by Melanie Rawn
This time she felt every sore muscle, every drop of sweat wrung from her skin, every scratch and scrape on her ungloved hands. The work took forever, every moment of it drawn out in rough labor that numbed her mind even as her body clamored for surcease. The bricks were heavier, the mortar too runny or too gummy by turns, the rows damned near impossible to get even.
The six feet of wall forming the north side of the enclosure took her twice as long as the eight feet on the west. By sundown she was sodden with exhaustion. But the wall was done, and it surprised her that there seemed so little difference between this day’s work and the previous construction. One had been nearly effortless, fashioned with automatic skill by her hands while her mind was engaged by Rinnel’s tale; the other had cost her in energy, sweat, even blood. Still, had she not known which bricks marked the separation, she would not have been able to find it.
Rinnel let her stay the night after her mare was settled comfortably inside the new pen. Lady Lilen, he told Cailet, had sent him a letter saying that if it grew too late for the ride home, Cailet had permission to spend the night at the cottage. Giving her a simple dinner of bread smeared with a savory vegetable-and-meat paste, watered wine, and two fine plums for dessert, he stayed silent while she ate, watching the weariness drain from her.
“Ah, the young,” he smiled, green eyes dancing in his dark face. “A full day’s hard physical labor, but once you’re fed and watered you’re ready to add another two feet to that wall. Relax, child. Tonight we talk. How about another pillow? That bench is hard going on skinny bones like yours.”
“I’m fine,” she replied, licking plum juice from her fingers. “Are you going to tell me another story?”
“No, I’m going to tell you why you really built that wall.”
“But—I thought it was for my horse—”
“First mistake.” The old man leaned back in the one wooden chair he possessed, refilled his cup from the wine jug and did not add water, and regarded her with a smile. Lanternlight played white-gold over his dusky skin and his lank pale mane of hair. “You accepted everything I said without questioning. If you’d thought about it for just a minute or two, you’d’ve realized that no silverback worth her shiny golden whiskers would eat a horse unless she was starving half to death. There’s game aplenty around here that she prefers—rats, cactus squirrels, galazhi, and so on.”
Thinking of all that hard work, and glancing involuntarily at her bruised hands, Cailet burst out, “Then all of it was for—”
“—for nothing? Not at all. To begin with, my roses are already much happier. However—you remember the tale of St. Caitiri? She prevented the Lords of Malerris from using the natural wall of the Hearth. You didn’t know it, but you were building two walls, my girl. One you can touch. One you can’t.”
It would give the old man no end of satisfaction if Cailet admitted that she hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. So she kept her mouth sullenly shut.
Grinning, he looked twenty years younger. “You don’t know much about me, do you? Where I come from, my mother, what I’ve done with my life so far. You know I’m acquainted with Lady Lilen, I carve jade, make medicine, and talk more than any ten other people combined. But what do you really know about me, Cailet?”
Forgetting the politeness owed her elders—even male elders—she said tartly, “I know they call you the Crazy Old Man of Crackwall Cottage, and they’re right!”
“On every count,” he agreed cheerfully. “I do live in this misbegotten hovel, I am undeniably old, and opinions much more informed than yours long since judged me quite mad. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, my dear. Look into my eyes.”
She did—and all at once there was something inside her skull. A tickle, a tingle, a bright white light bouncing around behind her eyes—
“Stop that!” she cried, springing to her feet.
“Make me,” Rinnel invited.
She closed her eyes; the sensations increased, as if a wild and gleeful lantern fly was zinging around in her brain. She tried to catch it; she could not. She looked at the old man again and, with hazy memory of an encounter with Geria Ostin, tried to make him stop. He didn’t.
Frantic, she jumped from her perch on the shelf, intending to shake him or shout at him or something, anything to get that infuriating little light out of her head. With her first step, it was gone.
“Oh, you didn’t do it,” he remarked. “I did.”
“How?!”
