A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  Surely, Slade thought, this was good news? In the house of his mother, the birth of a Healer was cause for rejoicing. Yet, Gineah looked more doleful than joyous.

  “This troubles you . . .” he said, tentatively.

  Gineah sighed. “Finders . . . do not thrive. The heat of their gift consumes them. Not all at once, but over a time. Sometimes, a very long time.”

  He stared at her, thinking of Arika, young and frail and fierce, and his eyes filled. “Is there no—”

  “Cure?” she finished for him. “Child, there is no cure for destiny.”

  “Then,” he asked, blinking the tears away, though the empty feeling in his chest remained. “What should I do?”

  “Be the best hunter you are able. Be her friend, as I know you can be, O, wisest and most erifu of hunters. If children come to the tent, care for them. And pray that they were not born to be Finders.”

  Something moved near the flap of the tent, loud to Slade’s hunter-trained ears. He came around, began to rise—and fell back as fire shot through his leg.

  “Rest!” Gineah hissed at him, and went to unlace the flap.

  “Grandmother,” he heard Arika’s voice, thin and vulnerable. “Is Slade with you?”

  “He is. A woman pushed him from your tent while you were Finding, child. What greeting is that for a hunter returned to his tent wounded?”

  “Wounded?” He heard her gasp and called out—

  “A fall, nothing more. Gineah . . .”

  She stepped back, motioning, and Arika entered.

  She was wan, and unsteady on her feet, her eyes great and bruised looking.

  “A fall?” she repeated, and knelt beside him, touching the leg Gineah had wrapped. “Is it broken?”

  “No,” he soothed her. “Not broken.”

  “He must rest,” Gineah said. “Tomorrow and tomorrow. Eat from stores. If there is a call upon your gift, you will come to me, rather than turn this hunter out. Am I understood?”

  Arika hung her head. “You are understood, grandmother.” She looked up, and Slade saw tears shining in her eyes. “Slade. You should not have been cast out. Next time, I will be certain that those who watch know that your presence will not disturb me.”

  “Thank you,” he said, sincerely, and touched her thin cheek. The heat of their gift consumes them . . . he thought, and wanted nothing more than to fold her in his arms and protect her from that fate.

  “So,” said Gineah, and his wife stood, to attend the grandmother with due respect, and to receive two medicine pots.

  “Rub the leg with this, morning, midday, night. If there is swelling, three drops of this, in noginfeil tea. If there is fever, send, and I will come.”

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Arika murmured, and tucked the pots into her pouch. She looked down at him doubtfully.

  “Can you walk?”

  The leg was considerably stiffer, despite the warmth, but he thought he could walk. “If I can rise,” he said.

  Gineah held out a plump arm, and Arika offered a thin one. It took the support of both, but gain his feet he did, and stood wobbling, arm around Arika’s waist for balance, while Gineah fetched his vest and his spear.

  They made love, their last night in Dark Camp. After, in the soft silence, Arika snuggled against his chest, and he put his arms around her. She had gained weight since they had married, and the tent had improved as well—in some part due to his efforts; in greater part, so he had it, to hers. As the Dark wore on, more came to ask the Finder to locate this or that misplaced item, animal, or—rarely—person. They paid well, those seekers—in fur, in food, in good metal knives and spear tips. He watched her closely, having taken Gineah’s words much to heart, but, truly, she seemed more well, not less.

  “Slade,” Arika murmured. “Tell me about your home.”

  He stirred, breathing in the perfume of her hair. “My home?” he repeated, lazily.

  “Gineah told me that you were not of the Sanilithe,” she said, nestling her head onto his shoulder. “She said you were not of the Trinari, or of the Chinpha. She said that you had fallen out of the starweb, and were no ordinary hunter at all.”

  Shrewd Gineah, he thought, stroking Arika’s hair, and really—what does it matter now?

