Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels

by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)

  She had a small daub of Yellow in her own aura, probably not enough to be a Tavaedi, but enough to recognize magic in others. He deemed it for the best she could not see the other Chromas in his aura.

  “I know a few healing dances,” he said. Better to understate the case. “What is your need?”

  “My son.” She tugged on his arm. Her fingers felt like dry sticks. “He is sick. Come to my house and I will give you a ringlet of gold if you can heal him.”

  Chapter Four

  Hex

  Dindi

  To Dindi’s dismay, the distance from the wooded cliffs down and across the lowland fields was greater than it had looked from up above. There were many switchbacks on the way down the hill, and then a long meandering footpath led them through more woodsy areas and cultivated cornfields. Unlike in the Corn Hills, where the clans tilled permanent fields, the Yellow Bear people still practiced swidden agriculture. They burned out an area to be planted for a season or two, then allowed the woods to grow back over it while they moved on to cultivate another spot.

  Settlements in the Yellow Bear lands were spaced farther apart than in the Corn Hills, and smaller. Several times over the next several days, they passed clanholds, all of the same peculiar design. The beehive shaped mounds that Dindi had mistaken for houses from the buff were actually steep, artificial hills of much larger dimensions than she had estimated. At the top of each artificial hill, a clay or log pike wall enclosed a dozen or less dome shaped houses. Warriors sat in bomas, crow’s nests. These cage-like platforms at the top of tall posts reminded Dindi of larger versions of her rabbit hutch back home. The Yellow Bear people did not seem to have kraals for horses or aurochsen, but goats gamboled everywhere, along with many kinds of fat, waddling birds and peccaries. Also, occasionally Dindi caught the tantalizing smell of smoking fish.

  The fae here were strange too, though not unfriendly. Brownies rode on the backs of the birds. Nymphs in flowing gowns dangled from the branches of the trees. Many of them waved at Dindi as she passed, but she scrupulously ignored them.

  They snaked along through Yellow Bear territory circuitously at first, in order to avoid trespass whenever they saw a warning totem post. These posts, of wood or stone, featured the tribe’s totem on the bottom, a bear standing on its hind legs with one paw raised, the clan marking in the middle, and a rayed disk at the top. Once, they saw a clanhold burning in the distance, mute evidence of war with a neighboring clan.

  They did not rest in any of the clanholds, but camped by night in the wilderness near the path, as they had before. The Tavaedis also allowed them each to scrounge the forest for edibles, with the caution to stay in pairs and beware of trespassing directly on the lands of any Yellow Bear clan lands. They had not packed enough food for the whole journey, so they needed to find more as they traveled. The Tavaedies set aside days to send the boys hunting and the girls foraging for food.

  Dindi wasn’t the only Initiate disappointed to learn they would not see the ocean in the far West. In fact, they had not caught a glimpse of the ocean since they entered the lowlands.

  “It’s better that we don’t go near the ocean,” snapped Abiono, in response to Tamio’s complaints on this point. “The settlements on the coast are often attacked by Blue Waters tribesmen. Sometimes the vicious thugs even bring their war canoes up the river!”

  “Really?” Tamio leaned into this news, enthralled. “Is there any chance they might attack while we’re here? A war would be really marvelous!”

  “Yellow Bear tribehold is the third largest in Faearth. Blue Waters barbarians aren’t foolish enough to attack such a hold when even the Bone Whistler himself did not dare,” Abiono said crushingly. “I suggest you worry about passing the Initiation and not go looking for more trouble.”

  As they neared the tribehold itself, settlements occurred more closely together. When the Tavaedies decided to ask for shelter at one of these, Sycamore Stand, the Initiates had their first chance to look at Yellow Bear tribesfolk up close.

  From a distance, Dindi had already seen that they built their holds upon some sort of mound. Sycamore Stand was no different. The travelers descended to the hold from some hills thick with chaparrals. From this vantage, the outline of the artificial earthen mound, raised from the valley floor, showed clearly. It was not a simple round hill, Dindi now saw, but a disk shape with a long extended earth walkway, like a tambourine with a handle. A ditch surrounded the disk. Sharpened stakes prickled the ditch. The only safe approach into the hold, then, was to cross the narrow walkway. Five clumps of dome houses, perhaps a hundred domiciles in all, dotted the flat disk top. The houses looked like beehives or birdhouses. Each was round, domed and plastered white. A tiny hole in the middle of the wall, well above ground level, served as the only entrance. Rope and wood ladders dangled from these window-doors.

