Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIV

by Unknown

  Tiva headed for it eagerly, but then paused, uneasy. She had come too far north. She was in Shokitevela's territory. This was their earth; she couldn't take what didn't belong to her village. She stopped, irresolute. The cliff's shadow spread far across the desert now, the sun long past zenith. She had little time to find more earth, get back to the village, and prepare pigment for tomorrow's painting. Would Shokitevela begrudge her a basketful of earth? There were no footprints—it seemed Shokitevela's painters had not come here. And the vein was large—she could see that.

  She stooped to gather stones that had fallen from the cliff face, to pile them up to stand on so she could reach the red earth above. A lizard scampered from beneath one and raised its head, gazing at her. She stared back. Usually lizards were so shy of people that the whisk of a tail and tiny footprints in the sand were all she ever saw. This one sat still, just out of reach, black eyes staring. It was beautiful, sand-gold hide beaded with black and tan, banded with red. Its sides expanded and contracted as it breathed, and it gazed at her steadfastly as she stared back.

  "Kukutsi," she breathed. This lizard was sacred to Shokitevela. She knew, seeing it here, that she was not to take their earth, no matter how great she thought her need. She let her head drop. "Yes, Kukutsi. I will leave."

  Kukutsi turned its head, surveying her with each bright eye in turn, then whisked out across the sand.

  Tiva took a deep breath, released it, then ran back the way she had come.

  * * * *

  Back in her own territory, there was a little more brilliant red earth far overhead; she found hand and footholds, but had to hook her basket over one arm—very awkward. Added to what she had, the basket was less than half full. But it would have to do; the cliff's shadow reached so far across the desert now that the sun must be little more than a few hands above the western horizon. Tiva packed the earth carefully, drank more water, and ate a corn cake. In her earlier excitement to paint, she had forgotten to eat.

  She started back through rougher ground east of the cliff, stumbling occasionally. She was tired. The journey back to Ayantavi seemed almost more than she could accomplish. She took another sip and stretched her legs, knowing she must not delay.

  She ran out of the cliff's long shadow into late afternoon heat. She was surprised to see another runner heading out from the cliff, angling more to the north and already farther east than she was.

  The runner saw her and slowed. Tiva put on a burst of speed and soon was running alongside the other girl. It was Nakwanpa, one of the apprentices to Koloh-Pohu, Shokitevela's Soul Wall painter.

  "You're out late," Nakwanpa said, rather breathless.

  "As are you," Tiva returned. "Your village is farther than mine—you've a long run ahead."

  Nakwanpa ran quietly for a moment, then answered, "I sought the brightest red earth and found little. I stayed overlong in the search."

  "Ah, then we are alike!" said Tiva. "I, too, was looking for brilliant red, but the veins are almost gone." She stopped there. Should she tell Nakwanpa of the large new vein she had found in Shokitevela's territory? To do so would admit she had gone beyond Ayantavi's boundary. But it had been an honest error, and she'd taken nothing.

  "I searched so far up Red Cliff that I strayed into your territory," Tiva admitted. "At the north end of the cliffs, where the ground rises, there is new-fallen stone. A large vein of brilliant red was uncovered."

  Nakwanpa turned her head to Tiva, a smile wreathing her dusty features. "Thank you, Tiva, for telling me this. May your painting go well." The other girl sped up, angling north again. Just before she was out of earshot, she turned her head and called, "In your territory, halfway back along the cliff, there is a crevice with three sandrose bushes at its mouth. Follow it back and see if the brilliant red is as plentiful as it looked from its mouth."

  Tiva waved her thanks and ran on, her spirit lighter. Each had found red earth in the other's territory. She thought Nakwanpa hadn't entered the cleft, hadn't taken any earth from Ayantavi's territory. She was doubly glad she had not dug any of Shokitevela's earth.

  * * * *

  It was nearly dark when Tiva ran the last long path up the cliff and reached her village. The smell of savory sauces cooking made her stomach growl. Cheerful voices rang over the plateau as families gathered at day's end. But she could not go to her family yet; she must bring her basket to Yongosona.