  “She said,” Arika continued, “that she expected your tribe to come for you, and held you away from the Choosing. But when they did not come after two full rounds of seasons, she sent you forth, for a hunter of the Sanilithe must live by the law of the Sanilithe.”

  Slade sighed.

  “Did you fall out of the starweb?” Arika asked him.

  What does it matter? He thought again. For surely Gineah was correct—no one would come for him now.

  “My . . . starship . . . was caught in a storm,” he murmured, which was true, if not factual. “Yes, I fell out of the starweb.”

  “And before it fell? Did you live on your starship?”

  As much as I was able, he thought, and sighed again.

  “Much of the time. I was . . . the hunter . . . who went ahead, to find how the land lay, if danger crouched, or if sweet waters sang . . .”

  This she understood, the order of march during the gathering season being: scouts, hunters, gatherers, tents. She also knew that scouts often took harm from their duty. She shifted, pressing her body against him in a long hug, and nestled her cheek more closely against his shoulder.

  “Tell me about your mother’s tent.”

  His mother’s tent—almost he laughed. Instead, he stroked her hair and stared up into the darkness.

  “My mother’s tent was . . . full,” he said slowly. “We lived in—a permanent camp. It was not necessary to wander in the Warm Days, to spread ourselves thin so that we did not strain the land. It was,” he said, even more slowly, feeling his way, “a land of plenty. The camp—it was called ‘Solcintra’.”

  “There must have been many people in your camp, Solcintra,” Arika said after he had been silent for a time.

  “Yes,” he said, “many, many hands of people.”

  “What else?” she asked, and this time he did laugh.

  What else, the child asks.

  “Is my question funny?” Arika demanded, between hurt and angry.

  “Not at all,” he assured her, smoothing her shoulder with his hand. “Not at all. Listen, now, and I will tell you . . .”

  And so he told her, of spaceports, and shops, and healers, and traffic, and sometime before the gray uncertain dawn wavered into being, she fell asleep. He held her then, silent, his thoughts still on the city, his kin, the sky he would never see again . . .

  Arika gained weight as they traveled into the light, until he was forced to believe what he had not thought possible. And one night, as they sat companionably at the fire; he mending a frayed rope, she mending a broken basket, he asked a question.

  “I wonder,” he said, watching her face out of the sides of his eyes. “Will the tent soon welcome a child?”

  Her hands froze, and she raised her head to stare at him across the fire.

  “Perhaps,” she said haughtily. Arika was always haughty in fear.

  He preserved his pretense of oblivious industry. “A child in the tent would be—a joy,” he said. “But the hunter should be informed, if he will soon need to hunt for more.”

  She looked away, throat working. “As to that—it is not certain. The women of my tent . . .do not always . . . birth well.”

  Her sister, he remembered, whose baby had been born dead—and who had herself died of the birth. He plaited his rope in silence for a few heartbeats, then asked, quietly, “Is it the Finder blood that puts the babes at risk?”

  She swallowed. “The grandmothers believe so. They call it a ‘gift’, but it eats us up, even those it allows to be born.”

  “It does not have to be,” he said, carefully. “My mother, my brother, my sister—all are gifted as you are, with an extra pair of eyes, that see what others cannot.” He raised his head and met her stare across the
fire.

  “You have the blood,” she said, with certainty.

  “I do. My mother bore three healthy children; my sister and my brother, who have extra eyes; myself, who has but two. So . . .” Here was the dangerous ground, for hunters knew nothing of such matters. “So, Arika, my wife, if the child in your belly is one that we made together, it may be that my . . .blood . . . will lend her strength enough to be born—and to thrive.”

  “It may be,” she said quietly, and sighed, putting her basket aside. “Slade. How do you know these things?”

  He opened his eyes wide and made a show of innocence. “Things?”

  “That without a hunter, there is no child. How does a hunter put a child in a belly, Slade?”

  Well, he had botched it. He sighed, then smiled at her. “Why, when we enjoy each other, and you take me into yourself . . .”

