Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

  Jerani was no longer a boy, and this stranger had no right to hold him and spit words in his face. “Let go of me,” Jerani said, “now.”

  “Judge not the coat but the core.” The Bright Palm released Jerani.

  He sucked air between his teeth, ready to shout at the shining man for branding Celaise a murderess. She had only ever helped the Greathearts. Then a cool tingle passed through Jerani like a drop of purest rain, and he realized the Holy Woman had said something similar about not judging a cow by its coat. He could not believe it, but Jerani agreed with the Bright Palm, in a way.

  “You're right, it's the core that counts,” Jerani said. “And that's why you're not my father.”

  The body thief crouched with one nail held in front and the other behind his hip. Jerani shifted back, heart quickening, and he pulled his war club from his belt.

  The Bright Palm sprinted away, grasses swishing as he cut through them with his glowing feet. It was if he had not heard Jerani, not even seen his move to a fighting stance.

  Turning around, Jerani met Wedan's eyes. The older brother shifted his jaw side to side to show camaraderie, and the younger returned the gesture.

  The cows gathered to move on, and Jerani focused on the horizon. He thought he could pick out a smear of green that would be the trees clustered around the base of Big Stump. They would reach its safety tomorrow and gain a few days of rest.

  As he jogged, Jerani thought of what the Bright Palm had said about Celaise and the crippled outlander. It was laughable, but it did make Jerani remember how Celaise had asked him to look after the hock-legged creature. She had done it out of kindness, but it was an odd coincidence. Now that he thought of it, Jerani recalled the woman with the crutch had arrived only hours after Celaise.

  Doesn't mean anything. Doesn't prove she's a Feaster. Jerani told it to himself, over and over.

  The Sun Dragon's curse pierced the basket, turning her days into caged misery. Celaise gagged on the smoldering heat, and she stifled sobs from the pain in her cramped limbs. She feared every moment someone would lift the woven lid then choke her to death.

  Her only relief came at night when she crept out of her confinement. The woman who owned the cow and basket would reach inside for the leather pallets, and Celaise had to make her and feel the carved horns that were no longer there.

  Celaise stole water from the tribe's gourds. Don't steal, don't lie, and don't be lazy. She had just kicked out the last moral that held up society. Though she was none too happy about it, she did not know what else she could do.

  At the end of the third day, dusk came in a sudden darkness. Celaise peeked out of the basket to see that the sun had not actually set, that the cows trudged beneath trees on a trail sloping upward. And what trees! The grey trunks bloated outward and stood tall enough to be columns holding up the sky. Branches only spread from their tops, so high above that the tree limbs seemed as small as twigs.

  A crag of rock loomed amidst the fat forest, and when the footfalls of the cows sharpened from thumps to clops, Celaise realized the herd was being led up a path to the top of the stone monument.

  Celaise imagined the rope over the cow's back snapping, and herself bouncing down the slope, breaking a bone with every hop, to slam to a stop against a tree. She began to gasp. The basket was airless, and she worried she would faint.

  “Night will come,” she said to herself. “Night will come.”

  And come it did, in a coolness, a release of breath.

  The basket shifted against the cow as the path leveled out, and Celaise levitated out of her grass-weave cage as an untethered shadow. Before any spotted her, she drifted down between the cattle, careful to keep well away from the cliff edge.

  The tribe had climbed onto a mesa, a table of rock with a view of a savanna dyed purple by the dusk. Celaise ignored the panorama to search for the Bright Palm. Cows lay on their sides and blew out air in thick gusts. Men and women stripped off their sandals and groaned as they rubbed their feet.

  Her eyes rested on Jerani, who was tipping back a gourd for his sister to drink. Celaise wanted to go closer, to sniff his new layer of fear. It reminded her of maize wafers fried and served with honey, a treat she had loved as a girl. She wanted to stand behind him, press her face against the nape of his neck and breathe in.

  Celaise resisted, instead watching the tall warrior pull a pebble out from his sandal. He threw it off the cliff with a triumphant grunt. “Ha! The Angry Mother tests us with her stones, I know she does. Ah! Nont gnow!”

