten about those other voices you heard out there. Apanador thinks that we should ride east. Maybe we can throw them off your trail.’

‘I’ve brought you nothing but trouble, haven’t I? It’s good of you to ride just for me.’

‘And wouldn’t we ride for anyone in the comnee? Zayn, you belong to us now.’

Ammadin spoke so quietly that Zayn felt his lies eating at him, simply because her words were perfectly true: part of him would always belong to Apanador’s comnee. He wanted to wash the lie away, to warn her that he’d have to leave the Tribes to fulfil his duty to the Great Khan. But the Chosen – his vow – he could say nothing. Ammadin laid a maternal hand on his arm.

‘You’re exhausted. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning.’

When he looked at her hand lying on his arm, Zayn shuddered, remembering the way it had dripped fire.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ammadin said.

‘Well, it’s just the light. I mean, the light you had on your hand when you met me. I’m not used to strong magic.’

‘That?’ She paused, laughing at him. ‘It’s the juice of a plant. It only grows in the Mistlands, or you would have seen it before this. When you crush it, the sticky stuff inside glows for quite a while before it fades. Look! I wiped it off onto a rag and stuck it on the ridge pole.’

When Zayn looked, he blushed. The rag was one of those that he used to wash pots and bowls, and here he’d been so sure that the light sprang from magic that he’d never recognized it.

Later, when he was rolled up in his blankets, Zayn remembered that he’d failed to find his true name. He knew that he should tell Ammadin, that in fact he should get up and go find her immediately, but exhaustion took him over, and he slept.

Zayn was well on his way back to the lake shore by the time Warkannan found the bodies. The captain was about half a mile away from Tareev, keeping in contact with Arkazo by croaking like a swamp lizard while he fought the muck and the stinking water. When he heard Arkazo calling, a frantic little string of signals, Warkannan called back and splashed his way through an empty stretch of lake and mist. He finally found him crouched on a muddy hummock.

‘I heard someone scream,’ Arkazo said. ‘Over to the left.’

It was either a good omen or the worst one in the world. For some minutes, Warkannan sent lizard cries through the mist, but no one answered. He nocked an arrow in his bow, told Arkazo to do the same, and set off in the rough direction of the scream. Although he and Arkazo kept calling, they heard nothing from Palindor or Tareev. At last, looming in the mist, Warkannan saw a long rocky stretch of islet, and on it, two dark mounds.

‘Stay here and cover me until I call for you.’

Holding the bow out of water, Warkannan splashed through the waist-deep lake. Constantly he turned his head, looking for a possible enemy, but he saw only a grey crane, perched on one pink leg amongst the tall rushes. Then, from a few feet away, he saw the bodies. Rasping like a fly-lizard struck him as sacrilege.

‘Arkazo! Get over here!’

Without a word, Arkazo came splashing through the water. Together they climbed up the rocky bank.

They lay in a pool of blood, Palindor with his spine efficiently severed, Tareev dead from a Tribal arrow. In his shock, it took Warkannan a moment to realize that Palindor’s bow was gone. Somehow Zayn had killed him with only a knife, taken the bow, and started a hunt of his own.

‘He’s one of the Chosen, all right,’ Warkannan said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

Arkazo made no reply. He was crouched down beside Tareev, his hand on his dead friend’s face, staring into Tareev’s unseeing eyes as if he could bring him back to life by force of will.

‘I’m sorry, Kaz,’ Warkannan said, as gently as he could. ‘I know it’s hard, but the only thing you can do for him now is to swear vengeance.’

Arkazo looked up, his mouth set, his eyes blind.

‘Come on now,’ Warkannan said. ‘There’s a dangerous man out there in the mists with a bow. We can’t do a thing for the khan’s cause if we’re dead.’

‘We can’t just leave him here.’

‘We’ve got to.’

Arkazo shook his head in a stubborn no. Warkannan left him, grabbed Palindor’s corpse by the shoulders, and dragged it to the edge of the islet. When he slung him in, Palindor sank into the dark water that would be the only grave he’d ever have. With a long cry of mourning, the crane flapped up from the rushes and flew away. When Warkannan returned for Tareev, Arkazo got up, his hand on his sword hilt, and barred his way. Warkannan slapped Arkazo across the face so hard that the boy staggered back.

‘You’re following my orders, you stupid young fool. We’ve got to get out of here. I don’t like doing this any more than you do. Now get out of the way.’

His hand on his cheek, Arkazo moved. As he was lowering Tareev into the water, Warkannan felt a tightness in his throat, but many another good man would die before the khan claimed the throne. He allowed himself a brief thought of Kareem, who would never see his son’s grave.

