Sunmaster, page 7
"Oh, I'm pretty sure he'd say nobody." Kisia yawned hugely, and Rasim realized he hadn't slept in at least a day and a half.
"Tomorrow," he said through an abrupt wave of tiredness. "Tomorrow the captain will be here and they'll get it all sorted out." Belly full, he crawled onto a pillow-heavy sleeping pad and didn't wake up again until somebody called his name in alarm.
CHAPTER 8
It was hard to fall out of a bed on the ground, but Rasim managed anyway, groaning with surprise as he discovered most of him was sore. For a second he couldn't think why, and then he lay on his face, chortling tiredly into the earth. Maybe, just maybe, he was sore because he'd climbed a mountain, then jumped off it, then ridden a dragon and jumped off it, then ridden a horse for hours, then been thrown in a sweaty little tent where he threw up for half the night.
It had been a very long couple of days, and whatever was so alarming that people were shouting his name, he hoped it could wait until he'd had a very hot bath and some more food.
Captain Nasira burst into the tent before he'd even managed to get off the floor. Her voice, pinched with aggravation, swept toward him, and he thought maybe he should just stay where he was. "How do you keep ending up in the thick of things, journeyman, while those who should be where you are rush along behind you like a faltering tide?"
"I don't know." Rasim rolled onto his back to stare up at his captain, who looked very tall and narrow from that vantage. "If we ever get home to Ilyara, I promise I'll never do anything exciting again as long as I live."
To his surprise, Nasira chuckled. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Rasim. Ugh." The last sound came with a wrinkled nose. "I want to know what happened when you went up that mountain, journeyman, but Siliaria's fins, you need a bath first."
"When did you get here?" Rasim didn't even try to get off the ground. It wasn't comfortable, but he bet he could go back to sleep anyway.
"With the dawn. Long enough to greet Bayar's parents and eat roast lamb for breakfast." Nasira exhaled with satisfaction. "Not eating fish is one of my favorite things about coming back to land."
"I thought you liked fish." Rasim's stomach rumbled again at the idea of food and Nasira lifted her eyebrows.
"I do, but it wears on a body if it's every meal. Sounds like your own belly is telling you as much. I'll ask for bathing water to be sent. Do they bathe in tubs here? There's not much water on these steppes."
Rasim shrugged and the captain went to the door, where a translator apparently waited for her, because she spoke in Ilyaran before returning. "Buckets," she said, almost cheerfully. "We scrub with buckets. At least witchery will keep the water clean."
"They don't like casual use of witchery much," Rasim warned. "I know Bayar told us that, but I think he understated it. They've been keeping Endat and the rest of them under guard."
"Except Milu," Telun said sleepily, from their bed mat. "The old witch sniffed him and sent him to study with their own witches."
Nasira focused on the big sleepy Stonemaster journeyman. "And why is he special?"
Telun grinned sappily at her. "Born that way."
The captain tried, and failed, to contain a snort of amusement as the tent door was opened from the outside and buckets of water were brought in, along with food. Rasim couldn't decide if he wanted to scrub or eat more, but the captain went to wash, so Rasim joined Kisia and the others eating a breakfast of lamb and milk. The adults drew to one side to eat once they were clean, and the journeymen washed up afterward, all of them eyeing Nasira, Endat and Lorens as they spoke quietly with each other.
"Rasim." Nasira's voice cracked across the tent almost as soon as he finished eating. "Come tell me what happened yesterday."
He slunk over, and, under the gimlet stares of his elders, explained what had happened on the mountain and in the hours afterward, although he maybe wasn't very clear on the whole ritual he'd undergone in Oyun's tent. He was fairly certain the captain didn't come away with the impression he could work sun witchery, anyway. It seemed like he should let King Taishm know about that before any other adults. Partly because it had all been the king's idea to begin with, but mostly because if they didn't know, none of them could try to tell him to do things to further their own ends.
Not that he really thought Nasira had an agenda of her own, but he was less certain of Sunmaster Endat, and still couldn't help remembering how easily Prince Lorens had seemed to turn on them in Moran. But then, so had Nasira.
