Diadem from the Stars

by Clayton, Jo;

  The water shivered. Streaks of silver crossed and recrossed the image, then coalesced into a glyph, shattered again, reformed into a second, shattered, formed a third. Then the images vanished and the water reflected merely the star-lit sky.

  Khateyat stepped back. “Pour the water out.”

  The three girls tilted the basin and let the water flow out of it so that it splashed over the grass, wetting the thief’s ragged leather leggings.

  N’frat held on to the edge of the basin and fidgeted eagerly. “Is she the one? Is she the redheaded one the R’nenawatalawa gave us the diadem for? Is she?”

  “Hush, child.” Kheprat smiled affectionately into the eager young face, her blind eyes glinting white in the starlight. “Use your head. Why else would they show us her? Khateyat, what did the runes say?”

  Khateyat frowned at the thief. “Take the water and pour the rest of it in the casks. Then you can rest till time for the evening meal. Go now.”

  Stavver shook himself out of his astonishment and trudged down the gentle slope, glancing repeatedly behind him at the silent standing figures.

  Khateyat watched him until he disappeared behind the herret. Then she turned to the others. “Kepri, the woman is in danger and hungry. The R’nenawatalawa send us to her. We leave in the morning with the diadem.”

  Part III

  THE DIADEM

  1

  Aleytys flipped the pebble into the river and listened to it plop. She sat on a rock beside the Mulukaneh Rud, its deep silent water flowing past her dusty toes, with Tarnsian’s mind-touch prodding at the edge of her awareness. She lifted another pebble off the pile and tossed it in the water. The feel of him had an aura of triumph, as if he knew she’d come to the end of her resources.

  After the last pebble sailed lazily into the cool green and disappeared, Aleytys said softly, “The end. That’s all there is.” She pulled her feet up onto the rock, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her head on her knees.

  Time drifted past. She watched the shadows shorten and creep up past her toes as Horli and Hesh slid lightly up the arch of the sky. She was drifting in a half-doze when a series of scrabbling sounds broke through the placid morning hum. She listened a moment, puzzled vaguely. The sounds were coming from the wrong direction for it to be Tarnsian. Besides, she couldn’t feel him, if he was that close, he’d have her tied in knots by now. She scrambled to her feet and stood poised on her toes, watching the line of shrubbery growing a few meters higher up the bank. The wind over the river nudged at her matted hair and so she brushed it impatiently out of her face and held it in a club on her neck as she scanned the bushes apprehensively.

  At first she saw nothing, then a shaggy triangular head thrust around a pricklebush. A woman mounted on a yara rode onto the bank.

  Dropping her heels back on the rock, Aleytys crossed her arms over her breasts and watched in quiet despair as five others joined the first. The leader wore a tasseled cloth on her head, held in place by an intricately knotted cord. On either side of her impassive red-brown face hung heavy white-streaked black braids tied off with red cords ending in small tassels. She wore a loose tunic of a fine white material heavily embroidered at the hem and cuffs. Her hands were hidden in gloves of fine soft black leather as her feet were in soft black leather boots. She wore voluminous trousers in blue-dyed sueded leather. They were gathered in at the ankles over the boots, tied off with tassled cords. Aleytys watched that one and the other five dressed like her pull up in a line and halt, dark eyes on her with daunting steadiness. Still dazed and sluggish in reaction, she swallowed and breathed rapidly, a fugitive hope sparking in her.

  At that moment Tarnsian struck.

  Aleytys staggered and fell to her knees, sickly horrified at the oily malevolence that poured over her. Worse, she thought. He’s become worse. She moaned and wrapped her arms around her head as she fought back, forgetting everything but that threatening blackness flooding her.

  She knelt in a silvery bubble, inside swirling, battering black forces … no escape … no … and it was pressing in … creeping like oily smoke … creeping in through interstices in her awareness. She fought, watching the shining bubble sag and begin to wrinkle. Frantically she propped the weak spot, then another section began to sag, and another. She raced her mind around in her bubble, stopping up drip after drip, and still the attack continued. She was so tired … so tired … and she held on desperately … so tired … so tired. Then a calm quiet strength poured into her, confidence. She drove the bubble out … but … out … against all the efforts of the attacker. Abruptly, without fanfare, the barrage was gone. Aleytys lifted her aching head.

