Aras had been shivering, but gradually he stilled. I felt his breathing slow and knew he was asleep. I did not feel near sleep at all. I felt light and clear, all the past stripped away so that I rested in a moment caught out of time, a moment in which grief and anger and confusion dissolved into crystalline silence.
The fengol lay on the earth for the rest of that day and the night and through most of the next day. Though we had very little to eat, only a little meat and a few raw mushrooms, hunger did not much trouble me. I put snow in the bowl to melt in the warmth of our bodies. It was enough that thirst was not a torment. I slept and woke and slept again, suffering neither dreams nor nightmares. Despite his doubt, Aras slept deeply most of the time, resting in the peace the fengol had brought me.
At last, when I felt the fengol had lifted, I pushed carefully out of our shelter and into the light of a clear and beautiful evening. The Moon waited in the sky for the Sun to climb down beneath the world so she could hold up her light. To the south, the edges of the Little Knife had turned gold as the Sun threw the last of his light across the black stone.
Aras stirred, but I said, “Wait. Only wait. I will find something to eat. Rest.” Taking the bow, I walked into the forest.
I came back in the light of the Moon, with a porcupine that had not sought shelter quickly enough. Slow animals like porcupines suffer more from the fengol than creatures swifter or more clever. This one should have stayed tucked up in his shelter, but clear weather had tempted him out at the wrong time. He was frozen too hard to skin quickly, so I had made a little travois so that I could drag him without risking his quills.
Aras had made a fire, so I sat there to skin the porcupine. There is a trick to that. It is more difficult when the animal is frozen and besides that I was clumsy with hunger, so I had to draw two quills from my thumb. The pain was trivial, but I think irritation at my own clumsiness was enough to wake the anger and hatred that waited for me. Or perhaps it was only that the peace of the fengol had lifted farther from the world by that time. I set the quills aside, thinking of my elder sister, who liked to sew porcupine quills into complicated designs on cloaks and boots. I knew, I thought I knew, that she would sew many more quills all through the years to come. But I remembered her wailing over the torn body of her young son until a Lau soldier slashed her throat and left her body tumbled over her child’s. I remembered her blood in the snow, her husband crying out in despair because he could not protect her or the boy . . .
Aras drew a breath and bowed his head. I could see he was setting himself to endure, and I remembered him saying, What you do to me with your thoughts hurts me much worse. I remembered feeling sorry for that, but I could not imagine why I should have been so weak. After what he had done to my sister, my people, he deserved anything I did to him. I had been cutting slivers of porcupine meat and threading them on twigs to cook, but now I stopped. Changing my grip on the knife, I began to get to my feet.
He did not look at me, but he asked, his voice not quite steady, “Does the fengol always bring such serenity? What do you call it? The hammer of the gods?”
The worst of the hatred eased. I remembered, as though from a far distance, that my sister and her son might still be alive. None of that had happened. Maybe it had not happened. Probably it had not.
Shuddering, I knelt down again and returned to cutting the meat from the bones. The porcupine was a young, fat animal, big enough to make a good meal for both of us. I said slowly, “The soft hammer of the gods. Yes. It brings quiet to the world. I did not realize it might take the memory of the past and the fear of the future.”
“Do your people have a song for it?”
We did, of course. I taught it to him, in taksu and in darau, while I skewered and cooked the porcupine meat and made broth with the bones. I had not felt my weakness until the meat brought strength back to my limbs, but I thought I would rather have had the fengol back with its peace, even if I died of hunger before it lifted. The song ran through my mind, and though I did not sleep much that night, neither did I give way to the hatred.
-22-
In the morning, we walked on, west. That day and the next and the next, Aras sang the songs I had taught him, quietly, though his voice roughened and cracked. Nevertheless, one afternoon I found myself standing with the bow drawn, studying him over the arrow. If he had said a word, if he had backed away or come toward me, if he had moved at all, I would certainly have shot him. He knew it. He did not move or speak, only stood with his gaze lowered.
