The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (8 page)

Alanna braced her free hand on Kourrem's shoulder. "I don't understand."

Ali Mukhtab rose to stand beside the headman. "Halef Seif is right. You have slain the old shaman. You must now take his place until you teach a new shaman, or until one slays you."

It was too much. "That's crazy!" Alanna shouted, her voice cracking with weariness. "I'm not—I'm a knight! I've never taught sorcery—"

"Would you leave us defenseless against the shamans of the hillmen?" Halef asked quietly. Alanna closed her mouth, remembering the Bazhir tales of the hill-sorcerers. "That is the law. That is our custom." He opened the door flap of the shaman's tent. "This is your home now, Woman Who Rides Like a Man."

For a moment Alanna's violet eyes met those of the Voice and of the headman fiercely. She did not want to spend time bound to one place; she was searching for adventure! Another wave of exhaustion swept her, and she looked away. Faithful sat expectantly before the open door, waiting.

"I don't care if it's home or a grave-digger's hut," she sighed. "I just want a place to lie down." With Kara and Kourrem supporting her, still clutching the crystal sword, she entered the shaman's tent.

* * *

4—Studies in Sorcery

One of Alanna's first acts as shaman of the Bloody Hawk was to approach Ali Mukhtab and Halef Seif about training replacements: Kara, Kourrem, and Ishak. "Ishak knows some magic," she told them. "And all three must've developed some control, or this village wouldn't be here still. It doesn't take much learning to be a shaman, and they would be better than Ibn Nazzir ever was."

The men thought her proposal over for long moments, their faces unreadable. Alanna tried to keep from fidgeting. Where would she find other likely candidates, if she couldn't train these three? Also, giving the outcasts shaman status would go a long way toward redressing the wrong Ibn Nazzir had done them, to her way of thinking.

"To make girls shamans is a new thing," Ali Mukhtab said at last. "But this tribe has done many things that are new since the coming of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man."

"Our shaman now is also a woman," Halef added, smiling just a little.

"You like this, then?" Mukhtab asked.

The headman's smile broadened. "I think it will be very interesting to watch. Certainly the young ones will obey
this
shaman."

Mukhtab nodded. "It will be done," he told Alanna. "May the gods smile on you."

Alanna levered herself to her feet. "Thank you," she said. "I'm probably going to need the gods smiling on me."

The three were waiting for her when she returned to the tent. Alanna looked around, satisfied. The place looked very different from the way it had the afternoon she had first lurched inside. Brass and silver shone softly in the lamplight. The carpets glowed in their original deep colors. The hangings that separated the temple from her living area were spotless.
It's actually pleasant to come home to,
she thought.

"You asked us to wait for you here," Kourrem, ever-forthright, told her. "You talked with the headman and the Voice. Are we in trouble?"

Alanna shook her head, accepting the date wine Ishak poured for her. "We were talking about you, yes," she replied. "But you aren't in trouble. I wanted their permission to train you as shamans. They said I could."

For a moment three pairs of eyes—the girls' dark-brown, the boy's brownish-gray—stared at her. Kourrem started to cry.

"I thought you didn't wish to talk about magic, ever," Ishak reminded her, puzzled.

Kara had joined Kourrem, upsetting Alanna. "Girls, stop that. I didn't mean to make you cry; drink some of this wine." She told Ishak, "I said that without knowing the girls hadn't been trained at all, and you only a little. Kourrem, Kara,
please
don't cry. Yes, I'm sick of magic; but someone has to teach you three, and I'm it. Listen to me." She sat down on a pillow with a sigh. The girls were reduced to sniffles; she had everyone's attention. "While I was a page, then a squire, in the palace, there was a man—the King's nephew, my Prince's cousin. Duke Roger was the greatest sorcerer in the Eastern Lands. He was handsome, well-liked, charming. I felt I was the only person in the world who knew he meant my Prince no good, that he caused accidents that nearly killed Jonathan. I think he had me kidnapped by the enemy when we fought Tusaine. Then, when I took the Ordeal of Knighthood two moons ago, I learned he had used his sorcery to blind everyone—including me, in a way—to his plans. He wanted to kill the Queen. I accused him before the King and the entire Court. Roger demanded a trial by combat."

She drew a deep breath. This was painful. "We fought. He—cut through—" She blushed, unsure of what to say. "I had disguised myself as a boy—" She waved her hands around her chest area, turning redder than before.

Quick-witted Kourrem saved her. "You mean you bound your chest so it was flat, and he cut through the binding."

Alanna nodded. "When he found out—when everyone found out—that I was a girl, he went crazy. He attacked with a sword
and
with magic, but he didn't attack just me. His sorcery would've killed the King, or Jonathan. I had to stop him, so I killed him. Ever since then, I've felt magic—any kind of magic—is too easily used for evil." She drew a deep breath. "But ignoring magic is worse. It's like this crystal sword." She touched the blade she now wore at her waist. "I ignored it, and Ibn Nazzir was able to turn it against me. I have to keep it for myself, and master it, so it can never be used against me again. That's what you three must learn to do with
your
magic, or it will turn on you." She rubbed her nose, embarrassed. She was not one for speeches. She was just realizing that she had let herself in for a large number of them. "We start in the morning. You'd best get your sleep."

