Luz

by Patricia Duffy Novak

  * * *

  Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  www.mzbworks.com

  Copyright ©2000 by Patricia Duffy Novak

  First published in Sword and Sorceress 17, 2000

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  Luz

  Patricia Duffy Novak

  She will speak to those she favors. Although the whole world turn against them, they will receive the sign of her love.

  —The Book of Truth.

  * * * *

  The Goddess didn't speak to Luz. Luz lay on the stone floor of the temple, facedown, arms outstretched and legs together. Behind her closed eyelids, she saw the light wax and wane, and then wax and wane and wax once more. The sea wind whistled through the temple windows and the distant cry of birds carried on the breeze. Closer to her ear came the occasional rustle of the priests’ robes and the slap of their leather sandals going past. Sunlight warmed her back, followed by night's chill, and then the whole pattern once more. Her stomach growled, her bones ached, and her bladder screamed its torment.

  All this she saw, and heard, and felt. But nothing more. No vision came. Luz would have stayed, waiting for Iridan's sign, until her death; her mind willed it so, but her body rebelled. She rose on trembling legs and staggered from the temple to face the ruin of her dreams.

  The sun lay low on the horizon, and the wind had died. A saffron-robed priest in the courtyard smiled at her. “Three days and two nights. Longest vigil in temple history. You'll have a good vision to report to Simeon, I'll wager. Did the Goddess kiss your hand?"

  Luz said nothing, her throat too dry for speech and her grief too raw to share with this man. Her soul lay crushed within her, like a moth battered against stone.

  She returned to her quarters, took care of her body's needs, and dressed herself in a clean, white robe. Then she walked along a cobbled passage to the spare, stone chamber of Father Simeon, High Priest of the Star.

  The High Priest sat in a simple, armless chair, his muscular hands quiet in his lap. Through the window behind him, Luz saw the setting sun striping the clouds with shades of red. Simeon's angular face lay in shadows, but the star upon his brow glowed lightly silver, the special mark of Iridan's love. Among all the priests at the Seawind Temple, only Simeon bore such a sign.

  "What did you see, my child?” he said to Luz.

  She lowered her head, refusing to let the hot tears emerge from behind her eyes. “I saw the darkness and the light."

  "What did you hear?"

  "I heard the wind and the rustle of robes."

  "What did you feel?"

  "I felt the stone, cold beneath me, and the sun, warm upon my back."

  "That was all?"

  Simeon's deep voice echoed in her ears. She wanted to lie, to claim for herself the mark of Iridan's love, but to lie to a starbrow was to lie to the Goddess herself. “Yes, Father. That was all."

  "Ah.” In that single syllable, Simeon put a wealth of feeling. Luz heard sorrow and pity and something else she could not name. She raised her head. Dusk had fallen. Simeon waved his hand and the room filled with a soft silver light. His sea-blue eyes were unreadable, like a page written in a language Luz didn't know.

  "You understand what must follow."

  Luz nodded. When she'd pledged herself three years ago, she knew there was no going back. Before coming to the temple at eighteen, she had been a nobleman's child. To pledge herself to Iridan, she had renounced family and friends and fortune. Now that the Goddess had rejected her, she had nothing. She would be marked as a failure, with an X branded upon her brow. Everywhere she went, people would know that some secret sin had kept her from Iridan's embrace. Yet Luz didn't know what that sin might be.

  In her three years at the temple, she had witnessed a dozen other postulants receive their visions. Each one had emerged joyous from the temple, with a story of Iridan's radiant presence, a kiss bestowed, a word of favor.

  Her sorrow gave way to bitterness. She had been devout. She had never spoken ill of anyone. Of all the postulants she had known, she had believed herself the most worthy.

  Perhaps, she realized with a surge of guilt, that was her secret sin. Pride. Regret mingled with her anger. All for nothing, she had given up her home and fortune. For nothing, she had striven to perfection in Iridan's Way, if pride had doomed her every effort.

