by Diana Rivers
Table of Contents
Other Books by Diana Rivers
Preface to the Revised Author’s Edition
DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT STAR
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Copyright © 1999 by Diana Rivers
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First published by HandMaidBooks 1992
First Bella Books edition 2012
Cover art copyright 1992 by Catherine Hopkins
Design for revised author’s edition by Susie Nightowl
ISBN 13: 978-0-966807-50-9
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Other Books by Diana Rivers
City of Strangers
The Smuggler, The Spy and The Spider
Hadra Series:
The Hadra
Clouds of War
The Red Line of Yarmald
Her Sister’s Keeper
Journey to Zelindar
Preface to the Revised Author’s Edition
Each of the Hadra books came to me as a tale told by a single narrator. It was as if she was speaking in my ear or in my head, urging me to write down her story, now, quickly, threatening to go silent if I tried to take too much control of it. Before I wrote my first book, Journey to Zelindar, I was a short story writer. I always said I could not imagine writing a novel and keeping track of all those characters through time. Then one summer, when I was sick and alone at a friend’s house, a little fantasy came to me of a woman walking to the ocean to drown herself. I wrote it down because it persisted until I did, playing itself over and over in my mind like a tape loop. Then the strange fierce-looking women who saved her life suddenly appeared in my head. That was how I met the Hadra for the first time, seeing them through Sair’s eyes as she told me her story.
As I was writing and rewriting Journey I kept wondering about the origins of these women and their culture. Scenes for Daughters of the Great Star and The Hadra began to play themselves in my mind, with Tazzi as the narrator this time and the time period two hundred years earlier. I tried to resist getting caught up in these next books until I finished writing Journey. I was afraid I might lose them. But they were still waiting for me when I was ready. Now, these two books have also been finished, as well as two others which are waiting to be published, and yet another is whispering itself into my ear, this one with three narrators.
These Hadra stories of bold strong women who shape their own lives came to me as gifts, offering a world I can ride off and get lost in, a world that gives me hope when often, as a woman, this one doesn’t. I continue to feel it important to share this gift with others, so when Daughters was allowed to go out of print, we at Elder Mountain Press decided to put it back out into the world.
I want to thank the women at the Press, particularly Marideth Sisco and Susie Nightowl who have given me so much encouragement in this project, and the women of my land community who have sustained my life, and especially my partner Path who has supported me through all my doubts and fears as well as my joys and triumphs.
Diana Rivers
May, 1999
DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT STAR
Book 57 of the Hadra Archives,
as recorded by Tazmirrel of Nemanthi
under the guidance of Alyeeta the Witch
Chapter One
My birth name is Tazmirrel, Tazmirrel of Nemanthi, that being my natal village. I was named so for my mother’s mother, whom I never knew, as she had died some years before I was born. In my family I have always been called Tazzia. Here among these women I am simply Tazzi.
I, Tazzi, am writing this down because Alyeeta told me to, because she said those who came later would want to know how it was at the beginning, how it all started. She said that it was important and must not be lost, that someone must record it. When I said, “Why not you, Alyeeta? Surely, you write better than any of us,” she turned angry and told me no, that the Witches had their own story to tell, that it must be one of us speaking for ourselves. When I said, “How do I know our whole story? I can only tell that part that I have seen,” she answered quickly, “That is enough. Others will tell theirs.”
It was Alyeeta who supplied me with pen and paper, treasures hoarded from her former life that otherwise would never have come into my hands. And, of course, it was Alyeeta who taught me to read and write as she taught me so many other things in that short time. Such things are not usually taught to a dirt-child, the child of a dirt farm, least of all a girl. My only teacher before that had been Tolgath, the old Witch-healer of our village. She knew a few symbols such as were needed for her craft. Those she passed on to me, but she could not read a single word on the written page.
Poor Alyeeta, she did not have an easy time of it with me. I was full of protests and objections. It seemed too hard, I had started too old, it was not what I wanted to be learning. But she is stubborn, that one, not easily turned aside from her purpose, though I tried hard to warn her. Pushing and insisting, she forced me past my fears. We are camped here for a while, waiting for the others. When they come, we will go north. This may be my only chance to set all this down. After that, the way our lives have been going, Goddess only knows when another chance will come.
Already I have written bits and pieces of this in what snatches of time I could find. Mostly, I have it written in my head. I can shut my eyes and see it all happening again. Sometimes at night, when I lie waiting for sleep, I summon up one scene or another. Sometimes I add that day’s happenings to the tale. A year ago I could not have imagined such a story, not with me as part of it. If someone had tried to tell me, I would have laughed them away. A year ago I was the healer of my little village and thought to live there all my life, doing those same things I had always done.
