The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “See my silver collar? I got it from one of your proud hunters. He came looking for me, arrogant shit, thinking he’d slaughter me. I drew him on, through my trees; soon the fool was lost, far from his meek slaves and his high house. What a surprise when I leaped out to face him!

  “He tried to run me down, laughing, with his sharp lance aimed at my heart. Oh, but I got him then! My spear went through him and pinned him to a tree. His beast fled from under him and he hung howling. Then it was my laugh, old fucker! I sawed away his head and had his silver collar.

  “And this, my arm ring with pictures: see this? The beasts run round it, and little hunters chase, but never catch them. Seen this before? I caught the overseer who wore this. All one afternoon I lay in wait, all one afternoon I watched him use his whip across my people’s backs. I got him when he went into the woods to make filth. I made him suffer before I split his head, like a rotten melon, in two pieces.

  “You think we’re all slaves, all weak, all weeping, all frightened of you! Not me!”

  The old Rider listened to him in amazement, studied him as he spoke. He licked his dry lips and managed to smile.

  “But only you. Only one of you brave. All the rest, slaves who cry like babies. No big words from them, only ‘Oh! Oh! Spare me! Please!’ “

  “There’ll be others,” said Gard. “Other free people will join me. We’ll kill you all and we’ll take our land back!”

  The old Rider grinned through his blood. “Eehhhh? Big brave slaves join you? I think no. Just you, big slave with hairy face. Just you alone fight. What for?”

  “For my people!” shouted Gard, and struck him in the face.

  The Rider’s head rolled; he spat out blood and laughed. “Your people. You think people thank you? They never thank you.” The Rider turned his furious gaze toward the fields, toward the houses beyond and the smoke still going up from his burning home. “I was Leader, there. I was wise. I was strong. When we lost old land, I found my people this new place. Good fields here. Good hunting. Many slaves. We grew big.

  “Eehhhhh … shitten little boys be young men soon. My child fight me. My child! Stronger than me now. The old man goes down, pah! And the young man take his animals, and his wives, and his gold. Burn his house. He say, ‘Die, old man!’ and my people say, ‘Die, old man!’ No one speak for me.

  “Put me out here for monsters like you to kill. You Leader fight for them, you give them good things, your people. Eehhhhh, but you see someday: long time come, they throw you out too. No speaking for you, no thanking you.

  “And why? People be shitten, monster. All people. Old man tells you so, young monster. Old man knows. Kill them all, all …”

  “I’ll kill you,” said Gard sternly. “You’re evil.”

  And he stabbed the old man through the throat, because he was sick of the sound of his voice, and stove in his head with a rock, because he didn’t want it as a trophy. He walked away feeling angry and miserable, as though he wanted to wash.

  He went home, climbing up the mountain where the shrill wind whistled around the stones, and the scree slid down. The sun glared in the hard bright sky, throwing his shadow stark and black. He looked down on the soft green lands, a long stone’s throw away, but to his people so lost they might have been on the sun. He turned his face to the place of exiles, the dark cave mouths in the high rock.

  Gard went in at the door where his family sheltered; sat and lay his long spear across his feet. Teliva, old woman, smiled for him as she pounded something in a bowl. The girl Luma ducked her head, shy. Ranwyr hardly noticed him, tired eyes like broken eggs, mouth bruised with mantras, mumbling prayers.

  Gard watched, dissatisfied, a taste of poison in his mouth. Luma’s long fingers worked, twisted seed-pod fiber into thread. After an hour she had a skein of fine yarn; and Ranwyr had nothing to show for that hour but whispered syllables.

  Gard looked about and saw no stores of food. Teliva went to the water gourds, but they were empty; she picked two up and shuffled for the door. “No.” Gard rose to his feet, took the gourds from her. “I’ll go for water, Mother. Ranwyr! You come help me.”

  Ranwyr opened his eyes, bewildered. “No, no!” said Teliva. “He works so hard. He was up all night, studying. Let him be.”

  So Gard went alone to the spring, fetching back water. He went out again to the meadows and dug roots and gathered acorns; he came back and filled the storage baskets in the cave. Teliva smiled at him. But when she dippered out the evening meal, she first served beardless Ranwyr.

