by Tanith Lee
When the Circle disbanded, Peyuan and two others, Fethlin and Wexl, were also drawn, or driven, peculiarly, to follow her. They had no reason for this action. It was like the urge to shift ground with the seasons, the nomad’s instinct, yet it was stranger. They knew it came from their gods, or from Morda’s gods, and there was no resisting it. Nor did it exactly trouble them to do it. They had a saying: At some hour, every man must sacrifice. Their hour had arrived and they were ready. It was she, Peyuan remembered, who had been uneasy, almost frantic when she glimpsed them, crying out they must go back, go away, that she would not be responsible for their lives, which they would lose if they remained. But she could not shake them off, and in the end she was silent, hanging her head, as if in despair or shame, letting them accompany her.
Southward from the tower lay a bay and white ruins, the decayed cities of the Lost Race of the Book. It was to these ruins she had gone, and into those ruins she went, they going behind her.
She was plainly searching, this woman—exhaustedly, proudly, and wildly searching for some clue, some hope, or maybe merely for death.
“Sometimes,” said Peyuan, “she was like an animal, swift and alert, trembling with a sight of things men never see. Sometimes she would walk like a little girl, like a daughter who is seven years old and asks to be carried because she is so tired; and it would need all my strength not to pick her up in my arms. Then you would see abruptly the witch-power, the royalness. She would move like a white spear through the shadows, and there would be gold binding her hair and golden scales her body, though she wore the krarl woman’s dress and no ornament of any kind.”
Yet she did not find what she sought, though he told me a tale of perils, a tremor of the earth, and finally a dragon, from which, he said, she had saved him by bravery, sorcery, and an acquaintance with the gods. True, the beast had smitten him first, a blow of blows. Yet when it had been slain, he had started up alive, apparently to this incorrigible witch’s delighted surprise. She had touched his shoulder, as if to be sure he was real. Seeing the joy in her eyes, and sensing it in her touch as she appraised him sound, he hugged her close.
“She had a fragrance to her,” he said, “a green pure fragrance like spring leaves or the smell of the morning on the hills. It was not a perfume, some cosmetic from a jar. It was the actual scent of her flesh. Holding her, I felt only love, not desire or heat. She was like a girl I had known the whole of my life, someone who had never failed me, who had always been gentle, someone who had enriched my days. And now,” Peyuan added, “seeing you will not otherwise believe in the dragon, let me show you proof.”
He turned himself that his back should be to me, and lifted up his long, graying hair. On his neck and up along the lower ridge of his skull was a cindery toothed scar, broad as two fingers of my hand. The sort of wound a curved blade would make, or an enormous claw.
The sort of wound, too, from which a man should not recover.
“I never guessed I wore this,” he said. “It was my wife who found it, the white girl I wed, Hwenit’s mother. She asked had I got it in some battle. Thus, on my marriage night, I discovered that I had come as near death as a man may that half-year before, out there on the black beach, my scalp opened by the lizard’s paw. It was she, Morda—by some exercise of her lost Power, by her passion and desperation that I live—who had turned death aside from me, and healed me and made me whole. But clearly she never knew fully what she had done.”
Then he glanced about, and observed I had swallowed his words like a dish of salt, unwilling and choking on it, but to the last grain. And what now should I do with this woman, half malefic, half tender? No, his account concerned a moment of her existence; her aspect had been benevolent to Peyuan and he had loved her. If this were true with him, she had been other things to other men. My father had not profited by her, or considered her benign.
“What comes next?” I asked Peyuan. “A god, maybe, on silver wings, to bear your lady into the sky?”
“No,” he said, “it is less gaudy than that. The dragon dead, we slept past sunrise on the shore. There had been a watch, and I near asleep at my part of it, and she told me she would stand in my stead. But when we woke—Fethlin, Wexl, and I—the sun an hour risen, and she was gone. Only her footsteps, which led down into the sea, showed the path she had taken.”
“Into the sea? She made some big fish his breakfast, then? More likely she stepped through the shallow water, and came ashore again at some other bay.”
