The road herded the travelers to the edge of the mountain pass. Alize faced forward and dreaded the thinning of the trees. Behind them, the mountains slouched towards the horizon like cantankerous beasts accepting defeat. The Hrumi path east kept to the shelter of the forests, but now Alize would follow her travel companions south, to the world of endless horizon over scraggled grasses and sweeping sand.
This time of year, the weather changed quickly on the steppes. Only weeks earlier, travelers would have slowed their steeds to cope with the unrelenting heat of the summer sun. But summer heat killed only the unprepared. Winter dropped temperatures so low that it killed without mercy in the night.
The trodden road expanded before the travelers and the clouds streaking overhead seemed to mirror it. The steppe vegetation stretched to infinity into the distance until there was no longer a pattern, just a mass of speckled vista underneath a sky pale with dust. Alize shielded her eyes from the sunlight as she followed her companions. Loose sand blew across their path like thin filament fabric, folding and unfolding until the horses’ hooves trampled it into the earth once more.
The dry air rustled Alize’s trousers, cold, though the bare sunlight singed her skin. Alize wove her fingers through Josoun’s mane, pressed her palms against his neck. Like her, he knew the steppes. Here, the same wind that made notched ripples in the sand could catch a person’s words and twist them into unspoken syllables and new meanings. The Hrumi told stories of willow women wandering lost, eyes bloodshot, chasing gusts they claimed whispered their names. Such could be the cost of dehydration and cold. But theirs was a peril of mind and body; Alize risked her very soul by trading the safety of the forest for a Sargon’s company on this road.
As the men pressed forward against the gale, Alize rode far enough behind them to avoid refuge in their wind shadows. The cold teased tears from her eyes and she brushed them irascibly into her sleeves. They were piteous sacrifices to her dignity. Never had it felt so fragile.
I do this for my magic, she repeated each time a new discomfort arose. That’s the only reason I’m here. But even that assurance could not wholly distract her from deeper, more disturbing thoughts.
What would Celillie think of me now?
In every way Alize considered it, Celillie’s renunciation defied logic. Perhaps, Alize wondered, Celillie had known about the other magic she had been carrying, and had renounced her for that reason. And perhaps now that the Mage had cleansed it from her, she could return home.
Alize feared this hope. She had been taught that a renunciation was permanent as a severed limb, leaving only the memory of a hand being held. Officially, Alize could no longer claim to be a Hrumi. She was cast out from the only identity she had ever had. That truth prowled in her mind and nothing Alize did could placate it.
Being a Hrumi clanmember had meant knowing her existence transcended into something greater. She was a guardian of the weak, a champion of the beleaguered. Losing her clan had robbed her of her responsibilies, and her purpose.
Worse still, she now traveled with two strange men, one of them a violent aggressor of her people. Unprecendented though it was, Alize needed them and for the moment their mission was all that separated her from an aimless existence. She oscillated between doubting the impulse that lured her forward and mourning everything she had left behind.
One problem at a time. First my magic. Then I can reverse Celillie’s renunciation. Somehow.
Onder and Davram would trot their horses abreast to exchange stories. At first they kept their voices soft, but in the open steppes, either they spoke louder to compensate for the silence, or the silence latched onto the sounds and amplified them. Onder’s deep laugh resonated in Alize’s stomach, underneath the bruises Celillie had left. Each time she heard it, Alize hunched on Josoun. Davram laughed rarely but when he did, it carried across the landscape. For brief moments, it seemed stronger than even the silence.
The Sargon faced the grasslands as he had the forest, his shoulders high, his eyes sharp. He guided his steed with tight movements that the beast followed without hesitation. In him, Alize saw a man who knew something of command.
Two days passed over them, and Davram avoided Alize exactly as she had demanded. It confused her, for she steeled herself for cruelty, or if not that, condescension. Instead Davram diligently granted Alize distance by riding ahead or behind. When he caught her studying him, he would give her a curt nod.
Her curiosity did not abate as her fear did.
The third evening, the travelers stopped at an abandoned caravanserai half-swallowed by the sand. Someone had recently left a garland of juniper branches with singed tips on the threshold of the doorway. The Hrumi put the same protection emblem on their tents.
