‘I can wash clothes and carry water,’ said Rannilt. ‘And when I clean fish, I don’t leave a speck of meat on the bones.’
The girl had been nattering about her accomplishments for ages. ‘I’m sure you’re really good.’
‘I know how to massage achin’ muscles,’ Rannilt said shrilly. ‘I’m really quiet, too. You hardly know I’m there.’
A pointed suggestion was on the tip of Tali’s tongue when she realised what was behind it. She stopped abruptly.
‘Is somethin’ the matter?’ Rannilt cried, and began to bite a bloody knuckle.
‘Rannilt, I can’t be your mother. But I’m not going to turn you away either.’
‘You’re not?’ cried the girl, throwing her arms around Tali and bursting into tears.
‘Of course not. We’re going to stay together. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’
‘And I’m goin’ to look after you.’
Rannilt looked up, eyes shining and nostrils running rivers. She burrowed her face into Tali’s chest, inadvertently wiping her nose on the silk gown, then went skipping off.
Tali looked down at the claggy smears and sighed. How was she supposed to look after the child when she didn’t know how to look after herself? She looked up and the sky overturned. She wrenched on the hat brim.
‘I wish the sun would go down.’ Sunset had better take the phobia with it.
‘I don’t.’ Rannilt shuddered.
‘Why not?’
‘Things live in the dark. Things come out of the dark.’
‘Nonsense, child. That’s just an irrational — ’ Tali broke off. They weren’t so different — they just feared different things. ‘What sort of things?’
‘I can feel somethin’ bad. Really bad, waitin’ for the dark.’
It didn’t help Tali’s own frame of mind. ‘I’m sure we’ll find Tobry and Rix before then.’
Several weary minutes passed. ‘Why do you keep doin’ that?’ said Rannilt.
‘What?’
‘Tracin’ your slave mark.’
Tali had not realised that she was doing it. ‘When I’ve got a problem, sometimes it seems to help …’ Should she tell Rannilt? It would be wrong to shield her. ‘I keep hearing an angry note in my head and I’m worried the enemy are using it to track me. I don’t think they’re far behind.’
She glanced over her shoulder. If the Cythonians were closing in, they were concealed by the mirages that shimmered and danced in every direction.
‘Why don’t you block it?’ said Rannilt. ‘That’s how I hide from the mean girls.’
‘How?’
‘I make their eyesight go foggy so they can’t see me.’
‘And that works?’
‘Sometimes. But it’d be different for you.’ Rannilt took Tali’s arm, staring at the slave mark, then traced the central part with a dirty finger. ‘Why don’t you close it?’
‘Close what?’ Tali said irritably, for her feet and back and head hurt and she was very afraid.
‘This, in the centre.’ Rannilt was looking anxious again. ‘See this bit here, it’s like an open shell, and if you close it the note can’t get out. Then they won’t be able to find you …’ She bit her lip.
Tali realised that she was frowning. It sounded like nonsense. She inspected the central part of her slave mark and supposed that the pair of touching semicircles there did resemble a shell open at its hinge.
‘How am I supposed to close it?’ She felt obtuse.
‘In yer mind. It helps if you close yer eyes.’
Tali did so and tried to visualise her slave mark. Though she could have drawn it from memory, creating a visible image in her inner eye proved more difficult than she had imagined. Ah, there it was.
As she focused on the shell, she heard the angry note again. ‘Can you see anyone coming, Rannilt?’
‘No. Take hold of the shell,’ Rannilt said, sounding deliberately calm. ‘Push it closed.’
As Tali mentally grasped the two sides of the shell the angry note cut off, to be replaced by a higher one, faint and rarefied as though it came from far away. As though, she thought, her angry note was a call, and this note was an answer. She pushed on the two sides of the shell, forced them shut and the distant note was gone, and so were the swirling patterns and the coloured lights. Her head spun; she staggered and grabbed blindly at the girl.
‘Tali?’ Rannilt cried.
‘Sorry. I’ve been wading through fog for days and suddenly I’m free. Thank you.’
The relief was so great that Tali felt weak in the knees. She had not felt her normal self since the night she had come of age, when she had woken feeling as though a stone heart was grinding against her skull.
They trudged on and the sun went down. Tali looked up at the sky and it did not rock.
‘It’s waitin’ in the dark,’ whispered Rannilt. ‘Waitin’, waitin’.’
Instinctively, Tali checked behind her. ‘Now you’ve got me worried.’
The light faded and the temperature dropped sharply. She pulled her robes around her and was gazing at the dark sky and the jewel-like points of stars, the first she had ever seen, when Rannilt stopped, moaning deep in her throat. Tali caught her thin wrist, afraid the girl was lapsing back into the enraptured state where her magery had burst out in those golden rays.
But Rannilt’s eyes were fixed on a hollow fifty yards ahead, from which at least a dozen of the enemy were rising, including a stumbling giant with a little head. Somehow, incredibly, despite the hole through his head, Tinyhead had led them to her.
‘Run!’ Tali said softly. ‘Run, Rannilt, and don’t look back.’
‘I’m not leavin’ you.’ Rannilt’s teeth were chattering.
‘Find Rix and Tobry. Get help, go!’
Rannilt bolted. Tali broke into the fastest hobble she could manage, but she had not gone ten yards when a whirling missile went zivva-zivva-zivva past her left ear, struck a small salt mound not far ahead and went off, flinging scorching white crystals everywhere.
Salt shards stung her cheeks. A spinning chunk the size of a fist struck her in the belly hard enough to double her over, then the dust was stinging her eyes and they were watering so badly that she could not see. Tali choked on air laden with salt dust, so much salt in her nose and mouth and throat that she began to retch and could not stop.
She was lurching around, knowing she was lost, when a chuck-lash wrapped around her bottom and went off in a series of cracks that drove her to her knees. The pain was excruciating. As she was clawing at the crusted ground, a heavy boot drove into her side, knocking her down.
‘Got you,’ said Orlyk, tight with glee, and kept kicking.
CHAPTER 39
‘You’re a piece of work, you really are,’ said Tobry when he finally caught up to Rix, miles from the oasis.
Dark was settling shroud-like over the Seethings, though the way ahead was lit by wisps of marsh light and uncanny yellow glows from several of the lifeless pools.
Leather’s flanks were crusted with dried foam. Rix had dismounted and was leading her along a burnt-black isthmus meandering between a series of steaming ponds. The ground here was so hard that the horses’ hooves clicked with each step. The air had an alkaline tang and left a slippery, soapy taste in the mouth.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ The anger had passed and he felt a sick emptiness now. He had behaved shamefully, but … how dare a Pale speak to him that way?
‘I do. Tali said — ’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Rix glared at his friend. ‘You fancy her. That’s why you’re taking her side.’
Tobry tried to smile but it wasn’t convincing. ‘You know me — I never get attached. And Tali said something rather interesting — ’
‘Whatever she said, I don’t believe it.’
Tobry’s jaw was clenched and so was his fist. ‘She said that the Pale spring from noble children, a hundred and forty-four of them, given by Hightspall as hostages to Cython a thousand years ago. And never ransomed.’
Rix kicked a stone into the pool to his right. It sank below the surface with a viscous gloop, as though it had plopped into a vat of glycerine. ‘You must like the wench. I’ve never seen you get so worked up about anything.’