  Simeon stepped forward. With his finger, he traced upon her brow the X of shame. Her flesh burned, but she didn't cry out.

  "You are marked now,” Simeon said. “Wherever you go in the Kingdom of Orath, the hearts of men will turn against you, as one rejected by the church. If you stay in this land, you will beg for your living or perform the lowest labor. No proper home will admit you. But they will not kill you or seriously harm you. Your fate is in Iridan's hands. To take your life from her is worse than blasphemy."

  "I understand.” Luz's voice came back to her, as if from far away. She felt disconnected from her body. The burning on her brow seemed only a distant irritation, something that didn't belong to her.

  "At first light, you must leave the temple. Take only a robe to cover your body. And these.” He reached into his pocket and pulled forth three silver coins. Each one was stamped with the image of the Goddess. Luz shoved them in her pocket, not wanting to see that serene countenance, which seemed to mock her now. Three silvers would buy her food for about six months, or passage out of the city, to a place where no one knew her. There was some mercy in the judgment of Iridan after all.

  "My heart will go with you,” Simeon said. “The Goddess grant you peace.” Luz almost retorted that the Goddess had already taken any hope of peace from her, but she had no quarrel with the priest. It was the Goddess who had rejected her, not he.

  * * * *

  On the trading vessel Seahope, she took passage to the island nation of Iloria, sleeping in the cargo hold, among the barrels of spices and bolts of cloth. When she showed her face above deck, the crew openly displayed their contempt, with words, with sneers, and sometimes with shoves and kicks. Luz bore their treatment silently, staying out of their way as much as possible, although the stuffy air of the cargo hold made her ill.

  After three days, the ship made port in the city of Dormin, and, with the crew's curses following her, she walked down the dock. The harbor smelled of brine and of cooking cabbage and of too many people pressing close. The language was a babble of foreign words, but she could see the puzzlement in the people's eyes as she passed by them in her white robe, with long, unbound hair and an X upon her brow.

  She had a dozen coppers to her name. Using gestures to make herself understood, she spent three of them at a dockside bazaar to purchase men's clothing: often-mended breeches and an ink-stained shirt. With five more, she bought a cheap dagger and used it to hack off her hair, cutting bangs in front to cover the mark of her shame. Tall and thin as she was, she was certain she no longer looked like a woman at all.

  * * * *

  For five yeas, she stayed in Dormin, sleeping in the alleys of the slums, taking odd jobs where she found them. She learned the language enough to get by. They knew her along the docks as Crazy Lu, and the contempt people displayed for her was of a general kind—inspired by her raggedness—not the personal hatred she would have known in her native land.

  She who had been sheltered all her life, first by her parents and then by the church, now emptied chamber pots or swept the fil
th out of cellars. Sometimes, when luck was with her, she was chosen to haul cargo from the quays. A desperate, hard life she made for herself, but better than what might have befallen her in Orath. At least she never needed to resort to begging.

  Her heart hardened to the sights of the slums, to the starveling children and the pock-marked whores. She witnessed drunkenness and debauchery, saw a man killed for a handful of coppers, and another blinded for ogling someone's wife. Several times she had used her dagger to defend herself, twice drawing blood.

  The scar upon her brow faded from vivid red to dull white. If the Ilorians caught a glimpse of it, when her bangs lifted in the wind, they made no comment, probably taking the mark as the work of a knife. Iridan, the Desert Queen, was not worshiped here. Iloria had other, stranger Gods.

  Luz thought often of her failure. Of the other postulants who had gone before her, none were perfect. Some of them were vain, some lazy, others spiteful and domineering. One drank too much wine, despite his vow of temperance. Another was deliberately cruel to the temple servants. A third was sloppy in his work. And yet the Goddess had sent signs to them, chosen them as her priests.

  In herself, she found nothing to blame, except her sense of pride. In judging her fellow postulants she must have condemned herself. If so, there was irony. After five years in the slums of Dormin, she believed she had no pride left at all.

