by Andy Giesler
Which would leave anybody who cared to harm me lost in darkness.
And me? I was born to darkness.
3
The Last Dance
Soon as it left me, I missed my Shepherd’s Gift. I’d speak untrue to say otherwise. Missed my sight, too.
But…I don’t know.
After Honeynock, when I gained my sight along with the Shepherd’s Gift, I felt I’d found the true me. The me without no lacks nor wants. The me as I was meant to be all along.
When Gabriel took those gifts from me on the banks of Slowbird Creek, I felt I’d lost my very own self. I didn’t know who I was no more. Wasn’t even sure I cared to keep on going long enough to find out.
But in Haven, when I lost my sight and the Gift all over again—no, when I gave them away—I finally understood something I maybe should’ve before. I wasn’t the Shepherd’s Gift. I wasn’t my eyes, nor my ears, nor my teeth, nor the backs of my knees, nor my scrawny butt nor my toenails. I wasn’t any one particular thing about me.
So when I faced those five wrathful Shepherds in Haven that day, I wasn’t forlorn Apprentice Woodsmith Root, lost and frightened and deprived of her sight and of all the other gifts she so deeply deserved. One way or another, whatever I had or I lacked, I was just me. Which was all right.
Because that’s who had to face them.
You might imagine the final Dance between me and those five shepherds made the very stone beneath our feet cry out. That even folks in Holyhock, way at the other edge of the World That Is, stood up from their dinner and wondered what calamity was shaking their village. That Grandmother Root and Gebohra Muerta themselves, dancing and chasing up in the Village of the Dead, paused to gawk at the mighty Shepherd’s Dance swirling in Haven far down below.
But that early September afternoon, Haven didn’t host the fearsome clash of Woodsmith Root and the Last of the Mighty Shepherds. Our clash was between a few ordinary, fleshy human bodies, sick from the Ender silencing our Nothing, stumbling about in darkness.
Well, the shepherds were stumbling, anyhow.
I imagine that, in all the long years since the Reckoning, not a single shepherd had ever danced the Shepherd’s Dance without their Nothing to guide them. And being so much more accustomed to their Nothing than I was, I imagine losing their Nothing must’ve left them feeling awful poorly.
And maybe most important of all, I don’t suppose a single shepherd ever danced the Shepherd’s Dance in darkness.
Me though? I wasn’t stumbling in Haven’s darkness.
I was dancing with Ma on pilgrimage to the Divide.
I was dancing with a pack of wolves in the woods, outside Surecreek’s wall, well past midnight.
I was dancing on Aylee and Eulee’s sod roof, with Kattie cursing to herself in the rank and musty closeness of their filthy home below.
In later years, folks would come to call that Dance in Haven the “Shepherds’ End.” But…I don’t know. That makes it sound much more of a to-do than it was. It probably wasn’t much to look at. Fact is, the whole thing didn’t even seem fair.
Before real long, Shepherds Amit and Lydia stopped fighting. I think they just plain lost heart. Maybe they finally understood the war was over, just as the elder Shepherds had.
A short while after that, Shepherd Sumiko stopped fighting, too. Not from lack of will to fight, though, but because her body wasn’t able to no longer.
And Shepherds Asra and Theo? Though I don’t suppose they were shepherds no more by then. So—just Asra and Theo. I don’t care to dwell on it no more than to confess I ended their lives in Haven that afternoon. All these years later, that’s still a deep sadness to me, however needful their ending. Asra and Theo weren’t bad people. They just chose a poor path to Goodafter.
Afterward, I sat in silence a few moments, as did we all. Then we got up, and we set to what needed doing.
4
The Road's End
I led the others up Haven’s steps to the wooded place above. We brought Theo’s and Asra’s bodies with us. Once we were out, we made a fire, and the shepherds tended to Sumiko.
Nobody said much.
After a bit, we fashioned a few meager torches, then the rest of them went back down into Haven to gather whatever they wished. Among other things, we’re blessed that Gabriel retrieved Grandmother Root’s journal.
