Some animals, like the bizarre shield-shrimp, could only breed in these wet conditions. These creatures, which looked as if they belonged at the dawn of time, spent most of their lives as encysted eggs waiting for the Rains. When the claypans and puddles filled with floodwater runoff, the eggs hatched. The animals reached adulthood and laid more eggs, all in a few rapidly passing months before the water vanished again.
After the Rains dwindled, when ephemeral plants thrived in swift bursts of color, a myriad insect eggs and cocoons exploded. Fully grown locusts, wasps, moths, ants, and beetles were set free from their cradles. The lives of these insects too were short; they had to breed and lay their eggs before the floodwaters evaporated and they expired from lack of moisture. Birds appeared in their millions, feasting in this bounteous natural larder: kites, eagles, parrots, budgerigars, bustards, grass wrens, zebra finches, and waterfowl. Thickets of canegrass bustled with white-winged fairy wrens, and the air was turbulent with the movement of countless wings.
Lost in wonderment, Jarred studied the miraculous panorama. “Nothing at all grows without water,” he said to his mother, “not even the ancient desert shrubs and grasses that endure throughout the long Dry. But the people of other kingdoms have never seen the desert after the Rains. They have never seen this sudden outbreak of incredible beauty and perhaps could not understand it as we do. We are fortunate.”
His mother smiled. “Nature’s ingenuity never ceases to astonish me,” she said. “In particular I am always astounded by the ephemerals, the plants that cannot survive through droughts. Their life cycle is triggered after prolonged, heavy rains. The seeds are covered in a substance that stops them from germinating. When the Rains fall, washing away that coating, the dormant seeds are revived. Once they grow, they bloom for a short time only before they wither and perish. During their flowering period, they produce seeds, which are picked up by the breezes and blown away. The wind broadcasts them far and wide, that the new generations might stand the best possible chance of survival. To me, the ephemerals are the most beautiful and astonishing plants of all. Their life cycle is swift, short, and glorious; their purpose, to ensure the survival of their seed and therefore the continuation of their species.”
After the Rains passed and the skies cleared, it was weeks before the roads were passable again, but in time the weather patterns of stable descending air and high pressure reasserted themselves, bringing back the unbroken sunshine. The desert steamed. Lakes shrank. Puddles evanesced.
“You cannot leave yet,” said Jarred’s mother. “It will soon be time for the Midsummer celebrations.”
The young man thought he perceived a hint of wistfulness in her demeanor and guessed that she waged an inner struggle; on the one hand she wanted him to be free, on the other, she desired his absolute security. He surmised it would be easier for her after he had gone.
“There will always be a reason why I cannot leave yet,” he answered, not without compassion. “Against all reasons, I will go.”
In spite of the rapid drying of the desert, the last of the short-lived wildflowers were still blooming by the time the roads were pronounced passable and Jarred and his comrades announced their departure was imminent. After much debate among the village families, it had been decided that nine would go. The inhabitants of R’shael required only the slightest of excuses to throw a party. To mark the momentous journey to foreign climes of nine of its youths, they organized a revel. Blooms from the remaining wildflowers were gathered by the armful, brilliant splashes of color. They were strewn upon the tables, made into bouquets, placed in jars of water, and woven into circlets and crowns for the head or plaited into the hair.
Each household contributed a dish to the feast. Fresh fruits, bean salads, spicy chicken, fig gelatine, creamy cinnamon custards, and more crammed the tables set in the open air beneath the palm trees. The guests of honor uncorked the few precious glass bottles of liquor they had brought from Jhallavad—barely enough to go around—and everyone was given a mouthful to taste. Then there was kumiss and dancing, juggling and sleight-of-hand performed by Michaiah, much jollity, and a smattering of drunken brawling. All made the most of the revelries.
The village girls resumed their chafing and grumbling at the concept of Jarred’s departure. Each had hoped he might wed her, but in the deepest crannies of their hearts they had known he would depart someday.
“I will come back,” he assured them, “just as soon as I have made my fortune.”
“Oh yes, for sure you will,” they said, cuttingly tossing their heads. “For sure you will remember to come back when you’re among your princesses and ladies of the north. We’ll wager sixpence you’ll forget us.”
“I will not.”
“Or, if you do return, it won’t be for a hundred years, when we’ll all be toothless, bald old crones.”
“I am pleased to hear that in a hundred years you will have altered so little,” said Jarred.
They pelted him with wildflowers, a shower of blossoms, a soft, colorful silk-and-satin snowstorm of petals that fell fragrantly and covered him like floral kisses.
Before the sun rose the following morning, the voyagers had packed their portable belongings and were ready to leave. Aunt Shahla was still sleeping: Jarred had bidden her farewell on the previous evening. In the lamplit dimness of his home, Jarred, dressed in traveling garb, took leave of his mother. The parting was arduous.
“Do not grieve,” he said. “Prithee, do not grieve for me.”
His mother gazed up at him. “You must be careful,” she said abruptly. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I will. That is my promise.”
