Children of Earth and Sky

  They leave the Asharites unburied, after taking what can be used from them. Skandir and his men will have done this before, too, Marin knows. You don’t leave useful things behind, not in the life these men live. He tries to imagine such a life. He can’t, really. It is beyond him. He feels that as a failure on his part. He does notice something, however. He thinks about mentioning it, but does not.

  There are six raiders left healthy. There are three wounded they are taking east. One is badly hurt, held on a horse by another rider. Skandir tells them there is a sanctuary with a small village beside it not far ahead. They’ll overnight there, have the wounded treated—maybe left behind, maybe left as dead.

  In the morning Skandir and the remnant of his band, including a woman from Senjan and her dog now, will go south to regroup in Trakesia. And Marin Djivo, merchant of Dubrava, will carry on with his party as he had been before, in a world that isn’t now what it was this morning.

  —

  PERO KEPT GLANCING at his left hand as he walked, the hand he’d used to pick up that artifact in the forest.

  He had no idea what he was looking to see. Perhaps his fingers would begin to turn black, rot, fall off. Perhaps he was doomed. Skandir, so vividly fearless, had seemed frightened when Pero said he’d touched something in the glade.

  He’d put it back. Immediately. He couldn’t even remember clearly what it had looked like now, which was strange for an artist. There was a blurring in his mind there. A bird of some kind. Made of metal. An offering? What else could it have been?

  But to what power? Something strong enough to bring Danica back from death, or let it pass her by? A terrifying thought. He knew what the clerics would say. But . . .

  Children, he had heard.

  That had not been imagined. A voice in the air, urgent sorrow. And that had been Danica’s brother there. The two of them, brought together.

  Pero could make sense of some things: there had been a raid, and the hadjuks did take small boys. Sold them as slaves, almost always castrated.

  But sometimes they became djannis. What the boy had said to Skandir was true: most of those elite soldiers were Jaddite-born. They owed everything to the khalif. Had no division in their loyalties. As they had just discovered here.

  But the other thing, Danica rising up . . . Sometimes, Pero thought, you arrived at a moment you could not explain to yourself. He looked at his hand again. Skandir had said that perhaps because he’d put back that object he’d found . . .

  Who could know such things? What man far from home, an artist from Seressa’s lagoon, could know? Was he accursed now? Blessed? Had he saved Danica Gradek’s life by touching something there? Or was he simply a man who had come too late, with a tree branch, out from trees?

  He looked for her, at the front of the party again. She hadn’t spoken since her brother had rejected her and gone back to find his army, to risk explaining why he was alive and everyone else was dead. The Osmanlis would probably kill the boy, Pero thought.

  They went on. Clouds came without rain, moved away, west on the wind. There was no one else on the road now. They didn’t stop for a meal: food and drink were taken on foot or mounted. Skandir wanted to reach this village as quickly as his wounded could manage. One of them was in bad condition. Pero didn’t know much about such things, but he wondered if a man with a wound like that could live.

  His fellow Seressinis were chattering. They always did, but this was different. They’d had an adventure. It would make such a good story back home, Jad willing. The great, wild Trakesian warrior ambushing Osmanli soldiers right in front of their eyes! They had seen it all. Yes, he was alive, Skandir, the legend. Yes, it had been beyond thrilling to see that craggy, bearded figure. A barbarian? Of course he was! The man had swung a sword red as his beard! And killed them all, the Asharites! More wine, please. Yes, it was very good to be back in Seressa, queen of cities, Queen of the Sea, where civilized men—and women—went about their lives.

  Pero saw Skandir lift a hand, pointing.

  There was a small sanctuary, left side of the road. The road itself had curved away from the forest, or the woods had been cut farther back, leaving space behind a small, domed holy building. He saw huts and pens and houses, and tilled fields beyond. The sun was behind them, low, twilight coming. It was colder now.

