Diadem from the Stars

by Clayton, Jo;

  N’frat saw her and rode over.

  “How bad is it?” Aleytys asked, her voice low with pain.

  “Of the calves, two thirds are gone. It could be worse.” N’frat rubbed her hand across her worn and dusty face. “We’ll just have to butcher fewer at the killing ground. Leyta …”

  “What, N’fri?”

  “The people’s temper is … they’re very angry, Leyta. I know you had nothing to do with this, but you understand how they feel about outsiders. They’re in a mood to tear someone apart. You’d best stay hid. This is clan business. Leave us to it.”

  Aleytys nodded. “Thanks, N’fri.”

  As Aab and Zeb floated up from behind the horizon and full dark lay over the plain, the clan gathered about the fire built of hoarded wood burning redly on the muddy shore of the shallow lake. They sat grim-faced, boiling with barely suppressed anger, in an arc a double herret-length from the fire. Myawo walked into the circle of light and paced solemnly to the furs piled on a sesmat leather in front of the fire. He sat down and crossed his legs, fitting a small drum in the space between his knees.

  After a moment of silence, he touched the taut hide, letting his fingers ripple over the drumhead. Left hand keeping up the ripple of sound, he stared into the flames and began to beat their rhythm into the drum with his right.

  Raqat leaped onto the sand beside the water’s edge, the firelight slipping redly over her oiled body. Feet beating in a strong counterrhythm to the drum, arms curved up over her head, hands angled out like small wings, she circled the fire once, then stood swaying, arms outstretched toward the silvery reflections of Aab and Zeb floating on the still black water of the muddy little lake.

  Silently, one by one, the other Shemqyatwe stepped into the light, sitting down in a tight arc facing the Khem-sko. Khateyat’s voice blended softly with the crackling flames as she chanted in the archaic tongue. “R’eN’frat, khesawsef weret kehkzew chre yaqaskh.”

  N’frat swayed up onto her feet. Her clear young voice floated up and out as Raqat moved again, weaving a connecting thread between the soaring chant and the rattle of the drum with the fire-painted undulations of her body.

  Out in the darkness, seated on the Shemqyaten herret, Aleytys watched the dance, feeling a little uneasy but drawn by an insatiable curiosity that wouldn’t let her stay in her chon. She glanced around at the silent camp. I shouldn’t be out here, she thought. They chained Stavver. She shivered. Power swirled in heavy whorls out from the lakeside. Her head began to throb.

  “N’taheytyaaaa. N’tahetya. N’tahtya.” N’frat’s voice rippled pure as mountain water. “Metawet ni nya net yari tw’n meghes h’wew … tw’n meghes h’wew.…” The pounding n’s and m’s broke over Aleytys’s brain like white water in river rapids … hammered at her. The flames reflecting on Raqat’s driving body, the complex and jarring rhythm of the drum, the low undersurface hum from the seated medwey, the tangible streamers of power … her eyes blurred as these things wove into a throbbing knot around her head, tighter and tighter around her head. Her lungs strained with the thickening air; she panted, scrubbing at her face until her skin burned.

  A delicate ripple of sound, cool and refreshing as fresh mint, knifed through the overheated night. When she reached up, her fingers stroked cool metal. There was a physical weight binding her temples now, and a thousand tendrils of pain burning into her brain. Frightened, she pulled her hands down and stared at the leaping flames.

  The singing ended suddenly in a high, questioning, demanding note. The dancer stiffened and was abruptly rigid, hands reaching urgently toward the moons. The drum halted in midbeat. Myawo held fingers poised inches from the surface of the leather. The tension in the air thickened as all the medwey riveted their hot, angry eyes on Raqat, waiting.…

  “Bwobyan in’m?” Myawo’s voice rang out deep and commanding. At last Raqat’s voice came in answer, a hoarse scream that finally modulated into staccato negatives. “Nin. Nin. Nin … nin … ninnnnn.…” She collapsed into a panting, sand-smeared heap while the fire dulled as if shrouded by a black mist.

  Aleytys clutched at her head, shuddering at the chiming music under her fingers. The fire entered her brain, and without willing it, she was suddenly on her feet. She was walking, threading her way stiffly through the medwey. She was looking out through her eyeholes, prisoner in a body she couldn’t even feel. Stiffly, then with rapidly improving ease, the body moved toward the fire.