Alyeeta said to go back to my very first memories of the powers, for that is the start of this story, so I will do my best here to recollect those times. Aside from my mother’s love, which was a gift to me and no part of that other, my first memories are of speech with creatures. I cannot look back to a time when it was not there. I think I had it before I had speech with humans. Understand now, it is not like human language, this speech with creatures. It is not words strung together and spoken aloud. It is more like shared images, like
feelings and signals, things sensed rather than said. I would sit waiting at the edge of the woods and creatures would gather: squirrels and rabbits, snakes and turtles and birds. Strange as it may seem, at first I did not know this to be a power or in any way special. I thought speech with creatures was common to all humans. When I learned that others were deaf to it, I cried. It seemed so sad, like being deaf to the wind or blind to colors.
Gradually I began to understand that I was different, that others thought me the strange one, though I do not think they cried for me. Doors and windows would shut when I passed by. Children would call me names and turn away when I came to play. Some even tried to hurt me for my strangeness, push me down or throw stones. They soon learned that their intended harm returned to them. This, of course, did nothing to make them love me more. It only made them fearful and added to my strangeness in their eyes.
With all that, I think my first true companions were more likely goats and foxes than other children. I found them good company for my games. They did not argue or tease. We never played a game that ended in a quarrel. This pleased me well enough, though I know it pained my poor mother. It grieved her much to see me set apart in this way. She loved me so and wanted others to love me as well. She blamed all my troubles on the passing of the Great Star, for that was the year of my birth. Then I could not understand her complaints. Now I know she was right—if indeed they can be called troubles. Mild and gentle as she was, I have seen her more than once shaking her fist up at the sky and muttering angrily, “You have stolen my daughter. If not for you, she would be like other children.” Yet I think she loved me all the more for it.
Not so my father. He would seldom look at me directly. More likely he would give me some glowering sideways glance and mumble things that I now think were curses. He almost never spoke to me by name, but said to the ceiling or to the air around me or to my mother, “Tell that one that she left the barn door open,” or, “Tell that one to go fetch the eggs,” or whatever errand he wished to use me for. That was the one great grief of my childhood, that my father loathed me. There was nothing I could do to change that. Goddess knows I tried. Had there been others like me in Nemanthi, we could have formed a bond with each other, made our own small circle of safety. As fate would have it, there was only one other girl-child in the village to be born “Under-the-Star” and we did not come together at that time. Though it feels as if Kara has always been there in my life, in truth she was not part of the beginning—but more of that later.
So what do I best remember of that time before Kara? The bull perhaps. Yes, walking out into the bull’s pasture. I can still see him clearly. A huge, hairy, black beast in a field of bright, green grass. There were daisies there too, white daisies like stars in the green grass, and that black, four-legged hill of a creature looming against the blue sky. This was the same bull that had gored my father’s leg the week before and tossed two of the village boys. Something drew me there as sure as the bee is drawn to flowers. My mother rushed out screaming when she saw where I was. I think some men came running with pitchforks, though in the end they stood watching and did no harm. The bull lowered his great, shaggy, horned head, blocking out the sun. Then he brought his nose down, down, down for me to rub with my small fist. Afterward he followed while I amused us both by picking grass and flowers for him. He would likely have let me swing on his horns had I thought to do so.
My mother caught me up in her arms and crushed me to her when I came running in, some wilted daisies still clenched in my fist for her. I could feel her heart pounding. She did not scold me though. That was not her way. For myself I could not comprehend her fears. What could be more natural than to walk through the field with a bull at my heels? In fact, hard as it is to believe now, at that time I had no understanding of fear at all. It puzzled me, like a sickness that seemed to have no cure. When I tried to question my mother, she would look pained and confused and hug me to her. When I questioned others, they would turn away in anger. They, of course, thought me the one in need of curing. To them such fears were normal.
I was such an innocent at the time. Though it was all around me, I had as little comprehension of hate or anger as I did of fear. And in truth, what did I have to be afraid of then? I went into the sow’s pen and sat leaning against her heaving sides while her little ones scrambled back and forth across me. Birds would come to my hand at a call. When I was older, lured by their wild cries, I even went to meet with the Oolanth hill-cats that the villagers held in such dread, climbing up to their lairs in the rocky slopes beyond Nemanthi. That was later. By then I knew enough to keep silent. I told only Kara of it, no one else.
