by Tanith Lee
I went out from among the wagons into the round belly-vault of the cave. Red firelight and smoke hung across it like shifting veils of gauze, and through the veils I saw them all, hushed and waiting, the pale, intent faces turning abruptly now to the god and his priest.
When they saw it was the tribal woman and not the healer, a little gasp and mutter went up, but they had awed themselves too much before the expedient god to make a scene now in front of him.
It seemed I had enacted this role so often, the sea of staring faces fixed on me—in the village, in the ravine camp, at Ankurum when the Sirkunix roared, and later at the Victors’ feast. But this time there was a difference. In the village I had not wanted to have power over them, or thought I had not; in the hills the faces had been hostile. Now there was that look of waiting, and submission—not the frenzy of the stadium, but the quiet sleep-trance of belief. Something stirred in me at it, as I realized I had them in my palm. I stood very still in my white and black, holding the copper things in my hands, and then I began to walk between them toward the god. And I laughed at the god as I went toward him. You—what are you? And he had no answer for me, for here it was the priest who was the power, not the god, poor empty stone.
I set down the copper implements before him with a slight clatter. Into the round cup on its three-legged stand I poured incense dust, and lit it by thrusting a taper into the fire already burning there in its brazier. The smoke went up, blue and cloying. I raised my arms as if in prayer and heard the mutter of response behind me. Then I scattered the dried grains, red and brown and black, and studied the patterns they formed on the stone ledge before Sibbos. This is not such a mystic thing. You see what it is sensible to see, or else you interpret what you see so that the meaning comes out as you want it. I could make out a winding shape, red among black, a black shape rather like a dog and an arched shape, also black. So I turned to them and called out,
“A track, a wolf, and an arch-mouth. Sibbos tells you to go on, over the track toward the mountain tunnel, not fearing the wolves or the snow.”
Uasti had told me this was best—the thaw was not always kind or punctual, and Geret’s plan might be more dangerous in the long run than pressing on. But, if it had been the other way, I might well have said the wolf barred the track from us, indicating we should stay in the shelter of the cave—the arch-mouth I could see.
Next Oroll, Geret, and some others came up, and I gave them each one of the little closed copper vessels. Geret looked uneasily at me, but he took the thing and said nothing, yet his eyes flickered a lot. I lifted up the bowl of incense by the tongs, and tipped out the contents at their feet. Then I touched each vessel, one by one. And each man opened and drew out what was inside. Each item is very tiny, but a symbol, and it is the order in which they are discovered which is supposed to convey a meaning. First was the red clay disc which is the sun, and after that, the black wood oblong which means bad luck. After these, the white bead which is snow, the green bead which is warm weather, the yellow oval of good fortune, and the blue circle which has another circle cut away from the inside of it, and means the god’s pleasure.
There are twenty or so of these vessels, all in all, and everyone must be brought by the healer, and given out at random—the god guiding her hand, naturally. Still, it would be easy to mark the vessels so that one could identify which was which—a tiny scratch mark in the copper, discernible by the sensitive hand—yet there was no need. You could twist the meaning any way you chose. Today, it was this: Sibbos told us that to wait for the thaw—the sun—would be bad luck since there would be heavy snow and not good weather. Good fortune came by placing ourselves trustingly in the hands of Sibbos and going on toward the tunnel. It would have been equally simple to say—wait for the thaw, it is bad luck to go across the snow. Good weather is coming and good fortune, and the god smiles on us.
Nevertheless, the healer’s interpretation is final.
Oroll and the men who wanted to move on grunted and nodded. The others looked sullen. Only Geret spoke up.
“I defy the reading. Uasti should have done it. This man-girl isn’t a true diviner. I don’t trust her judgment.”
There was a tense quiet in the cave. The fires crackled.
“Do you argue with your god, Geret?” I asked.
“With you I argue.”
