'A Rouster.' Ki had long known it without admitting it to herself. Now a chill went over her, a cold as horribly unlike the delightful chill of the water as death is unlike daydreaming.
'A Rouster,' Hollyika confirmed, and the darkness went darker. ' For a fee, merchant, I will keep this town free of Romni vermin. An honest man like you need not compete with wandering tinkers and tradesmen like these. For a fee, I will terrorize their children, cripple their teams, destroy their wagons and scatter their caravans. For a fee. '
Childhood memories of terror in the dark stirred in Ki. They rustled about the back of her mind like lizards, but she refused to let them come to the front of her thoughts. Repressed long ago, the memories could only scuttle in the dark corners of her past. Hard hands had fallen on her in the dark, and she had screamed ... She felt a curious suspension of all feeling for Hollyika. She teetered on a balancing point in her mind. She could think about the Rousters and all they had meant to her in her past life, and as the lethargy of the brandy slipped away, she would hate Hollyika, perhaps to the point of a physical confrontation. Or she could go to the river, drink deep of its cooling and peaceful water, and be cured of hatred and memories. Never before had Ki sensed such a control over her emotions.
Hollyika rose with a grunt. Ki watched her silhouette sway slightly against the deep grey sky. She looked at the half-Brurjan profile from that delicate mental balance and found a striking beauty in the strangeness of her body. 'Where are you going?' she found herself asking.
'For more water,' Hollyika reluctantly replied. 'I find I crave it now as much as when I first returned to the riverbank. And for the same reasons. The thirst of the soul. Is it not ironic, Ki? Since I came through the Gate, I have finally begun to see myself. This land has given me a true vision of myself as I am. To make that vision bearable, I must drown it in the river water. Drown it or myself. Perhaps that is one andthe same thing,'
Ki listened to the peculiar rhythm of her steps as she moved over the gravel, and looked at the Limbreth lights. Hatred and friendship teetered in her mind. Why hate? Because of what Rousters did to the Romni. Why friendship? Because she had come in peace out of the night, and shared Ki's pilgrimage. Selfishness decided Ki. If she chose to hate, she would have to pursue that course to its end. Its end was not in the promising glow of the Jewels of the Limbreth, and their peace was what she needed. She rose and followed Hollyika to the river's edge. She took the empty jug with her.
Ki knelt over the water. A short way downstream she could hear Hollyika gulping the river with an endless thirst. Ki put her face close to the rushing surface. Stray droplets of water flung up by the river in its flight misted her forehead and cheeks. She felt the cool whirl of its passage, smelled its freshness. Still she hesitated. She was not one who drank to become drunk, or ate for the taste of the food. She lived life sparingly, too wary to indulge too deeply. Her eternal caution infuriated Vandien, but had often restrained him from more trouble than he found on his own. He was one who would wallow in every pleasant sensation. Ki was a taster, a sampler, a shy child standing on the edge of her life and learning by watching others.
Now she was going to drink, was going to drown her wariness and hatred of this former Rouster in the cool sweet waters of this dark world. The river called her, whispering and roaring in her ears, and she listened. She put her lips to it.
They sat again by the wagon for a short time. The damp jug, now heavy with river water, rested between them. They didn't speak; each was focused inward, on the new sensations fizzing within their bodies. The river water extinguished the brandy sun; the heat of it fled from Ki's body as earlier the water chill had. She felt it leave her belly, briefly rise in a flush of heat that suffused her skin with a rosy glow; then it was gone. The coolness of the night cloaked her, drawing her back from any excesses, of hatred or of love.
It hit her, sudden as a gut spasm. Time to go. Time to be back upon the road that led to the Limbreth, to peace and satisfaction and an end to all goals. Like twin marionettes pulled by a single puppeteer, Ki and Hollyika came to their feet. Ki lifted the bottle, but Hollyika took it and rucked it under a river-sleeked arm.
Sigurd and Sigmund lifted their heads to watch Ki go. They would not follow, for home was the wagon. If their mistress wanted them, she would have called them and put them in their harness. Hollyika's black was less decided. He whinnied after her and trotted up to the gravel bank to stand on the smooth road looking after her. But there was no whistle, no clap of hands to beckon to him. He shook his head. After one more questioning snort, he returned to the other horses and the sweet grass.
Ki found it strange to be on the road afoot. She was not used to striding along for miles, let alone barefoot. But Hollyika's short quick steps set a pace she could match. It was, Ki reflected, a bit like taking a stroll with a chicken. There was no sound in the night but the brisk pad, pad of Hollyika's round feet on the road beside Ki. The road bent swiftly away from the river with its incessant muttering; for the first time Ki became aware of the distinctly upward slope of the road. It had begun the ascent to the hills. Ki turned her eyes up to the beckoning glow. Staring at the lights, Ki found that she did not even have to watch the road or her feet upon it. It was easy, easier than anything she had ever done in her life. The river water rushed through her, enervating her, and Ki smiled.
EIGHT
Chess watched in trepidation as Jace worked loose the final strap on the saddle. She slid it from the horse's back, letting it fall to thunk in the dust at her feet. The horse shied away.
'Vandien isn't going to like this,' Chess predicted.
Jace turned on him. 'What would you have me do? Continue to enslave his beast, perhaps trade its freedom to feed us?' Worry entered her voice. 'What's come over you? Before, you would have been the first to weep at the cruelty of one creature enslaving another.'
'It is the custom here,' Chess replied. His eyes flickered uneasily. 'The horse will only wander the streets until someone catches it and puts harness upon it again. It will gain nothing by us setting it free, and we will lose the food it would bring.' He gestured toward the chicken coop. 'The bread Vandien left us is gone. We have to find a market and get something to eat soon.'
Low drifting clouds cast a blue haze over the moon. A dry wind whispered down the alley, stirring the grasses already brown, and sucking the moisture from the green ones. Jace ran her hand across the back of her neck. Sweat damped it and dirt and old skin rolled under her fingers. She pushed tousled hair back from where it stuck to her face. She longed for cool water and green banks of grass, for the peace of her farm. And Chess scared her.
'Do you think of nothing but your stomach, then? Does hunger make you forget what is right and wrong?' Jace bored her eyes into his.
The boy squirmed. 'But how can we be sure that what is wrong in our world is wrong here?' he asked stubbornly. 'Might not different worlds have different rules? In our place, we have no beast slavery, nor burning day. Here they have both. If day is right for this place, perhaps ...'
Jace gripped Chess's shoulder, pulling the child up straight and still. 'Hush!' she said savagely. 'What has this place done to you? Will you ever be as you were? Oh, Chess, Chess, if only it could all be undone.' Her words ran out and she stood looking down on her son's bowed head as if she were looking at a sadly broken toy. She could find no more words or reason to utter them. 'Come.' She took his limp hand. 'We have this he gave us to trade. We will go to the market and trade for food. You will feel more yourself with something fresh and green in your stomach. Come.'