Before the hill-cats there was the wolf. Of all those encounters with animals, it was the wolf that most affected my young life and in the end brought Kara to me. I was seven or eight at the time, no more I think. My mother had sent me to the cobbler’s wife, carrying a basket heavy with eggs, bread, butter, and cheese. All this, I believe was in trade for my father’s new boots. A hungry old she-wolf, fierce-looking and with yellow eyes, came trotting right into the village. The other villagers fled screaming from the streets. In seconds, I was alone there with her. She came straight at me, tongue lolling and mouth agape as if she meant to eat me where I stood. When I spoke to her, she stopped and licked my hand. Seeing her so easily tamed, the villagers poured out of hiding. Now there was much loud, brave talk among them. Wanting to stone her, they shouted at me to take shelter. They were still afraid to come close enough to use their axes or their pitchforks, yet they had a great thirst for blood. Their fear, I think, had made them very angry.
Seeing they meant to kill her, I thrust my hand into her ruff and led her out of the village. We went into the deep forest where others did not like to go. There I sat on a rock, and while we talked, I fed her all I had been carrying: the dozen eggs, the two loaves of bread, a round of butter, and another one of cheese. That done, I told her never to return, that she could expect nothing but harm from humans.
My mother shook her head and looked at me strangely when I came back, but she said nothing of what had happened. With trembling hands, she refilled the basket, though it must have been a great loss for us. Then, with the basket carried between us, we went together to the cobbler’s house.
Now I must tell you, the coming of the wolf did nothing to soften the hearts of the villagers in my direction. One might think they would have felt some gratitude at being spared. After all, I had removed her without the loss of even one little lamb. Not so, not at all. Instead, they seemed angry that I had sheltered her life and so deprived them of their target. If anything, after that they shunned me even more. Still, they could not afford to be too openly hostile.
By then I was already the apprentice healer, for Tolgath was growing too old and infirm to tend to it all. They might keep their distance and make small warding signs when they thought I could not see, but young as I was, they never knew when they might need my help to cure their calves or their babies. That, at least, kept them civil.
The sum of all this is that I had luck with creatures and little with humans. Though I was born into their hands and raised among them, still I grew up with all my village set against me. Do I sound bitter here? Believe me, I am. How could I not be? After all, I was only a child, and a loving one at that. I did not choose the time of my birth. And much, of course, has happened since to add to that bitterness. There came a time when I gathered it all, every slight and insult, gathered it to store like an abundant harvest, but that is a different part of this tale. Back then, I moved through it untouched. Looking back, what amazes me now is how little I cared then, how little any of it bothered me. I think I looked at others with a kind of wondering pity and grieved for them. Their hearts seemed clouded and troubled so much of the time. It was my poor mother who suffered then, not me.
So I had my mother, who cared for me above all else, and my little sister, Ghira, who followed after me whenever she could. Those two were all who loved me, but wit
h the creatures, somehow that was enough. No, that is not altogether true. There was one other whose love I could count on, whose love I could not have done without. Karaneeta, my Kara. But it is still so painful to speak of her. Yet how could there be any truth to this account if I left her out of it?
After the wolf, it was she herself who sought me out. I knew, of course, that the Potters had a daughter of near my age, white-skinned and red-haired like all their kind. Sometimes I would see her in the village streets, going about on her family’s errands. Having so often been rebuffed by other children, I did not think to approach her. Besides, Potters are very private folk, not given to mixing much with others. They live separate from the villages they serve, mingling mostly with their own kind at markets and at fairs or traveling on the road, and marrying only other Potters so that they might remain true to type and different from the people they live among.
Her family’s house and potting sheds lay across the bridge on the other side of the river and a short distance from the village. I had never had any cause to go there and knew little of them, save by gossip, and so was much surprised when she stopped me on the road one day. I was coming back from the village well with a full jug of water. She had been standing half concealed behind some bushes. I was even more surprised when she laid a hand on my arm and said in a hushed voice, almost a whisper, “I have been watching and waiting here for you. Set down your jug and come with me. We need to talk.” This startled me, yet somehow I felt compelled to go with her. Also, I was in a rage of curiosity, so curious I did not even stop to think if she meant me good or ill. Nothing like this had ever happened to me in my life before.
As soon as we were out of sight, up that little path, she halted and turned to look me up and down as if in search of something. Where her eyes touched me it felt like the touch of fingers running up and down my body. My nerves tingled. At last she stopped at my face. Her large green eyes were staring straight into my soul. I began to shiver. No one, not even my mother, had ever dared to look directly into my eyes.