by Clayton, Jo;
“Stavver,” she whispered urgently. He mumbled and snored. She shook him again.
His eyes blinked open. “Wha …” he mumbled.
“Stavver, it’s me. Raqat.”
He pushed himself up, his face pinching together in an irritated frown. “Raqat? Dammit, woman, I just got to sleep.” He yawned and stretched. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Late. Does it matter?” She caught at him with small hot hands. “Stavver, I need you.”
The corners of his mouth turned down in an unpleasant grimace. “What happens,” he said coldly, the tone of his voice an insult in itself, “when a slave refuses an order.”
Raqat licked her lips. “It … it depends. He could be killed.”
His voice full of contempt, Stavver said softly, “Move your ass out of here before I kick it out.”
“Stavver …”
“Go ahead, tell the clan I can’t stand you anymore. And watch the grins on their faces when they go to the execution.” He grinned nastily at her.
Whimpering like a sick sesmat, she turned on her knees and crawled out of the chon, then ran blindly until she bumped into a slender body.
“You!” Her hands curled into claws she swung at Aleytys’s face.
Aleytys caught her arms at the wrists and held them until Raqat broke into wild sobs, her body shaking with the storm of emotion inside her.
Holding her in a tender firm grasp, Aleytys sank to the ground with the sobbing girl, comforting her as she would have comforted Twanit in one of her crying fits. “Shh … it’s not so bad. You have many and many who love you, Qati. Qati, oh, hush, my dear. You’re stronger than you know. You don’t stand alone, my dear, little one. Mmm … mmm … time heals these hurts. He’s a thief, a stranger.…” As she stroked soothing hands over the shivering back, Aleytys felt the grinding pain inside the girl. Helplessly she tried to comfort, then reached out with her mind to touch, heal, sooth, turning the empathy that brought understanding inside out so that Raqat felt peace flowing into her tormented soul.
She drew in a long quavering breath and pulled away from Aleytys. “Why … how can you …?”
“Touch my hand.” Aleytys stretched out her hand palm up. She knelt quietly, knee to knee with Raqat, eyes holding hers.
Hesitantly Raqat reached out and, after a minute, touched trembling fingers to the narrow palm.
“What do you feel?”
Raqat frowned. Impatiently she snatched her hand away. “You know what I feel.”
“Yes. More than you know.” Aleytys sighed. “I can’t help it, you know. I don’t mean to pry. But I feel what you feel, so how can I not hurt when you hurt? Please. I can help. Will you let me?”
Raqat jumped up. “I don’t want help. Keep away, keep out of my mind!”
“Raqat.…” Aleytys stood up and held out her hands. “Please.”
Hesitantly, reluctantly, Raqat reached out and placed trembling fingers once again in Aleytys’s grasp, then closed her eyes as she felt the warmth and tranquility pouring like honey over her troubled soul.
For several minutes the two women stood in the silvery moonlight like statues, not speaking, not moving, scarcely breathing. Then Raqat sighed deeply and gently freed her hands. “I … I thank you, Aleytys.”
“Raqat.…”
Raqat looked back over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“Be careful about the Khem-sko. Please?”
Raqat laughed and walked wearily back to her chon.
8
A huge face floated in blackness, turning and turning. Gleaming wetly, slit pupils distended to pointed ovals, the great yellow eyes searched blindly, inexorably narrowing the swing until they pointed directly at her. Thin horizontal nostrils rippled as he—it, whatever—sniffed some illusive odor. The wide gash of a mouth opened in a travesty of a smile, revealing oddly human teeth. A coarse furred claw lifted into view, pointed straight at her.
Aleytys writhed on the leathers, sweating, panting in horror. Her eyes snapped open and she stared up into the stifling blackness. Ahai, she thought, I’d rather not have this gift … sometimes. With a weak laugh, she turned over and shut her eyes again.
In the musty blackness of his chon Myawo crouched over a greenish fire that reflected onto the intricate painted patterns on his skinny naked body. He swayed and hissed sibilant syllables at the fire, which sprinkled a purplish dust that burned and produced a coiling, swaying snake of smoke. Around and around the painted glowing body the smoke crept until the chon was filled with it.
