Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

patch covering one eye. She hunkered at the nursing woman’s side and rested a hand on her shoulder.
    They each spoke a few words, too low and quick for Tsering to make out. Then the one-eyed woman spoke haltingly in Rasan. “I am Tsareg Toragana. I will translate for my sister, Tsareg Oljei. Sit, please, and I will bring you tea.”
    Tsering sat on a rolled hide, trying to disguise her wince. Jurchadai turned so he was making a third side of an invisible square and positioned himself halfway between her and the sisters, and he too hunkered there as casually and comfortably as Tsering might have reclined in a bed. All those years in the saddle must result in particularly powerful crouching muscles.
    Oljei, supporting her baby one-handed, moved to the dried-dung fire and poured steaming liquid into clay cups with hide guards whip-stitched and shrunken around them. Tsering guessed these would help keep the tea hot—and the hands holding the cup from burning. Oljei served Tsering first, then Jurchadai, and lastly Toragana and herself.
    The tea was too hot to drink, and smelled mostly of wet leaves, as if it had been brewed over more than once—but a fat lump of fresh butter floated on top, melting dreamily into the brown liquor, and the steam that rose from it bathed Tsering’s face in warmth. In another month, it would freeze on her eyelashes. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment of peace, with the shaman-rememberer and the two women beside her, and the warmth of the fire at her right side.
    It was only a moment, though. Then Oljei—by way of Toragana, though Tsering now understood more than some of the Qersnyk words—began to speak. Her scarred face painted in furrows by the firelight, she said (and Toragana translated), “This one prays you will pardon her rudeness, Wizard Tsering, in moving so quickly to matters of business. But we are all tired, and I know you will wish to eat and seek your own bed before it grows too cold.”
    Her breath formed the shape of her words on the air. Tsering watched, fascinated, and almost forgot to sip her still-scalding tea and answer. “I am grateful for what time you can spare.”
    Oljei’s face twisted around its scars; it might have been meant to be a smile. She glanced at her sister, and Toragana continued, “We wish to confer with you, Wizard Tsering, on where we next take the clans. Your people will be affected as well. Their only safety is with us; there are not enough Rasani to make it across the steppe without falling prey to bandits, now that the Khagan’s peace is ended.”
    Hot as the tea was, the chill in Tsering’s belly was colder. “I am not a leader of my people.”
    Now that was definitely a smile. And Oljei lifted her chin and brushed the unbound hair behind her shoulder. Her babe fussed in her arms; she switched it to the other breast so smoothly Tsering barely saw her adjust her coat. “It is you who have protected us during our time in Tsarepheth. It is you who befriended Ashra Khatun. It is you who helped cure the demon-cough. You have proven yourself a friend to the Qersnyk and to Clan Tsareg, and it is with you that we will confer.”
    This time, Tsering sought refuge in the tea. The melted butter sent savory, salty tendrils through it, coating her chapped lips in relief. When she had drunk two swallows—with a pause between, because of the heat—she had collected herself enough to answer, “What do you propose?”
    Toragana said, “We will go to Dragon Lake, and support Re Temur Khagan, son of Ashra Khatun. Your people are welcome to join us, but there is danger.”
    Indeed. The danger of joining the vanguard declaring support for an untested would-be emperor. The danger of travel through the unpatrolled steppe and the patrolled Song borderlands. The danger of war, of conscription, of revolution.
    “There is danger in traveling alone as well.” Tsering sipped her tea once more. “I shall speak to Hong-la. We must take the temper of our