My father snapped his fingers and I went to him so that he looped over my head the blinding hood. Perhaps it was Kalikku who pushed me up so roughly into the saddle of the waiting pa-oryxen which I had seen to be the most worthless and expendable of my father’s herd. Someone jerked the reins and the beast under me gave forth a cry, nearly a moan, as if it were being urged to do something beyond its slender strength.
There was no sound of any company gathering about us, no singing, no beating of drums to wish me fortune. I might be an outlawed one on his way for a ceremonial casting forth from his House. So meanly did they think of me then.
That same anger which had first arisen in me when I had witnessed Mieu’s death became a steady fire. There is in all my race this need to be one with the homeland, with kin. yet my need was not acknowledged in the sight of all by this shabby exit on my solo. I held to my anger, for if I did not keep that as a shield, I had no strength to battle that great feeling of loss which was like a stone resting on my heart.
Kalikku talked, but never to me, or of anything concerning me. Instead he set himself, as I had known him to do many times, to interest my father, draw to himself the full attention in which he basked. He spoke of a prospective sandcat hunt which the youths had planned, of an expedition to the city to see and perhaps buy some of the weapons new come from Thnossis which were rumored to be of better metal than men had seen before.
At length my father was wooed into answering him. But I did not hear the voice of Kura, though the drift of her own spicy scent reached me now and then in spite of the blinding hood.
We paused for no nourishment nor rest, but plodded on. I was more used to tramping on my two feet when I journeyed to market and I felt stiff in the saddle. Nor, without seeing the stars overhead, could I begin to guess in what direction we were now headed.
There could not be too many unoccupied rock islands, for my people ever search for more land where we may build. This is an anxiety that occupies the mind of the Head of each House, for the Master of Measures and Balance stands always ready in the imagination of even the most steady-hearted of our people.
When it would seem that we occupied too much living space, when we began to outgrow the resources of the land—then there could be an accounting. And that was a ritual I think even such as my father feared to face. Flocks could be decimated upon the command, even people given to the sword’s edge, that their fellows might have living room. There had not been an accounting of that kind for many years, yet the thought and threat of it always overhung us.
I had much time to think as I rode so. Though I had taken merchant roads many times, had fought off the attacks of the rats which preyed upon every algae bed and the other life that had to gather there, yet I was not one to count myself a seasoned traveler. I had listened to the accounts of those who had undergone this same challenge and now I found I remembered best the disasters rather than the triumphs.
Our small party came to a halt at last. There was a quick jerk to remove my hood after I had been dragged roughly from the saddle. I had barely time enough to see that there was a dimming of the stars overhead before the blow caught me and I was enclosed once more in the dark.
I was in a furnace—one of those they tell of which are parts of the mountains of Thnossis where they use the inner heat of the earth itself to aid in the shaping of metal to their will. With all my might I strove to free myself from the bonds laid upon me to hold me to such torment and opened my eyes.
My head and shoulders lay within a shallow hollow of rock but the rest of my body was positioned in the full heat of the sun. I speedily drew farther back into my small shelter. My head ached and before my eyes both rock and sand were in sickening motion. Slowly I was able to raise hand to my head. Back of my right ear there was a place where touch brought instant pain. And that pain cleared my mind so I knew where I was and why.
My pack lay in the direct rays of the sun. I lurched forward to grasp and pull that to me and as I did so something glittered and fell into view. My fingers closed upon an armlet of burnished copper such as my sister often chose to work with. On the wide band there was set a pattern of turquoise twined to glistening yellow stones such as are those set in the eyeholes of the guardian cat statues.
I held the gift, turning it round and about in my fingers. Its color and fine workmanship would raise pride of possession in any beholder. Yet to me it brought a chill. Resolutely I slipped it up above my elbow, thrusting back the sleeve to view it against my skin. It was such an ornament as would be worthy of several well-trained oryxen if offered in the city. A thing made to please and honor yet with that chilling message of its own—for I was sure I read it aright—this was my sister’s farewell to me.
Did she believe that I was going to my death? Perhaps that was also true. Yet I lived now and that new stubbornness within me said that I would continue to live in spite of all the omens against me.
So I made fast the ties of the bag which held my supplies, shouldered that, and looked about me. By the width of sun outside my crevice night was not far away. And night would bring stars. None who ever ventured on the merchants’ trails lacked knowledge of those as guides. I would see what lay above me and then I would move—and keep moving—
Chapter 3
OURS is A LAND of great color and beauty. The slickrock islands are rugged, baring jagged fangs to the sky as if some sandcats lay upon their backs thrusting up their well-clawed paws. Many are the forms of these rocks also, beside such spires. There are even domes which might mark homes, yet no man’s hand carved them so. Others take on the shape of strange beasts from the ancient tales. The winds sound with voices of their own, sometimes with the mocking notes of speech or song one cannot understand.
Under the full sun the rocks blaze forth hues of the colors of Kura’s gems. At nightfall their splendor is not fully quenched, for then there lies a silver glimmer over the drifts of sand, glittering at the slightest shifting of grain against grain. This world is a part of my kind even as are the smaller bits upon which we build our homes.
I scrambled to a higher point on the island where I had been left. There was still a streaking of grayish purple and muted gold in the sky, but already some of the stars shone palely. As I looked around to view all that I could before dark took over, I saw that this place of temporary exile was larger than I thought it might be. That such a stretch of available homesites had not been colonized was a puzzle.
Throwing back my head I drew several deep breaths. There are three scents one may pick up on slickrock formations, two of which may mean death, while the third is just the opposite, being rather a promise of existence.
Two species protest the rulership of my own kind. Firstly there is the rat. Though these run in packs they have no real kinship with each other even for the dams which bear them. Much larger than the kottis, they are personified avid hunger given legs and the freedom to hunt down what will fill their ever-empty bellies.
They can live on algae but do so stupidly, wasting and befouling the bedding pools until they poison the whole of the crop so it may take years before it will recover from their visitation. Being able to burrow deeply and rapidly under the ground, they can shelter so from the sun and emerge only when the worst of the day’s blaze is gone, issuing forth to kill and eat, kill and eat. If they cannot find aught they turn upon each other—even the young upon their dam or the dam against her own offspring. There is nothing but evil in them and their stench is enough to bring vomit into the throat of those who must face them.