  Yongosona sat on a mat outside her house grinding pigment in a stone mortar, lamps flickering in niches to either side of her. She looked up as Tiva, panting from the effort of the last long climb to the village, halted. "Late."

  "Yes, Grandmother," Tiva said, bowing her head. "The sources of brilliant red are almost used up."

  The old woman held out her hands for Tiva's basket. Without looking inside, she weighed it in her palms. Her face seemed to sag into more wrinkles than usual.

  "There was more," Tiva blurted. "But I found it after I wandered into Shokitevela's territory. I... did not think it would be good to take their earth."

  Yongosona looked up at Tiva, reflections of lamp flames dancing in her eyes. She studied the girl for a long time, as Tiva tried very hard not to fidget. Tiva's mouth grew dry, and sweat broke out on her brow despite the cool evening breeze.

  The old woman said finally, "Shokitevela's earth would not suit an Ayantavi Soul Wall." She handed the basket back to Tiva. "All will be needed."

  Tiva took the basket, pushed the doorflap aside, and hurried into Yongosona's house for another mortar, to grind the red earth for tomorrow's paint. As she settled down beside Yongosona, she tried not to feel the hollowness of her stomach and the aches in shoulders and legs.

  * * * *

  Tiva was up before dawn with the other apprentices, preparing new plaster for Chumana's Soul Wall. She had not slept well, and her calves still ached, but the brilliant red had all been ground and mixed. It rested now in covered pots, ready for Yongosona's use.

  Plastering complete, they ate, and Yongosona assigned tasks. Tiva was sent to Dry Gorge to gather insects for bright blue paint. Tiva wasn't sure if Yongosona had assigned her this task because she was displeased with her performance of the day before or not. Dry Gorge was much closer to Ayantavi than Red Cliff, but gathering gembugs was an unpleasant chore.

  Tiva took a tight-woven bag as well as the carry basket, for gembugs were small and sifted through basket mesh or the weave of normal cloth. She set off quickly. Today she would make Yongosona proud of her. She knew where the best spine trees were, and should be able to gather many gembugs and be home long before dusk.

  The air was still and hot as Tiva raced down the path to the desert below. The little hairs on her arms crawled, and Tiva scanned the sky for clouds. It felt like thunderstorm weather.

  As she ran, the uneasy feeling that someone was watching plagued her. She scanned the terrain ahead, looking for telltale puffs of dust from running feet. No one. It must be the tickly, itchy feeling of the air.

  Dry Gorge was a long, deep crack, waterless most of the time. In spring, snow melted in far-off mountains and filled the gorge with roiling water. The only other time water flowed in the gorge was when it rained heavily in those same mountains, sending water down the gorge even when the desert got no rain at all. The thunderstorm feel in the air made Tiva cautious.

  She traversed the path worn into Dry Gorge's steep side carefully; it was not hard-packed and reliable as the one down the cliff at home, for most of it was destroyed every spring. Once on the gorge's pebbled floor, she trotted down relatively clear ways between spine trees, candleplants, and sandrose.

  Many plants grew here, for there was water deep underground. The oldest spine tree roots must reach halfway through the world, searching for water. They were so well rooted that even flash floods did not dislodge them. These elder trees were the best places to seek gembugs.

  Tiva found the huge, many-branched spine tree she sought. It was so tall its highest branches could be seen above the lip of
the gorge, almost the same yellow-brown as the sand. Yongosona had sought gembugs here when she was an apprentice. Spines longer than Tiva's middle finger grew from trunk, branches, and twigs. They were sharp, and their sap made any scratch or puncture itch and swell.

  It was easy to tell where gembugs made their homes in the tree. When a spine tree was damaged, spines grew like bristling whiskers from the wound.

  The first bristly area Tiva found was in the trunk, just above head height. She wrapped her arm in a piece of leather and carefully angled her hand, holding a stone knife, in toward the swollen area where the gembugs lived. It was awkward, as she couldn't see above her head. Spines brushed the leather around her wrist, but she kept them from puncturing it.