Aleytys groaned in her sleep, shivered, and clutched at the leathers with hands tightened into claws.
A hairline of light shone around the flap of Raqat’s chon. Inside, the small stoneware lamp burned redly, throwing dancing shadows on the curving leather walls. A finger of greenish smoke crept inside, spreading into a cloud to fill the chon. Slowly, imperceptibly, it thickened over the sleeping form of the girl.
Raqat stirred, then sat up, a blank glassy look to her eyes. She rubbed clumsily at her face and sat numbly staring at the lamp. Slowly, eerily, the smoke coiled around her and settled in a purplish green film on her dark skin. After a minute, she groped under the leather and drew out the knife she’d taken from Stavver so many months before. She knelt beside the lamp and began running a piece of leather up and down the silvery steel blade. Up and down … up and down … she fought against the obsession … up and down … against the hate … up and down … guilt and anger churned in sour bile, burning in her throat … up and down … the leather slid smoothly over the shining metal … No, no, she thought, I don’t hate her. Up and down … the anger grew like a thing with a life of its own … up and down.… When she’s gone, everything will be all right again.
Dropping the bit of leather, she tilted over onto her hands and knees, still clutching the knife. Muttering incoherently, she crawled out of the tent.
Outside, clouds from the western mountains drifted across the faces of the moons. A strong westerly wind swept through the camp, pulling the soft leather of her tunic taut against her body and whipping her unbound hair around her face in a wild dance. Through the muted clamor of the dry storm Raqat moved calmly, steadily, almost blindly.
Aleytys writhed in her sleep, trying to wake but like in a nightmare she struggled and struggled in futile effort that repeated endlessly, going nowhere.
Raqat pulled the flap aside, stooped, and crawled inside.” Aleytys lay half covered, her braids spreading in a sprawled V. As Raqat crept near, she saw the diadem flicker into a ghostly glow, half in, half out of reality.
Aleytys groaned inside her body and struggled to move, then a low note chimed through her paralysis and she opened her eyes to find the nightmare was real. She gasped at the sight of the savage face hanging over her, just visible in the pale light thrown out by the diadem. She licked her lips and hunched backward, digging her elbows into the leathers.
Eyes blank, lips spread in a mirthless grin, Raqat lifted the dagger.
Aleytys called hoarsely, “Raqat, don’t.…” She saw the knife waver, saw and felt a kind of terror in the girl, a terror that was immediately overlaid by a sick rage. Aleytys reached out to touch her, to try to reach through to her.
The diadem chimed and the chon filled with amber light. Raqat leaned forward as once again the diadem chimed in a ripple of soft notes, enticing notes. She dropped the knife and it seared the skin on Aleytys’s stomach for an instant before her body went numb.
As Raqat touched the diadem Aleytys could feel the touch vibrating through her body. She tried to move. Only her eyes responded, rolling wildly in a mask she couldn’t move. The rest of her lay flaccid. Behind the straining body, Aleytys saw the flap pulled back again. Stavver’s pale face floated into the darkness framed by the opening, his moon-white hair whipping like tendrils of smoke in the wind. Her eyes pleaded with him to do something. She screamed her agony, but no sound came from her mouth. The only sound in the chon was the lovely light chime of the
star-jewels.
Raqat’s body jerked and writhed as the diadem fought with Mechenyat, the battleground her mind.…
Aleytys felt something, something thin and wispy, driven out of Raqat … something that burned along her own nerves and thrilled through her body … sucked out of Raqat by the jewels. She heard their singing, a soft lovely ripple of notes. Eyes blinked open, far back in the darkness of her mind, large amber eyes grave and somber. She felt like dying … she didn’t want to die. Blackness closed around her tormented mind.
When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, Raqat was gone and Stavver was kneeling in the entrance of the tent, the moonlight painting horror on his face. The hot weight was gone from her head. She swallowed painfully and licked dry lips. Raising on an elbow, she croaked, “Where’s Raqat? What happened?”
“When I touched her, she ran out.” Crawling into the tent, he knelt beside her. “So that’s where the diadem went.”