  Terrified, Aleytys screamed but her mouth made no sound as she felt it curving into an empty smile. She could see Khateyat’s disturbed frowning face. The diadem, she screamed to her, not me. It’s doing this, not me … not me … not meeeeee. The body stopped in front of the fire. Aleytys crouched inside in pain and darkness like a wounded animal. Her mouth opened and she spoke words that came from … she didn’t know. A deep amber glow spread over the scene as, fleetingly, she felt a presence stir at the back of her head, then forgot it while she listened to what her mouth was saying.

  “The water poisoner.” The voice that came out of her mouth had a vibrant hoarseness, a swelling power unlike her usual tones. “He knows and he’s fighting you.” Her arm came up and gestured at the panting figure on the sand. “He defeated you. Defense is easier than attack. He does not know us and we are stronger. We follow his traces. Look for the poisoner in the tents of the Hawk. This one can guide you there. They plan to come for the herd at dawn.” On her head the diadem chimed softly.

  Myawo watched her, his eyes glittering hostilely.

  A caustic laugh bubbled from her stiff lips. “Don’t be a fool, sheman. Forget your petty vanity. The tezweyn tanchar wait.” She took another step closer to him. “Hadn’t you better get ready to take care of the tanchar instead of grumbling at us?”

  A deep growl made them both twitch. “She’s got you there, Khem-sko.” His face set in lines of cold anger, Thasmyo snapped, “Woman, you give us a name. Give us a place.”

  Aleytys felt a loosening in the grip holding her prisoner in her head, although the ghost image of the diadem still hovered above her. She could see it reflected in the haryotep’s dark eyes. At the same time she felt the heat of the fire on her face. As she sagged and swayed Khateyat jumped up and caught her. Holding her steady, the Shemqya said softly, “Do you know what you’ve said, hes’ Aleytys?”

  Aleytys nodded wearily. “I heard the words, though I didn’t say them. I have to talk to you. Please? Later?”

  “Yes, of course, but answer the haryo-tep, child.”

  She leaned back against the Shemqya, legs feeling like wet string. “Yes,” she said tiredly. “Give me a mount and I’ll take you to them.”

  Head spinning, Aleytys felt herself hoisted on the back of a sesmat. Myawo rode up beside her, his aura glittering so that she saw him less as a man than a great reptilian jewel. “Go,” he hissed.

  She closed her eyes. Surrounded by that odd amber glow, a pull like a string tied to her mind lined away to the west. Without hesitation, she led the attack party toward the dry camp where the tanchar dozed unaware of the approaching danger. After about a half hour’s steady plodding, she pulled up and pointed. “There,” she mumbled. “Just over that rise.”

  Thasmyo shoved past her and slid off his mount. He brought his hand down in a taut, angry gesture and the men dismounted, gathering in steaming silence around him. Myawo sniffed at the air. “No wards,” he grunted. “Stupid.” He dismounted also and jerked his head at Aleytys.

  Reluctantly she slid off the sesmat and joined the group. The men opened their ranks and let her through them until she stood in front of Thasmyo. “What more do you know?” he asked quietly.

  “Nothing.” She flicked an uneasy glance at the scowling, angry faces ringing her. “Only that the ones you want are there.” She nodded at the top of the low knoll.

  “Come.” Thasmyo swung his arm at the top of the rise. They crept up the back of the knoll until they could peer over the top, partially screened by knots of long grass.
Below, sleeping in pools of moonlight, huddled forms of about twenty men lay stretched out with their heads toward the tethered sesmatwe. Thasmyo squatted beside Aleytys and peered intently at the standard fluttering from a pole stuck in the ground. “Tanchar,” he grunted.

  Aleytys swallowed. “You have them,” she whispered. “Let me go back to camp.”

  “No,” Myawo hissed.

  Thasmyo nodded. “Healer,” he said softly. “We need you if some are injured. You will?”

  Reluctantly Aleytys nodded.

  “Good.” He looked grimly around at the men. “Go,” he whispered.

  The zabyn around him nodded silently and began creeping down the hill. Aleytys knelt and wrapped her arms over her breasts, her hands cupped over her shoulders, shuddering at the violence in the air.

