Crystal Healer

by Viehl, S. L.

  He moved closer. “If you will allow me to explain—”

  “I need no explanations from you, Duncan,” I said flatly. “If you prefer to be with her, all you need do is say so, and I will step aside. But we have a child, and Marel is more important than your desire to . . . how did she put it? Run through females as fast as you do blades?”

  He made a frustrated sound. “Uorwlan has a love of the dramatic, and she always exaggerates things. She believes that the relationship she had with me in the past gives her first rights. There is also a more immediate problem with her. She is—”

  “Daevena take Uorwlan,” I snapped, sick of hearing his concern for her. “You can have her if you like. You can have as many females as you wish—create a new harem for yourself, if you desire—but know this: Whatever you do with her, whatever she means to you, when we leave here, you are coming with me.”

  “I was afraid you would mistake my meaning,” he said. “I don’t want Uorwlan, Jarn.”

  Now I looked at him. “I don’t care, Duncan.”

  “The oKiaf consider public quarreling between a male and female extremely distasteful,” Jylyj said. “They regard it on the same level as relieving yourself in the open.”

  I glared at him. “Yes, of course. We wouldn’t wish to piss on the ground in front of anyone.”

  There was no more time for him to say anything, for we had arrived at the master hunter’s kiafta. Jylyj called out a soft-voiced greeting, and the entry hide was opened to admit us.

  The master hunter’s family already occupied their sleeping platforms, and the older male paused to tuck a fur around the smallest child before turning to greet us. He wore few ornaments in his mane, and had heavily scarred arms and paws that bore mute testimony to his experience.

  “This is Seno,” Jylyj said. “He has hunted this land for many years, and knows of a place that may be of interest to us.”

  Seno retrieved a piece of hide from a bundle stowed to one side of the table. He spread it out flat and, using a blackened twig, began to sketch what appeared to be a crude map. He pointed to each area as he drew it and spoke to Jylyj, who translated.

  “From the encampment, we must walk north approximately five kim, and take the pass between two cliffs for another two.” He listened for a moment to the master hunter. “The place beyond the cliffs is the tribe’s burial grounds, so we can’t go any farther than that. He says there are shining stones lining the gaps in the ground at the base of the east cliff. From his description, the stones are some sort of crystalline mineral.”

  Reever studied the map and then said something in oKiaf to Seno. The master hunter gave him a confused look in return.

  “He doesn’t understand what you mean,” Jylyj told him. “The oKiaf don’t acknowledge things like illness, old age, or dying.”

  “I used the same words the storyteller did tonight at the fire,” my husband said. “You should know; you interpreted them for us.”

  “The myth of the Star Wolf is just a children’s tale,” the Skartesh said. “What happened to the first one is not what the people believe happen to them.”

  Now I felt bewildered. “You’re saying that the tribe doesn’t believe they get sick or die?”

  “It’s not the words they use,” Jylyj insisted. “The cycle of life for the oKiaf is very specific: whelping, weaning, learning, mating, teaching, passing, and flowing. Those are the only states of being that they recognize for themselves.”

  “What is flowing?” Reever asked.

  “I suppose it’s the afterlife,” Jylyj said. “After life leaves the body, it flows into the bellies of the stars, to nourish them.”

  “Hunting cultures often have such pragmatic beliefs about an afterlife,” Reever said. “I find it interesting, and somewhat bizarre, that the oKiaf mythos is so similar to that of the Jorenians, who believe they are embraced by the stars.”

  “It is not that unusual to find cultures who share almost identical beliefs,” the Skartesh said. “Before the HouseClans were formed, the indigenous beings on Joren were, like the oKiaf, tribal hunter-gatherers.”

  Seno folded the hide and offered it to Reever, who thanked him in oKiaf for it before we left the kiafta.

  As we walked back to our shelter, I noticed that the storyteller’s hide had not yet been removed from the frame.

