Calling Up the Fire

by Lori Martin

  Chapter 23

  As a people, the Feimennas were wanderers. They had no villages. This, one of a dozen main summer camps, was as close as they came to permanent settlements; they would

  spend the full season here. Paither felt their need of the open air and freedom. He would have cause to remember it, later. Mejalna’s happiness made her look kindly on everything. She thought the rough camp charming. The dappled tents, made of treated doeskin, stood tall and wide. Colorful banners decorated the front poles. Headhigh statues, delicately carved of oak and maple and draped daily with fresh flowers, were placed about. Paither looked at them closely, wondering why the Feimennas carted them along; they must be heavy and hard to move. Two depicted a deep-eyed venerable man with a bird nestling on his shoulder; the others were all of a solitary female figure in a billowing robe. Though each drape, each finger, and each strand of hair was clearly defined, the face itself was blank, left formless – a deliberate omission, since they were all the same. He tried to ask about it. Nhy said harshly, “That is the Missing One,” and would say nothing more.

  The forest cover tapered off here to flat rocky ground that wore hard on the hooves of the horses. The camp itself spread to the horizon. A first hint of autumn could be felt in the air.

  They were given a large and handsome tent, appointed with lavish draperies. As Mejalna had impressed on Nhy that Paither was a great leader in his own country, some furniture and even a bed had been provided. They were breaking their fast on the second morning, sitting at a low inlaid table, when a strange yodeling sound suddenly came through the entrance flap. Mejalna said, “I think that’s how they ask to come in.”

  “Yes,” Paither called. Nhy entered. “Good morn to you. I do please to tell you – your request has been granted.”

  Mejalna shot Paither a questioning look. He said, “The second-high will see me?”

  “Yes, later. Today later, before high-sun.”

  “You said the second-high is your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what will happen after we’ve seen her?’

  “After to do will depend on the decision.”

  Paither said sharply, “What decision?”

  Nhy looked surprised. “On what is to do with you.” He added, “Of course,” having heard them use it.

  Paither stood. “We’re returning to our homeland. We came here to ask for your help, but whether you give it or not, we’ll be leaving. And soon.”

  They looked at each other. Finally Nhy said, “I do tell the second-high of your... claim?... that you are not Mendales, that there is another country.”

  “Claim?” Did he mean to question them? It was hard to judge Nhy’s command of the language. Sometimes he used archaic expressions. “We’ve told you the truth.”

  “We do not saved such knowledge,” the Feimenna answered sadly. He turned to leave.

  “Just a moment. If your mother is the second-high, who is the first?”

  “His name is Laon. No kin to me. He is very great.”

  “Fine. I’ll see him instead.”

  Nhy’s brows drew together. “I do not to think that can be.”

  “I am the highest in my own land,” Paither said. “I’ll see your highest and your highest only.”

  Nhy considered both of them: Paither with chin out and hands on hips, Mejalna sitting rigidly, her face set. “I will do ask.”

  After his departure they were silent for some time. Mejalna crumbled fragrant bread between her fingers. A half-felt worry began to form in her chest. “How far are you going to push them?”

  “As far as I have to. I wish I understood them better. There’s something Nhy isn’t saying, something they know, or think they know, about Mendale.”

  “I don’t think he believes Lindahne exists. He thinks we’re lying, that we’re Mendales ourselves.”

  “And he doesn’t like it,” Paither said. “But why?”

  A nearby bird scolded; another answered. He took a stride or two about the tent. His ankle had healed. Finally he sat on the edge of the bed, hands on his knees, thinking. The bedclothes were still tumbled about. One corner trailed on the floor. Mejalna stared at it sightlessly. His hunger, which went beyond the erotic, sometimes seemed unappeasable. They returned to love again and again; yet even in the moments of pleasure she felt him demanding more, a something that could not be met by the body or heart. He wanted to engulf her in his very skin, or be engulfed in hers; he wanted a communion of plunging depth and soaring height, a love like the far horizon, where the infinite sky and unending Sea mingle and lose their separateness. So had the world begun, she knew. And the Light lay upon the Waters.

