Lily raised her voice, gift edging her words with command, but Pansy couldn't hear them over the clash and ring of steel on steel. All was confusion, grit and the spark of sunlight on swords, Lily shouting now, the smell of horse and Pansy's hands trembling against the box. And then, suddenly, all was still. The dust settled, and Pansy found herself in a ring of soldiers, Rose almost beside her now, three swords leveled at her chest. But Rose didn't even seem to notice the threat, lip curled and fierce eyes fixed instead somewhere to her left. Following her gaze, Pansy gasped to see Lily held tight by two more soldiers, her mouth gagged against her gift and a knife to her throat.
"Good day to you, my nieces," lilted a voice from behind them. Pansy spun to see Irin dismounting from her horse. At least, she assumed the woman was Irin. Five years had not been kind to her: wrinkles etched her eyes and scored her cheeks, and though she was just as tall as she'd ever been, she was grass-thin now, dark eyes and pale hair muted to an even brownish tone. Beside her, another woman lurched shakily from her mount—a yet thinner, more muted version of Irin. Alba, Pansy realized, less struck by the change in her cousin than she'd been by that in her aunt. Alba had always been rather small and colorless.
"Do you like my welcome?" Irin asked, shuffling closer. "Oh, don't answer. Just a moment." She reached up to pluck a wad of something from both ears. "I couldn't hear you before. Precautions, you see." She gestured at the soldiers surrounding them. "They still can't hear, although I suppose I could tell them it's safe now. Linea is well in hand, after all. Such an unfortunate gift she has. So powerful. But I've had five years to decide how to protect myself from it."
Rose growled and a cold smile folded deeper wrinkles around the queen's eyes. "And how to defeat you, Rosild. Unbeatable, if you fight. But I daresay you won't, not with Linea at the point of my knife." And then Irin's eyes met Pansy's. "But you, little Persal," she sighed. "How relieved I was not to have to concern myself with you. Giftless and harmless. I can only thank you, my dear." Pansy flinched, hands tightening on the box, and Irin's eyes darted to the small movement.
"You brought it," she chortled. "How relieved I am. Your mother used to tease me so about that box. How she and Vela plotted and planned before you were even born, Persal, always talking about that box, but never saying what was inside. I watched them almost ceaselessly, hoping they might slip and say something, but they never did. And now here it is. Waiting for us to open it. Oblige me, if you would?"
The box shuddered in her shaky hands, and Pansy gulped. The denial stuck in her throat, but Irin must have seen it anyway, for she took another step closer and said, "Open the box, Persal."
Pansy's eyes darted around the circle of soldiers, looking for someone, anyone, who might help. But not one appeared to even see her.
All pretense of warmth fled Irin's voice now. "Open the box, Persal. Or I shall kill your sisters." Pansy almost laughed. As though any of them would be allowed to live? She looked to her sisters, but she knew already what they were thinking: the box must not be opened. But to be responsible for their deaths? To refuse to open the box and watch them die? She pinched her eyes closed and wondered if she could bear it. The box seemed to hum in sympathy.
And then it purred. And then it buzzed. And her fingers began to burn.
"I'll open it," she heard herself say, hearing next the mumbled and shouted protests of her sisters and Irin's dry, satisfied cackle. But her eyes were on the box, on her fingers plucking at the fragile gold filigree of the latch. It gave readily beneath her touch, but her hand, her whole body, felt the press of air like lead. Slowly, struggling, she lifted the lid of the box and looked down into...nothing. The box was empty.
Irin grunted. "Just a trick, as I thought. To keep me worrying and wondering all these years. Marit and Vela—"
A scream echoed around the circle, so loud Pansy saw some of the soldiers wince even with their stoppered ears. But it wasn't until the box toppled from her fingertips and Pansy found herself dragging a deep, endless breath into her lungs that she realized the scream came from her.
And then nothing made sense anymore.