  Gard ate in silence, scowling. The old Rider sat at his side and mocked him, as only the dead may do; he took away the savor of Gard’s meal. At last Gard rose and took his spear, and now Ranwyr saw and rose to follow him out.

  “Thank you,” said Ranwyr. “I hadn’t noticed the gourds were empty. I meant to fetch water, but I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  “That’s because you’re a fool,” said Gard, “and lazy. You sit there all day with your eyes closed! And the Riders still ride, thanks to cowards like you.”

  He strode off into the night.

  Ranwyr went to the Star in his high place, where he sang under the milky stars.

  “Bright One, bring me peace,” said Ranwyr. “I can’t learn the Songs. I shame my mother, my sister. Why do I fail? My brother walks in the abyss, he reeks of blood, he’s made of rage. Yet his trees bear, and mine die in the blossom.”

  The Star turned his eyes upon him, broken lights shining from two sunken caves.

  “No. Hoarded skulls will not ransom us, Ranwyr; still all our race will rise proud and free. Sunset does not make the dawn false! Don’t think our sun will never rise again.”

  “I would give my life to make it rise,” said Ranwyr.

  Silence, under the silver mist burning; the shattered eyes were dim. The Star spoke at last:

  “Be steadfast, Ranwyr. Soon enough, our people will require all you have. No one will call you a coward, when your moment comes.”

  Ranwyr went home, without peace.

  Low gray stubble in the fields of the strangers, raw earth littered with dead yellow leaves, a sickle hanging on a fence; birdcall, the lines of marsh fowl streaming off slowly, deserting.

  Down in the black slave pens, plague and death came. Packed against the walls, the slaves in stewing torpor rotted. The Star walked among them, bringing starlight and clean air, healing with a cool touch. Five of his disciples walked in his steps, unseen, unknown by the Riders who feasted above in the high halls.

  But the wind came up from the valley and brought death, even to the cold clean places where the free still lived. Ranwyr himself felt the thorn in his throat, the coals behind his eyes. He himself sank, and gasped, drowning in flame of fever. Teliva couldn’t wake him; she screamed for Gard, who came and laid aside his spear.

  He turned his uneasy hand to healing. All he knew to do was fetch water and wipe away sick sweat, but he did, and raised his dark uncertain voice in song. He thought the fever would spread like fire, eating through his family.

  “Go to the Star,” he told Luma. “Go up and save yourself; live and bear children.”

  Luma ran weeping, ran to the Star himself as he returned from the slave pens. He came quick, without a word, though he had been three days and nights without rest. In Teliva’s shelter he found Gard still well, holding down Ranwyr, who raved and fought as Teliva mourned. Cool air came in with the Star; soft light came in with him; water-distilling mist came in with him and quenched the fire that burned Ranwyr.

  Luma helped the Star, doing as he instructed her to do. He praised the skill of her hands and her quick understanding. All the while he stayed, she remained beside him, brought him all he required. She watched his cool hands and wished they would touch her heart, ease her pain.

  When Ranwyr’s fever broke, when the Star went back to his high place—then Luma went with him. She begged to be taught the Songs, and he welcomed her into his service.

  Ranwyr opened sun
ken eyes at last to see Gard sitting by the door, his spear across his feet. Ranwyr sat up, looking in wonder at the old woman sleeping deathlike. Quick and bitter was the memory of young Teliva’s face, radiant, flowers in her hair. He saw no sister. He looked his question at Gard; his tongue was too swollen in his mouth to speak.

  “The girl has gone,” said Gard. “They call your Star the Comforter of Widows, and so he is; they ought to call him Comforter of Maidens too. Drink! Here’s the water gourd. Don’t you die, or Mother will follow you. Be brave, for once in your life.”

  “You never got sick?” Ranwyr asked.

  Gard shook his head. “My luck. If you can call it luck, to live here now. Your Star can free as many as he likes from out the slave pens; what’s the use, when sickness reaches out to kill us here? This is one more thing they’ve done to us, the Riders, with the dirty way they live. We never knew sickness until they came.” And Gard spat out the door.

  Ranwyr laid his head down. He dreamed of flying over the mountains to green groves.

