by Diana Rivers
Seeing us all gathered there, looking from face to face, I felt a shiver of excitement. Let the Zarn issue his edict—we would shape our own lives in spite of him. With no hesitation Rishka took charge that night. Pell had returned, but I saw her staying well back, keeping her distance, letting things happen as they would.
It was Rishka who jumped up on the stump and shouted to us all, her speech leaping from Muinyairin and Kourmairi to Shokarn and back again. “We need a name under which we can gather together, a name in which we can speak our new powers. We all have different pasts. That cannot be changed. But now we share a future. For that we must have a name that speaks for us all.”
I was staring at Rishka in amazement, finding it hard to believe. Was this the same woman who such a short time back had baited Lhiri into a rage? There was a kind of passion in her as she said, “As long as we are Muinyairin and Shokarn and Kourmairi, then all we have for names are the curses on men’s lips, star-brats or star-cursed or star-crossed. Sisters, what do we have to call ourselves? That is what we choose tonight.”
There were many shouts of agreement, and many possible names being called out. Rishka raised her hands for silence, “Some of us have given much thought to this. The word ‘Terrazen’ in Muinyairin means ‘comrades to the death’ and that is what we are, so perhaps that is what we should call ourselves.”
There was a loud cheer from the Muinyairin, but Kazouri called out in her booming voice, “I am a Kourmairi. What need do I have for a Muinyairin label? Star-Born is good enough for me.” Next Nunyair was shouting angrily, “Why would a Shokarn want a Kourmairi name to pass on to her daughters’ daughters?”
Other voices quickly took up the argument, each speaking for some name they favored in their own language. The gathering had just began and already it was threatening to dissolve in conflict. I began looking around anxiously for Pell when I heard Alyeeta call out, “Enough! Enough! You will all be at war with each other before your circle-of-peace can even be made. How easily you forget that you are all hunted by men who only want you dead. They care nothing for what language you speak or the color of your skin or whether you are country or city bred.” She came striding over to the stump and signaled Rishka down. I saw a look of fear cross Rishka’s face as she stepped down and backed away.
“Enough squabbling, all of you,” Alyeeta said as she swung her pointing finger around the circle, seeming somehow to point at each one of us in turn. “It is plain the name cannot come from any of your own languages. You are still too attached to your fathers and your father’s fathers and to their words, so we must seek elsewhere for a name. Now if you can all be silent for a moment, Telakeet has something to share with you, but only if you have it in your hearts to listen.”
Alyeeta stepped down and Telakeet climbed up in her place. It was not her usual angry visage scowling down at us. She looked transformed. Hard to believe but she even had some of Shalamith’s golden glow about her. Perhaps that stump had a magic of its own.
When Telakeet spoke it was very slowly and in no language that I knew, but I understood every word and beyond the sounds of the words I felt the enormous power of them. I heard in my head: This land has been fought over and struggled over by Shokarn and Kourmairi and Muinyairin since long before there were written words, but you are not the first people here. Long long before any of you came the Ashara lived here in peace, following their own ways. Your wars have driven them back into the hills to the furthest fringes of the settled world. Who knows if there are even any Asharan left alive today, but their language, or at least some remnants of it, remained with the Witches. Asharan is our ritual language and our private language as well. It is the Asharan words that are our holy words when we make our spells or call on the Mother. With us they still live. Let them live with you also and make peace among you, you who are the Daughters of the Great Star, the Khal Hadera Lossien.
There was absolute silence when she finished. The silence continued as Telakeet resumed her own sour countenance and stepped down. The silence went on and on, seeming to stretch out into the night, far past the boundaries of the clearing. Just when I though my head would crack with waiting, Rishka’s raised sword flashed in the fire light as she shouted, “To the Khal Hadera Lossien!” Instantly, as if freed from a spell, we took up the cry and began shouting, “Khal Hadera Lossien! Khal Hadera Lossien!” till our throats were hoarse. I could hear Kazouri’s roar carry over the rest of us, “Khal Hadera Lossien!”