  “Enough.” She sighed in her turn. “These things are erifu.”

  “Among the Sanilithe, they are erifu,” he allowed. “In my mother’s tent, these things are common knowledge, shared among sisters and brothers.”

  She closed her eyes. “You make me tremble,” she murmured, and looked at him once more. “But I see the fire has not leapt up to consume you, so it must be that the spirits of your grandmothers allow you this knowledge.” She bent her head. “The child who—will—come to us is a child of my blood—and yours.” She smiled, very slightly. “May your blood make her strong.”

  Arika waned as the child waxed. Slade held her at night and tried to will his strength into her, for she, his precious, for whom he hunted, did not have his blood to make her strong. Lying awake in the dark, he made plans to dose her from his dwindling supply of supplements; plans which he abandoned as morning overtook him. His Arika was a child of this world, and even as her world was slowly poisoning him, so his needed vitamins might very well poison her.

  He did insist that she refrain from gathering, and when she protested, told her that he would gather. Gineah had taught him something of plant lore. This was true enough, though not as she heard it. Gineah had shown him the fruits of her labors in the evenings when they both had returned to the tent, laying out and naming those things she had gathered.

  “I will bring everything to you, and you will decide if it is good,” he told Arika. “But you will not go out alone, soft on your feet as you are! You put our daughter and yourself in danger, and I do not allow it!”

  A grave breach of erifu, that, and yet, strangely, she laughed.

  “Slade. How will you hunt and gather? Or will you give your spear to me?”

  “No, never that,” he said, lightly. “A tent mother must not kill.”

  “A hunter’s work fills the day—and a mother’s work, too. How will you fit two days into one?”

  “Let me try,” he said, urgently, and took her hands. “Two days. If I fail to gather, or to hunt, we will—think of something else.”

  It was perhaps a measure of how weak she was that she allowed him his two days of proof.

  His scheme worked well: in the morning, he set his traps; his afternoon went to gathering plant stuffs. When his sack was full; he turned toward the camp of the day, collecting game from his traps as he went.

  On the morning of the sixth day, he encountered Tania, the grandmother of their group, at the edge of the camp, gather-bag in hand.

  “Good morning, Hunter,” she said politely.

  Slade touched the tip of his spear to the ground in respect. “Good morning, Grandmother.”

  “I see that the mother of your tent sends you to gather in her name.”

  This, Slade thought, could be bad. He allowed no trace of the thought cross his face. Instead, he replied calmly, “Grandmother, it is so. Her talent gnaws the mother of my tent to bone.”

  Her eyes softened. “It is a harsh gift,” she said slowly. “Do you prepare the gather?”

  “No, Grandmother; she prepares what I bring, and shows which I should choose more of, and what is not as needful to the tent.”

  “So.” She stood up, shaking out her bag. “Erifu is preserved. Good hunting.”

  After that, no one questioned him.

  And Arika grew ever more fragile.

  In the evening, she sorted and prepared what he had gathered, while he performed other needful tasks. After, they would lie in each other’s arms and he would stroke her until she fell into uneasy sleep.

  So, the short summer proceeded. Slowly, the sky darkened, and the wind carried an edge of ice, warning that the time to turn to Dark Camp approached.

  Slade returned to their tent somewhat later than usual, burdened by numerous kwevits and an especially heavy sack of gatherings.

  At first, he thought the tent unoccupied, then, he saw the shape huddled, far in the back, where the medicines were kept.

  Heart in mouth, he dropped his burdens and rushed forward. Arika was barely conscious, her body soaked with sweat. Carefully, he straightened her, turned her . . .

  Her eyes opened, and she knew him. “Slade. The child comes.” Her body arched, and she gasped, eyes screwing shut.

  The baby had come quickly, which had been a blessing. He cleaned her and put her to Arika’s breast, turned—and looked up into Tania’s hard, old eyes.

  “Hunters do not deliver children,” she said, coldly.

  “This hunter does,” he snapped, perhaps unwisely.

