by Diana Rivers
As she spoke, Kara’s face would look hard and cold, as if cut from stone. I would go away from her, bleeding with grief. Just as I would be starting to make peace with the terrible pain of that, she would seek me out, making our secret signal. When we met, she would throw her arms around me and cling to me, crying and saying over and over, “Our kind can never marry. It is not what we are meant for. I will not leave you, Tazzia. No matter what they say, they cannot make me. You must promise me the same.” Then we would fall into each other’s bodies with all the hunger of grief and separation. But there was a wild look in her eyes that frightened me, and not much gentleness between us any more.
Later, I would catch glimpses of her with a young man, white of skin and with curly red hair. They would be laughing together, his arm around her waist. He could walk with her freely on the streets, while she and I had to signal each other in secret and meet in the woods like thieves. Something twisted in my heart, some feeling that was new and very ugly. Within a month the betrothal was announced. But in the end it was not Kara nor my father either who propelled me out of my natal village. It was Jortho, my brother’s friend.
Chapter Two
This Jortho was a large, ungainly youth with a perpetually morose expression. For some reason—I certainly gave him no encouragement in that direction—he took a fancy to me in the manner of men and women and began following me about. He was not easily discouraged and soon became a great nuisance. With my shadowed reputation, I had thought myself safe from that kind of attention. In truth, I had no interest in young men in that way, none at all. If I had, he certainly was not the one I would have chosen. There were several young men in the village—slim and dark and quick—who would have been far more to my liking. Still, he was my brother’s friend. As there was already enough enmity between us, I tried, for my brother’s sake, to be polite to this Jortho. At the same time, I had to make sure never to be alone in Jortho’s presence and never to let him come up on me unawares. This went on for some months. It would have been trying enough by itself, but I was also meeting secretly with Kara at that time. After a while the stress of all this maneuvering began to tell on me, as I had little talent for it. In spite of all my precautions, he caught me by surprise one night. It was on a street at the edge of the village, more of a lane than a street really, quite dark and with few houses about, only some old rotting sheds. I had left Marshlegs in the pasture that day to feast on the new spring grass and so was on foot, walking home alone from a healing that had been a long, difficult struggle and in the end a futile one. In spite of my best efforts, the baby had died.
Weary and heartsick, I wanted nothing more than to be quickly home in my own bed. There I could cry myself to sleep in privacy. Over and over in my mind I kept seeing that little baby’s face turning blue as she fought for breath and seeing, too, her mother’s look of anguish. Though others had little love for me, still I grieved for their griefs. I suppose it was part of the powers—and not always such a welcome one either—that I felt the pain and grief of others perhaps more even than my own.
I must have been very distracted not to sense his presence. Suddenly a voice next to my ear said, “Aha, now at last we are alone as we should be.” Apparently, he had been hiding in the alley at the corner of a shed, waiting and watching there for me. I jumped back startled, angry with myself for having let down my guard. He stood in front of me, blocking my way and grinning, quite pleased with himself to have caught me that way.
As soon as I could collect myself I said firmly, “I am very weary. It is late. I have no time for games, Jortho. Please let me pass.”
“No, no, not so easily,” he replied. I could smell the reek of liquor on him as he leaned toward me. “First, you must come with me to that little meadow just above the village. We have only to follow this alley and we will come to the path.” Full of eagerness, he tried to grab my arm to compel me, then swore in frustration when he could not do so.
“Let me pass!” I said again, more sharply this time, for my weariness was telling on me.
Now he was angry at being so clearly rebuffed, the very thing I had tried so hard to avoid. “Witch-girl,” he said through his teeth. “You lie down easily enough for dogs and wolves. Why not for an honest farm boy?”
