The Cursed Read online

  For a moment Bulion's face took on its wooden, you-are-meddling look, but then he beamed at her. "Like I said—safety in numbers!" He frowned suspiciously at Wraxal. "You've decided to come then?"

  "Jojo Kawith wants to go and I have agreed to escort her."

  Aha! Again Gwin glanced at Tibal. He winked. Now the mysterious change in the Muolscath began to make sense. Gwin herself had sent him to Jojo last night. How did Jojo feel about whatever had ensued?

  "You would defend her in case of danger?" Bulion demanded.

  Wraxal considered the question for a moment. "Probably."

  The Jasbur woman had been watching the conversation intently. Now she leered. "That's one of the treatments Raragash has learned—Jaulscaths are always paired off with Muolscaths."

  In this case the arrangement had happened spontaneously, but if it helped both parties in Raragash, then Jojo was probably benefitting also, and Gwin need not worry too much. She would have to screw up her courage to visit the Jaulscath, though, and make sure that Wraxal was not molesting her.

  Bulion was still pondering. "How long would it take for you to go back to Bad Cove and fetch them?"

  "If you provide the food and clothing we need," Jasbur said quickly, "with horses and a wagon for the children, then we could be back here in three days."

  "I don't want any more Cursed in the valley! We should have to meet you outside and then proceed together. And I won't trust you with my precious horses. Zanion, how soon could you organize a rescue for these people—you and a couple of others, plus a cart and spare mounts?"

  Zanion was his fourth son, after Brankion, Wosion, and Glothion. He was not much more than average big, which made him seem small in that family. He had a reputation as a thinker, although Gwin suspected that he had gained it merely by not talking very much. Now he scratched at his beard for a while.

  "Half an hour," he said at last.

  "And by the time you get back, the rest of us could be ready to join you. We could meet up at Cold Ford, say."

  "This is wonderful!" Jasbur cried. "May the fates smile upon you and yours, Bulion Saj!"

  "Just a minute!" Wosion said. "This isn't any overnight hunting trip we're planning. We're not just trotting over to Daling to sell a few hides. We should take supplies for at least three weeks to be on the safe side—plus something for the return, because we don't know what sort of welcome or assistance we'll get in Raragash. We'll need tents and gold and weapons and victuals and fodder. Inevitably, we'll discover that we've forgotten something, or that some of the horses aren't up to snuff."

  "That's true," his father said. "What're you thinking?"

  "Let's all go. Let's use Bad Cove as a rehearsal. By the time we come back this way, we'll know what we're lacking."

  Amazingly, Bulion laughed aloud. "Good idea!"

  "Better allow two hours to get ready," Zanion suggested.

  Alarms began to ring in Gwin's head. The Raragash expedition seemed to have taken the bit between its teeth. She had not expected these deliberate, slow-spoken farmers to initiate such a headlong charge into the unknown. It must be their Zarda blood showing. Her disembodied prompter had told her to leave as soon as possible, but she could foresee at least two major objections. She waited to see if Bulion would think of them on his own.

  Bulion, though, had caught the infection of excitement. He was grinning like a kid, as eager as any of them. He slapped a massive hand on her knee. "Well? Ready to start this honeymoon thing of yours right after the gift-giving?"

  "Um, I'm not sure. What about Sojim? She's progressing very well, but I don't think Niad and I ought to leave her yet. She might have a relapse."

  Bulion's face fell as if she had asked for a divorce. Then he brightened. "But she should be all better in another three days?"

  "At the rate she's going, I think she may."

  "Well, you and Niad stay here. We'll send substitutes! I don't suppose we'll lack for volunteers. I'm sure Kilbion or someone can ride Thunder in my place too, because I need to go over things with Brankion. The three of us can join in when the rest come back from Bad Cove." He peered at her curiously. "What else?"

  "The hostel," Gwin admitted. "I have to settle the sale of the hostel."

  "Oh." Bulion frowned uneasily. He glanced around the crowded room. "We can talk about that later."

  He always reacted strangely when she mentioned the hostel. Did he dislike the idea of his wife being rich in her own right? She would not have expected that of him. She had told him she intended to share her wealth with the family.