Alize said a silent blessing to Rehsan to see that the spring was outside the structure so she would not have to venture into the darkness within. That was the darkness of men, shrouded in smooth stones with sharp angles.
Davram dismounted and hastened to assist Onder, who was battling his robe free of a bush. They bickered as its thorns kept catching, though neither sounded annoyed. When Onder finally untangled himself, Alize watched the Sargon detach his lumpy satchel from his horse.
“Tell me,” Alize murmured as she rummaged through her own sac, “How does a Sargon become companion to a Magi?”
Davram tilted his gaze to Onder. It afforded enough time for everyone to remember that Alize had forbidden him to speak to her.
Alize pretended not to notice.
Onder answered for him. “With a lot of patience and forgiveness. We met several years ago in Parousia’s capital. Davram has been a much better guide for me in both the cities and the wilderness than I have ever been to myself.”
Davram cleared his throat, nodding to Onder. “Surprisingly, Magi, while brilliant, can sometimes be…oh…what’s the word?”
“Inattentive?” Onder volunteered.
“Scatterbrained.” Davram said with a grin.
Onder made a face and then shrugged. It gave Alize a sinking feeling that the men were trying to be funny.
After completing his task, Davram yawned and stretched his arms. Alize felt her jaw muscles twitch too, but she suppressed the reflex. Beside her Onder followed Davram’s lead, yawning loudly.
Over dinner, Onder described their destination. Mizre was the first gated city on the steppe highway and the High Prince of Parousia usually appointed a distant cousin or nephew to oversee it. Considered somewhat of a backwater, Mizre princes rarely became contenders for the Parousia throne, and apparently the current appointee was discontent with his position. The town’s merchant trade fueled its modest economy, but rumors abound that its prince was building his wealth by preying on the passing travelers.
“The problem is,” Davram explained as he plucked breadcrumbs from his beard, “we definitely do not want Prince Basar’s attention. A captured Hrumi is always worth gold, and Parousia Sargon may well be too in that city. I don’t have my armor but you,” he gestured to Alize, “you need to find something else to wear.”
Alize sighed. “You’re my disguise - a Hrumi never travels with men.”
“Then,” Davram’s grave expression did not waver, “you’re a whole new breed of interesting, and we can’t afford that.”
Alize conceded to wear Davram’s spare clothes in lieu of her Hrumi attire. When he saw her, he frowned heavily. “You don’t look like a boy. If anyone asks, say you’re twelve.”
Alize was about to retort when Davram squatted and grasped the pant hem at her left foot. He folded it up until it no longer dragged on the ground, and then performed the same with her right leg. Then he rose and inspected Alize again, still frowning. She stiffened as he re-cinched her chiton belt and tucked a loose strand of her hair under her cap. Half of her revolted in disbelief and the other half begrudgingly appreciated his attention to detail.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Still Davram shook his head in defeat. “Everyone is going to be wondering whose daughter I’m eloping with.”
Before Alize could respond, Onder sighed heavily, “Well, at least this is one place where I doubt that anyone will care.”
Other travelers passed them on the road, all harried against the amber sky and the horizon. The first time they crossed a party, Davram pulled his horse between Alize and the strangers. He spoke terse words of greeting that discouraged further engagement.
He was unidentifiable as a Sargon except by the sheathed sword against his back, concealed under his coat. After some discussion, Onder had decided that he too would go incognito. He enchanted his Mage’s staff to resemble the polished wooden pole of a chief’s guard. Anyone passing would think Davram an inconsequential chieftain with a single attendant and an elderly companion.
The road skirted between solitary wagons of herders and spilled into the occasional agricultural settlements with doors that shut firmly as the travelers passed. Little stone lions guarded the wells they passed, crumbling to dust with their mouths open and lumps where their teeth had been.
The approach to Mizre was stark in contrast. The city was posed on a rocky outcrop that gave full vantage over the landscape. The irrigated fields emanating from it formed a green boundary against the untamed steppes. White powder caked in some of the ditches, the accumulated salt of centuries of irrigation. Tattered rags, rotting food and mangled cart remnants lined either side of the rutted road as parallel masses of detritus. The colors were not unlike the forests’ autumn discards, though the refuse of men would neither wither with the winter nor renew with the spring.
