The Highwayman

6

Along the Rim of Time's Circle They traveled the wide and smooth way out of Ethelbert Holding for many miles to the west, then turned to the north, where the road fast dwindled to a simple cart path, a pair of wet, muddy ruts in the grass.

"Laird Ethelbert is more interested in pressing forward to Delaval City than to my home of Pryd, apparently," Dynard said with a laugh, for the work on the road extended beyond their vision to the west.

"I prefer the untamed lands," SenWi said, and when she glanced at Dynard, she had a little sparkle of excitement in her dark eyes that the monk could not miss.

He tightened his grip on her hand and strode more boldly forward. Soon after, the couple had left all signs of the road behind them and moved along an even less defined trail, where underbrush obscured the cart ruts and great trees crowded overhead.

"I know the land, even after all these years," Dynard assured her. "In two weeks' time, we will find Chapel Pryd. We'll not get lost."

"Little is the care if we do," SenWi replied. "The unknown road oft brings unexpected joys."

Her reference to Dynard's own journey brought a blush to his cheeks. "And oft brings unexpected dangers," he replied. "The land is rife with powries and goblins, so said Laird Ethelbert. Even when I left, the beasts were all about."

"I am Jhesta Tu," SenWi reminded him, the words drawing Dynard's eyes back to the ivory and silver hilt of the sword that pointed diagonally above her left shoulder.

He squeezed her hand again, and they strode off along the forested trail.

Later that same night, on a hill open to the stars above, SenWi ran her hand over the sleeping Bran's shoulder. The air was warm, but the evening breeze carried a slight chill that amplified and tingled as it moved across the perspiration that still clung to SenWi's naked body.

Bran slept soundly, his chest rising and falling in a smooth, contented rhythm. Their lovemaking had been particularly energetic that night, with Bran almost ferocious in his advances, and as urgent in the act itself as he had been in their first encounter, years before in the Walk of Clouds.

Was he trying to reaffirm his love for her to himself? SenWi had to wonder. Was his insistence of action a way for him to defy the obvious disdainful glances that he knew the two of them would face among his unworldly, even intolerant, people?

SenWi smiled the thought away, not over concerned. Had her beloved Bran Dynard felt any more at ease during his first days in Jacintha or among the xenophobic tribes in the desert of Behr? Had he not been a curiosity of sorts when first he had come to the Walk of Clouds, with his chalky skin and strange ways, his words of Blessed Abelle and magical gemstones?

SenWi understood. In making love to her that night, under the stars in the summer breeze, Bran had tried to prove to her that he loved her beyond anything else and that there could be no severing of that tie. And he had tried to prove to himself, she presumed, that the curious and doubting expressions of other people mattered not at all.

His sleep was not restless.

"My love," SenWi whispered, her words floating on the evening breeze. She bent low over Bran and kissed him, and he gave a little grumble and rolled onto his side, drawing yet another amused smile from SenWi.

She held faith in his love for her, and never doubted her own for him, and she was doubly glad of that now.

For she knew.

With her Jhesta Tu training, her senses attuned so well to the rhythms of her own body, the mystic knew.

She brought a hand down to her belly. "That is it?" SenWi asked in a halting voice. She was gaining a better command of the Honce language, for she and Dynard had been speaking that alone for the last week of traveling. She moved around the side of the rocky jut on the hillside to stand beside her husband, and followed his gaze to the distant dark shape of a formidable castle, anchored in the back by a wide, round tower.

Dynard's grin gave her the answer before he verbally confirmed, "Castle Pryd, home of Laird Pryd, who hosts my chapel." He glanced to the west, and noted the sun, now more than halfway to the horizon.

"This night only if we travel long after…bokri," SenWi answered his unasked question.

"Sunset," Dynard translated. "Bokri is sunset, as bonewl is sunrise." He extended his hand to her. "Tomorrow morning, then. I am anxious to return to my home, 'tis true, but I will miss our time alone."

