Widows of the Sun-Moon

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “To attack the Storm Lord.”

  “Yes, but that’s not what you should do.”

  She stopped in mid-argue, stunned. “What?”

  “Go after Horace. They’re a smaller group with no guns. You should get on their track yesterday.”

  “You…don’t want me to go after the Storm Lord?”

  He grinned, and it was a tiny bit horrible. “No, I’ll go after him when the time is right. You get Horace. Right now, I have to explain things to Onin.”

  “The diplomat. I like it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He turned to Onin and said in the plains dweller language, “We need a mount. Our healer’s been stolen, and we’re going after him, for your sake and ours.”

  He stared and then nodded, his expression unreadable. He waved one of his people over and spoke with them quickly.

  Cordelia shuddered as she felt the drushka speaking again. Pool was coming closer, and Cordelia sensed her anger over someone abducting a shawness. Cordelia shrugged and twitched, trying to cut off the contact, but it was flying between so many of them.

  Nettle laid a hand on her arm. “Sa, are you well?”

  “No.” And now she felt Nettle standing there, more than with the usual senses. She could almost sense the workings of Nettle’s body, her connection to root and soil, to Pool, to all drushka.

  She felt surprise from all of them, but instead of letting go, Nettle’s grasp tightened, and Cordelia’s skin felt too small, just as it had when she’d toured the universe. She was trying to contain too much, sense too much. She tried to push the feeling away, shrug it off, and the tight feeling slipped a little, but her sense of the drushka only grew. She shivered, closed her eyes, and fumbled inside herself for another way to ease the tightening feeling, as if trying to wriggle free from too tight clothing. Something gave. She opened her eyes in time to see her body collapse in Nettle’s arms while she floated above it.

  Nettle sent a panicked call to Pool, and Cordelia heard it as if she was some sort of relay, but it didn’t bother her now. Nettle glowed, but her light was nothing compared to Pool’s, whom Cordelia could see and sense coming closer.

  “Sa?” Pool thought, the words clear as glass.

  “Right here.”

  She felt the drushka jerk as they heard the words, felt them searching for her through Pool.

  “What has happened?” Pool asked.

  Cordelia floated a little higher, amazed by how much fear she didn’t feel. Like flying in a dream, it was effortless, her spirit secured to her body by a long silver cord. When Nettle held her close and passed a hand over her forehead, the sensation hummed down the string. Nettle’s light reached for the silver string, and she felt an outpouring of love and fear.

  “Sa,” Nettle said, “my heart’s friend, come home.”

  Cordelia followed her silver string, a little afraid she wouldn’t know how to get back inside, but it was like sliding into warm water. She didn’t even have to try. With a gasp, her eyes opened, and she stared into Nettle’s fear-filled gaze. “It’s all right. I’m fine.”

  Liam was shouting that they needed a shawness, a healer, anything, but Cordelia stood without effort. “It’s fine!” she called. She tried to explain and couldn’t, settling for, “Um, I think I left my body but could still talk with the drushka.”

  He stared. “You’re not a yafanai.”

  She shrugged. “Remember my tour of the universe?”

  “Side effects?”

  “Possibly.”

  He rubbed his chin, but as Onin approached with a team of people leading a geaver, they didn’t have time to discuss it.

  Liam eyed the animal and frowned. “Aren’t they a little slow?”

  Onin shook his head. “As fast as you need.”

  She thought about taking a larger force, but the enemy was too far ahead for a simple attack. They needed to be able to get to wherever the tattooed people were taking Horace and then sneak him out, and a smaller force would serve them better.

  She gave Liam a wave. “Take care.”

  His mouth worked as if there were so many things he wanted to say, but he settled for, “You too.” With a crooked grin, he added, “Fuck off.”

  She chuckled. It was the way they’d said good-bye when they were paladins. She’d nearly forgotten it.

