Sister Light, Sister Dark

by Jane Yolen

  “He hunted for Kalas,” Mother Alta said, head nodding.

  “You know!” His head began to nod in rhythm with hers. Putting his hands in front of his chest, he said, “Mother, ich crie thee merci!”

  “It seems, young Longbow, that scholars do not know everything.” Her smile added wrinkles. “You have already cried to one Altite, and one is surely enough. If they have killed the Hound who hunted you, indeed what more could they do?”

  “These girls have not yet taken their sacred vows, Mother,” reminded Armina. “And a vow to a king’s son must be …”

  “We did not know he was a king’s son,” Jenna said, sharply.

  “If we had …” Pynt added, but let the rest of her sentence trail off, for she did not know what they would have done.

  Neither one mentioned that the Hound had been killed because he had attacked them.

  “What is a vow, Armina, my child,” asked Mother Alta, “but the mouth repeating what the heart has already promised? These two young hearts will be no stouter next year, nor their mouths any more truthful after their vows than before. Carum Longbow cried them merci as a man, not as a son of this person or that. And they have killed in his cause, because they took on his protection. What can be more binding than blood? What can be more sacred than that? The Goddess smiles.”

  Armina looked down at the floor and was silent.

  “Now, imp, do not sulk. I can hear your angry short breaths. Bring us food that we may sit and gossip of the Hames.” Mother Alta chuckled. “And you will share with us, Armina, child of my child.”

  Armina looked up. “But, Mother, what of the danger?”

  “Think you that Kalas’ men will look for the boy here? We will dress this young cock in hen’s feathers and if he is as fine-featured as you say, if he is young enough to be beardless yet …”

  “I am, Mother,” said Carum. Then he flushed, realizing that it sounded as if he were praising himself.

  They all laughed then, Carum a beat behind.

  “Now, Armina, get us that food. And some sweet wine. And do not forget a savory for after. But ware—not a word about our guests save that they be missioning. I do not want this young bull calf amongst the heifers undisguised. I wish to discover what I can without the added danger of tongues wagging. If we have one fault here in this Hame, it is that we can keep nothing secret.”

  “I will say nothing, Mother,” Armina promised, “and I will get the food at once.” She rose directly and went to the door, where she turned. “There is rhulbarbe pie, your favorite.” Then she left, whistling.

  Mother Alta sighed. “If she keeps her promise, it will be the first time.” Then, bringing her hands once more out of her sleeves and gesturing to them, she said, “But come, my children, closer to these old ears. And tell me how you met and what has transpired since.”

  A succession of kitcheners left food outside the door on platters decked out with red and gold flowers. Pynt and Jenna helped Armina bring in the plates but ate so eagerly, they scarcely noticed the decorations. And so intent were they on the tales they were spinning for the priestess that the profusion of sweet breads, tangy rabbit stew, and salads of spring lettuce and small onion bulbs went down without comment. The priestess ate with quiet precision, scarcely moving.

  They found themselves admitting everything to her, even Pynt’s disobedience, even Jenna’s disgust at the killing, even their worry at Carum’s disappearance into the forest to relieve himself.

  After the third time Pynt made excuses for deserting Selinda and Alna, Mother Alta sighed with annoyance.

  “Enough of your excuses, child. You have told me not once but over and over that you are Jo-an-enna’s shadow and that dark must follow light.”

  “Yes, yes,” Pynt answered.

  “Dear child,” Mother Alta said, leaning forward in her chair, “though loyalty is prized, Great Alta reminds us that A foolish loyalty can be the greater danger. You will find understanding from me but not expiation. We do not yet know what your loyalty will cost.”

  “Did she actually say that?” Carum asked, breaking into the conversation. It was his first entrance in many minutes. “Great Alta, I mean. Did she actually say that? Or is it written?”

  “If she herself did not utter those words, still they are well said,” the priestess answered, her mouth twisting with private mischief. “But the words are written down in the Book of Light, chapter thirty-seven, verse seventeen, in a quite ordinary hand.” She raised her left hand and wriggled all but the sixth finger.

  “There is nothing ordinary about that hand,” Carum said.