It was late by the time they came up again. I walked out of the fire’s circle for a good while to let them speak without me. However they regarded Gabriel just then, I supposed it was a good deal higher than they regarded me. Without asking nobody’s leave, I’d just ended their long lives, though some of them would wait a good bit longer to see that ending. It seemed better for Gabriel, and maybe Livv, to lead them in preparing for what was ahead.
By the time I came back, they’d put Asra and Theo under the dirt.
We all had a short, restless night. Next morning we broke our fast and then, keeping to the Old Ways, we began the long, quiet walk to Market.
I left them in Market.
Market needed them more than it needed me, I was sure. Folks were in a flit over the Humble Weaver, who had lately gone missing along with several others. The People needed somebody to calm them and minister to their worries and prepare them for the upsetting truths to come. Which seemed a task better suited to other folks than me. Most ’specially suited to Gabriel.
I’ll say this about folks: setting aside all their little angers and cruelties and disagreements, on the whole folks are decent and kind. After I parted from the shepherds, real quick an elderly fellow asked if he might help me get someplace in particular. I suppose he noticed I was feeling my way through Market without no great direction nor purpose. If he wondered why I had a shepherd’s staff, he didn’t pry.
I said, “If it wouldn’t trouble you too much to guide me, that’d be a real kindness.”
A short while later I was at Home House, where Keeper Lisbeth fed me even though I had nothing to offer in trade. “Grandmother’s teats, girl,” she said, clucking her tongue, “you’re just sticks and leather. Let’s get a bowl of something in you.” After a good meal of mutton and beans and a heartfelt thank-you, I asked whether she might know any folks heading off west toward Mannsfield or Ashland or Newbridge.
She said she just might, and she introduced me to a drover and two runners on their way back to Holyhock from trade. I asked if I might join them. Drover Wayn of Holyhock said, “Well now, when you’re on the roads, more folks is better than less, I suppose. I, uh…pardon my asking, where maybe it’s not my nevermind, but seems you might have no sight. So I don’t suppose you know how to use that staff if it comes to it?”
“Oh,” I said, “I suppose I do.”
“Well then,” he said, “that’s a puzzle, but I’m glad to know it. We’d have brung you along either way, though, ’cause more folks is better than less.”
I’d liked to have visited Surecreek, or the place where it had been. As things went, it’d be several years before I finally stopped there and found it like the good-old stories, with not one stone left upon another. I dug in the broken earth that’d been Woodsmith Abram’s shop. Found his rasp.
Good rasp. I still use it sometimes, when I’m making something special.
Well.
Anyhow.
Drover Wayn, the two runners, a small herd of goats, and I left Market early that afternoon and made camp beside the road that evening. We spoke some around the campfire, as folks will in travel. Much as possible, I kept them busy answering my questions. They didn’t ask much about me, or at least not much that mattered. When Runner Lijah asked where I was from, and I said I was born in Surecreek, I could almost hear their teeth go tight. But I kept on, telling what was true, mostly. I said for the last few years I’d been foraging over in the Highlands and looking after an old woman who couldn’t do for herself. They seemed content with that explanation.
But they didn’t ask me no more questions.
We reached
Through at midday. I thanked them warmly for bringing me. They wished me well and kept on their way. I walked down that short path from the Old Way to Through. When I felt the stillness of the wall up ahead, I stopped.
“Hello? Would you open the gate for me?” I asked.
A watcher called down, “Who might you be?”
I don’t know.
I suppose I was just so tired of the fidget and fuss of deciding who I should pretend to be. What I should tell plain and what I should hide and what I should shade between. And just then I realized that, even though I’d finally seen the truth of who I was, I’d never said it out loud. Not all of it, anyhow. I knew I was doing myself no kindness, but it felt important, somehow, to own up to who I was before I passed the gates to Through.