  Other times a voice, like that of a demon, whispered in her mind that she done nothing wrong at all, that the Goddess was capricious and unjust. She refused to dwell on that thought, instead sifting her memories for each small imperfection, each lapse of charity, teasing out a pattern that must have brought her doom.

  One night in late winter, as she lay in an alley, wrapped in a tattered blanket, curled up for warmth near the chimney of a bar with some wooden boxes to shield her from the wind, she heard two men talking in her native tongue. They spoke of their business dealings, and as Luz listened, the blood drained from her heart. They were buying children in the slums of Dormin, to send to Orath for rich men's pleasure.

  It was not her affair, she told herself. If the Ilorians were willing to sell their children, there was nothing she could do. By trading in flesh, these merchants from Orath broke their Goddess’ commandments, but that, too, was not Luz's affair. The Goddess had rejected her. Let the Goddess find someone more worthy to enforce her laws. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to listen, as the men's voices droned on.

  That night she dreamed of the children, battered and crying. When she woke, cold and stiff and tired, she knew what she must do. In the last five years Luz had endured hunger, cold, misery, and deprivation. But never had she experienced a pain like these children would know.

  She rose and went to the docks, cursing Iridan with every step. It would not be enough to free the children, for their parents would simply sell them to the next buyer. She must hire out to get passage on the merchants’ ship and unmask the network involved in this trade. From her work along the quays she knew the trading vessels from Orath were often undermanned—the people of Orath were leery of the sea. They could use her help, but whether they would take her or not, she couldn't guess. If not, she would find some other way abroad.

  Her mind told her she was crazy to take on this trouble, but her heart wouldn't let her rest if she refused its call. She was doing this for the children, she told herself. Not for Iridan, who had scorned her.

  She stood on the deck of the Seamidge, the cold wind blowing the ragged hair from her face. In her men's clothing, with her dagger strapped to her belt, she should have passed unrecognized. But the Orathan captain stared at her brow, clearly knowing her for what she was. He wore an amber amulet about his neck, a token of luck, and Luz hoped he was a superstitious man.

  "I must go home,” Luz said, her gaze meeting his full on. “I will work for you. Any job, no matter how menial. It is the penance the Goddess marked for me, to live in Orath and feel the scorn of my own people. Refuse, and you. may earn her enmity. The sea is treacherous in winter."

  "All right.” He spat into the water. “We could use a hand in the kitchen. But you dwell apart and speak to no one, hear? You will not contaminate us with your taint."

  Luz nodded. Then she went in the direction he pointed, below decks. She had succeeded in gaining access to the vessel, and yet her heart felt heavy as lead.

  * * * *

  By dawn of the first day, she had found the children, ten little boys, crowded together in an empty crewman's room. As she walked in, they stared at her, silent with terror. She coaxed their stories from them, but they knew nearly nothing of their fate, only that they had been thrust into the hands of strangers and put aboard this ship. Where they were going, they didn't know. She told them not to speak of her visit and promised them, if they did not, all would yet be well. Then she whispered to them what they must do.

  The ship docked in Uraz, a city some small distance from the Seawind Temple. As Luz walked along the dock, the wind blew her hair from her brow. People spat at her and shoved her, but she bore it with silence, knowing they would not kill her or seriously harm her. To do so would take vengeance from the Goddess’ hands, as Simeon had said.

  She ducked into an alley, then into another, and waited there until dusk. No city guard, Luz was certain, would take the word of a cursed one that the trading ship held illicit cargo. And so she must wait until the proof couldn't be denied. She'd had nothing to eat since morning, and her stomach felt tight against her ribs, but she didn't stir abroad to beg. She wanted no part of these people, or their money. Later, when starvation loomed, she would swallow the last remnant of her pride, but for now; she could wait.