  Most of the houses were painted along the bottom, patterns of stripes and circles in color pallets dominated by yellow, but graced by occasional touches of blue and orange. Those with the finest and freshest paint had also been crowned with a golden disk on a miniature ladder in the top center of their domes. “The ladder to the sun,” Abiono explained the ubiquitous symbol.

  Yellow Bear Tavaedies and warriors came out to meet the visitors and escort them across the long neck of earth to the hold. They dressed distinctly from Rainbow Labyrinth tribesfolk. The male Tavaedies here wore billowy knee-length elderbark skirts under immense diamond shaped masks that reached below their waists and far above their heads. The outsized ‘eyes’ and ‘lips’ of the diamond-head masks were plated in beaten gold. One Tavaedi wore an immense gold Ladder to the Sun disk above his diamond shaped mask. The female Tavaedies wore longer skirts and complicated crowns of golden beads and bangles formed into prongs, loops and horns.

  Yet, to Dindi, the ordinary clanfolk appeared no less outlandish. Matriarchs and maidens wore their hair chopped short, like the cap on an acorn. They swished about in full skirts made from bark rag strips and knotted cords. Patriarchs wore hats mounted with disks, warriors, hats mounted with horns. Gold necklaces and arm torques encircled the necks and limbs of both genders, and a few of the men’s disk shaped hats were plated in gold as well. Women wore gold ear rings and nose rings and seashell ankle bracelets that click-clacked when they walked.

  The Tavaedies in regalia strode out to meet them, led by a majestic woman in a headdress of gold spangles.

  Brena

  A black crow swoops toward the bear, shedding a feather, which becomes an arrow. A girl is there, with a bow, who unleashes the arrow into the bear, and watches as the whole world melts and dies. A baby’s cry. Brena tries to scream but she has no mouth.

  There is a wound in the world. The bear looks right at Brena. Help me heal it.

  Brena awakened from the nightmare with her hands digging into her thigh. The fire in the hearth had died to low embers. Her sleeping mat lay on one side of the ovoid, one-room house, her daughters slumbered together on the other side. All of her herbs hung in baskets on pegs on the curved mud wall, forming a nest of sage and chamomile. She breathed in the aroma and forced herself to relax.

  Dulled by mud walls, but not damped completely, came the sound of weeping—Ula’s younger sister, in the next compound, still sobbing over her miscarriage. The ugly affair with Ula hadn’t done anything to set Brena at ease. Ula and her sister had married the same man, because Ula had proven barren. In public, Ula had made a show of welcoming her younger sister’s pregnancy. In secret, Ula, who had no magic, made some nasty bargain with the lower fae, who gave her blue cohosh to slip into her sister’s acorn stew.

  The hexery had been discovered, and Brena, among others, cast stones on the mat to condemn Ula. The Tavaedi society of Sycamore Stands clan gave Ula the usual choice for a witch, to be sacrificed to the fae or given to the Deathsworn.

  Brena could not help but think of her nightmare, and how easy it would have been to slip the black arrow into Ula’s heart—Ula who was condemned to
die anyway—and end the faery’s torment. It infuriated Brena to catch herself in these unworthy thoughts. She pushed away the temptation. In any case, Ula chose to be tied to the black obelisk at the edge of the clan lands, to be given to the Deathsworn.

  The clan of Sycamore Stands belonged to a clanklatch, a local alliance, of five clans, and did not often suffer attacks from outtribers. However, one morning, not long after Ula’s trial, the warriors who manned the bomas – crow’s nests built on tall masts – sounded their conch shells. Clanfolk fled their gardens and cornfields to huddle inside the stockade on the top of the hill. Outtribers, an entire band including Tavaedies, had been spotted crossing the totem poles marking the boundary of Sycamore Stands territory. The outtribers approached the earth ramp to the hill, where they left gifts and waited to be invited further. The Sycamore Stands clansfolk observed the newcomers, recognized them, then designated Zavaedi Brena to greet them when the stockade opened.

