Eyes of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I—” He looked at her with wide gray eyes. “Do I?”

  Her face heated. “Alanka told me that relations between men and women in Kalindos are a little more, er—”

  “Informal.”

  “Yes, more informal than I’m used to. But I don’t—I only—I—” She groaned at her own ineptitude, then looked him in the eyes. “I only want you.”

  Relief infused his face just as the sun sank behind the hills. Marek’s outline shimmered, then disappeared along with the rest of him. He uttered a crude curse. “Sorry,” he added.

  She shook her head in sympathy. “How will I find you later?”

  “Follow the floating meloxa mug. Or—” he steered them toward the edge of the circle “—come with me now.”

  They slunk out of the crowd into the shadows. When the firelight was just a warm glow in the distance, Marek stopped, held her face in his hands and gave her a long, searching kiss. She sighed with relief. In the chaos her life had become, nothing felt as normal as this.

  He pulled her close and breathed into her hair, the shuddering kind of breath taken after a fright. “When you died, I felt so numb, like I was as frozen as you. And when you came back, I wanted to warm you, put my hands and mouth all over you until you were the Rhia I remembered.”

  “Do I feel different?”

  “You feel like yourself.”

  “I feared I’d be hard and clammy, or I’d smell like a grave, or—”

  “Shh.” His hands slid down her back as he inhaled. “You feel, and smell, as good as ever.”

  In the distance, a shriek ripped the air.

  26

  Marek jerked to face the sound. “It’s Coranna.”

  “Don’t wait for me. Run.”

  He was gone. She sprinted toward the scream and joined the villagers heading north of the bonfire along one of the paths.

  In the short time she’d known Coranna, she had never heard her raise her voice, much less release such a plaintive cry. Her chest tightened with more than just the physical strain of sprinting through the underbrush.

  The crowd stopped beneath a small tree house and parted for Rhia. Perhaps they spoke to her, but she heard nothing under the rush of Crow’s wings. She fought the urge to clamp her hands to her ears and scream to cover the sounds.

  Coranna knelt beside Etar’s supine figure, fighting back tears as she stroked his lifeless arm. The wings in Rhia’s head gave a last loud thump, then faded into the background below the crowd’s chatter.

  “What happened?” a woman behind her whispered.

  “He fell,” another answered. “I saw it happen.”

  “Did the ladder break?”

  “No, he stopped as he was climbing and clutched at his chest. On the next rung he just dropped.”

  “Poor man,” the first woman said. “I didn’t know he was ill.”

  “He hid it well. If I’d known, I’d have sent him more food this winter.”

  Was he ill? Rhia wondered, and suddenly wished she had looked inside him when she had the chance.

  Pirrik burst through the crowd on the other side, Alanka following.

  “Father!”

  Pirrik sank to his knees and cradled Etar’s head in his lap, oblivious to the blood flowing onto his hands. He released a long, hollow cry. It was echoed in a moment by a woman’s wail, which grew louder as it neared. A pregnant girl appeared at the front of the crowd. When she saw Etar’s broken body, she swooned.

  Alanka leaped to catch the girl before she fell, then rocked her in a tight embrace. From her appearance Rhia guessed she was Pirrik’s younger sister, and she realized that Etar had already been a third-phase Owl at the time of his death.

  “Poor Thera,” one of the women behind Rhia whispered. “I hope the baby doesn’t come too soon now.”

  Coranna caught Rhia’s gaze and beckoned her over. She hurried to join her, hoping that no one observed her half-second hesitation. Coranna nodded to Etar’s other hand. Rhia grasped both hands so that the three of them formed a circle.

  Everyone fell silent. Rhia closed her eyes and heard nothing but Pirrik’s and Thera’s stifled sobs.

  Her world went bright again. Coranna was there in the corner of one eye, and Etar in the other. They both smiled. She mimicked their expressions easily, for they were all surrounded with a pulsating light that emanated love from its core. The experience was a pale reflection of her own death, but it left her brimming with joy.

