Eyes of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Marek said something about breakfast, but sleep stole her consciousness before she could respond.

  When Rhia woke again, the sun’s light had changed little, so she assumed she had merely dozed. She raised herself up on her elbow. The light shone from the opposite direction.

  “I slept all day?” she murmured.

  Marek’s voice came over her shoulder. “You missed the excitement.”

  “What happened?”

  “I made some new arrows.” He held up a long thin stick with the bark peeled off and sighted it at her, one eye squinting down the length of the shaft. “More or less.” He put down the stick. “Not that exciting, actually. How do you feel?”

  She rubbed her face, trying to remove the mist from her mind. “Not sure yet.”

  “How about some sassafras tea?”

  Rhia blinked at him. Tea. Did she like tea? A voice at the corner of her brain said, “That would be lovely.” She relayed the message to Marek.

  “We’ll have to drink from the pot,” he said, “since there’s no mugs.” He put his finger in the pot, which was sitting off to the side of the smoldering campfire. “It’s cool enough.” He reached to pick it up.

  “No,” she said, “I’ll come over there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I need to move.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “No.” She got to her knees and stayed there for a moment, panting. Marek walked over, placed a small but sturdy branch in her hands, then returned to the fire. She appreciated his confidence in her, even if it was partly feigned.

  When she had gathered enough energy, she used the walking stick to bear her weight as her legs slowly straightened. No pain coursed through her, only a bone-deep weariness that would pass with rest and food. She hobbled over to the fire and eased herself to the ground next to Marek.

  “Welcome back to the world.” He handed her the pot. She accepted it with a barely audible thanks, then as soon as her hands stopped trembling, raised it to her lips.

  “How much farther to—phleh!” Rhia spit out the tea. The drops sizzled and popped in the fire.

  “Too strong?” he said.

  The coughing and hacking prevented her from uttering a word. She struggled to uncontort her face. “What is in that—that concoction?” Her eyes watered from the lingering sour taste.

  “It’s not entirely sassafras tea, I admit. You’ve never had meloxa?”

  “What’s meloxa?”

  “Fermented crabapples.”

  She spit out what was left in her mouth. “What made your people create such an abomination?”

  “We have no other cheap way to get drunk.”

  “You don’t have ale?”

  Marek looked like he would spit, too, at the thought. “Ale is for babies.” He gestured to the pot. “Try it again. It grows on you.”

  Rhia wiped her mouth. “I’d rather stay sober—and thirsty.”

  Marek shrugged and took the pot from her. After quaffing a long gulp, he reached in his pack and brought out an empty horseskin flask, which he filled with the contents of the pot.

  “I’ll make some meloxa-free tea.” From a larger flask he poured fresh water into the pot. “Help yourself to food.”

  Rhia didn’t have to be asked twice. She marveled that his foraging skills equaled his proficiency at hunting. Lying next to the meat were at least a dozen roots, cleaned and cooked to a tender crispness.

  Marek accidentally sloshed some of the water onto the fire as he replaced the pot to boil. He sighed and cursed.

  She looked at his lopsided grin. “Have you been drinking meloxa all day?”

  “No, I told you, I was making arrows.”

  Rhia glanced at the small pile of crooked, flimsy sticks that were likely never to touch a bowstring.

  “And drinking meloxa,” he added. “You were asleep. I was bored.”

  “Do Kalindons drink a lot?”

  He thought for a moment. “Define ‘a lot.’”

  “Why so much?” she said.

  “You mean me, or Kalindons in general? Because those ‘why’s’ aren’t the same.”

  “Kalindons. Your ‘why’ is obvious.”

  “Is it?” He adjusted the pot, steadying it for longer than necessary before letting it go. “The reason why a Kalindon does anything is to be close to the Spirits.”

  “Hunting? Eating? Making love?”