I gasped at the ugly meaning of his words. Never in my life had I been truly angry before. Now, suddenly, anger rushed up in me like a flame, burning away all sense—a terrible raging beast leaping for the kill. It was straight out of the red heat of that anger that I answered him, with no compassion and no care for consequences, “Jortho, you revolt me! Your attentions are the plague of my life! I have endured them out of pity and for my brother’s sake. If I wanted a man, you are the last on earth I would choose. As to dogs and wolves, that is an ugly lie. I have never lain with them, but I swear I would sooner do so than give my body to you.”
Anger is a dangerous weapon. It finds its target all too well. Even in that dim light I saw his face contort with rage. “I see it is the Potter’s brat you want and not a decent man like me,” he snarled.
“Yes,” I shouted back, recklessly mad now with this new found anger. “Yes, and I would not let you touch me after being loved by her.”
At that, he gave a roar of fury and shouted some word that had no meaning to me. I saw that in one quick motion he had pulled his knife from his boot.
“No! Jortho, no! You know what will happen to you,” I yelled to warn him. Some sanity was returning to me. I was coming up out of that red pit of rage, but his own madness was too great for him to heed my words. He had forgotten all that he knew of me.
He swung the knife at me with lethal intent and fell back instantly, blood spurting from his chest and his own knife lodged there. His eyes went wide with hate and horror. With a cry, he turned and went lurching and reeling away, leaving a trail of blood.
“Wait! wait!” I called after him, horrified at the quick turn all this had taken. “Let me help you. At least let me stop the bleeding.” He gave an animal cry of raw fear. I knew better than to worsen things by chasing after him.
Lights began to go on in the windows of the closest house. A dog was barking and I heard a voice call out. My own anger was all gone now. In its place was an icy desolation. As soon as Jortho had stumbled out of sight, I ran for home. Luckily, my father was asleep and the curtain drawn across my parents’ sleep space. My mother had been sitting up waiting for me with some sewing in her lap. Sobbing, I threw myself into her arms. “What do they want from me? Why do they hate me so? I cure them and their children and their creatures. I gentle their animals. I keep their village safe from wolves and hill-cats. I have never done them an unkindness. All I ask is to be left in peace.”
My mother listened and stroked my hair, murmuring and trying to gentle me just as I had so often done with creatures. At the end of my wild tale she looked as if she were about to cry herself. She was shaking her head. “A bad business, very bad. That boy’s family—those are dangerous, angry people. Oh, my poor Tazzia, whatever will become of you? The fate of the Star sits very heavy on your head, daughter.”
Seeing how distraught she looked, I suddenly thought that my strange existence and her great love for me probably brought her far more grief than joy. With a deep sigh she stood up, took me by the hand, and led me up to bed, helping me undress and covering me as if I were still a little child. I was very glad my father had not wakened.
All my life my dreams had been sweet, often taking me to some favorite place in the woods. That night I could find no peace in sleep. My dreams were filled with screams and scenes of fire, the shouts of angry voices and dark figures running in the night—all dread and horror and terrible foreboding. When I woke in a sweat and lay listening, I could hear the river and sometimes a dog bark and the gentle sounds of animals shifting about in our barnyard and from far off the cry of a night bird, all ordinary sounds: only those things one could expect to hear at night at the edge of the village. Then, being so weary, I would sleep
again and it would all come back: the screams, the shouts, the fire, people running to some terrible purpose.
At last I vowed not to sleep again and sat up with my back against the wall, eyes open, staring into the dark to wait for morning. In spite of that, I must have slept a little, for just before dawn I was roused by pounding and a woman’s voice calling, “Liessel, Liessel, wake up!” I had a moment of confusion, thinking myself caught in my dreams again. Then I heard my parents’ voices and leaned forward just in time to see my mother running to the door. She threw it open and our neighbor, Vendara, rushed in, frightened and breathless. Her clothes were barely fastened and her hair was standing up around her head in wild disorder.
