by Tara Maya
It’s fitting too, that I tumble slowly, upside down and backwards to myself, so the sky is a blanket around my knees and the mountains are waiting to pillow my head. All the things once kin to my heart have become as outtribers to me. My loves have become my foes. My dancing—turned upside down during this journey with Umbral. Once, I danced for joy. As a game. At play. During the year of my Initiation, I danced out of defiance. As a dare. Despite the danger. And once I won the right to dance as part of the troop—I danced because I could, and if I am honest, because after giving up everything for the right to dance, I couldn’t give up dancing too. It had cost me too dear to trade back.
Now every step is twisted, upside down, backwards. I dance, not with pleasure, or even with insolence, but to convince my captor to spare my life one day more. To lead him closer to his unnamed goal concerning the White Lady, which I can only imagine must doom her along with me. And at the same time, dancing has become this wretched, depraved thing, it has also become my only hope of salvation, not of my own existence, but for the resurrection of the Aelfae. If there is even the finger-pinch of a chance that I could save my ancestress’ people from extinction, I must snap it up. I must dance. But a part of me screams inside at the thought. My dancing belongs to me, it is the one thing that is all my own—and now it isn’t mine at all.
It’s theirs.
It belongs to those I must help.
Or it will belong to those I must fight.
Either way, it isn’t mine anymore, mine alone to cherish or squander, to hide or flaunt. Worse, I feel like even I am not mine anymore.
He’s making me his.
I almost gave myself away to a man wearing that face once before. Almost. I couldn’t completely give myself to Kavio because I did not know myself enough, or love myself enough, or trust myself enough, to trust myself to him. That’s all that saved me. That part I held back, that strength I didn’t know, that’s what kept me together when Kavio tore me apart. He smashed me to pieces when he smashed the marriage bowl at my feet. But I was stronger than either of us knew.
I want to kill the man in black, to kill Umbral, even though he wears Kavio’s face and it feels like I am killing Kavio.
No.
The truth is I want to kill Umbral because it feels like I am killing Kavio.
And this is the most upside down thing of all. The thing that makes no sense, the thing that makes me hate myself.
I want to kill Kavio.
I tried so hard to forgive him, but I never could. Even as I fall to my death, I still can’t forgive him.
I can’t forgive him for not loving me. I can’t forgive him for not protecting me. I can’t forgive him for leaving me.
I can’t forgive him for dying.
Dindi
Dindi floated in blue.
She had no sensation of falling. If it were not for the wind whistling through her clothes and hair, she would hardly have believed she was falling at all.
The bird made from darkness had popped like a bubble, just as the horse had. Dindi did not know if it had simply fizzled out, or if Umbral’s seizure had released it from its bond to the world.
She spotted Umbral. He fell parallel to her, a span away. Whatever strange fit had overcome him had passed and she watched him recover his awareness, followed by shock and then panic as he realized he was falling. He reacted wildly, and the movement made his whole body spin. He recovered and spread his arms and legs out as far as possible to slow his fall.
Their eyes met as their bodies circled around each other, floating ever gently down. They would die together.
He stretched forth his hands and drifted close enough to clasp her in his arms.
“Spread your wings,” he said.
“What?” She was certain the roar of the wind had distorted his words.
“Spread your wings!” he shouted. “If you don’t, we’ll both die.”
“I don’t have any wings!”
“Yes, you do!”
“I do not!”
“Dindi, you are descended from Aelfae. You can manifest wings!”
“I don’t know how!”
“Just…think about flying!”
All she could think about was falling.
“Wings, wings!” he shouted. “Pretend you’re a bird. Spread your wings!”
She shut her eyes. She tried to imagine dancing a tama with an Aelfae role, only instead of a costume with basketweave wings, she imagined real wings sprouting out the center of her back. Her back tingled.
She opened her eyes, but they were still falling.
“I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Dindi, you did it! Look at you! You’re flying!”
Startled, she fluttered the two large feather obtrusions at her back. To her shock, the things responded to her will like limbs, though she still had her human legs. She still clasped Umbral in her arms.
