by Alex Bledsoe
She glanced surreptitiously at her spear. Could she pull it free, shoulder it, and hurl it with enough speed and accuracy to kill her watcher before he moved?
Then she mentally kicked herself. She was thinking like Yakon, not like a grown woman, certainly not like an elder. A Ta-Mihzo did not base decisions on fear. So she took a deep breath, raised her chin, and looked straight at him.
* * *
The young woman was certainly beautiful. He wondered how such a delicate creature survived in this savage land.
Then he nearly fell into the river when she looked up directly at him.
She laughed as he regained his balance.
“Oh, ’tis a real laugh,” he said. “You see me as a blind cobbler’s thumb, do you?”
She tilted her head. Clearly she didn’t understand his language.
“You remind me of a braw girl in a song, did you know that?” He brought his drum into position, found the rhythm and sang:
My beautiful girl, she thinks me a fool
She laughs at me all day long
But if I’m a fool, then I’m hers alone
And that’s why I’m singing this song …
If he’d suddenly sprouted an extra head on his shoulders, he doubted she could’ve looked more startled. It was his turn to laugh at her.
“Ah, no harm meant, lass, it’s only a gáire,” he said. He put down his drum and stood, keeping his hands above his head. “Look, no sword, no knife. I’ll not hurt you. Stay there.”
Without really thinking it through, he leaped from the rock into the river. He landed in the fastest part of the current, which quickly tore away his crude garments. He fought his way into the still backwater pool.
Treading water, he looked around, but the woman had vanished. “Hey,” he called. “Come on out. I don’t bite.”
There was no reply, and no sign of movement. He swam to shallower water and stood up.
She emerged from the trees where she’d hidden and looked him over, her eyes traveling up and down his naked form. She said something he didn’t understand.
“Don’t judge me too harshly,” the Drummer said with a grin. “That water is cold.” She smiled back uncertainly, still not comprehending. “Ye don’t ken me at all, do you? We need to find something in common.” He closed his eyes and sang a single long, clear note.
Then he looked at her. She stared at him in surprise, but no fear. He gestured to his mouth, then pointed at hers, encouraging her to sing.
* * *
When he’d first emerged from the water, Dahni had been shocked, and a little frightened. Then she looked him up and down, and couldn’t repress a snicker. “That water must be cold,” she said.
He clearly didn’t understand, but there was something unthreatening about him, a friendliness that cut through most of her fright. Besides, if he intended to either kill her or take advantage of her, he’d gone about it in the completely wrong way.
Then he opened his mouth and made … a sound. Something she’d never heard before. It wasn’t a word, she was certain. It was more of a cry, like something an animal or bird might make, but there was no fear in it, no anger, just something that made her tingle all over.
Then he gestured at her to make the same sound.
She tensed, wanted to run, then forced herself to stand her ground. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and made a noise that approximated his cry.
He smiled, laughed, and clapped his hands in delight. Then he made the sound again, but added a second, different sound after it. She mimicked it as best she could.
He continued, adding sound after sound, building a chain of noises that were entirely different than anything Dahni had ever heard. She did her best to keep up.
Finally he gestured for her to make the noises alone. As she did, he made other noises, different from hers, yet blending with them in a way that thrilled her more than anything ever had. They made their noises several times in a row until finally they both had to laugh with delight at the sheer, joyous absurdity of it.
And then, as they sighed their way to silence, they looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Then she stepped willingly into his embrace, and into the kiss that sealed their doom.
* * *
The next morning Dahni made her way to Sixela’s lodge to visit the Stranger. Sixela was out, checking on a newborn in the village, so Dahni had the Stranger to herself.
He lay almost exactly where they’d left him yesterday. His face was now clean, and his hair brushed away from it to reveal handsome, ascetic features. She caressed his cheek, her fingertips scratching on his beard, but he didn’t awaken.
She leaned close to his ear and, as best she could, made the string of sounds she’d learned from her new, secret lover. Then she waited to see if the sounds would penetrate his coma and bring him back to the world.
His eyelids fluttered, and beneath them his eyes worked back and forth.
She made the sounds again.
His eyes opened, and he turned to her. He stared at her blankly, trying to place her in his memory. When he failed, his brow creased in confusion.
She made the sounds a third time.
He looked at her with such sadness that she felt tears build in her own eyes. In a pitifully weak voice, he made the same string of sounds.
She smiled with encouragement.
He said something rapidly that she didn’t understand. Then he passed out.
Dahni sat back on her heels. That settled one thing, at least: both strangers were from the same tribe. But was this man someone they valued and sought, or had he been cast into the caves as punishment, maybe even execution?
She could only learn more about this stranger by learning more from the one who’d taken her on the soft grass by the river.
* * *
“They don’t sing,” the Drummer said.
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,” the Tall Woman said in disbelief.
“I’m nae pulling anything. And when I sang to her, she looked at me like I’d grown a second head next to my first one.”
