by IGMS
Walks Before Greatness
by Kate Marshall
Artwork by Nicole Cardiff
* * *
Ainara's mouth could not be blacker if she'd been suckled on a lump of coal. Even her teeth were black, and her tongue. But her skin was cave-fish pale, so white you'd think it could not bear the light.
It was a sign: she would be great.
When she was seven she went about with a king-killer snake as a wreath about her neck, and was never bitten. A year later she walked from the forest with an honor-guard of spotted wolves, who licked her fingers and melted away. She could twist her hands in the air and loose the clouds, or puff her cheeks to call a rain.
I was born breach with my hand tangled in Ainara's hair. My people called me Tanith, Walks-Before-Greatness. Each morning I stepped out from the house our mother built of bent bones and mud, lifted dust-brown arms to the sun, and sang. I sang every dark-eyed child awake, every dog, every cow and bull. I sang welcome to the sun, and to Ainara.
I might have hated her. The tales our grandmothers told were full of brothers who turned axe or club or flint-tipped arrow against one another, or sisters who laid ears flat to the ground to hear the serpents speak of poison. My sister was great, and I was only the one who walked before her.
But I did not hate Ainara. I was sure our tale would not be added to those. I loved her. I would have dyed the path before her with my blood if she asked me.
I was so sure we would be different.
In the dry season of our sixteenth year I was binding straw into plaits to be carried to the men's village when Ainara approached with her pale cheeks flushed pink. I didn't pause in my work, but kept my fingers twisting the straw as I spoke.
"I know that look, Ainara. And I know you cannot keep a secret behind your teeth for long. Tell me."
She sank to her haunches beside me and tugged on her lip, trying to hide the grin that turned her cheeks round as ripe apples. "There is a man in the woods," she said.
"And? There are forever men in the woods." I bound the plait and heaved it to the side. I had my share of visitors, bearing the blue-beaded necklaces of the unpromised. As Ainara's sister, I would be no second wife or concubine. The men who came courted me like a princess, and I had woven new baskets to hold their gifts.
Ainara had no suitors. She was to be great; she had no need of a husband.
"He is different. He is not a person."
"A devil?" When the devils, with skin like lake-clay and thick bodies, came in groups, carrying spears, we fled into the woods. But when one came alone, a boy on his ritual or a lost warrior, we gave him beer and dried meat and pointed him toward home. When I was a child I hid at doorways to hear their stories, tales of what lay beyond the village and the woods. Beyond the only world I was permitted to know.
"Not a devil. Something new. He is caught in Kadara. You must sing him free."
I shook my head. "This is one of your games, and I don't have the time."
She tugged on my hand. Her palms were soft, like a child's. "Tanith, please. If night comes he will not be safe."
I sighed and stood. A few yards away our cousin Gemi played with his half-grown hound. I whistled to him. "Bring this straw to Second Grandmother. Ainara is calling me."
Gemi was still young enough that his eyes turned round and bright as river-stones at this pronouncement. In two more years he'd start wearing a cloth at his hips and only shake his head when such things happened. For all her greatness, Ainara was such a child.
She led me down the stone-lined track to the river crossing, where the daily tramp of cattle turned all to knee-sucking mud. A bridge of logs and woven sticks kept our feet from the mire, and on the far side we split from the cattle-track and took the bent-grass path toward the men's village.
"Are you certain it isn't Tain, doing one of his voices?" I asked. "Or Dendi?"
"It's not one of our men." Ainara cut me with a look. "Hurry." She veered from the main track, toward the line of trees that marked the forest's edge. I hesitated. I could sing to Kadara and he listened to me. But I was not great. The forest would kill me if it could.
"Tanith," she said, her white hand held out.
I took it, and went with her among the whispers of the woods.
It did not take us long to reach our destination. In the roots of Kadara, I could just see the figure of a man. The roots had pulled him in quite far, and the shadows hid his features. He had probably laid down by the clear pools that sprang up around Kadara's thickest roots. He would have smelled the thick, sweet scent of the white flowers that spread thin nets across Kadara's ridged roots. He would have wondered why he was suddenly so very tired.
"Good evening," I called. "My sister tells me you are not a devil." I spoke the half-tongue code we shared with the devils, and which they shared with those they claimed lay beyond them.
"No," he called back. "But I speak their language well enough." He spoke haltingly, dropped whole sounds and stretched his vowels. "I hope you will help me. I believe I am standing on bones."
"Most are very old," I said. I bent and scraped moss from the ground. Underneath I found a thumb-thick tuber, which I sliced open with my bone knife. A milky fluid oozed from the cut and filled the air with an acrid scent. I smeared it under my nose. Ainara did not need it. We stepped forward together, and though I smelled the dream-deep blossoms, I remained alert.
"I do not know how I came to be in here," the man said.
"Kadara is always hungry. He doesn't need to eat, but he is greedy." I put my hand to a root thick as my waist. I could have stood on Ainara's shoulders, and stood two warriors on my shoulders, before any hand could touch the main trunk of the great tree. "I will free you, but you must tell me what you are."
"My name is Marlis. My . . . my family," he said, clearly not satisfied with the word, "are called Luskari."
