The Outskirter's Secret Read online

  Bel glowered at her for a long moment. “Precarious,” she repeated, and with an expression of vast distaste gave herself to thought.

  The noise in the room began to lessen. Through some internal process, the villagers were slowly coalescing into a unified group. Their leader was not Dalen, as Rowan had half-expected, but a pale, jittery woman of middle age with smoldering eyes, who spoke fervently, passionately, using short, quick gestures.

  “Rowan?”

  Rowan turned back to the Outskirter. “Yes?”

  “The war bands will come down the brook.”

  Rowan sighed in relief. “I rather thought they might.”

  “It leads right into town, and they don’t know they’re expected. The idea of attacking at dawn is too attractive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me; I want to reach the Guidestar, and I don’t care to watch you die,” Bel said vehemently. “You tell your villagers to use bows, as many as they have. The Outskirters won’t have archers. An ambush with bows, and the village will win easily, and one fighter more or less won’t matter.” She looked up at Rowan and enunciated each word fiercely. “Now will you leave?”

  “As soon as I pass this on.”

  Bel rose, and brushed her trouser legs as if they were filthy. “You’re lucky that I like you so well.”

  “Yes,” Rowan admitted. “Yes, I am.”

  Bel stalked back to her position, and Rowan rapped the table to gain the room’s attention. A hush fell instantly, and the villagers turned to her, now a unified force with a commander and a single, all-important purpose. They lacked only strategy. The steerswoman gave it to them.

  2

  On the evening before Rowan’s departure from the Steerswomen’s Archives, the air had been sweetly cool outside, warm and faintly dusty in the northeast corner of the Greater Library. Three cushioned chairs stood close beside the snapping fireplace. Rowan sat in one—uneasily, on the edge, bending forward again and again to study one or another of the many charts that lay on a low table before her. In the second chair, Henra, the Prime of the Steerswomen, nestled comfortably: a small, elderly woman of graceful gestures and quiet self-assurance. Silver-brown hair fell in a loose braid down her breast, and she wore a heavy robe over her nightshift, looking much like a grandmother prepared to remain all night by the bedside of a feverish child—an appearance contradicted by the cool, steady gaze of her long green eyes.

  The third chair was empty. Bel sat on the stones of the hearth, cheerfully feeding the fire to a constant, unnecessarily high blaze. “Enjoy it while you can,” she said. In the Outskirts, open flame attracted dangerous creatures by night.

  The charts loosely stacked on the table had been drawn by dozens of hands, and their ages spanned centuries. Each map showed a sweep of mountains to the left, a pair of rivers bracketing the center, and a huge body of water below all, labeled INLAND SEA. From chart to chart, across the years, scope and precision of depiction grew: the edge of the mountain range became delimited, the river Wulf slowly sprouted tributaries, Greyriver later did the same, and the Inland Sea began to fulfill its promise of a far shore by acquiring a north-pointing peninsula.

  Each map also noted an area labeled THE OUTSKIRTS; each showed it as a vague empty sweep; and each showed it in a different location. Set in order, the maps revealed the slow eastward shifting of the barbarian wildlands.

  Bel regarded the charts with extreme skepticism. “I don’t doubt that the women who drew the maps believed that that was where the Outskirts were. But did they actually go there? And were my people there? And a word like ‘outskirts’ might mean many things. Perhaps they just intended to say, ‘This is the edge of what we know.’ That would explain why it keeps moving.”

  “I don’t think so. Look at this.” Rowan had pulled one map from the bottom of the stack: a recent copy of an older copy of a now-lost chart from nearly a thousand years earlier, purported to have been drawn by Sharon, the founder of the Steerswomen. On it, the Outskirts were improbably shown to begin halfway between the tiny fishing village of Wulfshaven and the mouth of Greyriver, where the city of Donner later grew.

  Rowan indicated. “Greyriver, deep in what was then the Outskirts; Sharon knew that it was there. The term ‘outskirts’ did not represent the limit of what she knew.”

  Bel puzzled. “How did she know it was there?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Is it shown accurately?”