Distantly, she heard Irin yelling about a trap and then the ring of steel and then Lily's blessed voice, free and commanding once more. And beyond all of it, the scream, penetrating, chilling, and echoing from her own throat again and again. But she wasn't in pain. She didn't know what she was, Pansy or Persal, peasant or queen. Everything was light and heat, shading through her skin until she shone like glass, stirring her around, pulling her apart, picking threads of the world and weaving all back in place again.
An eternal moment later, it all stopped, and Pansy was standing in the grasslands, her sisters at her side, soldiers a bristling ring of blades around Irin and Alba. There was a hot weight glowing in her stomach and her hands, whole and work-worn, felt bathed in warm, flickering flame.
"Are you all right?" both her sisters seemed to ask at once, and Pansy merely nodded. She was all right. But something was...wrong.
The heat in her stomach tugged downward, and Pansy followed its pull until she crouched in the dry, brown grass. And then her hands met earth. Heat and light washed over her again, and this time she could see a pattern in it, a purpose. But the pattern was unbalanced, uneven, and it was the merest of efforts to make it right.
Heat and light swirled away, leaving only the weight in her stomach and the unseen flicker of flames on her hands, palms soothed by the cool earth beneath them. Grass crackled in her ears, slithered along her forearms as though urging her to stand, and only belatedly did she realize no wind existed to move it. But her eyes had already opened, already widened to see the grass beneath her shading into green.
With a dizzy lurch, she rose and turned, watching as the patch of vivid grass at her feet widened, spread, lapped outward in uneven, crackling waves. Farther and away it rolled, splashing green-silver and wildflowers across the plains, frothing the distant foothills with a profusion of new-leaf trees, even washing bright the far-off line of tawny desert and blue mountain.
Murmurs and gasps blended in the susurrus and when at last the land grew quiet, grass rustling now only beneath the light fingers of a breeze, Pansy found the soldiers standing well back, awed and watchful, swords scattered like straw around them. Irin and Alba stood alone, unprotected, Alba wide-eyed and anxious, Irin gaping and furious.
"B-but you're giftless," Irin protested.
Pansy stepped forward. "Yes," she agreed, feeling only a faint sting at the admission. Perhaps she'd somehow balanced herself as well as Suralis. "And maybe I still am giftless. But I believe Suralis has chosen me over you, anyway."
And Pansy cupped her aunt's cheek, fell into heat and light once more, and shifted the balance. It was harder this time, the pattern more complicated, and she had to remove whole pieces of it to gain even a semblance of evenness. But eventually the balance was gained, and she withdrew to see a new Irin, wrinkles smoothed, hair pale as Pansy's again, her eyes dark and soft, childlike and sweet.
"Good day," Irin lilted. "Have we met?"
Rose snorted and muttered something about improvements, but Pansy merely nodded and turned to Alba.
The girl was shaking, dusty eyes glassy with tears. "It doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked, ducking her chin at her mother.
"No," Pansy said. That odd sense in her stomach seemed to indicate there wasn't much wrong with Alba, anyway, but Pansy touched her cheek and slid into the balancing. When she opened her eyes, Alba was the same pale, simple girl-woman Pansy remembered, only more at peace than she suspected Alba had been for years.
"Thank you," Alba said, and then Pansy was alone with her sisters.
Rose's smile trembled a little at the edges. "I believe this is yours," she said, lifting the ironwood box.
Pansy eyed it a long moment. Then, her fingers sliding over the cool wood, said, "I don't know if it'll last...but I seem to balance things. Make them as they should be."
"Whole," Lily said, and laughed. "J
ust as Mother always used to say of you, how can Suralis be whole without you?" Lily laughed again, this time joined by Rose.
"She knew!" Rose cried. "I can't believe it. Mother knew all along."
"Oh, it'll last, Pansy," Lily smiled. "Your gift was in the ironwood box. That's what Aunt Vela and Mother captured inside it, safe and unknown until this moment."
A low rumble of chatter rose among the soldiers, and the three turned to see Irin cheerfully introducing herself to her former guardsmen. Rose laughed, then Lily, and finally Pansy, weighted warmth rising in her chest as their laughter joined to ripple outward over the sea of grass, over the hills, over Suralis...home.
