To Ride a Rathorn

by P. C. Hodgell

  In the next tapestry, the same girl knelt beside the body of a woman who, arms full of boy's clothing, had tumbled down a flight of stairs and broken her neck.

  Brenwyr beat her blind face with clenched fists. "Oh, mother, I didn't mean to curse you. I didn't. I didn't. But I am a Shanir maledight, a monster. What can I do but harm? Adiraina, grandmother-kin, you tell me to be strong and so I have been. The Iron Matriarch they call me, but they don't know. They don't know. Aerulan, sister-kin, you gave me strength, and love, and then you died. Oh, I cursed your murderer and doom fell on him, but you are still dead. And now must I lose your banner too? He tossed you to me, ancestors damn him, like a bone to a dog! The insult, the shame. I should curse him. No, no, I have already cursed his sister. 'Rootless and roofless' . . . damn you, Jameth!"

  Jame flinched. That was the same harsh, heart-broken cry that had drawn her here.

  Then she fought to keep her balance. Only now did she realize that she was again wearing Aerulan's clothes, including the tight underskirt that practically bound her legs together. To fall over at the Brandon's feet would be awkward, to say the least. She wondered in passing if "damn you" counted as a maledight curse.

  Brenwyr said it again, with a breaking voice. "You stole her, seduced her with that accursed Knorth charm. Ah, how well I remember it. How I have felt it, even with you. On the road. In the cold. Did you sleep with her?"

  That, thought Jame, still tottering precariously, was one way to put it. She had retrieved Aerulan's banner from the tree where the Tishooo had left it and taken it north with her. Yes, the nights had been cold. Yes, she had used the banner as a blanket for warmth and sometimes woke to feel her cousin's comforting arms around her. Willow wasn't the first of the dead with whom she had shared comfort. It probably wouldn't help, though, to say that she had slept not only with Brenwyr's beloved but under her.

  As the matriarch paced on and on, the shadows kept pace with her from tapestry to tapestry, mirroring her thoughts, mocking them.

  You are ugly, dangerous, a killer, they said. Who could love you but one of the mad Knorth, and now she is dead. Maledight, monster. Curse yourself and die.

  Jame watched the roil of dark stitches and wondered. Doubtless, the Brandan Matriarch had a terrible opinion of herself, and the possible loss of Aerulan had stirred up all the destructive self-loathing at the bottom of her soul, but this seemed extreme. Moreover, she sensed another presence in the room, slyly lurking. If she, Jame, was here, why not someone else? As if in answer, the stitches of the nearest tapestry seethed like so many maggots into the semblance of a masked face that turned to look at Jame askance. It smiled.

  I told you. My name is legion, as are my forms and the eyes through which I see. Miserable orphan of a ruined house, do you know me now?

  "Oh, yes," breathed Jame, her fists clenching, nails biting palms. "We met in the eyes of your tempter and again when you spoke through that wretched boy whom you hag-rode to his death. Worm in the weave, I name you, and witch in the tower. Rawneth, the great bitch of Wilden."

  The other began to laugh, and Jame went for her, claws first. The face distorted in a soundless scream as her nails hooked in it and tore downward. The fabric disintegrated into striped, twitching threads and slimy clots that slopped to the floor, stinking like the contents of an unplugged drain.

  "Ugh," said Jame, regarding her befouled nails, wondering if she would ever get them clean again.

  Brenwyr had spun around. "Who's there?" she demanded harshly. "Name yourself, so that I may know whom to curse."

  Jame floundered to her feet, fighting not only the tight undergarment but the full outer skirt. Trinity, neither had been this bad in the real world. In them, she might hop or roll, but little else. The Brandan Matriarch was advancing on her, arms blindly groping. Her sleeves, her very hands, trailed threads as her entire soul-image began to unravel. Over her shoulder, Jame saw Aerulan.

  Go, mouthed her cousin, so urgently that the stitches sealing her woven lips snapped and bled.

