“You’ve heard those stories,” Irissa told him repressively, rolling up the parchment and tucking it carefully back into its leather case.
“Not all of them. And Ilias hasn’t heard. And you can stop before the end.”
“Stop before the end?” Ilias asked, poking Giliead in the ribs to make him squirm. “Why do you want her to do that?”
Giliead defended himself half-heartedly, laughing. “She doesn’t like to read the parts where they die.”
“They die? That’s a lousy end,” Ilias said, still tickling.
“Chosen Vessels always die,” Giliead said, smiling. “That’s what everybody says.” Then Irissa threw a pillow at them and refused to read to them at all.
Menander came in not long after, his face shaved and his hair re-braided. He sat on the floor by the fire and told Giliead things to tell the god, and things to ask it. It was all fairly dull, just questions like “what does the sky look like” and “ask it which way the wind is blowing” and Ilias stopped listening, until they were done and Menander was getting up to leave. Then Irissa asked, “Why did the god help Giliead and not Livia?” Ilias had been wondering about that himself.
Menander shook his head, looking off toward the window and the field beyond, the shadows long as the sun set. “The gods, and especially this god, the god that Chose him, can see and hear Giliead very clearly now, better than we can see and hear each other in this room. It sees through his eyes, literally, and so it knew the wizard was here, where Giliead was, and it could get here in time to help him. As we get older, we lose that close contact. We can still speak to them, and they to us, but it takes time and effort.” He turned back to them, ruffling Giliead’s hair as the boy looked up at him solemnly. “The god didn’t help Livia because it didn’t know she was in danger until it was too late.”
Impulsively, seeing this was the last time he might have the chance, Ilias asked, “Did the wizard do any other curses last night?”
Menander eyed him sharply, but Giliead turned to look at him, his expression serious. Giliead said, “There was only one other, besides what he did here in the house. He did one when he crossed the river from the Uplands, just a little one to keep the wagon ferry from seeing him -- that’s how Menander knew he was coming. He might have thought he was far enough away that the gods couldn’t hear him, but they both did. Our god and the Uplands god. Then he killed Treian.”
“Oh.” Ilias subsided, leaning back against the pillows. “So the gods can hear it every time a wizard does a curse?”
Still watching him, Menander answered, “Some wizards are more subtle, but this was a young one, and his curses were loud. He probably didn’t realize how loud.” He lifted a brow. “Why did you want to know?”
Ilias shifted uncomfortably. “Something happened last night...when I got lost. I thought I might have gotten lost because of a curse.”
Menander nodded, understanding. “There was nothing like that.”
Ilias nodded, resigned. He hadn’t really thought so, anyway.
* * *
After another day, Menander returned to the Uplands, and Giliead was allowed to go outside the house again, though he chose to stay with Ilias, who was still confined to the atrium until his feet were well. Karima said nothing further about the message to the Finan, and Ilias found it easier to put it out of his head, pretending to himself that this was just a visit.
That was easy to do. Even with people from Andrien village wandering in and out, there was less confusion and turmoil in this house. Meals might be at odd times but there was always plenty of food, and it actually tasted good, even when visitors came at the last moment. Irissa seemed to actually enjoy her brother’s company for the most part, and Karima and Ranior were...different.
By the third day Sabiras had pronounced Ilias’ feet well enough to walk outside the house, as long as he wore a pair of sandals she found for him. He and Giliead had been helping her milk the goats, and were now sitting out on the short wall of the pen. From there, Ilias could see into the stable, and he noticed Ranior’s horse was gone. “Where did Ranior go?” he asked.
Giliead frowned down at the dusty ground. “To your house.”
Ilias sat bolt upright, staring. Giliead flicked a guilty look at him. “How do you know?” Ilias demanded.
Giliead bit his lip. “I heard them talking this morning, while you were still asleep.”
“He’s not back yet?”
“No.”
If Ranior had left this morning... Ilias didn’t think it was that far. “Come on.” He pushed to his feet.
They sat out under the olive trees in the orchard, where they could see the wagontrack down from the road. Every moment seemed to wear on Ilias’ nerves, though Giliead fell asleep, curled up at the base of a gnarled trunk.
Finally he saw Ranior coming down the track, walking his horse. Something about the set of his shoulders told Ilias that Ranior was tired, though the distance to Finan and back couldn’t have been that long. Giliead woke, blinking and rubbing his eyes. “He’ll talk to mother first. Want to listen?”
Ilias nodded, not trusting himself to talk. Giliead scrambled up and led the way back through the orchard, then around to where the bulk of the house shielded them from the view of the barn and the front yard.
There was a field on this side of the house, with a shady stand of oaks, stretching away up to the beginning of the forested slope. There was a sheep pen out there, and some of the herdsmen were sitting on the stone fence talking. Giliead crept close to the wall of the house, Ilias following. The herdsmen were out in the bright sunlight and he and Giliead were in the shadow of the arbor; he didn’t think the men would be able to see them.
They waited, crouching in the arbor, long enough for Ranior to take the mare to the barn and water her and wipe her down. Then, still in a crouch, Giliead moved through the sparse grass down the side of the house until he was under a broad window. He didn’t have to gesture or glance back; Ilias could already hear Karima’s and Ranior’s voices. He settled next to Giliead, his shoulder against the cool stone, to listen.
