For a time, everyone was quiet. I knew the fault for that was mine. No one looked at me. Everyone looked at the ground, or the coals of the fire, or their hands. No one spoke to me or to each other. Finally I asked, “Raga, have you learned all the stories of the Tarashana yet?”
He breathed out in relief, looking up. “A lifetime would not be enough to learn all the stories the Tarashana tell! I have learned some, but they have so many, and I do not understand anything and have to ask for many explanations. I am learning lasije—it is a difficult language, much more difficult than darau. I am also learning tanije, a little, but that is even more difficult.”
Garoyo said, his tone amused, “He will teach you both if you permit him to do so, Ryo.”
I smiled. That felt strange to me, stiff, as though my face had forgotten how to make that expression. I did not exactly feel better, but I was very, very glad to have come past the first meeting with my younger brother. It was still hard. Everything was hard. But I said, “I would not object to learning a little of that tongue.” I was surprised it had not occurred to me to learn a little of the Tarashana language until now. Probably Etta would like to learn lasije, if she had returned to the earth. I asked, “Where is Etta?”
Everyone glanced the way Iro had gone. “She is sometimes still far from the world, Ryo,” Lalani warned me. “She has come back almost all the way, usually, but sometimes she goes some distance away again.”
“Yes,” I said, acknowledging this. I thought of something else. “Lalani, are you well?”
“Oh,” she said, surprised, “It didn’t ... my part didn’t push me away from the world the same way. I wasn’t the one singing to the stars!” She smiled suddenly. “It’s strange to think I’ll probably remember the names of more Tarashana than I’ll ever know Lau. Thousands, Ryo! My memory still feels odd. Stretched out of shape, or, I don’t know, something. You can’t imagine. But I barely heard the stars. It was different for Etta. For a long time afterward, she couldn’t really hear anything but the stars singing back to her! But she’s able to hear the ordinary world better now, Ryo, though she sometimes drifts away a bit. If you ask me, which you didn’t, but you should have, I’d say she’s probably listening for your voice.”
“Perhaps this might be so,” I said. I stood up, walked around the fire and the pool, and followed the path Iro had taken. The path curled around, seeming long to me, but finally it opened to a garden surrounded by one of the flowering hedges, with a pool in the center. Every rounded pebble surrounding the pool glimmered with soft light. Etta sat beside the pool, gazing into the water, or at the stars reflected there. Iro sat beside her, one hand resting on her hair, which was loose rather than braided. His hair was loose, too. He looked up and nodded when I came to the place. Etta did not.
I walked forward and settled beside my sister. She did not move. Her breaths came softly and slowly. She did not react in any way.
Iro leaned forward, laid the palm of his hand gently against her cheek, and said, “Etta. Your brother has come to see you.”
She blinked. Then she turned and put her arms around me. I held her hard, bending my head over hers.
Iro stood up and left us. That was an act of kindness I had not expected. I found it strange now, to think of how little I had liked him at first and how I had thought perhaps Etta might do better to prefer someone else. I still did not exactly like him, but I respected him.
She had said I would feel that way. She had been right.
I wondered whether Iro respected me. I could not see any great reason why he should, after everything that had happened. But I could not do anything to change what was past.
After a while, Etta said, her voice muffled against my chest, “You were hurt. I am sorry I did not come.”
“None of my injuries were dangerous,” I assured her. “The Tarashana healers are skilled.”
She let me go, pushing back from me just far enough that she could hit me on the arm. “You know I do not mean that.”
“Yes,” I said. “I do not want to speak of anything that happened. I am sorry. I should have come to speak your name and help you remember the way back from the sky. You were a long way from the world. Everyone says so. But …” I could not bear to see anyone. Not even my sister. I did not say that.
“You were upset. I understood. You did not need to be concerned for me. Nothing I did was dangerous.” I raised my eyebrows, and she amended this, “Very well! Nothing I did was very dangerous, because the gods have been very generous to me. Every time I begin to lose myself, my star sings my name back to me so that I remember myself better.”