  He could at least speak his love easily – more easily than she could herself; she stumbled over the words. But never once had he mentioned their future, beyond an immediate return to Lindahne. Would he ever mean, really, to make her a queen?

  As young as she was, she knew what it was to lead; she had commanded in raids and Defier intrigues. Power held no false glamour or magic promise for her. Often it was gratifying; for the most part useful; sometimes it was a burden. Apart from her love, she had no ambition to be queen – a role she conceived of only hazily – and if she admitted the truth, it frightened her. But she would take the challenge for his sake, if he offered it. She couldn’t ask. He was the relas, after all. It was for him to choose when the time came. And if he didn’t choose her, it would mean he would have to choose someone else. A Lindahne king did not rule alone.

  Yes, but who? she asked herself, watching him. Don’t be a fool. You know he loves you, who else would there be? If he hasn’t pledged himself, maybe it’s because the Chair isn’t his to offer yet. Unless he thinks I’m unworthy to rule, too easily led, look at how he talked me into bringing him into camp, Samalas could have strangled me for it... She shook herself. There was enough to worry about right now, without inventing future troubles. She said, “You know, I used to be quite sensible. But lately something’s turned my head.”

  He smiled at her and held out his arms, but before she could respond he had dropped them again. “We’d better concern ourselves with the Feimennas. Let’s each take a turn around the camp. Maybe one of us will find out something. But don’t forget to get back here early.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  The morning passed in little things. Paither was drawn to the horse fields. He had many criticisms of the Feimenna way with horses, though there was no one he could discuss them with.

  They had already learned that the Feimennas had no nobleborn or commoners, as they understood it; rank was conferred according to the amount of knowledge and learning any individual had “saved.” Below the evident authority of the first-high and second-high of the Great Cult, Paither could not pick out the leaders. Yet some kind of hierarchy was maintained; the fingers-to-mouth gesture revolved on it. When two people met, Nhy had explained, the inferior offered more fingers. Paither had noticed that Nhy himself never used more than two fingers to anyone, which proved he must have importance. Even so, Paither often saw him currying his own horse or setting out his own food.

  Mejalna was befriended by a group of young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, who were anxious to see the stranger up close. They brought her around the camp, pointing and explaining things as best they could with hand signals. They took her to meet another girl, whom they found hard at work among a pile of scrolls. She smiled and greeted Mejalna shyly, with halting words. Evidently she too was learning to save the foreigner’s language, but she was new to the study and her vocabulary was sparse. The other girls exclaimed in delight as Mejalna tried to converse with her. Eventually Mejalna, catching their high spirits, fell to giggling with them, a girl again, without worries. Only when one of them patted her stomach, indicating hunger, did she realize how much time had gone by. She glanced up, then down: her shadow was nearly gone; it was high-sun. She gave a yelp, called out a hurried apology her new friends didn’t understand, and ran.

  Paith
er was standing in front of their tent, looking grave and cold. Nhy and a huddle of attendants were with him. The Feimennas had given them new clothes, copied in their own Lindahne style, but made out of the favored rainbowed fabric. It still gave her a dizzy feeling. Paither had dressed carefully, and held himself very straight. He saw that she was disheveled from the morning’s wanderings, and would have no time to change – this, just when they needed to be impressive.

  “We are ready,” Nhy said politely, as she tried to catch her breath and her dignity. She had never yet seen a Feimenna show anger. Paither, however, was so calm and glassy that she knew he was furious. She was embarrassed, feeling in the wrong, but he needn’t glare as if she were a tardy schoolgirl. Her own temper rose. If he thought so little of her that every small mortal mistake would be turned to a proof of her unworthiness, so be it.

  They had begun at fierce odds with one another; at their first meeting they had locked in a fighting embrace. But as lovers they hadn’t yet exchanged a single cross word. Nor did they now, in front of the Feimennas.

  Someone brought up horses. Nhy explained, “Great Cult is just beyond the camp. We to need to ride.”