“Now try to catch the breeze to guide our fall,” Umbral shouted in her ear.
“I’m trying!”
“Tack into the wind!”
“I’m trying!”
“To the left!”
“Will you be quiet so I can concentrate?”
He stopped shouting. Dindi focused on the wind. When it felt right she tilted her body to let the wind slip under her wings and slide her weight down an invisible funnel of air. The ground still seemed to rush toward them too quickly. She caught another breeze and lifted up again, to avoid a sharp bunch of rocks.
“Too close! Too close!” shouted Umbral. He clutched her like a drowning man.
When she saw a soft field of grass and snow, she aimed for it.
Moments later, they both rolled across the icy meadow. Umbral landed on his back, with Dindi sprawled across him.
He grinned up at her. “Good job.”
She grinned back. “I’m amazed I had it in me.”
“I’m not.”
Something in the way he said it made her feel self-conscious of her position. Reddening, she unpeeled herself from across his chest. She could feel the wings, not heavy exactly, but with a certain heft, at her back, changing her usual sense of balance; but almost as soon as she became conscious of them, the weight seemed to fold back into her normal stance.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“A few bruises. How are you?”
She shrugged. She reached to feel her spine. The wings were gone.
“What did they look like?” she asked. “Like swan wings?”
“Butterfly wings.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“You must be the first person in your family since your Aelfae ancestress to fly.”
She nodded, suddenly sad. Poor Mayara had yearned to fly her whole life, and always been too afraid to dare.
Umbral misconstrued her melancholy. He stiffened, and the warmth left his voice.
“Are you sorry you saved my life? Don’t waste your regret. You had no choice. Without me, you never would have discovered your wings.”
“Without you, I never would have fallen from the sky.”
“True.” He cracked the barest smile. “We’ll call it even.”
“What happened up there?”
“The shadow magic was not as strong as I expected. The raven fell apart.”
“That’s all?”
“What else would there be?” He crossed his arms, face stony.
“Nothing.”
They both let it drop. Umbral pointed to the mountain peak towering over them. The top was oddly cloven, like a goat foot.
“We fell just short of our goal, it seems. The Orange Canyon tribehold, Cliffedge, is at the top of Orangehorn Mountain, over Eagle’s Canyon—right there. Our best course is to find a settlement and get directions from the locals. Unfortunately, the paths to the summit are probably impassable right now. Only wolves and fools travel the mountains on foot in the winter.”
Finnadro
Finnadro woke feeling more alive than he had in a week. The ai
r tasted clean for the first time in days. The foul magic lately tainting the air and earth had evaporated.
Umbral was gone.
Finnadro had missed his mark. His body had betrayed him. If he had not been taken in by the false trail. If he had only been able to force himself to keep going one more day. If only.
Fox crouched next to him. She placed a brace of roasted birds in front of him without comment. Neither of them talked while Finnadro devoured the birds.
“I thought you’d be long gone by now,” he said after he’d licked the last bone clean.
“Your wolf friends caught up with you. They’re around.”
“All the more reason.” Among wildlings, wolves and the other shifters did not get on well.
“You’ll let those curs help you, but not us?”
Finnadro shrugged.
The work of retracing his steps until he found the true trail was tedious and ate up more time. In his heart, though he knew the trail was cold, he still felt frustrated when he reached the edge of a swamp and the trail dried up completely.
Under a deliberate pile of sticks and grass, Finnadro found symbols scratched in the dried mud: Lost Swan Clan, Deathsworn, and a stick figure.
What did it mean?
He knew the Deathsworn had been here with Dindi, but try as he might, he could not find any indication which direction they had taken on their departure. He searched the campsite again, for some clue, and found nothing. The wolfpack and Fox’s crew fared no better. They sniffed out the whole area, but found nothing but the path they had already followed and a trail to the lake.
Fox and Keen, the wolf, bickered.
