by Tanith Lee
I heard them hold their breath, the single held breath of the crowd, all one.
Then I leaned myself forward across the torch, and the flame lapped my shoulders, breasts, and belly. I did not feel the flame at all; even had it burned me, I should have felt nothing, but the yellow luminance slid like water on my skin, and left no mark. Cries and shouts went up from the crowd. I stood myself straight, and drew the torch off its spike in my numb hands, and stroked it up and down me. It glowed on my flesh, but without smoke. The noise had fallen off again. It was totally silent as I made the torch go back into its position on the spike, turned to the god and the blue jewel, and let go the trance that was on me. It was a strange coming-together of the two parts of me—swift and shocking in the return as the going-out had been slow and dreamlike. Sound, sight, smell, touch seemed overbearingly acute, almost agonizing, but I had no time to be discomfited. My body was whole and I had proved myself, and now came the next move.
“A trick!”
Uasti’s girl had run forward, nearer to the back of the cave where the god stood. Furiously she screamed, spitting white flecks in her terrified anger.
“Can’t you see it’s a trick! Don’t let the murderess escape her punishment!”
The vague murmurs rumbled again, but I called, “No trick at all,” and I stooped down to the green cloak, and ripped a piece out of it, stood, and dropped it on the torch. At once the material caught and flared up, turning black in a moment. The crowd pressed closer now, but their intensity was a different thing. I began to hear the words.
“She’s innocent. The spirit of Uasti protects her.”
“Wait,” I shouted, and they stopped like horses who feel the reins suddenly pulled hard in their mouths. “All is not done. The god is angry at the death of the healer. Someone here is a murderer. If not I, then who?” It was the moment of attack and not defense, and I took a fierce joy in it, I who had been the quarry until now. “You!” I pointed at a plump woman near the front. “Was it you?” and she shrank away, pale with shock. “Or you?” and I turned on a skinny, narrow-skulled man in the center, whose mouth dropped open, showing the dismal stares of a few, coyly distributed gray teeth. “Tell your men to bring those two here,” I hissed at Geret, and in a moment the stupefied man and whimpering woman were dragged struggling to the god.
I went to the woman first, and, as I possessed her terrified eyes, I said, “Have no fear. If you are innocent, Sibbos will protect you. Touch Uasti’s hand and she will protect you too.”
The woman—calmed, sure of her innocence, and under my will now—touched the dead paw, and then meekly let me lead her to the torch.
“If she is guiltless,” I cried out, “the fire will be cool and pleasant to her as water.”
I guided her arm, so that her hand went into the flame up to the wrist, and she gasped at it, like a child who has just seen a sea, or a sunset, or a mountain for the first time—knowing, yet delighted and amazed. The voice rose up hysterically. I drew out her plump unmarked hand, and dabbed a few drops from the copper water cup across her brow. She woke dazed and smiling. The man was next, but it was the same. The crowd was in ferment now, bubbling and chattering. I stared down at them, and motioned with one hand.
“Not I, not these,” I called out. “Who, then?”
I saw that the girl who had been Uasti’s was at the very front, where she had pushed her way, yet she was moving now trying to get back. Panic was beginning to distort her face. Abruptly, she saw me turned to her, and she stopped quite still. I began to walk toward her, and another of the quietnesses dropped around us. I went very slowly, yet in a straight line, not looking to either side, only at her. The closer I got, the more she shrank away, but she could not seem to move. In any case, the crowd would not have let her.
When I was a foot or so away, I said, “You, too, must prove your innocence before Uasti and the god,” and many willing hands pushed her forward into mine.
It was cruelly easy, she had no strength left. I did not have to do anything to her, her own guilt and the natural fire would be enough. Yet I was not prepared for what happened—a phenomenon close to the one I had conjured, yet in reverse.
I pulled her to Uasti’s corpse and said, “Touch her hand, and, if you are innocent, she will protect you, and the fire will not burn,” and then she began to struggle and weep.