  As Crow approached, Coranna let go of Etar’s hand, and Rhia followed suit.

  Etar’s smile disappeared. His eyes filled with confusion, and he looked as if he were about to shake his head in protest. Then he vanished, enveloped in the wings of Crow.

  The bright world faded as well, and she was back in Kalindos. Even before her eyes opened, she felt the damp ground beneath her knees. Yet the awareness of the Other Side lingered like a haze, and for more than a moment she ached to return.

  The crowd let out a collective sigh. Coranna placed a gentle hand on Pirrik’s shoulder.

  “Your father’s gone,” she said. She stood and squeezed Thera’s hand. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice wavered, and Rhia sensed that this death hit Coranna harder than most.

  An older woman wept as she comforted Thera. Rhia recognized her as Etar’s sister Kerza the Wolf. Alanka knelt beside Pirrik. He leaned into her embrace and muffled his sobs against her neck.

  Elora appeared then with a blanket and healing bag. One look at the faces of those gathered around Etar’s body told her it was too late. Coranna beckoned Elora to join her and Rhia away from where Etar’s children grieved.

  In a low voice, Elora asked, “What happened?”

  In an even lower voice, Coranna replied, “I hoped you could tell me.”

  “People say he fell.”

  “Yes, but why? He may be old, but he’s far from feeble. Something took hold of him in the moments before he let go.” She blinked hard and frowned, as if remembering something, then turned to Rhia. “Find me half a dozen strong men who can carry him to the pyre.”

  Rhia turned toward the crowd, her mind swimming from the moments on the Other Side. A few men had already stepped forward for the onerous task. Rhia quickly found three more. When she returned, Elora had cleansed the blood from Etar’s head and bound it with a swath of bandage. His body was wrapped in the blanket she had brought.

  The crowd parted for the solemn procession of the corpse. Faces that had been lit with giddiness less than an hour before were now cast in sorrow. Many muttered to themselves in prayer.

  Unsure of her role, Rhia shadowed Coranna all the way to the funeral pyre. The Crow woman seemed to be reining in her own emotions like unruly horses. Rhia wasn’t sure if the lump of sadness in her own throat came from the death of the intriguing old man, or from her brief return to that place of bliss and peace. Thinking of it made her feel more homesick than thoughts of Asermos. Her hands and feet tingled as if warming, though she hadn’t been cold. The exhaustion from the long ride and the dancing had disappeared.

  The pyre consisted of long wooden slats, stacked to create a container that reminded Rhia of a hollow log house that would accommodate the body of one adult. Atop the pyre, overlapping its perimeter, lay a thin stone slab, presumably to shelter the wood and keep it dry. The six men laid Etar’s body on the slab. Coranna asked them to find a few guards to take the first shift.

  “I’ll do it.” Marek’s voice came from just behind Rhia. “Let me get my bow.”

  Coranna stood next to the pyre and took a deep breath before turning to face the crowd.

  “My fellow Kalindons, Etar—our friend, father and brother—has gone to the Other Side.” Though by now word had spread, a cry of anguish rose from the people. The man who had played the drum covered his face with his hands. A gray-haired woman leaned against a tree and quietly keened.

  Coranna continued, her voice fighting to remain steady. “Please, return to your
homes and pray for his easy passage. At daybreak we will gather to say goodbye. Afterward we will celebrate his life, both the one he lived with us and the one he will live with the Spirits for all eternity.”

  She turned away from the crowd, who took her signal to disperse, which they did in silence, some weeping and shaking their heads. Rhia joined her on the pyre’s platform.

  Elora appeared at the other edge and exchanged a glance with Coranna. They uncovered Etar’s body. Rhia reminded herself that this death was among the less ugly ones she would likely see.

  Welcome to the rest of your life, she thought with a pang of self-sympathy.

  Eyes closed, Elora put her hands on either side of Etar’s head. Her fingers probed his neck.

  “Lift his side just a little toward you,” she said. Coranna and Rhia obeyed. The healer slipped her hands under him and felt the length of his spine. She stopped when she reached the midpoint. “He broke his back in the fall.”

