Salvation's Fire Page 6

  “Wandering,” Celestaine said grimly. “That’s how we find the way.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "WANDERING,” MURTI SAID with enthusiasm. “That’s how we find the way.” He gestured at the world north of Taib Post with glee and tugged at Bukham’s sleeve. “Onward, onward, ever onward.”

  Bukham, frowning, took one heavy step and then another. He didn’t want to go, especially not with this priest business still all up in the air. He’d looked for his uncle but been unable to find him anywhere. Even his wife didn’t know where he was and without Ghurbat he’d never be able to convince Murti that there was a misunderstanding. Fair enough, he’d look for the little one, but after that he was coming home, whatever happened. His sister would kill him if she knew what was going on.

  Against Bukham’s wishes they hadn’t taken a pack lunnox but were instead going with almost nothing. He liked to think this was because it was only a day’s outing to look for a little girl with nowhere to go, but a different part of him suspected that Murti considered even what few items he had in his shoulder bag as far too much of a burden for any journey. Since he didn’t want a lecture on how nature provided or whatever it was that Murti did on his travels, he said nothing about it.

  They made another search for tracks, this time finding a trail that had been wasted on Bukham a day ago and which he still didn’t make out now. Murti seemed to have a nose for it. He took them to a small cave dug into a bank and peered in at it through a screen of hanging roots. “Not here,” he said. “But she was.” He held up a scrap of peel. “Doesn’t want to be found now.”

  “How’d you make that out?” Bukham asked grumpily, curious in spite of himself.

  “Because she’d be here if she did. Everything leaves a trail of itself you know. And this feels cold, like a wind you’d turn your face away from. That’s how I know.” The ancient man shivered, his stooped back straightening for a second before resuming its hunched shape. “You need to pay attention more.”

  “I’m not a mystic,” Bukham said with certainty. “I’m a vegetable trader.”

  “Well turn your vegetable mind to other things before it’s too late.” Murti sniffed and flung his scrap of cloak over his shoulder as he peered up at the cloud cover. “No sun. Was she well dressed?”

  Bukham thought back. Some ragged kind of dress, he didn’t even remember sandals. “No.”

  “Next time you need to sell more clothes,” Murti suggested and began to shuffle back towards the path.

  “Dorilia sells the clothes,” Bukham said. He heard Murti sigh.

  They made their way to the path and then over rough ground to the road which linked Taib with Ilkand Freeport and all points west, and walked until it was light. To either side the land alternated between patches of arable, dotted with farm buildings and tiny villages—or what remained of them after occupation—and dense woodlands. There were thousands of places to wander into, hide or be lost in. Bukham felt his heart sinking with every step. Why hadn’t he just grabbed her when he had the chance? Surely it would have been better for her than to face the world alone? Since the war people were mostly kind, but there were always stragglers and loners taking advantage of the weak. What would he do if he found her body in a ditch or a…

  Something stinging and sharp hit him around the face. With a start he realised that it was the end of Murti’s cloak. The old man was wrapping it back on his shoulder with an offended air as he glared at Bukham. “Stop dreaming! There’s work to do. Which way has she gone?”

  They were standing at a tiny crossroads where paths from outlying villages had crept up on the main road and attempted to negotiate with it by means of a crude signpost. Bukham floundered about, looking at the ground, his hands, the signpost and the surroundings. He saw, heard and felt absolutely nothing of any use.

  “You knew her the best,” Murti said patiently. “You have to decide.”

  Bukham was about to say he didn’t know her at all but a glance at Murti’s face convinced him that was a very bad idea. He tried to draw up a picture of her in his mind’s eye, as she’d been among the cattle, peeking at him. Then he looked back and forth along all the ways. Ahead of them on the main track a group of people were heading in their direction. “Maybe they saw her,” he said.

