The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

island, the family-groups served Ashé each according to their parasomatic strengths. Still with me?”
    “Well, a couple words are flying a little high for me there, but I get you basically. You’re saying, the captain comes from a line of warriors.”
    “No. I’m saying—” . . .
the mouth of the beast!
Far better to fling yourself to wild lions, suffering the living flesh rent by tooth and claw, than that you should . . .
“—he
doesn’t
,” Demane said. “I’m saying the captain was never meant for the fighting life at all. I’m pretty sure of it.”
    “Yeah?” Cumalo turned sleepy eyes on him. “You think so? Man’s twice the warrior you are, and nobody else I ever met can take
you
.”
    “But that’s just it, right there. You see what I mean? I’m no warrior either—”
    “If the two of you aren’t, it’s got me wondering who in the Hell
is
.”
    “Come on, Cumalo! You know me better than that. Didn’t my roots bind up the flux for you? And I pulled the poison out of that merchant’s scorpion bite. You sat
watching me
sew Messed Up’s face back on!”
    “Yeah, all right. I see what you mean—a healer, then. And Captain’s in the wrong life too. What’s
he
supposed to be doing?”
    Demane seized Cumalo’s knee. “Hang on a moment, all right?”
    Here came a plainsman with ruined ears and twice-broken nose, his broad-shouldered swagger cleaving through the crowd. In the freedom of that brother’s wake strolled a much richer, smaller, older man, in robes the color of late dusk. Demane let go the knee and stood. “I’ll be right back.” Without meaning to, he came up to the strangers on their blind side, far too fast. The brother spun with clenched fists.
    Their eyes met, and the feeling surprised them both.
    Simpatico
, sudden and bone-deep; ill will was impossible. There was a familiar quality about the brother’s face. That aquiline nose . . . was it someone Demane knew? And, hey—the brother had a nice smile, too. They nodded. Their hands joined, snapped apart, and rejoined, shaken in the manner of warriors well met hereabouts. Demane dragged his gaze to the merchant’s.
    “You doing all right, boss? I’m Demane,” he said, “a brother with another caravan. I heard what you said back under the tower—”
    “Kaffalah!” the merchant interrupted. “What is this man’s purpose? Tell him I neither speak nor understand the rabble’s cant.” The merchant spoke in accents of Merqerim, westernmost of the coastal cities: not one of those Demane had yet visited.
    “Kaffalah, brother.” Demane turned back to the plainsman. “I just want to know if any of you seen what that lion look like. The color it was? My caravan, we leaving to go through the Wildeeps tomorrow.”
    The brother passed on these words to his master.
    “The creature’s color?” cried the merchant. “What
earthly
difference can that make? Tell this irrelevant fool that it was the king of monster lions! A rabid, man-eating tiger! Some unholy cat-fiend slipped the chains of Hell; a harrower of
men who fear God
, men who seek
but to fare the way
in safety, to earn an
honest living
! Color? Its color be
damned
! Did we not all hear the hellbeast roaring in the night? You tell him, Kaffalah. Tell him
this
! That if the greatwork on the Road has lost virtue, such that fell things maraud freely from the Wildeeps, devouring travelers at will, then that caravan which would go south by that route were
mad
. His caravan had better go west—yes!—even to the Great River itself, taking ferry for the far side, and traveling southward
thence
: outside the bounds of the Wildeeps. This man and his master count their lives as
nothing,
should they balk from such sweet wisdom as I speak now. There being no safety on the Road, it should bring them
joy
to bypass the Wildeeps; yea, even to go
half a thousand
leagues off the direct route!”
    A caravanmaster promises his merchants speed, safety, and thrift. Knowing this, now