“I’m assuming you don’t want me poking around inside your brain again? Just so. When I snap my fingers, I’ll do it again. Try to keep me out, Cailet.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and her fists clenched and the pain of broken raw skin reminded her of the wall—
“Oh, come now. You can do better than that.”
—and she saw it again in her mind that wall her wall and his fingers snapped and she felt the tingling light batter at her—but it couldn’t get inside the wall.
Cailet’s eyelids popped open. So did her mouth. Rinnel was laughing softly at her—no, with her, enjoying her triumph.
“And that, my dear, is why you built that wall.”
7
“It’s been nagging you since you first rode out here, so to spare you further frustration I’ll admit to what I am. Mageborn, of course. Largely self-taught, I might add. The Guardians got hold of me too late to impart any real discipline. They gave up. So I made my own way in the world, using my magic as it seemed necessary. And because these days Mageborns aren’t what one would call welcome in all quarters, I decided to spend the rest of my years in peace and quiet.”
Cailet, wrapped in an old blanket, sat on the bedshelf as Rinnel talked. It was past Fourteenth and she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Her body was tired, of course, and every so often her chin drooped to her drawn-up knees, but her mind was more alert than ever in her life.
“Now, I’ve encountered quite a few Lords of Malerris—and Ladies, too. There’s a peculiar feel to them—a taste, I suppose, to their thoughts. No, I can’t read minds, no Mageborn can. But what I showed you this evening, that’s a thing I taught myself and then taught the Guardians, who’d lost it along with so much else after The Waste War. The Malerrisi never did. And when one of them tries it on anyone—Mageborn or not—there’s very little defense.”
“Except a wall,” Cailet said.
“Except a wall,” Rinnel agreed.
“But what good is it? I mean, flashing a light inside somebody’s head isn’t very impressive. It’s just a trick.”
“It has been known to drive people mad, kept up long enough. You got a hint of that, I believe—unless my powers are as enfeebled as my poor wreck of a body these days. But back before The Waste War, this little trick could be used to agitate particular areas of the brain. Strong emotions start at the back of the brain, Cailet. Thinking and reasoning are at the front. Exactly where, I don’t know. Nobody does. But observation of people whose brains have been injured in accidents or—well, I’m boring you, so let’s just say that if you want to make someone incredibly angry, you’d direct that spark of light to the back of the brain.”
“And if you want somebody to think really hard about something—or stop thinking altogether—!”
“That would be a little more complicated, not so crude as provoking emotion to wipe out rational thought, but I take your meaning.”
“You ever tried it?”
“With indifferent success.” A reminiscent grin tugged his lips beneath his beard. “While I was young, I quite earnestly pursued a quest for the . . . um . . . more primitive urges of the feminine mind.”
Cailet frowned her puzzlement, then blushed and giggled.
“Never found it, though,” Rinnel sighed. “The point is, the Mage Guardians didn’t know how to do this until I showed them, but it can’t be assumed that the Malerrisi forgot it as thoroughly. So I showed you how to pr
otect yourself against them.”
She lost all urge to laugh. “Because they’re not all dead, are they?” she whispered. “What happened at their Castle—it was all a sham, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed yes. They still live, Cailet, roaming Lenfell and working whatever magic they please. Their goal is still the same: precise, defined, absolute order, according to their own notions of what the world should be. That’s the ultimate power, you know. It isn’t being able to light a fire without a match, or cast a Ward, or heal the sick, or any of the other magical arts. True power is the ability to remake the world into what you have decided it ought to be. Not just to affect the lives around you, but to change all lives.”
“Lady Lilen said the same thing, back in Pinderon,” she mused. “I think she meant like Anniyas, or Glenin Feiran.”
Rinnel looked puzzled. “Why do you say the name of the daughter and not the father? He is, after all, Commandant of the Council Guard.”
“Yes, but . . . I don’t know,” she replied slowly. “It’s just—it’s a feeling I have. I think she’s ambitious, Rinnel, sort of in the way Veller Ganfallin was. But a lot smarter.”
