Old Mars

The Shan-hai called on the carrion spirits of the wind. They use an older tongue for these ceremonies, a language that has been dead for thousands of years and has nothing to do with the builders of the canals or the cities of the plain. It is wilder, stranger, not at all human. It made my skin crawl to hear it, and yet it filled me with a strange ascetic sense of longing: the reverse of the sex-songs that they sing in the palaces to inflame all those who hear them. This spoke of purity and deliberate isolation. Perhaps it was what I needed. I became lost in the thin harmonies, as the priestess berated or cajoled or implored the carrion gods; I did not know which. But then I became aware that someone was close to my shoulder. Casually, I turned.

His tea-colored eyes caught the firelight. His coat was frayed, but originally of good quality, and he wore a hat with an emblem upon it—the same form of emblem that I had brought to the priestess. Close to, his face was sallow and long, like a chiseled candle, under a fall of fawn-brown hair. I had last seen him on a black-furred mount, pursued by the sorcerer from Ithness.

“You rescued me,” he said. He sounded amused. His voice was low, like silk and razors, with the sibilants of the plains. “Why?”

“I don’t like Ithness.”

“The hotels? The shopping?”

I inclined my head, though my smile was hidden by the mask. “Neither are good. The hotels are verminous and the shops overpriced. Their sorcerers are worse.”

“This one isn’t dead, by the way. Regrettably. You’d need a bolt or poison for that, or one of their own spells, not a barb gun. But it was a kind thing to do. And altruism always worries me.”

“It worries me, too. That’s why I never practice it. What did you do, to be pursued so far and so hard? Are you a traveler? You’re no tribesman, yet you wear their sign.”

“Well,” he said, “I am indeed a traveler, and as for why I am permitted to wear the sign of the Ynar, that’s a longer story. If this was Scarlight, I’d offer to discuss it over a drink. But here—”

“The tribes don’t indulge in wine or spirits. Unless you like fermented tope milk.”

“That’s why I brought a hipflask.”

We both deemed it prudent to wait until the ceremony was over before returning to a tent and pouring out measures. I was feeling insecure. He was flirting, I could have sworn it, and that was a problem. Either he knew me for a woman, or he thought I was a man. Neither possibility was reassuring. I kept to the shadows and made sure that the mask was securely tied, nor did I drink much, although the man I had rescued watched me all the while.

He had not told me his name, but he did not need to. He was called Nightwall Dair. He was the only man who had ever gone beyond the Nightwall of the far north, the great glacier that separates Heth from the plains, or at least the only man who had done so and lived. He had brought back a captive, a strange black thing with golden eyes, who had lived for a time before spilling its secrets to the sorcerers of Cadrada. I’d seen it, and him, at Lord Halse’s palace, and, as I’ve said, we’d crossed paths on several occasions before that. Dair was a manhunter, just as I was, and a hunter of other things, too. Not an easy man to trick, and I did not know if I had succeeded.

We spoke of Scarlight, and Cadrada itself, lightly enough, as men do when they meet in a strange place. At length, he said, “I know you, I am sure of it.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps we have met on our travels. There is something a little familiar about you.”

“Many people know me,” he said. He spoke as if it did not matter.

“Perhaps, then, we have met. But I have still not heard your name.”

He gave a grin filled with teeth. “Just as well. If you had, you would have reason to be afraid.”

“Many say the same of me.” I rose to my feet. “It’s getting late, and I have a long way to go.”

There was a faint curiosity in his face. “Where are you headed?”

“Coyine.”

“The Tribes don’t like travelers.”

“That’s why I’ve paid for safe passage.”

“They don’t use money.”

“I wasn’t talking about money.”

He laughed. “I think you’ve been here before.”

“And you? But of course you have, with that emblem.”

“Me? I’ve been everywhere.” He put his head on one side, looking up at me from beneath the lock of hair that fell across his face. His long countenance was wry, amused, like one who anticipates a negative reply. “Do you want a companion for the night?”

“Not fussy, are you? You haven’t even seen my face.”

“As you say, I’m not fussy.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve recently taken a vow of celibacy,” I said.

He laughed again. “And you have seen my countenance. Well, I shall choose to believe you—it’s more flattering than the alternatives.”