They walked through the woods, far enough from their village so they knew they wouldn’t be overheard. The Drummer had tried to keep things to himself, but he simply had to tell someone, and the Tall Woman was his closest confidante.
“So do you have a glad eye for her?” the Tall Woman asked.
“I do indeed,” the Drummer admitted. “She’s a fiddle in the moonlight, she is.”
“The Man with Six Fingers will be mad as a box of frogs if he finds out.”
“He won’t find out unless you tell him.”
“I should.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s against his orders.” She paused, thinking. “Still, I suppose ’tis not hurting anyone.”
“And it nary will,” he insisted. “Not even me.”
* * *
Many nights later Dahni and the Drummer, both naked, lay together on a woven blanket she’d brought to their tryst. Above them, the sky turned from blue to purple on its way to the starry black of night. “I can’t believe,” he said, “that you kenned our language so quickly.”
“What can I say?” she said. “I’m smart.”
“Are all your people so smart?” he asked.
“Oh, most are a lot smarter than me,” she assured him.
“Mine, too,” he agreed. “I’m the village idiot.”
“You’re my idiot,” she said, and kissed him.
After that first day, they’d met in secret every chance they got. At first it had been at the pool, but later, at places where the river was easier to cross. Their intimacy was immediate, and powerful, like the point where lightning touched its target. It almost—almost—made the Drummer glad he’d been exiled.
And as much as she’d learned his spoken language, she’d also learned his language of what he called “music.” They’d begun with simple children’s songs, and he’d taught her rhythm, and harmony. Then he’d brought a sec
ond drum for her to play.
Now she kissed him passionately, and when she pulled away asked, “What are your people called?”
“The Tuatha—” he said without thinking, then looked surprised. “Wow. That’s the first time I’ve been able to remember it. We’re the Tuatha … something.”
“The Two…” she said, struggling with the sounds.
“No, Tuatha.”
“Two…”
“Say it with me: ‘tu … a…”
“Two fah?” she said with charming earnestness.
“Near enough,” he agreed with a smile.
“So can you recall your name yet?”
He thought hard for a moment, then shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“That’s so sad,” she said, and kissed him again.
19
The Stranger opened his eyes as Dahni bent over him. “Hello,” she said in his language. “How do you feel today?”
He stared at her, but didn’t reply.
Sixela had been called away to attend a man who’d driven a broken stick through his foot. So as long as Dahni could hear the man’s faint screams echoing from the fields, she knew the healer was occupied. She repeated, “How do you feel today?”
His eyes, clear for a moment, glazed over as he sank back into his pillow. His body had responded well to Sixela’s treatment, but his mind remained addled, disconnected from the reality around him except for stray lucid moments, like the one that had evidently just passed.
“Can’t go back,” he said weakly. “Don’t have the will…”
“Shhh, calm down,” she said, and stroked his cheek. “You’re safe here, I won’t hurt you.”
“I know the way,” he murmured, “but she won’t let them come back…”
“Do you want to find your people?” she asked as gently as she could.
“Yes,” he said, his head twisting on his pillow. It was one of the few times he’d responded directly to a question.
“I can help you. But you have to talk to me.”
“She won’t let them come back,” the Stranger continued, talking either to himself or to someone who existed only in his mind. “I know the way, but we don’t have the will…” It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned this strange, powerful woman who inspired a soul-deep terror in him.
Suddenly he grabbed the front of her dress and pulled her close. His eyes, wide and shining, took in her face, her clothes, and the lodge. “You’re not…”
“I’m a friend,” she said, her voice calm despite her pounding heart. “A friend.”
He released her, sank onto his sweaty pallet and drifted back into his troubled sleep. She had not yet mentioned him to the Drummer, and with each passing day that decision loomed larger, and harder to justify. She had to bring it up soon, maybe even risk bringing the Drummer to Sixela’s lodge in secret so that he could meet the Stranger.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do it now. Their time together was so perfect, she wasn’t willing to do anything that might impinge on it. So she wiped the Stranger’s face a final time and left him alone in the lodge.
* * *
One afternoon in a clearing deep inside the forest on his side of the river, the Drummer suddenly said, “I can’t keep this up.”
“Not many men could, after all we’ve done today,” she teased.
He playfully yanked a strand of her hair. “That’s not what I mean.” He tapped his fingers on the drum, creating a soft, steady beat that hid beneath the natural sounds around them. “We each need to tell our people what’s going on. That there’s no need to fear each other anymore. We need to bring them together.”
“My father thinks your people are eventually going to try to drive us from the valley. Then there will be war, and many on both sides will die.”
“That’s pure havering.”
“Does that mean nonsense?”
“Aye, it does. We’re not looking for a fight. We’re not violent people.”
“How do you know? You said you couldn’t remember.”
“More pieces have come back. I think I know the story.”
“Tell me, then.”
