LITMIR.BIZ

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think I’m worthy.’

      Apanador looked at Ammadin for her opinion.

      ‘You’re welcome to stay,’ she said to Zayn. ‘But only if you’re willing to become a man. I know you’re a man among your people, but to us, you’re still a boy. You haven’t gone on your vision quest and learned your true name.’

      ‘I’ve heard about that. Will the Spirit Rider tell me what to do?’

      ‘Of course. It’s one of my duties.’ She glanced at Apanador. ‘I’ll consult the spirits and find an auspicious day.’

      ‘Good,’ Apanador said. ‘Then we’ll head to the Mistlands when we break camp.’ He turned back to Zayn. ‘Our boys go to the Mistlands for their vision quests. Do you know about them?’

      ‘Every officer on the border has heard of them, but I’ve never had a chance to see them.’

      ‘You’re going to now,’ Ammadin said. ‘Boys vigil there in the summer.’

      ‘What about the girls?’

      ‘Girls quest in the winter, down in the swamp-forests by the ocean.’

      ‘That’s interesting. May I ask why there’s a difference? Did the gods –’

      ‘No.’ Ammadin paused for a smile. ‘It’s just not safe to go into the Mistlands in the winter. The lakes are swarming with ChaMeech then. They must come from all over.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. Maybe they send their children on vigils, too.’

      ‘You can talk later,’ Apanador broke in. ‘Let’s put this matter to the comnee.’

      Near the smothered fire-pit Apanador gathered the comnee together and put forward his proposal. Every adult had the right to speak out, either for or against allowing Zayn into the comnee; the majority vote would decide. One at a time, everyone agreed to allow him in, until Apanador turned to Palindor. Ammadin was far from surprised when Palindor spat out a futile no.

      ‘And what do you have against Zayn?’ Apanador said.

      ‘He’s a Kazrak. Isn’t that enough?’

      ‘No, it isn’t. He’s a Kazrak smart enough to leave his bizarre khanate and come to us.’

      When the rest of the comnee laughed, Palindor rested his hand on the hilt of his long knife. ‘He’s also a man who offended the great chiefs of his country. He broke his own laws. Who’s to say that he won’t do the same to ours someday?’ Palindor looked around, appealing to the crowd. ‘Do you really want to ride with a man who’d lie to a chief?’

      ‘I never lied.’ Zayn stepped forward. ‘He never even asked me if I was sleeping with his wife, and by God Himself, if he had, I would have told him to his face. She was that beautiful.’

      When this drew a good laugh, Palindor’s hand went tight on his knife’s hilt.

      ‘Palindor, the comnee’s already agreed,’ Apanador said. ‘If someday Zayn betrays us, well, then, you’ll have the wonderful satisfaction of saying I-told-you-so to all of us. You’ll have to be content with that.’

      ‘And if I’m not?’ Palindor snapped.

      Some of the women gasped.

      ‘Then you’ll have to go back to your mother’s comnee,’ Apanador said. ‘Maybe your sister will let you guard her horses.’

      Blushing a furious scarlet, Palindor strode off into the darkness. When Dallador started after him, Apanador caught his arm.

      ‘Talking to him right now won’t do any good. After he’s had a chance to think, I’ll take him aside. Zayn, let’s go drink in my tent. There’s a lot you need to know.’

      In a group the men surrounded Zayn and led him off. All sly smiles, Maradin hurried over to join Ammadin.

      ‘Now isn’t this interesting? So you want to have Zayn riding with us, do you?’

      ‘You’re being tedious. It doesn’t take the spirit power to know what you’re thinking, Maddi, and no, I have no intention of marrying him.’

      ‘Hah!’

      ‘Oh, shut up! Why are you always trying to get me to marry some lout?’

      ‘Well, for the children, of course.’ Maradin seemed honestly surprised that she’d ask. ‘What are you going to do when you’re old, and you don’t have any granddaughters? Who are you going to leave your horses to?’

      ‘Your granddaughters, probably. You don’t understand. The spirit knowledge is all I’ve ever wanted, and it’ll be more comfort than a hundred daughters when I’m old.’

      Maradin thought this over. ‘Well, maybe so – for you,’ she said at last. ‘But come on, you’ve got to admit that Zayn’s a handsome man.’

      ‘Take him as a lover if you like him so much. I’m not going to.’

      ‘Hah!’

      ‘Oh, stop saying hah!’

      Ammadin turned her back on Maradin and strode away. She was beginning to regret ever picking Zayn up off the streets of Blosk.

      Out away from the camp, in the quiet, her anger ebbed away. She lay down on her back in the crackling grass and considered the night sky. Just overhead hung the Herd, as the Tribes called the spiral of light that the Kazraks had named the Spider. Galloping down fast from the north came the Six Riders, silver and bright against the dead, dark sky. Shamans like Ammadin knew lore lost to the Kazraks, that there were actually sixty riders, ten groups of six apiece, that galloped in formations whose return and permutations were as predictable as the rising of the sun. These flying lamps – or maybe they were tiny worlds; opinions differed – controlled the spirits of the crystals.

      And just what, she wondered, was the Herd? She sat up, considering. Her teacher had told her that powerful spirits had gashed the heavenly sphere to allow light from the spirit world to shine through and give the Tribes light in the darkness. Loremasters in the Cantons claimed that suns, thousands and thousands of them altogether, had clustered together to form the Herd. The points of light looked so small only because they lay at some unimaginable distance in the sky. Why would spirits perform such a mighty act of magic just to help the lowly H’mai? Or, if there were other suns, did other worlds circle them? Wouldn’t they bump into each other, in that case? Neither theory made sense.

      In the morning, while the rest of the comnee packed the wagons, Ammadin rode back to the stream to check her spirit pearls. She found the sticks, and when she knelt on the bank she saw the two shrivelled pearls still lying where they’d been the day before. They had definitely grown smaller and more wizened overnight. The smooth spherical pearls that had lain near them had disappeared, twitching themselves downstream, she assumed. Why would the gods object if she took a dead thing out of the water? Despite the logic of her own argument, she had to summon courage before she could reach into the stream and pick up one of the dead pearls.

      The surface felt like a saur’s eyeball, cold gel in a membrane. She brought it up and laid it on the flattened leaves of a red fern, but as soon as the air touched it, it began to shrink and pucker. She drew her knife and slashed it in half. The interior liquid spilled and ran, leaving thin milky husks to shrivel in the air. In the centre lay something as small as a bead. She slid the point of her knife under a little clot of tissue, touched with pale orange blood.

      ‘Exactly like the lizard eggs!’

      Ammadin used her free hand to dig a tiny grave on the bank, then laid both embryos inside and covered them. She washed the blade of her knife clean, dried it on her tunic, and sheathed it. Apparently the spirit pearls were nothing but the eggs of some animal – a fish, perhaps?

      ‘But why would they be Bane?’

       Witchwoman,

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