  “Everything. We believe that really living in this world is the best way to touch the Spirit World. Not that we walk around in a trance, murmuring ‘Bless you, name-of-Spirit, for that fantastic piss I just took.’ To watch us, you wouldn’t think we were particularly spiritual. To watch us, you’d think us a bunch of shameless sots who bear too much resemblance to the animals who Guard us.” He grabbed a root from the pile in her hand. “You’ll fit in quite well.” He held up a finger. “I meant that as a compliment.”

  “You must have traveled a lot,” she said, “to understand Kalindons from an outsider’s point of view.”

  “Coranna doesn’t travel, so I collect her supplies. I’ve been to all the villages of our people—Asermos, Tiros on the western plains, and even down south to Velekos.”

  “I’ve been there.” It was the only place outside of Asermos she’d visited. “For the midsummer Fiddlers Festival.”

  He brightened. “What year? Maybe we were there at the same time.”

  “I was sixteen, so it would have been two years ago.”

  Marek’s eyes shifted away. “Oh. I wasn’t there then.”

  His wife and child. Of course. Rhia changed the subject before his mood grayed. “Have you ever been to the land of the Descendants?”

  “Never that far south. Doubt I’d like it. One of our Bears, a friend of mine, delivered a message there once from the Kalindon Council. He said there were buildings made of white stone as far as he could see. At one point, in the center of the city, he couldn’t see a single tree.” Marek took on a faraway expression. “The really strange thing is, he couldn’t feel the Spirits.”

  “Not feel them? But they’re everywhere.”

  He looked at the trees, the rocks, the fallen branches.

  Rhia whispered, “You think where there’s no—” she gestured around her “—this, there are no Spirits?”

  “Those people don’t believe. They have human gods. They worship what they’ve created, and it’s not of the earth. It’s of them.”

  “And that’s why they have no magic. The Spirits have abandoned them.”

  “Or…” Marek hesitated.

  “Or what?”

  “Or maybe the Spirits only thrive where people believe in them.”

  Rhia stared at him. “That can’t be right. That would mean—”

  “That they need us as much as we need them.”

  “But if every human died, the Spirits would live on.”

  “And if the Spirits died—”

  “They can’t die,” she said.

  Everything dies. Crow’s words came back to her. But all is reborn as well.

  “I think they did once already,” Marek said. “Before the Reawakening.”

  “You believe in the Reawakening?” She remembered her conversation with the giraffe.

  “The Descendants are proof. If people can fall away from the Spirits once, they can do it again. Which means they could have done it before. Our ancestors were chosen to survive at the Reawakening because we agreed to honor the Spirits, to keep within our limits.”

  “In Asermos we’re taught that’s a myth. We’re taught that humans have always lived in harmony with the Spirits. We’re not the exception, the Descendants are. They’re a warning.” She looked at the pot, which was starting to quiver from the water boiling inside. “But after my Bestowing, I’m not so sure.”

  Marek sat back and took another swig of meloxa. “It makes sense, I suppose, for Asermons to believe that.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to think it could happ
en to you.”

  “Why would it?”

  “Look at your roads, your ships, your farms. Like the Descendants, you’re turning the world into a place for humans.”

  “Our roads and ships and farms are for survival.”

  His loud guffaw was not unkind, though it did make him cough. “Kalindos will teach you a few things about survival. The Descendants aren’t just a warning, Rhia, they’re a history lesson. For your village, it should be the same thing.”

  Rhia’s weariness weighed too much to argue further. The implications of his words troubled her, but she saw no solution, no way for Asermos to undo its way of life and remain strong enough to defend itself.

  “On second thought,” she said, “give me some meloxa.”

  19

  The next day, signs of black bears rousing from winter torpor made Rhia and Marek take precautions to avoid a confrontation. She overcame her embarrassment at her lack of singing ability after hearing him belt out a few tunes of his own. Rhia didn’t suppose any bear would approach their caterwauling unless it wanted to become permanently deafened.

  They were repeating the same verse for the tenth time when Marek suddenly stopped singing. He grabbed her arm and put a finger to his mouth. She silenced.