  When the ragged line of men reached the bottom, she saw sabers glinting silver in the moonlight, then red as they hacked at the sleeping figures. The tanchar scrambled blearily out of their blankets but the surprise was too complete. Before they managed to get on their feet, the shimmering lunar curves of the sabers slashed across their throats. Howling mad in fighting blood fury, the zabyn cut the surprised men into bloody fragments.

  Forgotten on the crown of the little hill, Aleytys crouched on hands and knees, vomiting until her body was one great ache.

  7

  Raqat pulled the leather doorflap back and looked down. In the darkness of the chon Stavver was a pale blur against the dark leather. She tied the flap open and moved on her knees back to the sleeping man, bending over him to stare into his night-veiled features. A secret face, she thought. I was sure I knew him once. Before that woman came. She touched his cheek. Now, maro, you look at her … You don’t look at me like that.… She’s carrying another man’s child and you can’t keep your eyes off her.

  Abruptly the chon seemed to be closing in on her. She pulled on a sleeveless tunic and crawled outside.

  The night was still warm. Aab had already set and Zeb was just a silver bead resting on the dark line of the horizon. The stars hung low enough to pluck like flowers. Raqat took a deep breath. Moonset meant that dawn was close. She looked around. The yd’rwe were a vast cloud spreading like an inkstain across the gently rolling plain. The Shemqyaten herret loomed just to her left with Aleytys’s chon huddled close beside it. Since the raid on the tanchar, the redheaded witch held a peculiar position in the clan, not one with the zabyn but not counted as a stranger either. Raqat snorted with sudden rage and ran out from between the circle of tents.

  She ached to be alone, to have no one smothering her with the effluvia from their night thoughts, to have no snoring in her ears, no paining-pleasing presence beside her. She snatched up a heavy stick and ran up the shallow slope of a small elevation, not a hill—scarcely more than a mosquito bite in the earth, just a gentle rise up a long slope breaking off like a wave to drop straight down two meters at the crest.

  At the top of the rise she tramped the grass down, beating around with the stick to drive away snakes and stinging bugs. Then she slumped down into the grass, dropped her head on her knees, and began crying … huge soft, half-stifled sobs that shook her whole body. As Zeb slipped down behind the western edge of the world, she pulled in a deep unsteady breath and wiped her eyes. “Khas,” she muttered. Feeling a presence, she looked up. Myawo stood a few feet away, hands on hips, watching her.

  She glared defiantly at him. “You come to mock at me too, Khem-sko?” To her disgust her voice broke on the last word. She cleared her throat and spit at his feet.

  “No, R’eRaqat.”

  She stiffened with surprise and suspicion. His voice was gentle and he even gave her the respect title. Peering through the heavy darkness, she tried to read his expression.

  “After all,” he murmured, “you’re zabya.” He moved closer and dropped beside her. “I’m a cross-grained man with little to recommend him to a woman.” His voice turned liquid soft, caressing her like gentle fingers. “I resent it, you know, man Raqat.” His voice sang like music in her body. “I resent the presence of that stranger in our camp.” He stopped speaking and ran his fingers up and down her arm.

  Raqat began to breathe faster as she felt the tight muscles of her shoulders and neck loosen under his smoothing hands. With an involuntary shiver she turned toward him, relaxing as he eased her down on her back and Continued to work the tension out of her muscles. When she was soft and limp, he drew his lips across her face, moving a hand down over her shoulders inside the unfastened tunic to squeeze her throbbing nipples. With the other hand he worked the hem of the tunic up over her buttocks until it was bunched around her waist. Raqat sighed and moved her knees apart for him.

  Sometime later she sighed again, lifted the hand that lay heavily on her breast, and held it between her own. “If only …” she murmured sadly. “If only things could be like they were before she came.”

  Balancing on one elbow, Myawo freed his hand and stroked his fingers along her jawbone, his thin mouth twisting into an unpleasant smile. “Get rid of her,” he whispered temptingly into her ear.

  Raqat swung an elbow and knocked him away from her. Jerking upright, she glared at him. “Stick my hand in the fire for you?” She laughed fiercely. “Not a chance.” As she watched him unwind his spindly length and sit up, she faltered a little in her determination. “I couldn’t,” she said slowly. “The R’nenawatalawa …”

  He reached over and caught hold of her hand, running a series of light kisses up her arm. “There are more powerful patrons.”

