Moongather

by Clayton, Jo;

  The grey woman waved a hand at the shining tree. Serroi darted to the glowing fruit and ate eagerly. Fire burned in her, seared her, consumed her; again she fought to control the burning. Again she won the fight. She thrust the fire from her, handled it, let it burst into the air over her head.

  They flew on, the grey woman taking her many places, showing her many things, testing her again and again, speaking no word, simply guiding her, letting her do and be.

  Then they were back with her-who-lay-on-the-sand, the vinat standing silent guard over the body. The flesh was on the bones, the eyes plump under closed eyelids. She looked worn and hungry, the girl curled up on the sand, lips cracking, feet wrapped in bloody rags, a ragged brown robe half covering a soiled white shift. The veiled woman bent over her, touched her cheek with cool fingers, then she looked back, her unseen eyes fixed on the spirit-Serroi as she spoke for the first time, her voice low and rich. “Cherish all things that live,” she said, then she was gone, fading into the clear hard air of the desert night.

  The body pulled spirit-Serroi. Wriggling about, pushing, shoving, she fitted herself back into her flesh.

  When she woke, the moons were rising. She tried to sit up, fell back as her arms collapsed under her, tried again and trembled upright. She rubbed at her eyes, vaguely surprised to see no vinat, no blue and crimson flowers. A dream, just a fever dream. She pushed up onto her knees, rested a moment, then got to her feet and stood swaying as she brushed feebly at the sand crusting her clothing. Abandoning this, she straightened and turned slowly while she desired water. When the tug came, it came far stronger than before; through her weariness and pain she knew a flash of hope. From somewhere strength came into her; like a river of fire it flowed into her. She could feel her bones glowing. With trembling fingers she tied the cloth around her neck and began walking in the direction her eye-spot pulled her. The fire slowly died but while it was there the desert was eerily beautiful for her, a continually changing pattern of black, grey and silver. Nijilic Thedom led the long ragged scatter of moons waxing to half across the starfields, its milky light shimmering through the air and touching surfaces into brightness.

  As the night progressed, her dream-fire left her and she began drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes coming to herself with her face in the sand and no idea of how she got there. Sand under her feet changed and hardened, was covered with small stones that struck sharply into the soles of her dragging feet. She stumbled along, half conscious, weaving around larger and larger boulders until she lost all idea of direction.

  Suddenly her eye-spot began throbbing frantically. She leaned against a boulder, resting and listening, holding her breath as she waited. She heard a thready tinkle, a faint bubbling. She pushed away from the stone, walked half a dozen steps and fell to her knees beside a small, shining pool at the base of a sharp rise. She dipped a trembling hand into the pool and stared at the water quicksilvering out of her palm. Dark and secret, the pool caught the starshine and shimmered the broken light back to her. She dipped her hand again, not quite believing that she could come back to life.

  She stretched out flat and buried her face in the coolness, drank and drank until she could hold no more. The water was joy, in her and on her. Then, as in the dream, her stomach cramped. She gasped and rose to her knees, clutching at her middle, groaning and throwing herself about as the pain pulsed through her. After a few moments, though, the teaching of the dream reached into her and she brought her body under control. She stretched out, gasping, on the sand until the sun threw up fans of light on the eastern horizon, warning her that she needed to find shelter. She dragged herself onto her feet and looked around. A pile of large boulders leaned against a cliff about twice her height, forming a shallow hollow that looked big enough to hold her. She stripped off her outer rope, dipped it in the water, then settled herself in the hollow, the dripping robe spread over her.

  She slept the morning through, slept better than she had in days, dreamed a little without the vivid awareness of the previous day. She woke at a scurrying sound, a tickling over her leg. A small grey-green lizard was running up the side of the boulder by her knee. She watched as it ran in and out of shadow and finally scurried toward her head. Choking down her reluctance, she snatched the lizard from the rock and killed it.