  “I’ll go in for the evening rites,” Skandir said. He looked at his horseman with the wounded man in front of him. “Take them to Jelena. Tell her it is me. That I’ll be there soon.”

  The man nodded, moved ahead, off the road. The two other wounded ones followed. There were no ditches here. It was quiet, serene. There was smoke rising from chimneys. Hearth fires, the dinner hour soon, animals would be brought in from fields. There was a holy place to pray as the sun went down. Evening coming to Sauradia beside the imperial road that had been here a thousand years. It seemed a peaceful place. That was probably not true, Pero Villani thought.

  He went with Skandir. So did Djivo and four of the raiders and all the Seressinis. They left the guards with the animals and goods and walked a worn-smooth path through a gate in a fence.

  “There used to be Sleepless Ones here,” Skandir said. “Not for some time. Only a few clerics are left. But it is still a holy place, and men died today.”

  There was very little light inside, only a few candles burning, it was hard to make anything out. A space under the dome, not large, an altar, a sun disk suspended from metal chains behind it. No benches. You would stand, or kneel on a stone floor, to invoke the god here. He saw niches in the wall to his left. They were empty.

  From a doorway at the back, behind the altar, a small man in faded cleric’s yellow emerged and approached.

  “For an offering,” he said, “I will gladly lead you in the sundown prayers.” He was very young.

  “We will offer,” Skandir said. “I have done so before. Lead us, please. There are souls to usher towards Jad’s light today.”

  “I am sorry to hear it,” the cleric said. “Let me get candles.”

  Pero looked around again. The walls were bare of art or ornament. Ornaments could be stolen, he thought. Or offend the Asharites who ruled here now. Art might wear away, or be destroyed. This place existed on sufferance. The clerics would keep their presence modest, quiet. He heard a clinking sound, a chip of stone or glass had fallen from overhead. He looked up.

  It was too dark to make out clearly what was on the dome. The small windows at the base of it were grimed with dirt. Decades of it. Probably more. Even before Sarantium fell this would have been a too-remote place for attentive maintenance and repair.

  There was a mosaic of some sort up there. He made out a single large image spanning the dome . . . Jad, rendered in the eastern way. Of course, given where they were. He could see a dark beard, a lifted hand. The eyes were large. He couldn’t see more. Had they come at midday, he thought, he might have been able to discern what some craftsmen had laboured to do long ago. Sometimes you found good work in these remote places, but mosaics needed light. He knew that much, even if no one worked with stone and glass any more.

  The door at the back opened and closed again, echoing. The cleric re-emerged from the gloom, carrying four white candles. They’d hold them in reserve for a time when travellers stopped here. Candles were expensive.

  He had never prayed under the eastern Jad, the one whose son had died for mankind—bringing fire, in the oldest version of his story. A banned doctrine in the west, heresy. Pero felt it again, how far from home he was. He looked at his hand. It didn’t seem to be falling off.

  The new candles were lit on the altar, touched to smaller ones burning there, and placed in iron holders. He wondered how many clerics there were. Probably they lived in the village where Skandir’s wounded men had gone. Would there come a day when no holy men were here at all? When the faith of Ashar and his stars claimed this sanctuary and that bearded
god looked down on the artifacts of another faith? Or when the stone and glass that shaped him were hacked away, not simply allowed to fall?

  He stepped on a mosaic piece as he moved forward, a crunching sound. It seemed a sorrowful thing to Pero. Up by the altar and the disk the cleric cleared his throat, bowed, and began the evening chant, familiar words, a different melody. Skandir knelt, and Pero and the others did the same. He felt a tessera under one knee, he moved it away. He felt sad and lonely but there was some comfort to be found in the known invocation. At the proper place he named his father and mother in his prayer.

  —

  DANICA SLIPPED QUIETLY inside when the chanting began, staying by the door. She named her dead when the cleric reached that pause in the service—and she added the newest one, who had died a year ago but hadn’t left her until today.