“You must.” She bowed her head. “Maternal love,” she said in a low voice, “is awesome and terrible in its power. It is stronger by far than any other human emotion. The affection of lovers is as naught by comparison. Lovers come and go, they quarrel, they are inconstant, but the love of a mother for her child is a lifelong bond. It overrides the instinct for personal survival. It binds, it wounds, it closes us in its grip with a more formidable bite than any mere steel-jawed trap.”
“You make it sound like some eternal torment.” Jarred pulled undone the band that held back his long hair and combed stray strands into place with his fingers.
“It can be that,” his mother affirmed, “yet nature in her perversity inflicts the torment upon us in such a way that we rejoice beyond all measure in our children, who cause it.”
“I shall never understand you,” said Jarred as his mother re-bound his hair into a club at the back of his neck and firmly tied the thin black ribbon. In his heart, however, he somehow knew that his departure would in truth be liberating to this woman who had ceaselessly cared for him and worried about his welfare all his life. No longer would she be chained to her sense of responsibility for every breath he took. She might now cast aside her anxiety, trusting in the wide world to look after him, as it looked after so many of its children. She might at last live in tranquillity and contentment, having no other choice but to place her faith in the universe.
He had presented his mother with most of his savings, so that she and his aunt might live in comfort during his absence. At first she had refused to accept any coinage from him, but, against his own principles of truthfulness, he deliberately misled her, implying he had made a quantity of money in Jhallavad, selling her pottery and other wares.
“You have given me more than enough. Now I have some gifts for you,” said his mother. She took from her finger a ring of brass, cunningly inlaid with designs in copper wire. “I have no use for jewelry anymore. It would please me if you would take this.”
Executing a bow of acceptance, Jarred slid the ring onto the smallest finger of his left hand.
“And this also,” she said, handing him a silver chain. “String the talisman upon it.”
Jarred thanked her hesitantly, reluctant to spoil her pleasure with ingratitude. Irresolutely he slid the disk of bone from its leather tho
ng, placed it on the gleaming new chain, and let her fasten it about his neck.
“Mother, there is no need for you to be concerned for my safety,” he murmured. “Even if I lose the talisman, I will be secure. I am young and strong. I am enterprising and capable, and my comrades will be at my side.” He fell silent and brooded, as if holding some inner debate.
“What troubles you?” she asked.
“I confess I am ashamed to be wearing this thing,” he answered, “as if I am some weakling who requires a bodyguard. It vexes me to have it strung about my person, and now that I am going away and you will be without my protection, I want you to have it.”
He made as if to remove the charm, but his mother placed her cool fingers on his hand to prevent the action. “No,” she said.
“I would rather you wore it,” he insisted.
“No,” she repeated. “You understand full well why you must wear it. You yourself made a promise to your father, before he left, that you would always be the talisman’s wearer and keeper.”
“I was but a child!”
“Promises must be kept. If you give it to me, I shall toss it down the Eastern Bore; this I swear.”
He saw she was speaking from her heart and conceded defeat. “In that case,” he said, with a shrug of self-deprecation, “I shall wear it and be the trembling flower under glass.”
“That you will never be,” she said. “You will be the soldier who remains unscathed after battle, so that you may rescue and tend your wounded comrades.”
Slowly he smiled. “Very well then,” he said. “You have won. You always had a way with words.” He kissed her lightly on her forehead. “Farewell, mother. All health to thee!”
“May good fortune go with thee,” she said.
And as the nine youths rode away from the village, she stood at the forefront of the assembly of well-wishers and watched them troop down the road between fine gossamer draperies of dust, beneath a blue-lacquered sky, until they were out of sight.
As they waved good-bye, some of the village girls were singing a parting song.
“The desert rose like wildfire grows upon the wetted dune;
For fleeting days a stunning blaze that withers all too soon;
A gorgeous flood as rich as blood, blooming in rare beauty
For days too few; alas, doomed to ephemerality.
“Survivor tough, you’re strong enough to live where others die.
Your patient seed, no common weed, slumbers throughout the Dry.
Your hardy line, time after time, outwaits adversity
Until the rain pours down again, and desert turns to sea.
“Put on your gowns, your shining crowns, your silks with jewels pinned.
Sheer elegance! Curtsey and dance, partnered by sighing wind.
Drink of the dew the heavens strew, ’tis sweeter far than wine.
Mantle the land with colors grand, dusk pink and almandine.
“Although you’ll fade like morning shade, your memory lives on.
All shall recall the Floral Ball long after you have gone.
Your secret seed, a special breed, bides indestructible.
Like you it waits to greet the spates: dormant, invincible.
“Heed we the rose, who wisely knows good times will favor all.
No land’s so sere, so parched and drear, that rain shall never fall.”
II
Encounter
A swift, sharp breeze raced along the ridge. It chased the woman walking up the slope from the marsh, tugging at her skirts, making the gray-green grass stems caress her bare feet and the ragged hem of her kirtle. Loose tendrils of graying hair had escaped from beneath her headscarf. The wind whipped them about her face, but she did not notice its teasing. Her eyes were uplifted, fastened on the barren crest of the ridge ahead; often she stooped without altering her pace to pluck the wildflowers of Summer, and she was singing. Loudly she chanted, although the coursing airs snatched the words from her mouth. Resolutely she held forth, as if by the volume and energy of her voice she might drown out the memory of the footsteps in her head—as if the words might create a spell to cast down the madness that patiently hunted her.