  Jame ducked away, lost her balance again and, in a sharp ripping of undergarments, toppled through the hole left by the disintegrating tapestry. As she fell away into the outer darkness of the soulscape, she saw the receding image of Brenwyr. The matriarch had stopped, her shoulders slumped. Then she drew herself up and began slowly, grimly, to pull back together the frayed threads of her being.

  IV

  The soulscape seemed to connect all individual soul-images, but it wasn't clear to Jame exactly how. One could get lost in here forever, or stumble into something really nasty, as she just had.

  Trinity, could Rawneth wander here as she pleased, or did she only infest Brenwyr's soul-image? There, she had clearly found a chink in the Iron Matriarch's armor, and Brenwyr was too blinded by grief and rage to defend herself. Jame sensed that she had expelled the Witch at least temporarily. But there were other banners in Brenwyr's soul-image, other "eyes" through which that malignant creature might peer. Somehow, the matriarch must shed that accursed seeker's mask. Aerulan, or rather her banner, was the key, but one problem at a time.

  It was hard, though, not to think what power it would give one to have free range of the soulscape. Trinity, what a way to find things out, if not to destroy one's enemies outright. She pictured herself armored and deadly, cutting a swathe through the rotten patches of the soulscape, up to the Master's very door. But why stop there? Why not pursue the monster into his maze and there destroy him once and for all? Why have such power if not to use it?

  Nemesis.

  The word emerged out of the darkness as a harsh cough, as if it were trying to dislodge clinkers in the throat. With it came the stench of burnt fur.

  What have you done now?

  The name drew her, but not as strongly as "Jameth" had done. After all, while she was clearly a nemesis, aligned with That-Which-Destroys, she wasn't yet the Nemesis, Third Face of God. Dammit, what had she done now except defend herself . . . and rip the guts out of a putrid banner in someone else's soul-image . . . and blood-bind a rathorn.

  Where was the colt? What if she had really killed him . . . but wouldn't she know if she had? She reached deep into her own soul, to a part that ached like an over-taxed muscle. Weakness sent quivers through all her limbs. He hadn't the stamina for this. She felt his exhaustion threatening to undo them both.

  No, she told herself. Be strong. Be angry.

  That blasted cat, Arrin-ken be damned. If he must prowl the soulscape, why didn't he go after the Witch for tormenting Brenwyr? So much was rotten in the Kencyrath, both openly and in secret. Honor had been twisted until for some Highborn it was nothing but a Lawful Lie, and the breaking of it of little more importance. Where were the judges that should call such oath-breakers to justice? What worms ever now were undermining from within the fabric of the Three People so that all in the end might fall to ruin?

  Her throat hurt. She had shouted her questions into the darkness. Now she waited for a reply.

  Nothing.

  Then, faintly, she heard someone calling her:

  Kinzi-kin. Come. Please.

  When she turned toward the voice, another tapestry hung before her. This one depicted a garden in full bloom, and all the blooms were white. Pushing it aside, she stepped into the Moon Garden.

  V

  For a moment, Jame thought that she was in the real garden at Gothregor, which she had discovered the previous winter during her ceaseless wanderings through the empty eastern halls. It occupied a secret courtyard abutting the Ghost Walks, where the women of her house had lived before the massacre and, when she had last seen it, it had been a riot of snowy blossoms in the early spring.

  So it still was, although the year had passed well into summer. Moreover, the lofty comfrey, lacy yarrow, heart's ease and self-heal all glowed softly in the dusk while pollen floated, glimmering, on the still air. At the north end grew an flowering apple tree where none had been before. Under it sat a pale lady, with the head of the rathorn cr
adled in her lap.

  Lully lully lullaby, she sang in a low murmur, stroking his white neck and mane. Dream of meadows, free of flies . . .

  "Isn't this Kindrie's soul-image?" Jame asked, perplexed. "How did you get here?"

  The lady paused and raised her head, the right side turned away. Who is Kindrie?

