Dwer

Since finishing his apprenticeship, Dwer had visited nearly every village and farm in Jijo’s settled zone, including the islands and one or two secret places he was sworn never to speak of. He had met a great many settlers from every race, including most of the Slope’s human population.

He grew more certain with each passing dura that the new prisoner wasn’t one of them.

Surprise flustered Dwer. Irrational guilt made him doubly angry.

“Of all the stupid things to do,” he told the girl rubbing her head by the cold campfire, “stealing my bow ranks pretty high. But pulling a knife tops all! How was I to know you were just a kid, up there in the dark? I might’ve broke your neck in self-defense!”

It was the first time either of them had spoken since her skull smacked the ground, leaving her body limp to be slung over a shoulder and lugged back to camp. Never quite losing consciousness, the strange youth had recovered most of her wits by the time he sat her down near the coals. Now she kneaded her bruised head, watched by the glaver and the noor.

“I … thought you was … a ligger,” she stammered at last.

“You stole my bow, ran away, then thought you were being chased by a ligger?”

This much could be said in her favor-she was a lousy liar. By dawn’s light, her small frame sat bundled in garments of poorly tanned leather, stitched with sinew. Her hair, tied in a chopped-off ponytail, was a wavy reddish brown. Of her face-what could be made out under smudges — the stand-out features were a nose that had once been broken and a nasty burn scar along her left cheek, marring a face that might otherwise have been pretty, after a good scrubbing.

“What’s your name?”

She lowered Her chin and muttered something.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear.”

“I said, it’s Rety!” She met his eyes for the first time, her voice now edged with defiance. “What’re you gonna do with me?”

A reasonable question, under the circumstances. Rubbing his chin, Dwer couldn’t see where he had much choice. “Guess I’ll take you to Gathering. Most of the sages are there. If you’re old enough, you’ve got a grievance to answer, or else your parents will be fetched. By the way, who are they? Where do you live?”

The glowering silence returned. Finally, she muttered — “I’m thirsty.”

Both the glaver and the noor had taken turns nuzzling the empty canteen, then scolding him with their eyes. What am I? Dwer thought. Everybody’s daddy?

He sighed. “All right, let’s head for water. Rety, you go stand over by the glaver.”

Her eyes widened. “Does— does it bite?”

Dwer gaped back at her. “It’s a glaver, for Ifni’s sake!” He took her by the hand. “You’d have reason to fear it if you were a grubworm, or a pile of garbage. Though now that I mention it—”

She yanked back her hand, glaring.

“Okay, sorry. Anyway, you’re going to lead, so’s I can keep an eye on you. And this will make sure you don’t scoot off.” He tied the free end of the glaver’s tether to her belt, in back where she could only reach it with difficulty. Dwer then hoisted his pack and the bow. “Hear the waterfall? We’ll take a break for jerky when we get there.”

It was a strange trek — the sullen leading the apathetic, followed by the confused, all tailed by the inveterately amused. Whenever Dwer glanced back, Mudfoot’s leering grin seemed only a little strained as the noor panted in the bone-dry morning air.

Some folks barred their doors when they heard a noor was nearby. Others put out treats, hoping to entice a change in luck. Dwer sometimes saw wild ones in the marshes, where flame trees flourished on the forested backs of drifting acre-lilies. But his strongest memories were from his father’s mill, where young noor came each spring to perform reckless, sometimes fatal dives from the ponderously turning power wheel. As a child, Dwer often scampered alongside, taking the same exhilarating risks, much to his parents’ distress. He even tried to bond closer to those childhood playmates, bribing them with food, teaching them tricks, seeking a link like Man once had with his helpmate — dog.

Alas, noor were not dogs. In time, as his life-path took him farther from the gentle river, Dwer came to realize noor were clever, brave — and also quite dangerous. Silently, he warned Mudfoot, Just because you weren’t the thief, don’t think that makes me trust you one bit.

A steep trail looks and feels different going down than heading up. At times, this one seemed so wild and untamed, Dwer could squint and imagine he was on a real frontier, untouched by sapient hands since the world was new. Then they’d pass some decayed Buyur remnant — a cement-aggregate wall, or a stretch of rubbery pavement missed by the roving deconstructors when Jijo was laid fallow-and the illusion vanished. Demolition was never perfect. Countless Buyur traces were visible west of the Rimmers.

Time was the true recycler. Poor Jijo had been assigned enough to restore her eco-web, or so said his brother, Lark. But Dwer rarely thought on such a grand scale. It robbed magic from the Jijo of today — a wounded place, but one filled with wonders.

Rety needed help over some steeper patches, and the glaver often had to be lowered by rope. Once, after wrestling the lugubrious creature down to a stretch of old road, Dwer swiveled to find the girl gone.

“Now where did the little—” He exhaled frustration. “Oh, hell.”

Rety’s affront deserved some penalty, and her mystery shouted to be solved, but fetching stray glavers came first. After delivering this one, perhaps he’d return to pick up the girl’s trail, even though it would make him miss most of Gathering-

He rounded a sheer stone corner and almost stumbled over the girl, squatting face to face with Mudfoot. Rety looked up at Dwer.

“It’s a noor, right?” she asked.

Dwer covered his surprise. “Uh, it’s the first you’ve seen?”

She nodded, bemused by Mudfoot’s flirtatious grin.

“Nor ever met a glaver, it seems.” Dwer asked — “How far east do you people live?”

The scar on her cheek grew livid as her face flushed. “I don’t know what you—”

She stopped as the extent of her slip-up sank in. Her lips pressed in a pale line.

“Don’t fret it. I already know all about you,” he said, gesturing at her clothes. “No woven cloth. Hides sewn with gut. Good imla and sorrl pelts. Sorrl don’t grow that big, west of the Rimmers.”

Reading her dismay, he shrugged. “I’ve been over the mountains myself, several times. Did your folks say it’s forbidden? That’s true, mostly. But I can range anywheres I want, on survey.”

She looked down. “So I wouldn’t’ve been safe even if I—”

“Ran faster and made it over the pass? Cross some imaginary line and I’d have to let you go?” Dwer laughed, trying not to sound too unfriendly. “Rety, go easy on yourself. You stole the wrong fella’s bow, is all. I’d’ve chased you beyond the Sunrise Desert if I had to.”

That was bluster, of course. Nothing on Jijo was worth a two-thousand-league trek across volcanoes and burning sands. Still, Rety’s eyes widened. He went on.

“I never spotted your tribe in any of my expeditions east, so I’d guess you’re from quite a ways south of east, beyond the Venom Plain. Is it the Gray Hills? I hear that country’s so twisty, it could hide a small tribe, if they’re careful.”

Her brown eyes filled with a weary pang. “You’re wrong. I didn’t come from… that place.”

She trailed off lamely, and Dwer felt sympathy. He knew all about feeling awkward around one’s own kind. The loner’s life made it hard getting enough experience to overcome his own shyness.

Which is why I have to make it to Gathering! Sara had given him a letter to deliver to Plovov the Analyst. Coin-cidentally, Plovov’s daughter was a beauty, and unbetrothed. With luck, Dwer might get a chance to ask Glory Plovov out for a walk, and maybe tell a story good enough to impress her. Like how he stopped last year’s migration of herd-moribul from stampeding over a cliff during a lightning storm. Perhaps he wouldn’t stammer this time, making her giggle in a way he didn’t like.