  She got her knife to the base of the swollen area, and was startled by a sharp chittering. A sandrat poked its slender nose out of the hole in the spine tree's trunk and cursed at her. Tiva froze in place, not wanting to get scratched by spines, but also wary of the sandrat's teeth. So this wasn't a gembug nest, but a sandrat den! She didn't remember seeing sandrats nesting in the spine trees before. Again, she had not been watching, or had watched the wrong things. She needed to remember what the young man had told her yesterday: Change how you watch.

  "Carefully now, little sister, Tuwakala," Tiva told the sandrat. "I will leave your house alone." The sandrat pulled all but the tip of its nose back into its den, and Tiva snaked her hand out from among the spines. "I will go elsewhere to hunt insects."

  She circled the tree, looking for more bristly spots. There was one as high as she could reach, but it would be too hard to get past the spines and cut out the insect nest at the end of her reach. Finally, she chose a small nest on a branch about chest height. As she cut the nest away and dropped it into her bag, she heard a cracking sound above her.

  A sandrat—perhaps the one she had seen before—stood perched on one of the largest spines. Its long slender arms and hand-like paws were perfect for reaching past the short bristles of spines and into a gembug nest high above Tiva's head. The rat cracked a gembug between its teeth, then dropped the jewel-like carapace into the sand at the base of the spine tree.

  Tiva dropped to her knees in the coarse dirt. It was littered with gembug carapaces. Why had she never noticed this before? The bright blue gembug armor glittered in the sunlight like tiny jewels. She scooped them up, dirt and all, into her sack. She could winnow them like grass seed to remove the dirt.

  The sandrat chittered above her. "Thank you, Tuwakala," Tiva said. She followed the rat as it moved around the spine tree trunk, found another gembug nest, and started cracking more insects open.

  A low rumble rolled over the desert, and girl and sandrat paused to peer at the sky. Clouds had rolled in while Tiva had been occupied gathering gembugs. The thunderstorm Tiva had felt earlier had arrived, unnoticed.

  Quickly, Tiva scooped up as much of the gembug-bright dirt as she could, then tied the bag securely and lashed it into her basket. If the thunderstorm was here now, had it rained earlier in the mountains? She had not thought to watch, to notice if there were clouds over the mountains.

  She started up the narrow, dusty trail, then paused when the sandrat chittered. The low rumble of thunder came again, louder. The sandrat had run to its den and hung outside, clutching a long spine and scolding.

  If a flash flood came down Dry Gorge, the tree would survive the crushing force of the water, but the sandrat's home would be flooded. Did the rat have babies in its den? Would it come with her? Heartbeats later she stood beneath the tree once more, reaching up into the den. "Tuwakala, help me save your babies," she told the anxiously chittering sandrat. "I can't see into your den."

  Did the sandrat hear? Did it understand? Tiva felt something warm and wriggly beneath her hand, picked it up, and transferred a sandrat no longer than her little finger into her basket. Another, then another, until seven squeaking youngsters crawled over one another in her basket. An adult—the father?—leaped from the mouth of the den to her basket, followed by the original sandrat, who had kept watch clinging to a long spine halfway up the tree.

  As Tiva raced for the path there was different rumbling, not thunder accompanying the clouds. Tiva risked a look up the gorge, then turned back to watch her footing in the treacherous gravel. She saw nothing yet, but the noise grew ever louder. Higher she climbed, glancing nervously backward every few steps. Then a wall of water, dirty brown and full of sticks and stones, thundered down the gorge toward her.

  She stopped looking back, spent all her energy scrambling up the chancy path. In her basket, the sandrats were quiet now, and she couldn't even feel them moving. Heart pounding, she used hands and feet to drag herself up.

  She was almost to the top when a hand reached down and pulled her over the gorge's rim and into gusting wind. She stood, breathing hard, staring down at the murky depths of the water racing through the gorge.

  "Thank you," she said when she had caught her breath and no longer trembled. She turned to see who had helped her.

  It was a woman, middle-aged, plump and rosy cheeked. Her headscarf was woven in green and brown zigzags, her tunic green, and her skirt, whipped against her legs by storm winds, was brown. No village Tiva knew used those colors.

  "You're a long way from home," the woman said, helping Tiva brush dirt from her skirt.