“I am afraid, I am afraid.”
“Why?”
“She is dead—a dead thing! I can’t bear to touch the dead!”
At once the great mob voice rose in the hall.
“The trial! The trial! The trial!”
I wrenched the wailing girl’s right hand and forced it down onto Uasti’s. And then the thing happened. The girl gave a terrible shriek, animal, mindless, which cut the chant like a sword. She flung backward on her heels and fell down before the wooden chair, and her right palm was turned upward so all could see the blackened flesh, seared to the bone.
Now the noise came loud and total, the triumph and fury and hate. Before any could stop them—and who indeed tried?—the women had the body of the girl, and had borne it away to savage it like wolves, as they would have savaged me. Yet the girl was dead, had died the moment she touched Uasti’s hand.
Sick at last, I picked up the green robe and drew it on. What power the girl had possessed after all, inside herself, and had never found the key to it, only the razor edge of it which destroyed her.
5
There was to be no thaw that winter. Uasti’s good sense, if not the auguries, had been true.
The line of wagons, guarded by the red moving hedge of the torches, toiled upward over narrow Ring Pass, to the accompaniment of the howling blizzard winds of the east, and their whirling white frenzy of new snow. At least we were free of the wolves now, for they do not like the east winds, though they have their voice.
I rode in Uasti’s wagon, among her things, which I knew very well at last, and considered mine. The boy drove the shaggy horses for me, as for her, and a different girl, quiet as a mouse, brought me the food I asked for, and came with me to carry my healer’s stuff when I went among the sick. There was not much they needed. They were, on the whole, a healthy crew. One broken limb I set, and took away the pain; a few fevers that were over and done in a day or so; a birth, easy and uncomplicated, with a mother who knew very well what she was at. That time, it was the healer who learned, but the knowledge might well prove useful later. And they called me Uasti.
The strangest thing of all was what happened with the black, tuft-eared cat. For two days after Uasti’s death, I could not find her, and where she went I do not know, for we were traveling by then. But on the third day, early in the morning, I woke and found her seated on my belly, washing herself, and going up and down with my breathing. I fed her and did not expect anything from her, but she would follow me about the wagon and the camp, when we made one, and sit on my knees purring. She, too, it seemed, had let me replace Uasti. I loved her beauty, and was glad of her, and the bond did not impose a conscious tie on me.
Geret was my other concern. He went in fear of me, a fear so deep now, he would never lose it. This suited me, but I did not want him to seem so suspiciously afraid of me before the wagoners, only to respect my position as healer, as they would think fitting.
At our next camp—under an overhang, a poorly protected spot, but caves were rare now—I went to his wagon. He was drinking after the evening meal with a few of the other merchants, but when he saw me, he hurried them out, and sat waiting nervously.
“Geret,” I said, sitting opposite to him in my healer’s black, the new robe the women had made me. “You have done very well. Sibbos extends his favor to you and I, though we have had our differences before, am well pleased. I have heard them say that in a day or so—perhaps the day after tomorrow—we will reach the tunnel through the Ring. I have heard too that this is, in its way, as dangerous
a journey as through the snow. It is time the wagons had a true leader, not a group of men arguing, who all claim the title from time to time. It seems to me that you are the strongest and best organized, therefore it should be you.”
I could see he was pleased. To have complete and acknowledged control of the wagons, to be factual instead of titular head, would carry many advantages. It would also end the bickering, and the mishaps and trouble that bickering always causes.
“Yes,” he said, “yes, Uasti. But how can I do it? One day they call for me, the next for Oroll or another. I have my men, but so have Oroll and the rest.”
“I will do it for you,” I said. “I have the ear of Sibbos, and it is the god’s mind that I speak.”
He looked crafty suddenly, knowing, amused, and not at all in awe.
“But,” I said, “remember, if you are the temporal power, I am the spiritual. The fire of the god be upon you if you disobey me once you lead.”
His face drained yellowish.
“Yes, healer,” he said quickly, “I’ll remember, I swear it.”