  It was difficult not to call to him. It was going to be difficult for some time. She added a prayer for her brother, as always, and doing that led her to go back out, before the end of the rites.

  It was dark now, colder, twilight upon them in Sauradia. She looked for and found the evening’s first star. Her mother, once they had arrived in Senjan, had taught her to name the first star she saw each night for her father and ask its blessing. She still did that. Some rituals were your own, not part of any doctrine. The stars didn’t belong only to the Asharites. They shone above them all. She remembered her mother saying that. It was difficult, how alone she felt.

  She looked around. No signs of life or movement, but a dog moved past the gate and her own dog stirred from near this doorway and came over to her and pushed his head against her. She reached down and ruffled Tico’s fur at his neck. Something, at least, had not left her, she thought—then decided that was weak, self-pitying. Life and the world owed you nothing.

  Except sometimes there was a chance of revenge—the chance she was seizing now, riding away in the morning with Skandir. There were unexpected sorrows in that, but sorrow was embedded in everyone’s days, wasn’t it?

  She had come back outside for a reason, she reminded herself, and resumed scanning the fields. The other dog had moved on to the village. Tico stood beside her, alert now, taking his cue from her. She heard an owl call, then the quick sound of its wings before the glide.

  A little later the sanctuary door opened and the others came out. The cleric was speaking his thanks, offering further prayers. Someone had been generous.

  They went through the gate and started towards the village. Danica fell in beside Skandir, Marin did the same on the big man’s other side.

  After a few long strides, Skandir stopped, so they all did. He looked at Danica and then at Marin Djivo. He was, she saw, amused.

  “You are protecting me?” he asked the merchant.

  “Just walking,” Marin said.

  Skandir laughed. “Both of you? Just walking?” He shook his head. “I am touched. I also saw the missing bow and quiver back at the ambush, and he’ll have claimed a horse, after all. But he won’t be here.”

  “You know this?” Marin said.

  Danica was feeling rueful. Of course Rasca Tripon would have also noticed what she—and Marin, evidently—had seen.

  “He didn’t know I’d come this way, had no reason to imagine I would go east, and he needs to get back to his army. He’ll be headed north by now, probably ride all night. He is not here looking to kill me with an arrow in the dark.” He turned to Danica. “You agree?”

  It was difficult to talk. She hadn’t done so, she realized, since Neven walked away. She just nodded.

  Skandir stared down at her from his great height. He sighed. “I expect my fighters to answer when addressed. Do so.”

  She looked back at him in the twilight. “Yes, Ban Rasca.”

  “I am not that. Call me Captain, or Skandir.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she said. “He won’t be here to kill you in the dark.”

  “But you came out to defend me against it? You don’t know him very well, do you?”

  That was hard, she thought. He would be hard, though. She bit her lip. “I don’t, no. I came out to have a look. But I share your feeling, Captain.”

  “Good.” He turned to Marin. “I don’t believe I have ever had a Dubravae looking to defend me. It is an odd feeling. Not a bad one, mind you. Will you allow me to write your father later and commend your actions today?”

  “How would I stop you?”

  “By requesting as much,” the old man said, impatiently. “Why else would I ask?” He shook his head again. “I hope they have something to drink here. There is no tavern, but Jelena sometimes has wine she’s made or someone has given her. Come!”

  Jelena, it turned out, was the healer.

  —

  THE BADLY WOUNDED MAN might possibly be saved if the goddess was kind, but he’d have to stay here for some time and she couldn’t allow that. Not with Rasca’s other two wounded men reporting, proudly, fifty Osmanli soldiers dead along the road, including djannis.

  Fifty! Djannis? It was hard to believe. It was certain the provincial governor would send men to investigate, and a sword-wounded stranger among them could destroy the village.

  Unhappily, but not doubting herself, Jelena poisoned him with the first healing cup. Best do it immediately since it needed to be done. It would take him some time to go to the god (his god, not hers). Late tonight, most likely, and it would be peaceful. Had she been permitted to, she’d have tried to save him.