So the naming was over, that part was done. Now we must become the thing we had named, likely a more difficult piece of work. Kilghari was next on the magic stump, her face flushed and glowing and her eyes bright. “I greet you, Khal Hadera Lossien, a new name for a new people,” she called out to us in her softly accented Kourmairi. “We cannot blood each other with these weapons. Our powers will not allow it. So let us shape a peace with them instead.” Soon she shifted to Muinyairin with Rishka translating, “Among my people, if any are seeking peace, they draw in the sand a small circle around the fire with their knife tip and outside that a much larger circle. Then they lay their weapons down, points toward the fire and just touching, hilts out and more than the width of a foot apart. If any lay down their blade across another’s blade there will be no peace, but if the circle is closed with tip lying next to tip that is an end to bloodshed among them, and they are as kin.”
When she finished speaking we all gathered closer to the fire, its light flashing on our very different faces. Kilghari was the first to do this thing. She stepped forward holding up a beautiful ornate sword, then raised it high in both hands and called out in a clear ringing voice, “To the new peace, to a new people, no longer Muinyairin and Shokarn and Kourmairi, but Khal Hadera Lossien together.” There were wild shouts and cheers. The circle-of-peace had begun.
Lhiri came next with a small jeweled dagger bound to a branch. “No more slaves and masters!” she shouted, waving it over her head. “Free women together! Khal Hadera Lossien!” As she bent to place her dagger with care next to Khilghari’s, women were shouting and stamping, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I stepped up next and suddenly found I could not speak, then Rishka caught my eye and raised a fist for me. “May we always be Terrazen,” I said, choking out the words and trying to hold back the tears. Around me I heard the Muinyairin echoing, “Terrazen, Terrazen.” Bowing my head I laid down my little knife carefully next to Lhiri’s.
Rishka laid her long sword next to my knife, saying, “We have shaped a name, now let us shape a future.”
When I saw Dorca step forward to place her blade next to Rishka’s, point touching point, blades not crossing, a shiver went up my spine.
The circle was beginning to fill, blade against blade or stick or staff. When it was half filled Nunyair stepped up and laid her Shokarn dagger directly opposite Lhiri’s. Looking at her across the fire, Nunyair echoed her words, “No more slaves and masters. Free women together.” Then she looked directly across the fire into Lhiri’s eyes.
Lhiri stepped forward from her side, their eyes locked and Lhiri said clear and loud, “No matter what they make me say I love you now and I always will.” There were gasps of shock from around the circle and then muttered comments.
Pell stepped up quickly and the muttering stopped. She looked at me across the circle, a look so full of pride it made my heart ache. She had no sword, nothing but her clever little thief knife bound to a staff. She did not raise it but leaned on the staff while she looked at us all. Along with the pride shining in her eyes there was a glitter of tears. She spoke slowly as if drawing up each word from a deep well, “Since I was a girl of eleven I dreamed of this day. May our blades always touch and never cross. May we be Terrazen all our years. May the Khal Hadera Lossien find a safe home in this world.” When she finished there was an uproar of clapping, shouting, cheering, and whistling that went on and on while Pell grinned and ducked her head and slipped to the back.
Once the first circle was filled, a secon
d, larger one was drawn. That too filled rapidly, blade lying next to blade like a great sun flashing in the firelight. All the other blades went down until only Hayika’s was left. She had been prowling about in back of us, muttering to herself under breath, never truly one of the circle.
“It is your turn, Hayika,” Zari said softly. “Your blade will close the circle.”
Hayika came to a sudden stop and burst out at Zari, “Of what use is all this sham and mockery? Words, words, and more words, all empty show. Sister, how have they fooled you with this? Do you think this little gesture will make the Shokam and Kourmairi love us? Do you think they will ever accept the Muinyairin?” She whirled around, looking for the others. There was desperation in her voice, “You fool yourselves, my sisters. They will always see us as wild things of the desert. We will catch in their teeth like the blowing sand. Are you fool enough to think there is any love for us here, Kilghari? And you, Rishka, what have they done to you? They have tamed you and hobbled you and forced a bit between your teeth. I only came looking for you so we could ride together as far from all these draiga as possible. Guards, Shokam, Kourmairi, it is all the same. And now you are trying to trap me in this circle of foolishness. I told you I wanted no part in it. I should have stayed away while you did this. I should have left, but I did not want to ride forever alone through the world.”