The time had come for me to finish his troublemaking. I looked at him, and his eyes could not slither from the grasp of mine. It was very quick, and I knew I had him.
“Then, Geret,” I said, “you anger Sibbos. Put down his vessel before he burns your hand in his fury.”
Almost at once Geret yelled, and dropped the little copper pot. His palm was red and blistering. A cry of amazement went up, a few screams, and much jostling as those farthest from us tried to discover what had happened. I dipped my fingers in the water cup and flung a few drops in Geret’s face. He came awake at once and clutched his hand. Oroll nodded to me.
“Truly, Uasti has chosen well. You’ve the true knowledge of the god. Foolish for anyone to question it.”
He moved aside to let me pass. I went by, down between the people, who moved apart for me, and back to the wagon.
I set the things in their places. Uasti was sitting very still in her chair, her eyes glittering slightly in the gloom.
“It is done,” I said.
She did not answer. Then I saw the strange, blood-red necklace around her throat. The horror I felt is quite inexpressible. I wanted to shriek and shriek, but somehow I kept it down, like vomit. I thought for a moment a wild animal had got in, but no animal was so neat in what it did. There was a great deal of blood, I was already covered in it, having come in among it without thinking. And then the screaming started, and I thought at first it was me. But it was another. The girl who had been Uasti’s was running up between the wagon-lanes, yelling and weeping and tearing her hair. In a moment men and women were running to her, running back with her toward the wagon. They wrenched open the flaps, and light speared at us, Uasti and I.
“Her! Her!” the girl wailed, hysterical with malice and fury, and terror at what she had done. “Look at her, covered with the old one’s blood! Vampire!”
Her frenzy caught at them like flame in dry grass. It was the women who came at me. I was pulled down from the wagon, onto my face, then rolled onto my back. There was the sensation of many hands holding me helpless, fingers in my hair and clothes, straining and biting into my flesh, the great mist of faces, bestial and intent. I was choked and blinded by panic and shock, and I knew it would be now, after all, that I should die. Those hands hitting at me, all one bruising blow falling again and again. Blood salt in my mouth from a loosened tooth. It scarcely seemed to matter what damage they did if I was to die anyway—I only wanted to lose consciousness and feel no more of it.
But I could not quite let go. Beyond the blur of pain, I heard a dim bellowing of men’s angry voices, then the high calls of women, and suddenly my attackers were being pulled off me and slung aside. Strong, rough, but helpful hands had me now. I was being lifted away—I glimpsed faces, and one face in particular, the full red-lipped face of Geret—and found, surprised, it was his men, not Oroll’s, who had rescued me.
* * *
This was his wagon, richly hung and rather cluttered. Two lamps overhead—greenish gold between my slitted lids, already puffy and closing. The shireen had saved me a little, but not much. Cautiously I probed at the tooth, which wobbled unpleasantly. Yet I knew enough now to realize that if I left it alone, it would have grown back into its socket by morning. As for my body, the robe was stripped away in great rents and holes, one breast and most of my legs bare. The flesh was streaked with blood and purple with bruises, and my head ached from the handfuls of hair they had wrenched out.
Beyond the wagon, I could still hear shouts and screaming, but it grew quieter gradually.
I lay and waited for
Geret.
When he came in, through the flap I glimpsed for a moment the circle of his men guarding the wagon.
“Well,” he said, and chuckled. “Not a pretty sight, not pretty at all. They’ve made a bad mess of you, warrior-woman. What would your tribe say now, eh? The warrior who couldn’t even hold off a pack of girls.”
I did not bother to answer; besides, it would have hurt too much.
He got the lamps down on their chains, and lowered the wicks. The light became very dull and murky, but I could still see enough to know when he hoisted up his robe and lowered his leggings, and came at me with his enraged manhood wagging. He ripped off the last of the robe, but did not touch the shireen. He had no interest in faces, that one. Neither did he have time to notice anything else.
When he was finished, he rolled aside and lay on his back.