  Something whistled, then thudded, just above their heads. When Rhia’s eyes refocused, she saw an arrow jutting from a tree a few steps away. Her knees turned to water.

  “Marek—”

  He held up his hand, then went to examine the feathers that fletched the arrow.

  “Crazy bitch,” he muttered.

  “I heard you!” A female voice rang from their left, uphill, or perhaps from one of the boulders nearby.

  Marek’s gaze swept the surrounding forest. “Alanka, you missed.”

  “No, I didn’t.” The voice came closer, its source still obscured. “I was aiming for the centipede.”

  He turned back to the tree. “What centi—”

  From nowhere a young woman appeared, leaping onto Marek’s back and crooking her arm around his neck. Her momentum pushed them forward, and she pressed her finger against the trunk, where the arrow had pierced it.

  “Right there,” she said. It was true: Dozens of pairs of brown-yellow legs stuck out from behind the arrow’s head.

  Alanka yanked out the arrow. “Welcome home.” She made a slurping sound against Marek’s cheek, a cross between a kiss and a lick. “About time.”

  She slid off him, whereupon he turned and swept her into an embrace so hearty that Rhia took a step back, feeling as invisible as he had been these last few nights. The girl’s long black braid bounced against the quiver of arrows strapped around her shoulders as Marek rocked her from side to side.

  Clearly they were close.

  Marek let go of her. “Alanka, this is Rhia. Rhia, Alanka.”

  The woman’s dark eyes appraised her, beginning with her feet and moving upward. When their gazes met, a smile broke across her face. “Hi!” She hugged Rhia, who tried to reciprocate, but Alanka had already let go. “Don’t worry, I won’t lick you. Unless you—”

  Alanka cut herself off. She sniffed the air above Rhia’s shoulder, then did the same to Marek. “Ah, good.” Her eyes sparkled at both of them, and she ruffled his head. “So you’ll finally stop cutting your hair, then?”

  He blushed and took Rhia’s hand. “Maybe.” He tried to draw Rhia near to him, but she resisted. His curious look turned to one of comprehension.

  “Alanka’s Wolf, too,” he told her.

  Rhia let out a sigh of relief. If custom were the same here as in Asermos, Marek would as soon take Alanka to bed as he would his own sister. Sharing a Guardian Spirit made two people far too alike in all the important ways for attraction to take root. It was a blessing of the Spirits that such an effective taboo existed, for it allowed co-Animals to work, hunt or fight together without distraction.

  “Rhia is Coranna’s new apprentice,” Marek said.

  Alanka’s eyes lit up, but in the next moment her smile faded. Her gaze turned almost sympathetic. She cleared her throat. “It’s good to have you.” Alanka slipped her hand into the crook of Rhia’s other arm.

  The three of them continued down the path, the Wolves chatting about a herd of elk that had wandered into the foothills after a late snowfall. Rhia studied Alanka from the corner of her eye. She wanted to dislike her, to feel intimidated by her superior strength, self-possession, beauty and height as she would a similar woman in Asermos. But something familiar about Alanka’s face made Rhia feel…at home?

  A feeling that vanished when she saw Kalindos.

  She didn’t come upon it all at once. Rather, it came upon her. By the time she knew she had arrived, the village had surrounded her.

  Ladders hung all around, some made of wood and rope, fastened to a stake in the ground, and others entirely of wood. At least one person was descending each ladder, scrambling down with the ease of squirrels. Rhia, Alanka and Marek stopped near one of the larger trees. Rhia lifted her gaze and gasped.

  A network of wooden homes lay above, stretching among the branches, some extending from one tree to another. Dampness darkened the wood on both the trees and houses. Pine needles dripped with dew, though it was late morning, and moss grew on nearly every surface, absorbing and softening all sound, including Marek’s next words.

  “We’re here.”

  Half a dozen people stood before her, with more coming from a distance, neither hurrying nor dallying.

  “Which one is Coranna?” she whispered to Marek from the side of her mouth.

  “None of them. That’s why they haven’t greeted you yet. They’re waiting to give her the honor.”