  Teliva woke and tottered back and forth as she fetched water, as she prepared meals. Her talk was all of hope. Gard listened and forbore to argue.

  Ranwyr lay dull and listless, watching the light on the wall. When he rose, Teliva praised him for his strength, and every word she spoke burned him. Why should he be praised for anything, who had failed in everything? He walked out into the flat sunlight and looked at the empty world. He walked a long way, not meaning to go anywhere.

  He slept out in the open that night, heedless of the danger, in wild despair flinging his heart against the night sky, a bloody rag to catch the notice of the stars. By morning all his tears were gone.

  Ranwyr woke upon a grim and stony heath, far up a mountainside. Numb, he crawled to a little stream, bathed his face, and lay there for a while. He had been staring at a withered stump for some few minutes when it moved, became a twisted wrinkled thing, pulling long mustaches. Ranwyr leaped to his feet. The thing laughed, cold and low.

  “So you’re the one who spent the night bleating and wailing on the cold hillside! Well, what’s the matter? Not that I can’t guess: some new offenses by the strangers, is it? More of the valley cut into squares and lines?” The speaker smiled and showed his saber fangs. He was a demon, of the kind that used to trade with Ranwyr’s people.

  Ranwyr spoke with caution, for he remembered well they were good neighbors only sometimes. Respectfully he said, “Pardon me, father, if I disturbed your rest. You guess rightly why I wept. Things go badly with my people now. It’s not enough that they should make us slaves; the Riders have defiled the very earth, maybe past all hope of cleanness. I think we will all die.”

  The demon yawned, considering his words. “Now, there’s a pity. I remember when your people came along—pretty little things, pleasing to the eye, if cobwebs to the tooth. They kept to the forests and the shade, had lovely manners. The strangers, now, they know no courtesy at all. But they make lovely meat.” He flicked his tongue, forked, over saw-edged teeth, and blinked in amusement.

  “It was to be expected that a race as old and wise as yours would weather well, against invaders. But we pass lamenting from the world,” said Ranwyr.

  “Too bad. But so it is! You need teeth and claws to survive, teeth and claws and little tricks like this—” And in the sun the demon stretched. His lumpy shape ran and blurred, till golden on the grass a great cat sprawled. “Now let any fool with a spear walk in my path! Oh, don’t fear: if I had wanted you, I’d have killed you by this time.” For Ranwyr was shaking, but not with fear, not with fear.

  “Long-lived father of the stony hills, if ever there was love between your race and mine, then help me now! For I see a way my people might be free, and all our sorrow ended.”

  “I do nothing out of love, my child. It’s not my way. But let me hear what help you want from me; then we can bargain, though I promise nothing.”

  So on the bare hillside in morning light they sat: the youth intent and gesturing with hands spread wide, the demon peering out of time.

  “Oh, father of the mountains, your mountains ring us round. We cannot escape through bitter cold, and ice, and rimy air. But if there were a way to get across without perishing of cold, we’d take that way and live in green places, just as we did long ago. Beyond the mountains there are groves where sorrow never comes; beyond the mountains age and death can’t hunt us.

  “And if we flew—if we could shift our shapes to bird and back again, then as a flock we’d soar above the mountains and the snow, and light in groves of everlasting peace. Teach me how to wear a raven’s skin, storm-dark, scythe-winged! And I will pay you any price you name, so I may teach my people this.”

  A grimace split the demon’s countenance. “You are a fool. Now, tell me what you have to pay me with, when I make my demand. A wreath of flowers? Drifts of pretty leaves? The smoothest river pebbles you can find? Or fruit and berries, yes, to give my teeth a rest from cracking fatty marrowbones? But that is all your wealth. Listen to me, boy! My price shall be your pain. I thrive on pain.

  “Shape-shifting is no easy thing to learn, for such little cloud-creatures as you are. For you it will be mounded agony, and I will watch, and that will be my joy. But you will learn the discipline of mind that makes you master over bone and sinew, yes; you’ll learn to realign the very cells that make yourself. You will ride on wings, young man, you have my oath on that. How you will teach your people I don’t know. That’s your concern. What do you say?”

  “Suffering is nothing,” said Ranwyr. “Give me wings.”