“They took a boat,” said Fox, changing to human form as she crouched at the water’s edge. “There’s no other explanation.”
“Why would he bother?” asked Keen. “This puddle isn’t that big. Besides, your friends haven’t found a trail on the other side.”
“Neither have yours,” snapped Fox.
Keen shook his head. “I’m sorry, uncle. We can’t smell any trace of them. It’s as if they just vanished from this spot.”
Finnadro returned to the scratched symbols. The third symbol looked like a dancer in the position of Flight. He smacked fist into the dirt.
“That’s exactly what they did.”
How could Finnadro follow a trail that crossed into the sky?
You will need wings.
He knelt and clutched the Singing Bow.
“My Lady,” he murmured. “I need you. I am ready to do things your way.”
Umbral
They found a footpath, probably used by the sheep drovers. The bean-thin, rocky track led up steep slopes and down into crevices cut by swift, cold water. Passing through canyons with striated rocks in a thousand shades of orange, it was easy to see how these tribelands had acquired their name. It was a harsh land, especially this time of year, caped in winter white, but it teemed with life. The pines bore snow patiently. The ridges were thick with the nests of eagles, with wild asses and big horn sheep. Once they saw prints in the snow of a moose stalked by a mountain lion.
The air on the slopes was thin but bracing. The scent of fresh snow invigorated Umbral. The unsettling episode of falling from the broken shadow raven felt unreal, and Umbral almost convinced himself it had never happened, until he heard the voice again.
You can’t kill her, Umbral. I won’t let you.
Umbral shook his head, as if he could shake away the voice.
Dindi glanced at him oddly. No one had spoken out loud. He scowled and hunkered under his hood, so she could not see the struggle going on inside him.
You’re dead, Kavio, Umbral retorted silently. There’s nothing you can do about it.
Isn’t there? mocked the voice. Don’t be so sure.
It was a bad idea to talk back to the voice in his head but it seemed to Umbral that the strands of Kavio’s memories inside him were getting stronger. He was certain it had been Kavio who had attacked him with some strange kind of fit, the convulsions that had made Umbral lose control of the shadow bird. Kavio must have known Dindi had wings and would survive, while Umbral, who did not, would plunge to his death.
How could he escape the revenge of his nemesis if he carried it inside him? How could he unknot Kavio’s memory from his own memories? No matter how Umbral turned the problem around in his mind, he could not find a solution. Why had Kavio’s memories not dissolved like the others Umbral had swallowed? Why did he seem to grow stronger with each passing day?
Umbral glanced sidelong at Dindi.
It was her fault, he was sure of it. She’d told him that Kavio had not loved her, but Umbral didn’t believe that. Kavio wouldn’t let go as long as Dindi still lived. Kavio’s threads were as much anchored to Dindi as to Umbral. Only the strongest love could survive death itself.
At first, they had enjoyed several clear days of travel, but today a nasty wind had plagued them all morning. The storm looked to grow only worse, so Umbral bent all his craft to finding a clanhold where they could stay. Orange Canyon was a populous tribe, but their clans were spread thinly over the mountain range, which meant settlements were sparse. The drover trails connecting them were long and often led to empty camps no longer in use.
He could see the cloven peak of Orangehorn Mountain, frustratingly near, yet impossibly far in the winter weather. All the regular paths, both human and Deathsworn, were snowed over. There was no way to reach the tribehold.
There is a way, whispered the unwanted thread of Kavio. I remember it.
Tell me! Umbral ordered Kavio.
Feed me.
Never!
Umbral clenched his fists, forcing the snake-like thread of Kavio’s memory to retreat deeper into his Penumbra. The last thing he wanted to do was strengthen Kavio’s memory.
At last, through the falling snow, he caught sight of a few stone buildings in the valley over the next ridge. He motioned to Dindi, and she nodded. They trudged toward it.
The clanhold was built in the typical tribal style of Orange Canyon. One big, square wall surrounded dozens of log cabins and sheepbooths. The buildings had tall, pointed roofs, painted with orange stripes, prickled with horns from sheep and other beasts. Warriors kept watch in a single boma built over the gate in the log wall. One sounded a ram’s horn as soon as he spotted the strangers.
