The Plains of Kallanash Read online

  Jonnor was there, of course, his face showing – what exactly? He was not his usual impassive self, wrapped in his grief. He watched her, and for almost the first time since Tella’s death, he reached for her hand during the ceremony. Usually he sat across from her, silent and inscrutable, but today he sat close and held her hand. Once, when she dared to glance at him, he was looking at her. He gave her a tremulous little smile. She looked away quickly.

  Afterwards, the wagons were already waiting in the departing courtyard, an open one loaded up with their boxes and the closed one Mia and her three Companions would ride in. Marna was fussing over her own two children, and Mista was crying, kissing all of them, even Jinnia, the baby. Some of the children were crying too, and the servants were crowding round. Mia had said her farewells the day before, and besides, she had no energy this morning for such emotion. She was afraid she might cry, and once started would be unable to stop.

  She saw Morsha waiting beside the wagons, watching her with interested speculation, and then she noticed Jonnor hovering nearby.

  “Have a good journey,” he said, his voice subdued. He crossed the short space between them, put his arms round her and hugged her tight, burying his face in her headscarf. “Forgive me,” he muttered into her ear. “It was the only way…”

  She pulled away a little and forced a smile. Then on impulse she reached up and kissed him softly on the cheek. “It’s all right,” she whispered, and saw relief wash over his face.

  Only it wasn’t all right, was it? She very much wanted it to be so, but she was detached, somehow, distant. Ever since Tella’s death, she had imagined that he need only turn to her, see her properly for the first time, and everything would change. In time, perhaps, she might even be able to take her sister’s place in his affections. All her dreams had rested on it.

  Yet now everything was different. She saw Jonnor in a new light, she herself was changed and there was a distance between them as there had never been before. She had always imagined that sex would bring them closer together, but now they might as well be on opposite sides of a swamp. Although his remorse comforted her a little, she was still alone.

  In the bustle of clambering into the wagons and settling themselves, she lost sight of Jonnor amidst the press of people in the yard. As their wagon began to move and turned towards the open gates, she caught a glimpse of him again standing a little apart, his eyes dark, his face unsmiling. And then they rolled through the archway and he was gone.

  Morsha, always the most sensible of her Companions, had brought blankets and food, and Mia remembered that she had not eaten that morning. So she wrapped herself up and nibbled fruit and bread and cold meat, while listening to Mista and Marna chattering, and avoiding Morsha’s eye, as the road rolled under their wheels.

  And in time, as they relaxed, the questions came.

  “So… did he manage it this time, Mia?” Naturally it would be Marna who asked. Mia found that she didn’t mind.

  “Yes, he did.” They squealed, and she laughed a little too, caught up in their excitement.

  “And? What was it like? Was he sweet? I’ve always thought Jonnor would be sweet…”

  “Oh, you know…” She felt herself blush. Of course she couldn’t possibly tell them the truth. Fortunately they filled in the gaps themselves.

  “I’ll bet it was lovely.”

  “Such nice hands he has… I’d give anything to have them all over me!”

  “Did he want it lots of times? They always do, once they start. You must be so sore.”

  “Is he good at kissing? He has gorgeous lips, doesn’t he? So soft and warm…”

  “Did he cuddle afterwards, or go straight to sleep? I like it when they cuddle.”

  “I wish Jonnor would cuddle me. You lucky thing.”

  “Better that than a fumble behind the kitchen door, like my first time. I had no idea what was going on!”

  Mia smiled and laughed and said nothing as Mista and Marna chattered on, while Morsha sipped her drink and watched her. After a while, she reached across and patted Mia’s hand.

  “There! The worst is over now, and after the quiet he’ll forget about Tella, you’ll see.”

  “Course he will!” said Marna, looking surprised. “Why would he care anything about her? If he only knew…”

  But Morsha shushed her. To Mia’s relief, they fell silent and she turned away, closing her eyes.