  The handler tapped the geaver and called a word. It knelt, and Cordelia and Nettle climbed atop its back into a box-like saddle. They sat on a leather pad and hung on to poles sticking up from the pad’s corners. The geaver took a few ponderous steps, just long enough for Cordelia to think she could walk faster, then it broke into a lope, a stomach-churning, ground-eating stride that had the wind whipping around them. She and Nettle grabbed each other at the same time and had to laugh at the fear on both their faces before they settled for hanging on to the straps with one hand and each other with the other.

  She felt for Pool, hoping someone told her the plan. That feeling of tightness surrounded her again, but she didn’t try to push away from it this time, not wanting to leave her body unless she wanted to.

  “We will find you, Sa,” Pool said in her mind. “Always.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They just kept coming. Word of the amazing godchild had spread like fire across the plains, and more clans arrived every day to see the wonders she could do. Natalya could only cross her arms and watch as Kora spoke to them, sometimes with Naos inside her, sometimes alone. She felt the ground shifting under their feet. She’d gone from thinking every other day that she’d made a mistake going with Naos, whether she risked madness or not, to knowing she’d made a mistake but not knowing what to do about it.

  She could leave now, could grab some provisions and walk away, but Naos would follow in her mind. Naos could take away her stabilizing powers and let the madness sink back in until Natalya tore herself apart. Well, at least if she was dead, she wouldn’t have to see the hoshpi-eyed worshipers anymore, wouldn’t have to watch Kora’s continued transformation into a puppet.

  Kora bounded up and grasped her arms. “They love me! And they love you, but most of all, they love the goddess! Some of them have heard of her before, but not since they were little.”

  Natalya kept her arms crossed as Kora tugged at her. “They told you this?”

  “I read their minds!”

  Natalya frowned. She’d thought some of Gale’s laws restricting the yafanai were silly, but she’d been raised among them, and prying into heads at random seemed wrong. Since she wasn’t a telepath, she liked to keep her thoughts her own.

  Kora’s face fell. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe you should stay out of their minds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s rude!”

  Kora spoke those words again to herself, her face scrunched up as if trying to comprehend. By the Storm Lord, Natalya forgot how young she’d been when they’d gotten her. Finally, Kora shook her head. “When the goddess is with me, it’s like…I’m a bottomless well. But when she’s gone, part of her remains, giving me power, and it’s the power they worship. Naos told me. So, how can touching them with what they worship be rude?” Her head tilted, but she wasn’t looking at Natalya, and it seemed as if she was asking herself.

  “Am I me?” Kora asked, turning her gaze to Natalya. “I have my thoughts, and she has power, but since I’ve got some, is there any part of me that’s just me? Would they want me if I had power, but I was just me?”

  Natalya sighed. “Best advice I can give you is that if you’re alone in your head right now, you should enjoy it.”

  Kora’s smile came out like the sun. “All right.” She turned and regarded her gathering of followers again, the plains dweller camp that was growing bigger by the day. “We’ll have to figure out something to do with all of them.”

  Nearby, a group was trying to put up a large tent, but one of the poles kept collapsing. Someone was yelling that they should have replaced the pole long before, and they all fell into what soun
ded like a long held argument. Kora crossed to them with eager steps and lifted the tent walls with her power.

  They stumbled back, gasping and chattering, and she soaked in their praise like the child she was. Natalya leaned against a rock and crossed her arms again. Would Naos keep changing her? Would her thoughts continue to grow to match her body? When would the questions of a child become the demands of an adult? Maybe if Naos continued to groom her, they never would. After all, if she became troublesome, Natalya had no doubt Naos would simply hollow her out and leave her the puppet Natalya feared she would become.

  And that was why she couldn’t leave, the real reason. She had to see what happened to Kora. She liked to tell herself it was simple curiosity, that she’d grown used to Kora. They slept in the same tent. Everyone treated them as if they were mother and daughter. They ate together, bathed together, spoke first thing in the morning and last in the evening.

  Natalya mocked herself, asking if she cared for the girl and sneering at the thought. Well, what if she did? But she’d only ever cared for people when they were useful, and she only worshiped the powerful. What she felt for Kora… Perhaps it was something in between?