SenWi took his hand and followed him and didn't disagree at all with his observation. The weather had been fine and the company better over the days since they had left the bustle of Ethelbert Holding. It had rained just once, a light sprinkle one dark night, but even in that, SenWi and Bran had huddled and laughed under the sheltering lower boughs of a thick pine, and barely a drop had touched them.

The Jhesta Tu mystic had enjoyed the journey as much as her companion. They had laughed-mostly Dynard laughing at her as she struggled to master the language-and basked in the scents and sights of the unspoiled Honce wilderness in the late summer. They had been fortunate thus far, for the only monster or dangerous animal they had encountered was a single adder that slithered into their campsite one night. Dynard had reached for a stick, but SenWi had intervened, moving low to face the serpent and swaying her hands rhythmically to calm it and entrance it. With a lightning quick strike, the Jhesta Tu had caught the adder in her grasp right behind its head, and had gently carried it far from the camp, where she then had released it.

She remembered now the image of Bran Dynard when she had returned to the camp, as he sat there, shaking his head and grinning widely and chuckling with obvious admiration. "You have learned ki-chi-kree," she had said to him. "You, too, could have calmed and caught the serpent."

To that, Dynard had laughed all the louder and had equated his own command of the Jhesta Tu understanding to that of SenWi's grasp of the language of Honce.

Since they had agreed that they need not make Castle Pryd that night, they walked leisurely and on a meandering road, with SenWi often rushing to the side to further explore some interesting sight or sound. For their camp, they chose a bare-topped hillock, and from its apex as the sunlight began to fade they could just make out the southernmost reaches of the new and expanding road, less than a mile away.

"Your world is changing," SenWi remarked as they stared down at that significant development.

"Greatly, I would guess, when these roads are connected. But for the better," Dynard added, turning a grin SenWi's way. "Better to spread the word of Abelle. Better to take the healing powers of the soul stones to the ends of the land."

"Better to move about your armies?"

"If in the pursuit of the monsters that plague the land, then yes."

SenWi nodded and let the conversation go at that. She was Jhesta Tu, and so she had studied the history of the southern lands of Behr extensively. Many times over the centuries had empires arisen, building roads and marching their armies all about. Most of those roads were lost again now, as were the empires, reclaimed by the desert sands. History moved in circles, the Jhesta Tu believed, a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine backward, so the saying went; and that understanding was based on solid evidence and a collective, often bitter, experience. How many people through the ages had thought themselves moving toward a better existence, toward paradise itself, only to be thrown back into misery at the whims of a foolish ruler or by the stomping of a conquering invader?

SenWi wondered then if the roads of other empires had crossed this land of Honce, ravaged by time and swallowed by regrown forests. She expected as much.

She fell asleep comfortably in Bran's tender embrace that evening, her vision of the stars above and thoughts of eternity taking her to a quiet and peaceful slumber. Like all Jhesta Tu, she had trained her body to remain alert to external stimuli even in the deepest sleep, and she awakened sometime near midnight to the distant sound of coarse laughter, drifting on the summer breeze.

SenWi extricated herself from her husband's arms and slowly rose to her feet, staring off to the north, toward Pryd. She saw the flicker of a torch through the trees, perhaps halfway to the firelight glow showing in the windows of Castle Pryd. The commotion and new lights were somewhere down by the end of the road, she figured.

She heard Dynard stir and crawl over beside her, where he wearily rose to his knees. "What is it?"

Some more laughter filtered through.

"A party?"

"No," SenWi quickly answered, for she recognized that there was little joyful mirth in that grating sound. It was more taunting and wicked in timbre. "Not a party."

She began to dress, and not in the flowery white clothing she typically wore through the days, but in a black suit of silk-the dress of a nighttime hunter.

"You mean to go down there through the darkness?"

"In this instance, the darkness might prove our best ally," she replied in a grave voice. She started off down the northern side of the hillock, pulling her silken shirt about her as she went.