  Using a sharp-edged flake of stone, she skinned the lizard, ate the meat raw off the small bones, then braved the sun to wash hands and face at the pool. She took only a few mouthfuls of water, having learned a hard lesson, wet her robe again, and went back to try sleeping the rest of the day away.

  She stayed at the tiny spring the next night, continuing to rest and rebuild her strength. She ate more lizards and some of the bitter herbs growing in cracks of the rock. When the sun went down again, she drank as much as she could hold, soaked all her clothing in the water of the pool, then wrapped it around her. As soon as she had her direction, she scrambled up the boulders, dragged herself over the steep rise, and set out for the next water.

  The hard earth was littered with small sharp bits of rock that could cut to the bone if her foot came down wrong on one of them. This slowed her, put a strain on her strength; she felt her bones beginning to glow again as if they sucked heat and energy from the stones that threatened her. The fire upheld her for a long time, draining slowly away as she made detours around cracks in the earth too wide to leap over and too steep—sometimes even undercut—to climb.

  The sun came up before she found the second water. She wound the spare cloth around her head and walked on until she found a crack with negotiable walls. She spent the day there, dozing and enduring. It was both easier and harder to endure, now that she knew there’d be an end to thirst and pain, now that she was wholly sure she’d get out of this desert alive. She was more impatient than ever to cross the last miles of stone and sand. The day went on and on, seemed never to end.

  That night the walking was hard. The land was again rising and there were far more rocks, larger rocks, strewn over the unforgiving surface. The night was bright enough with Nijilic Thedom and his companions hanging overhead, but moonlight was treacherous, fooling her with pools of sharp-edged shadow that was just enough different from sun-shadow to throw off her depth-perception.

  When the sun rose, she had not yet reached the spring. The pull on her eye-spot was so strong that she kept on. Before the stone grew hot enough to burn her, she saw dusty green and a few birds soaring on leather wings.

  The spring welled up from the rock and ran off to the southeast in a small, noisy stream. There was a patch of stunted brush, birds’ nests in holes in the rock and in the bushes, some small rodents.

  She drank, sparingly this time, then looked around. A rodent poked a quivering nose out from under a stone, was joined by a second, then a third, all staring at her from bright beady eyes. Again she nerved herself and moved cautiously about, gathering small stones. She closed her eyes, opened them again. The rodents were still there. “The Maiden forgive me, small brothers,” she whispered, then threw the stones one after another. Two rodents fell dead and the other vanished.

  She rubbed at her eyes, then sighed, sat down and skinned the beasts with a bit of knife-edged stone. The flesh was redder and sweeter than the lizard meat. When she finished them, she explored the nests, took three of the eggs and sucked out their contents, throwing the shells away. She drank again, spat out the first mouthful, drank heavily, then rested a moment, her face immersed in the water.

  She stayed at this water for two nights and three days, dreaming and struggling to understand her dreams, growing more and more unwilling to accept what they seemed to be telling her. For the first time she felt desperately lonely, not daring to make friends with the animals she would use for food. She would not, could not, play with them, talk to them, then kill and eat them.

  When night fell at the end of the third day, she drank from the pool then began following the stream. The moons were already far into their travels when the sky darkened en
ough for them to be seen. The little stream picked up their light, sang and shimmered in the milk-white glow. Walking slowly beside the small strong stream, she felt a kinship with the dancing water and a greater peace than she could remember. She felt strength grown hard in her; the trek from the desert had fined her, tested her, and she had won through.

  She walked steadily beside the stream, humming to herself. The flight dream and the odd things that happened afterward faded from her mind. She felt physically strong and bubbling with health, ready to dance with the moon shadows. Four moons set, two rode high, the two became four then five. It was a vast and stately dance. The moon shadows of the scattered shrubs danced about in multiples like dark silent laughter. Her own feet danced in flickering shadow. She threw out her arms, swung round and round, shouting her joy into the wandering breeze, splashed into the stream and kicked sprays of glimmering silver bubbles into the air. After a while, she settled to a steady walk, quiet and contented.

