Hammerfall by C. J. Cherryh

near him. But when next they pitched the tents Hati unrolled her mat next to his. Without a word, assuming the right, she lay down in her robes and her veil.
    Not until a roof, he had said, but he had given her a certain right by the agreement they had made together, and he had no notion quite what to do to prevent this steady, purposeful assault on his senses.
    With the furnace-warm air blowing through the open sides of the tent, she turned on her side facing him. He turned on his back and stared at the canvas above them.
    Above it the noon sun was a light shining through the heavy fabric, and the sideless tent billowed and bucked in occasional gusts. A rope needed tightening. But that was the slaves’ job, not his. It was the master’s job to see to it.
    It was better to be here, lying at ease, than riding against the furnace-hot wind.
    It was better to have a woman than to be alone.
    He had no wish to drive her away. He had no wish to end this proposal in a quarrel before they had even shared a bed.
    A hand touched his. Her fingers ran from his open palm to his arm and his shoulder. He lay still and ignored her enticement, finding it on the one hand pleasant and on the other vexing, an assault on his mind, as well as his body.
    Suddenly, subtly, the voices spoke. He heard them and knew what stopped her hand wandering, what made her rest a moment, too, eyes shut . . . every line of her expression said she hated that intrusion, resented it, detested its timing.
    He observed the strong cast of her unveiled face, the long, slim hand that rested on a breast breathing hard, the offended pride of a woman who had been cast out, humiliated, but not broken.
    The voices dinned in his own ears, Marak, Marak, Marak.
    He had never taken the chance to talk directly to another of the afflicted on the one fact of their lives they all knew.
    â€œThey call my name,” he said to that closed, taut face. “Do they call yours?”
    Her eyes opened, searched his. None of the mad was willing to speak about their affliction. It was all but rude to breach that silence.
    â€œYes,” she said. “They called my child-name and now they call my woman-name.”
    â€œThe same,” he confessed, which he had only admitted to his father. “Day and night.”
    â€œIf we walk east forever, what will we meet? The bitter water?”
    â€œIf we walk that far.” No one lived near the bitter water. No bird flew. The water-edge there was a land of white crusts and death. The toughest men in the world lived at the edge of the bitter plain and hammered out salt and breathed it and tasted it until they died. Everywhere in the world, men somehow found a way to live. Those men were free, at least. They traded with the Ila. They did not obey her.
    The lines of fire built within his eyes. They made a form, rising up and up.
    â€œDo you see a tower?” he asked the an’i Keran.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œDo you see it now?”
    â€œYes,” she said. Two mad visions touched one another. Two were the same. He suspected they all were, and that every man heard his own name.
    â€œI called it a spire,” she said, “before I saw the holy city. Could it be the Beykaskh?”
    â€œNot the Beykaskh,” he said. He was as sure of that as he was sure the direction was east. “No tower that I know, so tall and thin. A spire. A rock spire?”
    â€œSo,” she said.
    â€œI wonder what the others call it.” He stared at the sun through the coarse canvas, felt the heat of the wind touch the sweat on his throat and arms like a lover’s breath. “Ask the others what they see. Let the au’it write it for the Ila’s curiosity. And tell me what you learn. Gather all the visions.”
    The au’it stirred on the mat nearby. She was uncannily alert to her duty, but he had no further orders for her.
    â€œHati will ask the others. You write it. But rest now.