  “Yes.”

  “She must have gone there.”

  “Perhaps. Most of her notes have been lost. Nevertheless, to Sharon, Greyriver was part of the Outskirts.”

  The Prime spoke. ” ‘Where the greengrass ends,’ ” she quoted, ” ‘the Outskirts begin.’ Those were Sharon’s words.”

  Bel made a deprecating sound. “Hyperbole,” she said.

  “What?” Henra was taken aback; Rowan was not, and she smiled over her chart. She had learned not to be surprised when the barbarian made use of sophisticated ideas.

  “Hyperbole,” Bel repeated. “Exaggeration. The greengrass doesn’t just end. It runs out, eventually. Either your Sharon didn’t know, or she wasn’t talking like a steerswoman, because it’s not an accurate description. Perhaps she was trying to be poetic.”

  Henra recovered her balance. “I see.”

  “Well.” Rowan sighed and returned to her work, sifting through the charts before her, uselessly, helplessly. There was no more to be done; all was prepared, as well as could be, all packed and ready for the first leg of her journey. Nevertheless, she reviewed, and reviewed again.

  Rowan was to leave first, and travel eastward cross-country to a small village on the far side of the distant Greyriver; Bel would go south to the nearby port city of Wulfshaven, there to attempt to maintain the illusion that Rowan was still at the Archives, and later to leave ostentatiously alone, by sea. The plan was designed to deflect from Rowan the passing attention of any wizards.

  The wizards and the Steerswomen had coexisted for long centuries; but the wizards, by blithely refusing to answer certain questions, had consistently incurred the Steerswomen’s ban. Their refusal had engendered in the Steerswomen a deep-seated, slow-burning resentment that had grown over the years, eventually becoming as pervasive as it was ineffectual. The feeling was largely one-sided: for their part, the wizards tended simply to ignore the order entirely.

  But the previous spring Rowan herself had managed to attract their notice, and merely by doing what every steerswoman did: asking questions.

  She had not known that her investigation into the source and nature of certain pretty blue gems, decorative but otherwise useless, would be of any interest to the wizards. But when she and Bel were first attacked on the road by night, then trapped in a burning building, then waylaid by a ruse clearly designed to divert the investigation, it became obvious that the wizards were indeed interested, and more than interested—they were concerned enough to take action, for the first time in nearly eight hundred years, against so seemingly harmless a person as a steerswoman.

  In the course of what had followed, many of Rowan’s questions about the jewels had been answered, although none completely. And the course of her investigations had gifted her with answers to questions unasked and unimagined.

  The jewels were in fact magical, and were used by the wizards in certain spells involving the animation of inanimate objects; but what the spells were, and how they were activated, Rowan had never learned.

  The jewels’ pattern of distribution across the Inner Lands, which had at first so puzzled her, was explained by a fact both simple and stunning: They had fallen from the sky. They were part of a Guidestar—not one of that pair that hung visible in the night sky, motionless points of light, familiar to every Inner Lander, but one of another pair, previously unknown, which hung over distant, possibly uninhabited lands, somewhere on the far side of the world. Why one had fallen remained a mystery.

  That the wizards, jealous a
nd mutually hostile, should abandon their differences to cooperate in the hunt for Rowan, seemed a fact as impossible as the falling of a Guidestar, until Rowan learned yet another secret: there was one single authority set over all wizards, one man.

  She knew that his authority was absolute; the wizards had sought to capture or kill her without themselves knowing the justifications for the hunt.

  She knew that they resented his control of them but were unable to deny his wishes.

  She knew his name: Slado.

  She knew nothing else about him—not his plans, nor his powers, nor his location, nor the color of his eyes.

  The belt that Bel wore was made of nine blue shards from the secret, fallen Guidestar. Her father had found the jewels deep in the Outskirts, at Dust Ridge, which the wizards called Tournier’s Fault. It was the largest concentration of such jewels that Rowan had ever heard of. The description of the finding, and Rowan’s own calculations on the mathematics of falling objects, led her to believe that at Dust Ridge she might find what remained of the body of the Guidestar. Knowing this, she had to go there.