  It took them a long tedious day to reach the sky ship station, but they were on a good road and the wagon was as comfortable as cushions and hot stones and rubber wheels and ingenious suspension could make it. All the same, they were glad to arrive.

  The sky ship station was a square brick-built structure of four storeys, with a large stable and wagon shed abutted to one side. The ground floor housed the kitchens and other utilitarian rooms, there were two floors of accommodation for those staying overnight, and the top floor was level with the sky ship way, a smooth road built on pillars which stretched off to the horizon to the northwest and southeast. They could have stayed at an inn and been more comfortable, but the place was convenient and practical.

  They were expected, so workers streamed out to meet their arriving wagons, unload their boxes and show them to their apartment. There was water heated ready, and Mia made no protest when the others waved her through to bathe first. The water was blissfully hot, and even the stinging between her legs as she immersed herself was cleansing. She had been sore all day, grateful she had not had to ride. She felt refreshed and slept deeply that night, without dreams.

  Their sky ship was not scheduled until noon, so the four women spent the morning waiting. Mista passed the time combing and rebraiding her waist-length hair, chattering non-stop about the purchases she would make at the Ring. Marna fretted about the children, some sewing lying unnoticed on her lap. Morsha repaired a torn undergown with delicate stitches. From time to time a deep rumbling from above set the whole building trembling.

  Mia sat a little apart, a book spread out on the table, a sweet romantic story quite at odds with her current mood. She stared unseeingly at the words in front of her. She had not expected her encounter with Jonnor to be as romantic as the books she read since he was so deep in grief, but the abruptness of it had shaken her. She felt numb and disoriented, as if she were not quite connected to the women around her. Even the room seemed grey, as if shrouded in fog.

  She jumped when Morsha patted her hand. “Time to go.”

  They were ready in good time, escorted up the stairs by a troop of silent servants and shown where to stand. The sky ships ran to a strict timetable, and if they failed to board their assigned cabin at the correct time, they would be left behind. There would be severe consequences if they missed their first interviews.

  The waiting platform was a miserable place, with no shelter from the weather at all. The Plains of Kallanash were never free of wind, but up here they were fully exposed and their heaviest woollen headscarves were tightly wound to cover all but their eyes. The air was bitter cold, but at least it was clear. The warmer northern Karnings had many advantages, but there the air was always laden with dust blown down from the desert.

  From where they stood, the full length of the sky ship way was visible in both directions, with the huge chains which pulled the ships gliding along in their grooves, and the long line of windmills stretching off into the distance. Before too long, the chains started shaking with a great clanking noise, and in a little while their sky ship came into view, the great metal sails above each cabin angled to slow it down. Between boarding stops the ships moved under their own power, but occasionally the wind was adverse and then the windmills along the way powered the chains and pulled the ship along.

  As the ship drew near, a long snake of connected cabins, it hitched itself to the smaller chains which pulled it slowly through the bay of the boarding platform. As soon as their appointed cabin drew alongside, their little gaggle of servants sprang into action, throwing open the double doors,
sliding their travelling boxes under the seats and assisting the women inside as the wagon crept past. Within moments the doors closed again behind them, and almost at once there was a little jerk as they picked up speed.

  The four women leaned back against the cushions and laughed in relief. It was always a tense moment, boarding the sky ship, and its successful accomplishment was occasion for celebration. Morsha scrabbled on the floor to access her box, and drew forth a flask of apple wine and four beakers. Mia liked it better than regular wine, and drank her share as they flew along, giggling as much as any of them at Mista’s jokes.

  Then it was a matter of watching the world go by as they sped along, covering as much ground in an hour as a horse would take all day to accomplish, slowing only occasionally to take on more passengers. Sometimes they were surrounded by the tops of trees, almost leafless now, but mostly they had a clear view of the endless plains – a village here, an orchard there, a Karninghold, then a watchtower away in the distance as they crossed a boundary line between Karnings. Several times they saw Godstowers, small towers standing alone, unused and purposeless, without even a door. Then the emptiness of the barrens, treeless and deserted, left as a reminder of how the whole Plains of Kallanash used to be before the Petty Kings and later the Word of the Gods brought order. Beyond that were the game-filled forests which helped to feed the Ring.