‘Come on,’ Warkannan said. ‘We’ve got to get back to shore. We’ll deal with Zayn later.’

Sullenly Arkazo followed when Warkannan stepped back into the lake. Bows at the ready, they slogged their way across the open water, heading roughly north-east. Warkannan stayed on guard, listening for every small sound, watching for every small trace of movement in the shifting view. At last, when the twilight was turning the Mistlands grey and featureless, they staggered out of the water onto the spongy lake shore. In this relative safety Warkannan turned to have a word with Arkazo and found him in tears. He left him alone with it and led the way down the bank.

A few miles down the shore stood a tangle of orange and russet fern trees, bent and twisted by the constant wind. Nearby, on a stretch of drier ground, the horses were tethered, and Soutan paced back and forth. When he saw them, Soutan hurried forward to meet them.

‘Zayn’s our man, all right,’ Warkannan said. ‘Palindor and Tareev are dead. The Chosen teach their men how to defend themselves.’

‘That’s horrible.’ Soutan was whispering. ‘So horrible about Tareev – I’m sorry, Arkazo. Truly sorry.’

Arkazo stared at him as if he hadn’t heard.

‘Well,’ Warkannan said, ‘we’ll get our revenge for this. It’s the only comfort we’re going to have, but we’ll get it.’

‘Oh yes.’ Soutan nodded firmly. ‘You see, before Zayn went under the fog cap, I saw him. I know what he looks like now.’

‘Which is?’

‘Mostly he looks Kazraki.’ Soutan paused, thinking. ‘A somewhat flatter nose than usual, and darker skin. Deep-set eyes. Tall, very straight back. I’m assuming he was in the cavalry.’

‘A lot of the Chosen were, yes, or still are. I’m glad you’ve got him pegged. I want another shot at him. But this time, we’re going to be damned careful.’

That night they made a miserable camp a few miles out of the swamps proper. Overhead the fog turned the dark dome of night into a ceiling, hanging close above their heads. After they finished eating, Arkazo went some ten feet out into the grass and sat unmoving, staring out into the dark plains. Soutan took a book and a small cloth pouch out of his saddlebags, then sat down by the fire.

‘What’s that?’ Warkannan said.

‘The oracle.’ Soutan smiled with a flash of tooth. ‘I see no harm in showing it to you. It requires no particular magic to cast.’

Warkannan leaned forward for a look. He could see the title, stamped in black on a pale leather cover, but he found it incomprehensible.

‘It’s written in the old language of the Cantons,’ Soutan said. ‘Which was, in fact, its original language, but a Kazraki translation exists. It’s The Sibylline Prophecies.’

‘Shaitan! But I don’t know why I’m surprised. It seems logical, using heresy to work sorcery.’

Soutan laughed, then opened the pouch and shook out six bronze discs. ‘Ordinary coins,’ he remarked. ‘Heads count one, tails two, and there’s a way of adding them up.’

Warkannan watched while he shook the coins in both hands, then strewed them on the ground. In the firelight the sorcerer leaned forward, peering at them, muttering to himself. He repeated the throw six times, then opened the book, flipped through the pale pink pages, and finally laid one finger on a passage.

‘Could you put a bit more fuel onto that fire?’ Soutan said. ‘This print is large, but still –’

‘What? I thought you sorcerers could make light when you needed it.’

Soutan ignored him. Warkannan added more dried horse dung and blew on the fire to bring up the flames. Soutan hunched close, his lips working as he read over the passage the coins had indicated. Finally he swore – in the language of the Cantons, but Warkannan could guess his frame of mind well enough.

‘Bad news?’ Warkannan said.

‘No, merely completely irrelevant. I must be too tired.’ He shut the book with a snap. ‘Or else I misread the coins in the bad light. I’ll try again after sunrise.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Oh, some rambling drivel about the Fourth Prophet being close at hand. Do you know about that? No, I see you don’t, pious soul that you are. The oracle claims that a fourth prophet will come to the people of Kazrajistan just as the others did, arising out of humble circumstances amid signs from God and so on in the usual way of prophets.’

‘Well, I suppose it could happen. Prophets do appear now and then.’ Warkannan held up one hand and ticked the names off on his fingers. ‘Mohammed, blessed be he, who wrote the true faith into a book. Agvar, who led us out of our bondage in the demon-lands. Kaleel Mahmet, who carved a khanate in our new home with the cavalry for his knife.’ He lowered his hand. ‘And there have been plenty of minor prophets over the years, too many to count, really.’

‘Indeed, whenever the khanate found it convenient to be prophesied at.’ Soutan paused for an unpleasant smile. ‘But this one is supposed to be a major prophet, the final fulfilment of the law, and a woman as well.’