A year ago he'd believed adults were mostly trustworthy. Not with things like sneaking out early to the bakery for the best treats, but with the big things. He missed thinking that. It had been easier. But it wasn't just whether they could be trusted, anymore. So many of them either didn't seem to think very fast, or thought fast and then decided things were all right as they were. He didn't know how they could even live that way. There were so many things that could be better.
Nasira sighed explosively as he wrapped up his explanation. "Their—what did you call her? Spiritmaster? Sniffed all of us, too. I don't know what she learned from it."
"I don't know. She liked Kisia and I guess she recognized how strong Desimi is and she gave Sesin a look, but she—they—are afraid we're dangerous to their people. All of us, not just me and Kees and Desi."
"A look?"
Rasim nearly stomped his foot in aggravation. "A look. I don't know, Captain. You'd have to ask her what the look meant. Oyun, not Sesin."
"Bayar's mother called us harbingers of danger." Nasira's eyebrows rose a little. "Harbingers is hardly a word I know in Ilyaran. I don't know how a horse clan matriarch learned it."
"Diplomatic language asks an unusual breadth of word choices of its practitioners," Endat murmured.
Nasira gave him a look. "This is why nobody likes Sunmasters."
Endat laughed and Prince Lorens grinned, but brought the topic back on point by saying, "Harbingers doesn't mean we're dangerous ourselves."
"From their point of view, that remains to be seen," Endat said.
Rasim, impatiently, said, "But you could say that about anybody or anything, couldn't you? Anything could be a sign of danger if you decided it was. This morning I fell out of a bed that's not even off the ground. You could say that was a warning sign of something."
"Yeah," Desimi said from where he wasn't supposed to be listening, "a sign of your clumsiness."
"Ugh." Rasim curled a lip, but mostly tried to ignore the bigger boy to appeal to Nasira. "But I'm right, aren't I? It kind of doesn't mean anything, because it could mean anything."
Endat regarded Rasim steadily. "Are you proposing we go tell our hosts, and I use the word advisedly because until your arrival I feel we were unquestionably captives—"
"And why is that?" Nasira demanded. "Because you rode on in a dragon?"
"Because I, we, brought Bayar back!" Rasim was afraid the dragon might have had something to do with it, but he still didn't want to tell them about Oyun's guidance and his not-yet-retested ability to use sun witchery.
"Ah," Nasira said, like she'd forgotten, and Endat went on more or less as if she hadn't interrupted.
"Do you propose we tell our hosts that we've dismissed their concerns because a first-year journeyman has explained their portents are meaningless?"
Rasim stared at him, half a dozen increasingly rude things fighting to be said first. "Sure," he eventually said. "If that's the best you can do, go for it. But if that's the best you can do, you should probably let me talk to them, because at least I'm thirteen and being stupid is probably expected of me."
Lorens coughed and found somewhere else to look as Endat's eyebrows beetled down. Anger flushed through Rasim and he clenched his fists, suddenly prepared to have a real argument with the Sunmaster if he pushed it. Twice, Endat took a breath like he'd speak, then paused as if reconsidering, and ended up with his mouth as pinched as his eyebrows. "You are a remarkably arrogant child," he finally said, and Rasim flung his hands upward in expressive outrage.
"Yeah, but I'm right. If that's the best you can do, it's amazing Ilyara hasn't been invaded or crushed by people who've met our diplomats and think we're too stupid to drink water instead of drown in it! Sunmasters have been taking over the palace step by step for most of Guildmaster Isidri's life, but either the royal family is really dumb or you're a terrible example of your guild. For a while there I thought you were maybe actually dangerous, but right now I wonder if your whole stupid guild is just really lucky!"
Chest heaving and breath coming in short bursts, Rasim fell silent and realized nearly everyone, including the guards at their tent door, was staring at him in horrified astonishment. Desimi's eyes were so wide he looked almost impressed, and Sesin had a hand pressed over her mouth. Endat's expression was one of controlled anger, and Lorens still studiously looked the other way as Nasira waited with a thunderous gaze to be sure Rasim had nothing more to say.
Kisia, off to the side, behind Nasira, where the captain couldn't see her, grinned like a hyena.