Dynard grabbed his clothes and rushed after, not wanting to lose sight of SenWi in the night. The woods could be confusing and disorienting, he knew, but he knew, too, that his wife could find her way unerringly.

A few minutes later, the monk found himself crouching behind a bush beside SenWi. She motioned for him to hold his place, and she crept forward toward the flickering torchlight and harsh-toned conversation. The hairs on the back of Dynard's neck were standing on end now, for he could recognize the language of the speakers, if not the words, and knew them to be powries.

He felt SenWi tense before him, then he moved past so that the scene came into view. A group of five powries stood at the end of the road, prodding, poking, and taunting a young woman, naked and battered, who had been strung up by her wrists, her feet a foot off the ground.

One powrie said something Dynard could not understand, and the others began to laugh.

"Ack, but ye're a pretty one, ain't ye?" the spindly-limbed little dwarf then said to the woman, speaking in the language of Honce. She didn't even groan in response, just hung there, twisting slowly and seeming very near to death, if not already there. The powrie poked her naked belly, sending her into a little swing, and the others laughed again.

"Pretty and with bright blood, eh?" the powrie said, and with a sudden movement, the dwarf brought a knife up and across the inside of the woman's thigh, opening a large wound. Now she did cry out, softly and pitifully, and she tried to wriggle away, but the powrie caught hold of her and slapped his beret against the flowing blood.

The other dwarves hooted.

SenWi leaped out of the brush, bringing forth her magnificent sword.

"Be gone from here!" she commanded.

The powries stared at her for just a moment, then howled and lifted their own weapons.

SenWi's sword spun over in her right hand, went behind her back, and reappeared on the other side, and she thrust her left hand forward, taking the powrie with the fresh blood on its beret in the side and sending it away with a shriek. She retracted her sword immediately, then flashed it left to right, parrying a swinging powrie axe. SenWi let go and left the sword out there, engaged with the axe, as she spun a tight circle, catching the blade back in her right hand as she came around. Using her momentum, she slid the blade hard across the axe and thrust ahead, forcing the powrie to suck in its belly and scramble back.

SenWi couldn't finish the move, for another powrie came in hard at her side. Across went her sword, slashing the tip from the iron-headed spear and forcing the newest attacker into an overbalanced posture.

The other powries came in hard. She spun and she leaped, kicking out and punching as often as thrusting her sword. Blades came at her from every angle, but she bent and swerved, dodged and parried, with precision. Brother Dynard had hardly registered that his wife had even moved! Still crouched in the brush, he tried to make sense of this whirling and furious combat before him, tried to call out to SenWi. But he couldn't hope to find his voice, and didn't know whether to cheer or to scream in terror at the wild melee, the slashing swords, the ring of metal.

Up SenWi went above a pair of thrusting spears, and she kicked out, scoring solid hits on the faces of each attacker. But the dwarves didn't fall, and one of the tough creatures even began to laugh at her.

Dynard knew that he had to help. As wondrous a warrior as SenWi was, she couldn't hope to win against five powries!

He started to come forth, but stopped cold, wondering what in the world he might do. He had no weapon, and even if he had, Dynard understood all too well that he was no match for the average powrie. He scrambled about, his eyes glued to SenWi's continuing flurry, and finally settled one hand into his belt pouch.

Dynard brought forth the smooth gray stone and held it up before his eyes.

The soul stone. Her fighting was completely defensive now. SenWi ducked and turned from weapons that came in at her from every side. The dwarves coordinated their attacks well, leaving her little opening, but one of the five was lagging, she noted. In her initial attack, she had hit him hard, her sword digging a deep wound. He was trying to keep up with his four friends, but his thrusts shortened every time, as he winced and curled over that torn side.

SenWi wanted to focus on him and finish him off, but the other dwarves had her turning continually. She leaped over one swiping axe and threw her leg out wide to avoid the stab of a spear. As she landed, she brought her forearm up to accept the smack of the spear she had beheaded, for the dwarf was now using it as a club. As her arm connected, she shoved it out wide, then stepped in and stabbed at the dwarf with her sword.

