Starflower

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  But it never did. Since the moment I took my sister from his arms, Wolf Tongue had not so much as looked at me.

  Morning dawned. The maidens in my company cut their feet in careful patterns, cringing at the thin red lines they inflicted on themselves. The Beast demands such cruel worship! I, however, was not cut. A perfect offering must be unblemished. Instead, I was dressed in my mother’s white doeskin wedding gown, and my hair was crowned in starflowers, bloodred in the young light of that new day.

  The Eldest approached me, as handsome and stern as he had been when we began our journey. He held in his hands a wooden bowl full of lamb’s blood. This he handed to me. As I took it from him, I dared to look into his face. Briefly, oh, so briefly, our eyes met.

  How difficult I found it to read the face of this man who was my father! Everything I saw contradicted everything I believed. Surely I was mistaken. I was a woman-child. I was a blight. I was of less value to him than his slaves. I was marked for death.

  Surely he could not love me.

  The way to the Place of the Teeth is secret. Only Wolf Tongue knows the hidden paths, and only those he allows may follow him there. Those shadowing our procession of holy men and virgins could not join on that final ascent. They tried, of course. Curiosity will drive many a soul to dreadful extremes. But as we climbed that lonely trail, I felt the shift. The air went cold for an instant. When I looked behind me, the path I had just traveled was obscured, and the people who followed had vanished from my sight.

  The maidens with me trembled but bowed their heads and hastened on. The priests and warriors proceeded without pause.

  My hands shook. I watched the blood sloshing in the wooden bowl I held, desperate to keep from spilling a single drop. Such importance rested in that one task! Not to spill. Not to spill. Not to think of Fairbird. Not to think of what waited at the end of my climb. Not to spill.

  I did not want to weep but could not stop. But I shed no tears for my own sad fate. I cried for those people who had followed behind. They only wanted safety for their families, just as I wanted safety for Fairbird. They wanted to know that the Beast would be satisfied.

  The sun was high above us, filling the valleys below with brilliance. I gazed out across the expanse of the Land. I could not begin to imagine how many villages dwelt below me within the shelter of the Circle of Faces. Tonight, I would save them.

  But what about tomorrow? No matter what befell me at my journey’s end, I knew the dread under which they lived would not be lifted. It will never lift so long as the Beast is god.

  See the truth, Starflower.

  The words came to my mind like a memory. But a memory of what? I did not know the voice that spoke them. It was not the voice of any man in the village.

  See the truth and speak.

  The sound was clearer than any I have heard before or since. When I heard it, I for a moment saw everything around me as a fragile dream. The dead mountain, the priests, the maidens, even Wolf Tongue himself . . . they were nothing but phantoms. What was real was the voice, and it rang down from the heavens as though sung by the sun himself.

  Speak, Starflower!

  What was it my mother had said all those years ago, before Fairbird’s birth? “You must learn to search out the names of things,” she had signed to me. “And one day, you will speak those names aloud, and in speaking, you will be stronger than death or life-in-death!”

  I remembered what she had said then as I marched to my death. But I shook my head and drove the memories away. The phantoms around me became solid once more. The sun was silent as it burned through the sky.

  I would never speak. I had no voice.

  Looking ahead, I saw the Teeth: great jagged stones that stood upright like the lower jaw of a wild animal. Among them stood Wolf Tongue, his arms upraised as though to catch our procession in a strangling embrace. Still he did not look at me, but his eyes burned bright.

  I realized in that moment that I feared Wolf Tongue far more than I feared the Beast. The Beast was an idea. I had never seen him. I had heard his voice in the night, inhuman sounds that echoed through the village. His shadow had held my people captive for generations, his thirst for blood sated only through subservience and sacrifice. I had witnessed the carnage of the wars in which he reveled, the ongoing enslavement of the women who lost their voices to his demands.

  Still, he was distant. Intangible, like fear itself.

  Wolf Tongue, however, walked among us. And Wolf Tongue bore me a grudge.

