She was exceedingly beautiful, even dressed in dour brown travelling clothes. Her hair was long, with streaks of red amid the natural onyx black, and was left to fall naturally about her face. She wore no makeup, no hair ornaments; the dyed strands of her hair were the only concession to artificiality. Her beauty was entirely her own, not lent to her by craft.
'You swim well,' she commented dryly.
Tane hesitated for a moment, and then climbed out to retrieve his clothes. Nudity did not bother him, and he refused to be talked down to while he trod water in the pool. She watched him – equally unfazed – as he pulled on his trousers over the wet, muscular curves of his legs and buttocks. He stopped short of picking up his rifle. She did not seem hostile, at least.
'I am looking for someone,' the stranger said after a time. 'A woman named Kaiku tu Makaima.' He was not quick enough to keep the reaction off his face. 'I see you know that name,' she added.
Tane ran his hands over his head, brushing water from his shaven scalp. 'I know that she suffered a great misfortune at someone's hands,' he said. 'Are you that someone?'
'Assuredly not,' she replied. 'My name is Jin. I am an Imperial Messenger.' She slung her rifle over her back and walked over to him, pulling back her sleeve to expose her forearm. Stretching from her wrist to her inner elbow was a long, intricate tattoo – the sigil of the Messengers' Guild. Tane nodded.
'Tane tu Jeribos. Acolyte of Enyu.'
'Ah. Then the temple is not far.'
'Not far,' he agreed..
'Perhaps you could show me? It will be dark soon, and the forest is not safe.'
Tane looked her over with a hint of suspicion, but he never really considered refusing her. Her accent and mode spoke of an education, and possibly high birth, and besides, it was every man and woman's duty to offer shelter and assistance to an Imperial Messenger, and the fact that her message was for Kaiku intrigued him greatly. 'Come with me, then,' he said.
'Will you tell me of this… misfortune on the way?' Jin asked.
'Will you tell me the message you have for her?'
Jin laughed. 'You know I cannot,' she replied. 'I am sworn by my life to deliver it only to her.'
Tane grinned suddenly, indicating that he had been joking. His frustrated mood had evaporated suddenly and left him in high spirits. His humours were ever mercurial; it was something about himself that he had learned to accept long ago. He supposed there was a reason for it, somewhere in his past; but his past was a place he had little love of revisiting. His childhood was darkened by the terror of the shadow that stood in his doorway at night, breathing heavily, with hands that held only pain.
They talked on the way back to the temple, as night drew in. Jin asked him about Kaiku, and he told her what he knew of her visit. He made no mention yet of her destination, however. He had no
wish to reveal everything to a stranger, Imperial Messenger or not. He felt protective towards Kaiku, for it was he who had saved her life, he who nursed her to health again, and he treasured that link. He would make sure of Jin before he sent her on the trail to Axekami.
As they walked, Tane realised to his chagrin that he had misjudged the time it would take to travel back from the spring. Perhaps he had unconsciously been slowing his pace to match Jin's, and he had been so preoccupied in conversation that he had not noticed. Whatever the reason, the last light bled from the sky with still a mile to go. The looming bulk of Aurus glowed white through the trees, low on the horizon. Iridima, the brightest moon, was not yet risen, and Neryn would most likely stay hidden tonight.
'Is it far yet?' Jin asked. She had politely restrained from asking him if he was lost for some time now.
'Very close,' he said. His embarrassment at the miscalculation had not diminished his good humour one bit. The single moon was enough to see by. 'Don't concern yourself about losing the light. I grew up in the forest; I have excellent night vision.'
'So do I,' Jin replied. Tane looked back at her, about to offer further words of encouragement, but he was shocked to see her eyes shining in a slant of moonlight, two saucers of bright reflected white, like those of a cat. Then they passed into shadow, and it was gone. Tane's voice went dry in his throat, and he turned away, muttering a quiet protective blessing. He reaffirmed his resolve to tell her nothing of Kaiku's friend Mishani until he was certain she meant no harm.
They were almost at the temple when Tane suddenly slowed. Jin was at his shoulder in a moment.
'Is something wrong?' she whispered.
Tane cast a fleeting glance at her. He was still a little unnerved by what he had seen in her eyes. But this was nothing to do with her, he surmised. The forest felt bad here. The instinct was too strong to ignore.
'The trees are afraid,' he muttered.
'They tell you so?'
'In a way.' He did not have the time or inclination to elaborate.
'I trust you, then,' Jin said, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. 'Are we close to your home?'
'Just through these trees,' muttered Tane. 'That's what worries me.'
They went carefully onward, quietly now. Tane noted with approval how Jin moved without sound through the forest. His mood was souring rapidly into a dark foreboding. He unslung his rifle, and his hands clasped tightly around it as they stepped through the blue shadows towards the clearing where the temple lay.
At the edge of the trees, they crouched and looked out over the sloping expanse of grassy hillside that lay between the river on their left and the temple. Lights burned softly in some of the temple windows. The wind stirred the trees gently. The great disc of Aurus dominated the horizon before them, lifting her bulk slowly clear of the treeline. Not an insect chittered, and no animal called. Tane felt his scalp crawl.
'Is it always so quiet?' Jin whispered.
Tane ignored her question, scanning the scene. The priests were usually indoors by nightfall. He watched the temple for some time more, hoping for a light to be lit or extinguished, a face to appear at one of the windows, anything that would indicate signs of life within. But there was nothing.
'Perhaps I'm being foolish,' he said, about to stand up and come out of hiding.
Jin grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong grip. 'No,' she said. 'You are not.'
He looked back at her, and saw something in her expression that gave her away. 'You know what it is,' he said. 'You know what's wrong here.'
'I suspect,' she replied. 'Wait.'
Tane settled himself back into his hiding place and returned his attention to the temple. He knew each of its cream-coloured planes, each beam of black ash that supported each wall, each simple square window. He knew the way the upper storey was set back from the lower one, to fit snugly with the slope of the hill. This temple had been his home for a long time now, and yet it never felt as if he belonged here, no matter how much he tried. No place had ever truly been home for him, however much he tried to adapt himself.
'There,' Jin said, but Tane had already seen it. Coming over the roof from the blind side of the temple, like some huge four-legged spider: shin-shin. It moved stealthily, picking its way along, its dark torso hanging between the cradle of its stiltlike legs, shining eyes like lanterns. As Tane watched with increasing dread, he saw another one come scuttling from the trees, crossing the clearing in moments to press itself against one of the outer walls, all but invisible. And a third now, following the first one over the roof, its gaze sweeping the treeline where they crouched.
'Enyu's grace…'he breathed.
'We must go,' said Jin urgently, laying a hand on his shoulder. 'We cannot help them.'
But Tane seemed not to hear, for he saw at that moment one of the priests appear at an upper window, listening with a frown to the silence from the forest, unaware of the dark, spindly shapes that crouched on the roof just above him.