“You there,” he said, “tribal mare. Have the sense to see Geret has broken you at last. I know you’re not strong enough to turn on me, but in case you think you are, there are twenty men outside, and I’ve only to call.”
I wondered how true that was, remembering the first day, and how the henchmen had grinned at his discomfort. But perhaps he had picked his guard better this time.
“I will not hurt you,” I managed to say.
He cursed.
“You know they’ll kill you for murdering the old bitch? Not a nice killing either. The women have a very high regard for their healer. I might be able to save your skin—what they’ve left you of it. But I ask myself if I should. I don’t know how you managed that trick with the copper, but I don’t take kindly to it.”
I was drowsy. I had learned to take my safety where I found it, and I knew now what must be done. Uasti had taught me something more than the arts of eye and hand, which had already been in me, though without discipline. And I did not grieve for Uasti, for she was not one to pity or be sad over, even in murder and death. Her face had been calm and silent above the slashed throat.
And her vengeance was coming.
4
I woke early, sensing day without any smell or sight to indicate it, holed up as we were. Geret was snoring on his back, and oblivious, as I examined myself. I was healed. Only the very deepest scratches and cuts had left a faint mauve scar, but that would be gone before the day was over. The tooth was whole in my mouth. Even the soreness in my hair had vanished, and the hair-growth seemed unimpaired.
I took Geret’s jug of icy water, and sponged myself, careless of the puddles which formed on his rugs. I took one of his pig’s-bristle brushes, with which he scraped his thin curls, and brushed my own hair into silk. Next, I rummaged in his clothes chest, and found a green cloak with fastenings down the front of it, and holes for the arms to come through. It was very voluminous on me but not too long, for he was a short, squat man, this leader of the wagons.
Ready now, I went up to him and kicked him in the side.
He gave a grunting snort and woke up. His eyes fixed on me at once, bleary, angry, bulbous eyes.
“It’s you, is it? What do you want, then?”
“Get up,” I said. “Go and tell the people of the wagons that Sibbos demands justice for the crime against the healer.”
He gave an unbelieving laugh, turned over, and prepared to sleep again. I got the water jug, and tipped what was left of the icy stuff over his head and face. He came up at once, spluttering water and fury. Another moment and he was on his feet, reeling at me, swearing, his hands ready to beat me into pulp. But he was looking in my face. I felt my eyes widen to absorb him and his petty little consciousness, and all at once he was stopped, his mouth slack, his eyes fixed, his hands still raised to begin the beating.
“Now, Geret,” I said, “it is time you knew I am under the protection of Sibbos. You have wronged me, and must be punished for it. Oh, Sibbos!” I cried out. “Punish this man.” I waited a moment, and Geret began to whimper. I said, “The god has set light to the soles of your feet, Geret. They are burning.”
Almost at once his face contorted with agony. He yelped and screamed, hopping up and down, and clutching at his feet in vain attempts to beat out the nonexistent flames.
I watched him, and then I said, “I have interceded for you with the god, and he has put out the fire.”
With little cries of distress, Geret sank down on the wet rugs.
“Now there is only coolness, and no pain,” I said to him, and he began to sob with relief. “But next time,” I added, “the punishment will be greater and more lasting. My guardian, Sibbos, is angry with you. You must do what I say in the future and offer me no violence. Now wake, and do not forget.”
Then I went to him and slapped him across the face. The trance dropped from his eyes, but he remembered, and there was a look of utter terror there instead.
“You will obey me now, Geret,” I told him.
“Yes, tribal woman. Yes.”
“Not tribal woman. Now I am Uasti, your healer. Go and tell the wagon people that Sibbos is angry and demands judgment. Tell them it will be a trial by fire.”
He got up and pulled his robe together, and lurched out.
It seemed so easy then, I was suddenly afraid I had forgotten some vital part, and the plan would not work. But it would.