  The Holy Woman gripped his lower lip and pulled him to his feet. “Look down there. Tell me my old eyes are tricking me.”

  “Well, feed me a bowl of lava!” The tall man slumped his back into a hook, blinking in disbelief out at the savanna.

  Celaise joined them to gaze across the plains of silvering grasses. Two tribes stampeded toward them and the refuge of the mesa, one with black cows and the other with white.

  Glistening dots rolled alongside them, the pebbles outpacing the tribes, surrounding them. Most tumbled like stones, while other Headless tromped about on all fours. The ground purred under them.

  The Holy Woman squinted into the deepening darkness. “Will they be making Big Stump in time?”

  “Well, I mean, who could really say?” The tall warrior shriveled back from the sight of the Headless encircling the tribes. Other warriors, Jerani among them, plodded to the cliff edge. None could look away.

  “You have to go back down,” the Holy Woman said. “Now, while there are still chances.”

  “Uh, that might be a bit rash,” the tall warrior said. “Climb up here for safety, then prance down again?”

  Over a hundred Headless swarmed on either side of the tribes. Celaise's hunger rose inside, sharp as a knife sliding up her throat. They're all there, all before me, waiting for me to begin Feasting.

  From the dust clouds kicked up by beasts, two chains of linked Headless wound their way to the lead. Celaise remembered breaking up three of them that had grouped—each one gripping the back of the predator before it—to force their way to the calves, but the ones below her were at least twenty creatures long. Over a score of Headless charged as one creature, their hunger backed by tens of thousands of pounds of plated muscle.

  They are centipedes, Celaise thought, centipedes strong enough to break down a castle gate and portcullis and with twenty mouths of crushing fangs.

  She realized the Lord of the Feast had been right about another thing. The Headless would overrun the cities, once they had eaten the last scrap of meat on the savanna.

  “No, no—no.” The tall warrior gripped his throat and grimaced. “We can't go down. Wouldn't have the time to get back up again. Narrow path and all that. Couldn't, wouldn't be right.”

  Celaise felt the weight of the moment upon her, a tightness and a tingling that receded into the pulsing beat of her hunger. Tonight she would kill all the Headless and complete her trial.

  Tonight she would have a proper Feast.

  Gliding between the gasping warriors, she uncovered herself. She wore her dress of day-lit clouds and empty sky, to commemorate the nearby cliff. She coasted out into the air. Only the pristine train of her grown connected her to the mesa.

  Her insides were wracked with terror at being watched by so many, but she forced herself to stare down the Greathearts. “The Headless will surround the tribes. The Skin-Backs will sting and slurp and grow into new beasts. I can't let that happen.”

  Her gaze rested on Jerani, somewhat disappointed that his scrumptious fears had diminished after seeing her. At the same time, the tips of his fingers trembled with emotion, and he looked at her with the same rapt attention that she had waiting for the sun to set. She found his expression oddly satisfying.

  “If I have to,” she said, “I will go and slaughter the beasts myself. But the warriors here should come with me.”

  She would rather a row of spears stood between the Headless and her center of vulnerability. Th
e throng of predators might rumble over that spot by accident. Then all her carefulness would be crushed to nothing.

  The men muttered among themselves. “Fire and ash! She's not frightened of the lot down there. Not a sniff.”

  “She'll do it, too, burn the whole of 'em or I'm a winged wildebeest.”

  “That I'd like to see.”

  “The Sky Herders down there are a bad lot. The Light Hoof tribe's not much better, but still don't want to watch 'em eaten.”

  “Yeah, no chance o' sleep with all that noise. May as well go down.”

  The tall warrior picked up his spear and hefted himself upright, back straight, face grim. “I won't say that I like it, 'cause I don't. But I suppose a man can't get by doing only what he wants.”

  His horn-tipped spear swept from the herd to point at the path sloping downhill.

  “Men of the Greathearts, ah, say some words to your families. Then follow me down the trail, and may the Sky Bull shit stardust on our enemies!”

  With that, he held his spear toward the sky and stomped down the cliff path. The warriors took their time in walking after him, first speaking in low voices to their wives and children.

