Watersmeet (6 page)

Lilas tilted her head as if listening for something. Abisina waited one moment, two, but Lilas showed no sign of moving on. Abisina fumbled at her tunic belt, pulling out Paleth’s pebble. Holding the stone in her hand, she thought of Paleth—unconscious and hidden somewhere in the village.
Let her be safe!
she thought fervently. And then, she drew her hand back and threw the pebble as hard as she could down the lane behind Lilas. The plunk of the pebble on the packed dirt made Lilas spin around just as a knot of villagers entered the lane, carrying torches.

“They’re headed toward the gate!” someone in the gang cried.

Lilas took one last look around her and raced toward the villagers, leaving Abisina in the silent shadows.

Thank you, Paleth!
Abisina set off in the opposite direction.

She stayed next to the huts, glancing down each lane or alley before she crossed.

As she got farther away from the village center, the cries of “Die for Charach and Vran!” grew fainter. But a few alleyways before Bryla’s hut, she ran into six or seven boys about her age, carrying sticks and rocks, also headed toward the gate. The gang stopped as the lead boy called out, “Someone’s there!” He scanned the lane in front of him. Abisina slid farther into the shadows, but she tripped and landed hard against a hut’s mud wall. At the sound of her fall, one boy looked right at her.

She knew him. His name was Corlin. She’d been to his hut once when his mother had the fever. Sina had wrapped the sleeping Abisina in plenty of skins against the bitter cold outside while she tended Corlin’s mother. But his father had found her and carried her in. Abisina still had the vague memory of waking up in the strong arms of Corlin’s father and being laid gently by the fire.

But his father wasn’t here now. She braced herself for Corlin’s shout.

“It’s nothing!” he cried. “The outcasts are at the gate!”

She knew Corlin saw her.
Is he protecting me? Is it possible?

The leader of the gang started to run toward the gate, followed by the rest, but one older boy hesitated. “No, someone’s there!”

He took a step forward, but Corlin got ahead of him, reaching the edge of the lane and peering into the darkness where Abisina held her breath. “There’s no one here,” Corlin said.

“I saw someone,” the boy insisted.

“If there was someone, he’s gone now.”

Abisina longed to run, but hesitated.
Can I trust him?

“Go!” Corlin breathed.

It was all she needed. She slipped down the alley as Corlin yelled, “Is that fire by the gate?” She kept moving, gaining speed until she was again at a full run. No one chased her.

Tears filled her eyes as she spotted Bryla’s hut and her mother ducking under the low lintel. “Mama!” she cried.

Sina looked up in surprise. “Abisina! I just finished—”

“Charach! They’re after me—after the outcasts!”

In a glance, Sina took in her daughter’s pale face, the shouts, and the glow of flames to the south. She grabbed Abisina, pulled her around the corner, and began to run along the lane between the back row of huts and the village wall. They stopped at a ladder propped against the wall, used by outcasts to get to the forest for firewood. A second ladder for getting down the other side lay on the ground, pulled in for safety.

“Climb,” Sina whispered. “I will lower you from the top, and you can drop to the ground.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll jump. It will be all right.” But she pulled Abisina back before she could go. “Listen to me, Abisina! To get to Watersmeet—”

“Mama! We have to go! Now!”

“If we get separated—” Sina gripped her daughter’s wrist. “There is a pass between Mount Sumus and Mount Arduus, at the entrance of the Obrun Mines.”

“Mama—”

“Listen!” Sina clutched Abisina’s wrist tighter. “Your father said I would find Watersmeet at the meeting of three rivers. And Abisina—this is very important. He can help us. Tell him about Charach. Tell your father what happened here!”

“Why are you doing this?” Abisina cried. “We’ll be together!”

“Yes—we will be together, but I feel better now.” Sina hugged her daughter and then checked the lane. It was empty. “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”

But now Abisina clung to her mother’s hand.

“Go!” Sina repeated, and Abisina did.

She was halfway up before the ladder shuddered from her mother’s weight. She almost lost her balance but kept climbing, the top of the wall three rungs away.

“Outcasts!” The cry came from nearby.

“Keep going!” Sina shouted.

Abisina climbed faster. Feet ran from different directions, drawing closer.

“There’s no time. Jump!” Sina commanded as Abisina reached the top of the wall. She swung her leg over and looked down at the hard ground. The wall had never seemed so high. The ladder lurched beneath her. “Now!” her mother cried, and Abisina put her other leg into the air, held the top of the wall for an instant, and dropped.

She landed with a teeth-jarring thud and fell against the rough logs of the wall. Her ankles screamed from the impact and she tasted blood in her mouth, but she stumbled away, clearing a place for her mother to land.

She looked up and saw her mother’s head silhouetted against the flame-lit sky. Suddenly, it jerked out of sight.

A cry rose from the crowd.

It must have been the middle of the night when Abisina heard the Great Gate opening on the far side of the village wall. She crouched in the brush at the edge of the trees where she had been waiting since the moon rose. Fire glowed above the walls of Vranille, and the village still rang with hateful cries.
They’re burning outcasts’ huts. Is one of them ours? Is my mother—

She refused to finish her thought. The village would not harm their healer.
Mama will come to me once the village is calmer.