“I’m Apprentice Woodsmith Root of noplace at all,” I said. “Born of the Shepherd Lee, raised by Weaver Root of Surecreek, mentored by an Alter, stolen away by Outcasts, lately in the company of the Humble Weaver and all the shepherds of the World That Is, and standing before you without no sight nor kin nor home. I’d care to speak with your Miller Daivit, if I might.”
Any two of those things together would have scandalized most decent folks. So piling them all up like that? From a scruffy sliver of a girl carrying a shepherd’s staff no less? It’s no wonder that all I got from atop Through’s wall was silence for some little while.
When I heard the whuzzz of the sling spinning, it occurred to me this conversation might not go nearly so well as I’d hoped. There was the littlest catch in it just before that whuzzz stopped, and I leaned, quick as I might, my staff swinging to the side.
You know what? I don’t think I even meant to swing that staff. It might have just moved on its own. But whatever I intended, my staff struck that sling bullet and knocked it to the side. Pure luck. Maybe the luckiest thing ever happened to me. Sometimes I think that’s the only remarkable thing I’ve ever done. Their watcher wasn’t slinging to kill, or even to hurt all that bad. Seemed like he was aiming for my legs, and he’d sent that bullet down without no hate behind it. Still. Guess my lucky swing looked pretty good.
Without letting on I was more surprised than him, I stood straight and called up to him.
“Well now,” I said, “I can’t in no way take that personal. Guess you’re just protecting Through from a dangerous-seeming visitor, and one who sounds full of lies. I can tell you, though, I am neither of those things. Truth is, I’ve endured a thing or two on my way here, and I’m awful tired of fighting. I mean you no harm and I wish you only well. I just have a hankering to speak with your Miller Daivit. So let’s do this. If you’d like, you can open these gates for me. Otherwise, I’m coming over that wall. I’ll give you time to talk it over with whoever you need to.”
For true? I’m not sure I would have gone over their wall uninvited.
Well.
Maybe.
Anyhow, I wanted to be let in the front gate for once, and not have to climb over no walls. Maybe it was selfish, but I felt the World That Is owed me that much.
By the time the door opened, it sounded from the murmuring like they’d gathered up a whole mess of folks to wait for me, and maybe a little crowd was watching from behind them. I heard somebody’s feet in the gravel and dirt walking toward me. Somebody small it seemed, though the steps were strong and sure. When she reached me, she said, “I’m Weaver Suzana of Through. What’s your business here?”
“Weaver Suzana,” I said. “It’s been ten years or more, I guess, but you knew me as a child. My ma, Weaver Root of Surecreek, spoke kind of you.” And that was true.
“You might be that Young Root of Surecreek,” she said. Then softer, too soft for the others to hear, she said, “And though I can’t say how, from the look of you, you might be kin to Shepherd Lee as well, as you say.” Then she said a little louder, for the others, “But child, why-ever are you here?”
When I lifted my staff and held it toward her, there was a commotion among the folks behind her, as if some were stepping forward, and some stepping back, and some getting all tangled up with one another, all of them deciding whether to run away, or to rush in and save their weaver from a chimera or Gebohra Muerta or worse.
“Weaver Suzana,” I said, “would you mind holding my staff for now? I don’t mean no trouble. For true I don’t. So much has happened, and I’ll tell you all of it. But for now, I just mean to speak with your Miller Daivit. I’ve meant to for some time. If you don’t mind.”
It was a moment before she took my staff. Then without another word, she led me by the hand some ways to the village’s edge, where I heard the sound of water rushing. She put my hand on a door and said, “When you’re done talking, have Daivit bring you to me.”
She left.
Coming to Through was foolishness. I saw that clear. Making such a visit with nothing behind it but an evening in the darkness six years past? It was foolishness, and almost nothing else.
Almost.
For it was also hope, besides. Not hope for the People, nor for the World That Is. A hope, after such long years of bitterness, for myself alone. Or maybe not alone.
