Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  With some difficulty, they got the hounds out and helped Beor climb out as well. Finally, they all lay on a hillside in the cover of the trees, panting. She wanted to laugh, out of relief, but dared not. Their enemies might be lurking nearby. Kel took a spear and went scouting, and after some time returned triumphantly with an escort of six astonished White Deer tribespeople.

  “We’re nearby to Four Houses!” Kel exclaimed, and with Ulfrega and her companions as an escort, they walked to the safety of the other village. A healer tended to Beor. A Swift was sent to Queens’ Grave to deliver the message that Adica had been found. The Four Houses folk knew how to lay out a good feast: freshly killed boar and venison, pears and apples stewed into a potage, bread, and barley porridge sweetened with honey. Beer flowed freely, and the tale was told at length, and then a second time when the most experienced of the Four Houses warriors asked for more details.

  What weapons did the Cursed Ones use? What of these clubs borne by the Wise Ones? Did the under hill people have eyes, or were they blind? Was it true they could not speak? Had the foreigner been enchanted by the Wise Ones, or was he simply a sorcerer himself, hoarding great power? Could Four Houses take one of the bronze spears in exchange for the hospitality they had shown to the Hallowed One this day?

  In return, Beor scolded them for their unfinished palisade, and Kel gained a circle of admiring youths who wanted to hear all about his heroic efforts. Alain sat quietly. He was too strange a figure to be fawned over, nor did he seem to care that he was left alone to attend to his food. Certainly he had become accustomed to being stared at. Now and again Adica caught him looking at her, and each time her heart beat a little harder for thinking of what might yet come to pass. For her own part, she waited with mounting impatience for the return of the Swift. The youth returned in the late afternoon: a large escort would come from Queens’ Grave tomorrow to escort the Hallowed One back to her own village. The Walking One known as Dorren waited for her there; he had brought a message from Falling-down.

  She passed a fretful night and in the morning paced restively while Kel and Alain helped the Four Houses villagers raise the log walls of their palisade and Beor rested. At last the escort came, overjoyed to see her and flush with the news that none of the injured people at Queens’ Grave had died in the attack or caught a festering infection in their wounds. The march back to the village passed swiftly, and in the village itself, still marked by the recent battle, roasting and baking went on at a great rate in preparation for a celebratory feast on the morrow.

  Dorren waited on the bench in the council house, sipping at beer. How eagerly he greeted her!

  “Hallowed One!” He could not touch her. Standing beside the table, he contented himself with turning his mug around, and around again, with his good hand. “I bring a message from Falling-down, but I feared I came too late when I arrived here and heard the news of the attack.” He glanced past her and flushed, eyes widening with surprise, as Alain entered the council house. “This is the foreigner. Just as Falling-down predicted. He saw this one in a dream.”

  “Did he?” A knot curled in her gut. Falling-down had the gift of prophetic dreaming, and if he spoke against Alain’s presence, then even Mother Orla might go back on her agreement.

  “He saw a foreign man stumble weeping through a gateway of blue fire, with two hounds at his side. There was a creature beside him, with flaming wings, one of the gods’ servants.”

  “He came here through the loom. The Holy One brought him.”

  “Truly, Falling-down did not know whether he had had a vision of the past, or of the future. He said I must journey here to look at this foreign man myself, and to bring you a message.”

  Adica did not look again at Alain. She did not need to. She knew exactly where he stood in relation to her; she felt him take the mug of beer offered to him by Mother Orla’s granddaughter, Getsi, and thought perhaps she could taste the bite of it on his lips as he drank. “What message?”

  Dorren composed himself, going still as he brought the words to his tongue. She saw, in his face, the qualities that had attracted her to him, gentleness, intelligence, and wit, but somehow he seemed, not diminished, but set in shadow, now that she had seen Alain. When Dorren spoke, he did so in the singsong voice used by most Walking Ones to deliver their memorized messages. His good hand wove little pantomimes as he spoke, each one helping him to recall.