  A current chart in her hands, Rowan retraced the long lonely route across the breadth of the Inner Lands, to that little village past Greyriver, where she and Bel would meet again to enter the Outskirts together. It was the one part of the journey of which she could be certain. Beyond that point …

  Setting the map down, she took up the top chart from the sequenced stack and studied it with vast dissatisfaction. It differed wildly from all the others.

  Gone were the western mountains, the two rivers, the wide sea; this map showed a single river at its left edge, running south, then curving southwest to the edge of the paper. Intermittent roads tracked the banks, occasionally branching east to end abruptly in small villages.

  A tumble of low hills ambled vaguely across the southern edge of the paper; a second river with a few tributaries began seemingly from nowhere and ended without destination; a short stretch of shore marked INLAND SEA made a brief incursion, then stopped, unfinished. In the low center of the chart, a jagged line trailing northeast to southwest bore the notation DUST RIDGE (TOURNIER’S FAULT).

  Despite its size, despite its scale, the rest of the map was empty.

  Rowan glowered at it. It was drawn by her own hand.

  She had reconstructed it from one she had seen as a prisoner in the fortress of the young wizards Shammer and Dhree. While their captive, Rowan had freely given all information requested, as befitted any steerswoman; since neither wizard had yet lied to or withheld information from a steerswoman, they were not under ban. Rowan herself had carefully avoided courting the ban, by never asking Shammer and Dhree any questions she suspected might be refused, and by this means the conversation had been able to continue for the best part of two days.

  But in their eagerness to learn, the wizards had inadvertently revealed more than they suspected. Giving Rowan the opportunity to see a wizard-made chart of this section of the Outskirts had constituted one such slip. Their map of those unknown lands had been astonishingly complete, and to a detail and skill of depiction unequaled by the best of steerswomen. But despite Rowan’s sharp eye and well-trained memory, with no chance to copy immediately what she had seen these few unsatisfying details were all she could recall.

  She knew her point of entry into the Outskirts; she knew her destination; she knew next to nothing between the two.

  She caught Henra watching her. The Prime smiled. “You must add to the chart as you travel. And bring it back to us, or find a way to send it …”

  “When I return, I’ll come out through Alemeth …” Alemeth was far enough south to suggest a straight-line route west returning from Dust Ridge.

  “Then send it from there. After Alemeth, I think you ought to go to Southport, and do some work in that area.”

  This was new. “Southport?”

  “No one is covering Janus’s route.” Janus, a steersman, one of the few male members of the order, had inexplicably resigned, refusing to explain or justify his choice; he was now under ban. “And,” the Prime continued, “Southport has no resident wizard.”

  “In other words,” Bel said with a grin, “when you’re done with this, lay low for a while.”

  Rowan made a dissatisfied sound. “Keep out of sight. Hope the wizards forget about me.”

  And, for the moment, they seemed to have. How long that might last, no one knew.

  According to Corvus, the wizard resident in Wulfshaven, the wizards had decided that Rowan’s investigations must have been directed secretly by one of their own number. They were now involved in mutual spyings, schemings, and accusations, trying to discover the traitor, and had effectively dismissed Rowan as being a mere minion.

  Rowan had herself disabused Corvus of the idea. He had neglected to pass the information on to his fellows.

  What Slado might do when the truth was discovered was impossible to guess. He had motives of his own behind these events, Rowan was certain. He had some plan.

  Rowan shook her head. “We don’t know why Corvus is letting his fellows search for a nonexistent traitor.” She found a mug of peppermint tea on the floor, where she had abandoned it earlier, and took a sip. It was long cold. She studied green flecks of floating peppermint, then used one finger to push a large leaf aside. “He must gain something by it, some kind of advantage.”

  “What might that be?” Henra prompted.