I had taken her name already, and that would hold them to me by her bond. After a time, they would ignore the differences between us, and I would have been healer always. As for the trial by fire, they would love such a show. They would long to see the miscreant writhing in agony, and so they would hold off from tearing me limb from limb, because that would spoil the entertainment.
Geret was away a long while, and the noises outside were confused. Finally, five of his men came, and motioned me to come out. I walked among them from the shelter of the wagons.
The crowd was there, as before, yet very different. They jostled, hating me. A few women spat curses, but, as I had judged, they did not attack me.
We got to the back of the cave, where the god still stood in his red and yellow, and his jewels. Geret stood there, too, sallow and nervous. When I came up to him, he nodded.
“I told them.”
“Good,” I said. “Now have them bring out Uasti’s body in her wooden chair, and place it before the god.”
Geret did as I said, and a great muttering went up. The women had already washed the body and bound its neck, and dressed it in black garments and all its trinkets and beads, and then stuck black round discs over the lids to keep them closed. All this was their tradition, done out of fear. They feared the spirits of the dead, particularly of the murdered dead. Now four of Geret’s men went and got the corpse, and they were uneasy going, pale-faced coming back.
The crowd hushed and drew away, and much female weeping and imprecation broke out.
Uasti was very stiff, but it gave her a certain dreadful majesty. I did not like what they had done to her face, for they paint their dead like dolls—white, with red lips and cheeks, and scarlet nails. Yet it was only revulsion at their ways which stirred in me, not anything else. This was not Uasti, only the dry stalk, broken off. The men set her down and drew back, and she sat there, staring with her black disc eyes.
I stepped forward and held up my hand, and growling broke out.
“Tell them to let me speak,” I said to Geret, and he shouted at them, and when the noise went on, his men—distributed strategically around the cavern, I saw—prodded and pushed them into silence.
“You think me guilty,” I shouted at them then, “but I am innocent of this beast’s act. You see I have no fear of the dead one, nor of the god. Yesterday the women tore my flesh. Many, I expect, remember what they did.” At once shrill cries of malicious agreement. “Look, then,” I said, and pulled open the fastenings of the robe and dropped it, and stood there naked and healed. The susurration of surprise went up. I had been badly marked but there was not a sc
ratch on me.
Then a girl had forced her way to the front, ducked between Geret’s guards and was yelling, “You did it with your witchcraft, evil one! Don’t think to confuse us, standing there naked and shameless in your wickedness.”
It was Uasti’s girl, and at once the crowd began to bay behind her voice. Geret shouted again, without my prompting this time, the guards hustled, and quiet came once more.
“No,” I said, “the god has taken your marks from me to show you my innocence. But I will give you further proof.” The stir of anticipation. “Get them to bring an unlit torch,” I said to Geret, “and a stand for it.”
A man went and got one from a stack nearby, while another hurried away for the stand. The tension in the cave mounted, and the delay while things were fetched increased it. My nakedness confused them also; they themselves would have been ashamed to be stripped before so many, and were even a little embarrassed to look at me.
When the torch was set up on the spike of the stand, I dipped a taper in the altar brazier and set it alight. My hands were trembling as I turned my back on them, and confronted Sibbos as if to pray. Could I do this thing? Well, too late now if I could not. I stared at the bright blue jewel on his breast until my eyes unfocused, and slowly, slowly, an avenue in my brain came open, and I walked down it. Now I seemed two people as I turned back to them. First myself, heavy as a sleeper, conscious of my body only as one is conscious in a half-dream, without any control over it at all; and the second—an entity, cold as an ice-crystal in the top of my skull, who controlled my body perfectly, as the first “I” could not.
I turned myself to face them, and, as I did so, I placed one of my hands on the hand of Uasti.
“I am guiltless of your murder, dead one,” I called out, yet not I but the other “I,” a voice that I did not feel vibrate in my throat. “If this is as I have said, let the fire not burn me.”