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Topiara - Chapter 11
Having spent most of his life sheltered in either his father's hall or in the universities of Tandri, Jilan had led a most innocent life; one in which persons such as Lyara had never even appeared in his wildest imaginations. In the week he had spent on the road with her, he had rapidly reassessed his ini tial opinion of her to one more in line with the way she had presented herself - strong, resourceful, and quite capable of defending herself if the need arose. Although easy to draw into a conversation, she at times seemed preoccupied and even in a sort of trance, during which he quickly learned he could get no replies from her. She offered no excuses for her lapses and merely shrugged comments about them off with vague, disparaging responses that suggested that the less said about them, the better.
For her own part, Lyara was enjoying the journey northward, feeling more and more the pull of her homeland. Topiara was continuing to give her insights into the life she had left behind; customs and snatches of her native tongue that would prove useful on the mission she had undertaken. And a glimpse of a face had been added to her visions: young, fright ened and confused by the primitive surroundings of the tents. Lyara knew somehow that she was being given visions of her goal, Sidon. While not discussing these visions with Jilan, Lyara felt a growing urgency to find the youngster before he was taken even deeper inside the Kauwlut lands.
The two riders steered carefully around most of the Talan drian settlements on the plains; ever mindful of the likelihood a search party would by now have been organized to find them. As their provisions gradually decreased, Lyara took on the additional task of trapping meat in the groves of timber that bordered the roads they followed. Jilan never ceased to be amazed at the luck of Lyara's hunts, unaware that Topiara was the one that led her to suitable places to lay traps that would quickly yield results. Already the autumn season was full upon them, and the furs from the traps became warm boots for their feet and wraps for their shoulders.
Only once did Jilan question the wisdom of one of Lyara's hunts. They had been traveling three days along steep, mountain trails that soon would have them nearing the outskirts of Korlan. Both Fleetwind and Surefoot bore full packs of fresh and dried meat from the forests, and yet Lyara suddenly informed him that she needed to go out hunting along a high ledge. Pointing out a small mountain meadow and setting Jilan to set ting up the night's camp, she ignored his arguments and depart ed on foot into the thick forest, returning just at dusk carry ing the limp bulk of a huge mountain wolf over her shoulder.
Almost immediately, she settled down to skinning her prize in her normal fashion; but, oddly, she carefully trimmed the sil vered tip from the wolf's tail and later pried from its jaws several of the long fangs.
"What in the name of all the gods are you going to do this those?" Jilan asked finally, impatient at her for the lack of explanation.
The look in Lyara's eyes as she gazed up at him brought the hackles up on the back of his neck and made him shiver. "In five days we will be in Kauwlut lands. If we are going to be undiscovered, we are going to have to start looking more like Kauwlut than Talandri travelers. These," she held up the tail and fangs, "I will make into a fetish, similar to the one worn by many Kauwlut in honor of their Wolf-Faced god. Between wearing this and the furred garments we have been making all along, we should cause no comment."
"What about me, then, "Jilan shrugged agreement and acceptance of her explanation. "Shouldn't I make one of those things myself..."
"NO!" Lyara barked, more sharply than she had intended. She smiled her apology and hurried to explain further. "The Kauwlut have a psychic bond with their god, and they'd know if one wore his fetish falsely and without some belief in him."
Jilan scowled. "You're not Kauwlut either, Lyara. How do you think you're going to get away with it any more than I would?"
"Let's just say..." she began, but stopped as she saw the disbelieving look in her client's eyes. "Alright," she relented. "You deserve the whole story, I guess; and we're still close enough for you to back out of the rest of the journey if you want. In the long run, it would be better if you knew anyway."
"Knew what?" Jilan's expression disintegrated into confu sion.
"Do you remember the story I once told you about the Kauwlut girl taken into Talandria?"
Jilan thought for a moment. "I remember you mentioning it... Oh."
Lyara sighed. "You asked me then if I knew her well and I answered that I did. It wasn't a lie, just a half-truth. I knew her quite well because..."
"Because she was you." Jilan finished the thought for her. "You are Kauwlut; you were captured as a child and taken into Talandria and brought up there." His face wore an expres sion of relief and understanding. "No wonder Lyndon sent you to me and not some other Guide."
She nodded. "He knew better than I that eventually I would want to return to my homelands and see if I could find a place for myself there; although there have been many things happen in this past year that have made it impossible for me not to return to Talandria from this journey. In the end, I agreed to this assignment as a partial payment to myself for having been abandoned and never sought after." She sighed deeply. "I suppose now that..."
