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“He had his chance when Hakim fought me,” she replied carelessly. “I don’t understand why he’s making a fuss now.”
“You are a terrifying creature,” the Voice told her solemnly. “You do not take your place in your father’s tent, letting men make your decisions. You ride as a man, you fight as a man, and you think as a man—”
“I think as a human being,” she retorted hotly. “Men don’t think any differently from women—they just make more noise about being able to.”
As Coram chuckled, Mukhtab said, “Have you not discovered that when people, men and women, find a woman who acts intelligently, they say she acts like a man?”
Alanna could find no answer to this. She glared at the guffawing Coram.
“Many of those who take the shaman’s leadership are women,” Mukhtab went on. “You frighten them. You are too new; you are too different. Will they have to behave differently, now that you are of the tribe? Better that you die and become a legend. Legends force no one to change.”
“This is too silly for words,” Alanna snapped. “Why have you brought this history to me?” She waved at the bundled scrolls.
“Six years ago Prince Jonathan indicated he would be interested in a written history of the Bazhir,” Mukhtab explained. “Since your return to the North, my people and I have labored long on just such a written record. Our tribes are very old. These scrolls tell all our story, from the time before we left our farms across the Inland Sea. We ask you to see that the prince gets them, as soon as possible. It is—vital.” He looked at Coram. “May I speak with her alone?”
Coram struggled to his feet and left.
Alanna watched him go before asking, “Why is it vital? I hadn’t planned to return to the palace for a long time.” If ever, she thought with a terrible feeling of homesickness.
“It is vital,” Ali Mukhtab whispered, leaning close, “because the end of my life draws near. Before I complete my last illness, Prince Jonathan must become the Voice of the Tribes.”
3
BAZHIR SHAMAN
FOR A MOMENT ALANNA STARED AT THE VOICE. Finally she tried a weak grin. “You’re joking, of course.”
“I have never been more serious.”
Alanna shook her head. “I think you had better explain it to me.”
“Certain tribes have been at war with the king in the North for two generations,” Mukhtab began. “The cost has been great for both sides. Among our people there is bitterness between those who accept your king and those who do not. And in the end, the Northern king must win.”
“How do you know?” Alanna wanted to know.
“A small Gift of prophecy is given to each Voice,” was the reply. “Your king will win if we continue to fight, because this time the Balance is weighed in his favor. Conquered, my people—our people, now—would be driven from the desert that is mother and father to us. All those things that enable us to make war against the king and against the hillmen who are our enemies would be taken away. The tribes would be scattered; we would be one people no more.
“But if Prince Jonathan were to become the Voice of the Tribes, he would be king one day—a Bazhir king. He would know us as we do ourselves. The tribes you call ‘renegade’ would make peace, for none may war against the Voice of the Tribes. They will make peace, and the Voice will bring them into Tortall without bloodshed.
“We must accept the king in the North; there is no other way. But we can do it so that we never forget who we are. Prince Jonathan is the key. With my passing, he will be the Voice, and my people will be safe.”
Alanna nibbled at her thumb, considering. “Maybe Jon won’t want to do it,” she said at last. “The position seems to carry a lot of heartache to me.”
Ali Mukhtab smiled. “Jonathan was born to rule, as you were born to make your own way. If there is any way he can better govern his people, he will take it. I have watched him for years. He will not turn his back on such power.” Reaching into his robe, he brought out a thick letter sealed with wax. “Will you send this and the history to him, and let him make the choice?”
Alanna took the letter. Muktab was right: Jon had to make this decision himself. “I’ll see that he gets it.”
Coram shook his head even as he pulled on his riding boots. “I don’t like leavin’ ye right now,” he protested for the twentieth time. “That Akhnan Ibn Nazzir would feed ye to the wolves as soon as look at ye, and ye’re sendin’ me back to Corus.”
“The sooner you ride to Corus, the sooner you’ll be back to look out for me,” Alanna said implacably. “This is important.”
“Keepin’ ye safe from that old buzzard isn’t?” Coram demanded. “Ye said that Mukhtab’s sendin’ a man with me?”
“He’s waiting with the packhorse now,” Alanna said, giving her friend an affectionate grin as they walked outside. “I’ll be all right. I have Faithful to look after me.”
Coram scowled at the black cat, who was trotting ahead. “Some protection,” he muttered. They halted, surprised to see Hakim Fahrar waiting with the horses. The tall Bazhir bowed.
“I am to ride with you,” he said in response to the question on their faces. “The Voice has said it.”