  “But what made him fall?” Coranna asked her.

  “Did he drink a lot of meloxa?”

  “No more than usual.”

  Rhia spoke up. “One of the villagers said when Etar was climbing the ladder, he clutched his chest in pain.”

  Coranna looked at Elora. “Did he ever come to you with symptoms?”

  “No,” the healer said, “but you know how men are, too proud to admit any illness until it kills them. And sometimes Crow simply strikes with speed and mercy.” She smoothed the bandage on Etar’s head, tenderly, as if the action could help him. Her face turned thoughtful. “If I were third-phase, I could determine even now if he had been sick.”

  Coranna put her hand on Elora’s. “You’re exhausted from our journey. Go, rest and pray now. Rhia and I will keep vigil.”

  After a last mournful glance at Etar, Elora slipped into the darkness.

  Rhia watched Coranna stand, unmoving, at the side of the corpse. “What do we do now?” she asked finally.

  “We wait,” Coranna said.

  “Wait for what?”

  “For morning.”

  Rhia glanced at Etar. Had Coranna’s questions for Elora been simple curiosity or did they reflect a deeper suspicion? Rhia wished more than ever that she had done “the wrong thing” and granted Etar’s request to tell him when he would die.

  “When do we clean and wrap the body?” she asked Coranna.

  “No need. It will be burned tomorrow at sunset.”

  “You don’t bury your dead?”

  “The soil here is too rocky. Like all Birds, his ashes will hang from the tree where he once lived.”

  “Oh,” was all Rhia could think to say. Kalindons and Asermons differed in so many ways it was getting harder to believe they were the same people. She thought of what Marek had said about the nature and length of Kalindon funerals, and remembered that her own party had been a funeral of sorts.

  “Coranna?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you can return people from the Other Side, the way you did for me—”

  “Why don’t I do it for everyone?”

  “I know you can’t undo every death, but how do you decide?”

  Coranna didn’t respond, and Rhia feared she had blundered by asking such a question.

  Finally Coranna said, “To reverse Crow’s flight, a bargain must be struck. Life for life.”

  Rhia grew cold. “For a person to come back to life, someone else has to die?”

  “It’s not simply one life for another. It’s time on earth that I must trade.”

  “Another life is shortened?”

  “Yes. By the same amount of time as the returned has remaining in his or her life.”

  The forest swayed around Rhia, and not just from the wind. “Then who—for me—?”

  “Everyone.”

  27

  Rhia gripped the edge of the pyre to steady herself. “When you say everyone—”

  “All of Kalindos. Except the children, of course. They’re not old enough to consent to such a bargain.”

  “How long—” Rhia felt sick. “How much time did I take from them?”

  “It depends how long you live. Spread among the adult villagers, if you live another thirty-five years, to be my age—which I pray you will—that’s scarcely more than a month of life each.”

  A month. She had stolen a month from each Kalindon. One fewer month to hold their children, to raise their faces to the afternoon sun, to sleep in their beloved’s arms.

  “Why would they?”

  “Because a Crow is a rare and valuable thing. A Crow is, frankly, worth five Otters or ten Wolves.”

  “It’s true,” Marek’s voice came from the darkness, where he stood guard.

  “It’s not true,” Rhia said. “We each have equal gifts to offer our people.”

  “Equally necessary, perhaps, but not equally common.” Coranna wagged a finger at her. “So take care of yourself.”

  “Take care of myself? When every day I live, someone else lives one day fewer? How can I live, knowing what I’ve stolen from them?”

  “You didn’t steal it. They gave it.”

  Rhia looked toward Marek, then shifted closer to Coranna. “What about him?” she whispered. “When his mate and the baby—”

  Coranna held up a hand to silence her. “Marek?” she called into the dark. “Would you please fetch my ceremonial robe? It may need to be steamed before the funeral tomorrow.”

  Marek replied his assent. After several moments, long enough for him to move out of hearing range, Coranna turned to Rhia, her face pinched.