Peyuan nodded.
“Yes. But there were lights seen in the sky, the night of the lizard, and other nights. Like great stars falling to earth and departing again.”
“Thus. She is a goddess. It is a pity she didn’t want her son. He might have had some rare times with her in her palace of jade and crystal up in the air.”
He regarded me gravely, and he said, “Now I see one scar, after all.”
“You have the scars,” I said, “not I. One on your skull, one on your memory.”
“I am rebuked, and justly. I did not mean to anger the guest of my krarl.”
I was at once uncomfortable for having spoken roughly; he had been courteous enough to me, if too quick for my liking.
“No, it is I who am to blame, my chief,” I said. “Let us forget the woman.” Then, for courtesy’s sake only—I had begun to remember the hunt again at my back, and the need to be off—I added, “But tell me why your people settled here, for you were travelers formerly?”
“Oh, that is a small thing. I met the woman I spoke of, a fair-haired girl of the yellow Moi tribes, one day when we had gone to barter with them. I was younger then, and I won her liking and wed her. On the marriage night she found the scar for me, the lizard’s token. She journeyed that year with us to the sea. She had never looked on the ocean before. It drew her, as some it draws, like a charm or spell. When the time came for going inland, at the year’s turning, she was sorry, though she tried to make light of it. I had already taken her from her own folk, now I did not wish to take from her the sea. Besides, she was already quickened with our daughter. And I had been considering, too, I will admit, that my life had almost ended once in the dark sea bay, when the dragon struck me down; it seemed in some manner fitting that I live out my restoration near that place. So we chose this spot, on the route of the old Summer Dance. The land was not bad, and would grow vegetables; there were wild fruit trees and grazing for the goats—I had but five then. The ancient cities lie almost a night’s journey away to the south; we do not like to dwell too near them. Having said I would remain, become herdsman and gardener of the soil, two others elected to remain with me. Not my earlier companions. Wexl had married and gone elsewhere. Fethlin, too, was gone northward to seek the wandering priests, or the priest-hermits who live in the mountains there. Some say there are priests of the Book, healers and nomads, who live beyond these mountains and beyond other mountains also, unaccountable distances north and west. Maybe Fethlin sought even this far, for he was unquiet after Morda left us, saying his own gods had laid it on him to guard her, that he had failed, and that the work was forever unfinished.
“Still, the men who remained with me were vigorous, and helped me with the labor, their women and their sons and daughters, too, clearing the ground and planting. With our portion of the herd we did well, for goats are earnest in love. Their numbers soon doubled, and doubled again. Later, other men and their tents joined us, and the village was built. Today there are seven fields beyond the great pasture, fields of beans and grain, and a wood farther on of berries and apples. It is easy to barter for seed from the wandering tribes, who have little use for it. As for the fruit trees, some kindly wind must have foretold our coming. Then, too, we have learned to make boats. The ocean is massed with sea wrack, which we gather, a weed that is useful to us in many ways, not least to eat.”
My mind had begun to run on the subject of their boats but I said, “An
d your woman, Hwenit’s mother?”
“She died,” he said simply. “She was in the autumn woods, gathering windfalls, when she put her hand on a little snake. Hadlin was with her; she said there was no pain. My wife seemed not to notice she had been bitten, laughing it off, and in the middle of the laugh, she shut her eyes and sank down, and when Hadlin went to her, she was dead. Hwenit was not a year old on that day; it is an odd thing, for Hwenit has grown to be clever in cure-craft, with snakebite particularly.”
His calm disturbed me. His woman died, he loved her but did not mourn, dismissing grief as superfluous. Perhaps it had been different at the hour, but I did not believe so.