Alize wrinkled her nose as they passed an animal carcass.
Beside her, Davram bowed his head in dour acknowledgement. “Don’t think that all cities are like this. Mizre just happens to be run by someone who doesn’t much care for infrastructure.”
But Alize quickly forgot his words. Inside the city gate, the buildings seemed taller than most trees, sheltering entire ecosystems of chattering human voices. Windows glowered overhead in every direction, framing a sky nearly forgotten behind crisscrossed lines of drying clothing. Garlands of juniper twigs decordated most doorways. Shop signs dipped into the streets, with whirling designs in gold and fresh copper and more colors than sunsets. Melons, ceramic pots of yogurt and dried plants piled high under windows, and creations of iron and glass lay strewn in pieces on painted tabletops. Everywhere men and women berated each other about high prices and counterclaims of poverty. People pushed through the space, shoulder to shoulder, but somehow without interrupting the steady shuffle of the street’s rhythm. The Hrumi camp was never so crowded, even in springtime when all the clanmembers returned for the dagger binding ceremony.
Underfoot, scrawny dogs scattered dust from their paws as they dodged between the murmuring robes of the townswomen. These were the willow women the Hrumi pitied, the women who would never know strength or freedom. Alize watched their skirts swirl with their steps, utterly unlike her Hrumi attire. Some of the women wore their hair free so it flowed with their clothing, while others kept their tresses partially covered with sheer veils of saffon yellows and poppy reds. Alize avoided their faces and their lilting laughter. She had never met a willow woman, and something about their easy smiles and bright eyes unnerved her. She had not imagined that there was more than one way to be graceful.
Mingling with the woodsmoke and pungent sweetness of sizzling meat, a bellowing instrument she could not name trembled a melody reminiscent of Hrumi verse, but with a completely different refrain.
The Hrumi stories had captured very little of this reality, likening the sun to a flickering match.
“Stop gaping,” Davram chided in a whisper, “we gave you a disguise so you’d fit in.”
Alize caught herself and fixed her gaze on Josoun’s mane. “I wasn’t gaping.”
“And I’m a woman dressed as a man,” Davram responded dryly.
They arrived at a plaza lined with sycamores and staunch cypress trees.
Onder gestured to the dusty building before of them. “Tonight’s caravanserai.” Alize’s eyes widened to see the windows on the second and third level above the ground floor. She had heard of buildings so tall to have staircases on the inside, but she had never expected to visit one herself.
It took some convincing for Alize to agree to part with Josoun for the night, but Davram was adamant that no alternative existed in the city. He led her to the stable, where he had to duck under the rafters of the low ceiling. Alize traced her fingertips over the rusty nails joining the splintering wood while Davram directed the horse handler.
When Davram paused in his instructions, Alize observed a figure entering the stable, his jaw dropping. Davram resumed speaking almost instantly and both men’s attentions shifted. Under Alize’s watchful eyes, neither gave any further hint of recognition.
“Should I be informed about other people here?” Alize inquired as they joined Onder to climb the twisting staircase to the inn’s second floor. Cracks ran through the yellowing walls, and bits of plaster collected with pebbles in the corners of each stair.
Davram grunted, waving his hand dismissively.
Alize narrowed her eyes and feigned incomprehension. “Who was the man in the stabl-”
“Wait on that, will you?” Davram interrupted. “I’ll explain.”
But when the key clicked in the lock, they found the same young man already seated inside their room. Seeing the window ajar, Alize wondered if he had scaled the caravanserai’s stonework the same way she climbed the forests’ trees.
Rising in greeting, the young man discarded his tattered cap to reveal curly black hair underneath. “What a surprise to see you, Davram!” he exclaimed, embracing the Sargon before bowing to Onder in respect. “Mage Onder, it is always a pleasure.”
Onder bowed back. “Davram suspected we’d find you here. You’ll note we’ve brought company.”
After his eyes flashed to Alize, the newcomer glanced again between Davram and Onder. “Someone I should know?”
“No, no.” But Davram’s response carried no conviction, leaving Alize wondering why.
The young man crossed the room to Alize. Since Onder and Davram remained quiet, Alize did too, but she matched his brazen stare with her own gaze.