  “Could we go and take a closer look?” I asked Jylyj after I pointed it out. “I couldn’t get near enough to make out all of the symbols while he was telling the story.”

  “I can’t read it for you,” Jylyj said, “and it is very old. But as long as we don’t touch or disturb it, no one should mind.”

  Up close I saw the hide had been worked even more elaborately than I had imagined, with tiny beads and carvings embedded in the fur around the symbols. It also looked very old, as Jylyj had said; the edges and the underside of the fur had been covered in many places with precisely sewn patches.

  I could recall every word of the Star Wolf story, so I tried to follow the columns of symbols and make out which corresponded with the elements of the tale. I could make out almost everything but three symbols rubbed inside a circle of dark stones in the very center of the hide.

  Compared to the other symbols, these three seemed much more refined and specific. In the center, glittering silver had been applied to a distinctly humanoid-looking figure. To the right and left of the figure were seven-pointed star shapes, one painted white, and the other black.

  “I don’t think these three were part of the story,” I said to Reever. “The symbols for the Star Wolf and the people of the tribe are painted in brown, gold, and black. The figure can’t be one of them.”

  “They could be symbols representing the name of the tribe, to indicate ownership of the hide,” my husband suggested.

  “The tribe’s name, Parrak, is a word in the old tongue; it means ‘a fire that burns from within,’ ” Jylyj said. “It’s getting late. We should go back to our shelters.”

  The old storyteller came to the frame, nodding to Reever as he took down the hide. The black and white symbols were what interested me. “Jylyj, can you ask him what it means?”

  Before the Skartesh could reply, Reever spoke to the storyteller, who regarded him with some surprise before he moved his hand over the center circle and spoke three words.

  Reever frowned. “I don’t understand what he’s saying.”

  “He says that the symbols represent crystal eternity,” Jylyj said at last. “It’s probably one of the old terms for the afterlife.”

  I felt a surge of excitement. “We’ve never heard them use the word crystal, only rock or shining stone. Could the black star represent the black crystal?”

  “No, Healer,” the Skartesh said. “The word I translated as crystal only means ‘clear’ or ‘unclouded’ to the oKiaf. Another interpretation of what the elder said would be ‘to see clearly forever.’ ”

  I recalled the words Dnoc had used when he had spoken to me. “The chieftain used the same word when he called me on who belonged to the great healer.”

  Jylyj averted his gaze. “Translations are not always exact.”

  “So what did it mean when Dnoc said it?” I persisted.

  “The exact words he used could be interpreted to mean ‘crystal healer,’ ” the Skartesh said reluctantly.

  “Such subtle differences in word meanings are often difficult for non-native speakers to learn,” Reever said. “You display an admirable grasp of this language.”

  “I have a small natural talent for interpreting, and even once considered becoming a linguist, like you,” Jylyj told him. “But the call to healing was too much for me.” He moved to help the old storyteller take down the hide. “I will stay and help him carry this back to his kiafta. You should go and sleep now. The guide will be ready to leave the encampment at dawn.”

  Reever remained very quiet as we walked back to the shelters, so much so that I stopped him just before we entered. The cold air enclosed us in its frigi
d stillness, and our breaths formed thick white puffs as we looked at each other.

  “I am sorry that I lost my temper earlier,” I said. “I’ll try to get along with your friend.”

  “It is not that.” He touched my arm. “We can’t talk out here. Come inside.”

  We found Uorwlan sitting at the table and cleaning her weapons. She gave me a sideways glance. “Here, little sister.” She offered me one of her finest daggers. “I apologize for goading you. I am happy that Reever has taken a wife, even if he had the very bad taste to choose someone other than me.”

  I accepted her apology and offered my own, along with my finest blade, which seemed to settle matters between us, at least for now. Reever sat down across from the Takgiba and took out the hide map for her to see.

  Uorwlan wasn’t interested in the map, however. “You have that look in your eyes, the one you used to get whenever a slaver tried to bribe us. What is it?”