  “Ordinary—extraordinary,” mused Mother Alta, her head nodding down. Then she looked up, her marble eyes shining. “We are—do you not all feel it—at a moment in history, a nexus, a turning where the ordinary is extraordinary. I know these things. There is a light in the room, a great light.”

  “But, Mother,” protested Pynt. “You are blind. How can you see a light?”

  “I do not see it, I feel it,” Mother Alta said.

  “Like the feeling in the forest right before a storm?” asked Jenna.

  “Yes, yes, child. You understand. And do you feel it, too?”

  Jenna shook her head. “Yes. No, I am not sure.”

  “Well, never mind. It is gone now, that feeling,” Mother Alta said, her voice whispering off. “Fading … fade …” Her head nodded once and she was asleep.

  “Come,” Armina said, standing, “we must leave her to her rest.”

  “Is she all right?” Carum asked.

  “She is old, old past counting, Longbow,” Armina said. “And sometimes she is not quite lucid. But today she was—somehow—transformed. Visitors are always good for her, but you three seem special somehow. I have not seen her so—so animated in a long time.” She bent and quietly began replacing the dishes onto the trays. “She will want to talk to you later, I know.”

  They helped carry out the trays with as little noise as possible, but nothing seemed to disturb the old woman, who sat upright, eyes closed and mouth slightly open, fast asleep in the chair.

  As the door closed behind them and they placed the trays against the wall, Jenna asked, “But should we not move her to her bed? Will she not fall out of the chair?”

  Armina shook her head and the great crest of hair waved. “She is tied into the chair. She will not fall.”

  “Tied! But that … that is …” Pynt fumbled for the right word.

  “That is her own request,” Armina said, her voice gentle in the extreme. “For if she fell, she could not help herself. She cannot walk, you see.”

  They went to Armina’s room by a dark back stairs, passing no one on the way. It was a pleasant, open room, with a narrow window through which afternoon sunlight streamed. A large bed, its head under the window, the covers rumpled, filled much of the space. On one side of the bed stood an oaken wardrobe, on the other a table with a lamp. Half a dozen piles of clothes were on the floor.

  Armina went over to one pile and pulled out a pair of baggy brown britches. From another she chose a red shirt; after holding it to her nose for a moment, she discarded it on a third pile and picked instead a loose blue shirt and a blue scarf.

  “There,” she said. “These should do. Put them on.”

  Carum looked around. “Here? With you watching?”

  “Over your other clothes,” Armina said. “I shall want them back when you are gone, and we cannot leave you running naked down the halls of refuge—” She stopped and laughed. “Though it is a thought.”

  He slipped into the trousers and shirt and looked helplessly at the scarf. Armina tied it expertly around his head. The blue brought out the color of his eyes.

  “There,” she said as she stood back to admire him. “No one would ever guess you are a prince.” She looked over at Jenna and Pynt, who had watched the whole thing from the bed. “And no one will guess he is a man, either, not with those long lashes and those eyes.”

  “Enough!
” Carum said, snatching the cloth from his head. “It’s bad enough that I have to wear these things. I won’t be laughed at.”

  “Laughter, dear boy,” Armina said, turning to him, “is called the goddess gift in this Hame. And it is well known that women can laugh at themselves, whereas men …”

  “The first thing a scholar learns,” Carum said, “is to beware of any sentence that begins It is well known!”

  “And the last thing a scholar learns is humor,” said Pynt.

  “Enough,” Jenna said. “All of you. Enough. Wicked tongues make wicked wives. And that bit of wisdom comes from the Lower Dales.”

  “Upper, actually,” Carum said.

  “If you think my tongue is wicked, wait until dark. Darmina’s tongue is twice as fast as mine.” Armina stopped, tried to catch control of her thought, then exploded into laughter. When she caught her breath again, she shrugged and winked at Jenna and Pynt. “Private joke. Her tongue is twice as fast!” She began to laugh again, and the girls looked wide-eyed at her and completely mystified.