  When there were only three moons left and these were low on the western horizon, the stream tumbled into a slit in the rock. Serroi dropped to her knees, quivering at this echo of her dream. She stretched up, still on her knees, tilted her head back, flung out her arms. The starfield was blooming and the Dancers rocking like cradles along the horizon. Then she bent forward and listened to the water booming in the hole, felt the boom echoing hollowly inside her. She blinked back tears. “I won’t cry, I won’t give in.” She bent to the water, splashed the coolness onto her face, drunk deeply, drank again. With a great show of energy, she jumped to her feet and walked on. When she was several strides away, she desired water, then turned west to follow the tug.

  The night wore on. The Dancers set and took the moon shadows with them. Serroi faced her loneliness, her pain, her weariness, and slowly accepted them into her; in this remnant of night she found a measure of calm as she narrowed the focus of her strength to simple survival. Without knowing how she knew, she felt that her ordeal was almost over. She was changed, she could take life into her own hands now and shape it as she wished.

  An hour after the Dancers set, the eastern sky flushed vermilion. As the sun rose higher, her shadow walked ahead of her like a flat black giant, jerking comically as her feet moved. She climbed a small rise and began looking about for shelter.

  The parched land stretched out on all sides, dipping gradually down toward the western horizon, hard earth, dull brown earth, crossed and recrossed by deep fissures, stones of all sizes scattered like tiles across it. One of the larger boulders rocked back and forth, then staggered up onto four skinny legs.

  THE WOMAN: XI

  Coperic set the tray on the table, pulled the chair across to the bed and sat down in it, smiling at Serroi. She blinked drowsily, stretched, patted a yawn, then smiled up at him, deeply content. Working a hand out from under the tumbled bedclothes, she stretched it out to him. The food cooled as they sat that way, sharing a long moment’s relaxation from a longer tension, sharing affection rather than passion, an affection both needed badly.

  Coperic was driven by his needs to hide this side of his nature. Only rarely could he share without subterfuge. He was a complex man, a strange man Serroi could marvel at but not fully understand. She lay warm, comfortable, relaxed, contemplating the dreamy calm on his face so different from that sour greedy mask he wore downstairs. His plots and schemes, most of them of a kind to bring him under the headsman’s axe were they discovered, these were as necessary to him as the air he breathed. He was smuggler and spy, master of thieves and vagabonds, cynic and idealist, fanatically loyal to his friends, a bitter enemy to those who injured him.

  A minute more, then both broke the hold. Serroi threw the covers back and stood. After putting on the crumpled boy’s clothing for one more day, she brushed off her feet and stamped into her boots. Crossing to the table, stepping over Coperic’s feet and answering his friendly grin, she picked up the tray and carried it to the bed. “You have many people downstairs?”

  “Not open, not for another couple of hours.” He rubbed at his long nose. “Lot of my customers are allergic to morning light.”

  Serroi took a few minutes to eat, then she looked up. “Take care, Pero. Has Morescad got anything against you?”

  Coperic shook his head. “I’m too little to catch his eye; besides I mean to keep my head low for the next few passages. No chances for greedy old Coperic.”

  “Wish I could believe that.” She drained the cup. “Take care of the girl for me.” She lifted the tray from her knees and set it on the bed beside her. “She’s going to kick up a fuss when she finds me gone, but she’s a good child and far from stupid. If I don’t make it back.… She scowled, touched her forehead. “Is the coloring still even on my face?”

  Coperic leaned forward and drew his fingertips along the side of her face. “Yes, little meie; you’ll have to chip it off with a chisel when you want to be yourself again.”

  She laughed, then sobered, caught hold of his hand, held it against her face for a moment. “I’ve got a cold feeling about today.”

  Coperic freed himself gently, leaned back in the chair, frowning at her. “You have to try it?”

  She nodded. “For a lot of reasons. I suppose mostly because I have to live with myself after this.” She flicked her fingers at the weaponbelt coiled on the table. “I’m leaving that and the pack with you.”