Pell turned toward her and said clearly, “Hayika, I am chosen leader here. Do you wish to cross our blades? Is that what you are saying?” There was a challenge in her voice.
“No!” Rishka shouted. “No, Hayika, it is over now, the old ways are gone. Though we will always be Muinyairin we can never go back to being Muinyairin again the way we were. The Muinyairin have no more use for us than the Shokarn guards and mean our death just as surely. We have no people anymore. These are our people now.” With that she pulled off her shirt and turned her back to the fire. The lash marks showed livid and seemed to move in the quiver of the firelight. Women gasped and cried out. Rishka went on, “Look Hayika, that was done to me by Muinyairin hands. They would gladly do it again and worse if they could.”
Hayika was shaking her head, looking from one to the other of the Muinyairin. “I had not thought when I came here to throw my lot in with draiga,” she said stubbornly.
“It could be worse than camping with a bunch of draiga,” Pell called out to her. “It could be much worse. You could be roast meat for the Zarn’s guards, think on that, Sister. I have seen it, it is not a pretty sight.”
“Please, Hayika,” Zari said close to tears, “this is our one best chance, the only tribe left to us. All else means our death.”
“Kilghari...?” Hayika looked at her as if making one last appeal.
Kilghari nodded, “Yes, I am staying with them. I do not want to live all my life like a hunted animal. Hayika, put down your sword. There is no place left to run.”
Very slowly Hayika laid down her sword, filling the last place in the circle with that blade. “Peace then,” she said through her teeth. There was a burst of wild cheering from among the women.
The circle was complete. The blades on the dark ground flashed in the firelight like the Great Star itself shining in the night sky. For that moment all the women in that circle seemed to me filled with beauty, even those I had quarrels with. The sword circles with the fire at the center quivered and shimmered in my tears. I heard Rishka say, “Now we must do a Muinyairin sword dance.” When I looked up it was Shalamith who shimmered in my tears, all golden again, the Goddess Herself. She had come out of the shelter and was standing with her ferl in her hands.
“Back,” Hayika shouted in a suddenly changed mood. “Back out of the way, all of you. Now you will see the fastest feet to dance in freedom.” We all drew back to watch. Some of the Sheezerti took out small drums, two had flutes. Shalamith went to sit by them. Music poured out as if the night itself had come alive.
To cheers and shouts, Zari stripped off her shirt and boots. She flung her arms high. “To the Goddess who shines in all of us,” she called out. “To the Mother who guides all our lives.” Then she leapt into the circle of swords, dancing with incredible grace and speed between the hilts so that no blade moved, while the other Muinyairin clapped in time to her feet. She went four times around the circle alone, then with a shout, Rishka joined her, and after her Kilghari and several other Muinyairin, and finally Hayika herself, throwing back her head and giving a loud cry before she leapt in.
All shirtless, their bodies flashing bronze and copper in the firelight, they wove round and round between the swords, meeting each other in steps so quick and intricate it was hard for the eye to follow. A strange wailing cry rose from the dancers to be echoed back by some of the watchers. Beads, braids, and flashing breasts caught the light as the drummers increased their tempo and the flutes wailed a sad and joyful echo of human voices. Over it all rose the sound of Shalamith’s ferl and her voice like the voice of the Goddess Herself. It seemed that the dance went faster and faster with wild leaps, claps, turns, and the thunder of stamping feet from those watching. After a while it all began to blur; color, light, sound, motion, all flowing together till I grew too dizzy to watch anymore. They may have danced all night. I finally sank down right where I was standing and fell asleep there on the hard ground.
