Read Online Deepwood: Karavans # 2 by Jennifer Roberson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Roberson
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fragmented tales. Some
thing
had ensnared her gift, her art, and was leading it astray. Was making that gift its own, a conduit for its intent.
She was, she believed, in the settlement, in the grove, in her wagon, in her cot. If so, she might find Lerin, the dream-reader, who could possibly make sense of what she saw, what she felt, what she
knew
, but could not comprehend. Lerin might, if Lerin had survived the storm.
Ilona stirred. Pain lanced through her left forearm, setting nerves afire. She said nothing, made no complaint because the words would not form, and in a moment the shadows came again, the dimness, the darkness. Portents and potentials, memories and vision. She was wandering, carried away from the self she knew, that she trusted. She was something less or something more; decidedly something
other
. Beneath the colorful blankets her body twisted, denying the comprehension that she was helpless, was an instrument of another’s intent. She was Ilona.
Ilona
. Handreader. Sancorran. Jorda’s diviner …
one
of Jorda’s diviners.
But she was also lost. She knew it, and mourned.
BRODHI FOUND THE couriers’ common tent collapsed, poles scattered, oilcloth tattered, but nonetheless present when so little else throughout the wind-wracked settlement was. Suspicion formed; weight of some kind had pinned down the oilcoth. He began to unwrap the tumbled fabric until he saw booted feet, outflung arms, mouths bloodied, and faces crusted with grime, dirt, blood, and sand. Alorn. Timmon. Fellow couriers, if not precisely companions. Brodhi had none of those, save for Ferize.
He peeled back the oilcoth until both forms were free of encumbrance. Brodhi did then what any human would do, but that an Alisani—not Shoia but
Alisani
—would also do: he checked the sprawled bodies for signs of life.
Neither man was dead. Neither man was conscious, but life yet quickened in them. Brodhi, squatting between the sprawled couriers, looked from one to the other. Eyes were closed, hair tangled, faces bruised and scraped, dusted with ash and soil. Well, he could leave them as they were, to come to themselves on their own, or he could take pains to make them more comfortable. For a moment Brodhi flirted with the attractive impulse to rise and walk away, putting them from his mind, but he remained upon his journey, was still to be tested, and he had, as always, absolutely no idea which occurences were tests, and which were mere coincidence.
In the wake of the storm, of Alisanos becoming active and uprooting itself in order to change locations, anything was possible but Brodhi believed it was far more likely that, in the wake of the deepwood’s shifting, his actions and worth might be of more immediate interest, and thus were being considered by his people, by the primaries, who held the governance of his future in their hands. Ferize, in the guise of a young girl, had made it clear that he was to be seen as someone who cared for humans, to know their names, their habits, to
understand
them. He did not wish to. His interest, ambition, his
needs
lay elsewhere. But this journey, frustrating as it might be, was part and parcel of his rite of passage. He would not become what he wished to be if he did not complete the journey, did he not, in some way, become what the primaries demanded he become, were he to ascend. It was not for him to know what the journey entailed. Not until the culmination, the completion of his journey, was achieved, and his future settled.
Time, as the humans reckoned it, ran very differently in Alisanos. Here it was named as hours, days, weeks, months, years; there it was what it was, simple
continuation
. The suns of Alisanos, and its place upon the world, gave it day and night, daylight and darkness, but the rhythms of his body were not predicated on such things as dark or light, night or day, or even of time passing. Five years, the primaries had decreed;five human years. Brodhi
thing
had ensnared her gift, her art, and was leading it astray. Was making that gift its own, a conduit for its intent.
She was, she believed, in the settlement, in the grove, in her wagon, in her cot. If so, she might find Lerin, the dream-reader, who could possibly make sense of what she saw, what she felt, what she
knew
, but could not comprehend. Lerin might, if Lerin had survived the storm.
Ilona stirred. Pain lanced through her left forearm, setting nerves afire. She said nothing, made no complaint because the words would not form, and in a moment the shadows came again, the dimness, the darkness. Portents and potentials, memories and vision. She was wandering, carried away from the self she knew, that she trusted. She was something less or something more; decidedly something
other
. Beneath the colorful blankets her body twisted, denying the comprehension that she was helpless, was an instrument of another’s intent. She was Ilona.
Ilona
. Handreader. Sancorran. Jorda’s diviner …
one
of Jorda’s diviners.
But she was also lost. She knew it, and mourned.
BRODHI FOUND THE couriers’ common tent collapsed, poles scattered, oilcloth tattered, but nonetheless present when so little else throughout the wind-wracked settlement was. Suspicion formed; weight of some kind had pinned down the oilcoth. He began to unwrap the tumbled fabric until he saw booted feet, outflung arms, mouths bloodied, and faces crusted with grime, dirt, blood, and sand. Alorn. Timmon. Fellow couriers, if not precisely companions. Brodhi had none of those, save for Ferize.
He peeled back the oilcoth until both forms were free of encumbrance. Brodhi did then what any human would do, but that an Alisani—not Shoia but
Alisani
—would also do: he checked the sprawled bodies for signs of life.
Neither man was dead. Neither man was conscious, but life yet quickened in them. Brodhi, squatting between the sprawled couriers, looked from one to the other. Eyes were closed, hair tangled, faces bruised and scraped, dusted with ash and soil. Well, he could leave them as they were, to come to themselves on their own, or he could take pains to make them more comfortable. For a moment Brodhi flirted with the attractive impulse to rise and walk away, putting them from his mind, but he remained upon his journey, was still to be tested, and he had, as always, absolutely no idea which occurences were tests, and which were mere coincidence.
In the wake of the storm, of Alisanos becoming active and uprooting itself in order to change locations, anything was possible but Brodhi believed it was far more likely that, in the wake of the deepwood’s shifting, his actions and worth might be of more immediate interest, and thus were being considered by his people, by the primaries, who held the governance of his future in their hands. Ferize, in the guise of a young girl, had made it clear that he was to be seen as someone who cared for humans, to know their names, their habits, to
understand
them. He did not wish to. His interest, ambition, his
needs
lay elsewhere. But this journey, frustrating as it might be, was part and parcel of his rite of passage. He would not become what he wished to be if he did not complete the journey, did he not, in some way, become what the primaries demanded he become, were he to ascend. It was not for him to know what the journey entailed. Not until the culmination, the completion of his journey, was achieved, and his future settled.
Time, as the humans reckoned it, ran very differently in Alisanos. Here it was named as hours, days, weeks, months, years; there it was what it was, simple
continuation
. The suns of Alisanos, and its place upon the world, gave it day and night, daylight and darkness, but the rhythms of his body were not predicated on such things as dark or light, night or day, or even of time passing. Five years, the primaries had decreed;five human years. Brodhi
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