  The Zavaedi of the outtribers bowed his head and spread his arms. He raised his voice for all to hear.

  “Sycamore Stand Clan of Yellow Bear Tribe, we trespass without malice upon your hospitality. By your leave, Zavaedi Brena of Sycamore Stand.”

  “Zavaedi Abiono of Broken Basket of the Rainbow Labyrinth, welcome,” she said. “It’s been long since we’ve seen you. How many Initiates do you bring?”

  “Seven boys and seven girls, Honored Auntie,” said Abiono.

  Brena inclined her head. “We also have Initiates to send to the tribehold. I will be escorting them. The Initiates can all travel together.”

  Native and visiting Tavaedies danced and played rattles and drums to escort the Initiates into the center of the hold, where the hosts prepared a feast for the guests.

  Brena felt back in her element overseeing the preparations.

  “The friends you chose now will influence the rest of your life,” she warned her daughters as they rolled out the flat bread on large rocks. “When I was your age, I neglected the people who could have helped me become a better Tavaedi and only spent time with those I thought were ‘amusing’. That was a mistake. They held me back from being as good a dancer as I could have been. I didn’t want to humiliate my friends, so I didn’t try as hard as I should have.”

  The memory still irked her. One of her so-called friends later became her husband. Even then, all he’d cared about was that his wife not outshine him.

  “But Mama, you became a Zavaedi eventually,” said Gwena.

  “That’s just my point,” said Brena. “Not until after your father…” She caught herself. She’d never told the girls the full story. “…died in battle,” she revised in mid-sentence, “did I really focus on honing my skills. I don’t want you two to make the same mistake. When you reach the tribehold, there will be hundreds of young people. Search for the best dancers and make them your friends. Then you will be encouraged to be the best too. Don’t make friends with people who are likely to fail the Testing.”

  “Well, of course,” said Gwena. “Why would we want to spend time with failures?”

  “Maybe they might have other qualities besides just being able to dance well,” said Gwenika. She cuddled a chipmunk, her latest inseparable pet.

  Brena fought the same helplessness that always welled up in her whenever faced with her youngest daughter. Gwena is tough, like her father, but Gwenika is too much like I used to be. A weakling.

  “Maybe I should hold you back until next Initiation.” Brena combed her hand through her hair, considering that possibility. “You’re too young.”

  Gwenika brightened. “Yes! I can stay here with my pets and Gramma, while you and Gwena go off for seven moons to the tribehold.”

  “Never mind.” Brena punched another sticky ball of dough on the rock until it was flat. “You’re coming.”

  By noon, Brena saw to it reed mats laden with food were arranged in a square around the performance platform in the center of the dome-shaped houses. Tall structures of a wooden lattice leading to a disk of beaten gold, the Ladder-to-the-Sun symbol of Yellow Bear, surmounted many of the mud-and-dung houses. Brena noted with pride the awe of the Rainbow Labyrinth tribesfolk as they eyed the beaten gold. The Rainbow Labyrinth excelled in many things, but no one surpassed the gold smiths of Yellow Bear.

  The two Taveadi societies held an impromptu Vooma, a dance war. They took turns displaying their cleverest tama while the aunties of Sycamore Stand served roasted pigeons, acorn porridge, onions, carrots, celery and rhubarb in addition to corn pishas and corn beer.

  “Tama Tama,

  Tae Tae,

  Vooma Vooma

  Tae!”

  The chanting and the drums thundered and the Tavaedies flipped and kicked on the plantform. Zavaedi Brena won the Vooma against her counterpart, but Abiono took defeat with good grace. As they returned to the feast, his eyes twinkled and he gestured vaguely toward the gold ornaments and paint she wore which indicated her widowed state.

  “You still haven’t remarried? Neither have I. My offer stands . . .”

  She smiled, despite herself, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I remain as flattered as always. But I have no desire for a man to complicate my life.”

  “I wish you would let go of your grief for your husband, Brena. It won’t bring him back.”