“You have a star of your own?”
“Yes. Or, no. I think the Tarashana would say I belong to a star, Ryo. This is not extraordinary. Every Tarashana is known to one star. Now some Ugaro people are also known to stars.” She leaned against me again. After some time, she said without looking at me, “Aras took all those names and gave them to Lalani, and Lalani gave them to me, but only one at a time because I could only listen to each one properly when I came to that name. None of us would have known what to do or how to do it, not even Inhejeriel, except that Aras showed us. He understands Lau memory-keepers and Ugaro singers and Tarashana sorcerers. No one else understood well enough how to make everything work.”
“Yes,” I said. “I am certain you are right about everything.”
Etta sighed. She was silent for a little while.
“Etta?”
She blinked and straightened, rubbing her face. “Yes, yes, I am here.” After a moment, she said, “Everything was hard. But I am glad you did not kill him.”
“I wanted to. But also I did not want that.”
She nodded. “Iro said that if he stood in your place, he would not know what to do. He said you would find the strength to do what you should.”
I pushed her gently away from me so that I could look at her face. “Iro said that?”
“Yes, Ryo.” My sister smiled at me. Much of the liveliness had come back into her manner, so that now she seemed much more like herself. She said, “Iro is ashamed because he died before he could do anything useful. If he had not died so soon, he might have been more use to Aras, and then perhaps—”
“Iro should not take any of the blame for anything that happened,” I said, so surprised I interrupted her. “He has no reason to set any fault against himself. He acted bravely and honorably in everything.”
“I know that, Ryo, but it is not my place to say so. If you tell Iro that, he may listen.”
“Or he may be offended at my presumption.”
She looked at me sidelong. “Oh, indeed, I am certain that possibility concerns you! No, speak to him when the chance comes, Ryo.”
“So,” I said. It was true that the son of a warleader might hold himself to a difficult standard. Iro had only nineteen winters. This might be the first time he felt he had failed at something important. That was something I could understand. “I will talk to him. Sometimes courage and honor are not enough.”
“Yes,” my sister said, gently this time. “I think that is so. I think everyone behaved courageously and honorably, until courage and honor were not enough.” Then, before I could answer her, she jumped to her feet and held out her hand to me. “I know it is not my place to argue with a warrior regarding matters of honor! Pretend I said nothing. I am beginning to hear the stars too clearly again. I want ordinary voices around me, speaking of ordinary things. Let us go to the fire.”
She was shameless, but I could not be angry with her. I said nothing, letting the subject turn, but I took her hand and let her pull me up.
As we walked along the path toward the fire, she said unexpectedly, “In the winter country, it is nearly spring. Time ran in a different way while we were in the land of the shades. Did you know?”
I had not realized this.
“So the pass is closed, but I think,” she said, smiling at me, “I think if I ask for wind to blow the snow out of the pass, perhap
s the gods might send a wind to do that. I would like to go home, if this is possible. The stars are beautiful, their voices are beautiful, but I would rather hear them from a greater distance. Now that everyone is better and you have made a better peace with Aras, perhaps we might try the pass, if my brother and my eldest brother agree this would be wise.”
I had not guessed that she might clear the pass. I thought of that. I wanted to go home. I wanted that intensely. But I said, “Perhaps this may be so. But the starlit lands are warm.”
“You mean, for the Lau. So, that is true, Ryo. This is a gentle country. But the Sun does not rise in this land, so that cannot be comfortable for any Lau. I think if you ask, you will find they would all prefer to endure the cold rather than linger in a land where the Sun never shows his face.”
Obviously this was so. I nodded.
“So. I think perhaps we should go home soon, if we can do this. We might be able to come back into the winter country in time for the Convocation. You have not been to a Convocation for two winters, Ryo. This would be the third you have missed.”