  Carum’s eyes narrowed. His shoulders went down and his head up. “I don’t mind women making randy jokes,” he said, “but …”

  “Alta’s Hairs!” Armina ran her hand up through her hair. “He is a prude as well. What fun we shall all have.”

  Carum finished thoughtfully, “… their jokes and their curses should at least have the grace of originality. Come on, Jenna, Pynt. We’re going.”

  “But where?” asked Pynt.

  Jenna stood and pulled Pynt up beside her. “Carum is right. We must go and find Mother Alta and tell her it is time to get Carum to his refuge. Hospitality is one thing, safety another.”

  “He is safe here,” said Armina.

  “But is the Hame safe with him here?” asked Jenna.

  Pynt thrust her chin forward. “He is our pledge, after all. He cried us merci. We must go on.” She grinned. “But we could pack some food. That rhulbarbe pie was wonderful.”

  Armina shrugged. “I did not think you even noticed. Very well, I will take you back to Mother Alta. You will never find the way on your own.”

  “You are talking to three who got through the Sea of Bells in a fog,” said Pynt.

  “That is child’s play compared with the maze of this Hame. Why”—and Armina smiled—“they say there is one young missioner from Calla’s Ford who was lost twenty years ago in our halls.” Her voice got very low. “And she has never been found.”

  “Can you never be serious?” asked Carum.

  “What for?” Armina asked, shrugging again. “Laugh longer, live longer, the hill people around here say. But, Longbow, before we go out into the halls, put the scarf back on. It is what makes you look the part. Besides”—and she laughed again—“it goes so well with your eyes.” Her laughter was so completely without malice that they were forced to laugh with her, first Pynt, then Jenna, and at last, though reluctantly, Carum.

  They followed her out of the room and swiftly traversed the mazing hallways, nodding pleasantly at the women they passed. Armina led them up a broad flight of stairs and past many rooms, until they stood at last before the priestess’ carved door once again. The trays of food they had left in the hall were gone.

  “There, would you have found it?” Armina asked.

  “You took us a different way,” said Jenna. “We might have found the old route.”

  “We would have found the old route,” said Pynt.

  “Or we could have gotten lost and never found,” Carum put in, in the same sepuchral tones Armina had used before.

  “You see,” Armina said with a broad grin, “now Longbow will live longer!” Her face turned suddenly serious. “But mind, you must sit there quietly until she wakes on her own. She is not so sweet-tempered if you wake her beforetime. I know!”

  But the old priestess was already awake when they went in, being fussed over by two older women who were arranging her robes and combing her hair, not without some resistance from Mother Alta.

  “Leave me,” she said to them, dismissing them imperiously with a wave of her hand. The blue priestess sign in her palm showed plainly. “I would talk with these three missioners alone. Armina, guard the door. I do not wish us to be disturbed.” Her voice now held an edge of authority. All three women jumped to do her bidding.

  When the carved door snicked shut behind them, Mother Alta’s hands once more disappeared into the sleeves of her dark robe. She nodded her head and her voice was the same soft burr as before. “Come, children, and sit. We must talk. I have been giving your problems much thought.”

  “But you were asleep, Mother,” Pynt said.

  “Is it not written that Sleep is the great unraveler of knots? And do not ask in what volume, young Carum. I forget. But this I know, I do my best thinking there, where color and line explode behind my sightless eyes. All becomes clearer to me, as a traveler sees his own home more clearly in a foreign land.”

  They sat by her feet and awaited instruction.

  “Let us first breathe the hundred-chant,” Mother Alta said. “And you, Longbow, follow as best you can. It is an old Alta exercise that calms the mind and frees the senses, making one fresh for the new work ahead. With it, the Goddess smiles.”