  Our party neared the summit of Bald Mountain. I saw the bloodstains on the jagged Teeth, dark against stone. There were five stones, four at the corners of a great slab, the largest jutting from the center. I watched as four torchbearers, their torches as yet unlit, took their places around the central Tooth.

  Wolf Tongue, robed as ever in his skins, stood with the scarlet-robed priests on his left and the elders of the villages on his right.

  See the truth, Starflower.

  The Eldest approached, and the hooded maidens parted to let him pass. He stood before me and wrapped his large hands around mine as they held the bowl of blood. He led me from among the maidens and up to the slab. I could feel the eyes of everyone upon me. Only my father would not look at me, even as my eyes silently pled with him. It was no use. So I stared down at the blood and at the Panther Master’s hands.

  The slab was smooth and cold, though the day was hot. My bare feet walked on the bloodstains of many generations. Animal’s blood. And man’s.

  “You will be stronger than death. . . .”

  Wolf Tongue took the bowl of blood. The Eldest backed away from him. I wanted so much to cry out for mercy, to beg him, if he loved me, to stay! But he was gone already, lost amid the crowd.

  “. . . or life-in-death.”

  “The hour is nigh, Starflower,” Wolf Tongue whispered. “Kneel.”

  I knelt. He tied my wrists with biting cords and secured me to the central stone. There was no need for this, however. The moment he placed his hands upon my shoulders, I could not move. Darkness overwhelmed me, filling my heart and mind, so powerful that I almost forgot my fear. I was helpless as I knelt in the shadow cast by the stone. I bowed over so that my hair covered my face and brushed the slab beneath me.

  Wolf Tongue danced. It was a strange, animal dance, without music, without beauty. He poured the blood from the wooden bowl onto my neck. The stain flowed through my hair and down my mother’s white dress.

  “She is marked with blood,” declared the High Priest. “She is marked for the Beast.” His voice was like echoing thunder. He raised his arms above his head, shouting out to the mountains themselves: “We offer you our purest, our best, Lord of the Mountain!”

  We waited.

  For hours, we waited. Sweat mingled with the blood on my neck, which matted in my hair. It was too hot, and the presence of Wolf Tongue standing so near too overwhelming for me to put any thoughts together. The Beast would not come while everyone watched. I knew that much. I was safe for the moment. Safe . . .

  My mother’s dress. With my head bowed to my chest, I could see how the bloodstain had traveled down my torso to the waistband. Such a pity. It was to have been my wedding dress.

  The sun began to set. One by one, the four torches were lit and set in grooves upon the corner stones. The clouds went orange and red, then deepened into the purple of twilight. A constant wind twisted through the Teeth and whipped my hair across my face. My hands bound, I could not move to push it back.

  Suddenly the wind was gone. With it went the torchbearers. Behind them followed the warriors, the elders, and the twelve limping maidens. Oh, Father! Must you leave me too? I dared not look up, for I knew I would find he was already gone. At last even Wolf Tongue slipped down from the slab. I heard his heavy tread as he moved down the mountain trail, out of sight. Even he fled the night’s coming terror.

  Speak, Starflower . . .

  9

  WITH MY FOREHEAD PRESSED against the centra
l stone, I knelt, blood soaked and ringed in red torchlight. Too long had I lived as an outcast, but I had never been so abandoned. I felt the pressure on my shoulders where Wolf Tongue had grabbed me and forced me to my knees as firmly as though he still stood over me, holding me in place. All the half-formed plans I had made during the weeks of our journey fled my mind. All the battles I had thought to fight, all the resolve for courage in the face of my end. There could be no fight, no courage.

  And yet, I thought, it could be Fairbird waiting here.

  But it wasn’t. Fairbird was safe. She was far from the Beast’s shadow, and the price of her life was paid. With this thought came warmth, peace, even. Like the first breath of spring chasing away the cold months of winter. How it stole into my mind in that deathly place I do not know, but there it was. I could bear my own death, my own pain. How would I have borne knowing she sat in this circle of stones? Such a fate would be far, far worse than death. But that fate would never be. My Fairbird would live. She must!

  Can you hear me?