  “He tried. He tried to give his life for the woman and their child. He pleaded with me. But for Crow to trade one life for two, especially when one was just born—it asked too much of the Spirit. Their lives would not have been long, and the bargain would have killed Marek in that moment. I couldn’t let him go.” Her lower lip trembled once. “So I didn’t.”

  “What about other people here? Couldn’t they have given life to save them?”

  “It must be done within a few instants of death, the way it was with you. For them, there wasn’t time.”

  Rhia turned away and hid her face in her hands to staunch the tears before they could flow.

  Coranna stepped closer. “You will learn to stand at a distance from others’ pain.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You must, to give them the strength they need.” She took Rhia by the shoulders and turned her. “You can show compassion without becoming…”

  Hysterical? Rhia thought. Deranged?

  “…occupied.”

  I don’t want this, she pleaded to Crow. How can I ever?

  Coranna’s grip tightened. “Remember how happy Etar looked when he crossed to the Other Side?” Rhia nodded, though she recalled how Etar’s smile had vanished the moment before Crow’s wings shrouded him. “That’s our reward,” Coranna continued. “And when the villagers look to us tomorrow for solace, and we grant it to them, then their gratitude, their peace, will take away the hurt.”

  Rhia stared at Etar’s corpse, her own body filling with dread. “Would he have lived another month if you hadn’t brought me back?”

  Coranna’s mouth opened in a silent gasp. “There are some questions,” she said finally, “that only Crow can answer.”

  The night’s hours crawled by, making Rhia long for summer’s generous sunlight. The torches surrounding the pyre played shadows over the forest floor, matching the specters dancing within her own mind. Not since the second night of her Bestowing had she felt so alone and confused. Guilt nagged at her as she wondered what Etar could have done with one more month of life. Now that he was dead, would other Kalindons shoulder an even larger time burden? She tried to believe that her ignorance of the ritual’s true cost made her blameless. Failing that, she reminded herself that the deed had been done and there was no use agonizing over it now. But in fact the consequences grew every day she went on living.

  One of the torches wavered
in the corner of her eye, and she turned to it just as Marek spoke her name.

  He tugged her arm. “Come over here for a moment.”

  She glanced at Coranna, who nodded and returned to whatever prayer or meditation they had interrupted.

  Marek led her outside the circle of torches. He whispered in her ear, “My mentor Kerza needs to speak with you. Alone.”

  “Etar’s sister?”

  “Tell Coranna you need to visit the outhouse, the one on the north side of the village. Kerza will meet you there. You won’t see or hear her until she speaks. She’ll know if it’s safe to show herself.”

  Rhia assented and returned to the pyre. After a short while, she excused herself, picked up one of the smaller torches, and made her way to the outhouse.

  As she neared it, a woman’s whisper beckoned from behind the small wooden building. Rhia followed the sound until a hand gripped her wrist. Though she’d been expecting contact, she nearly yelped in surprise.

  “Thank you for coming,” Kerza said. “I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I should show myself, so you’ll believe me. I think it’s safe.”

  A white-haired woman appeared beside her, hazel eyes reflecting more than sorrow. They burned with bitterness.

  “Help me,” Kerza said. “My brother was murdered.”

  Rhia was surprised at her own lack of surprise. “I wondered that myself.”

  “I don’t wonder.” Kerza’s whisper sliced the air. “I know. He was poisoned.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Someone on the Council.” She made an impatient gesture with her hands. “Let me explain. My brother and I both sit—I mean, he sat on the Council.” Her voice shook. “He had been the elected leader for five three-year terms.”

  “Fifteen years? In Asermos our Council leadership rotates at least every two terms. That way no one person can impose their will for too long.”

  “Exactly. A few Council members have proposed such term limits. The measure has been defeated again and again, always on a four-to-three vote.” Her gaze lowered. “If I’d known this would be the result, I would have changed my vote. But he’s my brother—he was my brother—and I had to be loyal to him.”