  Energy bounded and coursed through Celaise. Anticipation mixed with fear into a chilling giddiness. Hunger waited inside her like a puma, content to sleep for the moment but ready to leap and roar.

  Below, the giant centipedes passed along the outside of the tribes. The people and cows were running for their lives toward the mesa, but the Headless horde was still gaining on them. The chains of predators would cut the people off and begin to feed. Little did the Headless suspect a greater predator watched from above.

  Jerani gazed up at her with his bright midnight eyes. His little sister wrapped her arms around his leg in sweet-scented terror, while the fat brother stood behind them both, arms crossed with worry.

  Yes, she would begin her Feast with the beast's raw fears. For dessert, she would have a warm draft of cinnamon and cacao.

  Jerani hated himself for ever doubting Celaise. He had thought her defeated by the Bright Palm. He had worried she might be less than she appeared, but he had no more suspicions.

  Not after what she said tonight. Because of her, the Greathearts would cast spears in battle as true warriors. Jerani knew that going down to try to save the other tribes was the right choice, though it terrified him. Without Celaise, he was sure Tall Tachamwa would have left the other tribes to die, to nourish more Skin-Backs into Rock-Backs.

  I would die for her. The realization trilled up his spine, but had never felt such certainty. I'd give my life for Celaise.

  “Jerani!” Wedan dug his finger into Jerani's shoulder, and Jerani was forced to wonder if he had lost himself staring at her and her dress—a gown soaring with sunlight and hope, surrounded by the dead of night. “Jerani, you aren't going down there, are you?”

  “Don't go!” Anza squeezed his leg, looking up at him with her good eye. “There are snakes!”

  Two packs of Rock-Backs had turned themselves into what looked like lumpy pythons. The enormous grey things wove back and forth, curling ever closer to the front of the tribes. The snakes looked to have had their heads cut off and their tails snipped, though they raced closer over the grassland in spite of their apparent wounds.

  Jerani felt as if his meal of milk curdled within him, a rottenness turning his insides green and slimy and threatening to bring him down shivering and sweating. Could Celaise really defeat all those Rock-Backs? He was not sure, but he hoped.

  He peeled Anza's arms from his legs. “I have to leave now.”

  “Don't go!”

  Her leather bandage felt rough under his hand as he stroked her brow, above her hidden eye. More than anything, he wished it would be whole, healed, and as beautiful as the other dark one that glinted up at him with wide fright.

  “You'll be all right.” He said it half to reassure himself. “Anza, you'll grow up strong and…” He had wanted to say “beautiful” but the thought of pulling off the bandage and finding the eye black and oozing made him change his mind. “…A strong woman, like Celaise.”

  “Don't go!”

  He glanced up to Celaise, found her watching with eyes like blue spears. Jerani asked, “Would you hold Anza?” He wanted to speak with Wedan about something that would only upset their sister.

  Celaise drifted backward. “Hold her?”

  “Just for a moment.” Jerani squeezed Anza's arm in reassurance then nudged her toward the handmaiden in the sky dress. Anxiety pricked him, but he forced himself to ignore it. He trusted Celaise with the safety of his tribe and his sister.

  “I've told you,” Celaise said. “I can't touch anyone.”

  “You can.” Jerani's skin tingled on his face and arm, in memory of where she had laid her gloves of smoke and fire on him. “I know you can.”

  Celaise regarded him with eyes like the most refreshing rainy gust of the year, cold, biting, and invigorating. Her gaze shifted down to his sister, and a view of a blinding cloud appeared in her gown. Her skirt folded outward as Celaise knelt to gaze at Anza at eye level.

  The copper bracelet reminded her to distance herself from everyone, but she thought it a shame. Jerani had proven himself bold in battle and useful. He had cut the ropes to free her from the tree, and she regretted not being aware enough to see how he had defeated the shining menace.

  Perhaps I do owe him something, she thought.

  Lowering herself, she breathed in Anza's scents. Fresh avocado and lemon teased Celaise. “You fear for your brother.”

  “What if Jerani gets hurt?”