Bearing Shadows
by Dave Smeds
Sword and sorcery works by Dave Smeds include his novels THE SORCERY WITHIN and THE SCHEMES OF DRAGONS, and shorter pieces in such anthologies as ENCHANTED FORESTS and RETURN TO AVALON, as well as seven previous volumes of SWORD & SORCERESS. He writes in many genres, from science fiction to contemporary fantasy to horror to superhero and others, and has been a Nebula Award finalist. He lives in the Napa/Sonoma wine country of California with his wife and son. In addition to being an author, he has been a farmer, graphic artist, and karate instructor.
He says that the inspiration for this story came to him as he was thinking of the determination of a writer he knows to have a baby, which turned out to be very challenging for her and her husband. I hope, however, that they had fewer problems than the characters in this story did.
#
When the child quickened inside her, Aerise made a pilgrimage all the way to the cairn of the First Woman, high on the bluff west of the village, and left a serving of wine from the sacred cask as a token of esteem.
The pregnancy advanced smoothly. No swollen feet. Only a little clenching in her lower back. Aerise took it as an omen. Unlike her first two offspring, this child would enjoy a full life. Week by week, the ripening grasses obscured the small graves Aerise's husband had dug on the far side of their garden. The dark sense of loss grew fainter in her memory.
Her mother was constantly at her side, patting her near-to-bursting belly, helping to chew deerhide to soften the new carrying sling Aerise had fashioned, and offering suggestions on the decoration of the child-braid Aerise would soon have the right to wear. Something with wild boar tooth, perhaps, to fend off the god of Death.
"Perhaps," Aerise replied, knowing she would in fact use mussel shell, because she loved the river.
On the day things changed, the two of them were on the verge of that river, sitting on a log. Out in the fields, a bored mule pulled a cart down the row. Villagers' harvest knives flashed, cutting stems. Bunches of grapes vaulted through the air, to land on the ever-mounting load. Aerise's husband Duran toiled in one of the crews, adding his clear voice to the vintners' chant. Aerise and her dam, shaded by a huge old oak, fulfilled their part of the great communal enterprise by honing the edges of blades the pickers had dulled over the course of the morning.
All was in its place. Soon it would be her child's place. Nine Vineyards had endured in its little valley for three centuries. The plague years had not emptied its fields. The invasion of the Horsemen had not swept it away. Aerise pictured a time three hundred years hence when her descendants would lovingly regard full vats of grapes ready for the crush, and would take their offerings to the shrines on the bluff to commemorate the lives of all the forebears who had cared for this land.
"You are not too hot?" her mother asked, startling her from her reverie.
Such a question. This deep into pregnancy, Aerise's flesh all but simmered. But the oak's leaves hung thickly overhead and a breeze was ruffling her hair, its cool breath promising fog in the night.
"I am fine."
But her mother's brow remained furrowed. "I will soak a cloth for your head," she persisted.
"There is no need," Aerise told her, but her mother was already up, unwinding her sash. The older woman slipped between the curtain of acacia fronds and disappeared over the lip of the riverbank. A few moments later Aerise heard water sloshing, followed by the splatter of drops on cobblestones as her mother wrung out the excess. Despite her protest, Aerise found herself anticipating the cool kiss of the cloth. She set aside the harvesting knife and whetstone, relaxed, and shut her eyes.
"Ahhh-oh!"
Aerise flinched. Her mother stood rigid a few steps away, the wet sash fallen onto the litter of acorns and oak twigs. She looked as aghast as if she had returned to find Aerise strung up and gutted.
"What is it?" Aerise tried to rise, but her balance eluded her. She reached out for assistance, but her mother whirled about and sped toward the workers in the field.
Plopping back down on the log, Aerise finally looked down. And discovered for herself that when the First Woman had granted her wish that her womb be filled, the great ancestress had not been showing favor.
* * * *
That night, the great lodge of the village was so full the odor of humanity nearly overrode the reek of fermented grapes emanating from the vats along the walls. Everyone had crowded in: The wisemen and the women's council. Laborers from Creekside and Twin Rock, newly come for the harvest. Her siblings. Her mother. Her husband.