But what about Paleth, Jorno, the other outcasts? She imagined Paleth found by the mob, Jorno run down as he fled. She heard again the whoops of triumph as her mother had disappeared from the top of the wall. And she couldn’t close her eyes without recalling the terrifying darkness of Charach’s gaze.

Now the Great Gate was opening. Months had passed since the village last raised it, fear of raids forcing them to use the Lesser Gate to get to the fields and river. What was making them open it now, in the waning hours of the night?

Abisina couldn’t see the gate from where she hid, but soon a bobbing light appeared from around the side of the village. Then another. And another. A silent snake of torches grew longer and longer until Abisina was sure the entire village had left its walls. Were they going to burn the village, too?

The line bent toward a point on the edge of the forest about half a league east of where Abisina hid. They were going to the village burial ground!

But burials are never held at night.
She strained her eyes in the darkness, seeing nothing except the bobbing torches. The wind blew away any voices that might have reached her.

Abisina began to creep closer to the burial ground. What can it mean?

The light of the torches was swallowed up by the tall pines standing sentinel. She hurried forward, but she was stopped by a sound that chilled her—an otherworldly scream. Then a finger of red and purple flame shot from the clearing inside the circle of pines.

Abisina stared at the flame growing higher and brighter, but she willed herself to keep moving. In the lurid light, she could pick her way among the trees more quickly, and soon she ducked under the branches of one of the enormous pines. Next to the trunk, she had room to kneel while still concealed by a curtain of boughs.

Through the mesh of branches, Abisina watched the strange fire on the altar at the top of the clearing; its jagged peaks seemed to reach higher than the tops of the ancient trees. The villagers circled around, their features twisted by the eerie light, their mouths open in harsh shrieks. In front of the altar stood a figure Abisina immediately recognized, though his golden hair now reflected the redder hues of the fire. In the leaping flames, the figure of Charach, the man, alternated with images of the White Worm. And still no one else seemed to see him for what he was.

He was directing the activity around the fire as the villagers fed the flames with large loads of some kind of fuel.

Abisina inched closer, peeking through the low boughs to get a clearer view.

Bodies!

That was what the villagers were throwing on the inferno.
Bodies of outcasts
!

Instinctively, she reached for the bow that should have been hanging on her back—even as she knew that it wasn’t there. If only she could get a shot off! One arrow, and she could end this, end Charach. Who cared what happened to her after that? But she was powerless, trapped under that tree, with no way to stop the gruesome scene.

She closed her eyes and thought about running into the darkness and silence of the woods.

But she couldn’t leave. She had to know.

She forced her eyes open.

Dawn came slowly, the sun obscured by the billows of smoke that still poured from the smoldering fire. Some- time before dawn Charach disappeared, though Abisina didn’t see him go. He had been there one moment, gone the next, his absence draining the scene of color, the dying flames pale and feeble. Without Charach to hold them there, a few dark figures began to straggle away from the burial ground. They looked broken, huddled in their smoke-stained cloaks. A few more followed them. And a few more.

From her hiding place, Abisina searched and searched the dispersing crowd. But she saw no sign of her mother.

Abisina!

Her eyes flew open at the sound of her mother’s voice. The dappled light coming through the pine branches told her it was now midmorning.

“Mama?” she whispered.

Abisina crawled from under the trees into the burial ground, ready to fall into her mother’s arms and sob out her relief.

But the burial ground was empty.

The pines reached toward the sky, their boughs streaked with soot, their needles singed. The usually neat graves were trampled; the iron bars marking the Elders’ graves were kicked over or knocked askew. The smooth, white stone of the burial altar was stained black, a deep pile of ash smothering the few glowing embers. From the ash, currents of heat rose shimmering in the air.

“Mama?” she said, louder.

Silence.

Abisina walked toward the altar, recalling the White Worm next to the cruel fire, the silhouettes of the villagers carrying the bodies.

“Mama?” she cried desperately. She walked with halting steps, afraid of what she might find yet drawn forward.

Suddenly, the sun was obscured by a bank of heavy clouds—the first in months. The wind picked up and the air became so thick with fat snowflakes, she couldn’t see the altar in front of her.

She stood still, letting the wind whip her hair and drive the snow against her face. The wail of the wind was her own voice, the snow melting against her cheeks, her tears.

And then, as quickly as it came, the wind died. The snow settled on Abisina’s hair, her hands, her shoulders. The altar stood before her, swept clean.

Except for a ribbon of silver glittering against the blackened altar stone.

Her mother’s necklace.

An insistent humming pulled Abisina from sleep, but she didn’t want to wake up. She tried to draw the bedskins over her head, but her right arm wouldn’t move. With great effort, she heaved her arm away from her body and was met with searing pain. She groaned, and the humming stopped.

“Awake then?” A raspy voice was followed by the sound of shuffling feet.

Abisina cracked an eye open to find a figure bent over her. She could not focus on the face. Lines of pain crisscrossed her forehead.

“Mustn’t wiggle,” the raspy voice said. “Had a nasty bump. You’ve been asleep these three days. Fixed those gashes in the shake of a mole’s tail, with you so sleepy. But you must eat now. ‘Get that soup. Stop your tongue wagging,’ as Haret would say. ‘Get to business. . . .’”