“What can I do?”
“I told you beware the gods, Faan. SHE’S touched you, but you fought HER. SHE wants you free-willed and fighting for HER. You can make a bargain with HER. Surrender and let her indwell and she’ll heal Reyna, make him whole and clean.”
Her teeth clamped on her lower lip, Faan gazed at him. “You HERS?”
“Not me. Not against her either. Little ’uns like me and the Wildings, we get mixed up in god business, we get stomped.” He scratched at his weedfur. “Appreciate this, Honeychild, I speak what SHE tells me. SHE’s dancing her war with Chumavayal and by the Dance, SHE’S built a cage that’s caught you, and catching you SHE’s caught us.” He wrinkled his short broad nose, blinked his bright black eyes. “I’m of the River, Honeychild, it’s my blood, my life. It’s poisoned now and diminished. I’m poisoned and diminished. When the rains come again, that’ll be made right. But it’ll only happen when the Godwar’s finished. Abeyhamal needs you. So I need you. The Wildings want to break from from the Land and the bonds that hold them here. They need you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Faan closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, let it out. “This much. You are using me as much as SHE is.,›
“As you use us, Honeychild. I have a hope and a belief that it is different between us. The take and take of friendship as well as need?”
Faan swallowed, rubbed at her eyes. “Hope. Not much of that around these days. Vema, vema, friend.” When he grinned so broadly that his beady black eyes shut to slits, she relaxed. “Tell me what I should do.”
“Find someone to help you. Cross by the Wood Bridge, not the Iron, don’t touch the Iron. Carry Reyna back to the Beehouse, lay him before the Altar and make your bargain with HER.”
“How?”
“Tell the Kassian Tai what you need. She will do it.”
“Gods!”
“Diyo. Don’t say more.” He jumped from the boat to her shoulder, stroked her cheek, leapt into the water, and was gone.
› › ‹ ‹
Faan pushed the door back, hesitated in the opening. “Pan?”
The big man looked up from the boot he was cleaning and working back to suppleness. “What is it, honey?”
“I know where Reyna is.”
“Where?” He set the boot down, rested his large knotty hands on his knees. “You want help? Is it trouble?”
“Diyo. All of that. We’ll need a litter. Do you have a friend you can trust to help with this?”
“Have you told…”
“No one. No. Please. After we bring him back, then’s the time.”
“Why?” He got to his feet as he spoke, turned his back to her, and pulled on a pair of trousers; he slid out of the houserobe and reached for an old tunic, dark brown, washed so many times it was softer than down.
Faan stared at his back for the few moments it was bare, shivered suddenly. “You always ask why.”
“And haven’t I taught you the same, my honey?” He turned round, sliding loops over the neck buttons. “So?”
“Because I have to. do… something then…”
“What?”
She shook her head. “You can’t help, Pan. Not this time. I’ve got to see Reyna first, see if…” She shivered.
He touched her cheek. “You’ll do what’s right. I know that. Mil me where.”
“A house in the Low City, it’s under the end of the Iron Bridge.”
“Low City?” He frowned. “What…”
“I’ll explain after we’ve got him back here.”
“We? Nonsense. Charou and I’ll go get him. You wait here, have the Kassian ready to help him.”
“No. We have to do this without noise. The guide will show itself to me, not you. And we have to use the Wood Bridge and not touch Iron. That’s…” She fumbled for a word. “That’s vital. It’s god business, Pan.”
He ran a hand over his bald head, smiled suddenly at her, the.street urchin’s grin that sat so oddly on his square solid face. “God wars, eh? Blessed be Tannakes. More gods like him and life’d be simpler and safer.” He reached a long arm out, gathered in his staff. “I’ll wait. You go get that cloak of yours with the hood. Shouldn’t ha’ gone out with your arms naked like that, your head uncovered. Just asking for trouble, eh? Scoot.”
› › ‹ ‹
The house under the Iron Bridge was squat and derelict, its thick mud bricks crumbling, the wooden shutters discolored with age and sealed to the frames as if both shutters and frames had turned to stone.
“Careful,” Faan whispered. “Don’t touch iron, not even with your sleeve.” Avoiding the latticed metal, support of the Bridge creaking and groaning overhead, she followed the pinpoint light of the Wild Magic willawis around the building to the back where a door sagged on one hinge.
The house smelled of dust and dead moss, most of all of age, yet the inner walls were in much better shape than the outside, almost as if the crumbling were a kind of camouflage.
Reyna lay naked in a small room near the front of the house, smeared with his own wastes, his body contorted, all the major bones broken, his long slender hands swollen and shapeless, his face sliced into a horror that wasn’t remotely human. In the faint bluish light of the willawis, Faan looked down at him. “Vema,” she said. “That’s that.” She stepped aside so Panote and Charou could get at him.
Faces impassive, the two men lifted Reyna as gently as they could and laid him on the litter without trying to straighten his limbs. Panote tossed an end of the sheet to Charou and they laid the clean linen over him. Panote straightened. “Has to be the Wood Bridge?”
“Diyo.”
As soon as they were out of the house, she sent the willawis away and ran ahead of the men.
Faan stood with her arms folded as Panote and Charou set the litter on the tiles in front of the altar. It was very late by now, long past moonset, and not a breath of air was stirring, even up here. Sound was oddly muffled, as if the heat were layers of felt. She shut her eyes a moment, closed her hands about.the edge of the altar. The price was her soul, her life. She had no choice. None. Reyna… no… best not to think of him. “Pan, go wake the Kassian and tell her to bring candles. lb11 her about Reyna. Tb11 her there’s a bargain I need to make. Then if you want, you can go back to bed.”
“Would it make trouble if I came?”
“Nayo, my friend.” She swallowed. “It won’t be pleasant, I think. Ahsan, Charou, I bless you for your help, but go now. Please.”
› › ‹ ‹
The Kassian Tai came with candles and strained honey from the jars in her room. Areia Moha One-eye followed with Tai’s ancient drum that she’d inherited from the Kassian who was her teacher, who’d inherited it from hers and so on. Tai poured the honey into a crystal saucer and set the candles beside it, lit them with a coal from her fire. Holding the drum in both hands, Areia knelt beside the litter.
“Panote?” Faan said.
The Kassian Tai smiled. “He wanted to be here, but I forbade it. This is Abeyhamal’s work and Tannakes has no part in it.7
“I see.”
“Diyo, Honeychild. Take your place.” The Kassian Tai Wanameh settled the embroidered Talcaffa cloth about her neck, lifted her hand for Areia Moha One-eye to begin the drumming.
Faceted shimmers formed over her eyes, her skin bleached to a dark amber, threadlike antennas curved from her brow, gossamer wings vibrated behind her. Tai+SHE turned to face Faan. “WHAT IS IT YOU REQUIRE, HONEYCHILD?”
“A bargain, O Mother of Bees.” Faan sang the words; she didn’t know if that was right, but it felt right. “Or a battle.”
“YOU BARGAIN, FLEA?” The voice was honey sweet and thick with vibrato. The amber hands moved continually in odd, angular positions.
“A bargain or a battle.”
“I COULD CRUSH YOU WITH A THOUGHT.”
“Diyo, that is true. I would be a smear on the tiles and about as useful. This is your making, no doubt you know my terms before I state them. Well?”
“SAY WHAT YOU WANT. SPEAK CAREFULLY, FLEA. WHAT YOU ASK FOR, YOU SHALL RECEIVE.”