"I do not know them." Old curiosity flared. I cast it away. There was no use in wondering.
"You see?" Ainara said. "Something new."
"I am young," I said. "We will ask the grandmothers."
"I don't think the Luskari have come here before," the man said. "Not unless they were as lost as I am."
I chuckled and stretched my other hand to the root. I sang. It was a deep song, a plea for Kadara to release his meal. I promised him a fawn at the next festival night. I promised him more songs, and my tears, and garlands of flowers from the foothills he could never see. And slowly, so slowly, the roots shifted. They pulled and pushed and tugged the Luskari from his place and dumped him in a heap at my feet.
Ainara was beside him in an instant, raising a gourd of water to his lips.
From a distance, he might look like one of us. His skin was much darker, and he had a hint of the red of the devils, but among my people we would only shrug and say his great-great grandmother gave more than beer and meat to a wanderer, and since she was dead it wasn't worth a fuss.
What startled me were his features. His nose was narrow and sharp, like someone had pinched it and pulled it out from his face. His eyes were rounded, and his irises were the green of the forest after a storm. He had pierced his ears, but instead of bone or wood his ornaments were some sort of metal, much brighter than the old iron tools we'd inherited from a long-dead ancestor. His clothes were rough-weave of some sort, and covered far more of him than was healthy in the heat.
"We must return before nightfall," Ainara said. He watched her mouth as she spoke and frowned. "It is not safe," she added.
He got to his feet, and looked at last to me. "What is your name?" he asked.
"Tanith," I said. "And she is Ainara. You can speak to her. She is great, but she does not bite."
"What does that mean? Great?"
"It means that when the treecats are sucking at our marrow, she'll be unharmed," I said. "So we should hurry."
Tain met us on the path, carrying a clay jar in one hand. He grinned when he saw me, but then Marlis stepped from the trees and his head
jerked to the side, body tensing. Even such a quick glance risked contamination. "Tanith," he said. "Did Kadara catch a devil?"
"He's not a devil," Ainara said. "He's Luskari." She gave the stranger a smile designed to show off her black teeth. "The men cannot speak to you," she explained in the half-tongue.
"Why ever not?"
"You're not people," she said, and though his brow creased in puzzlement she supplied no other answer. It was then I knew just how strange this stranger was; even the devils knew such simple things.
"He is alone, then," Tain said. He had turned his head just enough to catch the stranger in the corner of his vision, and his hand strayed close to the hooked knife at his belt.
"Alone and lost. We will take him to the grandmothers. He is not a threat." Tain's tension did not ease. I nudged him with my hip. "You have a gift for me."
"Maybe it's for some other girl," Tain said in a teasing tone. He relaxed slightly. "You are not the only one who likes red honey."
I pursed my lips to keep them from a smile. "Ah, that is a pity. I suppose Ainara and I will have to eat all the lisi berries we picked by ourselves, since you choose to deprive us of your company."
The stranger fell back with Ainara. She spoke to him in the half-tongue, repeating herself patiently when he fumbled. Ainara was not known for her patience. Distracted, I missed what Tain was saying until jar of honey into my hands.
"There had best be lisi berries for me," he said.
I nodded, lifting the little jar for a sniff, in part to buy myself a moment's silence. Something did not sit right about the way Ainara looked at the Luskari.
Tain touched my shoulder. His fingertips were calloused from binding arrowheads to their shafts and twisting bowstring. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like for those rough fingertips to run over all my body, to brush the skin of my thighs and the hollow of my throat. Tain was a good friend, but wondering such things did not make me burn for him. I wanted badly for it to be otherwise. It would make it easier to know that like Kadara, I could never see the flowered hills. Tain would gather Kadara's gift for me, and I must be content with stories and wondering.
"He will leave when he knows the way," he said.
I almost protested, though of course it was true. I smoothed the frown from my face and nodded. "He will go," I agreed, and ignored the inexplicable pang of disappointment.
We led the stranger up the hill. This late in the evening, more men like Tain would normally be about, but most of the men's village had emptied for the yearly Long Hunt. This year Tain had remained behind, thanks to an injury inflicted by a wounded hog. His upper thigh was wrapped in a bandage, and he still limped a bit, but he would be well healed by the time the hunt returned.
Gemi and a handful of other children met us first, ringing around the stranger and clutching at his hands and his clothes. He looked both bewildered and pleased. Perhaps he would be less pleased if he could understand their shouts, ritual challenges and promises to scour him and all his kin from the land.
Oldest Grandmother waited by the fire, still standing straight as a spear, though her skin had wrinkled like fruit left in the sun and her bones were light as a bird's.
"You have brought a devil?" she called.
"He's Marlis of the Luskari," Ainara and I responded together, and she grinned at me. "A stranger," I added. "Lost."
"Marlis of the Luskari is granted mercy, and sanctuary until he may find his way," Oldest Grandmother said, substituting the new word into the traditional pardon. The children whooped and scattered, now that there was no need to dismember the intruder. She switched to half-tongue and addressed Marlis. "Come. We will give you food and drink, and a night's shelter."