  "I came for the gembugs," Tiva said simply. All the villages shared Dry Gorge, for it was the best source anywhere for gembugs and other plants and animals that thrived between its walls.

  "So I see." The woman smiled. "And do you also gather sandrats?"

  "Ah. No, I was saving them from the flood. Mama rat was cracking gembugs for me...." she trailed off. That sounded absurd, even though it had seemed, at the time, as if that was exactly what was happening.

  "I am sure they are grateful not to be down in that." The woman indicated the roiling water below them with a nod.

  "Ye-yes." Tiva watched the water with a little shiver of horror. What if she hadn't made it up the path quickly enough? Whole trees floated down the once-dry gorge, smashing into the walls with the water's force. The flood hadn't reached the top of the great spine tree, but Tiva was sure the sandrats could not have carried their babies up the trunk in time.

  "You were watching well today," the woman told her.

  Tiva stared at her. The young man yesterday had spoken of watching. It was because of his words that she had noticed the gembug carapaces glittering in the dirt. But she had almost let the flash flood take her because she hadn't been paying attention to the sky. "Not as well as I could have," she muttered.

  Thunder rumbled, and Tiva looked up at shining gray clouds hurrying across the sky, sped on by the wind that threatened to pull her headscarf off. "I need to get home," she said.

  "As do they." The woman waved a hand at Tiva's basket.

  "Oh, the sandrats." Tiva looked around. There were spine trees here, gnarled by wind and lack of water. Strong trees, survivors in a way different from those in the gorge bottom. When she walked over to inspect one, one of the adult sandrats leaped from basket to branch. It ran along the branch, avoiding spines the length of its body with ease. At the trunk it paused, then scampered upward. Around the trunk, along another branch, it explored the tree from top to bottom.

  It stopped at a whiskery growth tucked between the trunk and the base of a branch. Twisting its long, supple body around the spines, it reached a paw into the nest and brought forth gembugs to crunch. It chittered, and the other adult sandrat followed it to the nest. Tiva watched in fascination as the two opened up the gembug nest and made themselves a hole to hide in. In the doing they spilled what must be generations of gembug carapaces into the sand at the tree's base.

  "Little brother, little sister—Tuwakala—do you want your babies there?"

  The response of the longer, yellower of the pair—the mother, Tiva thought—was to reach out a slender paw and chitter some more. Tiva took the basket off her back and, one by one, transferred s
quirming, squeaking youngsters from the folds of the sack into the hole.

  When she'd moved them all she thought for a moment, then pulled her headscarf off. Storm wind whipped hair into her face, but she ignored that and handed the fabric to the sandrat. "To soften your new nest," she said. It was appropriate, she thought, for the blue stripes in the scarf came from gembug dye. The sandrat pulled the scarf into the hole, blocking the entrance so Tiva could no longer see the sandrat family.

  Thunder crashed, overhead it seemed, and Tiva couldn't help cringing as she looked up. Strands of hair stung her face, and she shivered.

  "A fine storm."

  Tiva started. In her concern for the sandrats she'd forgotten the woman. Now she glanced over to see her standing tall, head thrown back, arms raised above her head. She'd taken off her headscarf, released her knee-length hair from its braids, and it writhed around her like something living. Tiva wanted to hide behind the tree, spines or no. Surely this was no normal woman, but a god. What would a god see in Tiva, the painter who never painted?

  A gust tore the headscarf from the woman's hand, and Tiva seized it before it could be blown away.

  "Keep that," the woman said, turning her face to the wind.

  Tiva also faced into the wind, that her hair would be blown back from her face and she could tame it with the green-and-brown headscarf. What should she think, that this powerful being had given her a token?

  "We must go now." The woman set off running through the desert, angling against the wind. Her destination seemed the line on the horizon where the cliffs of Ayantavi lay.

  Tiva looked at the gembug carapaces spilled beneath the spine tree, wanting to pick them up. But the woman had said they must go now. She could return for the gembugs another day.

  She shouldered her basket and, feet sure in the harder dirt past the gorge's lip, ran after the woman. The woman was already far ahead and she pushed herself, lengthening her stride. The wind shifted, pushing at her back rather than her side, as if to help her catch up.