  “Let’s go, then,” Murti sighed another long-suffering sigh and set off at his easy pace which looked like every stride was a struggle but which moved him at a brisk pace. At even higher speeds he fairly bounded but walking made him look like every step was his last. Bukham wondered if it was a front or if he were walking through some terrible secret suffering that didn’t show on the surface, because he was so powerful a priest that suffering didn’t matter. Or magic was involved somehow. Or prayer.

  “You think too much,” Murti said, without looking back. “And you don’t walk fast enough for a young man. What’s the point of dawdling about?”

  “I thought we were wandering,” Bukham said.

  “Wander harder, then,” Murti said. “They look like Templars, alas. Can you see from here? Are they wearing blue and gold from Ilkand Temple or the nearly-the-same colours of the Termagents, blast their unimaginative minds?”

  Bukham made out various colours, dull but definite. “What are the Terma—”

  “Focus. Is it, or isn’t it?”

  Bukham frowned in concentration. Murti’s tone suggested he already knew and was only asking for confirmation. “Yes, it could be.”

  “Let me do the talking then, if there’s talking,” Murti said, slowing down to a crawling pace.

  “Might be going to the trading post,” Bukham said, feeling uneasy. They weren’t far away but he wasn’t used to meeting people on the road when he was alone, or nearly alone. The Taib moved regularly, north to south, following the rivers, canals and major highways with the flow of the seasons. When it was on the move it was respected and generally left alone by a wide variety of folks although there were raids occasionally. Ilkand Templars he knew of only by reputation and a few official meetings at the port gates when they exerted their customs authority. The Termagents were some kind of offshoot group, but he wasn’t sure of the distinction; only that they were somehow more difficult to deal with and more fiercely proud of their god.

  In spite of Murti’s efforts the two parties met shortly afterwards, the Templars grouped up on their fine horses. Bukham and Murti perching on the grass verge at the edge of the path.

  “Greetings,” the foremost one said. “Are we far from Taib Post?”

  “But a few miles,” Murti said. “You’ll have a whole day to trade.”

  “We are not trading,” the man replied, hand on his sword hilt. “Have you seen any resembling Tzarkomen on your travels?”

  “None,” Murti replied. “You’re south and east of them a long way, what’s left of them. Last I heard they were in retreat to the utmost west of their lands.”

  The group seemed relieved, Bukham would have sworn, but they only nodded and moved on, having barely spared him a glance. He guessed he looked too Oerni to be of any interest. The Oerni traded and had an honest, simple kindness to them that ruled them out of most considerations in politics or war. That at least was something to be glad about, that they had feuds with nobody.

  “Why do you think they’re looking for Tzarkomen here?” he asked as they continued their search.

  “Probably to kill them,” Murti said. “Templars have strong beliefs about the kind of things Tzarkomen do. If they’ve been seen east of the Ilkand Road the Templars may be crusading to give themselves something to do now they’ve got no god.”

  “What do you mean, no god?” Bukham had heard rumours about this but he didn’t believe it. Not that he had a god exactly, or a system of belief. Gods were real but the Oerni had no business with them other than through their strange intermediary, Wanderer, but it was more of a guidance and patronage with Wanderer himself, gleaning news of roads and passages, ways in and out of places and markets. It wasn’t somet
hing relating to the gods themselves.

  “The Kinslayer cut the gods off from the world,” Murti said. “The first thing he did was figure out how, then he destroyed the means by which he discovered that and then he severed them from this plane. After that he began work on the war proper. Some Templar was the last to hear them, so they say.”

  “Doesn’t that mean Wanderer is cut off too? Are all the Guardians alone now?”

  “Those that survive.”

  This answer seemed very unsatisfactory, but unassailable. Bukham kept looking for little footprints and sometimes he thought he saw them but as they got further and further along the way he began to doubt whether she could have managed to remain ahead of them for so long, but then as more time passed and more miles he started to think they were completely wrong and she could not have got to this point alone and hungry at all. Something must have happened to her. In front of him Murti limped along and showed no signs of stopping. Eventually he said, “Wait I’ve a stone in my shoe,” although he didn’t. As he knelt and fussed with it he added, “She can’t have come this far.”