  Mia’s Companions had no interest in views they had seen many times before. Marna fell asleep, and Morsha and Mista began playing a simple guessing game. Mia gazed unseeing through the windows. Usually she loved this journey, skimming the treetops like a bird, or speeding along high above the plains grasses that rippled and waved in the wind. The sky ships were thrilling, her excitement tempered only by apprehension for the forthcoming interview. But not today. Today her thoughts were elsewhere, and the views flew past unnoticed.

  After the tumult of two nights before, she felt strangely calm. However unpleasant it had been, it was over now and the next time would be better. There would be a next time, she was sure of that. She would be better prepared for it, too. And one thing she was determined on – she would get rid of all Tella’s things from her bedroom. Then at least there would be nothing to remind Jonnor of his dead wife.

  She dared not think beyond that. She could never replace Tella in his affections; she was too different from her sister. Tella was a dazzling adventuress who might have stepped out of the pages of a book. Mia was a mouse by comparison. But Jonnor was not quite the hero she’d imagined him, either. Still, they had time to get used to each other, to be comfortable together. She could carve out her own place in the marriage and make Jonnor happy.

  8: Kashinor (Hurst)

  Hurst hated the winter quiet. Two months without skirmishes, and even the Vahsi beyond the border withdrew to their caves and left the Karnings in peace. When he had first gone to the Ring as a boy of ten, he had delighted in trying to circumvent the rules. Sneaking away from the scholars’ hall, exploring the wide streets and covered markets, creeping through the bushes fringing the Glass Lake and peering through any windows low enough to reach. He had few brothers of similar age, but enough cousins to form an unruly pack, egging each other on. Eventually one of them had been caught by the guards on one of their adventures. That had sobered them all up quick enough. He would never forget seeing Crannor’s still, limp body, weeks later, when the Slaves had finished with him. The Gods were unforgiving.

  After that, he had hurled himself into the tournament, determined to overcome the handicap of his bad leg. Training all the hours he could, studying the opposition’s every move, falling asleep with the moves of the last match still in his mind, waking up with the strategy of the next. But once he’d won everything he could, many times, even the tournament lost its lustre, and he and Gantor had agreed to leave it to younger men.

  Nowadays, the winter quiet was just dull. He missed the routine of home, the times with his beloved Mia, and he chafed at the endless hours in the temples. There was nothing for him there. He had come to an understanding with the Gods years ago in his own mind, having seen too much injustice in their names. Until one of the Nine showed up and started giving orders in person, he would continue to wonder if perhaps Those who Served the Gods had no direct contact either and made up the Word of the Nine as it suited them.

  Then there was the tedium of the journey, two days of sitting around in wagons and sky ships with his Companions. It was a great trial for four men used to constant physical activity.

  But as they drew nearer to the Ring itself, his interest picked up a little. At first the mountain range was no more than a hazy smudge on the horizon, then a darker jagged line, and at last the monstrous towering peaks of the Ring of Bonnegar, rising five thousand feet from the plain below. It always amazed him that the sky ship way made no deviation as it approached, no last minute jink to find an easier route, but plunged straight into the side of the mountain and on through, with a deafening roar of machinery in the echoing tunnel. Occasionally the tunnel widened abruptly as their route bisected an old dragon cave, and the noise subsided and then crashed back over them as the tunnel narrowed again. There were lights at intervals, mysterious lamps that burned without flickering, but they raced past so fast that each one was no more than an instant’s lightning flash in the interminable darkness.