  “The Skartesh with us is acting as our interpreter,” Reever said. “I think he also is deceiving us. I have absorbed enough of the tribe’s language to know most of their common concepts. When I asked the Skartesh about a symbol that I believe represents death, he claimed the oKiaf use the word only in their myths, and don’t apply the concept in reference to what happens to them at the end of life. Yet tonight when I asked the old storyteller if a symbol on the hide meant death, he wasn’t offended. He genuinely didn’t know what I meant—as if the end of life, or death itself, had no meaning for him.”

  “It could be what Jylyj was trying to say,” I suggested. “Perhaps he worded his explanation badly. He didn’t translate the words Dnoc used to me exactly as he should have.”

  “I would agree, but there was something else. The storyteller used three specific words to describe the center symbols on his hide. Jylyj only translated two of them to mean ‘crystal eternity.’ ” I know the oKiaf word for eternity: detorne. The storyteller did not utter that word.”

  “What did he say?” Uorwlan asked.

  “Naif valen fian.”

  She shook her head. “I have never heard those words spoken, so I can’t translate them for you. But if this Skartesh has lied about the meaning of one word, it’s likely that he’s lied about others. Tell me more about him.”

  “He will return soon,” I warned. “I will keep watch for him while you talk.”

  While I stood at the entry hide and acted as lookout, Reever related to Uorwlan everything we knew about Jylyj, including how he had denied being the one I had seen in the water on Joren.

  “I know these people,” I heard the Takgiba say after my husband had finished. “I’ve traded with them regularly for the last five years, and spend every summer here hunting with them. I’ve an ear for languages, you know that, and still I’ve learned enough of their tongue only to communicate the basics. It would take a lifetime of living with the tribe to understand the things this Skartesh claims he knows.”

  I saw a tall, lean figure approaching and turned my head. “He’s coming.”

  “Is this the way into his shelter?” Uorwlan asked, pointing to the side entry. When I nodded, she unfastened it.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “I mean to see if this Skartesh knows how to properly warm a female,” she said, “and if he talks in his sleep.” Her tail shivered as she stepped through and vanished.

  “She will get herself beaten,” I muttered, waiting to hear Jylyj shout at the Takgiba, but hearing nothing at all. Then a faint growling sound came from the direction of the Skartesh’s shelter, answered and soothed to a rumble by a higher, more feminine purr.

  “It would seem Jylyj found better things to do than beat her,” Reever said.

  I turned my back toward the side entry, absently blocking out the sounds. On Akkabarr there had been little privacy, so I had learned early on to offer it by ignoring the sights and sounds of things that were not meant to be shared with others. But even as I chose not to hear them, I still didn’t like Uorwlan coupling with Jylyj.

  “She is reckless,” I whispered to my husband.

  “No, she is in season,” Reever murmured. “That is why she drew a blade on you. The females of her kind fight for mating privileges.”

  That made her strange behavior seem more logical, and explained why she had wanted to couple with me and Reever the moment we were alone. Still, after what my husband had said about Jylyj and the deceptive translations, I worried. “You are sure she will be all right with him?”

  “Uorwlan can take care of herself,” he assured me, and tugged on my hand. “Now, come to bed, Wife, and let me warm you.”

  Sometime later I lay curled up beside Duncan and listened to him breathe. No more sounds came from Jylyj’s shelter, and I heard only the occasional footsteps of the men on watch patrolling the encampment as they passed near our kiafta.

  In my mind I saw the three symbols enclosed by the dark circle on the storyteller’s hide, and thought of what Reever had told me about the triads of different cultures. They didn’t seem to fit with the universal God-man-intermediary belief, for the figure of the silver man had stood between the white and black stars. There had also been something odd about the way the symbols had been rendered; they had been simply made, and not intricately adorned like those around them depicting the Star Wolf story.

  White like new snow, black like the endless void . . . and a being who stood between them.