Overhead, a falcon called. I glanced up, tracing its flight across the perfect, empty sky. I thought of the fengol, of the gods, of the oaths I had sworn. I lowered the bow. “Soon,” I promised him. “It cannot be long now. Soon we will come to my people. Then I will kill you very slowly, where the graves of my people surround us.”
He nodded, not protesting. “Twenty days, you said, Ryo. Twenty days or more from the time we met Hokino inKera. Have we come farther than you expected?”
I was puzzled. I felt we had been walking for twenty days. At least twenty.
“Fifteen days,” he told me. “Only fifteen from that day. Nineteen days altogether.” The corner of his mouth crooked up. “It seems longer to me as well.”
Nineteen days. I turned in a slow circle, letting myself feel the land and the sky. “We have come farther than I expected,” I told him. “You have learned to walk with snow paddles, and with the bow I have not had to delay to hunt. Three more days. Five, maybe. Though I do not know exactly where my mother’s camp will be once we come to inGara territory.” I realized I expected to find my people in the forest. This made no sense to me, since they were all dead ... they had died far south of here, on the other side of the Little Knife; it did not make sense to seek living people so far north ... confusion shook me. I turned and walked away, due west.
And paused, though I did not immediately know why.
Aras stopped, not coming too close to me, looking at me questioningly. “The fengol again, Ryo?”
“No,” I snapped, impatient with such a foolish suggestion. I could feel the sky above us was only an ordinary sky. But I could not decide what was not ordinary.
Then I realized. “Smoke,” I told him, gesturing west and north. “Can you not smell it? It is not close, but there, that way. Someone is cooking meat ... baking bread.”
“Your people?”
“Not here. No,” I said sharply. “That will be inGeiro.” I stood irresolute. Then I said, “The inGeiro are close allies. Some of my people may be there with them.” I strode away, walking fast, knowing he would follow.
As I had expected, it was an inGeiro camp. A camp of women, of course; the warriors would be in the south. Four great tents centered the camp. Those belonged to older women with large families, many children and grandchildren. Designs had been worked into the sides of the great tents, showing that they were inGeiro. They would show the family as well, but of those, I recognized only the design of Lutra inGeiro, who was the wife of the inGeiro warleader and the foremost singer of their tribe.
Among and around the great tents stood many smaller tents, round instead of five-sided. Those were the tents of younger women, or some would be shared by boys near to becoming men. Ponies were picketed to one side, and on the other, children guarded racks of drying meat from the dogs and from ravens. The racks were full, and I could see many rough-cured furs that had been rolled with the fur on the inside, set to freeze until they could be finished. Here in the forest, the war that had come to us was not evident. Nor was the hardship that lay upon the herds out in the steppe. This was a prosperous camp.
But they were not my people.
But they would know what had happened to the inGara.
If they told me my family and all the inGara were dead, then I would know all my grief and rage were real after all. I could not bear to discover that it was all real.
Taking Aras roughly by the arm, I turned to walk back into the forest. West. I would take him t
o the places my own people should be, and if they were not there, I would look again farther north—I would not have to know—
“Ryo,” Aras said quietly.
“I don’t want to speak to these people,” I said, and thought, sudden and vivid and sharp as shattering ice, I want to kill you.
He twisted his arm sharply, breaking my grip, and backed away, his face guarded. I took a step toward him, setting my hand on the hilt of my knife.
“Ryo!” cried a different voice, utterly unexpected, utterly familiar. I turned sharply, forgetting Aras completely.
My younger sister hurled herself into my arms, wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and her legs around my waist, and demanded, “What are you doing here? We thought you were dead, but then the inKera sent us a letter—well, they sent it to our mother, of course, but it came here first, we just sent it on some-some days ago—is that a Lau? Is that the Lau in your letter?” Pushing away from me, she whacked me on the shoulder. “Put me down!” she ordered. “You must not pick me up like a child in front of a Lau!”