  Down from that place the days and nights went by. Ranwyr was given up for lost, taken or slain, and Gard scowled down his pride and thought about the Star. He meant to find Luma, whomever she lay with, and commend their mother into her care; he hoped grandchildren might ease grandmother’s grief. Teliva wouldn’t go, waiting by the door for Ranwyr’s return.

  One dim morning she woke with bright wonder in her eyes. “I dreamed last night I saw my son. Gard, come lead me out to some safe place where I may bathe, and there I’ll pray, as the Star tells us to pray. He’ll come home soon now, I know he will.”

  Gard, good son, did as his mother asked. He took her to a pool he knew, screened by reeds, warmed by sunlight, too high for hooves, unknown to any Rider. He left her there, telling her to stay; he promised he’d be back for her at sunset. Then he went down the mountain, on his business of blood, and lay in wait to cut a Rider’s throat.

  But mothers never act according to the plans of sons. Teliva at midday came back, fearful to be so long away from the cold and empty nest. There she wept, for its emptiness and her own, remembering how once her arms had been so full.

  Across the doorway came a shadow; into her ears came the voice out of her dream. “Oh, Mother, forgive me! See, I’ve come back safe.”

  Ranwyr stood there smiling, thin and bent. Teliva in fresh flood of tears pressed close, she could not even speak, and clinging tight to him she trembled. He smiled and kissed her.

  “I can’t stay long. I came back to let you know where I’d gone, what I do. I’ll tell you everything, but let me get a little sleep, only a little sleep or I will die. Just let me sleep …”

  Teliva made him a bed, sweet straw new-shaken and red leaves, where he lay down and stretched out with a sigh. Then Teliva saw his back and screamed to see the sign, deep-cut and bleeding still: a scythe-winged raven, its outline scored into his living flesh.

  “My child, my child! Who did this thing to you?”

  Ranwyr caught her hands and pulled her close. “Don’t touch it! No enemy did this, but a friend. I’ve shed my blood to give us wings, Mother! The pattern’s only the sign of what I’ve learned, and what I’ll teach. Do you remember Shaff, the traveler? Maybe he found no track across the mountains, but we won’t need one. When this is done, we’ll fly safe above them, to the forests on the other side.”

  Teliva did not understand, but saw the desperate hope in his eyes
. She caught the spark, and her face lit with joy. “Now, blessed was the hour when I first felt you move under my heart! My son, my good and clever son, how brave you are! The Star himself will come and bless your name. Lie down again, take your rest. I’ll fetch clean water to bathe you.”

  Teliva took the jug and hurried, dancing like a girl, and at the high pool met Gard searching for her, fearful of her harm. Her hair was wild, tears streamed down as she laughed; he thought she had broken under sorrow at last. She clapped her hands and cried, “Your brother, Gard, what a brother you have! My brave Ranwyr brings us such a gift! He’s learning magic, and he’ll set us free!”

  Dark eyes narrowed under black brows. Gard said, “Then Ranwyr has come back?”

  Teliva sang her words. “Yes, yes, alive and safe! He’s resting now—I must draw water, I want to wash his dear feet—”

  Gard put her from him, turned to stride down the track, his brow a thunderbolt; the white anger in his heart surged up, a fountain, a boiling torrent. He came to the shelter and saw Ranwyr there, dim in the shadows.

  “Where have you been sulking all this time? Have you no shame, to tell our mother lies?”

  Ranwyr lifted heavy eyes in stiff face, dull with sleep. Dazed, he mumbled, “I haven’t told her lies.”

  Gard shouted back, “She broke her heart for you, to think that you were killed, you wretch! And you were hiding all the while, coward, useless coward, leaving me to watch her alone! Get on your feet, lazy fool!”

  Ranwyr sat up, drew deep breath for pain, and put out both his hands. “I wasn’t hiding. The thing I’ve done will save her life, and your life, all our lives. I went up to the empty places. We’ll all be birds, my brother, and we’ll fly away.”

  Gard seized Ranwyr’s arm and pulled him up. “Magic! How stupid do you think I am? Will you stand on your feet, for once?”

  “Don’t shout at me! I feel so strange—the power’s here, but wild, and I’m still incomplete—”