Because he stood a full head taller than her, Alize had to raise her chin to observe him. He was still catching his breath from his climb but there was nothing unsettled in his posture. His gray chiton fell to his knees and was tied in the middle with a white cloth belt. Its sleeves stopped at his elbows, and from underneath it emerged a vibrant russet fabric that reached his wrists, tight around his forearms. His trouser’s matched the material and cut of the pair that Davram had given Alize, though his hems were left unfolded.
He came so close to Alize she nearly stepped backwards before forcing herself to keep her feet planted. But, as if he had somehow sensed her uneasiness, he stepped backwards, allowing her more space. His jaw had a slight shadow of a shaven beard. Despite his black hair, under his smooth lids and dark lashes, his eyes were the warm muddled brown of damp soil. For an instantt, Alize caught her own reflection in them, distorted against the curve of his pupils. And what does he see?
The tips of his lips danced upwards. “A strange travel companion.”
“She thought she’d pass for a boy.”
Alize acknowledged the failed subterfuge with a sardonic smile before stepping aside.
“This is Alize.” Davram seemed to speak with unnecessary intensity. “A lady of the wilds.”
Alize jerked to glare at Davram, to have betrayed her identity so quickly.
The young man’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Then this is honor,” he murmured, “I’m Kell.”
Still Alize said nothing, her every reaction understated and purposefully reticent in such an acutely unfamiliar situation.
Davram filled in the silence. “Kell trained under me in Parousia’s capital. He’s spying in Mizre these days, mostly.”
Oh. Alize saw Davram’s meaning. Another Sargon.
“He’s also not a soultrusser,” Davram heaved, guessing her thoughts.
Alize folded her arms. She had not spoken a word. Now she saw no reason to.
Though her curiosity dissipated, Kell’s evidently did not. “But, are you…” he began, but he trailed off when he saw Davram shake his head.
“I brought you something,” the older Sargon bellowed instead. He flopped a sac onto the bed. “In case you’d run out.”
Kell cleared his throat as he released Alize from his gaze. She found herself exhaling a deep breath. She had not noticed holding it.
“Ha,” Kell responded, snatching up the sac. He split open a pistachio nut and crunched it between his teeth. “I’ve already run out twice this week.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About two months. Last week I was in Taraz, but that’s over now.” A sadness in Kell’s voice faded almost before Alize noticed it. “Otherwise nothing too much is happening save for those earthquakes. Tamer was supposed to come through yesterday but we’ve heard nothing and-” Davram silenced Kell with a castigating look.
“I saw Tamer on the road, he was…delayed.”
Alize directed her attention a piece of rounded gravel stuck between the stone floor slabs. She recognized the name of the commander in the forest. Davram could not know the role she had played interrogating the soldiers. Nor should they, she resolved, to them, I am Hrumi. Nothing more, nothing less.
She pressed past the three men to enter an attached smaller room with a thin couch against the wall. It sagged with Alize’s weight, almost confirming her weariness. The frayed cloth covering the cushions felt coarse against her skin. Alize closed her eyes, letting her exhaustion engulf her.
The windowpanes rattled and a cold draft settled over Alize. Opening her eyes, she winced and in the window her reflection winced back at her, shrouded in darkness. Alize studied the face. Is this a Hrumi? Her reflection held none of the confidence of all the Hrumi she had known. Or the Hrumi she had believed herself to be.
She shut the door firmly, but beyond it, the men muttered together as the space darkened in the descending twilight. Like the trees, Alize caught their emotions even without words. She heard urgency, caution and optimism. Such emotions in the voices of Sargons confused her, the last most of all. That Sargons could be capable of something so tender as hope felt disconcerting.
“You’d better go, hostler,” Davram told Kell quietly. Alize missed his response, though she heard Davram’s low reply, “You have no idea.”
Kell’s footfalls across the room rang no more audible than Alize’s own steps in the forest, culminating in his window exit with the same absence of fanfare. Each movement signaled his agility, the same skill Alize honed, corrupted to benefit a Sargon. He hunted the Hrumi and soultrussed any he caught. How many sisters had he already condemned to agony? Alize shuddered. Whatever his smiles, if he were well trained and obedient to his prince, it could not bode well for her.