  "That's settled, then," he said. "Gwin and Niad and I stay here until you return. The rest of you leave for Bad Cove as soon as you're ready."

  He stood up. Everyone else began to rise...

  "Hey!" said Polion.

  All around the room, surprise melted into grins. Somebody snickered.

  "You don't want to come after all?" Bulion asked innocently.

  Polion's face had turned bright red and his black coxcomb seemed to be standing up straighter than ever. "I want to come to Raragash! But you expect me to go to this Bad Cove place and leave my wife behind when we've only been married—"

  "Didn't by any chance have too much cider last night, did you, Polion?" asked Thiswion.

  "Oh, it's only a couple of nights," Jukion said. "You'll catch up, Runt."

  Snickers became guffaws. Spluttering incoherently, Polion was swept out of the house in a mob of male relatives, all cheerfully offering advice: "The exercise'll do you a world of good!" "Perk you up tremendously!" "Got to go easy at the beginning, you know!" The comments grew more personal as they dwindled into the distance.

  Gwin found herself alone with her husband, who was red-faced and choking with laughter.

  "You won't really do that to him, will you, love?"

  Bulion caught his breath. "I won't interfere! Polion's always been a baneful practical joker and for the last couple of years he's been a girl-eating predator. Zanion isn't the only one with a score to settle!" He went out to the astran, still chuckling.

  Men!

  Gwin saw that there was still one visitor remaining—Tibal was sitting on a bed, staring at the empty doorway with a tragic, pained expression on his bony face. She realized she had rarely seen him not smiling.

  "Tibal?"

  He shivered and seemed to drag himself back to the present. He rose, unfolded himself like a blanket. "Gwin?"

  "You look as if you've seen a ghost!"

  "Oh, no! Nothing! Just a slight hangover from last night. Nothing at all."

  She eyed him suspiciously. "Sure? Well, what was all that about Death in the seventh seat?"

  He brightened at once. "There are seven chairs around the council table in Raragash. One is always left empty. There are seven fates, but only six of them Curse in the star sickness, right?"

  "I'd wondered about that! No Poulscaths?"

  Tibal grinned and shook his head. "Wrong! Poul also Curses. But Poul is giver of death, as well as giver of life. The Cursed of Poul are the ones who did not survive. The empty chair is a reminder to us if we ever start feeling sorry for our lot."

  33

  Horseshoes rang on the cobbles of the yard. The moon was a silver bubble above the velvet blackness of the trees, its rays gleaming here and there on ancient roofs and crumbling walls. Although Labranza Lamith had told Polion Tharn that Raragash lay only two weeks' ride from Daling, she had never intended to attempt the feat herself in that time span. Circumstances had dictated otherwise. She had been lucky—of course. The Cockpit was about to live up to its name again, but she had passed in safety through the jaws of war as they were about to close.

  She slid heavily from the saddle and grunted as her boots hit the ground. She ached, she stank. She hated horses and always had.

  Brighter light flared as a door flew open. Nostor the stable master came hobbling out, waving a lantern. "Thought it must be you, noble lady!" He had a cackle like a drunken rooster. "Someone been mak
ing predictions, have they? Yes, they have!"

  "Who's been making predictions?" She rubbed her eyes.

  "Well, I don't suppose they'd tell, now would they?" The old fool took the reins with a wheezy, garlic-scented snigger. "No, they wouldn't!"

  She untied her bag from the saddle, not commenting.

  "Had a good journey, noble lady? No, you haven't. You're tired, I can see. Well is there hot water and food waiting at the house, courtesy of Ching Saj? Yes, there is!"

  "Give me the lantern," Labranza said. She took it, keeping it well away from the stupid horse, which was rolling eyes and stamping feet already. "Feed him a load of rocks and maybe it'll make his ride a little softer." She turned and stalked off while Nostor's fowl laugh still soiled the stillness of the night. Her legs and seat throbbed from too many days in the saddle.

  He had been talking rubbish. If Ching Chilith had truly made Labranza's house ready for her, then it had not been a Shoolscath who tipped him off that she would be returning tonight. Shoolscaths rarely passed on any foreknowledge at all, even trivial news like that. Why should they? They couldn't hope to earn future favors, because the repayment would itself be a tampering with events. She did not think her personal popularity was great enough to merit taking such a risk. Ching's certainly was not. Just about everyone in Raragash detested him.