  The cry of that sad voice again touched my mind. It was the same voice I had heard as I climbed the mountain. For the first time I realized with some surprise that it was no memory. It spoke to my mind from the outside.

  Someone was calling me.

  I turned where I sat. The cords on my wrists bit down deep if I moved too much, but I was able to look around me a little. The torchlight acted as a shield preventing me from seeing anything that might be in the darkness beyond. The night was perfectly still, without a breeze, and the torches burned straight and tall. Their crackle was the only sound to break the stillness. It was as though the Place of the Teeth was cut off from the rest of the world.

  Can you hear me?

  I can! I can! I wanted to shout. Oh, are you close? Can you untie my bonds? But I had no voice. I could hear but could not respond.

  My mouth opened in a scream that, though silent, rattled me to my core. They were gone. All my people, my father, everyone! They had abandoned me, and I could not so much as cry for help! I gnashed my teeth, lifting my gaze to the looming crest of Bald Mountain, just visible above the torchlight. But I could scarcely lift my head, so heavy was the darkness weighing upon me. I struggled against it, furious.

  The torches went out.

  Plunged into sudden blindness, I lay still, afraid even to breathe. But my ears were sharp, and there were no other noises to disguise the approaching footsteps. I turned my head in the direction of the sound, toward the higher slopes of the mountain. Someone was descending. Straining my eyes, I saw a tall black figure. Like a fluid shadow it passed over the ground and climbed up onto the slab of bloodstained stone.

  Yellow eyes flashed in the night.

  “Starflower,” Wolf Tongue whispered. “You are mine at last.”

  I should have known. I should have guessed from the night of my mother’s death when he gazed upon me with so much hunger.

  There was no other Beast in the Land. Only Wolf Tongue.

  He looked down on me, blocking out the stars with his great broad shoulders. I gazed into his eyes, gleaming with their own light. Wolf’s eyes. He was a strange, otherworldly creature. My body quivered like one hunted. I read the story his eyes told, a tale of fire and betrayal and death.

  But, I thought—and this was the strangest thing—it was not my death I saw in his gaze.

  He smiled. The night was heavy, but it could not hide that smile. My stomach heaved with terror, and I twisted around, my arms pulled painfully to one side, pressing my back against the jutting stone.

  “You are so beautiful,” said Wolf Tongue. “So beautiful when you stand before me, unafraid, defiant. You make me think of the one I loved and lost. She too was brave and strong. But so much more beautiful when I had her cowering before me, submitted to my will! Just as you, my lovely Starflower, will be more desirable when at last I have broken that spirit of yours. Then, and only then, can you be mine.”

  I could not breathe. The cords chafed my wrists until they bled.

  “Tonight,” said Wolf Tongue, “I shall make you what I want.”

  The moon peered over the rim of the mountains, breaking through the thick clouds.

  See the truth, Starflower!

  “Tonight,” said Wolf Tongue, “I shall do more than kill.”

  Moonlight reveals the truth of things. So my mother taught me. It streamed down upon the Place of the Teeth, covering me, covering him. It was cold and terrible, scattering shadows, showing the world for what it was.

  See and speak!

  The change came upon him. The shadows of spells that surrounded and shielded him during the day fell away. The High Priest threw back his head, his face contorted in a scream. His hands reached to the air, claws lashing at the night. His throat stretched and thickened, his face lengthened, and a wild, black fire leapt from his eyes and mouth. At last a howl—like a wolf’s but human, like a man’s but animal—burst from him and filled the air.

  And I knew the secret of the terror that had long held the Land captive. The Beast, half wolf, half man, stood before me.

  I screamed. It was agony, like teeth tearing me up from the inside out. I should not have been able to make the sound. But I looked upon that monster’s face, and no curse could bar my screams.

  A shout rang out, a battle cry such as I had heard many times from my father’s warriors. The Beast stopped and turned, and I, my fear slashed into silence once more, struggled to see around his hulking body.

  The Eldest leapt upon the slab.