  She felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to face the calm woman kneeling beside her. “You helped me,” Aleytys said wonderingly.

  The strange woman smiled, the corners of her mouth wrinkling into gentleness and acceptance. Aleytys felt like a flower turning its face to the sun. “I help,” the woman said. “Yes. Is bad, him.”

  Aleytys nodded, underlining her agreement with a soft explosion of breath. “Is very bad.” She stared at the nomads with wide eyes. “You’re from the Great Green.”

  “Yes, child.”

  Aleytys caught the woman’s hand and clung to it, urgency sharpening her voice, raising its pitch almost to shrillness. “Take me with you. Please. I have to get away from him. Please. Take me away.”

  The woman patted her cheek with her free hand. “Yes, yes. We help. Be yourself. Not baby.” She gently pulled her hand away. “Wait now.” Stepping back, she touched her breast “I, Khateyat.” Then she named the others in order of precedence. “These. Kheprat, Raqat, Shanat, N’frat, R’prat.” She pulled her hand in a small, tight circle. “We, Shemqyatwe. In mountain tongue, witches.”

  “And I’m called Aleytys.” Aleytys started to stand up. Khateyat caught hold of her shoulder and kept her on her knees. “Wait,” she said quietly. “Wait. Is not time. Hasya say we give first.”

  Aleytys frowned and shifted uneasily under the restraining hand. “Hasya?” She narrowed her eyes and looked quickly around. “Who’s that?”

  A smile lit Khateyat’s face as she shook her head. “Not who. Is what. Mmm.…” She pulled her brows together, searching her limited vocabulary for the right words. “Is … is honor. Yes. Like honor … like a command … like must do.” She turned to Kheprat and the blind woman slipped a pouch from her shoulder. Khateyat held the woven metal sack in front of Aleytys. “Hasya,” she said simply. “Yours. Take please.”

  Aleytys fingered the pouch, eyeing it warily. “What’s in there?”

  “Is nefre-khizet. Like this.” Khateyat held out her hands, touching her fingertips together, curving her thumbs around to form a circle. With a smile, she lifted her hands and set them lightly on her head. “I not know word.”

  Filled with curiosity, Aleytys fumbled at the fastenings on the pouch, jumping as the bag suddenly came apart in her hands, dumping the diadem in a heap on the ground in front of her knees. She picked it up, let it dangle from her fingers, marveling at the soft tinkle of the singing stones. The fine golden wires, spun into a half dozen exquisite flowers around jeweled hearts, glittered enticingly in the strong morning light as they hung, limp and supple, over her fingers. She touched the flowers and they sang again, a series of single pure notes that thrilled through her like a lover’s kisses. She looked up, delight shining in her face. “You give this to me?”

  Khateyat nodded. “Is Hasya,” she said.

  “But why?”

  “A thing of power. Not for us. Bad for us. Too … too …” Khateyat struggled for words in her meager vocabulary of mountain speech. “R’nenawatalawa make us …” She licked her lips, tired by the search for elusive words. “R’nenawatalawa make us keepers for you. We bring. You take. Is done.” She stood up. Behind her the other Shemqyatwe stood also, having said nothing the whole time.

  “Wait.” Aleytys jumped up and caught at Khateyat’s arm. “If you leave me …”
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  Khateyat patted her hand. “We not go for little space. But no stay. Wagons wait.” She flicked a finger at N’frat. “Kh’rtew sesmatwe,” she said briskly. Dropping gracefully down, she arranged herself comfortably on the rock. Still silent, the others imitated her except for N’frat, who ran to the animals and knotted their reins to a low-hanging bydarrakh limb. She trotted back to the rock and dropped in her place in the circle, eyes shining with curiosity.

  Biting her lip, Aleytys examined the bland unhelpful faces and tried to figure out what to say next. Madar, she thought, I’ve not the faintest idea how to get them to take me. Maybe Mother didn’t leave me enough cunning. She looked down at the diadem still dangling from her fingers. Absently she stroked her hand across the jewels. With the notes chiming in her ears, she asked, “Who are the R’nenawatalawa?”

  Khateyat rubbed her forehead. After a minute’s thought, she pointed to the river. “Are there.” Then to the earth where they sat. “Are there.” Then to the sky. “Are there.” Then back to the earth. “Most of all, are there.” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “Is not … not … I know how to say.”