  “Oh,” said Murti. “And how do you know this?”

  Bukham gestured at the road. “It’s been so far. She could have gone anywhere.”

  “When we wander, we do not wander in the mind. We wander on the ground. What does it mean, to wander?”

  “Er… I’m just worried about her. I want to find her and I think we’re going the wrong way,” Bukham said quickly in an effort to escape. Over the hill to their left where weedy fields were cut among patches of overgrowth he saw a column of smoke rising into the air. It was broad and a mixture of greys. “Look, we can ask over there. There’s somewhere.”

  Murti glanced at it. “That’s not what you’re looking for.”

  “I’ll just go and ask, it won’t take long.”

  “You’re wasting time,” the old priest said impatiently but he made no move to stop Bukham who frowned.

  “You keep saying these things,” he said on his way past, stepping off the track, “but you’re not putting up any decent reasons of your own. Wandering; it’s just walking about without a purpose. How’s that going to find anyone or anything?” He waited for the sharp retort but nothing happened. Murti waved him off.

  “Go on, go on, find what you find, I’ll wait here. But move like you mean it, it’s nearly noon.”

  All the way over the hill Bukham wondered how the old man knew the girl had kept to the road so far. He couldn’t think of a single way to know that. He was struggling with memories of his own tracking, if he’d missed something obvious, and he was still heavily in thought when he walked onto the path into the village and realised that the fire wasn’t a hearth but an entire house burning.

  Hours later Murti was waiting for him, seated on a boulder at the roadside when he got back. He said nothing but walked with his shoulder close to Bukham’s arm as they moved on. Bukham, hands covered in dirt, exhausted, filthy, didn’t trust himself to speak. The blood and bodies were fresh, the fire only starting really. Even the dog had been left lying where it fell with its head caved in by something blunt and heavy, like the corner of a shield, or a mace. A girl had been weaving in the yard. The spindle was still in her hand, clutched tightly. Her mother lay in two pieces not far away, a few greens and a basket scattered on her face, as if she were of no more consequence than the dirt. It had taken a long time to bury them all.

  He felt certain, beyond all certainty, that the Templars had done this, those they had passed and spoken to with such civility on the road. And he felt certain that Murti knew that was what they were even when he glimpsed them on the hilltop. And he didn’t know what to do with a world that had things like this in it, so close to where he’d been living his peaceful life, his quiet stall. He felt that the stall and his people had no answer to this but that they should have, and for the first time ever he felt a deep, terrible shame and a misery so intense that it was as though he was being crushed from the inside. If this could happen today and go unanswered then the world was a ruin and the gods evil and his life was a stupid waste of everything it had taken to get him this far.

  The day turned slowly from cloudy to broken sunlight and more heat. They passed a waymarker that told them they had a long way to go to Hathel Vale and even though it seemed impossible Bukham hoped the little one had got much further. He even considered that dying might be better than living on and he’d never had that kind of thought before.

  “What were the Templars doing on this path?” he said without realising he was going to say anything. He didn’t recognise his own voice, it was so hard and direct.

  “They never stir without a purpose,” Murti replied. “I expect they were looking for someone. They’re from the Freeport, so it’s been a long search.”

  “Were they looking for her?”

  “What, our girl? I shouldn’t think so. They aren’t the sort to give any credence to children, unless she was the child of some high-up lord who was set to inherit or useful for ransom; a pawn in a larger game. But the Ilkand people are fairly pale sorts. You say she was dark.”

  “Very dark, and a little purple, like a Midnighter plum, with that kind of pale grey bloom where it catches the light, though I think that was ash or dirt.”

  “Not necessarily,” Murti paused, thinking. “Did she have any marks on her face, stripes of colour maybe? What was she wearing?”

  “She had some old yellow and orange line on her forehead. She had some kind of dress, but with short leggings underneath. All in grey cloth, the Tzarko kind, with flecks of colour in it.”