  “Falling-down of the Fen tribe speaks these words to Adica of the White Deer people. Shu-Sha of the Copper people sends this warning to her sisters and brothers.” His hand fluttered like a crane, which flies easily and which because of its alert disposition cannot easily be surprised. “The Cursed Ones have discovered that we are leagued against them. They may strike at any time, from any direction. Be vigilant.” He made the sign for a hawk, striking unexpectedly. “Horn believes the Cursed Ones know the secret of the loom and hoard it until they will strike all at once against each one of us, but Brightness-Hears-Me speaks these words in disagreement: a man may see holy blood come forth from a woman, but that does not mean he can make it come forth from his own body. Two Fingers has seen disturbances in the deep places. Beware above ground and below, for the Cursed Ones have the power to strike from any place. Fortify your dwelling places, and make fast your houses. Retire to the wilderness, or ring your encampment with charms. Do not walk the looms except in dire need. If the Cursed Ones have unraveled the secret of the looms, then no person who walks the looms will be safe from them. Send the Walking Ones if there is need for a message. Be like the griffins, who watch their eggs carefully against the lion: Guard yourself well until the day that is coming, when we will act.”

  She gave him peace to drink after he finished speaking, but she could not stop from shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, waiting for him to down the mug of beer. When he had recovered, she spoke. “Yet the Cursed Ones struck here. If they had wanted slaves, they would have carried off many, yet they only took me.”

  “Then what Shu-Sha fears is already coming to pass,” said Dorren. “We had heard no report of any disturbances when I left the fens, but by the moon I would say that three days passed while I stepped through the looms.”

  “You must return quickly to see if anything has befallen Falling-down. Tell him what happened here, and let the Walking Ones take this story to my sisters and brothers, so they can know the danger that awaits us.”

  “Those words I will carry back to Falling-down. What of our allies, the Horse people?”

  “The Holy One sometimes visits this place at the full moon. I wait for her then.” Dorren nodded. She looked back, wondering at the silence behind her, to see Alain listening intently. His expression burned with frustration as he shook his head and, with a grimace, set down his cup.

  “Let me sit with him until it’s time for me to leave,” said Dorren. “I can teach him some of our language. The Walking Ones who taught me gave me certain secrets to help me learn the languages of our allies more quickly.”

  “Truly, do so, and I will be grateful.”

  He glanced at her oddly. “Is it true that the Holy One sent him to be your husband?”

  She had to look away. Dried fish and herbs hung from the beams; smoke had gathered in the rafters. “I bow to the Holy One’s will.” Would they think it unseemly if they knew how quickly she had fallen under Alain’s spell? Would they suspect that the Holy One had used magic to bind her to the stranger? Not everyone trusted the Horse people and their powerful shaman, but she did. No magic had influenced her. Sometimes passion took people so: like a hawk, striking unexpectedly.

  Dorren examined the council house thoughtfully before addressing Mother Orla with respect. “Where is my apprentice, Dagfa? She does not attend the Hallowed One as she should.”

  “Her mother stopped breathing just as the barley harvest came in. She had to go back to Muddy Walk to help lay the path that will lead her mother’s spirit to the Other Side. Your old teacher is too crippled to walk all t
he way from Old Fort, and his other apprentice has gone to learn the language of the Black Deer people.”

  “A strange time to do so when one is needed here with the Hallowed One at all times,” said Dorren with a frown. “Send a Swift to fetch Dagfa back. Her sister can draw the final spiral herself. When I am gone, Dagfa can teach the foreigner, so he can learn to speak. Falling-down would not have dreamed of him if he were not important. What if he brings a message from the Other Side? What if the gods have chosen to speak through him, but we cannot understand him?”

  “So be it,” said Mother Orla, acknowledging the truth of his argument.

  Yet Alain could communicate, even if not always in words. That evening when Adica led Dorren up to the loom Alain came with her, although no common villager dared witness sorcery for fear of the winds and eddies of fate called up by magic.

  She had spent the afternoon with Pur the stone knapper, repairing her mirror. He promised to make her a new one, but meanwhile he had glue stewed from the hooves of aurochs by which he could make the mirror whole again, good enough to weave the loom this night.