I opened the door. I couldn’t hear much over the water and the grinding of the stone. But then, there it was: the shush…shush…shush…of somebody shoveling grain and feeding it to the stone for grinding. His back must have been to me or he’d have said something.
So I said, “Miller Daivit.”
Too soft, I suppose, for he didn’t seem to hear me.
So I said, “Miller Daivit!”
Too loud, I suppose, for I heard him jump. Yet with hardly a pause he said, “Woodsmith Root.”
“Apprentice Woodsmith,” I said.
“Hmh,” he said.
We stood there for a little bit.
“Seemed like you might be dead, to hear the stories,” he said.
“Guess that’s why they call them stories,” I replied.
Just then, I felt the weight of it all like I was under that stone behind him. Surecreek. The Outcasts. The Hidden Folk. The shepherds. All the folks I’d killed, and all the many more I hoped I’d saved. The awful weight of choosing a Badbefore and not yet knowing the after of it. Twenty-three years of prickling the World That Is and having it prickle me right back in turn. It left me so weary. I ought to take this time with Miller Daivit careful, I knew. Ought to chase the thread round the needle, slow and polite and proper, as folks do. I about tried to, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t in me.
So I just said, “Suppose you’ve married by now.”
He paused, like maybe he was thinking on it. Then he said, “Now you mention, don’t believe I have. Never quite found nobody who appealed to me somehow. Besides. I don’t suppose no respectable woman would have me.”
“Hmh,” I said.
We stood there quiet, listening to the water rush, the center beam creak, the millstone roll round and round without end.
After a bit longer, he said, “I might have thought on you some.”
“I might have thought on you some, too,” I said, and I closed the door behind me.
Words from the Reckoning, So Very Long Ago: Ruth Troyer’s Journal
1
January 23, 2198
8 chickadees
7 winter sparrows
5 juncos
5 starlings
2 mourning doves
1 cardinal
Too many crows
Started cloudy, though not so cold as yesterday. Sunnier as the day progressed, but windy and cooler. Tomorrow will be a cold one, I think.
Tuesday, ironing. The work went quickly.
Kimmy Carnes’ flock scattered on her this morning. By the time she drove them back together, three were missing. I sent out some watchers to check, and they found part of a ewe. They think it was dire wolves, or whatever they’re breeding with. We hope it’s just dire wolves. It’s been over two months since we saw a chimera. Maybe that’ll hold a while longer. Our ammunition’s all but gone, so I’m not sure
what we’ll do next time. Throw rocks, maybe. Use unkind words.
Morton visited. I don’t trust that man, but he tells some good stories. Always has news to share, too. He’s seen both Hannah and Waneta lately. They and their villages are doing well. He says there’s a “strong downward trend” in chimeras, and good reason to hope they’ll dwindle to nothing in a few decades as the last Wicc devices gradually give out. That’s a long while to wait, but I hope he’s right. I hope it’s no longer.
Young Ruth’s training has gone well. She’s learned what I can teach her in our time together, and Hannah and Waneta will guide her from here as they’re able. So much about Young Ruth reminds me of Martha. Brave. Wise. Stubborn. With help from her aunts, she’ll grow into a fine weaver for Sugarcreek.
We’ve done as well as we could, given the circumstances. I think so. Hope so. It’s like weaving, I suppose. Watching all those threads, deciding which to match and which to move and which to cut. There’s a pattern to most of it, regular and sure. Other parts you just do your best and hope you chose right.
I think that trip to Canton-Massillon years ago finally caught up with me. It just took a little longer than it did for the others. Been doing poorly in some unusual ways. I wonder what comes after I die. I hope it’s something. I hope I see Martha. No use wondering, though. I’ll find out soon enough.
I’d rather not leave just yet, but as I look at it, I’m at peace with what I’ll leave behind. So many good people. They’ll find their way, I hope. With so many good people looking toward tomorrow instead of toward yesterday, there’s always a place for hope.
Words from before the Reckoning, So Very Long Ago: Morton and Aura Lee