  His information might have come from the watchers on the pass. She had told them not to signal her arrival, and she would have seen the flags if they had, but Ching might have bribed someone to warn him. She had stopped on the way in to pick up some information from normally reliable sources and a messenger could have gotten ahead of her then. Ching was infinitely sneaky, which was why he was so useful. The normally reliable sources had reported on some of his activities during her absence.

  The most interesting news was just that Ching himself was still alive and at liberty. Labranza pondered the implications as she strode along the path, setting her feet in the puddle of light from the lantern, flanked by moving patches of vegetation on either hand, green fronds appearing and disappearing in walls of blackness. She could have found the way blindfold, but the lantern was a help. The air was heady with tree scent, the familiar air of Raragash. It was good to be home.

  Ching was still alive. That probably meant that he had failed in the task she had given him before she left, or else he had not even tried it. She had not really expected him to try. She would be astonished if he had both succeeded and survived.

  She emerged from the wood to the wide expanse of open lawn that surrounded her house. In the moonlight it was a gray carpet. Glimmers of light escaping below the eaves, silvery tendrils of smoke coiling upward.

  She pushed open the weighted leather drape and peered inside before entering and letting it fall back into place. Rising on tiptoe, she peeked over the paper and bamboo screen immediately alongside the door, to confirm there was no one and no thing hiding there. Most Ogoalscaths learned to be very cautious people. The rest of them died. One night two years ago, she had found a wild boar under her bed. There was no previous record of wild boars in Raragash.

  The air was thick with eye-biting smoke, which was normal for a Zarda house. The night was too warm to need a fire, but the big copper bucket on the hearth steamed temptingly. Flames danced above shiny candlesticks. Three heavy silver covers on the table told of food waiting, and there was a promising-looking bottle in the pottery cooler. Wonderful! She threw the stinking saddlebag down by the door and began stripping off clothes as she headed for the water. She tested it carefully. Very hot water was a hazard, but this was just right. Wonderful!

  Good to be back. As she sponged the road dirt from her skin, she wondered if Ching's preparations could have been provoked by her own Ogoalscath influence. Might he just have acted on impulse? No. He must have lit the fire an hour ago or longer. She had not been within range then.

  She looked around her home with a mixture of fondness and disgust. Delicate imperial antique furniture stood on thick rugs. The walls were draped with silk hangings, frail and faded and so old that they must have been beyond price even in the final days of the empire. Now they were irreplaceable and perhaps unique in all Kuolia. She ran a count of the porcelain ornaments, the sculptures, the crystal vases—all of them filled with fresh-cut flowers, arranged unmistakably by Ching's own sure hand. Nothing was missing, nothing had migrated elsewhere during her absence. Labranza Lamith enjoyed luxury and precious things. She had borrowed all of these from the Hall of the Academy.

  The contents were superb. The house itself was a sty for animals. She hated it. She could have lived in the Hall had she wanted, in a palatial suite of rooms set aside centuries ago for the personal use of the president. Raragash was prone to earth tremors. Ogoalscaths were prone to dying under falling ceilings, in flash fires, or from dropping through suddenly rotted floors. She never went into the Hall unless duty absolutely required her to.

  Being wooden, Zarda houses were almost perfectly earthquake-proof. Their thatch was dangerously flammable and subject to blowing off in freak storms, but she slept right by the door, behind a flimsy screen she could knock down with one finger. Meanwhile the mice and squirrels came in to nibble at the rugs and hangings; swallows tried to build nests in the beams. Even bats, sometimes. She hated the house.

  She had dried herself and was giving her hair a final toweling when knuckles rapped on the doorpost. "Who's there?"

  "Secretary Chilith, Madam President."

  "Wait." She wandered over to the antique Tringian cedar chest where she stored her off-duty gowns. In this stuffy heat she needed nothing warm. After some thought, she selected a sheer wrap of pale blue Pirainian silk, embroidered with seed pearls in a gardenia pattern. She knotted the sash loosely, combed out her hair, applied scent, donned silver sandals. Then she tidied away her soiled riding clothes, the towels and the saddlebag.

