“Did I not say that I had had a seeing? I know little of your people, smith, but have you none among you who can foretell, who can sometimes see that which has not yet happened but which will certainly come to pass?”
“We have the Rememberers. But they dream of the past, not the future. The Traders—they have said that they have heard of those who foresee not backsee.”
“Backsee?” Fanyi seemed startled. “What do they backsee, these Shamans of yours?”
“Some of the Before things, but only small pieces,” Sander had to admit. “We came into this land after the Dark Time, and what they tell of is another part, now sea covered. Mostly they remember our own Mob and a past that is ours alone.”
“That is a loss. Think what might be done if your backseers could uncover the lost things. But it is much the same with us who foresee—we can do such for only a short way. Thus, I know that we shall journey together, but little more than that.”
She spoke with such authority that Sander found himself unable to utter any objection, though he was suspicious of her self-confidence. Obviously this Fanyi believed she was conferring some honor upon him by so deciding. Yet there was sense in what she said—he had been traveling blindly. If she indeed had some clue to a definite lost city, he would be far better served to agree to her guidance than to simply wander on blindly.
“Very well.” He now looked at her beasts. “But do those agree also? They seem to me to be less certain of the wisdom of our joining forces than you are.”
For the first time he saw her lips curve into a smile. “My friends become theirs. And what of your furred one, Sander-smith?” She nodded to Rhin.
Sander turned to the koyot. He exercised no such control on Rhin as the girl apparently did over her companions, nor could he. There was a form of communication between man and koyot, but it was tenuous. He was not sure himself just how deep it ran, nor how well it would work in all circumstances. Rhin was willing to share his travels and was an efficient warner against enemies. But whether the koyot would accept close companionship for days with the strange beasts, Sander had no way of telling.
Fanyi shifted her gaze slightly to meet the eyes of the taller of her furred ones. After their stare had locked and held for a long moment the creature dropped to forefeet and was gone at its backhumping gait, disappearing into the tall grass. Its companion remained quietly where it was, but Fanyi came forward now to turn the same intent gaze up into Rhin’s bright eyes. Sander fidgeted, again more than a little irritated at the girl. What right had she to impose her will on his koyot, for that was what she was doing he was sure.
Again she might have read his rebellious thought, for she spoke:
“I do not rule these other ones, smith. It is enough that they learn that we can live together after a fashion, neither imposing wills upon another. My fishers know that if I halt their actions by a will-thought, it is only with good reason. And there are times when I accept their desire as quickly as they do mine. We are not master-slave. No—we are comrade with comrade. That is the way it should be with all life forms. So does the Power teach us who are born to serve Its purposes. Yes, your koyot will accept us, for he knows we mean no harm to one another.”
The fisher who had disappeared was returning. Clamped in its jaws was the end of a bundle that it bumped and tugged along the ground until it could be dropped at Fanyi’s feet. She loosened lashings to draw forth a square of drab cloth, which had a hole in the center. Through this she thrust her head and then belted the loose folds about her with a woven strip, hiding her scarlet garment and her adornments under the dim gray overtunic.
The rest of her equipment for the trip was in two separate bags, their strings knotted together. Sander took them from her when she would have slung them across her shoulder and arranged them with his own bags on Rhin. He could not ride while she walked, and the two of them would be too great a weight for the koyot.
Fanyi whistled, sending the fishers bounding away, ranging ahead. For the first time Sander relaxed a little. Those creatures must form an effective scouting force, if Fanyi depended upon them.
“How far do we go?” he asked, finding that she matched strides with apparently little effort.
“That I do not know. My people do—did—” she corrected herself, “not travel far. They were fisherfolk, and they worked the fields along the river. We had Traders come from the north—and more lately from the south. From the south,” she repeated and her tone was bleak. “Yes, now I think that those came before the raid to sniff out how helpless we were. If I had not been afar—”
“But what could you have done?” Sander was honestly puzzled. She seemed to believe that her presence, or the lack of it, had sealed the fate of the village. He could not believe that.
She glanced toward him, clearly astounded at his question.
“I am one with Power. It is my thought-holding that walled my people in safety. There was no danger that came to them that I, or Kai or Kayi, could not sniff out and give warning of. Just as I knew, even though I sought with open heart and mind the will of the Great Moon, when death came to those who believed in me! Their blood lies on my hands, that I must avenge—for upon me rests the burden of this deed.”
“And how can you avenge them? Do you know those who came raiding?”
“At the proper time I shall cast the stones.” Her hand went to the breast of her drab overgarment. “Then their names shall be made clear. But first I must find in the Before Place such a weapon as shall make those who delighted in slaughter wish that they had never been born!” A cruel cast twisted her generous lips and the grimness of her face chilled Sander.
He himself had never felt such great anger—even against Ibbets—as to death-wish another. When the White Ones had struck he had been only a child, too young to be affected by the battle, even though his mother had been one of its victims. His whole being had been focused on learning what he could do with his hands. To him, weapons were only matters of fine workmanship. He rarely thought beyond their fashioning to the uses they would eventually serve.
Although what he had seen in the destroyed village had sickened and revolted him, it had not touched his inner being. For those dead were strangers, none close to him. Had he discovered one of the enemy left behind through some chance he would have fought, yes, but mainly to save his own life. The flame that he saw burning in Fanyi, the implacable drive for vengeance, he could not quite understand. Perhaps if it had been his people who had been so handled, he would have felt differently.
“What weapons do you believe might be stored in a Before Place?”
“Who knows? The old tales are many. They say that once men slew with fire and thunder, not with steel or dart. It may be that such stories are only tales. But knowledge is a weapon in itself and such a weapon I have been born to use.”
That Sander could accept. He discovered that he had unconsciously quickened pace a little, as if the very thought that such a storehouse of the Before Days might exist had urged him to speed. But they dared not, he was certain, count on too much. The churning of the earth during the Dark Time had changed the whole of the land. Could they be sure that anything from Before endured?
When he mentioned this, Fanyi nodded. “That is true. But still the Traders have their sources. And so there must be something remaining. I have this—” Both hands were now clasping her breast where the pendant lay hidden. “I am of a clan-line of Shamans. From mother to daughter, time and again past reckoning, has descended our learning. There are secrets that can be understood only when one is in the presence of that which hides them. What I wear is in itself a secret. Only I can read its message when I hold it in my hand. For no other will this charm work. I seek with it a certain wall—”
“And this wall lies northeast—”
“Just so. Long have I wanted to search for it. But my duty was to my people. Their ills, both of mind and body, were mine to ease. Now it is that same duty which drives me at last—so that I may repay blood for blood.”