  The tent stood, and Kora ran back over. “So, if we’re an army, we should attack someone, right? But I wouldn’t kill them!” she said hurriedly. “We could just prove we’re better.”

  Natalya sighed again. She’d forgotten that children could be bloodthirsty. Like with the chafa, it seemed easy because Kora didn’t understand death. “Who would you attack?”

  “Whomever we want,” Naos said in Natalya’s mind.

  Kora beamed. “Welcome back, goddess!”

  Natalya froze, wondering how long Naos had been lurking in their minds, listening.

  “Now you see me, now you don’t!” Naos said, and Natalya felt her amusement. “We do have to figure out what to do with all these people, and there are so many others on this ball of rock that could use a good kicking. Now that Dillon Tracey has Simon Lazlo, I don’t want him getting complacent.”

  “Simon Lazlo?” Natalya asked. Hatred still burned in her, though it had cooled somewhat. Still, the root of this predicament led directly to him.

  “That’s right,” Naos cooed, and her sense of vengeance slithered into Natalya, making tingles run from her heels to her hair. “If we play our cards right… Let’s head east.”

  “Is that where he is?”

  “No, but that’s where he’ll be if this all lines up correctly. Let’s go poke the Sun-Moon, and see what runs out.”

  Natalya frowned. “And that will bring Simon Lazlo?”

  “Enough talking. Kora, tell everyone we’re marching tomorrow.”

  With a happy clap, Kora ran off to do the goddess’s bidding.

  But Natalya had too many questions. “If Simon Lazlo isn’t there, what’s the point of—”

  “You’re not for pointing!” Naos yelled, making Natalya cringe. “What are you, an Irish Setter?”

  Natalya couldn’t help a spike of anger. “Pawns are more effective if they know the plan they’re supposed to be carrying out!”

  “Oh no!” Naos thought, her tones like a mocking child. “She doesn’t wike me anymore?” She laughed, too delighted by her own plans, it seemed, to mind Natalya’s anger. “You’re lucky I’m in a honey mood and not a vinegar one.”

  Raw power filled Natalya, spreading through her core and setting delicious fires through her body. She dropped to her knees and cried out in ecstasy. Why had she ever doubted anything Naos told her? This was a deity, the stuff of legends. Every qualm she had was nothing compared to this! “Oh, goddess! I’m sorry I doubted you!”

  Naos roared with laughter. “All better now? Good, now get your shit together.”

  The power carried her through the day and well into the night, making it hard for her to sleep, even with the comforting warmth of Kora beside her. It helped the next day as they packed and began the ponderous task of moving east, such a large company going slowly, especially with children and the elderly. Problems arose and gnawed on the happy feelings still burning in Natalya’s belly. As the power faded, the annoyances kept piling on until she ground her back teeth, hoping that Naos would give her another jolt. She began to consider leaving again, wondering if she was ever going to get out of this fucking loop.

  Halfway through the day, Kora called a halt from where she rode a geaver at the head of the column. Natalya stopped fussing with an overturned cart and stomped to the front to find Kora staring into the wilderness.

  “What is it?” Natalya said, pushing sweaty hair off her forehead.

  “I’ve been here before.”

  Natalya glanced around, but it looked like any other part of the plains, rolling hills of grass interrupted by ditches and the jutting fingers of rock.

  “The animals have been busy,” Kora said. “The bodies aren’t whole anymore.” She turned flat eyes in Natalya’s direction, her expression that of a person who didn’t know how to process what she was feeling.

  Natalya gasped as Kora’s power drew her in. She sent her micro senses careening through the grass, finding bones scattered almost to the wind, the bones of her people. “This is where Maman and Shufu died,” Kora said softly. “They’re memories, like the spaceships and picnics and eating with Jack.”

  “Your mother and brother are your memories,” Natalya said. “Those others are hers.”

  “Fatan might still be alive. Do you think I’d know him?”

  “He wouldn’t know you, sweetheart.”