***
That next morning there was as sort of wild gaiety around the camp. In those few hours I heard more laughter and singing than I had in all the time we had been together. Women who had never exchanged a word before and had given each other nothing but hostile and suspicious glances, were talking eagerly together. I heard Rishka’s laughter ring out across the clearing as she taught one of the new Shokarn to ride. I had never heard her laugh that way before, sounding so free and young. Always before her laughter had had bitterness in it and an edge of pain as well. Someone had laid out a loose circle of swords, and Zari, who was usually so shy, was glowing with pleasure and exertion as she leapt agilely between them. She was teaching Murghanth and some of the other Sheezerti the steps of the sword dance while the rest of them watched and clapped. Some of the Muinyairin were also watching and shouting encouragement.
It looked like a giant festival that morning, not a camp of fugitives. Thalyisi had even put dried fruit in the porridge that morning so that it tasted like pudding. All of us cheered for her, but under all the gaiety I felt the tension, the threat, the ominous waiting for the inevitable. I wondered that the others did not feel it, too.
Walking back up from the stream I noticed Hamiuri and Telakeet standing by the cook fire, heads bent together, talking intently. When Hamiuri looked up and swept the clearing with her eye, clearly looking for someone, a shiver went up my spine. Lhiri was just coming out of the trees with a huge bundle of wood for the fire. I wanted to shout a warning to her. When she dropped it on the stack, Hamiuri silently beckoned her over. Unashamedly I moved forward to hear what was to be said as did several other women. Now I saw that I was not the only one who had been waiting that morning.
Lhiri went with slow, reluctant steps, eyes to the ground, but when she reached Hamiuri she suddenly threw back her head and said defiantly, “Do what you want with me, Witch. It is hopeless. I cannot stop myself from loving her even if it means my banishment.”
Before either of the Witches could answer, Nunyair ran up, appearing as if out of nowhere to throw her arm protectively over Lhiri’s shoulder. “It was my fault, not hers. I could not stop myself from looking. Send me away but not her.”
“No, no, Nunyair, you would die out there. Send me if you want to, Hamiuri. I broke the pledge, I was the first to speak.”
“Oh, Lhiri, the fault is mine. If not for my Shokam pride that does not want to let you be my equal there would be no quarrel. Neither one of us would have to be standing here begging in front of Witches for each other’s lives.”
“And that must be very hard on that same Shokarn pride,” Telakeet said quickly with a grin of malicious amusement.
Hami
uri was shaking her head, “There is no question that you love each other, and no need to prove it. It is only that the rest of us cannot afford the uproar of your loving. There is also no question but that you both broke your pledge. We all could see the looks of longing you gave each other across the fire circle long before the first words were spoken.” She turned and said something rapidly to Telakeet in words I did not understand. Then, with a nod, she said to her in Kourmairi, “Yours now. Do what you can.” With another nod to the rest of us she turned and walked away.
“Well,” Telakeet said, looking at each of them intently, “you have been left to my mercy and that is something I have little of, as I am sure you both know.” Lhiri and Nunyair had clasped each other’s hands and were standing as close as possible, looking much like two frightened children facing a monster together.
Telakeet intoned some words in that other language and made some signs in the air with the glowing end of a stick she took from the fire. My eyes were caught by that bright line of red. With a sudden twist of her wrist she flung the stick back in, and when it burst into flames she silently signaled them both to separate, took each of them by an arm and walked them toward the fire. She stopped just before it saying, “Lhiri, Nunyair, each of you hold out a hand just above the flame, as close as you can bear it.” They did as she said, seeming to move without will, as if they could not help themselves. When the heat grew too intense and they tried to draw back in pain she gripped them tightly just below the elbow, “More, more, that is not enough. If we do not do it well this time it will all be to no purpose and must be done again.” Though they cried out and struggled against her hold, something in her words appeared to bind them. “Hotter! Hotter!” Telakeet hissed. “It must be hotter for burning out the fires of anger, for burning out the fires of pride, the fires of conflict.”