  “It isn’t grief,” she said. “It’s anger. He brought his death on himself. He had no need to join his cousin’s clan’s war, he just wanted to win glory. He could never forgive me for having a Shining Name when he didn’t. But he would have found more glory protecting his own children than swallowing a spear. What good did a Shining Name do for him then?”

  Her eyes slid to her daughters. The elder, Gwena, had already attracted the attentions of several of the new Initiates. She laughed and tossed her hair, looking completely at ease and so like her father Brena’s breath caught in her throat. The younger, Gwenika, on the other hand, wagged her tongue at one newcomer after another, always with the same result: after a moment or two the other person’s smile began to twitch, and her partner abandoned the spot next to her to escape her chatter. Gwenika ended next to the last girl in the line, a pretty but mousy thing who looked twitchy to begin with, certainly not like someone capable of teaching Gwenika to better herself. Brena couldn’t say why, and she told herself she was being foolish and unfair, but she took an immediate dislike to the girl. There was something unsettling about her. Brena’s mouth thinned to a line.

  “Who’s that?”

  Abiono’s sigh held a basketful of untold woes. “That one would be Dindi.”

  Only then did Brena recognize her from the dream as the girl who had shot the bear and destroyed the world.

  Dindi

  During the feast and dancing, Puddlepaws escaped Dindi’s pack. She worried in case the kitten tried to steal foods from the feast mats, but found Puddlepaws preoccupied behind her. Head low to the ground, eyes glowing with intent, small furry rump stuck up in the air, tail lashing, the kitten stalked a scurrying rat.

  Puddlepaws pounced and caught the rat, which he didn’t know quite what to do with.

  A girl swooped down and picked up Puddlepaws. “Fa! Go! Leave her alone! Oh, you poor little thing, are you whole? Did that meanie cat bite you?”

  The girl was cradling the rat. No, now Dindi saw it clearly, it wasn’t a rat but a chipmunk. Puddlepaws scrambled away and peeked out from behind one of the huts.

  “That’s my cat,” Dindi said. “Don’t chase him off, he might get lost.”

  “He terrified my chipmunk!”

  “I’m sure he meant no harm,” Dindi said. “He just wanted to eat an arm or two. Maybe a leg.”

  The girl snorted. In her looks, she was typical of Yellow Bears folk, solid and healthy, with cropped, thick dark hair and sun-warmed skin that shone golden brown. Her dress was beaded with polished acorn caps and quail feathers, and she wore a single gold ring in her nose.

  “My name is Gwenika.” She coughed and plunked herself
down next to Dindi, displacing Jensi, who had been chatting with Yodigo on her other side and not noticed her.

  “Hey!” protested Jensi.

  “Be careful not to sit too close to me,” said Gwenika morosely. “I have Drowned’s Man’s Lung.”

  Jensi scooted away. Now Dindi and Gwenika were isolated at the end of the mat.

  “Drowned Man’s Lung!” said Dindi. Normally, anyone with a contagious, fatal disease such as that was asked to join the Deathsworn rather than risk infecting the rest of her clan.

  Gwenika chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “I may have the wrong diagnosis, I’m still not sure. My symptoms are fever, coughing and chest pain, which could indicate Drowned Man’s Lung. But it might also be the Black Boil Plague.”

  Either possibility seemed quite dreadful to Dindi. Several of her clanfolk—two younger siblings to Jensi and Hadi’s mother—had died from disease a few years ago, because Uncle Lobo had angered a troll.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dindi. “How were you hexed?”

  “I’m still not sure. My mother refuses to help. She thinks I’m not really sick.”

  “Oh,” said Dindi. “What does your clan’s Healer Tavaedi say?”

  “My mother is our clan’s Healer.”

  “Oh.”

  Dindi didn’t know what else to say, but Gwenika talked, and very rapidly. She asked a lot of questions but didn’t wait for answers.

  “So you have a cat? Where did you find him? What do you feed him? Other than chipmunks. I’ve never met anyone else with an animal. That wasn’t a horse, I mean. Or goats, but those aren’t really pets because you eat them. Some people do eat horse, though, which makes sense because there’s a lot more meat on a horse than on a chipmunk. No one has horses here, but I’ve heard all of the clans in Rainbow Labyrinth do—is that true? This is my chipmunk. I found him when he was hurt and helped him heal.”