“They wouldn’t admit it, of course, but he was on the hill, all right,” Ranior was saying. “I found his tracks, and the tracks of the horse that brought him, and a place where a child was digging in the dirt, playing. He must have been up there for most of the day, before he tried to find his way back.”
“He knew, then.” Karima’s voice was quiet.
“Oh, he knew, all right. Maybe not at first. But he knew enough to lie when Menander asked him what he was doing out there.” There was a pause and Ilias heard Ranior draw a long breath. “People are still leaving children there, as if the law means nothing. There were more bones than last time, but it was a bad harvest for some, and the fishing hasn’t been good this year. Too many new babies that the families can’t afford to feed. I did rites for as many as I could find, but I’ll have to get Menander to go out there and make sure there are no shades left behind.”
Karima was silent for a long moment. “When they didn’t respond to the message I sent, I was afraid of something like this, but...” Ranior must have nodded, because Karima continued angrily, “It’s madness. There’s a dozen families I can name off the top of my head who would take in a little boy his age with no more thought than they’d spare for taking in a stray lamb.”
“Do you think the Keneans are right, that she killed Timeron? That she’s always been mad?”
“No, no. But she was never the same after he died. And Ilias looks like him. As soon as I saw him, I thought he must be a Kenean. And I think she’s had too many children, the fool. I know she went out of her head after that third girl was born and never managed to quite get back in. That can happen with too many births, so close together.”
“What about the other husband, what’s his excuse? He hasn’t had too many births.”
“Love for her, maybe. Fear she would send him away.” Karima let her breath out, sounding angry. “I can’t ge
t over it.”
“She braided his hair and put beads in it, then sent him out to die.”
“There’s a lot of people living in that house, a lot of other children. I don’t think most of them knew where he was being taken.” Ilias heard footsteps come toward the window. “And even if some of them did... She controls the purse-strings and her sister hasn’t a goat to her name. If they argued too hard with her, they might find themselves out in the cold.”
Ilias had heard enough. Numb, he eased away from the window, quiet and cautious by habit. When he was far enough away, he pushed to his feet and walked out from under the arbor. Giliead trailed along at his side, and the herdsmen glanced up at them, but away from the window they were just two boys walking in the afternoon sun.
In a little voice, Giliead asked, “What’s the hill?”
Ilias took a deep breath. “It’s where your family takes you when they want to get rid of you.” It was the first time he had said it aloud.
Ilias avoided the front of the house, where someone might see him, heading toward the sparse forest at the base of the slope. There was a footpath here that was a short cut up the hill to the road. There was nothing he needed to go back for. His own clothes had gone into the mending basket as too stained and ruined to wear again without being re-made. The brown shirt and blue pants, trimmed with leather braid and painted designs, were hand-me-downs Irissa had grown out of. The sandals had probably been hers too. The only thing he had that he had brought here with him were the beads in his hair, which Sabiras had braided back in after his bath. “You need to go back,” he told Giliead.
Giliead kept pace with him. “What are you doing?”
“I have to go home.” He had to know for certain.
Giliead caught the tail of his shirt. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here and be my brother.”
Ilias yanked the shirt free, telling him sharply, “I’ve got a brother.”
“The one that sent you away to die?”
Yes, that one. They were almost in the shadows of the trees, and Ilias gave him a shove, pushing him back toward the house. “Go on, go back. You’re not allowed to leave the farm without a grown-up.”
Giliead halted, watching him with tear-bright eyes. “You aren’t either,” he tried.
“I don’t live here,” Ilias told him, and started up the footpath.
* * *
It wasn’t that long a walk. He knew now he had come down from the hills at an angle, confused in the dark, and had crossed the stream and hit the road a long distance out from where he should have. Finan was closer in towards Cineth than Andrien.
The road, which had been such a dark frightening cavern at night, was now just the road, dusty and uneven, shaded by the tall trees arching overhead. It got better as he walked further away from Andrien, smoother and less rocky the way he remembered.
The sun had only moved a little further when he passed the pathway turning off down toward the Greian land, and he knew he was very close. When he saw the familiar bend in the road, he began to run.
There was no one in the yard, no one around the pens or outbuildings, but his aunt’s husbands and the older girls would be out with the herd. The house looked different, as though he had never seen it from this angle, as though he had been gone years instead of only a few days. He slowed to a walk as he crossed the yard, thinking he saw movement at one of the windows. His heart was pounding, but it wasn’t from fear.
The door, heavy wood speckled with old paint, stood shut when it should be open to keep the front rooms from growing stuffy. He stepped up onto the stone porch and used his fist to pound on the door.
It opened abruptly and Niale stood there. His older sister had their mother’s darker chestnut hair and olive skin, but her nose was sharp and her eyes too narrow. She was dressed in a rich purple robe, the sleeves tied back to bare her arms. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Her voice was hard and cold but her cheeks were flushed and he knew she had seen him come up the path; she must have been standing on top of the door to open it so quickly. And he still wasn’t afraid. “I live here,” he told her.