  “I suppose.” Kora touched her chest. “I should wear Maman’s bones.” Her power arced, lifting the bones from the nests of small creatures and calling them from the soil. As they hovered in the air, everyone watching gasped, and as the bones hurtled toward Kora, the plains dwellers cried out.

  Kora’s power turned inward, and Natalya felt it as she searched for some clue inside herself that would lead her to the right bones. When she had two skeletons before her, she knelt, lifting the finger bones of one and stringing them on a leather cord she pulled from a pocket.

  She beamed at Natalya. “Now all my mothers can go and fight.”

  Natalya tried to return the smile, but she could only grimace. She couldn’t feel Naos anywhere, not inside the girl and not echoing throughout her own mind. She remembered a time when Naos’s absence brought hints of madness back, but it seemed like ages ago now, as if her mind had been recovering on its own. If she concentrated, she could nearly keep it in check. The key to not surrendering to the urge to tear the world apart was to use her power with tighter focus. Sanity was a scale, and the right amount of power needed to be poured into each pan.

  “We’ll camp here,” Kora said.

  Natalya walked away and didn’t see Kora again until after night fell, when Kora crept into their tent and folded in beside her. Natalya fought the urge to sigh, though she found she didn’t mind the need for contact as much as she used to. Now it was only the trust that made her shiver. Naos would forever take advantage of Kora, but at least with so powerful a guardian, no one else would.

  “Leading an army is hard,” Kora said.

  Natalya chuckled. “Do we have to be an army?”

  “Oh yes. The Sun-Moon killed my family, so there has to be revenge. That’s what the goddess says.”

  Natalya sat up and fumbled around until she found a lamp. Once she lit it, she stared at Kora’s wide, innocent eyes. “No, other plains dwellers killed your family. Don’t you remember?”

  “Like my army?”

  Natalya scrubbed her hands through her hair. What the fuck was she doing here? “Yes, like the…army. Who they were or what they wanted, I don’t know. Naos and I killed them.”

  Kora frowned, her mouth working as if reading an invisible page. “But why would the goddess lie?”

  “Who says I lied?” Naos said to both of them, but before Natalya could shush her, Kora asked, “Who killed my family?”

  “The Sun-Moon.”

&n
bsp; “See?” Kora said triumphantly. “Natalya was confused.”

  Silence hung in the air for a moment. “She was, was she?”

  Natalya said nothing but kept her power quiet, out of the way, though she felt her shields strengthening as muscles might tighten before an attack. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course not,” Naos said. “Different, the same, what are they really? I’m me and you, and you’re me, too. Ha! That sounds like a children’s song. The important thing to remember is that we’re family, and now the plains dwellers are family, but the Sun-Moon are not, so they’re the enemy. That’s the way it works.”

  Kora nodded. “Someone has to pay.”

  Like she’d wanted Simon Lazlo to pay, the man who’d gotten her into this entire mess, and she still wanted to give him a smack for messing about with what he couldn’t have understood, but that had faded, too. And now here they were, with someone having to pay for something, some need for revenge Naos had that was going unfulfilled, or maybe it was just the need she’d mentioned before about being the only god on Calamity.

  She felt the goddess watching, but her power was too subtle to detect unless she wanted it known. Kora was staring at her patiently, hopefully, and Natalya gave her a smile. “Why don’t we go to sleep?”

  Once the light was out, they lay down again, but Natalya still felt Naos’s spectral stare. She wondered if Kora felt it and was comforted by it.

  “I’ve met people like you before,” Naos said just as Natalya began to drift, making her jump. “You can’t ever be happy.”

  Ringing started in her ears, but she fed power into it, trying to turn the tide, but this wasn’t the madness inside her; it was the one without.

  “I suppose it’s my fault,” Naos said. “I gave you a few inches. Why shouldn’t you make a grab for the mile?”

  “She’s not a mile,” Natalya thought. “She’s a human being.”

  “Yes, my human being. Or do you miss the old days?”

  Natalya’s body jerked, but it wasn’t a surprise this time. It was that same old sensation of someone trying on her skin.