  The brilliance of daylight dazzled him as they emerged from the mountain. There before him was the incomparable vista of Kashinor. Mia had told Hurst once that the Ring was a natural formation. She had paid more attention to the scholars than he ever had, so he supposed it must be right. Even so, he found it hard to believe. It was too precise, too regular, an almost perfect circle of peaks like the crown worn by a king of old. Close to ten miles across, the inner bowl was dominated by the Glass Lake, mirror-smooth and blue as a summer sky, where floated the ethereal golden tower of Those who Served the Gods.

  Once Kashinor had held their entire civilisation, a series of low stone buildings clustering along the edge of the lake in a dozen little settlements, scratching a living from the poor soil, fishing in the lake and raising cattle and goats. Not the most productive land, but peaceful, because that perfect ring of mountains made an unbreachable defensive wall. Two easily defended passes to the northwest and a cave system to the south were the only ways in or out before the sky ship way was built.

  Hurst could well understand why Kashinor had never been conquered by force, but had grown peacefully into a great civilisation. Beyond the Ring, the Vahsi had swept back and forth across the plains. Later, the Petty Kings had carved out their domains and feuded endlessly. Neither had ever taken Kashinor. Only the Word of the Gods had penetrated the mountains in its subtle way, and begun the great expansion. Now there were more than three hundred Karnings, neatly laid out in regular squares, and both barbarians and wilderness had been pushed back and ever back, taming the plains and making them productive.

  At the centre of it all still lay this circle of calm and order, Kashinor. Within the protective ring of the mountains, the lake was fringed with a necklace of slender towers and domes and pleasure gardens and spires, looking impossibly fragile at first sight. Out in the Karnings, buildings were squat and solid and square, grey and sensible affairs, huddled low against the wind. Here, however, all was ethereal lightness, curves and points and elegance, reaching for the stars. There was something insubstantial about it, as if the softest breeze would swirl everything into dust, but some part of Hurst responded to the beauty of it.

  Before long, the view was lost again as the sky ship entered the transfer station and slowed almost to walking pace. There was a great clanking and jerking as the train of wagons was broken up, and one by one each was dispatched onto the circleway towards its final destination. Hurst’s wagon was third in line, so there was not long to wait before they pulled in outside the Arrakas men's house, and the confining journey was over at last. Hurst and his Companions strode across the narrow arched bridge to the house, a little troop of liverie
d servants puffing behind them with their travel boxes on handcarts.

  They had the same sparsely furnished room as last year, divided by partitions into four cubicles. Their large boxes, filled with tournament fighting gear and surplus clothes, had been sent ahead. Trimon and Walst grabbed some gear and raced off to the training grounds below. Gantor and Hurst methodically unpacked.

  There was a scratching at the door and a young man’s face appeared round it.

  “Hey! You’re here at last! Thank the Gods, I hate being the first.”

  “Roonast! Good to see you.” Hurst crossed the room in three strides and wrapped his arms round his fifteen year old brother. “So… how are you? Enjoying being married?”

  “Yeah, it’s good. Not that Klemmast lets me do much yet. I’ve only had two skirmishes to myself, so far. Won one, lost one. But I know what I did wrong. S’fun, though. Better than training.”

  “Well, of course!”

  Hurst smiled at him. Roonast was the child of one of the Companions of his father’s marriage, and his looks were all from his mother. Where Hurst and most of the Arrakas men were dark and stocky, Roonast was fair, lithe and slender. He was an excellent archer and horseman, however, even if he lacked the strength for heavy weapons. He had just joined the marriage of two other brothers after they moved to the fourth line. Hurst thought it a good move for him, rather than waiting in the hope of getting his own Karning.

  “I was sorry to hear about… erm…” Roonast said.

  “Tella.”

  “What happened? Klemmast said there was some mystery about it.”

  “Mystery? No, not really. She must have fallen from her horse, that’s what everyone thinks. The Slave Healers thought so, anyway. She always rode too fast.”

  “But no one knows?”

  “Well, no, but… what else could it be? She was out riding alone, she was just found dead.”