  Silence deepened again but this time it was more comfortable. The Shemqyatwe sat in their circle with a relaxed stillness that had the feel of eternity about it. Aleytys settled herself and looked at the diadem. Running her fingers over the flowers, she listened enchanted to the exquisite peal. “I wish my hair were clean,” she said wistfully. She looked at the shimmering beauty in her hand and smiled involuntarily as the spell from the diadem spun around her mind and wiped away everything else. She lifted it carefully, afraid of bending the fragile threads. The flowers fitted around her head in a glowing wreath while the twin sprays of leaves curved down over her ears. She brushed her fingers across the flowers and laughed joyously as her body acted like a sounding board for the music. She jumped up, smiled at the women, and danced around toward the river intending to see her reflection in the water.

  Before she had taken two steps, pain drilled through her brain, blinding pain like white-hot needles. She screamed, dropped to her knees, clutching her head, then lay flat out, writhing on the rough granite.

  The diadem chimed a lovely tune.

  Khateyat leaped toward her and caught her struggling body in strong hands. In almost the same movement she reached for the singing diadem, intending to jerk it off. Her fingers whipped away as soon as she touched it, as a sudden agony ate through the tips and raced along her arms to her brain. She moaned and clutched her seared hand to her breast. R’prat and N’frat caught her and helped her up. Gradually the pain faded and she opened streaming eyes. She looked helplessly down at Aleytys.

  Aleytys’s writhing had stopped. She lay curled up, elbows tucked against her sides, knees drawn up tightly against her breasts. Soft moans slipped from her trembling lips and her face was a silent scream of horror. Khateyat knelt beside her and caught hold of her hands, calling on the R’nenawatalawa for strength. N’frat knelt beside her, her big soft eyes fixed on Aleytys.

  Monsters swam in the blackness of Aleytys’s mind, strange distorted reflections of old thoughts and old friends. She was falling down … down … down … into an endless abyss, falling past gibbering monstrosities that were sickeningly familiar. Distorted reflections of her own face were mocking her, calling words that clawed at her mind. Down and down … then the blackness exploded into a million tongues of fire screaming into lust, fear, hate … I … I … I … I WANT … I WANT … I … I … I FEAR … FEAR … I … I … HATE … I … I … blackness … A gentler falling … the pain lessened … strength … peace from somewhere flowing in. She was a winter’s leaf on a gentle day drifting, drifting through images flickering like bright flowers.

  A pulsing blob of bluish flesh threaded with purple veins sat in translucent placidity in the light of a small yellow sun—smaller, far smaller than Horli, but bigger than Hesh, and disturbingly strange after her lifetime with the red and blue suns. Below it, the hill sloped away on all sides, grassy turf sprinkled with small star-shaped flowers, cheerful in their dozen bright colors. A graveled path curved down the hillside with sparks of blue, green, yellow, and red glinting up from the scattered pebbles on the path. Aleytys’s disembodied consciousness found the colors odd in the unfamiliar yellow sunlight. The slight shifts in tone made her dizzy at first.

  The view altered slightly. She was looking at the bottom of the hill where a procession garlanded with flowers paced in flowing grace along the path, chanting a nasal, high-pitched, monotonous song. The men were covered with a silky fur about two inches long, shimmering in assorted shades of brown ranging from a rich gold all the way to coffee-black. The women were paler, cream to amber. Both sexes had small round heads with mobile pointed ears. Each woman wore a drifting veil crossing from her right shoulder over her upper pair of breasts and passing under her left arm. The men wore nothing but that splendid fur.

  Floating as a disembodied point about four man-heights above the slope of the hill, Aleytys watched the procession with intense interest. She counted seven males and three females. As they began climbing the hillside, though, a shivery foreboding chilled her enjoyment of the strange beings. She refocused on the obscene thing nestling on the top of the hill. How can they? she thought. And felt an immaterial shudder.

  The leading four men knelt. Another, holding a flower-twined staff, stood off to one side while the remaining two took hold of the first woman’s arms. Her eyes were glazed and dull; she seemed unaware of what was happening. He lifted her up. The blob formed a mouth, opening and closing now with great wet kissing noises. Aleytys tensed impotently as she watched in horror.