  This time there were enough horses for everyone in the small party. Without a saddle pommel to grasp, and with her broken fingers sticking up awkwardly, Mejalna had trouble mounting. Two of the men helped her. Paither looked pointedly in the other direction.

  Nhy said, “I ask you, when we come in the sight, you to not speak, please. It is very sacred. I to tell you when we may speak.”

  “Sacred?” Paither repeated. He remembered Nhy asking, “Is it a sin?” It seemed the Feimennas had been touched by the immortals in some way. They weren’t like the Mendales, heretics and unbelievers; but how had the gods appeared to them? He asked, “To which god is the Great Cult dedicated?”

  Nhy had once more withdrawn. He said only, “To ride now, please.”

  Mejalna’s horse, following the others, started forward without her command. She clutched at its mane, feeling the blood rise in her cheeks. If she fell she would look a fool. And Paither probably wouldn’t even help her back up.

  He edged his horse to the front, beside Nhy. As they passed through the camp she had only his stiff back to look at.

  The road Nhy was following climbed upwards; soon it was quite steep, mounting a hill, the first rise they had seen in this flat countryside. Here, too, it seemed the immortals chose the heights for their homes. The top of the rise was obscured in the omnipresent fog.

  Paither frowned to himself. None of the old Mendale legends he knew told of the Feimennas’ gods, but then the Mendales would hardly have paid attention to that; they had no use for the divine. If the Feimenna beliefs were true ones, then they must also come from the immortal royals: Proseras of Wisdom, Nialia of Fate. There could be only one true pantheon.

  His horse was unsure of its footing. He gave it a firm guiding hand. The mist made it hard to pick out the trail. He glanced behind him. Two attendants bobbed between him and Mejalna. The dampness made the air chilly, but as he looked again he saw stains of sweat on her robe. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she stared at the road over her horse’s head. When he caught her eyes her face changed; she jutted out her chin in defiance. His annoyance returned. He faced forward.

  The tail of Nhy’s horse flashed above his eyes; then he too was at the top. The fog was fading to mere trailing wisps. A narrow corridor of stone led away from them. The entranceway curved over their heads in thick rock. At its apex the center stone had been cut away, leaving the two rising sides separate in the air, forever leaning to each other and never meeting. A dozen sentries sprang out of the mist. Nhy came forward into the grey light and spoke. The guards bowed and raised five fingers to their lips.

  Paither opened his mouth, remembered Nhy’s request, and stayed silent. Nhy gestured to the company to follow.

  The corridor permitted only single-file passage. Its stone was dank, rough-hewn, unrelieved by decoration and breathing of ancient times. The walls rose the height of three men, straight and flat to the top, except that here and there, where the support was strong enough to withstand it, more top stones were missing. The cut lines were sharp; it had been done deliberately. Paither shifted, looking forward and back, but he couldn’t see beyond Nhy just ahead, and Mejalna was behind him. After the Feimenna openness of the fields, this narrow way seemed an anomaly; it disturbed him. It was impossible to tell if they had entered a building, a cave, perhaps nothing. Perhaps this corridor stood solitary in the open. And when, he wondered impatiently, do we get to the end of it?

  They did, abruptly. A high retaining wall ran out from the corridor, encompassing them in a huge and barren circle. The enclosure was open to the sky clouds; at a few points along the wall other doors opened on darkness. Beyond the wall on all sides loomed more weather-beaten rock – a fog-shrouded fortress, perhaps, a palace or temple? He took it all in quickly, and fixed his eyes on Nhy.

  The Feimenna dismounted. Paither did the same. As he jumped down he heard Mejalna sucking in breath. After a moment’s inner struggle he turned back to help her, but she was already standing beside him. They looked at each other. She had nearly forgotten the cause of their anger, but a sense of injury and neglect hung about her, while Paither saw again the disorder of her hair and clothes. Their eyes dropped away.