* * *
In a way, this should have been more difficult than it was. However, there were certain things in favor of Geret. He was not a particularly strong character for all his pomposity, yet he had cunning. Oroll, who should have carried more weight of authority, was too indecisive when it came to the point of action. Geret, on the other hand, would act, even if wrongly. The wagoners were split into six sections, the people and servants of Geret’s caravan, and the people and servants of the other five. Originally each group owed allegiance to its own merchant-lord, but, as there were substantially more men and women in Geret’s portion than in any other of the single units, their voice tended to be loudest. In addition to this, Geret’s henchmen wore his own blue and brown uniform. All the merchants had a guard, but Geret’s, dressed up for the occasion, tended to act in a more soldierly fashion, given this psychological impetus. The last factor in Geret’s favor was his cargo—wheat and corn and the ready-made flour. It was his work to provide bread for the journey, and, while they could have lived on their stores of salt meat, dry cheese, and fruits, the warm fresh bread was a comfort to them. This seemed perhaps the best explanation as to why the whole caravan had styled itself “Geret’s people” from time to time. But, like the god, they had only turned to him when they were hungry.
In the matter of the god, I had already altered their habits. His power was important to me for it was the cloak of mine. Therefore I offered a prayer to him, morning and evening, and they had fallen into the way of praying with me. When I helped the sick, I invoked his name. When we made camp, the robed statue was set up in shelter, and I would give him thanks for our safety. No one was commanded to these worshipings, but most came. So belief had become an ever-present thing, more important than before. Now it was very useful to me, for it was through Sibbos that I made Geret leader.
When I went to pray before him, the morning after I had visited Geret’s wagon, I stood rather longer than usual, then turned and looked back at the crowd. It was one of the endless iron-gray days, bitterly cold, and they were huddled close.
“I must read the auguries,” I said to them, “for there is danger.”
I cast out the grains and stood over them for a long time, as if I saw something, then turned again and said: “There is an animal walking on six legs, but the head is severed, and I cannot find it in the pattern. Before the animal is a pit, into which it will fall, because it has no head to guide it.” They murmured, and I spread out my hands and cried: “It is the wagon people. Six parts without a leader.”
They broke into shouts and yells then of alarm and surprise, calling out the names of their own particular merchant lord.
I held up my hand for silence, and when I had it, I said, “We must choose one leader for us all. It must be done. This is Sibbos’ warning. Let us pray to him to direct us.”
Then I began the prayer which I had used to him before, in the mornings and evenings.
“Great god, guide us through the dark places, and let no harm come to us. Protect us from danger and distress. Let us judge well in what we do. Give us our bread and our drink, our quiet and our rest. And when we call upon you, do not turn aside from us.”
It was a simple thing, but their minds were open and naive. The phrase, “give us our bread,” so innocently placed in the prayer, unconsciously recalled Geret, the wheat merchant. When it was finished, I looked at them and asked: “Who will you elect for your leader?”
I had told Geret that when I said this, some of his men and women must shout his name. This they did, and, all at once, the whole crowd had caught up the cry. They swirled around and made for his wagon, and soon Geret came out in apparent amazement, and reluctantly agreed to become their master.
As for Oroll and the others, they grumbled a little, but agreed at last that the leadership was nothing in point of fact, and might be useful as a spur and comfort. As I had guessed, Oroll was too indecisive, and the others followed him and accepted the situation.
Things were easy after that. Geret was their lord, but I ruled Geret. For once I felt the strength of command, and freedom, and a sense of identity. I had pored long hours over the old yellow maps of the land we were going to, beyond the Ring and the Water. And now, when I dreamed, I sensed ahead of me the green cool beckoning of the Jade. Incredibly, it seemed, I had guided myself, without knowing, toward my goal. Not once had I deviated, only slowed myself in my time with the village, with Darak, and now with the wagons. Never had the awareness of an imminent fulfillment been so intense. I would wake, burning with joy, trembling and alight with expectation. Soon, soon.