He settled into a comfortable position, the drum between his legs, and began to tap a new rhythm, statelier and somehow sad. “We lived in a village deep inside a great, ancient forest. This forest was ruled by a woodsman who was immensely strong, and had six fingers on each hand. One day he did something that angered our queen, and she exiled him.”
“What did he do?” she asked.
He bit his lip in concentration. “I think … he made a bet he shouldn’t have, and he lost. This embarrassed the Queen, so she drove him from his forest into a cave, and he emerged … here.”
“That sounds,” she said, trying to sound casual, “like a children’s story.”
“No,” he said seriously, “that’s history. And the rest of us, his subjects, had to follow him here. The Queen’s magic took away our memories of our names, our families, everything. We’re just now starting to get them back, in little pieces.”
“Perhaps we were right to be afraid of you,” she said at last.
That made him laugh. “That’s funny. The idea that anyone would be scared of us.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Ah, but you terrify me, lass,” he said as he stretched out beside her and kissed her.
* * *
The next day, Dahni stood alone at the entrance of the cave where the Stranger had emerged. The footprints had faded, erased by the wind or the passage of an animal seeking shelter.
A cold, damp breeze from the depths of the cave blew her hair back from her face. She leaned into it and called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?” Then she caught herself and repeated it, this time in the Drummer’s language, adding, “I’m looking for the Queen.”
Her voice echoed back into the cave, rebounding until it faded.
“So much for that,” she murmured to herself, and turned to go.
Then another sound rose out of the wind. It grew louder and clearer until it became a musical sound, a woman’s voice raised in a song more beautiful than anything Dahni had ever heard. It contained every possible feeling, from ecstasy to sadness, and swept over her the way a lover’s caress might.
Then it changed. It grew harsh, offended, vengeful. No, that wasn’t strong enough. It was rage. And no mere mortal rage; this was the rage of a furious god, one offended that some lesser being had dared to approach it in song. This was the voice, Dahni realized, of the great Queen that had sent the Drummer’s people away, and was prepared to remind them of their exile should they ever try to return.
Dahni clapped her hands over her ears. It didn’t help.
She turned and ran.
20
The Six-Fingered Man had finally moved into the bear’s cave. It had been cleaned, swept, scoured, then painted with symbols and signs that marked its, and his, significance. The Artist had completed the task without help, despite her ancient and shaking fingers. She was likely to be the first natural-death casualty of this new world, and then someone would have to take her place. As a people, they simply couldn’t be without her colors.
Now the Drummer and the Tall Woman stood outside the cave. Wind tore at them, chilled from its passage over the mountains. They huddled inside their fur cloaks.
“He calls himself the Man in the Rock House now,” the Tall Woman said.
“’Tis clever,” the Drummer agreed, glad he could blame his trembling voice on the wind.
“Aye. Wait here.” She entered slowly, waiting both for her eyes to adjust to the dimness, and for the Man in the Rock House to acknowledge her.
The cave no longer smelled of bear shit, at least. The coals from a dying fire glowed near the back, the smoke filtering up through cracks and channels in the ceiling. The Man in the Rock House sat beside it, his crude new lyra in his hands, staring into the embers as if the secret to his happiness lay within their faint glimmer.
“
Beg your pardon,” the Tall Woman said, and made a gesture of respect. “The Drummer would like to speak with you.”
He did not respond or acknowledge her presence.
“He’s made contact with the people across the river. He’s learned some things you might find useful.”
“Send him in,” he said in a voice ragged from disuse. “And wait outside.”
She made the same gesture of respect again, then bowed and left.
After a long moment the Drummer appeared, tense and uncertain. He cleared his throat. “Sir,” he said respectfully. “I apologize for intruding on your solitude, but I need to speak with you. It’s about the tribe across the river. Sir, I’ve gotten close to one of them. A woman.”
The Man in the Rock House finally looked up. “A woman?” he repeated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sit.”
The Drummer did, carefully placing his drum to one side. He desperately wanted to tap on it, to use it to calm his thundering heart, but no one dared play along with the Man in the Rock House without an invitation.
The Man in the Rock House also set aside his lyra. The Drummer was shocked to see the grime on his face streaked with tears, some of which still shone with wetness. “Do you recall our days in the Queen’s forest?”
“Aye. Small bits of it have come back to me … sir.”
“Those were bonnie good days,” he said as casually as if speaking about a walk to the creek. “I was fair good at my job, and all respected me. Even the Queen.”
After a long, uncomfortable moment, the Drummer said, “Sir, about the tribe across the river…?”
Something changed in the older man’s face; a hardness settled there, and his gaze cleared. The wistfulness was gone, replaced by iron certainty. “What about them?”
“They’re peaceful. Friendly.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve met one of them. She’s learned our language, and I’ve learned the tongue of the Ta-Mihzo. It’s what they call themselves.”
The last of the glaze left his eyes, and for the first time, he was really paying attention. “You’ve been keeping company with one of them?”