"Are you quite finished, Journeyman?" Nasira's voice was as cool as Rasim had ever heard it, and he had heard her icy with rage, all directed at him, in the past.
For a heartbeat, for more than a heartbeat, he seriously considered not being finished. He was fairly certain Bayar's parents and the old shaman both rather liked him. He could go talk to them without yelling or telling them they were stupid, and try to figure out if Bayar's kidnapping came from the same place that the Ilyaran fire or the poisoned lake in the Northlands had. He could try to do all of that himself. Maybe he could even succeed.
He could almost hear the question like he was outside himself, though: And then what? Once he had gone off to have an opinion at the King Horse and Great Mare, then what? He was still a journeyman, unexpectedly powerful in a witchery sense but not at all powerful politically. He couldn't make binding treaties or make any promises on the part of his king. Solving the question of who'd taken Bayar might warm the Shenryalan people to him, but that wouldn't do him any good if Nasira decided to make him walk home, and judging from the set of her jaw, she might.
Rasim muttered, "Yes, Captain," and dropped his gaze to the tent floor, because at least there, he couldn't be accused of glaring at anyone.
"I believe we will continue this discussion later. Master Endat, my apologies, and the apologies of the Seamasters' Guild, for our ill-mannered apprentice. Steps," Nasira said furiously, "will be taken."
Every word dripped cold down Rasim's spine. Endat's response was cool and polite, all too clearly angry and careful not to direct that anger at Nasira. "Thank you, Captain. Now, I'm afraid we inept adults had best tend to our duties, and speak with the Shenryalan leaders." With a gesture of overstated courtesy, he offered Nasira his elbow, and Nasira, who was the last person in the world Rasim could imagine doing this, took it. They exited together in a show of distressing solidarity, with Prince Lorens in their wake.
Everyone else gathered in the tent waited until they were absolutely certain the masters were out of earshot. Then a cacophony arose, incredulous voices expressing—mostly—horror and dismay. Pynda actually shoved her way past the others to get in Rasim's face, her dark eyes snapping with anger. "Is that really what you think of Sunmasters, Rasim? Is that what you think of me? Of Daka, who died because of your schemes? You think we're stupid and greedy and dangerous to ourselves? I'll show you who's dangerous, you nasty little sea slug—" He thought she might have lit her very fists on fire if she could have, but almost every sun witch needed a spark to build their witchery around.
Even so, everyone else saw the threat clearly enough that before Rasim could respond, Telun let out a hoarse shout. Suddenly he and Milu were there, pulling the young woman away from Rasim. Sesin got between them, too, and a whole new bout of shouting started as Desimi and Kisia closed in on Rasim.
Desimi's eyes were still wide. "If that's what you're like when you get mad, no wonder you try not to, Sunburn. I've never heard you like that."
"Except when he yelled at you yesterday." Kisia hadn't lost her broad grin. "That was amazing, Rasi."
"That was stupid," Rasim whispered.
"Maybe, but it was amazing. Imagine if anybody had stood up to the Sunmasters like that any time in the last eighty years or so. Maybe Ilyara wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe Queen Annaken and her baby wouldn't have died in the fire, if the Sunmasters hadn't been in control when it happened. They're Sunmasters. They should have been able to stop it before it got out of control like that. Maybe King Laishm wouldn't have died of a broken heart a couple months later. Maybe—"
"Maybe Captain Nasira is going to make me swim home," Rasim said in a small voice. "Maybe they needed to hear it, but maybe I was right when I yelled at Desimi yesterday about not making decisions when you're angry."
Desimi rolled his eyes. "You make smart decisions all the time. Maybe sometimes yelling is a smart decision, too, and you just can't see it yet. In the meantime…" He cast a glance at the tent door, then slid a wicked smile at Rasim and Kisia. "The guards are gone."
Rasim said, "The captain would kill me," instantly, but Kisia grabbed his elbow.
"First, she can't kill you if she can't find you, and second, if she's already mad enough to kill you, it's not like she can get any madder, right?"
"You know what? I think you're right." Rasim gave her a wild-eyed grin, and the three of them bolted from the tent.
