by Kate Elliott
“Nothing will befall Adica,” said Alain stubbornly.
The man grunted softly but, instead of answering, rinsed out Alain’s clothing in the pool.
After Alain had gotten almost every last grain of sand out of the lobes of his ears and from between his toes, he examined his body. Winter had made him lean, and the work had strengthened him. He had welts at the girdle of his hips where the sand had worked down, and his heels were red and raw. Yet the sunburn he had gotten in the desert was utterly gone, not even any trace of peeling skin, as though days or even weeks had gone by in the instant it had taken him to step through the gate.
“You are a brave man,” said the guide solemnly, handing Alain his wet, wrung, and somewhat less sandy clothing.
Alain laughed. It sounded so ridiculous, said that way. “Who is brave, my friend? I want only to keep the one I love safe.” He began to dress, dripping as he talked. “What are you called, among your people?”
“It is permitted to call me Hani. What is it permitted to call you?”
“I am called Alain. Do your people always live in the caves?”
“No. Here we take refuge from the attacks of the Cursed Ones.”
Here was a subject Alain could understand. When had the Cursed Ones first attacked? How often did the raids come these days, and from what directions? Hani answered as well as he could.
“Do you believe the Cursed Ones walk the looms?” Alain asked.
“It may be. Or it may be they beach their ships along the strand and hide them. That way they can make us think they know how to walk the looms.”
“Then you would fear both their raids and their knowledge because you do not know how much they know.”
Hani gave Alain an ironic smile, peculiar to see on that proud face. “This I am thinking, but the Hallowed Ones and elders of my people do not listen to me.”
As they talked, each in his halting command of their common language, they walked back to the main cavern before ducking behind a hide curtain that concealed yet another tunnel. They made so many twists and turns, passed so many branching corridors, that Alain knew he would never find his way out again without a guide.
At intervals he heard down the maze of tunnels the sound of the storm screaming outside. Sand stirred up by its passage dried out his lips. But the sound faded as the passage dipped down to a circular aperture carved into the rock. Alain stepped high over a band of rock thrust across the corridor at the same time as he ducked to avoid the low ceiling; and passed into a world bathed in red, walls painted with ocher.
Hani bent, bowed, and murmured a prayer. A stickily sweet perfume hung in the air. They came into an antechamber carved out of the rock, stairs and doors, carved niches and stepped ceilings, all painted reddish orange. It was like stepping into a womb, the ancient home of the oldest mothers of humankind.
People waited here, sitting or kneeling in silence, shawls draped over their hair. He saw no children. Laoina knelt here, head bowed, by a second doorway, this one carved out of the stone in imitation of a lintel and frame made of timber.
She shaded her eyes with a hand as though to shield them from a bright light. When Alain paused beside her, she glanced up with a grimace of relief. “We did not lose you! Wait with me.”
He still did not see Adica. Ignoring Hani’s startled protest, Alain stepped over the threshold.
Inside, torches illuminated three people, two of them veiled and the third Adica. The cloud of incense choked him. Sorrow and Rage sat on either side of the threshold, waiting for him.
In silence, with a bent head, Adica waited as the veiled man chanted over a swaddled bundle held in his arms. His free arm lifted and fell, lifted and fell, in sweeping motions in time to his chant. He was missing two fingers on that hand.
A wide-mouthed white-and-red pot sat at his feet, incised with spirals whose smooth line, like that of a wild rose, was broken by nublike thorns. He bent to settle the bundle inside the pot, and in that instant, the cloth covering the bundle parted enough for Alain to see an infant’s face, gray and composed in death. Two Fingers covered the mouth of the pot with a lid.
The second adult stepped forward to place the pot beside a dozen similar pots, set neatly on shelves carved out of the rock within the niche. Then both retreated to the middle of the chamber, singing their prayers.
Adica saw Alain. Her expression was soft, and sorrowful, but a smile of relief twitched her cheeks as she touched a finger to her lips. Despite her occasional strangeness, he understood the language of her body well enough: she wanted him to stay where he was, so that he wouldn’t interrupt the ceremony. Nodding, he stepped back to stand by the threshold between Sorrow and Rage.