Once, she glanced over her shoulder with a rapid, darting motion, like one who fears that something malign is following. Yet all that could be seen were the grasses bending in waves to show the silvery undersides of their blades, and bright yellow splashes of rockroses, and the dagged stars of maiden pinks and the purple wings of crowthistle. She quickened her pace and her breathing, though she knew there was no advantage in running.
“I’ll sing you six-o!” she sang joylessly. “Green grow the rushes-o! What are your six-o? Six for the six Proud Walkers, Five for the Symbols at your door, and four for the Fortune Makers. Three, three, the rivals. Two, two, the lily-white boys cloth-ed all in green-o, one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”
At the top of the ridge, there was suddenly nowhere to go. The ground dropped away steeply, down into chasm so vacuous only winged or buoyant things could find a road there and live. This was no surprise to the woman. She had visited this place countless times. There was no advantage in running; thus, there was no advantage in finding a continuing path. In any case, it was not an escape route for her feet she was seeking.
At the grassy lip of the cliff she seated herself. Restlessly her fingers worked with the gathered flowers, which she had spread in her lap like a harvest of rainbows. Her visage, although haunted, was lovely. She appeared to be no less than thirty-four Summers old, yet still as slender as a willow sapling. Her mouth was a rosebud, her hair ebony silk threaded with frost. Upon her eyelids the whiteness of her skin was brushed with a turquoise tint, as if blue-green blood infused a webwork of veins as fine as gauze, and her lowered lids were like two fragile wings of an Aquamarine Lycaenidae butterfly sealing her eyes.
Below her dusty feet, three stunted ash trees clung to the limestone cliff face, leaning forward almost horizontally from their precarious positions among the rocks. The woman stared out over the view that opened from the foot of the precipice: the wide, undulating grasslands of southern Slievmordhu, tapestried with the dark green of copses and belts of beech and ash, dotted in the near distance by the pale daubs of a flock of browsing goats.
To the south and southeast, the grasslands gradually swept upward to meet the gentle hills of Bellaghmoon, while to the west and southwest they climbed to merge with the remote Wight Hills. Over all, the sky hung low, painted with a sheen of palest lilac gray, and in the distance a mist was rising … .
Far away across those lands, too far for human sight to reach, nine young men rode along the Desert Road from the kingdom of Ashqalêth. They had left the byways far behind and, twelve days’ swift riding from the village of R’shael, had entered among the farthest outflung spurs of the eastern ranges, drawing near to the Slievmordhu border. Here, the northwest extremities of the mountainous arm called the Broken Scarps began to dwindle and flatten, blending into the harsh, arid inner plain of Ashqalêth. The lands in this region were broken and tumbled, but the Desert Road drove steadfastly through. Like steel shavings, thin streams of water trickled from the rocks in the high places, freely available to travelers. The comrades looked upon this phenomenon with reverence and amazement: that water should flow gratuitously beneath the skies, running to waste among the sands and rocks, seemed extraordinary.
The travelers wore hooded cloaks over embroidered tunics belted at the waist. Sheathed scimitars and daggers hung from these belts. Beneath the tunics, amulets depended from thongs about the necks of the men, the purpose of which was to ward off wickedness. Knee-high, flamboyantly embossed boots were pulled up over their deerskin leggings. Some sported finger rings or earrings of bright yellow brass. Their faces appeared hard and lean, although young, and their cardamom-colored hair was tied in a club at the nape of the neck.
Two rode slightly ahead of the others. One was a handsome youth, slender yet broad shouldered,
with the look of physical strength about him. He alone bore a crossbow, slung athwart his back. His companion, coarser of feature, was far greater in girth. His shoulders were as bulky as a bullock’s, his chest as deep as a hogshead.
To pass the time, these two held discourse.
“To think that we are missing the Midsummer revels this year!” said the big man. “Ach, but I am sore grieved to be deprived of a good junket. Instead, here I am, laboring hard to get a saddle-sore backside.”
“Aye, and there will be celebrations in Cathair Rua for the third birthday of the Crown Prince,” said the good-looking youth longingly. “Would that we could be in that great city to take part in the festivities!”
“I hope the child proves a better man than the father,” Yaadosh loudly advised his comrade. “They said in Jhallavad that King Maolmórdha Ó Maoldúin of Slievmordhu is a weak monarch, easily swayed, unfit to rule.”
“That is old news, Caracal, my friend,” scoffed the other, lowering his voice. “I have heard worse—that he has yielded to the power of his druids. It is said that they manipulate him to their own ends, without regard to the welfare of the kingdom.”
Disbelief crumpled the blunt countenance of the big fellow. “For why?” he cried. “Why would he put himself in the hands of his advisors? Surely, as the highest in the land, he must command them!”
The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 5