"I could use a map as well," he said.
She nodded impatiently and waved us forward. She supported herself on a cane carved from one of Kadara's smaller branches. It was the first thing I sang for, back when Oldest Grandmother was Third Grandmother and the previous singer was alive.
Oldest Grandmother led us to the communal hut, where the other grandmothers already waited.
Ainara sat beside Marlis and instructed him with subtle gestures to remain silent while we ate. I mouthed Tain's name to one of the women serving us so she would know to provide him with a bowl. She smiled and made the fingers-to-lips sign for a besotted man. I blushed and returned to my food. I had not discouraged Tain; I could not bear to think of him giving up his visits. But I thought of him as a brother, and felt guilty knowing his thoughts were so different.
When the meal was done and cleared away, Oldest Grandmother lit a sweetgrass bowl and inspected Marlis. "You are far from home," she said. Her distaste at mouthing the too-round words of the half-tongue was evident.
"Oh, very far," he agreed. "I come from the --" Here he said something garbled, like burbling water. "Er -- Traders' Homes?" he suggested. "No, families. Trader Families. With --" He paused again. "On the water? Travelling?"
"Ships," I supplied. "We have heard of them."
"I was a navigator on one of my family's ships. But we were attacked by water-thieves." He seemed quite proud of himself at this innovation of language.
"Pirates," I said. "We have heard of them as well."
Oldest Grandmother reprimanded me with a glance. I lapsed into silence. "Go on," she said.
"The pirates put me on their ship," he said. "To work for them. But we drew close to the land, and I am a strong swimmer. I leapt overboard. They shot at me, but missed. They didn't pursue. I suppose I wasn't worth it. I followed the river, and thought it would bring me to Untaba. The big village?"
Oldest Grandmother shook her head. "You followed the wrong river. Here, you see." She drew lines in the sand, one for the sweep of the coast, two more for the great rivers that met it. No one in the village had seen the shores, but the devils had maps of them. She drew the uppermost river nearly straight across, while the second arced downward. "You followed this river." She tapped the upper line. "And you are here." She placed a dot some distance along. "Untaba is somewhere around here." She jabbed her finger into the dirt by the second river; far from us.
Marlis smiled ruefully. "I think I should change my profession."
"The devils can help you," Oldest Grandmother said. "They wander far more than we, and they trade with others beyond them. In the morning Tain will take you."
"I should go as well," I said. "Tain doesn't know the tongue."
Oldest Grandmother looked at me with something akin to sadness. "No," she said, in our language. "You know it is beyond the borders Kadara has dictated."
"Then I will go part way," I said. "Please, Grandmother."
"It will be easier, once he is gone," she said. "This longing is brief. Your duties are long." There was no more argument to be had.
The sweet-grass smoke curled at the curved peak of the hut, and we fell into silence.
Marlis did not leave the next morning. He woke shaking with chills, unable to eat or drink anything but water. The dream-deep blossoms sometimes had such an effect.
Ainara stayed by his side. She piled him high with blankets when he shivered, then laid cool cloths on his brow when his chills turned to fever. She fed him sips of water whenever he was well enough to take them, and treated him with tenderness she had given no two-legged creature before. I instructed her in all of it. She had no need to serve, and she herself had never been ill; she didn't know how to steep rattle-grass roots in water for the cloths, or how to add drops of minda nectar to his drink to give him strength.
"I don't understand her," I said to Tain as we reclined on the hillside overlooking the river. He had remained with us, ostensibly to protect us should Marlis prove dangerous. I suspected he was using the excuse to be near me.
"She's just --" He touched two fingers to his lips. Besotted.
"Don't be ridiculous. That's perverse," I said. "He's not even a person."
Tain shrugged and leaned back. Down below, several women did their washing in the river, sc
rubbing their cloth or laying it out in the sun to dry. Children hardly old enough to walk toddled between them, and distracted hands swept them back constantly from the deeper water.
"Do you think you might have twins?" Tain asked suddenly.
I rested a hand on my belly. I did not feel as if anything could grow there at all. I still looked in wonder at the swelling stomachs of mothers-to-be, not quite believing that new life could kindle in their bodies. "My mother's line has many twins," I said. "But I will not have any."
"How can you be sure?"
"When I am married, I will slaughter a calf for Kadara, and ask him that favor." I curled my fingers against my stomach. There were too many tales. Sisters and brothers always fighting, for their mother's milk, for love, for power. The singer who taught me had lived at the expense of her sister; the singer before her died at his brother's hand.
"You and Ainara aren't like the rest."
"We are lucky. My children might not be."
"Your children are already lucky," he said. "Because they will be born to you." He took my hand. A single blade of grass caught between our palms, rough and sharp-edged. It did not matter. In this moment, at least, I wanted him to tie his beads around my neck, to ask for my hidden name. In this moment, I would have told him.
But all moments are fleeting.
It was three days before Marlis was himself again, and he was too weak for the long journey that would lie beyond the devils' village. The grandmothers agreed that he could remain until he was fully recovered. Ainara shone like the moon at the announcement. Tain glowered and went to speak to Oldest Grandmother alone.