Alanna hugged Coram for a moment. “You’ll be back before you know it,” she said gruffly. “So leave!”
She watched the two men ride off, their packhorse trailing behind. Fingering the ember at her throat, she blinked her watering eyes.
You’re not alone, Faithful remarked. You have me still.
Alanna picked the cat up and hugged him tightly. She wasn’t crying simply because she felt lost without Coram: the gruff manservant would be with Jonathan soon, and she wouldn’t.
The Ordeal. She dropped through endless stretches of water, her lungs bursting for lack of air. She fought and fought, but she couldn’t find her way to the surface. She opened her mouth to scream—
She jerked awake, her mouth clamped shut so tightly that her jaws ached. She was forbidden to scream in the Chamber of the Ordeal!
Faithful fell to the ground from her chest. It had been his weight that made her sleeping mind remember that awful moment. About to yell her fury, she realized Faithful’s tail and fur were erect. Keeping silent for a moment, she heard a rustle of movement, the soft click of hard objects striking each other gently.
Carefully Alanna lifted her battle-axe from her weapons rack and—moving soundlessly—she slid out the back of the tent. With Faithful behind, she circled her home, a shadow among the camp’s other shadows.
A huddled figure was drawing designs before her door. She suddenly knew who it was, and could guess what he was up to. Hefting the axe, she hurled it into the sand at Akhnan Ibn Nazzir’s feet, then strode forward, the violet fire of her Gift turning the scene into purple daylight.
“Demon, I adjure thee, harm me not!” the old man screeched. “In the name of Mithros—”
“Be quiet!” Alanna snapped as people ran out of their tents, armed with swords and spears. “Now you’ve awakened everyone!”
Recognizing her at last, Ibn Nazzir gasped in fury. “I will cast you out!” he yelled. “I will cleanse our tribe of you and send you back into the Darkness where you belong!”
Examining the design the shaman had been working on, Alanna felt sick. It was called a Gate of Idramm: She had learned of it from Duke Roger, who had taught her and Jonathan sorcery when they were young.
“There are many kinds of creatures in our world,” the Duke of Conté had explained. “Call them demons, elementals, spirits—their variety is infinite. Some serve that force we call Good, some that called Evil. A Gate of Idramm summons all such entities within a certain range. The result—” He had shrugged his broad shoulders. “Is disastrous. Only fools construct a Gate without putting limits on it.”
This one was almost complete. Alanna shuddered. There were no limiting spells in the symbols of the design. “You stupid, ignorant, vicious old man!” she cried, scuffing it out with her bare foot. “Y
ou could have destroyed the entire village! Or didn’t you care as long as you took me with you?”
Ali Mukhtab had come to the fore of the watching people; she snapped at him, “He was doing a Gate of Idramm!”
The Voice turned white. “Are you mad?” he demanded of Akhnan Ibn Nazzir. “How dare you use sorcery you do not understand!”
“She is corrupting our people,” the shaman whined. “She has corrupted you, Ali Mukhtab. I wished only to rid the desert of her evil—”
“You would have rid the desert of us all!” hissed Mukhtab furiously. “Go to your tent, shaman! Remain there until I have chosen a fitting punishment for you!” As the old man fled, he turned to Alanna. “You have saved us all,” he told her.
Alanna pointed to Faithful, who blinked sleepily. “Thank my cat,” she said. “He woke me up.”
When she left her bed the next morning, Ishak, Kara, and Kourrem awaited her, vying for Faithful’s purrs. “You’ll spoil him,” Alanna said gruffly as she dressed. “And I’m the one who’ll have to live with a spoiled cat.”
“The men of the tribe do not believe he is a cat,” Ishak told her. “Some think he is a god. Some think he is a demon.”
“He’s neither,” Alanna informed him. She picked up Lightning. “Why doesn’t one of you show me where the blacksmith is?”
The blacksmith was Gammal, her large friend from Persopolis. He grinned at the chance to do her a service, scowled at the girls until they backed out of the way, and handed a bellows to Ishak. “Use it well, boy,” he advised as he turned to find his tongs.
Ishak looked at Alanna, terrified. “I’ve never done this,” he whispered.
When Gammal returned, Alanna was busily pumping the bellows, bringing the fire to a white heat. The large Bazhir shook his head and picked up the long portion of Lightning’s blade with his tongs, thrusting the metal into the fire until he judged it hot enough. Alanna thought she heard an ugly hum, but Gammal distracted her, booming, “Where did you learn to use the bellows, Woman Who Rides Like a Man?”