  After about ten minutes, she said, "Enter."

  Ching Chilith entered, clutching a leather folder. As his name implied, he was of mixed Nurzian and Qolian blood. His father had bequeathed him high cheekbones and curly hair, but his coloring was lighter than a true Nurzian—a pale hazel monotone, skin and hair alike. Even the honey shade of his guileless eyes matched the rest of him. He was slim and slight, and a finger-length shorter than Labranza herself. Twice she had lost her temper with Ching enough to strike him and both times she had spread him on the floor. She had first noticed him and his talents ten years ago, when he had been seventeen and she had been twice his age. Physically, he had not changed. He could still pass for a boy of seventeen, easily. She had not done that to him deliberately. It had just happened.

  He was wearing simple smock and breeches of bleached linen. Those were for her benefit. When he appeared in public as her spokesman, he dressed like an old-time emperor, sporting jewelry and fine raiment; he rode a white horse whose tack sparkled with rhinestones and silver buckles.

  He did not smile, or bow. He just stood inside the drape and waited to see what role she wanted him to play.

  "Pour me a drink." She wandered over to the divan and sat down heavily. Her wrap fell open to display most of one leg and she left it like that.

  Ching laid his folder carefully on the table and set to work on the wine bottle. He filled a goblet and brought it over to her. Then he stood and waited again. He kept his eyes on her face, ignoring the leg and the expansive view of cleavage.

  She sipped. The wine was tart and pleasantly cool.

  "Who told you I would be back tonight?"

  "I promised not to say, Madam President."

  She waited.

  "Gos a'Noig."

  A'Noig was a Shoolscath, but an aged cripple who did not get around much. Astonishingly, Ching was not blushing, as he did whenever he tried to lie to her. It was not the least valuable of his many talents. So he really had won a prediction from a Shoolscath!

  "Kind of him. Give him my thanks." She did not comment on the fire, food, wine, flowers. Ching knew she ex
pected nothing short of perfect service. "What news?"

  "Wesnar cut off the sea trade from Mokth by sacking Tolamin." He had a high tenor voice, but he spoke with absolute confidence. "The king of Mokth is marching south, planning a surprise attack on Wesnar in retaliation."

  "I guessed as much. The king of Wesnar is bringing his army north. I barely missed his patrols near Veriow. Hoping to set an ambush, I expect."

  Ching nodded, half noting that information, half confirming it. "Each thinks the other does not know what he is doing. Both do. Hexzion is going to meet your price for a Muolscath, but hasn't said so yet. The king of Pagaid fell off his horse and I dispatched an Ivielscath—"

  "On whose authority?"

  Ching raised his barely visible eyebrows. "On yours, of course."

  "You forged my signature, I presume?"

  "I did. If Por a'Win dies, his sons will tear the kingdom in shreds. If he lives, he may—"

  "I know all that." She approved. It had been an astute decision. "Go on." She held out her goblet for a refill.

  He took it and continued reporting as he went to the table: a few deaths among the Cursed, crop failure in Hamdish, an outbreak of star sickness in Rurk. He had sent out a rescue team, again usurping her authority.

  That was the secret of her hold over him. Ching was not Cursed himself, but his father had been an Ogoalscath and a dangerous one, liable to fly into rages and hence cause catastrophes. When he was twelve, Ching had seen his father struck dead by lightning in bright sunshine. Perhaps even more significant, his mother had been a Jaulscath. Children unable to lie to their mothers grew up to be very odd adults.

  As the son of a terrifying father, Ching craved power. He yearned to know secrets as his mother had done. Having endured an orphan's poverty, he enjoyed flaunting wealth. Yet he was utterly unassertive, a Nobody. Some women saw a sort pathetic appeal in him, but he cringed before men.

  As personal secretary to the president, he gained both power and wealth. By reflection he was Somebody. He knew secrets and relayed orders; he could swagger and bully and oppress. He would do anything for Labranza. He needed her authority like air to breathe, and he also needed her protection now, for he had made many enemies in her service. Without her, he would be a spurned cur. He was devious, spiteful, meticulous, unscrupulous, and totally unable to lie to her. She had been very fortunate to find such an assistant—but Ogoalscaths were fortunate by definition.