  Nhy was crossing the enclosure. Far opposite were two large marble statues mounted high on flat rock. The right hand one was a seated male figure, with great curling locks of hair and a bird on the shoulder. On the left was a female figure – the same faceless woman as that depicted in the carvings at the camp. The Missing One, Paither remembered. Nhy made a reverence and leaned between the statues to pull a single rope cord. A deep gong sounded beyond the wall.

  Mejalna was peering into a side corridor. Nhy shook his head emphatically and motioned her back; Paither’s lips pressed together, as if she were his erring child who would be reprimanded later, in private. She flashed him a look.

  An elderly woman draped in grey appeared in one of the doorways. The attendants and the horses had melted away; in all this bleak landscape only the three of them, wrapped in rainbow stripes, had life and color. Paither felt entombed. The dampness touched his skin with chill fingers.

  The woman greeted Nhy with five fingers to lips, and nodded them inside. This corridor was even darker, with just a few spluttering wall torches, but the air was warmer. Nhy murmured, “You may speak now, outside the enclosure.”

  A direct question rarely received a direct answer. Paither paused to consider another approach. They passed an empty wall-niche, and here again the highest stone was missing. He ventured, “An interesting style,” and pointed.

  Nhy’s red eyes flickered. “That is to show the not complete. It is our sorrow.”

  Paither waited. They walked along, and his patience was rewarded. Nhy roused himself to add, “The Mother has left us now and we are incomplete. We wait for her to forgive us and return. The gods someday will hear our prayers.”

  Mejalna was startled out of her sulks. She whispered in his ear, “Can he mean –?” He shushed her quickly, before she put Nhy on guard. Then he reached to take her hand, but it was too late. She had pulled back.

  They crossed a cold stone threshold into a soaring vault. The air was damp. The walls sweated and it was too dark to see to the end. Midway across Nhy and their guide halted suddenly, and stood with bowed heads. Mystified, Paither drew up beside them. There was nothing much to see; as far as his eyes could make out in the mournful gloom the chamber was bare.

  “Nhy,” he said. Something made him keep his voice low.

  The Feimenna raised his head, blinking, like someone called back from a deep prayer. “Not yet,” he whispered. “You to meet the first-high soon, in a moment soon. But in Great Cult we must to stop here and remember.”

  “Remember?” Mejalna sidled up, just catching this.

  Nhy made a faint slow gesture at the floor. P
aither peered down and saw a blackened line across the ancient stone floor, as if it had been scarred by fire; the line curved out into a circle. “What is it?”

  “It is nothing now. In the long-ago, when the Missing One was with us, it was celebrated here.” Paither still looked inquiring. The Feimenna, brows creased in distress, whispered urgently, “The Eternal Marriage. It was to celebrated here.”

  Mejalna made a startled sound; he held up his hand before she could speak. The guide said something, motioning, and Nhy nodded. “We to continue.”

  They were led deeper into the labyrinth. The ancient passages gave way to newer ones, where the rock was paneled over by warm wood. The damp was chased back by glowing fires and the smell of pine. Cross corridors opened suddenly on to high rooms blazing with color, but there was no time to look; the woman led them on.

  Exasperated, he began, “When will we –”

  “Soon,” Nhy said.

  On the word they stood before stout double doors, hung with chains, which were swung inward by unseen hands. For a confused moment he saw only a bright cloud. Their guide proclaimed something, calling shrilly; he recognized Nhy’s name, and the word the Feimennas used to mean “Mendale.” The guide stepped aside. Nhy said urgently, “Please to respect,” and brought them inside. The doors clanged shut.

  A high domed ceiling, a few divans, a low table, a circular rainbowed rug spreading around them, and an immense fireplace with stone deer heads at each end: Paither’s eyes swept the room, and came to rest on its mortal occupants.

  A tall woman of middle years stood before the fireplace. Black hair intermingled with grey fell loosely to her waist. Nearly at her feet, a man of great motionless age sat cross-legged on the rug. Both wore silver-grey robes.

  Nhy saluted the woman formally with three fingers (though surely this was his mother) and then, with particular reverence and five fingers, the man. The woman returned his greeting with two fingers, the man with one. They exchanged rapid words.