“We are friends in need of shelter from the storm!” Umbral called up.
The Orange Canyon clansmen bristled their spears and cocked their bows. They wore ramshorn helms, sheepskin boots and wool tunics and capes woven, in orange and black on white, with the Eagle and Ram symbols of their tribe, as well as a Spider On A Web, which was probably the totem of their clan.
“How do we know you aren’t wolves, here from Green Woods for retribution?”
Umbral pushed back his hood, so the men could see his face.
“Rudgo! Why didn’t you say so!” cried one of the warriors joyfully, and the others accepted his vision, crying also, “Rudgo! Hey, hey, it’s Rudgo!”
Dindi shook her head disapprovingly.
“Would you rather let them see me as they wish, or stay out here in the cold?” Umbral asked archly.
The warriors let them in. Dindi did not choose to stay out in the cold.
Clanfolk peeked out from their doorways, hung with oiled sheepskins, to wave at ‘Rudgo.’ The rooms behind them glowed with hearths, rich wool tapestries and numerous children tumbling on fleece rugs.
“Hey, hey, it’s Rudgo!” The clansfolk shouted to one another.
“Hey, Rudgo!” one woman called out. “We heard you were killed fighting in Green Woods, but you survived! Are you on your way home? Who’s the lass?”
Umbral pulled back the hood of Dindi’s parka, so they could see she was young and pretty.
“A captive from the battle,” he said. “My slave. I haven’t decided yet whether to kill her or keep her!”
The clan clapped and laughed. “How’s that, then! Good on ya, Rudgo!�
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Umbral spun a likely tale about his role in the war and his journey home, then fended off further questions for ‘Rudgo,’ pleading hunger and exhaustion.
“You can stay with the Blind Woman, of course,” one warrior said. “She’ll be glad of some better company than that Dwarf of hers.”
“And remember,” added his companion. “If she gives you one of those ugly rags of hers, praise it to the sky. She won’t know better.”
Not too surprisingly, the hut of the Blind Woman and the Dwarf was the frailest, most wretched hovel of the bunch, isolated in the far corner of the clanhold, between the fodder shack and the midden heap. Fortunately, the seclusion suited Umbral.
“I hope you don’t mind what I told them about you,” he said to Dindi, once the crowd shut themselves back up in their own cabins.
“Why should I?” asked Dindi tartly. “It was the only thing you told them that was true.”
No one answered their call, so Umbral and Dindi had to enter the cabin unbidden to escape the wind.
In some ways, it was much like the other cabins they’d seen. A tall, standing loom stood against one wall, and fleece rugs covered the floor around a square hearth pit against the right-hand wall. But there were notable differences.
Compared to the cheery dens in the other homes, the interior was dim. The walls were blackened by smoke and not hidden by wool hangings. The fleece rugs were filthy and oily. The fire in the hearth had been allowed to burn low, near to embers, even though a hunched old woman sat next to it, poking the fire with a stick. She turned her head toward the sound of their entrance; her orbs were pure white.
A small person sat on the rug. She was the size of a child, yet no child. Her head and her arms seemed too big for her chest and legs. She had a piggish scowl, and glowered at Umbral with narrow, beady eyes. The warrior had called her a Dwarf, but to Umbral’s surprise, she was no fae. She was human, merely misgrown. He wondered what hex had twisted her body into that unfortunate shape.
Both the Blind Woman and the Dwarf were wrapped from head to toe in the most atrocious material Umbral had ever had the misfortune to encounter. Instead of the neat patterns of Eagle, Ram and Spider that everyone else in the clanhold wore, the threads in their cloth had no rhyme or rhythm. Higgidy-piggidy, threads of random colors were thrown together in a futile hodge-podge that offended his sense of order. The origin of this abomination against fashion was not hard to guess, for there on the loom, only half finished, was more of the same cloth.