  As the deep breathing began, Jenna felt strangely lightened, as if her real self had been pulled free of the body to float above it. The chanting moved into the twenties and thirties, and she seemed to range around the priestess’ room without moving, her mind remarking upon the furniture she had not noticed before: the slat bed with its two pillows; a large wooden wardrobe incised with goddess signs; a copy of the Book of Light on a stand, its raised letters casting strange shadows in the fading light of day; and a mirror covered by a red-brown cloth the color of dried blood. The chanting bodies below her moved toward the seventies and eighties, and Jenna found herself ranging over them, her translucent fingers reaching down to touch each upon the very center of the skull, where a pulse beat beneath the shield of skin and bone. At the touch—which only she seemed to notice—Jenna found herself drawn down inside each of her companions in turn. Mother Alta was as cool as a well, and as dark. Armina was all sparkling points, like the bright flames and embers of a wood fire. Pynt, on the other hand, was a windstorm, blowing hot, then cold, then hot again in quick and dizzying succession. Carum was … She was drawn down and down and down to his center, passing pockets in him, some restful, some fretful, some filled with a wild, engulfing alien heat that threatened to entrap her. She pulled herself away and fled up into the air again, turned, and faced her own chanting self. That was, somehow, the strangest of all, to watch herself, unaware, a secret mirror of …

  The hundred-chant ended and Jenna opened her eyes, almost surprised to find herself anchored once again in her own flesh.

  “Mother,” she began huskily, her voice scarcely above a whisper, “a strange thing has just happened. For the time of our hundred-chant, I was—somehow—free of my flesh. I floated above the room, searching for something or for someone.”

  Mother Alta spoke slowly. “Ah, Jo-an-enna, what you feel is the beginning of womanhood, the beginning of true twinning, though you are much too young if you are only now missioning. Such enlightness happens on the Night of Sisterhood, when the soul ranges for a moment, finds the mirror, and plunges into the waiting image. Light calls dark, the two parts of the self are made whole. Did you find the mirror, child?”

  “It …” Jenna looked around the room and saw that the mirror was, indeed, covered. “There is a cloth over it.”

  “Then how … strange, my child. Strange that you are so young for this. That it is daylight. That the mirror is masked.” Her chin touched down on her chest and, for a moment, she seemed to sleep.

  Armina stood and quietly went out the door.

  “What did it feel like, Jenna?” whispered Pynt. “Were you frightened? Was it wonderful?”

  Jenna turned her head to answer, but Carum’s hand was on her arm.

  “T
he Mother wakens,” he said.

  The priestess’ opaque eyes were open. “I do not sleep,” she said, “but I do dream.”

  Pynt whispered into Jenna’s ear, “Armina said she is sometimes not lucid. Is this one of those times?”

  “Hush!” Jenna commanded.

  “More lucid than ever I was, dear Pynt,” the old woman said. “Remember, child, that one who has no sight is gifted extra hearing. It is nature’s way.”

  “Forgive me, Mother,” Pynt said, her head lowered. “I meant no …”

  Mother Alta’s hand crept from her sleeve and swept away Pynt’s embarrassment with a quick gesture. “We must all think, now. What brings us together?”

  “We came back, Mother, to tell you that we must get Carum away from here,” said Pynt.

  “I fear I am a danger to your Hame. We saw riders …” Carum began.

  “Oh, there is more to the puzzle than these few pieces,” Mother Alta said. “Something is missing. The Game is incomplete. I cannot recall all the parts.” She began to mumble to herself. “Light sister, dark sister, needle, spoon, knife, thread …”

  Pynt elbowed Jenna.

  The old woman’s head snapped up. “Come to me, Pynt, and tell me of yourself. Not what you have done, for that I know. But who you are.” The old woman gestured to her.

  Reluctantly, with Jenna pushing her, Pynt inched closer to the priestess and knelt so that her head was within reach of the six-fingered hands.

  “I am Marga, called Pynt,” she began, “daughter of the warrior Amalda, whose dark sister is Sammor. I have chosen the way of warrior and hunter. I …” She giggled as the priestess’ hand ran down her face.

  “Good, good, child. My eyes are in my fingers. They tell me you, Marga called Pynt, have dark, curly hair and a quick smile.”

  “How do you know I have dark hair? The eyes in your fingers cannot tell you that.”

  “By the coarseness of the strands. Dark hair is always coarser than light. Light hair has a fineness to it, and red hair often confuses.”

  “Oh.”

  The old woman smiled. “Besides, Armina told me you were dark like a woman of the Lower Dales. I may be old, but my memory is still sharp. When I am lucid.”