  “So I see.” She stepped forward. “I will examine the mother of your tent, Hunter. She is frail and I am many years your elder in the healing arts.”

  He took a hard breath. “Grandmother, I know it.”

  “Good,” she said, kneeling at Arika’s side. “Walk around the camp, twice. Slowly, as if you search for hunt-sign on hard rock. Then you may return.”

  Almost, he protested. Almost. He had just reached the entrance when he heard his name and turned back.

  “Grandmother?”

  “You did well,” she said softly. “Now go.”

  The child—Kisam, their daughter—clung to her small life by will alone, and in her stubbornness Slade saw generations of Clan Aziel. She nursed, but it seemed her mother’s milk nourished her only enough to keep her soul trapped in her body—and in that, too, he saw the effect of his blood.

  His blood.

  She sucked the supplement from the tip of his finger while he cuddled her and prayed, chaotically, expecting the tiny body at any moment to convulse, and release his child’s willful spirit—

  “She is stronger,” Arika said next day, Kisam tucked in the carry-cloth against her breast. “Slade, does she not seem stronger to you?”

  “Yes,” he murmured, leaning over to stroke the small head covered already with plentiful dark curls—her mother’s blood, there. “Yes, she does.”

  They traveled slowly toward Dark Camp, for Arika’s strength was low, and Kisam yet frail, though much improved. And truthfully, the slower pace was not only to accommodate the child and her mother. Slade walked sometimes unsteady, his legs weak, and betimes a high, busy humming in his ears, and flashes of color across his vision. The spells passed shortly, and he did not speak to Arika of the matter. And every other night, as his wife lay in the sleep of exhaustion, he would nurse Kisam from his dwindling supply of vitamins and tried not to think what would happen, when, finally, they were gone.

  So they arrived at Dark Camp among the last, and pitched their tent in the fourth tier, considerably higher than last year. There was firewood waiting, and a fire-circle, built properly by women’s hands, by those who owed still on Findings past.

  Slade saw Arika settled by the fire, and Kisam on the nurse before he turned to stow his weapons—and heard the buzzing begin, growing until it was a black well of sound into which he toppled, head first, and swooning.

  * * *

  He opened his eyes to Gineah’s somber face.

  “He wakes,” she said, and Arika was there as well, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Carefully, he smiled. “Forgive me, Grandmother. A
stupid faint . . .”

  “Not stupid, perhaps,” another voice said, speaking the Sanilithe tongue slowly and with an odd nuance.

  Slade froze, looked to Arika, who touched his face with fingers that trembled. “A woman of your mother’s tent has come, Slade.”

  A woman of his—

  He pushed himself into a sitting position, despite Arika’s protesting hand on his shoulder, and Gineah’s frown. For a heartbeat, his vision was distorted by spangles of light; when they melted, he saw her, seated like any ordinary guest by the fire, the baby’s basket at her side, a horn cup cradled between her two hands.

  She wore leather and a wide Scout-issue belt, hung about with a profusion of objects. Her hair was brown and curly, her face high-boned and subtle.

  “Do I find Slade, second named son of Gineah’s tent?” she asked, in the native tongue.

  “Hunter,” he corrected, “for the tent of Arika Finder.”

  Her eyes flickered. “Of course. No insult was intended to the mother of the tent.” She raised her cup, sipped, then looked to him, face bland. “I have come to take you back to the tent of your mother, Hunter. You have been sore missed.”

  Arika was gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. He reached up and put his hand over hers.

  “My mother’s tent has many hunters, this tent has but one.”

  The Scout inclined her head. “Yet this tent’s hunter is ill, and soon will die.”

  Which was certainly true, thought Slade. Death or departure equally deprived the tent of its hunter. And the hunter would rather die than depart.

  “His mother, his sisters—they may heal him?” Arika’s voice was thin, her hand beneath his, chill.

  The Scout inclined her head respectfully. “Tent mother, they will.”