The Outskirter's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bel's direction. "She's from east?"
    "That's right." She could see Bel speaking
earnestly to a warrior seated next to her; his reply consisted of a
head shake, a scornful twist of the mouth, and a dismissive hand
gesture.
    "Strange company for a steerswoman."
    "She's very good company indeed. And the best
I could ask for, if I'm to get to where I'm going, and find what
I'm looking for."
    "Going and finding?" He made a show of
surprise; Rowan began to find annoying his faint air of
condescension. "I thought the way of steerswomen was to walk
wherever the wind took them, and ask too many questions along the
way."
    Rowan necessarily conceded the substance of
his remark. "Generally, something like that is the case. Although
we move less randomly than you might think." She took a moment to
miss her past life: roaming through the green wildlands, wandering
into welcoming villages, charting, noticing, questioning and
answering, making endless discoveries, large and small. Now she sat
in a barbarian encampment on the edge of the dangerous Outskirts,
on a journey to find the source of magical jewels. It seemed a very
unlikely situation.
    She shook her head. Her old life now seemed
distant, poignant, carefree. "Lately," she told the seyoh, "I seem
always to be searching for something in particular."
    His smile was indulgent. "And what do you
search for, steerswoman?"
    Rowan said wryly, aware of how odd it would
sound, "A Guidestar."
    A warrior seated nearby, who had been
following the conversation, interjected a comment. "Ha. Look
up."
    Involuntarily, she did so. The sky was near
fully dark, with only one Guidestar, the Eastern, visible, hanging
eternally motionless against the sky over the shadowy meadow. Its
twin, the Western Guidestar, was hidden by the overhanging branches
of the forest. Stable, immobile, unchanging, these two points of
light were the markers by which humankind located itself on the
surface of the world, counting the passage of time as each night
the slow constellations marched across the sky behind them.
    Rowan prepared a reply to the warrior. "I'm
not looking for the ones you can see," she began.
    "If you can't see them, you can't find them."
One of his cohorts gave him a friendly shove in appreciation of the
joke.
    "I'm looking," Rowan replied patiently, "for
one that has never been seen—from here."
    This was greeted with silent thought. "They
can both be seen, everywhere," another person ventured.
    "No." Looking around, she discovered herself
to be a center of attention. Despite the unlikely setting, the
situation was one she understood, and she easily stepped into her
role.
    She shifted position back a bit and, leaning
forward, drew a circle in the dirt between herself and the seyoh.
"Look. Here's the world, as if we're looking down at the pole. And
here are the Eastern and Western Guidestars." Two dots. "Can you
see? If you travel far enough in either direction, one or the other
will be left behind, around the curve of the world." She added two
more dots. "And you'll see a new Guidestar, in the opposite
direction."
    They puzzled over the diagram. One man leaned
over to trace the circle with his finger, eyes squinted with the
unaccustomed effort of abstraction. "That's the world?" He seemed
unconvinced.
    Another, more quick, ventured, "We've
traveled a fair bit. Why has no one never seen that happen?"
    From over Rowan's shoulder, a creaking voice
spoke. "It's too far."
    Rowan turned and found the old healer leaning
above her. Abandoning dignity, he eased himself to his knees,
scuffled over to the drawing, and pointed, as pleased as a child.
"Look at that. You'd have to go . . ." He thought, his watery eyes
flickering. ". . . near a quarter the whole way around the world to
see the next Guidestar." He settled himself more comfortably,
cradling his pouch of medicines in his lap, and looked up at Rowan
with a bright gaze, curious and expectant. Someone tapped him, then
rudely gestured him to leave. He stubbornly