CHAPTER 9
A shout of protest went up as they raced outside. Rasim thought it was mostly Sesin, dismayed at being left behind, but a handful of Shenryalans saw them make their escape, and had differing reactions. A couple chased them like they'd send them back inside, and a few more grinned and cheered them on. Desimi ducked sideways, behind a smaller tent than the ones they'd been in so far. A minute later they were well lost in the spirals and gathered people.
Nearly all of them cast curious glances at the three Ilyaran journeymen, who looked nothing at all like the Shenryalans around them. Bayar's people were mostly paler and more golden of skin than Ilyarans. Even Rasim, who wasn't as dark as Kisia or Desimi, was distinctly browner than the people around them, and his hair, straight by Ilyaran standards, was full of curves and waves compared to the Shenryalans. Like Kisia and Desimi, though, everyone around them had brown or black eyes, and grins that were indistinguishable from anyone else's, all the world over.
A small horde of children rushed toward them, tripping and shouting with excitement to meet the strangers. Rasim laughed, crouched to greet them, and was bowled over by a couple of especially enthusiastic little ones who didn't have quite enough control to stop in time. They were dressed more warmly than the Ilyarans, in brightly-dyed coats with pale seams and dramatic shoulder swoops. Their red cheeks shone under fur-lined hats, although some of them were warm enough that when they pulled the hats off to try them on Rasim, their hair stuck to their foreheads in soft sweaty lines.
One of the bigger children, old enough to understand that hiding from adults was fun, grabbed Kisia's hand and started tugging. A few of them cast Desimi slightly nervous looks, because he was so much larger than they were, but within moments they'd pulled all three journeymen deep into the camp. Their clear intent was to show the strangers things they thought were important—dogs, a swing set up between two tents, someone's younger sibling—with a particular reverence for the sturdy little horses that were gathered loosely throughout the spirals.
Adults greeted them with amusement and sometimes offered drinks or a taste of something from over an open fire. One or two, studying them openly, said, "Sorcerer-child?" in expectation, leaving Rasim and the other journeymen to exchange glances.
"We all are," Rasim said uncertainly. "We all work water sorcery."
Interested faces crowded closer, mugs of water or milk or an alcoholic-smelling amber drink being offered. Rasim wasn't sure they should, but Desimi, cheerfully confident, spun water upward, making it dance between the mugs and cups. Awed cries rose around them, and more people came to see the magic on display. Rasim whispered, "I thought Shenryalans didn't trust witchery," to Kisia, who shrugged, smiling as she watched Desimi.
"Bayar says they don't, but they obviously know we're witches, and Shenryalans don't have water witchery. Maybe it's all right because it's foreign. Or maybe it's all right because Bayar has come home." She shrugged, then caught her breath as a woman placed a brightly-dyed hat into her hands. It had rows of alternating-color bead work and braids of dyed hair that Rasim thought might be horse hair, and looked like it had taken a very long time to make. It fit her snugly, and the woman who'd offered it beamed like she'd made it for Kisia herself.
The gift seemed to unlock a wave of similar impulses in others around them. A man even broader across the shoulder than Desimi sized him up, then produced one of the beautifully-made patchwork coats, full of color and rough seams, and insisted Desimi put it on.
It fit him well and its long dark red side patches somehow made him look taller and more slender than he was. The man wrapped a long, bright yellow sash around Desimi's waist, folded his arms in tremendous satisfaction, and spoke in rapid Shenryalan. Rasim understood almost none of it, but he understood the sentiment. Kisia clearly understood more, and whispered, "It's in thanks for saving Bayar." Out loud, she said, "But Rasim—" and Rasim kicked her ankle. She hissed, "But you are the one who rescued him!"
Rasim shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We were all part of it and the coat wouldn't fit me and Desimi's more impressive-looking than I am anyway."
Desimi, after several attempts at refusal that both seemed to please the man and make him increasingly adamant, finally said, "Thank you," in awkward Shenryalan, and an actual cheer rose around them. Someone dropped a fur-lined hat on Rasim's head, and he started sweating as much as the little ones were. He had hardly anything he could offer in exchange, but the giver seemed delighted when Rasim uncertainly loosened his tunic's belt and placed it in their hands.