With a broken cry, she shoved herself up, made clumsy by the weight of the baby in her womb, almost knocking him over as she clutched at his shoulders. “Get it off me. Please, Stavver, get it off me!” She dug her nails into his flesh, frantic with the urgency of her need. “Get it off me. Get it off me!” She buried her face in his chest, tears pouring down her face, her body shuddering with the hard sobs born out of her terror.
He grimaced and patted her shoulder. “Quiet, woman, or we’ll have the camp in on us. Look. I wish I could help you, believe me,” he said dryly. “I’d like to have the diadem back.” He shook his head. “I stole it but I can’t control it.” Tipping her head back, he brushed the tears from her face with gentle fingers. “Just cool it, love. When we get off this world, I’ll find a way.”
She caught hold of his hand. “They smell it. They sniff and sniff and smell it out. I’ve seen them.”
“They?”
“Your spiders. Big yellow eyes. All hairy.”
“RMoahl hounds!” He peered intently into her tired face. “Where?”
She shrugged. “Not here, not yet. Soon, I think.”
“All the more reason to get off this damned world.” He patted her shoulder absently, then pulled a leather over her naked body, gently running his fingers over the swelling at her waistline. “Get some sleep. We’ll see what to do about Raqat in the morning.”
As she closed her eyes, he backed out of the tent and stood up. The night was dark and stormy, though the wind had died down a little. A few obese raindrops splattered down on his face and shoulders.
He looked around, then slipped through the slumbering camp toward his own chon.
Horli climbed up above the edge of the world, turning the day red, sending long scarlet-tinged shadows racing across the sun-dried grass. Aleytys thrust her toweled head out and stared around. With a tired groan, she ducked out the door and stood up, dangling a towel from one hand. “Another day.” She grunted and put her hand on her waist. “He kicked me, little brat.” Happy for the moment, she danced to the river to take her bath, reveling in the bright cool morning and the warm glow her lively baby spread through her body, but most of all in the abundance of water that let her bathe for the first time in a month.
Whistling cheerfully, she scrubbed herself clean, then splashed out of the river to rub herself dry with the towel. She gathered her wet tangled hair and tied it back with a thong so it wouldn’t slap across her face. As she pulled on the tunic and trousers she frowned back toward the camp that was hidden by the thick growth of trees and bushes. She laid her hand on her side. “They never bathe, Vajdson; it’s like they’re afraid of rivers. Funny, the Shemqyatwe are always clean in spite of that. Ahi, little one, I can’t complain, it leaves the river for me,” She flipped the towel over her shoulder and started back toward the camp. In the shadow under the trees she turned around and looked up and down the river, reluctant to face what waited for her in the chon of the Shemqyatwe. Then she saw Raqat.
“Raqat?” Aleytys gasped and ran toward the girl, who sat on a rock in the full light of the rising sun, her body unnaturally still. Aleytys stumbled to a stop. “Raqat?’
There was no answer, so Aleytys scrambled cautiously over the pile of rocks working her way toward the seated girl, her thickening body making her a little clumsy. “Raqat,” she called urgently as she moved. “I don’t hold grudge. It wasn’t your fault, last night. I know that. Come back to the camp. There’s no need for this.”
Raqat sat very still, hands on knees, feet planted flat on the ground. Aleytys edged nearer. “Raqat?”
There was still no response. Aleytys felt the morning’s contentment draining away. Balancing her body over the rocks, she worked close enough to touch the silent figure. She reached out, then pulled her hand back.
She stood frozen beside Raqat, the murmuring river soothing her anguish with its liquid susurrus and the green-on-green-on-green shifting, twisting shadows. For an instant she was back in the Raqsidan, dreaming into the dancing water, then she blinked and smiled sadly. “How long ago that was.” She sighed. “I wish I had that innocence again.”
With a sigh, shuddering at the waxy texture of Raqat’s flesh, she took the Shemqya’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
All day the men cut wood and built it into a pyre, crossing and crisscrossing the logs until the pile was man-high. In the camp, the women worked in uneasy silence at their daily chores.