  Relaxing under the skillful caresses, Raqat lay back but she still shook her head dubiously. “Not for a Shemqya,” she murmured.

  “A Shemqya with the protection of a Khem-sko?”

  Raqat’s native shrewdness began to reassert itself. In spite of the wash of emotion inside her, she pulled away and asked dryly, “Why? You don’t care what happens to me.”

  Myawo straightened his back, crossed his legs, and meticulously retied his shess. His round black eyes held hers with compelling force. “The diadem. I want it.”

  The corner of Raqat’s mouth twitched up in a fleeting smile. Meeting his gaze squarely, she said, “That I believe.” Then she shook her head, a tinge of regret in the smooth lines of her face. “Even she can’t take it off.”

  “If she were dead …” His voice was soft and smooth as silk.

  “The R’nenawatalawa protect her.” Desire fought with caution in her.

  “Against Mechenyat?”

  Raqat caught her breath, fear vibrating tautly through her lush body. “The Coiled One,” she whispered, crossing the fingers on both hands. Her eyes slid uneasily around as if searching for something at the edge of vision. “No!” she said suddenly. “No.…” The second time her voice faded weakly.

  “With the diadem,” he whispered, smiling at her, bending over her so that his dark strength threatened to crush her. He caught hold of her hands and stroked the palms with gentle fingers. “With the diadem, there’s nothing we can’t do.” Back and forth, back and forth, the fingers caressed her hot palms. “It’s so easy,” he whispered. “So easy. She dies. The diadem is mine. You have what you want. I’ll protect you, my word on it. I’ll swear by him. You’ll be first in power among the Shemqyatwe, stronger than them all, stronger than Khateyat. Think of it … think … think of all we can do.…” He let his whisper die into a soft hiss, leaving her imagination to work on its own. Slowly he stroked her palms, feeling, as his fingers moved, the muscles tighten under them as if the hands were about to close.

  Suddenly Raqat jerked away and leaped to her feet. “No!” she shrilled. She ran down the slope, the skirt of her tunic flapping noisily on her sturdy thighs. At the herret she paused, leaning on the corner while she caught her breath. When she looked up, Aleytys stood in front of her.

  “He was not telling the truth,” Aleytys said quietly.

  “You followed me.” Raqat backed against the wagon side and clutched at a huge back wheel.r />
  “No. I didn’t have to. Raqat, I … I can’t hurt you. Don’t you know by this time I’m not your enemy?” Aleytys bit at her lip and wrung her hands, her agitation like an itch under her skin. “He … he’s using you. Don’t let him.”

  Raqat straightened, eyes flashing. “Leave me some dignity, woman. Do you have to strip me of everything?”

  “Raqat …”

  Raqat pushed away from the wagon and brushed past Aleytys, leaving her standing helplessly in the darkness before the dawn, the sparse morning dew cold on her feet and a worse chill in her soul.

  When Hesh was sending up a fan of blue light beside Horli, Raqat slipped out to the water wagon, eyes on Stavver’s shaggy mop of white hair. He turned when he heard the sound of her feet, the buckets hanging from the yoke swaying a little as he moved. “Slave,” she rasped. He glanced at her silently and set the buckets down so that the ra-mayo could fill them.

  “Slave. Slave. Slave.” Her voice was shrill with a break in it like a sob. “Stay away from her, you hear me?”

  Stavver turned his back on her and bent down to lift the yoke back on his shoulders. She hooked strong hands on his arm and whirled him around. “Look at me,” she said hoarsely. “Stay away from her.” Her lips began to tremble as he didn’t respond. “Well?” The word quavered uncertainly.

  Stavver shrugged. “I hear you,” he said insolently. He settled the yoke on his shoulders and walked away without another word.

  After the fires had burned low that night, Raqat slipped out of her chon. She crept to the shabby patched hutch Stavver slept in and edged the doorflap back, holding her breath as she peered in, scourged by jealous imaginings. He lay nude and alone on the sleeping leathers, sweating a little in the hot still air of the night. Weak with relief, she crept in and shook his shoulder.