But again, she had to pull up short and spin to deflect the charge of another, the dwarf lowering his shoulder and trying to bowl her right over. She hit him with three short jabbing punches to turn him, then crossed hard with the snake hilt of her sword, cracking his jaw.

The tough little creature staggered backward but did not fall. Brother Dynard chanted and clutched his soul stone, trying to find his concentration and his center, seeking his chi so that he could send it fully into the swirling gray depths of the magical stone. He heard SenWi's breathing, heard the growls of the ferocious dwarves.

He heard his love grunt as a powrie connected with the wooden shaft of its spear, and he opened his eyes.

He snapped them shut immediately and concentrated again on the issue at hand. He couldn't go out there physically, he knew, for his appearance and incompetence would likely hinder SenWi more than aid her. Thus, he had to go out there spiritually. He had to find his center and free his spirit through the use of the soul stone.

The sounds of battle grew distant suddenly, and Dynard felt as if he were falling through cool water. And he was standing there, looking back at himself, on his kneeling physical body.

His spirit turned and willed himself forward into the fray. He denied his trained revulsion as he approached one powrie and accepted the invitation of its corporeal form.

In he went, against his understanding that this usage of the soul stone-insinuating himself into the body of another free-willed creature-was among the most trying and repugnant possibilities offered by the gemstone. To possess another was the temptation of the stone and the danger of the stone, and was an act frowned upon by the brothers of Blessed Abelle, an act specifically damned by Abelle himself in his writings.

But this time, with SenWi in so difficult a position, Dynard accepted the danger and the moral ambiguity and fought past his revulsion. His spirit dove into the powrie.

He sensed the creature's surprise and horror, and he knew that it would instinctively react to possession with a fierce battle of willpower. But for just a moment, the powrie was off guard, confused, and in that split second, Dynard took control. He saw through its eyes; he felt its limbs as if they were his own.

He made the dwarf throw its axe to the ground, turn, and leap upon the dwarf nearest him, bearing both to the ground.

Then Dynard felt the sudden attack upon his spirit, the rebound of the dwarf's free will. He envisioned a dwarvish shadow tearing at the fabric of his own spiritual silhouette.

But he held on stubbornly, with willpower and with the dwarf arms he controlled. SenWi had no idea what had just happened, why one of these vicious dwarves would tackle another, but she didn't pause to ask questions. Her sword went out to the right to block a spear, then she rolled her blade about the weapon repeatedly in rapid succession.

Instead of retracting, the dwarf came forward, but SenWi had anticipated the move. She retracted her arm, then struck straight out, like a serpent, once, then again and again.

The dwarf staggered backward.

SenWi sprang into the air, tucked her legs, and went right over backward as the dwarf opposite her, the wounded one with the knife, charged in with a roar. She landed lightly right behind the creature as it stumbled past, a perfect opportunity to strike hard.

But she didn't, diving sidelong instead at the remaining battling powrie, who was obviously thinking to follow her in pursuit of the knife wielder.

SenWi's sword whipped over, coming in diagonal down strikes at the too-slow dwarf, slashing shoulder to hip one way, then the other.

The dwarf tried to get its axe up to block, but SenWi seemed one movement ahead of it each time, her sword coming across and down repeatedly.

The dwarf's tunic hung ragged, with lines of blood beginning to show, and the dwarf continued its futile efforts to block. Not once did it hit SenWi's sword, and it began to retreat-to inevitably stagger backward.

SenWi's sword blazed in diagonal circles, each one scoring a hit.

And she stopped suddenly, reversed her grip on the sword, and thrust it out behind her, just in time to meet the roaring charge of the knife wielder. He came forward anyway, for he couldn't break his momentum, and ran right up against SenWi. For a moment, he seemed frozen in time, impaled to the hilt on her blade, and then his eyes slowly turned up to meet hers.

He roared and tried to strike, but SenWi whirled and ducked under the blow, moving out to the side of the dwarf, where she gave a great tug on her sword.