He glanced at me and appeared to note my thoughts. He went on, “Hwenit was twelve the summer the krarl of Qwenex returned to the tower with a priest in their midst, journeying to the Golden Book. Always my krarl would meet with Qwenex’s people, and when he set eyes on my girl, the priest came straight to her. He asked questions. He said she had the healer’s gift and must be trained. He stayed here three seasons, the priest. He seemed no different from any of our people, save that he could set a bone, and the bone would heal straight and swift, or mix herbs for a sick child and the child would grow well again, and it seemed as much from the touch of his hands as from the draft. And these arts he taught Hwenit, and she became Uasti. I recall he showed her, too, the Mysteries of the Book, which the priests will not always show a woman, the things very few master—the wound that closed at the word of the priest, the power to raise the body from the earth as if it were winged. These magics were not in my daughter, though she was envious of them. Some nights she crouches by her fire and summons demons, and they never come, for which I am very grateful.”
“Are you now, my father?” said a crisp voice from the doorway. “And here you sit with the very demon I did summon.”
It was Hwenit in person, who came in to tend extravagantly the copper pot on the brazier, that all this while had placidly seen to itself.
5
“I will require the warriors to leave my hearth,” said Hwenit-Uasti. “There is a baby with a fever I must have here to care for.”
“My thanks for the night’s lodging,” I said, “and the demon must, in any case, be on his road again.”
“Oh, but you must not!” cried Hwenit, leaving off splashing and stirring the mixture to pounce around on me. Today she did not wear her cat but a necklet of white bones and amber beads.
“My daughter,” said Peyuan, “our guest has spent too much time already listening to the chief’s prattle. He is in haste.” He touched my arm as we rose. “I have gone over in my mind what you have said to me. I will suggest to you that we should visit Qwef, who has a seaworthy boat.”
At this, Hwenit flung the iron spoon into the copper pot.
“Qwef!” she yapped. “Qwef! Qwef! Is this the only name I am to hear?”
“We shall presently be gone and you shall hear it no more,” said Peyuan.
“I will not have you go!” Hwenit shouted after me. “Go, and I curse you.”
“Curse on, maiden,” I said. “I will bear it as best I may.” And I ducked out quickly to avoid the wet spoon she threw after me.
It was a serene day, between the winds of early spring. Daylight showed the krarl village engaged in quiet activity. Trees and garden patches grew at the backs of many huts; a well had been dug in the shadow of a sea-blown acacia, and two women were standing in its lacy, winter-bared shade, drawing water.
Hwenit-Uasti’s cat lay sunning itself along the painted lintel, and spit at me for old time’s sake.
I said to Peyuan that his daughter had taken exception to the name of Qwef before. Had he done her some wrong?
“Yes,” said Peyuan, “a single wrong. He has not offered to court her. For that reason she conjures demons to flirt with, to make the young man mend his ways, and instead of a demon, you appear, and she will use you as readily if you let her.”
The village, the ocean’s murmur below, less complaining than in the night, the enterprising trees and tranquil people, had got me to the stage again of not actually believing myself in danger. Had I really killed a gold-mask in Eshkorek? Had I really escaped Erran’s palace by way of the great tunnel of the magician men, the same magicians, I hazarded, who left Golden Books in towers? And had I, Black Wolf, son of a black wolf, been hunted to the sea’s blue-as-the-eyes-of Hwenit edge?
But Peyuan, good and excellent man that he was, had adopted my plight like his own. He pointed out to sea, into the mauve haze that rimmed the water’s horizon.
“There is an island, some miles from shore. Only in the clearest of seasons do you see the shape of it. Indeed, none of this krarl knew of it till the young men went adventuring in their boats. The weather is even-tempered today. If Qwef will guide you over, you can be there before nightfall. There is also space in his boat for food and a krarl tent to shelter you. Those who hunt you will not imagine you in a place they cannot see. If and when the hunt has passed, you shall have word, and return.”
I had considered begging a boat from them; this was better than I had hoped for. I said, “Why do you bother yourself with me, Peyuan-Chief? Is it for your goddess’s sake, the white lady who vanished into sea or sky?”