  When she met Dorren and Alain again before sunset, Alain greeted her very prettily, although it was clearly easier for him to parrot the words Dorren had taught him than to understand her reply. They left the village and walked up through the embankments to the tumulus.

  “I remember my father toiling on these embankments,” said Dorren. “He believed that such fortifications would protect all the White Deer people from the incursions of the Cursed Ones, yet how can they if the Cursed Ones have learned how to walk the looms?”

  They paused to look back at the village below, the houses with their long sides facing south to get the most warmth from the winter sun, the garden plots denuded except for the last leafy turnips going to seed, a restless mob of sheep huddled together for the night. Adults swarmed around the outer palisade, raising logs. “Each village must protect itself,” said Adica softly, “until that day we are rid of the Cursed Ones.”

  Dorren looked away from her quickly, remembering the fate laid on her.

  Beside her, Alain knelt to dig a hand into the soil. “This is called ‘earth,’” he said, sounding each word meticulously, although he couldn’t reproduce the sounds precisely. He gestured toward the nearest curve of the embankment. “This is called ‘wall of earth.’”

  Dorren chuckled. “You will learn quickly with a good teacher.”

  “A good teacher,” echoed Alain, wiping his hand off on grass.

  They reached the loom as night fell. The circle of stones stood in silence, as they always did. She set her feet on the calling ground. Dorren knew to stand to her right side and, after a moment, she got Alain stationed to her left, although he seemed as likely to wander right into the loom itself.

  Clouds covered part of the sky, which made the weaving more complicated. Since the Grindstone lay concealed by clouds, she would have to weave a gateway by means of the Adze and the Aurochs, whose hulking shoulders she could use as a weight to throw the gate open to the west.

  Lifting her mirror, she began the prayer to waken the stones: “Heed me, that which opens in the east. Heed me, that which opens in the west.”

  Alain did not tremble or run, as many would have, faced with sorcery such as she wove now out of starlight and stone. The hill woke beneath her. The awareness of the ancient queens gripped her heart, as though their hands reached through stone and earth and death itself to take hold of their living heir, to seize her for their own purposes.

  Starlight caught in the stones and she wove them into a gateway of light. She scarcely heard Dorren’s murmured “fare you well” before he swiftly left her side, stepped into the gate—and vanished from her sight.

  Alain took two steps forward to follow him. Adica pulled him back. “No. Do not follow him.” He moved no farther, yet his expression as he stared into the gateway of light had a blankness in it, as though his thoughts, his soul, his heart had left to cross into unknown country, where she could never follow. Unbidden, unexpectedly, her voice broke. “I would not have you leave me, Alain.”

  The light faded, the gateway splintered and fell apart, and all at once she began to weep.

  One of the dogs whined. Its jaws closed, gently but firmly, on her hand, drawing no blood but tugging firmly. Alain took her mirror out of her hands and looped it at her belt. He scolded the dog softly, and it released her, but Alain clasped her hand instead.

  “Come,” he said, gently but firmly. “I give to the not-breathing ones. To the—the queens.” He struggled to recall the words Dorren had taught him. “To the queens I give an offering.”

  To the queens. They still resided in her. The echo of their presence throbbed in tune to the beating of her heart. The queens demanded an offering only from those who begged for their help. Yet once that bargain was struck, no matter how bitterly the price weighed on the one who had braved holy ground to petition them, it had to be fulfilled. Even she, especially she, could not escape promises made to the holy dead.

  Like a stick thrown in a river, she went where the current pulled her. Alain led her down the eastern slope of the tumulus to the stone lintel that marked the sacred entrance to the queens’ grave, the holy place for which the village was named. There lay the threshold of the passageway that led into the secret womb where the ancient queens rested. Clouds crept up over the heavens, veiling stars one by one.

