The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [160]
‘Answer the truth,’ Pir said. ‘Or die.’
‘I will,’ Vek said. He smiled in such sweet delight that, Sidro assumed, he was seeing some deity behind the actual man.
‘Will you walk in the ranks of warriors?’ Pir said.
‘Never!’
One at a time, Pir named the choices a man might make at this ceremony. Vek answered ‘never’ to each on the brief list.
‘What then will you do?’ Pir finished.
‘Serve the goddesses and gods all my life,’ Vek said. His voice choked on tears although he kept smiling. ‘And die when they wish me to.’
‘So be it!’ Pir grabbed the boy’s left hand and scratched its back with the point of his knife. ‘Blood and fire have witnessed your vow.’
Vek raised his hand and let the blood run down his arm for all to see. The men in the surrounding circle lifted their spears and cried out, ‘Hai! Hai! Hai!’ Vek rose, still smiling as if he saw a thousand delights spread before him, and turned to Sidro.
‘Walk as a man from now on,’ she said. ‘Ride as a man always.’
Once again came the ancient chant, ‘Hai! Hai! Hai!’ Sidro stamped her foot three times, and the ceremony had ended.
Although she’d fretted enough about the ritual cut to bring a scrap of cloth for a bandage, Pir had managed to keep the scratch shallow. By the time Sidro examined it, the blood had already stopped running. She bound it up anyway to keep the ever-present camp dirt out of it, then sent Vek off with the rest of the men. Pir lingered with her at the fire.
‘Very nice,’ he said.
‘Thank you. I have this awful feeling I forgot a speech in the middle, but the ritual pleased Vek, and that’s the main thing.’
‘That speech was boring, anyway.’ Pir thought for a moment. ‘I don’t remember much about it. The priestess droned on about never betraying your mach-fala, but um well, he’s already done that, hasn’t he? Betrayed them, I mean, by having magic.’
‘Perhaps they’ve betrayed him, rather, by hating him for it.’
‘Ah.’ Pir looked at her sharply. ‘Hadn’t thought of it that way.’
Sidro met his glance, then forgot what she was about to say. She found herself wondering what it would be like to stroke his close-cropped hair, to run her fingers through the hair on his chest. He stared back at her, unsmiling, silent, but she knew that he too felt the sudden attraction between them, because his scent began to change. Horse mages, however, learned to control their scents. After that first unmistakable waft of sexual desire, his returned to the normal smell of a man who’s stood close to a fire on a warm night. He started to speak, swallowed the words, then turned and strode off. Sidro stayed where she was until two of the other men came back with shovels to smother the bonfire.
As she walked back to the cabin, she was wondering what her own scent had revealed. It’s the ceremony, she thought. Somehow we worked magic together. She’d never thought of the coming of age ritual as sorcery. As she mulled it over, she realized that Vek’s presence and his deep-rooted magical gifts had brought power into what was usually a mere social occasion. The power had caught her and Pir both unawares until that moment by the fire. That night she dreamt of the horse mage, but if he’d done the same about her, he gave no sign of it when she saw him in the morning.
Laz led the raiding party back into camp late that day. Whooping in triumph, the men who’d been left behind rushed to unload the booty from the packhorses. The raven landed at the cabin door, then hopped and fluttered his way inside to his perch. Sidro stayed outside, watching Pir collect the horses, until Laz strolled out in human form, dressed in the clean shirt and brigga she’d washed for him, his brown hair roughly combed, like feathers ruffled by the wind.
‘My thanks,’ he said, patting the linen over his chest. ‘But I could have washed it myself.’
‘It gave me something to do while you were gone,’ Sidro said. ‘I gather everything went well.’
‘Yes, it did. I managed to extort