“I am Nyateneri,” she said. “Daughter of Lomadis, daughter of Tyrrin.” Then I thought that she must be from the South Islands, clothes or no, because only there do the women take their descent through the mother’s line. Her voice suited this, being lighter than mine and slower, moving from side to side where mine goes up and down. She said, “And you are Sailor Lal, Lal-after-dark. This other I do not know.”
“Nor do you know me,” I said. There are two names I use when I journey, and I gave her one of them. “Why do you take me for this Lal?”
“What other woman would be traveling in this heartless country? Let alone a black woman with a swordcane at her saddle? And why here, in the blind hills, with no road to guide her—unless she were following a green night trail to the aid of a great wizard in greater trouble?” She laughed outright as I gaped, waving me to hush. “And it is better known than you may think that Lal-khamsin-khamsolal”—she almost had it correctly—“was once the adopted companion and student of the magician—”
“The magician whose name is not spoken,” I said, and that time she was silent. I said, “Some call him the Teacher; some, the Hidden One; some, just the Old Man. I call him—what I call him.” I stopped myself, angry because I had almost told her my own name for him, though what harm it would have done, I could not be sure. One corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
“And I have always called him the Man Who Laughs. One who knows him as you do may understand.” The back of my neck prickled once more, and I could not speak for a moment. He laughs quietly, that magician, and not often, but I never found a way to keep from laughing with him. It is a child’s laughter, loud and unseemly, and utterly innocent of its own power; it is the true heart of what he is. It was that laughter that held me and kept me safer than swords and dragons could have done when they found out where I was and came for me. Anyone who knew that knew him. Nyateneri swung a leg over the saddle and waited, raising her eyebrows.
“Get down,” I said. “You are welcome.” Her hood fell back as she alighted, and Lukassa gave a small gasp to see her thick, graying brown hair chopped into random patterns of tufts and whorls and spearpoint strips: it looked like mud churned up by armies. I said nothing before Lukassa—that could wait—but I know a convent cut when I see it. I even know a particular handful by sight, but not this one. Not this one.
We were helping her rub down and feed both horses, when the fox followed his nose out of the saddlebag. Nyateneri had a thin silver cord around his neck on the instant and introduced him to us as her familiar friend, her traveling partner of many years. Lukassa made much of him, begging to carry him everywhere, feeding him scraps and singing sad little lullabies to him as he lolled grinning in her arms. For myself, I studied that grim haircut and wondered what convent allowed its sisters to keep pet foxes in their cells. Nyateneri watched me wondering, while Lukassa asked and asked for him to sleep by her this one night. That granted, she carried him off in triumph to her blanket: he blinked back at us over her shoulder, and Nyateneri called to him in her own language, something sharp and warning. He yawned, letting us see his white teeth and wound-red tongue, and closed his eyes.
“He will not harm her,” Nyateneri said. She stood looking at me out of her strange eyes, mist-gray a moment before, shading into near-lavender as the twilight faded. She said, “And now?”
“How do you know him? And from where?” This time she smiled truly, her teeth just a little like the fox’s teeth. “From as far away and long ago as you do. The only difference is that I know where he is.”
She leaned against a boulder, waiting for me to propose gratefully that we join forces. I said, “There is at least one other difference between us. I am not in flight from some fanatic convent, with a bounty waiting for whoever returns me to my vows. You could be a highly inconvenient companion, as well as an irritating one.” It was a wild shot, but for just an instant her superior air trailed away, leaving behind the look of a woman on a rack one turn away from madness. I know that look. I saw it in a puddle of muddy water, the first time.
Her face recovered before her voice did. “There is no bounty on me, I promise you that. No one wants me back, anywhere in the world.” That long body, made for wars and winters, had not so much as twitched against the stone. She said, “The girl can ride my packhorse—we’ll all make better speed that way. And I will tell you the road, this very night, so that you will have no further need of me. After that, the choice is yours.”
We looked at each other for some time, standing so quietly that I heard her breathing, as she did mine, and both of us heard Lukassa still singing sleepily to the fox. At last I said, “I have never called him anything but my friend.”
THE FOX
Yesyesyesyes, and if I want I can steal all their horses, all, all at once, out from under their stupid, ragged, hairy backsides. That boy has no notion, no one has any notion of what I can do if I want. When I want. No idea who I am, what pleases me, why, when. Mildasis, that boy, black woman, white woman, fat innkeeper, no difference. Only Nyateneri.
Hoho, and what I know about Nyateneri, no one but me. Nyateneri knows what makes me laugh to myself, I know what makes Nyateneri afraid. Why Nyateneri sleeps on the floor, not in bed, and not for long, not ever for long. I sleep in the bed, sweet as mice, but if I twitch one ear where Lukassa’s arm crushes it, if I flick my tail across Lal’s breast, yes, then see Nyateneri up that moment, quicker than me, back to the wall and dagger out, shining in the moon, waiting. Sometimes I do that for fun all night, scratch myself, stretch, make little, little sniffs, and each time there is Nyateneri up and ready, ready. Ready for what?
Ready for those two men, following for so long? Not the boy, who cares about that boy? Two men, small, light, running softly, mile after mile forever. No spears, no big swords, only teeth, like me. Nyateneri knows they follow, but never sees. But I see, smell, know what they eat, when they rest, what they think, what they will do. I know everything I want to know.
It makes me laugh, so much hunting and chasing all scattering after us, all that way. That boy catches his girl, what then? I know him, she not a bit. Those running men catch Nyateneri—ho, what then? Best killers, all three, two dead anyway. Nicer if Nyateneri kills, otherwise no more riding in saddlebag, no more fire in cold night. Better with Nyateneri.
Here at the inn, too many people crashing and tramping, nobody likes foxes. Sweet pigeons upstairs, on the roof, and chickens, little nice chickens tumbling everywhere under all the feet. Nyateneri says to me, “You eat my food, stay with us, never go near fat innkeeper’s birds, never let anyone see the tip of a whisker.” So I hide, sleep, wait, let Lukassa feed me yams and melons. And sometimes I sit so still, very, very still, and run far away inside, wind and blood and silence, day this way, night that way, listen for who follows, smell what comes. Roll in the dust, in the wild lands, laughing, sitting so still.