  At nightfall, she returned to the dock, grateful for the darkness, which hid her mark of shame. By the side of the Seamidge, a man stood silently. Luz slipped into the shadows behind a piling and took her dagger into her hand. Hours passed and the dock slipped into silence. Her muscles grew weary with lack of motion. The cold wind from the water cut through her tattered garments, into her flesh. Finally, another man approached the ship, just as she'd heard them plan. Luz's heart quickened its beat, and she no longer felt the cold.

  They came from the hold, tiny, shuffling shadows, and the man started to lead them down the dock. Luz tensed.

  As they passed her, she sprang, taking the man down in a roll. She held her dagger to his throat and let out a wild yell. Startled, he lay silent beneath her, his breath hard, his back warm beneath her frigid chest. “Run, children!” she screamed in Ilorian, and the children, bound together with ropes, ran forward as best they could.

  The man at the boat came running toward Luz. The captain, she saw as he neared. He carried a dagger, much newer and sharper than her own. “You!” His blade quivered. To kill her would be to invite the wrath of Iridan. But he had already broken one of Iridan's laws. The man beneath Luz grunted. The moment stretched taut, like a wire.

  And then came the footsteps, and the lanterns. Her scream had done its work. The dock guards ran forward, three of them. Luz stood.

  "This mad woman,” the captain said, pointing at Luz, “attacked my companion without reason. Look at her brow. She's cursed by Iridan."

  A guard raised his lantern. Luz pushed back her hair. The guard made the sign against evil.

  "They are trading in flesh,” Luz said. She pointed down the dock, where the children had run. “Children from Iloria, to satisfy rich men's perversions."

  "You, a cursed one, accuse me so?” The captain let out a laugh.

  "The children are here. Ilorian children, bound with ropes.” She let out another cry, her signal to the children, and in minutes, they came shuffling back and stood in the lantern light. Black-haired, green-eyed children, with the fair island skin.

  * * * *

  They drove her out anyway, the people of the city, pelting her with garbage and small stones.

  She had done what she set out to do. The captain and the merchant had been arrested, and the guards had t
aken the children to the temple. All of this Luz had witnessed, dogging the guards’ steps. The High Priest of the Uraz temple, a woman named Noreen, who bore Iridan's star, came to the temple wall and looked out at Luz, who stood below in the dust, demanding to know if the children were safe. “They are safe,” the High Priestess said. “Thanks to you. What's your name?"

  "Luz."

  The High Priestess nodded; then she turned and walked away, saying nothing more.

  Luz had saved the children, but the street people of Uraz blamed her for the shame. Her presence had contaminated, they said; her evil had permeated the vessel, leaking into the captain and the merchants.

  Never mind that the plans to sell the children were made before she took passage. Never mind that she had set the children free. The word turned against her, and the crowd drove her forth.

  She stumbled through the streets of the city, filth clinging to her garments and hair, her back bruised by stones. She passed the temple, where the High Priestess Noreen stood silent on the rampart, eyes bright as lakes of fire. Out into the desert Luz went, weeping now, as she had never wept before, in all the years she had dwelt in squalor and despair.

  Alone in the desert, miles from the city of Uraz, she put her head upon a rock. The sun stood at zenith. The ground was warm, and the wind quiet. Her tears ran into the dry earth. She had done the Goddess’ work, and again the Goddess had rejected her. Her heart broke, and she knew then that in all those years of exile she had clung to the hope that Iridan was just, that her own devotion had not been given in vain. But Iridan was cruel and arbitrary. A Goddess who returned evil for good.

  The wind rose, sending sand to sting Luz's face. Clouds came across the sky, thick clouds, heavy with rain. A storm from heaven broke like waves on an endless sea.

  Luz sat on her rock as the strange storm pounded her, the cold rain soaking the filth from her hair and clothes. And then as suddenly as it came, the storm passed.

  The clouds vanished so completely, Luz would have thought she'd dreamed the storm, except that everything around her shimmered with damp. Wet and shivering, she sat in the sun.