The next minute she was drowning in gleeful teenagers who insisted on hugging and kissing her. She shooed them out and closed the tent flap for the night, shaking her head. "This training will be good for them," she told Faithful as she prepared to go to bed.

The cat watched her, his tail twitching lazily.
It will be good for you, too,
he commented.
It might even make an adult of you, but I doubt that.

Alanna glared at him as she wound herself into her blankets. "I'm glad I have you to keep me humble," she muttered as she readied herself for sleep.

I'm glad you do, too,
Faithful replied, settling himself by her nose.

*

The tomb was dark and still. Behind her the door was sealed shut by a slab of rock the palace servants had placed there. Before her, on a granite block, lay the body of Duke Roger of Conté. He looked as if he slept, well-preserved by the arts of the Black God's priests. His black velvet tunic hid the shoulder wound and the thrust through his chest that had ended her duel with him. There was no sound in the tomb. He was dead.

His eyes snapped open. She stepped back, her heart thudding with horror. He smiled.

Alanna threw her covers aside and rolled out of bed, shaking. Lurching to her feet, she ran out of the tent with Faithful just behind her. Once outside she stood panting in the cold night breeze, feeling chills as it struck her sweat-soaked body.

*

The first magic you learn is fire-making," she told her pupils. They were in the desert not far from the village. Alanna didn't want to be near people or tents, in case of accidents. A warrior of the tribe stood a safe distance away, his bow strung and ready. The hillmen were too near for anyone to risk going far without a guard.

Alanna put a twig down on top of several others. "It's easy for anyone who has the Gift at all to make a fire or to create light," she went on, feeling uncomfortable. She had taught combat arts to pages and squires before, but never sorcery; she was worried that she might do something wrong. "You look at what you want to burn—later you won't have to look at it—and you picture it burning. Then you
want
it to burn."

"What if I don't want it to burn?" Kara asked.

"You
have
to want it to burn," Alanna said. "Otherwise why would you be trying this spell?"

"Oh."

"The source of all your magic lies in your own will," Alanna continued. "Things happen because you want them to. It's like anything else in life—becoming a warrior, or a good shaman, or a good cook—it will happen if you want it badly enough. If you focus your will, and see that thing burning in your mind, then what you want becomes real. The thing will burn. Kara, you try first."

The taller of the girls squinted at the pile of twigs, sweat pouring down her face as she concentrated. A tiny puff of smoke drifted up, but it soon died. "That's good for the first time," Alanna told her. "
I
couldn't raise a little smoke when I first tried. All right, Kourrem."

Kourrem scowled at the twigs; her eyebrows knitted together. At last she shook her head. "I don't think I want it badly enough." She sighed.

"You want to be a shaman, don't you?' Alanna asked her.

Kourrem's face lit up. "Yes!"

"You can't be a shaman if you can't do this. Even Akhnan Ibn Nazzir could light a fire."

Kourrem's eyes widened with alarm. In the next moment sparks flew from the pile of twigs.

Alanna grinned. "See?" She waited for the flurry of sparks to die out, then pointed to Ishak. "You next."

Grinning smugly, the youth pointed at the wood. It flared up in a spout of flame, instantly consumed. Alanna looked at him for a long moment, itching to slap the cocky look off his face. She knew the emotion was unworthy of her; Ishak had simply wanted to show off a little. Getting her temper under control, she nodded. "I forgot you already knew some fire-magic. Before we go any further, I'd better find out exactly what each of you can do."

"I can do fire and light," Ishak announced. "I can find things. Sometimes I can see things that are going to be."

"He dreamed that you would make our lives good," Kara put in eagerly. "We laughed at him because he said a woman who was a warrior would be the one. That was the day before Halef Seif brought you to our tribe."

Alanna nodded. "What about you, Kara? Have you seen things become different because you wanted them to? Do you see pictures in the fire?"

"Things move when I am angry," Kara whispered, blushing. "Sometimes they fly through the air. Then I am beaten."

"She makes the wind blow," Ishak volunteered. "And it rains when she cries. Not always, but sometimes."

"Weather magic," Alanna said. "As a shaman you'll find it useful. Kourrem?"

"I don't know," the youngest of them admitted. "Sometimes I see balls of colored fire, and I play with them. The old people like me to come when they're sick; they say I make them feel better. I thought it was because I tell them stories, but—" Her eyes were hopeful as she looked at Alanna.

Remembering how Duke Baird had tested her on the day Jonathan took the Sweating Sickness, Alanna held out her hand. "I slept badly last night," she told Kourrem. "I still feel tired. Take my hand and make me feel better."

Kourrem reached out, then pulled her hand back. "I don't know how."

"Find your own strength, and then shove some of it through your hand into me," Alanna instructed. "Go on."

Kourrem obeyed. The next moment Alanna felt a tingling energy flooding into her body, making the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. She yanked her hand away, and shook the tingling out of it. "I was only a
little
tired," she told the girl, who looked as if she was about to cry. "You didn't need to give me so much!" She looked at them, bracing her hands on her hips. "We need to think about what you should learn," she admitted. "You each already know something, or you couldn't control your magic as well as you do."

"How do you know that?" Kara asked.