She’d also gained ideas as valuable as steel: her spirits owned powers beyond those her teacher had identified, and the Cantons sorcerers knew more about crystals than spirit riders did. In Nannes, the trading precinct, she’d seen a bookshop, which might have books on magic. Such treasures had always lain beyond her reach, because she couldn’t read. But now she had a Kazraki servant, who could.
Thanks to Soutan’s scanning crystals, Warkannan and his men had been keeping track of the comnee from a safe distance. Rather than follow, they were riding parallel, some four miles north of the comnee’s course, in the hopes that the spirit rider wouldn’t look their way. When the comnee camped, they camped; when it moved on, so did they. Regularly during the day, Soutan would go off alone into the grass to scan, then return with news. On this particular afternoon, however, he came back ashen and shaking.
‘Well, that was alarming,’ Soutan said, shuddering. ‘That spirit rider – I told you she had to be a woman of great power, didn’t I? Well, she’s seen us, and for a moment I thought she’d managed to kill one of my crystals.’
‘Sounds serious. What should we do about it?’
‘There’s nothing you can do. I need to be much more careful, is all. Especially once the comnee starts riding again.’
‘I hope to God they get on the road soon! How far are we from the Rift?’
‘A hundred miles or so.’
‘This damned comnee we’re following, by the Prophet’s name! They’re the slowest of the slow. They can’t be travelling more than ten lousy miles a day.’
‘Maybe we can use the time to our advantage. It would be better to kill our spy before we reach Jezro.’
‘If we can.’
Warkannan waited for him to go on. Soutan inserted an unsanitary-looking fingernail under his gold headband and began scratching his forehead.
‘That headband must be rubbing you raw,’ Warkannan said. ‘You’re always scratching.’
‘Oh damn you!’ Soutan stalked away without another word.
All that afternoon Soutan kept to himself. Even after he returned for the evening meal, Warkannan at times caught him peering up at the sky, as if he were expecting to see eyes there, looking back. Every now and then, he would start to scratch under the headband, then jerk his hand away as if by force of will.
Before the evening meal Ammadin and Apanador walked together along the riverbank. In the cool twilight frogs called back and forth, lizards buzzed and rasped. Clouds of greenbuhs rose over the magenta fern trees and swarmed so thickly that they looked like thunderheads.
‘There’s trouble on its way,’ Ammadin said.
‘Zayn’s enemies?’
‘Yes. I finally got a good look at them. Two Kazraks –’
‘Is that all?’
‘– and a sorcerer from the Cantons.’
Apanador swore and turned to spit into the river. ‘This sorcerer – why haven’t we heard of him before? How did he manage to get all the way to Kazrajistan?’ The chief sounded personally affronted. ‘Magic or not, he should have ended his trip in a ChaMeech stomach.’
‘You’d think so. He must be pretty powerful, with a lot of spirits to protect him. I’ll keep an eye on him from now on.’
‘Speaking of Zayn,’ Apanador glanced away with studied casualness. ‘The men are riding out to hunt tomorrow. They might well find a good-sized bull grassar. The horns this time of year –’
‘I am not going to marry Zayn. By all the gods at once! Have you been talking to Maradin?’
‘Oh, just a few words, here and there.’ Apanador was trying to suppress a smile. ‘And to my wife, of course.’
Ammadin turned on her heel and strode off.
When she reached her tent, Zayn was kneeling in front of it and cleaning a pair of fish with his long knife. She sat down and watched. He’d chop off the head with its two shiny pairs of eyes, then slice off the six long fins, slit open the belly, and pull out the thick white strip of cartilage and nerve tissue that connected the tail to the brain node lying above the heart.
‘Roasted in the coals?’ he said. ‘Or seared on a hot stone?’
‘Roasted would be fine. You’re getting to be a really good cook.’
Zayn looked up with a quick grin that was almost shy. Ammadin had to admit that she found it pleasant to sit with him, sharing a companionable silence in front of their tent, instead of being a guest at someone else’s fire.
‘How long will we stay in camp?’ Zayn said.
‘Not very. We’ll be heading east soon.’
Zayn smiled, a sudden flash of anticipation.
‘Are you as curious about the Cantons as all that?’ Ammadin said.
‘Oh well.’ He was concentrating on wrapping the gutted fish in leaves fresh from the riverbank. ‘You hear such strange tales about them back home.’
‘I suppose you would, yes. Do you know their language?’
‘Only a few words. In school we didn’t study the Cantons much, so most of what I know is just hearsay – tales of evil sorcerers, that kind of nonsense. I do know that they’re people of the book.’
‘What? Does that mean they use writing?’
‘That too.’ Zayn gave her an easy grin. ‘But it really means that they believe in only one god, like we do. It must be the same god, no matter what they call him. If there’s only one, then there’s only one, right?’
‘If there’s only one.’
‘Well, true.’ Zayn ducked his head as if apologizing. ‘But anyway, they have a holy book about God. Mohammed, blessed be his name, read it back in ancient times and said that it was worthy of respect.’
‘So you Kazraks still respect it? After all these years?’
‘Well, of course. The teaching doesn’t change. It’s eternal.’
‘But wasn’t your First Prophet a H’mai?’
‘Of course he was, but the Qur’an comes from God. Mohammed heard His words from an angel.’
‘Wait a minute. When you say heard, you mean the angel came to him in a vision?’
‘No, the angel Jubal came to him and dictated the verses, and the Prophet spoke them to his companions, who wrote them down. But he heard the voice of God, too, not just the angel’s.’
‘He actually heard the voice of his god?’
‘Yes. I suppose this all must sound pretty strange to you.’
‘Strange? No.’ Ammadin looked away, her mouth slack. ‘I envy him. I can’t tell you how much I envy him.’
For a moment she felt close to tears. Zayn tactfully looked away; he picked up a long spine from a poker tree and began using it to dig trenches in the coals of the fire. Ammadin waited till he’d laid the wrapped fish into them.
‘So, in this holy book the Cantonneurs have,’ Ammadin said, ‘did God speak to their prophets, too?’
‘So I’ve been told. I’ve never read it. Which reminds me. Do you know the language of the Cantons?’
‘Daccor.’ She paused to smile at him. ‘That means yes, you see. I know enough to trade and ask polite questions. It’s called Vranz.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind teaching me what you know, I’ll pick the rest of it up fast enough.’
‘The