  “’Tis maybe they were looking for her, then,” Murti said, muttering it more to himself than Bukham. “That’s a Caracu style. They’re a branch group of the Tzark. Heretics, of a kind. The Kinslayer did for all of them, the rumour goes. Only a few of them journeyed abroad.” He sounded like someone plumbing the depths of old memories, searching for a word. Finally he found it with a small triumph that sounded forlorn and sad. “Deathspeakers, that’s what they were called. Ironic because they didn’t speak. They only had a signed language.” His chattiness failed to mask the loss at the core of what he said.

  Bukham swallowed hard against the memory of the massacre at the farm. He knew he would never stop it haunting him and he was angry for that, very angry. It wasn’t enough that this had been done; now it lived inside him, changing everything, forever. He was furious, so much so that it made him cold and focused in a way he’d never experienced or known could happen. It frightened him a little. “What’s a deathspeaker?”

  “They are able to remember the lives of all their ancestors, as if it were their own. They were a living history of all they had ever known of the world, going right back to the start.”

  At least that seemed less terrible than it had sounded. “So if they were able to remember something the Kinslayer didn’t want remembered, then…?”

  “Yes, I expect that was it.”

  Bukham had a very uncomfortable thought. “How would the Templars know she was here? Or that anyone was still alive?”

  “Don’t jump, lad,” the old man said, sighing as it began to spit rain at them out of what seemed to be a fine sky. “They could have come for other reasons. Not every bad thing done is done in the Kinslayer’s name. There’s plenty happening on other accounts.”

  Just most of them, Bukham thought, then corrected himself. No, actually the Kinslayer had been only one horror. Everyone who had done anything for him had done it off their own bat. They might have said it was for him, but they’d done it themselves. Because the alternative was a horrible death. Would he also have gone along? He let out a sigh.

  “Where did his armies go?”

  “They’re all over, lad. All over.”

  “Why didn’t they kill us?”

  “Because we’re priests,” Murti said. “Wandering Oerni. No use to anyone dead or alive.”

  “That could go the other way though?”

  “With di
fferent people, of course. In that case we’re traders though we’ve nothing to trade and you look like you were dug out of a field so that will be difficult to explain now.”

  Bukham wanted to blurt out what he’d seen, to ask Murti for an explanation. He wanted it badly, so that he could feel all right, but he knew there was nothing that could make it all right and nothing that could undo it. Something must be done, but he had no idea what to do.

  “Do you pray?” he asked, desperately, wondering who they would pray to, even.

  “If there’s nothing else to do,” Murti said. “But mostly I wander off.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Well, it creates a bit of distance is what it does. Distance is a great help.”

  “I don’t see how it helps anybody.” Bukham felt that leaving was cowardice, but also he saw the sense of it, that if you had nothing to offer there was no point hanging around.

  “It helps me,” Murti said.

  “I thought priests were supposed to help everyone.”

  “I expect your uncle told you that. He’s a very pragmatic man.”

  Bukham didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know where the knowledge had come from, but everyone thought that the priests were wandering around doing random acts of something worthwhile, that was the point of them, to find out about distant peoples, to fetch news and to bring credit to the Oerni name. Wasn’t it?

  “It was a kind thing, to bury them,” Murti said as the rain stopped and the sun sparkled on every glistening pebble in the way.

  “I couldn’t just…”

  “I know.”

  “Is that why you didn’t go?”

  “No. I didn’t go because it doesn’t matter.”

  Bukham’s rage exploded out of him. “Doesn’t matter? How can you say that? What kind of monster are you? They were killed for nothing. They were good people, innocent people, just living and looking after each other after this bloody war and all that’s happened and they died for nothing but some bastard’s evil pride and you say it doesn’t matter!! What… what…” He was panting so hard, unable to see for tears, his fists clenching and unclenching, not even really facing Murti but the world, the ground, the sky, all of it.