  He scratched at an eyebrow. “You’re not thinking clearly about this, Serroi. It wouldn’t be too hard to slip a message to the Domnor warning him of this plot and do it without blowing my cover or yours.”

  Serroi shook her head. “You’re right, it’d be easy enough. How much would you believe if you got a note like that?”

  “Can you be sure he’ll believe you?”

  One corner of her mouth twisted up, then she shook her head. “No, Pero, but I think the chances are better that I can convince him.” She leaned forward. “The Nearga-nor seem to be holding a meeting here; I saw more than a dozen of them on the Highroad coming here. Why? How many of them are actually here? Hern’s no fool, he’s got to be asking himself what the hell’s going on. It’s not the Gather; the Norim don’t have anything to do with the Maiden if they can help it.” She stood. “If I don’t come back, tell Yael-mri to remember my Noris, that I smell him in this.” She slipped the cap on, tucked in stray wisps of hair. “Can I just walk out?”

  He moved to the door and pulled it open. “Just go. No problem.”

  The side streets were empty and quiet in the clear calm dawn. The east burned with layers of red and gold that were reflected in the scummy pools. Serroi skirted the puddles and made her way to the main street where street vendors had mooncakes already frying in pots of fat. The street was filling with the crisp hot smells of oil and batter. Jugglers and beggars, fortune tellers and gamblers, thieves and acrobats, even a few petty Norids mixed with pilgrims up early on this Moongather Eve, all of them gathering around the cake vendor’s stalls or setting up for the influx of pilgrims later on.

  The harvest of coins. Serroi strolled along, smiling. For the street people these weren’t holy days. What they took in by trick of hand or mind would keep them through the lean days of the Scatter. Jugglers and acrobats crunched down the mooncakes, wiped greasy hands on trousers, began practicing their arts. The beggars settled on their corners, sores flaming fresh. They too were practicing their whines, exhibiting their infirmities to each other. Dancers were warming up, stretching, turning, working their bodies. Street musicians were setting up their stands, blowing experimental trills on flutes, tuning other instruments, the singers humming snatches of popular lays or hymns to the Maiden. Gamblers were trying the sleight of hand on each other. The few early-rising pilgrims were mostly serious; even the laughing, joking visitors kept moving toward the Temple.

  Serroi passed one or two of the gamblers who had snared victims, wrinkling her nose as the rustics hunched over shells or cards or scattered tiles, intent on their own impoverishment. She strolle
d through the noisy, colorful life that filled the main street, her spirits rising until a Sleykyn stepped into the street and began walking down its center. His serpent mask glittered, his scabbard clashed softly against the skirt of metal-inlaid velater strips that protected his groin. His velater-hide whip hung coiled in a leather pouch on his left side, only the handle showing; he could draw and strike with that whip in less than a second as Serroi knew only too well. She touched the shoulder where the cut still itched. He wore heavy leather gloves with metal inlays and thigh-high boots striped with the velater hide that could rip a man’s skin off with a single glancing blow, the skin from the great dark predator of the sea depths whose scales had razor edges. He walked with a heavy arrogance that no one cared to challenge. For several minutes after he passed the street was empty, then it filled again with people talking and laughing a little too loudly.

  Serroi moved unnoticed toward the Temple, a small dusty boy like countless other children—quiet and exuberant, awed and indifferent—brought to Oras to celebrate the Gather. Lost in this stream of pilgrims she rounded the curve of the Plaz-walls and saw the Temple ahead, crossing the end of the broad avenue. Around her she heard sudden intakes of breath, angry curses, the faltering of pacing feet; she faltered herself as she stared at the gathering beside the Temple gate. Black-clad Followers of the Flame swaying and chanting around a Son who stood high above them on a makeshift stage, chanting in counterpoint as he shouted a diatribe against the Maiden, naming her Hag and Whore, Demoness and Deceiver. The pilgrims muttered uncomfortably, angrily—with no one daring to confront this affront to custom and piety; under the anger there was a current of fear and uncertainty that told Serroi with a terrible eloquence how powerful the Sons of the Flame and their Followers had become.