Unexpected Stories Read Free Page B

been, Diut wondered. She spoke finally.
    “You’re welcome here, cousin—you and those with you. I am Tahneh.” She looked past him at her people, who had gathered around at a respectful distance. “We are Rohkohn.”
    Thus, for the first time, Diut learned the name of his host-captors. Tahneh had a dry, somehow ironic voice that made Diut wonder if she found himand his party amusing. There was no white in her coloring, but still he felt that her manner was slightly mocking. She spoke in the old imperial language—the language of conversing with strangers and of writing. And in the old language, she had the right to call him cousin since according to tradition, all Hao were related. They could come “out of the air,” born inexplicably to families of judges, or they could descend from long lines of their own kind. But the blue related them regardless. It deified them and made them members of the Hao family—the highest and best fighters that the people could produce. Diut answered in his own flawless imperial.
    “I am Diut. My companions are Jeh and Cheah.” He gestured toward each one of them in turn. “We are Tehkohn.”
    The woman glanced toward the distant wall of mountains. “Tehkohn—Mountain People.” She translated the word into her own tribe’s dialect with a change of stress that made it almost unrecognizable. Then in the old language again, “You’re a long way from home, Tehkohn Hao.”
    Diut found himself impressed with her use of his title. Since his acknowledgement, his own people had begun addressing him by title instead of by name, of course, but somehow it meant more coming from another Hao. He answered Tahneh’s implied question without resentment.
    “We trace the ways of our ancestors. Our map told us there were ruins here. We didn’t know that the Rohkohn had occupied them.” As he spoke the woman watched him in a way that made him glad he had no reason to lie to her.
    “You have one of the old maps with you, then?” she asked.
    He reached back to the pouch strapped across his shoulders, found the map by touch, and handed it to her. She unrolled it and looked at it, felt the smooth, tough clear coating that covered the fine paper and made it flexible but nearly indestructible. The art of making such permanent records had been lost to most of the Kohn tribes since the splintering of the empire because the main ingredient for the coating came from trees far down the wild eastern slopes of the mountains. The map seemed to impress Tahneh.
    She handed it back and, with a slight now proper whitening of her coloring to emphasize the positive spirit in which she spoke, she said, “Eat with us, Tehkohn Hao, and rest. When you’re ready, I’ll show you the ruins myself. We Rohkohn occupy only a small part of them.”
    Tahneh saw to it that the young mountain Hao was treated as an honored guest. She had a special meal prepared for him—a meal that would permit him to sample the fish and bird delicacies of the coast but that would also let him return, if he chose, to the more familiar meats that her hunters brought back from the game traps of the foothills. She kept the affair small, however, inviting only the chiefs of each of her four castes and their mates. The drought had not left enough food for real feasting. She had the meal served in the main chamber of her own apartment, andbefore it was served, she found time to speak privately with Ehreh.
    “I want no special watch kept on Diut,” she told him. “Do nothing to frighten him or make him suspicious and we’ll have no trouble with him.”
    “I’ll see that no one bothers him,” Ehreh promised. “He’ll be safe as long as he’s with you anyway.”
    Tahneh looked at him sharply. He was too quick. Another time, his speed in understanding her would have been amusing—another time, but not now.
    His eyes seemed to hold no expression at all as he spoke again. “Later, Tahneh, when you give him to us, he’ll see you as his