Powries were made of tough stuff indeed, but so was the steel of SenWi's sword, and strong was its impeccable design. The blade tore through the powrie's innards and ripped out the side, and the dwarf staggered. It tried to cry out, but only a thick flow of blood rushed out of its mouth.

SenWi spun her sword, using its momentum to center her own balance once more as she turned.

That dwarf was down and dying; as was the one she had slashed so many times; as was, she was glad to see, the one she had poked thrice. That one was still alive, kneeling and groaning. The other two were up again, off to the side, staring at her incredulously.

They turned and ran off.

SenWi took one step to follow, but stopped at once, turning to regard the hanging woman, then glancing over at the bushes where a shaken Dynard came stumbling forth, soul stone in hand.

"I-I possessed him," the stumbling monk explained.

SenWi responded with an absent nod, but was already focusing on and moving toward the woman. She looked up at the rope and then at her sword, but then snapped the sword back into the scabbard across her back, recognizing that the woman was too near death to handle the trauma of a fall.

The Jhesta Tu brought her palms together before her and again fell into that line of energy, that center of power, that ran from the top of her head to her groin. With a deep exhalation, SenWi breathed that power forth into her arms, coursing down to her hands and her trembling fingertips.

She felt the heat building in her hands even as she reached out to the dying woman.

She placed a hand on the tear in the woman's thigh and sent forth her healing energy, and accepted the woman's pain as her own.

She felt something then, in the blood, some uncleanliness.

But she didn't relent, forcing her energy into the woman, lending her strength.

A soft groan escaped the battered woman's lips.

"SenWi, do not," came a sharp cry behind her, drawing her from her concentration. She glanced over her shoulder to see an ashen-faced Dynard staring at her wide-eyed. "Leave her alone."

SenWi's jaw drooped open in disbelief.

"She is an adulteress," Dynard explained, "or some other such sin."

"This is how your order deals with sinners?"

"No, no, not the brothers of Abelle. But this is not our province. This justice is the tradition of the land, since long before Blessed Abelle walked the ways of Honce. In the half century of our Church, we have made some gains and offered some concessions. This is the doing of the Samhaists, who once presided over all the folk as the clerics of Honce. The lairds have not seen fit to change."

"This is justice?"

The accusatory tone had Dynard back on his heels. "It is the way of Honce. The woman was convicted, no doubt, and given to the snake."

The snake. SenWi's head snapped around, and only then did she fully realize the other wounds; fang marks. She understood then the sensation of uncleanliness in the blood, for it was rife with poison.

She swallowed hard and stared at the woman, who seemed more alive, just a bit, as if the healing hands had made some progress. The poor, battered girl gave another little groan.

"I will not watch her die," SenWi declared.

"It is not our place."

"Choose your own place as you will," she granted. "I will not watch her die." She folded her palms and fell into her chi, then went back to her healing work with renewed energy.

A moment later, to her great relief, Brother Dynard was beside her, soul stone in hand. With a look and helpless smile at SenWi, he pressed his free hand against the woman and began his own healing, using the magical stone.

A few moments later, the two looked at each other again, and SenWi nodded and motioned for Dynard to grasp the woman. SenWi then pulled forth her sword and leaped into the air; and with a sudden and swift strike, she cut the woman free.

She helped Dynard guide the poor girl to the ground.

"Your cloak," SenWi instructed, and Dynard shed his woolen robe, and he and his wife managed to wrap it about the shivering woman. Then Dynard picked her up gently in his arms. "Come along," he instructed SenWi. "The powries might return with their friends."

He started off into the forest, to the side of the road. "We cannot take her to Pryd, for they will merely throw her in the sack with the snake again and hang her once more," he explained. "But there may be a place."

"Chapel Pryd?"

Dynard nearly laughed aloud at the notion, for he knew well that Father Jerak, kindly as he could be, would not go against Laird Pryd in this matter. Nor would Dynard, in all good conscience, even involve the others of his order in this crime.

No, this burden was his own.