"Listen," Jilan interrupted. "Your being a former Kauwlut captive explains the fetish. But as for the rest, you have done nothing that cautions me not to continue to trust you, especial ly if you are doing this more for yourself than for Sidon. If you betray me, you would also be betraying yourself as a child; and I imagine you would never do that."
Lyara eyed the young man with some surprise. "I didn't expect you to understand so easily. Almost every member of the Talandri aristocracy looks down their noses at the mere mention of the Kauwlut."
Jilan began to smile at her. "Yeah, but I have a good reason to understand you better than the rest of them, remember? I can only hope that Sidon has met with more understanding than you did."
Lyara's eyes seemed to glaze over, and suddenly it was as if she were sitting beside the unknown youth in the darkness of his Kauwlut tent. In front of them, a fur-garbed Kauwlut youth extended a wooden bowl with steaming stew at the boy and seemed to be urging him to take the food. The Kauwlut's eyes were kind, and there was no menace in his manner toward the Talandri captive. Lyara shook her head as the vision faded, and then she looked over at the young man with a gentle smile. "Don't ask me how I know, but you can trust me when I say that he is being well taken care of by his captors in the camp."
"I believe you, Lyara," Jilan breathed in a fit of super stitious awe. "I think you are a mystic as well as a Guide."
"Why do you say that?" Lyara asked, suddenly very busy fashioning the fetish and unwilling to look the youth in the eyes.
"You remind me of the Oracle sometimes, when your face becomes blank and your eyes seem to be looking out and seeing things that ours can't. The Oracle used to do that when my father or the King would ask him about something not contained in his current prophecies." Jilan squatted down on his heels. "It used to give me fits of fright when he would look at me; it seemed as if he could look right through me and see exactly what I was thinking or getting ready to do. But he was the gentlest person I'd ever met."
Topiara warmed on Lyara's breast, and she was treated to a momentary glimpse of a kind, old, wizened and wise face of a man who seemed to look at her, see her at the other end of the vision and nod encouragement at her. Topiara's warmth seemed permeated with sadness, as if for a friend who was no more, and Lyara found her eyes watering as the vision faded rapidly.
"I wish I could have met him," she managed to whisper, the pain in her voice making Jilan look at her sharply, and then in understanding.
"I can imagine," he commented quietly and then left her to her visions and fetish making to take up his task of cutting portions of the carcass for the evening meal.
Korlan was a complete surprise to Lyara. The settlement seemed to suddenly appear out of the dense forest, a thick, wooden stockade surrounding the buildings and streets. Jilan took over the lead through the winding streets, since he was the one who knew them best. A few times he smiled at one or more pedestrians and exchanged greetings with them, turning later to explain to Lyara who they were to how he knew them.
"Aren't you afraid your father will ask them about us when they get here?" she asked after one such explanation.
"By the time my father gets here, we will have been long gone into the north," Jilan said quietly as he smiled to yet another Korlian. "It would cause more comment if I didn't say something to them than if I act as if nothing were wrong."
Topiara's warmth and sense of agreement quieted the rest of Lyara's fears, and she followed Jilan's lead peacefully.
Even the fact that she and Jilan wore furs seemed not to bother the inhabitants of the settlement, as many of them wore the cruder garments themselves in expectation of the winter's freez ing blasts in the near future. Despite this, Lyara was glad that she had refrained from braiding the now-finished fetish into her hair that morning as she had for the previous two mornings, realizing that it would have made them stand out in the crowded streets.
Jilan did not have to talk long to convince Lyara to stop at a small inn for the evening meal and lodging for the night. Both were ready to sleep on straw mattresses instead of the hard ground for a change, and the day was far enough progressed that they would hove not gone far from the settlement before they would have had to make camp anyway. The inn was virtually empty; for Korlan was already closing down for the winter and travelers that far north were a rarity. The meal was warm and nourishing, and both Lyara and Jilan enjoyed a good night's rest on comfortable beds before starting out early the next morning complete with several loaves of bread purchased from the inn keeper's wife.
The morning sun shed cool and deceptive warmth on the dark green forest that spread out in all directions beyond the gates of Korlan. In the distance, the blue-tinged peaks of the Koparian Mountains poked proudly over the green carpet and reached towards the skies. The pair traveled silently side by side most of the morning, Lyara allowing Jilan to show the way to his uncle's residence on the border and Jilan watching care fully for the landmarks that would take them to the gates of the residence before nightfall.
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