  Her lips didn't move. They never had, Jame realized, when she spoke, and that was only when she wore the aspect of a woman.

  "Kinzi's great-grandson. He was born in this garden—the real one, I mean. His mother Tieri, Kinzi's grand-daughter, died here."

  She glanced at the southern wall where Tieri's death banner should have hung. Moss and shadow suggested that gentle, sad face against the stones, but nothing more. For that matter, she supposed that while all soul-images were unique, people must model them after something familiar to them. She would have liked the garden for her own soul's haven, although for her it probably would sprout carnivorous daisies and flights of bright-winged carrion jewel-jaws.

  The White Lady was shaking her head. Names, names, names. Never born, never lived, never died. Her hand stole up to her hidden cheek, touched it, jerked away. Someone hurt me. Who? And my lady dead? No, no, no. This is all a bad dream, and so are you. Go away.

  She bent again over the colt, crooning,

  Dream of friends who never lie,

  And of love that never dies . . .

  The whole garden had a strange texture, best seen out of the corner of the eye, a sort of cross-hatching.

  At Perimal's Cauldron, the Whinno-hir had said that she had spoken to Kinzi, that the matriarch's blood had trapped her soul in the weave of her death.

  Jame touched a nearby lily. Its white petals looked like cool, living velvet, but they felt like coarse, damp cloth. "I think," she said, "that we are in the background of Lady Kinzi's death banner."

  If, however, this was the remnant of her great-grandmother's soul-image, might some element of her still inhabit it?

  But all life must end in sighs,

  So lully lully lullaby.

  A square of candle-light glimmered on the garden, silvering grass and flower, changing their shadows to pewter. It fell from an open window set high in the northern, outer wall, where the Ghost Walks began. During her visits here in the flesh, Jame had noticed the bricked up aperture, but had not known to whom that lovely view down into the garden had belonged, much less why it had been obstructed. Now a figure stood at the open window in dark silhouette against the flickering light. She had heard that Kinzi was a small, trim woman, and so was this silent watcher, although nothing could be seen of her face. What a long shadow that tiny figure had cast, until assassins cut it short.

  Jame felt suddenly, acutely, self-conscious. She still wore the remnants of Aerulan's clothes, little better than tatters, and no mask. Moreover, the rags stank with the residual effluvium of the shredded tapestry. This time, not only had she arrived inappropriately clothed but reeking like an open sewer. She saluted the figure in the window with as much dignity as she could muster. Perhaps the other nodded slightly in reply, perhaps not. Life, death, and the abyss of time lay between them.

  Lully lully lullaby . . .

  The sad little song began again, lamenting all that had been lost. Lives, hope, honor, all gone, and only the victims were left to pay, and pay, and pay. A house in ruins. Her house. A family put to the knife, and that too hers. Vengeance be damned. Where was justice?

  Be strong. Be angry.

  Jame was pacing now, impatiently plucking off sodden rags. She felt dangerous. She felt deadly. All that she had shouted into the darkness echoed in her mind, the challenge unanswered. Her god was no help—long ago, those three faces had turned away—and his judges went their own inscrutable way, far from the walks of those whom they were to have served.

  The garden fell gradually into shadow, the inner light of its blooms flickering out one by one.

  "You leave us in the dark, and damn us when we stumble."

  Her angry voice came back flat and muffled, off stone walls that were in fact cloth, threadbare leavings of the dead.

  "You let honor perish and those who flaunt it prosper."

  Remember that all men do lie,

  If not in words, then deeds belie. . .

  "You demand that we fight your battles, yet the weapons that you give us shatter in our hands."

  To whom was she speaking? Did it matter? She flung out the words like knives, not caring whom they hit.

  "Yet through this all, we are bound to keep faith?"

  "Watch where you tread."

