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otherwise occurred to me, but& of course."
I didn't for a moment believe Toshtai's words, and the undercurrent of Minch's
tone sent chills running around the circumference of my neck, just about where
a sword would separate it from my head.
Just what I needed: another enemy in our beloved ruling class. I had survived
one, but I didn't want to have to es-tablish a pattern.
There was a spot outside the keep, over by the south wall, that held fond
memories for me. A flat spot of grass edged by an old, crumbling retaining
wall, the slope above held at bay by the roots of a huge jimsum tree. There
wasn't much of a path to and from it, and the path had largely been overgrown.
It was where NaRee and I had first kissed, and it was where we had, a month
ago, a generation ago, lain to-gether for the last time, as it turned out.
I didn't miss her much, not anymore.
I wouldn't miss my own breathing.
The last time I was there, the night had been alive with sounds and smells;
there had been the cry of an owl, the whispered music of rustling leaves, the
minty scent of a cool wind blowing gently through trees.
But now it was quiet and still, and I couldn't smell any-thing.
When the moon is full, the hour of the bear is a bleak and pitiless time in
the night. The light, no less harsh for its weakness, pours down on
everything, reducing all to shades of an unflattering, unloving blue-gray,
robbing ev-erything of color. The one-peden fields below, spread out like the
squares of a single-bone draughts board, were even and square, if I looked at
them from the right per-
spective, like I was a piece waiting to be played on the board.
And then, because there didn't seem to be anything bet-ter to do, and not
because my eyes were sagging shut no matter how hard I tried to keep them
open, I went back into the keep, staggered up to my rooms and into my bed, and
was fully asleep before I was fully horizontal.
6
Travel, a Spot of Archery.
Predisposition, and Other Portents of Problems
Page 35
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I guess it's just superstition, but I had a hard time finding an appropriate
freden, a throw-weight.
It's something that Gray Khuzud taught us to put in our pouches, as we walked
from village to village, from city to city: a small stone or tiny stick or
piece of bone perhaps, of no value or usefulness. It shouldn't be too
anything: not too large or too small, not too rough or too smooth. Just
something ordinary, and dispensable. You tuck it in your pouch near the top,
if you please and then you forget about it. Just forget about it.
Until.
Until the road gets too long, until your packs are too heavy, until your legs
just can't stagger another step, and until each breath burns in your throat as
each step shoves sharp knives up through the soles of your feet. Then and not
before; it won't work if you don't wait, for the timing is everything you
reach down into your pouch, and take out the small stone or stick or perhaps
piece of bone that you've selected, and you invest it with all the weight and
weariness of the road, you imbue it with every bit of ex-haustion and fatigue
and pain.
And you throw it away, far away, as hard as you can.
Perhaps it's magic that anybody can do, or perhaps there is something else to
it, but when you do that, the road seems to shorten in front of you, if only a
little;
your legs gain strength, even though it's just enough strength to go on, and
perhaps your breath is a little cooler in your throat and your feet ache a
trifle less.
It's enough.
I finally found an appropriate freden near the walls of the keep. Just a plain
stone, smooth but not polished, about the size of my thumb. I slipped it into
my pouch and let it clink against the few coins there.
Back when I was with the troupe, we had a fair amount of equipment to haul
with us, although nothing more than we could carry on our backs.
Acrobats must carry their own rigging and their own props, as well as the
ordinary sorts of things you need when you're often going to be spending
nights between towns, sleeping by or on the road itself.
Each night, gen-erally, we'd have to use one or another: either we would make
camp outside of civilization, and have to break out the camping gear, leaving
the balls, sticks, knives, cos-tumes, lanyard, halyards, and such safely
packed, or we would be safely ensconced in a town, in which case we could
leave most of the camping gear stowed away, while we'd take out the props and
do a show.
Sometimes, rarely, when we played the smaller villages, we would have to use
everything: make camp just outside of the village, set up our own equipment,
do a perform-ance for which we would be paid in rice, vegetables, and
chickens, then cook for ourselves, sleep, and be ready to leave when the hour
of the dragon gave way to the hour of the cock.
That was the worst case: everything out, everything used, everything to be
properly stowed before we could move on.
But it took, at most, in the worst case, maybe half an hour from the moment we
arose to the moment that Large Egda, the most heavily burdened of the troupe,
would swing out on the road, a mumbled, half-remembered song on his thick
lips.
It's not hard: you wake up, you fold up, you put it in a bag, you put the bag
on your back, and you go.
Leaving "promptly in the hour of the cock" seemed to have a different meaning
for our beloved ruling class. As far as I could tell, they didn't have a thing
to do but empty their bladders and bowels, and as far
as I knew their per-sonal attendants could have done that for any of them. But
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