  The other two she could heal, one easily (cleaning and dressing a leg wound). The third man would have been better staying with her a few days, but she’d pack his shoulder where the sword had slashed, and wrap it, and send him away in the morning with Rasca, carrying herbs and instructions. He might live, but he couldn’t stay.

  They lived a precarious existence here, and word of the presence of someone like Skandir, if only for a night, could not reach the Osmanlis. He would know that. He’d concealed himself under a hat, approaching from the sanctuary, and he had only a few men. Very bad losses for him, clearly. He’d be suffering, Jelena knew.

  She had wine, handed him a cup after they greeted each other. They had been lovers long ago when he was first here. Those days were past. She told him (truthfully) that the gravely injured man was likely to die.

  There were merchants with him, headed east. She sent her daughter to arrange with the elders for housing them all for a night. The village could use the money, or whatever the merchants bartered. Rasca denied being injured (she looked closely, decided it was true). He said he had a woman with him, joining his company, an archer. He asked if she could stay with Jelena tonight. She was curious, said yes.

  He called the woman in and named her. Jelena looked at this one—and fear stabbed, like a needle or a blade. This happened to her sometimes. It was a part of what she was.

  “Is there a spirit with you?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

  There were only the three of them here. The wounded were in the other room.

  “There was,” the woman said, after a moment.

  She removed a stained, broad-brimmed leather hat. Held it in one hand. She was very young, Jelena saw. She looked weary, and grieving. “There isn’t any more,” the woman added.

  Jelena took a breath, then said, briskly, “We will have rabbit stew when my daughter returns. Then you will look in on the wounded men with me. And then you must go to the sanctuary.”

  “I was just there,” the woman said.

  “I know. But the cleric was inside, doing what he does. You’ll go with me when he’s gone.”

  “You can trust her,” Rasca said to the young woman.

  “She already knows,” Jelena said. “You go now. You know where the main guest house is. They will feed you. Do you want something to help you sleep?”

  He hesitated, which was unusual. “No,” he said,
which was usual. She gave him the wine flask. He went out, ducking his head at the doorway.

  Jelena looked at the young woman in her home, a spirit’s presence hovering about her. It was fading, though, she could see that now.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  This one hesitated, too, and why should she not? Then she shrugged. “My grandfather. He died a year ago.”

  “And was still with you?”

  A stiff nod. “Until today. He’s gone. So is my brother.”

  “He died?”

  “No. No. Skandir let him go. For my sake. Back to the Asharites. He’s a djanni.”

  Jelena looked at her. “The sanctuary,” she said crisply. “After you eat and after we look at the wounded. There is more to the world than we understand.”

  “But I know that,” the other woman said.

  —

  THE HEALER HAD LONG WHITE HAIR. She wore it unbound. It was hard to tell the colour of her eyes in the firelight. She was thin, as if pared down, whittled away. She had very long fingers. Her daughter was Danica’s age, small, quick, quiet. They both wore belted brown robes with woollen surcoats over them.

  And this woman had somehow been aware of Danica’s grandfather. His spirit, ghost, presence, whatever it was. That ought to have been frightening, but she didn’t feel afraid. Danica wondered if it was exhaustion or sorrow that was making her so calm.

  They ate after the daughter came back from helping the raiders and merchants find beds for the night. Rabbit stew, as promised. Danica chewed and swallowed without tasting her food. You always ate when there was food, you never knew when there might not be. Her grandfather had taught her that.

  They didn’t speak. The daughter got up once and added a log to the fire after removing the cooking pot. The flames shifted, rose. Danica looked at them. They could hear the wind. No rain.

  “Come,” the healer named Jelena said when Danica had finished her second bowl of stew. They went through an adjoining door to a larger room. Skandir’s wounded men were here, with another raider watching over them. This one stood and went out when the women entered. He bowed his head to Jelena as he did.