The chanted prayers ceased. Silence struck the chamber, powerful and thick as the smoke from the incense. Yet it wasn’t complete silence. The wail of wind whistled at the edge of his hearing, fading in and out. He thought, for an instant, that he heard a baby crying, but the sobs blended with that faint howl of wind to become an undifferentiated sound, low and long.
Two Fingers’ assistant unhooked her veil to reveal a young face marked with severe features and a furious frown. She shook a string of stone, bone, and polished wood beads, shattering the silence. Alain heard the crowd in the antechamber rise and move away.
A curtain of shimmering cloth was hung over the threshold; strands of thread worn into a metallic glitter striped the fabric, gold wings woven into a blue-dyed wool hanging, further elaborated with beads and shells. Two Fingers let his veil fall. He had a solemn face, weathered by sun and sand, and a clean-shaven chin. It was difficult to tell how old he was except for the crow’s-feet at his eyes. He spoke the conventional greeting, displaying his three-fingered hand with his palm out and open. The scar showed clearly, a cleanly-healed wound that ran raggedly, as though a beast had bitten off his fingers. “Why have you come, daughter? What news brings you?”
Adica told him the story of their hasty journey. Two Fingers listened intently while Hani and Laoina translated from behind the curtain. He interrupted at intervals for clarification, woven as this tale was through the barrier of imperfectly understood translations.
“Truly,” Two Fingers said when Adica had finished, “we feared the worst. Now we must post guards at every loom, because the Cursed Ones raid as they wish.”
“Have they learned the secret of the looms?” asked Alain. “Or are these raiding parties sent out to make you believe that they know more than they do?”
Two Fingers grinned. When he smiled, his face was transformed; he had a dimple. “Is this the husband of Adica who speaks, or my cousin’s son Hani? It may be that they send out raiding parties who roam for many moons or even seasons. So have they done in the past, to plague humankind. It may only seem to us that they travel through the looms, when perhaps they cloak themselves in other magic that we do not understand. Yet what does it matter, if they have killed Horn and broken the weaving?”
“Do not say so,” retorted Adica sternly. “We have walked a long path together. We cannot let them defeat us now.”
“We must know for certain,” Two Fingers agreed thoughtfully.
“How can I and my companions find Horn’s people without walking into a trap?”
Once Hani’s voice ceased, Two Fingers considered. Alain stared at the niche, with its offerings of pots. Did each one contain a dead infant? Was the thickly burning incense covering the smell of putrefaction? The red paint, like a coating of blood, lay heaviest along the inset stone walls of the niche. Painted figures of women with heavy thighs and pregnant bellies reminiscent of the Fat One danced up and down the walls of the niche, celebrating the innocent dead or protecting them. It was hard to know which.
“The storm may last for days. There are some among my tribe who believe that the Cursed Ones afflict us with harsh storms to break our spirit.”
“What do you believe, Two Fingers? The Cursed Ones know many secret things. Can it be they can weave the weather as well?”
&nb
sp; He lifted his mutilated hand in a gesture of surrender. “I know little enough. Storms grow worse each year, so it seems. But I am not sure even the Cursed Ones can work such powerful magic that they can raise storms in a land so far from their own.”
“They have ships.”
“So they do. How does a storm benefit them when they are at sea, unless they can bend each breath of wind to their will?” Again, he made that dismissive gesture, glancing at his young assistant. The woman frowned back at him. Nothing seemed able to break her concentration, or that startling frown. “It matters not, for all will be decided soon enough. The month of Adiru comes to an end. Now the sun stands still—”
“Has so much time passed?” Adica demanded harshly. “When we left our tribe, we had just welcomed spring!”
Was it already summer? Adica had told him that time passed differently when one walked the looms, but how could that happen when only a pair of days had gone by?
“So much time has passed,” replied Two Fingers with a solemn nod. “The time of weaving will not wait for us. It will come whether we are ready or not.”