The Shemqyatwe washed Raqat’s unresisting body and anointed it once more with her special oils. They unbound her hair and combed it carefully, spreading the curling strands neatly across her shoulders. They slipped a long embroidered dress over her head just as the rim of Horli slipped behind the horizon. The dress was sleeveless with panels of intricate embroidery, lines coiling into obscure diagrams and medallions. Around her head, they tied a band of heavy cloth covered with the same designs.
Khateyat stood up. “Keep watch,” she said quietly to the others. “I’ll be back in a little.”
“No!” Shanat jumped up. “Let her pay.”
“Shanat!” N’frat caught her hand and tugged, her round face twisting into an angry frown. “It wasn’t Leyta’s doing. You know Raqat had stopped pushing her. And she was helping Raqat break loose from that sartwen. You leave her alone.”
“Both of you sit down.” Khateyat spoke softly, but they obeyed instantly. “This is very bad of both of you. Compose yourselves.” She frowned at the girls. “Take care of Raqat. I’ll be back.”
She found Aleytys sitting on the river bank, staring somberly into the water. “Tell me, hes’ Aleytys.”
With a sigh, Aleytys lay back on the grass and looked up into the night-shadowed face of the Shemqya. “Raqat came into my chon last night with a knife, intending to kill me.” She closed her eyes and plucked at the grass with nervous fingers. “I was dreaming. I saw the Khem-sko. His body was painted. He was bending over a … a fire. It was strange, green, he dropped powder on it and smoke crept out, coiled around him, snaked out and into Raqat’s chon. It … it settled on her.”
“Mechenyat!” Khateyat dropped to her knees and stared unhappily at her hands.
“What?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“Once, you said the diadem defended itself … it did. I couldn’t move. She touched it; I felt the battle in her. Ahai, Khatya … I couldn’t move, I couldn’t make a sound. The dust was drawn out of her, driven out. Before I could even try to do anything, she ran but and I … I fainted. When I opened my eyes again, there was no sign of her anywhere.”
“You didn’t call me. Why?”
“No.” Aleytys moved uneasily. “I was afraid. And exhausted.” She pushed herself upright and sat with legs splayed out to support her thick middle section. “I thought morning would be soon enough.” She twisted her head and looked wearily at Khateyat. “I was wrong. I seem to make a habit of being wrong.”
The older woman touched Aleytys’s head with a gentle hand. “You’re young,” she said quietly. “You’re very young.”
Khateyat tightened her fingers comfortingly and smiled. Moonlight glinted off her teeth. “You’ll be safe until we reach the mountains. The R’nenawatalawa protect you.”
“But … Myawo?”
“Raqat was flawed. Warned now, we are no longer vulnerable.” She sighed. “Be careful, Leyta. Keep away from the people.” She pressed her full lips together. “Leyta.”
“Yes?”
“I’m fond of you, you know that.”
“I …”
“Yes, yes, there’s no need to answer.” Her eyes focused on the distant mountains. “I have many responsibilities. My people come first, Leyta. They must. I can do little to help you.”
“I know.”
After a moment’s painful silence, Khateyat spoke briskly. “Don’t come to the Nesweym’wet tonight.”
Aleytys looked up sharply. “The death fire?”
“For Raqat.”
“But she’s not dead.”
Khateyat looked across the river, her face quietly sad. “Her mind is gone. We shall give her me’twat to drink, and then, as she is Shemqya, we shall give her to the Nesweym’wet and return her body to the earth and the air and the R’nenawatalawa that her spirit might go free.” She bent down and stroked her fingers, along Aleytys’s hair. “For the sake of my people, Aleytys, they mustn’t see you tonight.” She got to her feet, moving heavily.
“Wait.”
“What is it, Leyta?” Impatience sharpened Khateyat’s voice.
“Tie me.”
“What!”
“Tie me, please.” Aleytys pushed her unwieldy body up onto her feet. “If the diadem takes me again … do you see?”
Khateyat nodded briefly. “Wait here.” She climbed away up the bank, her shoulders hunched as if she were hoisting yoked water buckets. Aleytys turned back to the river, lowering herself carefully onto the grass. She stared at the water, waiting.
Khateyat came back, short lengths of rope dangling from her hands.