  The men swung the woman back, then forward, flinging her into the gaping maw.

  Aleytys screamed a long, endless soundless howl and went twisting and tumbling off into darkness.

  A man sat in the light of the setting suns. Hesh was south of Horli so Aleytys knew it was another time, not this day … he was running his fingers lightly over a battered barbat. The sound came faintly to her as if from far, far away, the rippling notes mingling with the whispers of water flowing past his feet. Aleytys willed herself closer, then gasped with joy. “Vajd,” she whispered into the darkness. She saw with warm affection that he’d found himself another tree to sit under beside the flowing water of a river. She let her eyes wander over him, happiness hot in her, then she saw the scarred and vacant eyes and if she’d had corporeal eyes she would have wept.

  A woman came walking through the raushani bushes lining the path to the river bank. Zavar. Aleytys smiled, or rather she felt the same warmth a body smile would have wakened in her. Vari. She looked content, even happy. Her small pointed face had a new maturity and the breeze blowing against her abba outlined a far-advanced pregnancy. The impetuosity Aleytys remembered seemed to be muted, but her aura breathed the same tenderness. In the hovering blackness—a point awareness with fuzzy invisible outriding emotions—Aleytys felt a peculiar, uncertain mixture of jealousy and affection, envy and love.

  Zavar carried a steaming mug of chahi. She knelt beside Vajd and put the mug in his hand. For a long time they sat there leaning back against the old horan, Vajd sipping at the hot liquid, Zavar resting close beside him in a companionable silence. The shadows lengthened and finally merged as the tip of Horli alone was left, a glowing ruby on the finger of the world. Then even that was gone. And Aleytys was tumbling over and over through that featureless blackness.

  Laughter rippled in an arpeggio of delight. Bright disks skimmed across a greenish sky. Strange faces—enormous jade-green eyes, tiny mouths, crests of fluffy greenish feathers; three-fingered hands ending in dagger claws; male-female playing tag across the sky, bellies flat on darting disks circling in an intricate dance, laughing, screaming, laughing.…

  Worlds spun under her eyes like colored marbles.

  In the blackness and emptiness a burnished silver mote flashed past boiling, burning suns. Three creatures skittered around a room of metal. Ea
ch had six appendages, multi-jointed with shaggy coarse black hair, twitching, swinging back and forth along the pale flesh, clawed hands, two fingers and an opposable thumb, great yellow eyes with slit pupils, flat noses with long, thin horizontal nostrils, long upper lip, mouth a wide gash filled with—an oddity she found disconcerting—perfectly ordinary teeth. Such a mouth, she felt, should have poison-dripping fangs at the very least. Antennae twitched above pompoms of orange fuzz. All three had an aura of determination, efficiency, passion. Aleytys watched with fascination as they moved about their incomprehensible tasks.

  Colored lights flickered across walls and slanting boards covered with moving things and knobs and switches and dials and banks of levers and sliding pegs, all enigmatic to her. But the sets of clawed hands, moved with expert ease over them, doing things, eyes watching, intent. A huge blank thing like a square blind eye—glassy, milky white—glowed suddenly. A black expanse dotted with silver specks flowed across the square, then a mottled ball in green, white, and blue filled it. Aleytys watched, puzzled. The ball hung there, turning slowly so that the blue and green shapes altered. The white streaks floated and flowed like water. Suddenly she knew they were clouds, Clouds! That’s not a ball, she thought excitedly. That’s a world. Hanging above? Below? No matter. This is how a world looks from way up, she thought. Jaydugar? Mother could have seen it this way. But who are those creatures? And when is this? Again …

  She tumbled away again through flickering images.

  A woman’s face, eyes wide with surprise, turned toward her. Pointed thin face, long narrow greenstone eyes, fair translucent skin, blushing to pale rose on the cheeks, wide mobile mouth softly curving into a happy smile, faint ghosts of laugh wrinkles flickering at the corners of her eyes—a face familiar but at the same time oddly strange, as if she were seeing it in another kind of light. Aleytys stared and stared. Suddenly the woman turned away as a tall man stood in the arched doorway behind her, his bright green eyes and flaming hair echoing hers. He smiled and held out a hand. “Shareem.” His voice echoed in Aleytys’s ears, deep, musical. “Mother,” she gasped. My mother.…