“If I had the assistance of my tower I could probably make more of this,” he told her. “I think your friend may have been lied to, though. I can see no artificial structures within it at all. It’s not a relic of the ancient times, as Ulmoth possessed. Your people may have been scared off by some animal new to their forest.”
Lyn held on to that as they disembarked, and held on to it as Esha paid the boat crew and the vessel put off. She even managed to hold on to it as they wove through the tent-cluttered space that had been the market grounds on the Ordwood river side, turning her face from the plight of the hundreds who had come this far and no farther. The anger was building up inside her all that time, though, and she felt her control over it fraying from moment to moment. She wanted to make a scene right there, where all those displaced people could hear her. She wanted them to share just what she thought of the sorcerer’s words, and join her in her condemnation.
Nyrgoth Elder was patently unaware of her reaction, and so when she finally couldn’t hold it in any longer—after they were clear of the camp and into the trees—she caught him entirely off guard when she rounded on him.
“No, I do not think that all those people were driven out of their homes by an animal!” she snapped at him. “Nor do I believe, Nyrgoth Elder, that the forest folk, who for all their lives, and the lives of their ancestors, have known these lands, would have a single beast within these trees that they did not recognise, be it predator or prey. I believe there is a demon, as they say, and that it controls minds and feeds on people and cannot be fought by normal ways. Otherwise I would not have risked my mother’s wrath and my own life by trekking to your tower and calling on our family’s compact. It is sorcery that needs sorcery to fight it! Not an animal that needs only a bow and a spear!”
She ended up shouting quite loudly, and broke off, horrified at how impolitic she had abruptly become. Inside, she knew with utter misery that what she was really railing against was her mother and her court, because they had said exactly the same thing as the sorcerer. And if, just if, they and Nyrgoth were correct, and there was no demon nor sorcery, then she had done an incalculably foolish thing and confirmed everybody’s bad opinion of her forever.
For a moment there was an expression on his face—such an expression: panic, horror, hurt, offence and fear all crammed into those aquiline features, and none of them looks that a sorcerer’s visage should bear. Then all trace of it was gone, as completely as if she had been entirely mistaken, and his haughty, unruffled stare was back. She waited for him to just go, perhaps walking across the water as he’d said, or disappearing into thin air.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, for a moment just her child-self standing before any number of broken vases and windows, knowing the sentiments were too little and too late. The words bounced off his stiff regard, but then he inclined his head slightly, a superior accepting the contrition of an inferior, which she supposed was her due.
“The apologies are mine, Lyn,” he told her. “These are your rituals. It’s not for me to detract from them. We should continue to hunt this demon of yours.”
Lynesse froze, feeling horribly awkward again. Nothing the sorcerer said or did ever seemed to be quite right, and did he think she didn’t understand that he was humouring her? “Yes,” she got out, forcing a smile to her face. “We shall. And we’ll avoid towns, where we can.”
Nyr
ESHA FREE MARK IS a fascinating case. Her Fisher-people arose from first-generation biomodification amongst the colonists. The original records I have seen make no mention of any plan for it to be inheritable, but someone obviously decided that being able to breathe and see underwater was worth its energy cost. Esha’s lungs can switch to a high-efficiency mode suitable to extract the low levels of oxygen dissolved in water. She is also considerably paler than most of the natives of this part of the world and I imagine she pays for it in sunburn and skin problems. In respect of my own field, the Fisher-people are an autonomous ethnic group that crosses state boundaries at will using the waterways, and gives no explicit fealty to any government. This lets them fulfil a useful role as traders, messengers and emissaries, as well, I suspect, as spying and smuggling. Their protection from persecution lies with the proportion of the trade routes that rely on their watercraft. Any state that took action against them en masse would find itself starved of goods and funds.
This background, with its freedom of travel and its exposure to countless acts of petty diplomacy, has led to someone like Esha. She has by her own report lived a life of travel, mostly away from her people and their rivers. She’s plainly a linguist and has been trying to tease some of my native speech from me, hunting out the similarities with their own web of languages here. Which similarities are limited to the most basal, human words, but they are there and she’s sharp enough to spot them. She is highly intelligent, and knows the land we travel well, albeit from before this “demon” came. Lyn has engaged her services not just as guide but as companion. I’d say “chaperone,” but I recall from my dealings with Astresse that women of the ruling, fighting and itinerant classes are generally better trained in the martial skills than their menfolk. Farm and artisan women take fewer risks, I recall, but the upper classes traditionally spend the blood of their womenfolk profligately, and often adopt heirs into their lineages to replace the losses. Leading to a socially mobile society where the rise of a meritorious commoner like Esha raises no eyebrows.