Her words struck me oddly. For a moment I did not know why.
Then I knew. I had meant to ask Aras for leave to go to the Convocation, if circumstances permitted. If not that, then I had intended to ask him for leave to visit the inKarano. I had forgotten all that. I had entirely forgotten that I had been given to him as a tuyo. This struck me now in a rush of surprise and confusion.
He had the right to do anything to me that he chose.
We had come back to the fire now, but when that thought came to me, I stopped where I was, in the glimmering light of the trees that surrounded the place. I did not mean to look at Aras, but I could not help it. He was sitting quietly, his back straight. His gaze met mine.
He said, “Hardly anything, Ryo.” Then, when I did not answer, he dropped his gaze to the fire and said nothing further.
Everyone had paused to watch us. I had not intended that, either. I went to the fire and sat down, not near Aras, but beside Suyet. My sister deliberately walked around the fire and sat down beside Aras. She did not say anything to him, but her decision to sit there said more than words. Aras did not look up. I was trying not to watch him, but I could not help but see how his good hand, resting on his knee, tensed and then relaxed again. No one spoke.
People had been speaking before I came to this fire. I had heard their quiet voices as Etta and I approached. The fault was mine that everyone now sat silent and uncomfortable. I said, finding it was true, or true enough, “I have missed you all.” I turned deliberately to Suyet, knowing he would relax and speak easily if given the chance. I said, “Tell me everything that has been happening.”
-29-
We came out of the pass during the late morning of a clear, cold day. The sky seems farther from the earth on a day like that; more distant, but brighter. The Sun stood perhaps four hands above the horizon. The Moon stood higher, barely visible in the brilliant sky, but a careful eye could find her. She stood almost directly above Talal Sabero. The sacred mountain was visible from the mouth of the pass, but seemed very far away. Because the lower slopes lay in shadow, the high peak seemed to float suspended above the world. I thought I might see a long, high thread of light reaching up from the mountain into the sky, but probably this was merely something I imagined.
To one side of the pass, the river fell down and down in one last long series of waterfalls. At the edges, spray had frozen and more water run down and frozen again, so that ice decorated all the stone near the waterfalls. Sunlight caught in the ice, glittering so brilliantly that every dagger and sword of ice seemed to be lit from within, as though we still stood in the starlit lands. Below, to the west, the great valley between Talal Soka and Tala Somara lay protected by the roots of the mountains. Before us, the long lake stretched a long way south, leading the eye away from the great mountains and out to the endless steppe.
The great herds of the inGara ambled through the valley, where the dry winds from the mountains pull snow from the earth into the air, so the grass is never covered over. But there were more cattle there than ours. Also, all along the lake, and far up into the lower slopes of the mountains, and tucked into the valleys between the roots of the mountains, stood many, many tents and wagons—far more than belonged to even so large and prosperous a tribe as inGara.
Etta had been right. We had stepped across the whole of the long cold, right to the edge of the coming spring. This below us now was the Convocation.
The Convocation is always held near the end of the long cold; indeed, we say that spring comes on the day the Convocation begins. The ground will still be frozen hard on that day, not wet and boggy as it becomes later, so travel through the high north is not difficult in that season. But the wind has begun to carry the feel of spring. Craftsmen and craftswomen have made use of all the long hours of the cold season and so have many bows or knives or furs or cloth to trade. Girls have trained their ponies to race, and boys who have just become young men are eager to test their strength and skill against rivals from other tribes. Everyone is very ready for the Convocation.
Every winter, the Convocation is held in a different tribe’s territory. The wealthiest and most prosperous tribes compete for the privilege, as hosting the Convocation offers a fine chance to show off the tribe’s generosity and strength. As Convocation law forbids serious quarrels between enemies, this is a time people may move easily from one tribe to another, for any of the different reasons people may wish to do such a thing. Kin who belong to different tribes, perhaps enemy tribes, take the chance to see one another. Men show off their courage and honor and skill before unmarried women. Mothers and grandmothers meet to discuss matters of marriage and trade between their tribes. Absolutely everyone wishes to hear tales they have not heard many-many times before, so poets are welcomed everywhere they go.