  Rowan made a face. “That’s impossible to guess.” Certainly, Corvus was as interested as she to learn that a Guidestar had fallen, as surprised that Slado had not made the fact known among the other wizards. Perhaps Corvus planned an investigation of his own, an investigation that confusion among his fellows would somehow serve to aid. Nevertheless, for whatever reasons, the result was that, for the time being, Rowan was again free to investigate as she pleased—

  —because Corvus wished it so.

  Rowan found that she was on her feet, her chart, forgotten, sliding with a rustling hiss from her lap to the floor. Shadows from the flickering fire ranged up against the walls, across the long room, shuddering against the stone walls and the motley ranks of bookshelves.

  She looked down at Bel, a backlit shape seated on the stones of the hearth, and made her answer to those dark, puzzled eyes. Her voice was tight with anger. “I’m the advantage. Corvus is using me.”

  The Outskirter took in the information, considering it with tilted head, then nodded. “Good.”

  “What?”

  “If he’s using you, then he’ll want to help you. He’ll want you to finish your mission.”

  “I don’t want a wizard’s help!”

  “Too late. You’ve got it.”

  “If Slado is trying to keep the Guidestar secret from the wizards,” Henra put in, “then Corvus can’t move, can’t investigate it himself without attracting attention. Perhaps he can learn something by seeing how Slado behaves among the wizards, but for outside information, for—” She spread her hands and made careful, delimiting gestures. “—for an understanding of the effects of these events …”

  “He needs me.”

  “He needs you. You might be his only source. You might be the only one able to discover why the Guidestar fell.”

  “And find why Slado wants to keep it secret,” Bel added. She leaned forward to retrieve Rowan’s fallen map. “Corvus himself didn’t know, until you told him.” She regarded the chart thoughtfully, her eyes tracing undrawn lines of unknown routes across the blank face of the Outskirts.

  But what help could Corvus provide, across those empty miles? And at what price?

  “Gods below,” Rowan said quietly. “He’s made it true. I am a wizard’s minion.”

  The Prime spoke quickly, leaning forward, emerald eyes bright in the gloom. “You’re no one’s minion, not even mine. What Corvus decides to do is his own choice. Your business is to learn. He’s under ban, and you have no obligation to tell him anything.”

  To b
e a steerswoman, and to know, but not to tell …

  As she stood in that wash of firelight, Rowan felt the long room behind her, felt it by knowledge, memory, and sensation of the motionless air. She faced the warmth of the hearth, and the far, unheated corner of the room laid a cool, still hand on her shoulder.

  High above, all around, the tall racks and unmatched shelves stood, like uneven measurements, staggered lines across and up the walls. The books they held had no uniformity: fat and narrow, with pages of parchment or pulp or fine translucent paper that would stir in the merest breeze, between covers of leather, cloth, or wood. Each book was the days of a steerswoman’s life, each shelf the years, each wall long centuries in the lives of human beings whose simple hope was to understand, and to speak. And Rowan knew, without turning to look, where lay that one shelf in the southeast corner that held her own logbooks: five years of her eyes seeing, of her voice asking, of her mind answering.

  Her books stood to the left on the shelf. The right-hand end was empty. And more shelves waited.

  “I will tell Corvus,” Rowan said slowly. “Without his needing to ask.” And she sat.

  Her cold cup of tea was still in her hand, and Bel shifted the stack of charts to clear a place for it on the table. Rowan set it down and composed her thoughts.

  “Whatever Slado is up to,” she began, “it looks to be bad not only for the folk, but for the wizards as well, else he wouldn’t need to keep it secret from them. For some reason, he can’t let his plans become known—so the thing that we most need to do is to make them known, whatever part of them that we can see; known to everyone, even the wizards.” She looked at the Outskirter, at the Prime, then spoke definitely. “It will make a difference.”

  The Prime was motionless but for her gaze, which dropped once to her hands in her lap, then returned to Rowan’s face. “So the truth becomes a weapon.”

  Rowan was taken aback, and paused for a long moment. “That’s true.” It seemed such an odd idea: innocent truth, a weapon. Then she nodded, slowly. “It’s always been true. Truth is the only weapon the Steerswomen have.”