  It nagged at me, in the same way a half-forgotten word sat on the tongue, waiting to be fully remembered and spoken. Would my former self know what to make of the symbols? Did she know something that I did not?

  As I puzzled over the symbols, I finally began to drift off. I swayed between consciousness and sleep, though, neither here nor there, too aware of my surroundings to be completely at ease, but too tired to force myself to keep watch.

  A dream came to me, as swift and silent as a raider, and took me from the kiafta and through a labyrinth of shadows until I found myself back on Trellus. I walked through the winding labyrinth of collected objects that Swap had cemented together into his highly unusual art.

  Yes. Now show us where.

  I retreated from the voice in my head, cringing as I tried to find the passage back to Mercy House. I passed through an airlock, but instead of entering a passage to my friend’s dome, I stepped outside.

  The surface of Trellus had been transformed. No longer an airless landscape of crumbling, lifeless rock, the planet was now covered with plants and trees. I didn’t see the dome colony, but I sensed animals hiding in the brush and watching me. Then I caught a glitter of blue and began to walk toward it.

  Where the ore crushers of the abandoned arutanium mine had once stood rusting were now towering columns of blue crystal. Beneath my feet the ground glittered with smaller, paler growths pushing through a mat of fused slivers and shards. All of my senses seemed muted in this place; I could not taste or smell anything, and my hands seemed to drag at my wrists when I tried to touch the crystal.

  You were not meant for this.

  I turned toward the sound I thought I heard, but saw only my face reflected in one of the columns. The sides of the crystal divided my features in half at first, and then the reflections moved apart and became mirror twins.

  “I am here.” I turned around and saw myself duplicated, over and over, on the surface of each column. My faces stared back at me, wide-eyed and pale, narrow-eyed and scowling.

  What was meant to be can never be, unless the sacrifice is made.

  I knew what a sacrifice was, but the rest seemed like gibberish. “What do you mean? What sacrifice do you demand?”

  It cannot be asked, what must be asked. It cannot be taken, what was taken.

  I watched my twin faces turn toward each other. Cracks began to run through the columns as the two Jarns drew closer. They did not melt back into one reflection, however. They collided and shattered, screams distorting their mouths.

  I ran through the columns, dodg
ing them as I tried to find my way back to the encampment and Duncan. Only the sudden appearance of a frowning red-haired female made me skid to a halt.

  “Well, well. If it isn’t my favorite, heavily armed doormat.” She made a triangular server appear in her hand and sipped it, sighing with pleasure. “How are you, Jarn? Want a drink? No one distills a better mind-altering intoxicant than the Terrans.”

  I watched as a structure built itself around us. It enclosed us like a dark box, and furnished itself like a large galley, only not nearly as clean. Terrans of various ages and genders began appearing, some drinking together and laughing, others silent and alone. In one corner, a life-sized, rusted drone tried to blow through a complicated-looking alloy instrument, causing it to produce squawking sounds that reminded me of a ptar caught in the throat snare.

  I recognized nothing. “What is this place?”

  “Where it all began,” Maggie said, and made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Welcome to the Slow, Lazy Sax.”

  I breathed in. It smelled more vile than it looked. “I want to wake up now, please.”

  “You don’t get a vote this time, Akkabarran.” The Terran female handed her empty glass to a passing service drone and took my arm. “Over here. We need to talk.”

  With her usual indifference to my feelings, Maggie dragged me around the tables and Terrans to a dark corner and shoved me into one of the chairs. Before she sat down, she obtained another beverage and put it in front of me.

  “Stop looking as if I’m going to hit you,” she said, templing her red-nailed fingers. “I came to rescue your submissive little ass.”

  “Why? I’m on oKia, sleeping next to my husband, who would kill anything that tries to touch me.” A pity he couldn’t enter my dreams. “I’m not in any danger.”

  “Clueless as ever.” Maggie looked down at her drink and began toying with the plas stick, spearing the two dull green seed pods floating in the liquid.