  Meeting me is an honor? Rhia thought. Because I’m a visitor or because I’m Crow? Galen had told her little about what to expect in Kalindos, and she suspected his reticence had less to do with ignorance than his desire for her to deal with the situation without bias or prejudice.

  Or maybe he just didn’t want to scare her away.

  She tried not to fidget under the gaze of so many strangers. They examined her with the cool politeness reserved for those just passing through. Mixed with their astonishingly mild curiosity was…pity? Perhaps they had heard about her mother, or noticed her shorter hair.

  Marek squeezed her hand, and when she looked at him he tilted his chin to their left.

  The crowd packed several people deep in that direction, everyone craning necks to peer behind them. The group parted, and a woman stepped forward.

  Silver hair fell in waves to her waist and glistened in the shafts of sunlight she passed through. Her face held not a single wrinkle that Rhia could see, and her feet moved in silence, gracing the ground with their soundless presence. Like the other Kalindons, she dressed in the muted colors of the pine forest, but seemed to glow with a light that came from beyond the world.

  She moved like death itself—deliberate, fluid and unstoppable.

  Rhia wanted to step forward and shrink away at the same time. Was this a dying person’s last sight? Would she herself someday become as ethereal and imposing? She couldn’t imagine possessing such power, such splendor.

  The woman stopped in front of Rhia, who finally remembered to bow. She returned the gesture, then extended her hand, palm down.

  “Rhia, welcome. I am Coranna.”

  Rhia took Coranna’s hand and unstuck her own throat. “Yes, you are. Rather, I thought you were. I guessed you might be.” She clamped her lips shut before more insipid words seeped out.

  A serene smile spread over Coranna’s face. She laid her other hand against Rhia’s cheek. Rhia fought the urge to lean against the long, strong fingers, like a dog eager to be petted.

  “It has been several years since I’ve had an apprentice,” Coranna said. “I greet you—we all greet you—” she took in the crowd with a wave of the hand “—with the utmost joy.”

  Rhia saw nothing close to joy on the faces of the Kalindons. They bore smiles, but wistful ones, as
though they were resigned to her presence. Had she disappointed them already? Or did they dread the sight of another harbinger of death? Perhaps their reticent manner was Kalindon nature, though if that were the case, Marek wouldn’t fit in. He was anything but reticent.

  She looked at him. His bewildered expression said he didn’t understand the subdued reception, either.

  Rather than bowing as Asermons would, the Kalindons came forward one by one and embraced Rhia, though none with the force and enthusiasm of Alanka. She struggled to keep the names and Guardian Spirits straight, since they didn’t wear fetishes. In such a small village, she realized, everyone would know their neighbors and had no need to announce their powers.

  On the whole, they appeared shorter and lighter than Asermons. Rhia wondered if their slight builds were due to their famously spare diets. At least it held an advantage for their surroundings—any excess weight would make climbing in and out of dwellings that much more exhausting.

  The last person to introduce himself was a taller-than-average man with black hair and eyes.

  “Finally.” Alanka squeezed Rhia’s elbow. “This is my father, Razvin.”

  The man took Rhia’s hand and bowed deeply, as if he were going to kiss it. “It’s an honor,” he said in a voice as smooth as butter, “for an old Fox like me to meet a beautiful young Crow.”

  Rhia’s shoulder twitched, as if it would jerk back her hand. Mayra had told her never to trust a Fox.

  Alanka made a low groan. “Father, please. You’re not old.”

  “But she is beautiful,” he said without taking his eyes off Rhia, who sensed Marek stepping closer to her side. “Have we met before?” Razvin asked her.

  Laughing, Alanka took her father’s arm. “Of course not. Let’s go home before you embarrass yourself.”

  “I believe it is too late.” Razvin nodded goodbye to Rhia and let his daughter lead him away. Rhia stared after him.

  “Ignore him,” Marek said. “He thinks he’s charming.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Thank you for everything.”

  He pulled her closer and kissed her temple.

  “Oh, dear.”