I put her down. I was not able to speak. She was alive, her face alight with curiosity and confidence as she stared at Aras. She had not been old enough to go, when our women had still traded with the Lau of the borderlands. She had never seen one before. “He’s so tall!” she exclaimed. “But his hair! Did he do something wrong? No, I remember, they all cut their hair so short. Is his skin that color all over?” She turned to look at me accusingly. “He looks cold, Ryo. Were you just going to stand out here and let him freeze?”
I picked her up again despite her squeak of protest. I held her up in the air, and stared at her, filling my eyes with the sight of her and my arms with the real, living weight of her. “Etta,” I said in wonder as she glared down at me. She tried to box my ears, but I set her down before she could. “What are you doing here?”
She faltered. Then she said quietly, “After Garoyo told us ... told us what he ... what had happened ... our father—our mother—anyway, I told our mother I wanted to go somewhere else, live somewhere else for a while. She talked to Lutra inGeiro. They arranged for Lutra to be my inGeiro mother.” She brightened. “Lutra is Iro’s mother’s sister.” Then she began to blush.
I laughed at her. “Iro? And who is Iro?”
She glanced around, and I followed her gaze to a young warrior, seventeen winters perhaps, who was watching from a distance. None of the inGeiro had approached, giving a sister a chance to greet her brother. This young Iro was trying to look unconcerned, but despite the chill of the air, he was wearing a sleeveless shirt and silver armbands on each arm, showing off prizes he had won so that my sister would know he was strong and proud and could make a woman happy. He was careful not to meet my eyes when I looked his way. A young man always has reason to be very, very polite when he meets the older brothers of a girl he admires.
Making my face stern, I said to my sister, “I am sure you could do better than a boy like that. Does he even have fifteen summers yet?”
She hit me on the arm, hard. “Do not dare embarrass him, Ryo!”
I laughed again. She was alive. Alive! She was perfectly well. She was thinking about that young warrior. She had obviously made a place for herself among the inGeiro. She had been teasing the young men, letting them strut and put on their finery and brag and fight each other so that she would admire them.
It was staggeringly different from what I remembered. Obviously no one had ever hurt her, forced her, killed her, while I struggled, helpless and desperate, unable to save her.
It had not happened. None of that had happened. But I remembered it. But it had not happened. I knew she was dead. But she was clearly not dead. Hatred choked me, hatred for the man who had hurt her, murdered her ... he had done nothing. Nothing I remembered was real. I had known that. But I had not been able to believe it. But now I filled my eyes with the reality of my sister and I had to believe it.
“Ryo, are you all right?” Etta asked, her voice going high and breathless.
I turned. Aras met my eyes. Furious hatred shook me, and he bowed his head immediately.
I took a step back, trembling with the desire to kill him. “Can you help me?” I asked him. It was not a question so much as a plea. I realized only gradually that I had spoken in taksu, as I had spoken to my sister, forgetting he did not know it. I lifted a hand to rub my face, my forehead, searching for the darau words as though I had not been speaking almost nothing else for many days. “Is it too late?” I asked him. I knew he would say no, he could not help. I was certain he would say it was too late.
I thought, I will kill myself, and knew it was true. I could not live with the way I was now. Very soon I would kill him, if I did not die myself. But first I must explain to the inGeiro. I could not imagine how to explain anything. I did not know what to say to persuade them to help him. He was Lau, and our peoples were at war. And he had killed so many of my people ... no. No. That was not real.
Now I could not speak in any language, and only looked at him, helpless.
“Ryo?” my sister said uncertainly. “Ryo, what is it?”
“I don’t know if I can put everything right,” Aras said, his eyes on my face, his voice quiet. “I can try.” He looked past me, toward the inGeiro camp, where now everyone was watching, barely pretending not to. Then he came forward a careful step, wary in case I might strike at him. I braced myself to endure the fury that shook me.
