by D. J. Butler
“We got churches where I come from,” Cal muttered. “Both kinds: regular and New Light.”
Yedera snorted. “This mound is a monument, a temple. Our queens and kings build such mounds, and our prophets. They contain libraries, orreries, ossuaries, calendars, and thrones. But no bedrooms.”
“So nothin’ useful to ordinary folk.” Lord hates a prideful man, but Cal didn’t want to admit he had no idea what an orrery or an ossuary might be.
“Perhaps order, government, ritual, and a knowledge of the cosmos aren’t useful to ordinary folk in Appalachee. We find it important to know our place in the world, and the proper way and time for doing all things.” Yedera looked at Cal with challenge in her eyes.
“Yeah, that’s all interestin’, no doubt,” Cal admitted. “But iffen my pa didn’t teach me any of those things, I reckon I can find the answer in the Bible or a Franklin almanac, or jest by lickin’ my finger and holdin’ it to the wind. I don’t expect I need an ossurery to know when to plant and when to thin out my neighbor’s herd. I sure as hell don’t need a throne for the purpose.”
“Hmmm,” Cathy said.
What was she hmming about? The throne comment, or the fact that Calvin had said hell?
He began to feel ganged up on. The heat he felt in his face suggested he was blushing.
Yedera’s expression changed to one of amusement. “And yet you serve a queen.”
“That’s different,” Cal mumbled. “Sarah’s kin.”
Though that was basically a lie.
“Welcome to Irra-Zostim,” Alzbieta Torias said from her sedan chair. “This was built by your grandfathers, Your Majesty.”
“You mean John Penn and Kyres Elytharias’s father, working together?” Jacob Hop asked. He rode alongside the beastman warrior Chikaak, who was the only one of the beastkind who had dared learn to ride. Since he was studying under the Dutchman, who was himself no great rider, his horsemanship was an awkward proposition at best. Add to that the manifest panic of the horse at smelling a coyote on its back, and the result was a blond man and a dog-headed monster constantly reining in horses trying to bolt five directions at once. “It seems much too old for that, hey?”
“I believe she means your more remote ancestors, Your Majesty,” Bill said.
“If Your Majesty will permit, I’ll be happy to help her further her studies of our languages.” Uris inclined his head deeply.
Sarah laughed out loud. “We know each other well enough we can stop some of the pretending. I don’t know any Ophidian. What do you mean, languages? Are there seven different ones?”
“Not for the seven sister kingdoms, no. But Ophidian is an old tongue, and has a classical priestly dialect you may wish to learn for ritual purposes, as well as the language that we commonly speak among ourselves. Also, there is a trade patois some of our merchants and soldiers know, that has German and Algonk and French mixed into it. The Germans call it Schlangegeschäftssprache, the ‘serpent business language.’ You won’t need that one, I think.”
“I might could be interested, though,” Cal said.
“Me too,” Jake added.
“Hey,” Cal said appreciatively. “A week ago you’d a said ‘ook ik’ or somethin’ Dutchish. You come a long way, Jake. I met you now for the first time, I might not even guess you for the Hudson.”
“There are also Old World dialects.” Uris inclined his head again.
Alzbieta Torias pointed toward the top of the mound. “The princes who built the mound of Irra-Zostim lived and died over a thousand years ago. The great Onandagos himself is said to have met here with the Zomas schismatics, before their flight into the Missouri. You can find some of his deeds written on those stones, when you have mastered enough of our tongue.”
“Is that what those columns are, then? Writin’ tablets?” Cal snickered. “Here Yedera had me thinkin’ they’s somethin’ important.”
“They’re a temple,” Uris said. “And a calendar. Standing atop Irra-Zostim one stands among the stars themselves. The stones do record ancient stories and genealogies, but they also mark the passage of time.”
“Our people followed the stars back to this place,” Alzbieta said. “And they stopped here, Irra-Zostim tells us, because of all the stars. With a view like this—” she gestured broadly with her arm at the absolutely flat horizon, “one sees a truly full sky. As one saw, the annals say, in our ancient homeland.”