  The voice grumbled down, huge, like thunder in the mountains. This time, there was an echo. Jame stopped short. During her rant, space had changed around her. She could still see the lit window, but it seemed lower than before, the fire in it dying in a wrought iron grate. Of Kinzi, if indeed it had been she, there was no sign. Instead, Whinno-hir and rathorn colt huddled together in the embers' ruddy glow. Walls still surrounded them and the drum tower of the Ghost Walks still loomed over head, but then the latter shifted on its foundations. Stone ground on stone. Grit rattled down. Was it going to fall? No. Slowly, ponderously, it began to rock. Back and forth. Back and forth. And it had gone all lumpy, more toward the bottom than the top, against which a faint, full moon seemed to be rising.

  . . . click, click, click . . .

  Needles, knitting—what, Jame couldn't see, but as for who . . . . She gulped.

  "Mother Ragga, how did I . . . that is, how did we get into your lodge?"

  A grunt of disgust made the air shake, as if something massive had fallen. What Jame had thought to be the moon leaned over her, glowering. Mother Ragga had a face not unlike a monstrous dumpling gone bad, soft here, bulging there, alight with mottled indignation.

  "This is what the Merikit call sacred space—Rathillien's soulscape, as it were. You always did creep inside, girl, whenever you found a chink. Since those idiots invited you through the front door as my Favorite, though, there seems to be no keeping you out, short of killing you. I'm considering that."

  "What? But why?"

  "Look where you have trodden."

  The upper reaches of the room might be the lodge, grown large enough to swallow an army whole, but the dirt floor where Ragga kept her earth map was still the Moon Garden, or what was left of it. Jame saw with dismay that in raging back and forth she had destroyed a wide swath of it. Comfrey, yarrow, and heart's-ease lay not just broken under her feet but rotting, with the threads of Kinzi's banner showing through like tendons laid bare. She flexed her hands, staring at the ivory gauntlets that gloved them. She wore armor from throat to loins but, like the rathorn, only on the front. The draft from behind was disconcerting.

  She had dreamed of slashing through the soulscape, a warrior clad in gleaming ivory, destroying all that was rotten in it. What if, however, like the Ivory Knife, everything that she touched died, the fair with the foul? Was that what it meant to be the Third Face of God?

  "You asked why," grumbled that enormous voice. "You ask much. But what will your answers cost? It isn't the Favorite's role to ask but to act, yet that might be worse. What about the summer solstice, eh?"

  Jame had nearly forgotten, and it wasn't far off.

  "Didn't we take care of my part in that on Summer's Eve?" she asked nervously. "After all, I've already fought last year's Favorite—sort of. It wasn't my idea to combine that rite with establishing the boundaries, nor to get dragged into either one of them, for that matter."

  "Huh. Well I know it, and little it matters. There are rules. Remember, not only does the Favorite mate with the Earth Wife for the fertility of the land, but then she passes off her lover to her consort the Burnt Man as their son. It's called 'fooling death.' "

  "Who makes up these games anyway?" Jame asked.

  The rocking stopped for a moment. "Don't know. Doesn't matter. They just are. I might blink at some of 'em, but the Burnt Man won't. Not now, anyway. Since you became involved, he's s
omehow gotten mixed up with that blind judge of yours. Bad breath, a worse attitude, and he's out of his tiny little cinder of a mind. Then there's you, another disaster waiting to happen. Oh, you may regret it afterward and try to make amends, but some things once broken can never be mended."

  And they will hunt you till you die, sang the Whinno-hir Bel-tairi on the Earth Wife's hearth, rocking the white-haired boy that was the rathorn colt.

  And then your mouth will fill with flies,

  So lully lully lullaby.

  The Earth Wife's face filled half the sky, and her anger pressed down as one feels the weight of a mountain from within a cave or that of a boulder poised to fall. "Did you hear that, you wretched girl? What did you people do to this poor creature? She came to me wounded in body and soul. I sheltered her in my lodge—days, years, what does time matter? Then her lady called her forth. Is her torment to begin all over again? I tell you straight, I'd rather destroy the lot of you than go through that again. Don't think that I can't! And what's the matter with that colt?"