She studied the onlookers. There was her friend Dala, who had come of age with her, been married the same month, both to younger sons of the former headman. Dala averted her gaze.
Others glared at her. She saw disbelief. She saw shock. In the dimness, what had been so difficult to accept was now impossible to ignore. Radiance poured from her abdomen, barely diminished by the presence of her maternity cloak, a brightness to rival the glow of the oil lamps on the walls. The light of her child, showing itself to be the get of a shadow man.
Irony, that the adults of the Cursed Folk could walk the land so invisibly, and yet their unborn announced themselves so plainly. It was the sorcery coming into their bodies that did it, so the bards maintained. When it manifested, the babes-in-womb were unable to contain the gleam of their own power.
The headman took his place in front of the sacred cask, and raised his hands to silence the murmuring. "Aerise, Daughter of Makk," the elder rumbled, any pity he may have had erased by his need to be a leader, to declare what must be declared. "Your crime is apparent to all with eyes to see. You will bear the penalty. You will leave us forever. Your name will not be uttered again within this valley."
The headman turned and showed his back to her. The other wise men, and then the council of women—ultimately, anyone of status within the community—did the same.
Aerise's mother and sisters huddled toward the rear. Her mother sobbed, lifted her grooming knife, and cut off the braid that denoted Aerise. She flung it onto the wine-soaked planks at Aerise's feet.
Finally, of all the adults, only her husband still faced her.
"How could you?" Duran murmured.
She knew when it had to have happened. That night in winter, when the person she thought was Duran, returning early from the sweat hut, slipped beneath the blankets without lighting the lamp. His body had been unusually warm, but this she took to be a byproduct of the steam.
"I was deceived," she murmured. "I thought it was you."
Duran's eyelids squeezed down tight. He nodded, chin trembling, and choked back a sob. But then he, too, turned away.
This was the worst. If her spouse had refused to believe her innocence, she could have hated him a little. The pain of losing him might then have pierced her less deeply. But to have him believe her and reject her anyway? That was as bitter as acorn meal before it has been leached.
No matter whether she had been raped or tricked, she was befouled. Now no person of Nine Vineyards would let her live among them.
A five-year-old boy—her own nephew, son of her eldest brother Nal—reached into one of the many buckets of stems and spoiled raisins that waited at the feet of the crowd and flung a handful at her. A second child did the same. Within moments, Aerise was being pelted.
/> She crouched, shielding her face. When she made no effort to move toward the door, some exchanged the raisins for clods of dirt. If she did not leave, eventually the barrage would consist of stones. At which point, the adults would join in the flinging.
Weeping, she fled the building.
She staggered as she crossed the threshold, but a sharp impact on her buttocks straightened her up. She sprinted down the wagon way, past the cottages and lodges, out into the lanes of the vineyards. The rain of debris tapered off as parents called back their offspring. A few cruel whelps dogged her all the way into the woods.
Tripping and stumbling over roots the moon's weak light failed to reveal, she forged on until she could no longer hear the shouted threats. Only then, panting, her abdomen leaden and cramping, did she stop.
The trees loomed dark and close, hiding any sign that people lived nearby. This was the edge of her world, known to her only from forays to gather acorns or mushrooms. She had gone farther—to grind flour with the village women at the mill at Creekside, or to help her brothers and father sell wine at the fair at Traders Hollow—but never before had she been beyond the periphery of Nine Vineyards without at least one companion.
Her feet bled from the twigs she had landed on during her flight. Her throat ached from the crying, and from the dryness her panting had caused. But all her discomforts paled beside the shock of her exile.
She slapped her protruding belly. It made the babe kick, causing her to groan as her bladder received the impact, but she did it again. If the action forced her into labor, she welcomed it. Not that emptying her womb would change her fate. She was the cask that had produced vinegar, and would never be used for wine again.
She was not sure how long she raged, but by the time she was at last spent, fog had flowed in from the coast.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXII Page 11