“Though the stars fell when the river rose,” Yedera murmured.
“Whatever that means,” Uris said.
“The mound’s name, Irra-Zostim, comes from the name of one of the mountains in the range that bounded the northern edge of our ancestors’ plain. Now even those mountains’ tops lie buried beneath the waves.” As Alzbieta said this she waved, and men standing in the tower to one side of the palisade’s gate waved back.
The gate began to swing open.
“They’s a lot of good places folk could go to see stars,” Cal said doubtfully. “You tellin’ me your people came all this way to git a clear look at the Big Dipper?”
“And God made for Man a companion,” Uris said, “of starlight and river rock and foam of the sea. And God named her Wisdom, for she was more subtle than any beast of the field, and breathed upon her, and she arose and shone. And she bare unto Man daughters and sons, and the starlight was within them all the days of their lives.”
“I know that one,” Cal said. “Where have I heard it? It ain’t Bible.”
“It’s from The Song of Etyles the Preacher.” Sarah looked as if her words pained her. “Thalanes quoted us those same lines.”
Cal squinted at the priestess. “So you’re star-people, are you? There’s somethin’ nice in that, somethin’ permanent. Like the stars ain’t changin’, you ain’t a-changin’ either.”
“The stars fell when the rivers rose,” Yedera said again. This time her voice had a darker edge to it.
“Stars are beautiful even when they fall,” Cathy Filmer said.
“Come in,” Alzbieta Torias said. “This is Your Majesty’s land as much as mine.”
“Perhaps I might make camp with the beastkind in these trees, Captain.” Jake pointed to the forest to the east of the palisade. “We don’t know how comfortable they’ll feel inside walls, hey? And you have the horn if you need to communicate.”
Bill turned to Sarah, who was already nodding.
“I commend you both on your work with our warriors,” she said. “Please communicate my pleasure and confidence to them all.”
Chikaak yipped and panted at the praise. Then Jake and the beastman scout turned and rode into the trees. The ragged, musky troop followed.
“You got a place for horses in there?” Cal asked Uris.
“Her Holiness would invite you to let them roam free within the palisade,” Uris said. “It’s what the villagers do, until the nights grow too cold for the beasts and they must be put into stables and sheds.”
Cal followed the counselor through the gate, which creaked shut behind them. “Winter’ll be here soon enough.”
“Then we’ll build more stables.” Uris waved at the forest. “There is no shortage of wood.”
“I’s admirin’ your trees, in fact,” Cal admitted. “Those are some tall, straight timbers.”
“Our earliest ancestors here learned to groom the trees,” Uris said. “As they were taught to grow corn and potatoes.”
“Were taught?” Cal swung off his horse’s back and set about liberating the string of animals he’d been leading. “Taught by whom?”
“The Lenni Lenape, some would say.” Uris and Yedera both helped disconnect horses from the lead rope. “The most ancient of the children of Adam still living in the New World, the tribe the Algonks call their ‘grandfathers.’”
“‘Some would say’?” Cal asked. “That sounds like you don’t believe ’em.”
“It’s hard to know what to believe,” Uris said. “I try to state carefully what I know. In this case, what I
know is that some say the Lenni Lenape taught us to choose trees that bear nuts and fruit, and grow them tall and straight to make such a forest canopy.”
“Nice as any trees I e’er saw. What do others say?” Cal asked.
Uris was silent.
The three of them shooed the horses away from the gate. Within the palisade walls, the grass grew tall and wild.
“Secret, huh?” Cal said.
Yedera pointed at the top of the conical mound. “The stories carved into those rocks up there tell of our coming to the Ohio,” she said. “Those stories say it wasn’t the Lenni Lenape who taught us corn, bean, and squash farming, or the potato, or how to turn the forest into a garden.”
Cal’s heart was heavy. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“The stories carved into those stones say it was the Heron King.” Uris shrugged. “Stories. They also say that we brought sicknesses with us, and that it was the Heron King’s magic that saved the Algonks from our diseases. Is it true? Is it nonsense? Is it an old way to remember something else entirely?”