  Alain groped for and found a torch. She struck flint and lit it. The torch bled smoke onto the corbeled ceiling, revealing the symbols of power carved into the stones: ships drawing the sun down to the underworld, the spiral path leading the dead to the Other Side, the hands of the Holy Ones who had gone before, reaching for the four staffs of knowledge. Crouching at first, they were able to straighten up as the ceiling sloped upward, so that they walked upright into the low chamber where the queens rested in three stone tombs, each in her own niche.

  The tombs bore carvings representative of each of the queens. The tomb of Arrow Bright, lying to the west, was carved with two sphinxes: the lion women of the desert from whom she had learned the secret ways of the Huntress. In the southern niche, Golden Sow’s tomb gleamed with gold melted from phoenix feathers and beaten into the shape of a sacred sow, the spirit guide of the queen whose magic had made all the women of her tribe fertile and their children healthy. Last, in the niche that faced north, lay Toothless’ cairn, more primitive than the others, for she had reigned in the days when the magic of metalworking was not known among humankind.

  Here, deep in the womb of stone and earth, not even the wind could be heard.

  She stepped forward to offer a prayer, but Alain pressed her back and stepped forward in her place. He stood straight and proud, bright and fearless, as he spoke words in his own language, which she could not understand.

  What was he telling them? She knew they were listening, because the dead are always listening.

  The torch blew out, leaving her caught in their vast silence. She couldn’t even feel Alain’s comforting presence nor hear the panting of the dogs.

  The vision hit like a blast of light, searing her eyes.

  Alain, dressed in clothing unlike any garb she has seen before, stands beside a stone tomb so remarkably carved into the shape of a supine man that she believes that in a moment the stone will come to life and the man will sit up. Stone dogs lie with him, one at his head and one at his feet. Alain weeps silently, tears streaming down his face. A company of women enters the house behind him, only it is no house but a high hall of cunning and astounding design, lofting impossibly toward the sky. Alain turns to the one who walks foremost among them, a queen so thin and wasted that she is ugly; truly, the Fat One gave none of her blessing here. In the heart of this queen lies thwarted spring, knotted coils twisted and bent around a withered spirit stained with fear. But Alain loves her. The young queen offers him nothing, and yet he loves her anyway.

  Adica weeps, bitterly, and her tears wash the vision away un
til she floats on the vast waters. Foam licks around her as she is caught in the wake of an animal as sleek as a dragon and as swift as a serpent, driving through the sea. At first she thinks it is a living creature, lean and long, but then she sees it is a ship. It is utterly unlike the low-bellied, hide-built curraghs in which the coastal tribes scour the shoreline for fish and fowl. A dragon’s head carved out of wood adorns its stem. A creature like a man yet not one of humankind stands at the stem, searching as mist closes in around him. What manner of creature is he? What is he looking for?

  But she knows as soon as she wonders, for within the vision she can see into the pumping mass of flesh veined with stone that serves him as a heart. He, too, is looking for Alain.

  Mist sweeps in like a wave, blinding her. The tendrils that coil around her burn as brightly as if they are formed out of particles of fire. She sees into them and beyond them.

  There are spirits burning in the air with wings of flame and eyes as brilliant as knives. Yet one among them sinks, weighted with mortality. This one falls, blazing, into a threshold composed of twisting blue fire, the passageway between worlds. Through the gate this falling woman sees onto the middle world, the world known to humankind: there in the middle world, a huge tumulus ringed by half-ruined ramparts rests in silence. Dead warriors lie scattered along the rampart walls and curves. A killing wind has blown them every which way. Like leaves the dead lie tumbled up against a ring of fallen stones, some shattered, some cracked in half, that stands in ruins at the height of the hill.

  Adica prays for the protection of the Fat One and the courage of the Queen of the Wild, though no words pass her lips—or if they do, she cannot hear them. She knows this hill and these ramparts, now worn away, crumbling under the hand of an immeasurable force she cannot name. She recognizes the ring of fallen stones, covered by lichen and drowned by age. It is Queens’ Grave, but it is not the Queens’ Grave she knows, with freshly dug ramparts ringing the queens’ hill and a stone loom newly set in place on the summit in the time of her own parents.