* * *
On the second day from Geret’s election, we came to a high place, a treacherous climb among the white-crusted rocks, to a black round hole: the Tunnel through the Ring.
Part II: The Water
1
IT WAS A black journey, and lasted ten days.
The Tunnel was perhaps some twenty-five feet wide and about twenty feet high, though in places it varied, the walls and ceiling drawing out or in. At all times there was space enough to get through, and at intervals we found wide cave-rooms where we could halt and make a camp. The worst of it was the dripping damp, the hollow soundlessness which would pick up a thought and seem to speak it at you, and the darkness that fluttered at the torches like gigantic bats. And there was, too, the nameless fear.
Many of the children fell sick in the Tunnel, but the fear was always the cause of it. The adults, too, became prey to sudden aches and faintings—which they put down to bad air creeping through from other parts of the mountains. Fear was a natural thing; I had expected it—the unconscious terror of the miles of mountain rock balanced over our heads, the primeval terror of dark underground, common to all creatures who are mortal and bury their dead in the earth. Yet this fear was more than these things. I knew, long before I found the key to it. The ghost of the Lost was very strong in this place.
I began to dream of them again, yet the dreams did not appall me as they had. My edge was blunted. I had glimpses of the building of this place—the human overseers, turned against their own people through fear of the Higher Race. I saw the sweating gangs heaving at stone, their flesh dead-white as the flesh of slugs from years underground. The whips flicked and cracked. Men fell dead. When they came, they were beautiful in the horror and degradation. They had had greater plans for this tunnel than there had been time to achieve—pillars, carving, frescoes. It should not have been a mere worm’s hole through rock, this passage, but yet another of their unsurpassable works of art built by the toil and misery of underlings. Later, I found the scratch marks on the wall—faded, unreadable to any except eyes as accurate as mine. These were not in the Old Tongue, but an ancient form of the language I had heard in the village, the hills, Ankurum, and among the wagons. And they were all curses— curses against the Gr
eat Ones—the curses of men.
Once, at one of the five camps we made, I found a back cave, very wet, hung with stalactites like stiff curtain fringes of glass. There was a black pool, and, at the bottom, bones gleamed dully. Just at the lip of the pool, this one had chipped in the ancient slang of humanity:
Sickness, the serpent, is coming to bite you,
Death, the old dark man, is coming to carry you off,
Rest uneasy, you stinking carrion, on your gold beds.
Near the end of the Tunnel, the passage was less finished, and more treacherous. There were narrow bridges over black nothingness, where the wagons were partly unloaded to lighten them, and men and horses walked singly. And there were places where the roof dropped low enough to scrape the canvas wagon tops. But soon the air picked up the curious sweetness of above-earth air, and sharp fresh breezes blew down into our faces.
The tenth day we broke free of the tunnel-womb, and came out onto the rocky plateau that stretches for miles above the great expanse of river they call the Water.
It was late afternoon, the time when spirits usually begin to flag, but they rose high today when we reached freedom. Children and dogs ran round and round in frenzied games; there was a great sighing and relaxing, and looking up at the sky.
It seemed a curious thing, for we had found the Tunnel in the snow drifts, but now, on much lower ground, there was only the bare rock. Behind, the mountains towered, white to their middles, but here, a little warmer and beneath the snow line, we had only the fierce wild winds of the south to trouble us. They were dry and harsh, like the land they came from. We could catch a glimpse of it, that land, faintly, through a haze of distance—a dim smoky outline of flatnesses, all one desert emptiness it seemed from the plateau. Yet there must be life, or why had we come?
The river was another matter. It was many, many miles across, almost like a small tideless sea, a brilliant blue that would have nothing to do with the dull sky. There was apparently some deposit in the clay at the bottom that turned it this color, yet it seemed shocking in its intensity—a wide aquamarine ribbon, running from west to east as far as the eye could see, and onward almost to the horizon—a painted slash across the featureless gray-brown landscape.