  He stood, armed with only a flint dagger, small before that monstrous form. Their eyes locked. What silent words passed between them, I do not know. I could not see from where I was tied. But I heard the Eldest, my father, shout his battle cry again, and he sprang forward. He was a man alive once more, not the living corpse he had been since the night of my mother’s death. The Beast swung a huge arm at him, but he ducked and was only touched upon the shoulder. It was enough to knock him flat, and for a terrible moment, I thought he would not rise.

  The Beast turned to me. I felt the brush of his teeth against my neck. I felt the heat of his breath upon my skin. But the Eldest was up again, throwing himself against the monster. He wrapped his arms about his hairy body, and the two of them rolled in a mass of snarls and shadows. I saw the spark of the Panther Master’s flint knife striking against stone. They fell off the slab into the darkness below the Place of the Teeth, where I could not see. Then I heard the roar of the Beast.

  The knife had found its way home.

  I startled and struggled when a dark figure jumped back onto the slab. Even when I realized it was the Eldest and not the Beast, I writhed in terror at his approach.

  “Easy, Starflower,” my father said as he strode quickly to the stone. His knife and hand were soaked in dark blood. “Easy, my child.”

  He knelt and swiftly cut the cords. Released, I fell to the stone, gasping for breath. My father’s hands were on my shoulders, lifting me up and leaning me against him. “Can you stand?” he asked, his voice urgent. “Can you walk?”

  With his help, I got to my feet. My limbs were numb from the hours of kneeling, my head light with fear. His arm was around me, however, and he half carried me two steps.

  But it was he who collapsed.

  Horrified, I fell to my knees beside him. Only then did I see the gaping wound in his side. Father! My hands, hampered by the remaining cords still clinging to my wrists, flew over his body, feeling for his heart, his pulse. He lived! Only just, but there was life. He lay headlong upon the stone, drawing shuddering breaths. I pulled him and tugged, desperate to get my arms around him, and his blood mingled with the blood Wolf Tongue had poured on me.

  I heard him speak. His words were slurred, and I bent my head to his mouth. He gasped as though this would be his final breath. As he let it out, he said only:

  “Run.”

  I heard the Beast moving down below the slab. My heart beat in my throat as I sat up, as I
stood.

  “Fool!” I heard the snarl from the darkness. “Decaying, mortal fool!” He panted with pain, but his voice was full of enraged life. “You cannot kill me! Only my own children have the power to end my life! You are nothing, you insect, you crawling little maggot!”

  The Beast would be upon us in a moment. He would finish my father, if he was not dead already. And then, he would finish me.

  A flash of gold caught the tail of my eye.

  A strange sight in the darkness, pure and shining. I turned to it, my fear momentarily forgotten in wonder. Something bright stood away up the mountain, and at first I could not discern what it was. Then I realized, and my wonder increased.

  It was a Hound.

  Follow me.

  The voice sang in the night. The same voice I had heard calling me as I sat awaiting my death. The same voice I had heard the night my mother died, singing calm, singing comfort.

  The Hound turned and sped away into the night, up the mountain and away.

  I did not think; I could not anymore. Terror and sorrow had bound my mind so tightly that no thoughts could form. I felt a vague certainty that the Beast would pursue me if I ran, and that perhaps my father would be left to die in peace. I flung myself from the slab and ran, leaving behind the Place of the Teeth and the crumpled body of the Panther Master. My bare feet scraped and bled upon the rock.

  Follow me.

  My feet were as though winged, and I fled such distances in mere strides! As though the wind itself had caught me and pulled me along like a fluttering leaf. Ahead I saw the shining Hound, and he was beautiful as he loped through the black night, guiding like a star. He led up and up, over the crest of Bald Mountain, where the stench of poison was strongest. But I scarcely smelled it then. Instead, I gazed upon the lower slopes of other mountains, where life yet flourished and starflowers gleamed.

  The Hound led that way. Follow!

  I heard the noise of the Beast’s pursuit. His labored breathing, his growls, and the scrape of his claws upon stone filled my ears. But as I pursued that Hound, I knew that the Beast could not catch me, not so long as I ran along this strange, enchanted path.