“And Auvry Feiran isn’t ambitious?”
“Well . . . he did want to be a big somebody in Ambrai, didn’t he? Lady Lilen says when they wouldn’t let him, he got angry and went to join Anniyas. . . .” She frowned. “But military power’s just brute force. If he’d really wanted the kind of power she has, he would’ve done something else, right? Gotten on the Council somehow, or—I don’t know. I just don’t think he wants it for himself. Wants to change things himself, I mean.”
“Rather, to help the people who do?”
She nodded. “Like Anniyas, or his daughter. Besides, he’s Mageborn, and everybody with magic is under suspicion. I don’t blame you for moving way out here. If I were Mageborn, I’d never ever admit it.”
Suddenly she seemed to feel a flickering in the air, and instantly thought of her wall. Rinnel smiled at her.
“It’s not necessary to visualize the wall consciously, you know. It’s there now, even when you sleep. No one will ever be able to rummage around inside your skull again.” He laughed at her expression of astonishment. “We both do excellent work, wouldn’t you say? Now, get some sleep, little one. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Cailet returned his grin with one of her own. “You mean you’ll talk more!”
“Wretched child!”
8
Cailet learned more from Rinnel Solingirt than she ever learned at local schools. The old man had a genius for teasing her into a positive mania of curiosity. She simply had to discover the whys and hows and whats, and when he refused to provide ready answers she tore through book after book with a single-mindedness that sometimes made him laugh.
Over the next four years, she saw him as often as she could. She regularly left Ostinhold with the family for a few weeks in Renig or Longriding; he occasionally vanished for half a season at a time. There was always a present of some sort to be given after an absence—tangible apologies for being away so long, tokens of affection and how much they’d missed each other. The gifts told much about their characters. She’d bring a bottle of the Cantrashir red wine he loved, glass wind chimes, a spray of dried herbs tied with bright ribbons to hang over his door for luck. He’d give her a book, or cloth for a shirt, or something else eminently useful. Only once did he ever come back from a journey with anything impractical: a wispy length of turquoise silk to use as a belt or a neck-scarf. At not-quite-seventeen, after a depressing party at Maurgen Hundred (only Terrill Ostin and Biron Maurgen danced with her), Cailet needed something pretty to bolster her spirits. She kept remembering how that Sarra Liwellan girl had looked at Pinderon, all soft curves and golden curls and Taig hanging on her every word.
When beginning a story, Rinnel never said “Stop me if you’ve heard this one” because he knew she never had. Her education at Ostinhold and at the local schools was adequate to The Waste; she had not been allowed to join the Ostin girls at St. Deiket’s Academy for advanced study. An indifferent scholar, she had no regrets and never questioned Lady Lilen’s decision. Lenna, Miram, and Lindren had all loathed the place and Rinnel’s stories weren’t like school at all.
One afternoon during the summer of 965 a squall blew in from the east, one of the rare storms that climbed Deiket’s Blessing from Ambraishir to gift The Waste with clean rain. By the time it found the canyons around Ostinhold it was a mere sprinkle, but in the torrid week of Drygrass any coolness was welcome. Cailet sat on her wall with Rinnel beside her, damp and grateful, watching plants lift leaves and flowers as if inhaling water as it reached thirsty roots. Naturally, the old man used the sight as the beginning of a story.
Nothing ever really dies, you know. All life continues one way or another. Even if the rain hadn’t come today, just in time to revive everything, there are always seeds waiting to grow.
But I’m at the wrong end of the tale. Let’s begin again at the very beginning, with the First Truth: All Life is created and nurtured by First Mother. Women, who are Her image, are charged to guard the life they create. In other words, if you make it, you’re responsible for it. You have only to look at Lady Lilen and Lady Sefana Maurgen for examples of the joys, frustrations, and sorrows of this awesome duty.