“Quickly, quickly,” she burst out. “They are coming to kill Tazmirrel. She must set out at once on the forest road” In a rush she told us that Jortho’s father and brothers had come to her house saying that I was an evil and dangerous Witch, that having first seduced poor Jortho by my Witch spells and driven him mad with love, I had then stabbed him near to death out of sheer malice. Even now, he lay between life and death. They had come for her husband and her sons and were rousing the men of the village, for they were afraid to face me alone. “Hurry! There is no time! They will be coming soon with pitchforks and torches” I had staggered to my feet. When she looked up and saw me standing there in the sleep loft, she added spitefully, “It was not to help you I came, but for your mother’s sake.” Then she rushed out, saying, “I must be home quickly before they find me missing. For mercy sake, get her gone from here and do not say I warned you or it may cost my life.” The door slammed behind her. “Thank you and bless you,” my mother called after her.
Even with this dreadful warning I was still innocent of any real fear. I moved about to no clear purpose, stiff and stupid with sleep, or rather lack of sleep. My mother, however, did not hesitate. She understood the danger well enough and instantly took charge, telling my father to saddle the horse at once. When he seemed uncertain, she shouted at him, a thing she had never done before. “Go! Now! Quickly! Man, have you forgotten how to saddle a horse?” Then, seeing my brother stumbling up from sleep, she yelled, “And take that one to help you!” This was my mother, who never raised her voice to anyone.
She pushed a pack at my sister, Ghira, saying, “Go fill this with food for the road and be quick about it.” Then she shook me. I seemed to be the one still thing in that whirling household. “Get out of that sleep gown and quickly. I will bring you clothes. Your own are no use for this.” She rushed off and came back with boots and an armload of my brother’s clothes. These she thrust into my hands. “Hurry, girl. This time it is worse. This time they mean you real harm.” Then she was gone to see to the preparations.
Still besotted with sleep, I struggled into those unfamiliar clothes and ran out to the yard as fast as I was able. The only things of my own I thought to take with me were my healing pouch, which I strapped on under the tunic, and a knife that my brother, Kerris, had made me when we were young enough to still be friends. This I slipped into my boot, or rather into his boot that I was wearing. Dawn was just breaking, lighting up that strange scene. My father had already bridled and saddled the horse. My mother was strapping a pack to the saddle. My brother stood there looking hard and sullen, and my little sister, still in her nightdress, was crying. My mother, seeing me there, quickly tucked my hair up under my brother’s cap, saying, “There is food in the pack and also some coins. That is all we have time for.”
My father on the other side was urging, “Up! Fast!” He gave me a hand. “Go by the forest road. They fear that way and it may delay them. Ride as fast as you are able. Do not look back. For your life and ours, never return.” That was more words than my father had spoken to me in years, save for that one time concerning Kara. I made ready to spring away. Already I could hear the shouts and cries of men hunting and the sounds of horses, but just as I turned to leave, I saw the flash of Kara’s red hair. She was running desperately up the road toward us.
“Go! Go!” my mother urged, but I could not move, neither to race for my life and freedom nor to ride to Kara’s aid. In a minute or two she burst in among us with my whole family pressing me to leave. Then I was able to move and help her swing up behind me.
“Go quickly, Tazzia,” she said with ragged breath, “they plan to kill us both!” Now I swung the horse about to go, but already it was too late. The first of the men on horseback charged into the yard. Whichever way I turned there was a man riding up armed with a pitchfork or a cudgel. Those on foot came up, panting and heaving, to fill the circle. I turned and twisted the horse about to keep clear of them. I knew my own power of protection was good against one or two, but I did not know how it would serve against a mob. I tried to turn so as to keep those who came near always in front of us. For their part, though they seemed very eager for our blood, they were not so eager to be the closest to us. It was that that spared us for a while. Those in back kept urging a speedy use of the pitchforks for our quick dispatch, while those who found themselves pushed to the front tried to push back, not wanting to risk striking the first blow.
Now, too late, I was fully awake and kept Marshlegs moving, in the hope of some space to escape. I knew this could not go on for long, Marshlegs being such a small horse and with two of us mounted on her. Still, I moved as skillfully as I could to stay them off.