“We must be ready.” Adica wore that stubborn expression which Alain had learned to respect.
Two Fingers nodded. “If we are to succeed, one among us must reach Horn’s land to see if she yet lives. I will travel there with you.”
“It is hard enough risking my own self,” said Adica. “You must not risk yourself as well.”
“Nay, for I have Hehoyanah to follow me.” He gestured toward the young woman. “She will work my part of the pattern. You cannot be replaced, Young One, since you have no apprentice. Although it is true you have a powerful spirit walking with you.” He gestured toward Alain, marking him with an astute glance. His dimple peeped again as his lips quirked up, but the smile was brief. “I must make sure you arrive safely in your own land.”
Adica’s shoulders stiffened. She yanked at the sleeve of her bodice the way she always did when she was irritated. “So easily do the old sacrifice the young. Does your apprentice embrace her fate gladly, that you have passed onto her so unexpectedly?”
Alain began to step forward, to soothe her, but thought better of it as Two Fingers’ assistant lifted a corner of her veil up to cover her face, hiding her expression. Better not to interfere. This was out of his hands.
Two Fingers gazed on Adica blandly, as if the anger boiling in her heart slipped off of him like water. Yet his voice was not easy. “Do you think the old gladly bury the young?” He gestured toward the silent pots at rest in the painted alcoves. “Do not let your own eyes cloud what you see. I am sorry for the burden the young have been forced to share with the old. But we have no choice unless we choose to let the Cursed Ones win this war and subject all humankind to slavery.”
Such words made Alain nervous. Why did everyone speak so stubbornly about fate and death? Adica was so young that although it was true that all people must expect to die in time, and perhaps untimely, she ought to have many long years to live. With Alain at her side.
The wind whined distantly, like the lost and fading wails of an infant torn from his mother’s breast.
“Come.” This time Two Fingers’ curt smile did not bring out his dimple. “We cannot wait for the storm to falter of its own. We must walk the phoenix path into Horn’s land.”
From a ceramic dish resting in one of the niches, he scooped up a paste of red ocher and brushed Adica’s forehead with the color, marking her. After a hesitation, he did the same to Alain. He veiled himself before the curtain was drawn aside so they could leave the chamber.
In the larger chamber, six people remained. Laoina looked relieved to see them, and she fell in beside Adica at once. Two Fingers spoke to each of his tribespeople in turn, a complicated and intimate phrasing that made Laoina shake her head in bewilderment.
Hani stepped up beside Alain. “In this way, the Hallowed One says good-bye to his family.”
So it was. Two Fingers was taking his leave: a hand on a brow, a low string of instructions, the touching of two foreheads, like a kiss or a meeting of minds.
Last of all, Hehoyanah clasped hands with him. She had the kind of sharp pride that makes the expression seem naked, as though all veils between the inner fire and the outer mask had been torn away. Kneeling, she bowed her head to receive a blessing from him. Then she rose and crossed to Adica. She held up both hands, palms out, and Adica pressed her own palms against hers. The other woman’s hands were shorter and stubbier, but they looked strong enough to wring the neck of any young man crass enough to insult her. She, too, had missing fingers and the same kind of raggedly-healed scar.
“So do we walk together,” said the young woman. “I will know you when the time comes, Adica.”
“May your gods and your people bless you for what is to come, Hehoyanah.”
“There is but one God,” retorted Hehoyanah, “who dwells in all places and is never seen.”
“Tsst!” muttered Laoina at the same time as Hani grimaced, as one might when an otherwise tolerable kinsman starts in for the tenth time about the hunt where he single-handedly killed an aurochs. “How can one know of a god who can’t be seen, and has no dwelling place?”
“I pray you,” said Alain, stepping forward in astonishment. Only when they all stared at him, puzzled, did he realize that he’d slipped back into Wendish. With difficulty he groped for words in the language of the White Deer people. “Know you of the God who is two made one?”
“God is only one!” Hehoyanah objected. “God is not of flesh but of spirit.”