He said to my sister, in slow, careful taksu, “Your brother is hurt by a sorcerer. He is hurt very much, in his mind. In his heart. The sorcerer is my enemy. He wish to use your brother to kill me. Your brother save me. Many days he save me. He bring me here. I can help him. I wish very much to help him. I need warm, quiet. Days of warm and quiet.”
Etta stared at him. Her expression was completely different than when she had chattered at me, happy and confident. She asked him in darau, “Are you a sorcerer too?” Her voice was calm, as our mother’s voice would become when some terrible thing happened.
Aras did not look away from her. He said, in darau, “I am the man who can help your brother. I swear before the gods and by the honor of my father and the name of my mother that I will help him if I can. I swear I will not harm anyone here.”
She bit her lip. She looked at me, and back at Aras. “What will happen to my brother if you cannot help him?”
He opened his hands in token of uncertainty. “He might kill himself. If you prevented that, he might get better. Or he might get worse. It’s hard for me to know. I have never seen this kind of damage before.”
“Please,” I said to her. “Etta. I think everything he said is true.”
“Wait,” she said to both of us, breathlessly, and whirled around and ran away, toward the inGeiro.
I knew they would put Aras to death, and probably me as well. What else could they do? Aras had as much as confessed his curse, and what could they think but that I was his slave? I knew I was too far lost in madness to explain why they should not kill him. But perhaps I might be able to tell them why they should let me do it, why I was the one who had the greatest right to his life ... no, that was not real, that was all lies. I fixed my attention on Etta, where she spoke with rapid passion to Lutra inGeiro, so that I might know one thing that was real, one person I loved was still, indisputably, alive.
Confusion and hatred still filled my mind and heart when I looked at Aras, and he flinched, bowing his head and staying very still. I took the sheathed knife from my belt and threw it away, into the snow, and the bow after it, partly because I was afraid I might kill him even now, and partly to show the inGeiro I would not fight them when they came to kill me. They were coming now. Not all of them. Some of the women were taking the children; some of the young men were harnessing the dogs. I saw Iro, Lutra’s son, run away in a different direction, carrying the warning to someone else at a distance from this camp. I knew all those people would leave everything and go north, into country where no Lau could follow, sorc
erer or not. They would run north into the high country because there were no warriors here and they could not be confident they could kill him before he enslaved everyone.
But Lutra inGeiro and a few of the other women and a handful of older boys came to look at me, and at him. I had met Lutra several times; I knew her a little. She was a prosperous, rounded woman with a beautifully round face. She reminded me of my mother, not only in her looks, but because she was the kind of woman who was used to getting her own way. She was a singer, like my mother, and singers are expected to be forceful.
Lutra did not even glance at Aras. All of the inGeiro who came with her pretended not to know he was there, except the boys. They had their knives or bows in their hands, but they did not kill him immediately. They watched Lutra, who came close and said to me, “Ryo inGara. Your letter came here. I think it did not say everything important. What should that letter have said?”
I wanted to answer her. I opened my mouth to answer, but too many things crowded onto my tongue, until I could not speak at all. Nearly everything in my mind was false, and I knew it, but I wanted to say, He killed them all, he should die every death for what he did to my people. It took all my strength not to say it, and then I could not find anything else to say. I shook with hatred and misery. My sister came and leaned against me, and the shaking eased a little. I put my arm around her and managed, “Singer of the inGeiro . . .” but I could not say anything else.
Aras knelt. No one kneels to a woman, but he dropped to his knees in the snow. He held his hands palm up, asking for mercy. That was also not a gesture anyone would make to a woman, but it did not seem wrong now. He said quietly in taksu, “Singer, please. A sorcerer did very bad hurt to his mind. I can help him. Please. I wish very much to help him.”
Now Lutra turned her head, considering him. Her calm expression did not change at all. She said in the same language, “You are a sorcerer also. Or have I been carelessly informed?”
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