He made no reply, and just then a woman came between the huts toward Hwenit’s dwelling, carrying an animate bundle in her arms. The mother’s expression was not wild; a shireen would have been tearing her hair and screaming, for the baby coughed and crowed and looked wretched. For some reason the comparison made me think of my own children in the Dagkta krarl, my little sons and daughters I had barely glanced at twice, and of the child I had wanted by Demizdor and now should never get.
Peyuan stopped the woman at the door. He took the infant gently from her, she making no protest. Then he came and put the baby in my hands.
I had no answer to this, and I wondered what he supposed himself doing. The poor thing struggled feebly; I must hold it or it would fall.
Seeing no alternative, I ducked back in at the door, to give the child to Hwenit.
Bent, red-lit above the seething copper, seething also with her discontent, the girl straightened with a sharp word, but changed when she saw what I carried into one mute, sinuous, and protective gesture of acceptance. This, more than anything, moved me.
I placed the child in her waiting arms, and was about to go out again, when she cried aloud in a terrible tone, “What have you done?”
The baby, too, commenced bawling, loud, raucous, and vehement, from a pair of brazen bellows secreted in its tiny chest.
I whipped around, and Hwenit held it up, kicking and howling in its wrath. Her dark face had a shrunken look. She asked me, “What did you do?”
“I did nothing. Your father gave the child to me, and I gave him to you.”
“You have healed him. He was very sick. It would have taken me three days, and then he might have been damaged in his bones. Let me see your hands.”
Nonplussed as she was, thinking her distracted or mistaken, I showed her.
Hwenit peered and stared as if at some fresh ailment.
The baby roared like a terrible little machine.
“You are a magician,” Hwenit said. “You are a healer.” Jealously she whispered, “You are more powerful than the priest who taught me.”
* * *
Qwef’s boat, a skiff, had a place for a single pair of oars, a primitive sailless craft, but the first water vessel I had ever seen. It took the sea with a rolling yet dependable motion, breasting over the waves that from the shore had seemed azure, and now revealed themselves as brownish-gray with caverns of marble greenness beneath.
Qwef managed the oars, at which I later took a turn, having been instructed. This was an easy enough task once I had the knack of it, and truth to tell, I was glad of something to do. The sight of so much liquid earthquake all about unnerved
me.
My mind was racing, too, out of rhythm with everything. I had been thankful to be off, as if I could leave bewilderment and unease behind me on shore. But like the changeable sea, the quality of the inner debate had altered, become ambient. Splinters of white foam—something of a wind had got up, after all, when we were about a mile out—broke from the wave crests. Flashes of scenes and events dashed off the surface of my thought like the foam, and under these, the hollow green sea caverns of a menacing disquiet.
Nor did it help that my black witch had come with us.
She sat sulkily among the pile of tent, tackle, and provisions, with which Peyuan and his people had packed the skiff amidships, and to which she had added a copper cook pan, rugs, and other minutiae of living, while her demoniac cat—stuffed into a large wicker cage like some unlikely bird, that it should not escape in terror and fall into the sea—set up a persistent, resentful, and panic-stricken wailing. Hwenit said she had visited the island before in the boats of the men to gather certain herbs that grew there. Probably this was true enough, though the reason for her traveling now was plainly in order to impress upon Qwef that she companioned me.
Qwef was a good-looking youth, somewhat younger than she, with the same carved aquilinity of feature that seemed common to the whole tribe. He spoke to her politely, as to me, and said she was welcome to share the journey, though he was constrained at her presence, and she did her best to set him boiling, darting him mad blue looks, telling him how poorly he handled his own boat, turning his every observation into a jest or nonsense. It was a trick a few krarl women had tried on me when I was around sixteen, as he was, and got the flat of my hand as a reward.
At a point when we were exchanging the oars, she began to fiddle with her cat’s cage, saying she would let the beast out. I told her the cat would then surely drown, and the boat would be upset, and Hwenit remarked in a honey moan how intelligent I was, and that she would obey me in all things. This trick misfired for, catching each other’s eyes and aware of what she was at, both Qwef and I burst out laughing.