Two Fingers chopped through this discussion with a brisk gesture. “So speaks the one whose face must be veiled, for she has looked upon God’s spirit, and the radiance of the Holy One still shines in her face too brightly for mortal eyes. This is not the time, Daughter, for such talk as this.”
“If I do not speak, then it is as if I am worshiping the idols myself!”
“By this means am I rewarded for sending you to dwell among a foreign people! Daughter, you will obey me in this. I do as the gods command me, and as necessity makes plain. My task is to rid humankind of the Cursed Ones. If all humankind falls under the lash of the Cursed Ones, then what can your god say to us and how may your god rescue us then?”
“God rescues those who believe,” Hehoyanah retorted.
“Do what you have pledged, Daughter, for I have given you my teaching in return for your obedience. If I return, and you live, then you may do as you think right, because then I will not be here to argue with you. Come.”
He walked out of the chamber, down the tunnel. Adica and Laoina followed him.
Alain hung back, beckoning to Hani. “I ask you, friend, if you will tell her that I know of the God she speaks of. She is not alone in believing.”
Hani looked at him strangely. “Has this god walked so far as the White Deer tribe?”
“God do not walk.”
“Then how comes the god to the north? How can the god live both in the desert and in the frozen wasteland?”
“How comes the sun to the north? If the sun can shine everywhere, then it is easy for God’s presence to shine everywhere as well.”
“Huh,” Hani grunted, thinking it over but not looking convinced.
Rage whined, padding after Adica. Yet Alain could not bear to go without letting Hehoyanah know that she was not alone. “Please tell her I know this God. This God is mine, too.” He drew the circle at his chest, the remembered motion coming easily to his fingers.
Hehoyanah gasped out loud. She spoke impassioned words, to which Hani replied, and her face transformed for a moment into a blinding smile. She bent to touch one of Alain’s feet, and with that hand touched her own heart and her own forehead, bowing as though to give him obeisance.
As common folk had once bowed before him, when he was heir to the county of Lavas.
He recoiled, stumbling up against rock. “Nay, I pray you,” he said in Wendish, “do not give honor to one who deserves no hono
r. None of that old life is left to me. It’s a sin to grasp for that which was forbidden to me, which was never mine to take.”
As if in shame, she pulled her veil across her face. Hani looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, an odd expression on features as finely sculpted with pride as his were. “Hehoyanah says that by this sign may one know the God’s messenger. She begs that you forgive her for not recognizing the light of God’s presence in your face.” Dropping his voice lower, he sidled confidingly over to Alain, looking every bit the conceited prince about to commiserate with his noble companion over the inscrutability of women. “Do you know what she speaks of, friend? She’s a little crazy ever since she came back from her fosterage.”
All this time with Adica he had simply drifted, like a leaf on a river, content in the small harmonies of day-to-day life. The act of living by itself contained a great deal of joy. After all, he had glimpsed the other side of living, which is dying, and living looked a lot better.
“Do not mock her,” he said softly. Taking her hand, he lifted her up. Tears glittered in her eyes, shining as the light caught on them. The rest of her face was hidden by her veil. “Go with God. May you find peace.”
He and Hani crossed the threshold that divided the painted halls of red from those corridors that lay pale in the smoky light of burning pools of oil. After several turnings they caught up with Two Fingers, Adica, and Laoina at a crossroads where torches and gear lay stacked neatly on the ground: a pack of foodstuffs, four waterskins, a pair of sandals, a coat of striped cloth that Two Fingers put on, and a carven stick no longer than Adica’s arm.
“Come, come,” said Two Fingers impatiently. Hani knelt to receive the holy man’s blessing before bowing respectfully to Adica as well. He exchanged a farewell with Laoina, a brief ritual peculiar to the Walking Ones, and last turned to Alain.
“I hope I can call you ‘friend.’”
“That you may, friend.”
They clasped hands. Hani turned and hurried away.
“Do not fear.” Two Fingers unveiled his face as he started down a passageway.