‘Oh. It’s nonsense, then. Drivel, as you said.’

‘You’re sure of that? Your women pray, they read the holy books.’

Warkannan hesitated, thinking. ‘That’s true,’ he said at last. ‘But it strikes me wrong. Men aren’t going to listen to a female prophet. Why would God waste His time?’

‘You Kazraks are amazing, really amazing.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The things you attribute to God, such as worrying about wasted time. Do you think he’s always winding his clocks like you people do?’

Warkannan caught himself on the verge of bad temper. ‘Ah well,’ he said instead. ‘You’re right, if you mean that ordinary men can’t understand what God may do or what He’s like. But the true prophets –’

‘– may be just as wrong. Consider Hajji Agvar and this business of living as the First Prophet lived, for instance. You don’t do anything of the sort. The First Prophet lived what? just over thirty-six hundred years ago, by your reckoning, when H’mai lived disgustingly primitive lives. Do you think his tribe had printing presses and carriages and all those other fancy things you people use every day?’

‘What do carriages have to do with it? I can’t imagine that God cares if our women ride in carriages.’

‘Oh, indubitably. Then what were your ancestors fleeing when they chose to come here? What did they want?’

At first Warkannan thought the sorcerer was merely baiting him, but Soutan was waiting for the answer, his head cocked a little to one side, his eyes perfectly serious.

‘Well, a simpler life than we had back in the Homelands,’ Warkannan said. ‘Huh, I begin to see your point about those carriages. But it wasn’t just the luxuries that drove us out. It was the evil magicks and pollutions of the blood.’

‘Magicks like what? Your books do mention “unspeakable practices”, but since they never speak about them, I don’t have the slightest idea what the authors mean.’

At that Warkannan had to laugh. ‘I had the same reaction when I was a boy,’ he said. ‘One explanation I heard was the infidels back in the Homelands bred demons.’

‘Bred demons?’

‘Yes, they learned how to mingle the blood of men and animals, somehow, to produce new creatures. The mullahs called these demons.’

‘I see.’ Soutan thought for a long moment. ‘I wonder what that really means?’

‘What it says, I suppose. The mullahs don’t lie.’

Soutan shook his head in mock despair.

‘Well,’ Warkannan snapped. ‘Do you think they’re lying?’

‘No. I merely think that they don’t know what they’re talking about.’

‘Now here! You’re getting close to blasphemy.’

‘Oh, no doubt, no doubt. I’ll stop. God forbid I make you think!’ Soutan rolled his eyes, a gesture that Warkannan was beginning to hate. The sorcerer stood up, then looked across the fire and out to Arkazo’s silent back. ‘Will he be all right?’

‘Eventually. He’s never seen a dead man before.’

‘Ah.’ Soutan considered this for a moment. ‘Well, if we do bring Jezro back to Kazrajistan, he’d better get used to it.’

The sorcerer walked over to his gear and squatted down to put his book away. Warkannan reminded himself several times that he needed Soutan to get across the Rift. Strangling the irritating little bastard would be counter-productive.

That night Warkannan dreamt of Tareev’s body, floating to the surface of the shallow Mistlands lake. He and Kareem stood together and watched as it drifted out of sight, and Kareem wept as bitterly as a woman. When Warkannan woke, he felt as exhausted as if he’d not slept at all.

Zayn woke from a long dream of the Mistlands to a light so cold and grey that for a moment he thought himself still dreaming. He rolled over onto his side and lifted the tent wall a few inches for a look out. Over the patchwork tents and orange wagons the fog lay thick. He sat up, pushing his blankets back, and glanced around. Ammadin’s bedroll lay neatly rolled under her tent bags. From outside the noise of the camp filtered in – dogs barking, children laughing and calling, adult voices passing by. He had slept late, then. He got up, pulled on his trousers, and noticed the rag stuck on the ridge pole where Ammadin had left it the night before. In the morning light he could see the reddish-brown streaks of sap, congealed and dry, their phosphorescence long gone.

The night before. Ammadin. The memory of their talk came back like a slap in the face; he tossed his head as if to shake off the blow. He had told her everything. He had been an utter fool. He started to shiver, grabbed his shirt and put it on, still felt the gooseflesh run down his back. You’re not in the khanate, he reminded himself. You’re safe here. No one cares about the damned demons and their talents. But Ammadin might mention his secrets to someone else, and that someone might talk about them in front of a Kazrak at the next horse fair.

The tent flap rustled, shook, and lifted. Ammadin came in, then let the flap drop behind her. She set her hands on her hips and studied his face.