I had not realized the Convocation might come to inGara in this year. We had hosted it seven winters ago ... eight, now ... so the privilege would not ordinarily have come back to us for some years yet. But I should have thought of this.
“I think we may be certain your mother wrote more than one letter to the women of the inKarano,” Garoyo said to Etta, his tone wry. He had come to stand beside me. Everyone was coming to the edge of the cliff, jostling to look down at all the tents and wagons.
Where the Lau would set banners to show which lord held which place within a great gathering, we Ugaro spread out colorful awnings before the tents of poets and the wagons or tents of singers. The colors told a little about the tribe, but in a great gathering like this, not very much. Patterns woven into the awnings showed more, but those patterns were not clear from this height. The sides of tents were decorated with porcupine quills to show which tribe and which family claimed each tent, but nothing of that could be seen from the place where we stood.
The tribes whose territories lay to the west would have set their camps on this side of the lake. Those whose territories lay to the east would have set theirs to the east. In the deep cold, the lake freezes hard enough that people may set tents out upon the ice, so all the Convocation was one gathering, not two, but probably both inGara and inGeiro would be said to jointly host the Convocation this year.
“My mother would have written to everyone,” Etta agreed. “Of course the inKarano decided this would be the right place to hold the Convocation! That is not at all surprising. The inKarano probably came here long before the Convocation began. Perhaps the inVotaro as well. They probably meant to stay until the pass opened here.”
All this seemed very likely. My attention was on something else. I was watching Tano, who was looking along the edge of the lake, his gaze snagging first on one group of wagons and then another. Feeling my attention, he turned his head.
“The inTasiyo have nothing to do with an inGara warrior,” I reminded him, speaking softly. “Should you meet an inTasiyo warrior, tell him your name and remind him that Convocation law forbids quarreling. Then lo
ok away from him. Should anyone of the inTasiyo wish to bring a complaint against you or against inGara, let that person take the complaint to Koro, who may call the lord of the inGara to answer.”
Tano opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally said only, “Yes, Ryo.”
I was not certain the matter was entirely settled—I had every suspicion it would prove a more difficult matter than I might hope—but I let it rest. I thought I had located the colors that might belong to the inKarano. The big tent draped with red felt probably belonged to the winter king. Those wagons that stood in a half-circle beyond that tent probably belonged to important women of the inKarano. I thought I might guess which of those wagons might belong to Darra, though I could not tell the patterns from this distance.
“There, I think, Ryo,” my sister said, pointing. “I think those wagons belong to the inKarano—I think that wagon there in the middle of that line is probably Darra inKarano’s wagon.”
“This could be so,” I said. My sister did not laugh at me, though I think she wanted to. I did not feel like laughing. I did not know whether I thought of Darra in the same way now—I did not know whether I expected her to think of me in the same way, after everything that happened. Then I remembered the poet from the east. Elaro inPorakario. Perhaps nothing else that had happened would matter to Darra inKarano as much as the poet who had come to her people as a guest from far away. Perhaps I did not care.
Aras came up beside me, his hands tucked into his sleeves to keep warm. Geras shadowed him, watchful. He was always watchful now, with a new tightness at the corners of his eyes. He was not a man to carry a grudge, but he was cautious with Ugaro—even with me. Perhaps especially with me.
Aras asked Garoyo—not me—in a low voice, “Have you decided yet how you will lay out the tale for Koro?”
“We will explain how it happened,” I said sharply. Then I added, reluctantly, “But perhaps not every detail is important.” I looked at Garoyo. Both Aras and I looked at him. During the long days we had spent traveling through the pass, we had gradually become a little easier with each other. But he seldom came this close to me, and we seldom spoke to each other.
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