She tried to stare him down, her favorite trick, but her eyes slipped away from his after only a heartbeat. She stared over his left shoulder, saying, “You ran away. Don’t expect to just come back here.”
She didn’t add anything like “we were worried to death” or “everyone was so upset” or “we searched all night” and that made it sound even more like the lie it was. In a way, it told Ilias all he needed to know. “I didn’t run away. I know you know that.” Her face stiffened but before she could reply, he added, “I didn’t tell anybody.”
For a moment she was flustered. He took a step forward, looking up at her. “I won’t tell anybody, ever. Just let me come back.”
Her expression hardened then, and she said with grim finality, “You ran away, you abandoned your family--”
“That’s not true!” he shouted. It was the word abandoned that took his temper. “You know it’s not true!”
Her face twisted for an instant and she flicked a look at someone standing inside the foyer, out of his sight. Stepping back with a grimace, she said, “Ilias, just go away!” and slammed the door.
He stood there a moment, breathing hard, then turned away, stepping down off the porch, scuffing his sandals in the dirt. His face felt hot and his head ached, as if he had been crying for hours, but his eyes were dry. Then he saw a man on a horse trotting down the wagon path. It was Ranior, riding the yellow mare from the Andrien stables. Someone must have noticed Ilias was missing and had managed to get Giliead to tell where he had gone. Ilias knew Giliead had only told because he had wanted to. Even at his age, instinct told Ilias that Giliead would be nearly impossible to break with only parental pressure.
Ranior reined in nearby. He looked down at Ilias, his face regretful, saying, “Ilias, come away from there. It’s not going to do any good.”
Ilias had the impulse to run. Not because he was afraid of Ranior, but because it would mean giving up. But the horse recognized him and stretched out a velvet nose. After a moment, Ilias stepped toward him.
He started to reach up to take Ranior’s hand, then memory of the last time he had done this stopped him. “We’re going back to Andrien?” he asked, watching Ranior’s face. He had heard Ranior and Karima’s opinion of people who abandoned children, but he wanted to make certain. He didn’t know the words to put it into yet, but he knew unthinking trust was a thing of the past.
“Yes, we’re going back to Andrien,” Ranior said it without impatience, meeting his eyes, as if he knew exactly what had passed through Ilias’ thoughts.
Ilias reached for his hand, gripping his wrist as Ranior pulled him up onto the horse.
“I don’t understand,” Ilias said, looking at the house one last time.
Ranior let his breath out, shaking his head. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I do either. But... If they take you back, they have to admit what happened. They have to admit that they let it happen.”
Ilias didn’t understand that, didn’t want to understand it. “Can’t they just pretend it didn’t happen?” he said, feeling small and stupid again.
“No, they can’t do that.” Ranior lifted the reins, turning the horse back toward the road. “Come on, or we’ll miss dinner.”
It was still a long time before Ilias called Andrien home.
Rites of Passage
Ilias, Giliead, and their older sister Irissa walked down the waterfront of Cineth’s harbor. It was a busy place, with men hauling casks of water and big dusty red amphorae of olive oil and wine, and traders hawking their wares. The sun was bright and the breeze cool, and Ilias was enjoying the day, despite the fact that Giliead was trying very hard to start a fight with Irissa.
“When are you going to buy a husband?” Giliead asked her, apparently determined to be as obnoxious as possible. “After this harvest, you could have anybody in town.
”
Irissa snorted derisively. “I don’t want anybody in town.”
Ilias had heard her say this before, and was just as glad to hear it again. He said, “You should wait to marry somebody for love, like Karima did.” Karima was Giliead and Irissa’s mother. She was younger than their father Ranior, and had been wealthy enough to take her pick of husbands, but it was obvious she had chosen with her heart.
Giliead kicked at a piling, determined not to be deterred from the argument. “Irissa never talks to anybody, how will she know if she’s in love or not?”
Ilias gave him a sour look, but he knew why Giliead was in such a bad mood. They had just heard in the market plaza that Menander, the Chosen Vessel for the Uplands, had left on a hunt, heading up into the eastern hills to follow a rumor of a curseling seen near one of the isolated villages. Again, Giliead had been left behind.
Giliead was the Chosen Vessel for Cineth, gifted at birth by the god that watched over the city; the gift gave him the ability to smell curses and see the traces they left in air, earth, and water. But he was nearly seventeen seasons old now, and he had never yet been on a wizard hunt. Menander, much older and far more experienced than Giliead, should have been letting him help protect both Cineth’s territory and the Uplands. The god of each area guarded its territory as well as it could, but wizards and their curselings were adept at slipping through the boundaries to do as much damage as possible, and it was the Vessels who had to stop them. But so far, all Menander’s teaching had been theoretical. Now that Giliead was older, it was beginning to chafe.
“I’d rather buy a galley than a husband,” Irissa said, eyeing the row of ships. Most of those docked along here were fishermen or merchants with one or two sails, the canvas every shade of purple, red, blue, and other lucky colors, with the stylized eyes painted on their bows so the ships could find their way home. “Maybe we could try trading with the Chaens.”