First Mother was not immune to sorrow, by the way. After She created the world and nurtured its new Life, a curious thing happened. She discovered She was lonely. Creation and Nurture were very fine things, and made her very happy, but it remained that She was lonely.
Then First Man came from the blue sky and bright stars, and saw all that First Mother had made, and was awestruck at Her power. She had made the whole of the world in all its beauty—from pine trees to dragonflies, from fish in the sea to birds on the wing, She made them all. This was a wondrous thing to First Man, and he sang Her praises as all males do if they’ve been brought up to be polite.
But First Man also felt as all males feel when faced with the power of women’s works. “Teach me to do this,” he begged. But She could not teach First Man to create. She did show him how to cherish Life by shining his sun’s warmth and giving of his cool rain. And this is the Second Truth: men may cherish and even nurture the created works of women, but cannot create Life on their own.
Seeing that First Man was downcast, and filled with compassion for him, First Mother comforted him in the way of women with men—which I daresay you’ll learn about one of these years—and in time First Daughter was born. This was a new type of Creation for First Mother. Her love and compassion for First Man formed a new entity that was partly of Her and partly of him.
First Daughter was very beautiful. Her hair and her skin were the rich brown of earth, and her Wise Blood flowed as the waters of the rivers, and in these ways she was of First Mother. Her eyes were the blue of the sky by day, shining with the twinkle of the stars by night, and her lips were the sweet crimson of the sunset, and in these ways she was of First Man.
Being a woman, First Daughter could do as First Mother did, and spent her time making wonderful new flowers and trees, animals and gemstones and rivers. Now, notice please that diamonds, for example, are rocks with fire inside. What First Daughter did in making diamonds and all the rest of her creations was use that of herself which was of First Mother and that which was of First Man. The new things were of both, as she was. And First Man was pleased as all fathers of daughters are when they see that something of themselves continues in new Life.
But it remained that he could only watch, with no one to understand and share his unique joy in what First Mother and First Daughter created. So one day First Man said, “There is none other like me.” Once more he was comforted by First Mother, and in time another man was born.
Now, the man was also partly of First Mother and partly of First Man. His hair and his skin were the gold of the sun, and his seed flowed as the river of stars
across the night sky, and in these ways he was of First Man. His eyes were the rich brown of earth, and his lips were the dark scarlet of leaves in autumn, and in these ways he was of First Mother. But when he looked upon First Daughter, he saw how different he was from her. In secret he considered the differences, and in time concluded that because her body was like that of First Mother, and his body was like that of First Man, that she was more first Mother’s child than he, and thus she must be more beloved by First Mother. And envy was born in his heart.
To test his conclusion, he asked to be taught to create as First Daughter did. First Man explained, with the compassion learned from First Mother, that men could not do this. The man railed against it most bitterly, and he came upon First Daughter, and slew her for envy of what she was that he was not, and what she could do that he could not.
First Man came upon the slain body of First Daughter, and his grief caused the stars to darken and the sun to leave the sky. First Mother asked why he sorrowed, and when he told her, the ground shuddered with Her heartbreak. First Man wept so in his pain that the skies opened and rain fell and the murderer was drowned in the flood.
The world languished, for First Mother had no heart to nurture. Life struggled to survive, desperate and without hope. But First Man had also learned how to comfort, and in time new Life was born, and these were Second Children, whom we call Saints. Each was partly of First Mother and partly of First Man. Though they had their squabbles, they never forgot that they were sisters and brothers, and loved each other.
Second Children were born day after day for a whole year, one after the other, into the sunlight. As each opened eyes of blue or brown or gray or green or black, First Mother and First Man gave loving welcome and listened for the first word to be spoken. Caitiri said Fire and Geridon said Horse and Miramili said Bells and Velenne said Music and so on until all the elements and animals and crafts and arts were named. Sirrala, by the way, said Diamonds, and this is why she is especially beloved by First Daughter, whose creation diamonds are.