At last, more filled with the daring of rage than the others, Jortho’s father swung his pitchfork at the horse’s head. She reared up with a snort of fear and I felt Kara loose her hold on me and slip away. I heard her scream, and when I swung around, some of the mob were already on top of her in a heap, my brother among them. I was ready to leap down to her aid no matter how hopeless when I heard my mother yell, “Hold tight for your life!” There was a loud crack, then a snort of terror as the horse sprang forward through the crush. This was followed by howls of pain and surprise and what sounded like the snapping of bones. Then in a few thundering bounds I was free of the crowd and soon past the edge of the village with the horse running fast down the forest road. The shouts and screams were quickly lost in back of me.
Never had I ridden so fast. I lay over the horse’s neck, holding tight to her mane as clods of earth flew up and branches whipped past me. Terror had hold of me, terror was riding me as I rode the horse. I, who had never been afraid before, who had no experience of it and no understanding, was now full in its grip. No way could I have turned back, not even to save Kara, though her screams still echoed in my head. Terror was all that existed. My mind had fled. We went on till the horse slowed and finally stopped of her own accord. She was drenched with sweat, her head hung down, and her sides were heaving. I slid from her back and fell flat out on the ground, dropping down into a nightmare-ridden sleep, full of shouts and screams, my terror so mixed with Kara’s death I could not tell if I myself were dead or living or being killed.
Chapter Three
Witless and terrified, I must have wandered for days with the horse as my only guard or guide. Whatever happened there is all swallowed now in a blur of darkness. Apparently, there had been no pursuit, or at least none that had cut so deep into the forest.
My first true memory was of waking clear-headed and bitten with hunger. I was lying on a pile of damp leaves in a place that was totally unfamiliar to me. The sun was slanting through the trees. It was already well into the day. Marshlegs was standing over me, her breath soft and warm on my cheek. Suddenly, all that had happened rushed back at me, even Kara’s death. With a will I held it off, biting my lip to not cry out. At least hunger gave me some hold on sanity. I had no wish to go plunging back into that darkness of the mind that had held me for so long in its grip.
Slowly I stood up, leaning against the horse’s side for support while I brushed the leaves from my clothes and hair. As soon as I was steady on my feet, I groped for the horse pack. Nothing hung down from the saddle. I stared with disbelief at Marshlegs’s bare side, where I knew my mother had strapped
it on. Frantically I looked in all directions. Nothing! Nothing to be seen but rocks and leaves. Clearly, my food was gone, miles or days behind us or perhaps just a short ride back on the trail if only I knew for sure which way we had come. I though it more likely lost in that first terrified burst of speed.
“Well,” I said at last to my horse-companion, when the truth of it all had finally settled on me, “If I am to live, I must have food, and for that I must go where humans are.” I was not altogether sure I wished to live.
Truth be told, at that moment, I would rather have faced a mother Oolanth cat in her den full of cubs than to see humans again. Having a good knowledge of such things, I even gave a thought to foraging for myself, but early spring is a hard season for that. Also the roots and bulbs I knew best grew at the edge of swamps and we were deep in the woods. Mostly, though, it was that I was too weak and too hungry to make that effort.
The track I had wakened by was obviously little used, being not much more than an animal track. There were no human signs about, but suddenly, from far off, I caught the sound of voices. My whole body began to shake with fear, that new feeling I had been so harshly taught. How I longed to stay in the shelter of the woods. Just as I thought that, my empty stomach cramped and the smell of wood smoke tugged at me. With a sigh, I pushed my hair up tighter under my brother’s cap, drawing the brim of it low over my eyes to hide my features. The clothes I wore were torn and filthy. I brushed them off as best I could. With some long thorns, I fastened the vest closed over the jerkin, hoping to hide my female shape. All in all, I probably looked more like a beggar than an honest farm boy.