  Celaise could not remember the last time she had been expected to comfort someone. The words no longer came naturally to her. “The Headless have gathered into one group, but that makes them more exposed to my magic. I will blaze through them.”

  The girl's pungent smell of fright did not lessen. Celaise detected a smaller scent amid the larger ones for Jerani, a death-throat pepper that burned her nose with its urgent sweetness.

  “You're also afraid you'll be scarred.”

  Anza laid her hands over her bandaged face. Her fingers picked at the edges of the leather wrapping.

  “Even if your tribe rejects you, you can still live,” Celaise said, “still have a life. It's just harder.”

  The girl did not smell reassured, and Celaise wanted to cringe. She did not know what to say, did not know if she could even say anything. Her magic put people on edge, children more than most, but she wanted to comfort Anza. She hated to think the girl would be a cast out. She doesn't deserve it. No more than I did.

  Jerani was speaking to his brother a way off now, but he had asked Celaise to hold his sister. Celaise did not know what good that would do. She loathed the idea of being held herself. Being trapped in someone's arms. Still, she would endure it, for Jerani and for Anza's sake.

  Shuddering and feeling dirty on the inside, Celaise merged herself with her vulnerability and reached out. She rested a glove of air over the bandaged half of the girl's face.

  Anza winced, and Celaise could tell the girl was frightened of the emptiness of the gown. As she should be. Celaise searched her mental wardrobe but found nothing that would suit.

  She skimmed her own memories for some image that might do. Once she had wandered into a priest's private gardens, hoping to catch servants kissing outside at night. Instead she had found a cherry tree, its countless blossoms like mist clinging to dark branches. Most flowers closed at night—as if they're afraid of me—but these soft petals braved the darkness. Up close they were pink and white stars, each beautiful but so delicate that Celaise felt sorry for them.

  The cherry tree had captivated her, and she had floated around it until hunger drove her away. She wanted to share that memory.

  A fluttering pink spread up Celaise's arm, as if she slipped on a glove of pleated silk. Then all of Celaise bloomed.

  After Celaise knelt to speak with Anza, Jerani pulled Wedan away so they
could talk without being overheard.

  “If I'm not quick enough down there,” Jerani said, “or not strong enough, I want you to watch over the family cows. Make sure Anza learns from the best milker and gets a good husband. If none will have her, train her under the Holy Woman.”

  “No, no.” Wedan's head shuddered from side to side, tears rolling around his plump cheeks. “You don't want to go. Looks like more Rock-Backs than ants on a honey gourd.”

  “I'll be with Celaise.”

  “But she isn't the goddess, is she? I know she's angry enough, what with having to wear a drafty dress, but how can she lock horns with so many?”

  “She bested that hill-back, remember?” Cold sweat itched Jerani's neck from all the rolling sounds of the horde below, led by the Rock-Back snakes. “Now I want you to promise. Promise me you'll look after the cows and Anza.”

  Wedan scraped off his tears, staring away from Jerani, at the warriors marching down the Big Stump. He cleared his throat, twice.

  “I promise.”

  Jerani smacked his brother's leg, and his brother returned the gesture with a limp hand. Then Wedan's eyes widened, pointing in Celaise's direction.

  “Would you look at that.”

  Anza was held about the shoulders by a woman in a light pink dress. It was Celaise, and her gown trembled as if hundreds of moths covered her. Jerani needed another moment to see that flowers draped down her skirt. The petals of her chest swayed in and out in time to her breath. Through the layer of blooms, he glimpsed the rough bark of branches, and he felt embarrassed, as if he had seen more of a woman than she intended.

  She is strong on the inside. Her bones are tree limbs.

  His sister's eye shone with amazement as she touched a flower, tickling its pink tufts. She ran a hand over Celaise's arm, and the flowers bobbed and spun, the twigs and branches pushing back and holding up Anza.

  Seeing his sister in Celaise's arms made his heart want to burst. He felt a painful happiness and gut-clenching joy. Urges warred within him to join in the embrace and to snatch Anza away from Celaise. Bewildered by his own feelings, he did nothing but watch.