“I don’t much like that feller,” Cal said.
“The Heron King? You sound as if you know him.” Yedera looked at Calvin as if she were looking right through him.
Since Sarah had let down her guard some, Cal thought he might, too. “I met him,” he allowed.
“And lived.” Uris arched his eyebrows. “I imagine this has something to do with Queen Sarah leading around a platoon of beastmen.”
“Yeah it does. Simon Sword’s a real son of a bitch, but I lived. We all lived.”
“The Heron King gives the great gifts of civilization, including, trade, stability, and peace.”
“Yeah?” Cal asked. “That sounds like Peter Plowshare. And what does Simon Sword do?”
Uris and Yedera shot each other a guarded look. “They’re the same,” Uris said. “Simon Sword is the title under which the Heron King rides to war, which he hasn’t done for generations.”
“That ain’t how I heard it,” Cal said. “But iffen it’s true, I can tell you he’s a-ridin’ to war now, and look out.”
* * *
“I’d like to see the scrolls you were talking about,” Sarah said as she dismounted. Bill and Cathy had turned to inspect the palisade walls together, leaving her alone with the priestess—and her eight bearers.
Alzbieta climbed down from her palanquin. Sarah’s surprise at seeing the other woman touch earth with her feet must have shown.
“We’re within a sanctified enclosure here,” the priestess explained.
“So you can touch the earth.”
Alzbieta shook her head. “Rather, this is no longer earth.”
“I got book-learning from my foster father,” Sarah said, “an education that was a wonder to all my Calhoun cousins. And yet I find my father’s people baffling.”
Alzbieta bowed. “The scrolls aren’t here, Your Majesty. They’re in my city home.”
“I guess I was so dazzled I just assumed,” Sarah said. “What’s this place, then?”
“A former country shrine I’m too poor to maintain. I built the wall so the villagers, who are my tenants, can defend themselves and pen in animals. Also, it prevents casual desecration of the site.”
“The animals aren’t a desecration?”
Alzbieta shrugged. “The presence of living things here does not offend the Mother of All Living. They don’t climb the high mound. But this shrine once had a library.”
“Will you show me the building?”
Sarah caught the other woman’s hand. The Ophidian priestess shuddered as if she’d been poked, but didn’t pull away.
“It ain’t a command,” Sarah said.
“I understand, Your Majesty.”
“You and I are kin, Alzbieta. I know it. I see it. When I swore those beastkind out there into my service? I didn’t make any oath back to them, nothing. I swore an oath to you, and it’s just as binding as the one you swore to me.”
“Is it?” Alzbieta looked into Sarah’s mundane eye.
Sarah removed her eyepatch. “It is.”
Alzbieta, natural face and aura both, looked reassured. “Would you care to see the library now? Empty as it is?”
“I would,” Sarah said. “I’m fairly itchin’.”
Alzbieta led the way into the smaller of the two stone buildings and Sarah followed. The slaves stayed outside, which Sarah found an improvement; the slaves never talked, and generally they followed Alzbieta around staring, watching for any indication that she wanted to be picked up.
It was a very non-Appalachee arrangement.
Was it a coincidence that Alzbieta’s slaves were all children of Eve? Or did her father’s people exclusively enslave her mother’s?
She tried not to dwell on that question.
“The other building was where we slept and ate, when I was a child,” Alzbieta explained. “This was the palace of life.”
There was no doorway or curtain in the entrance, but with her witchy eye Sarah saw very clearly a hex over the building. She stopped and examined it closely.
“Your Majesty?” Alzbieta asked.
Sarah squinted, examined the corners of the enchanted space, and finally laughed. “Let me guess. The palace of life held scrolls for hundreds of years. By a miracle of the goddess, those scrolls never rotted or got mildew.”
“The palace did hold scrolls for hundreds of years,” Alzbieta agreed. “By virtue of a spell cast hundreds of years ago, the scrolls never rotted or got mildew. Now, I have moved all the scrolls to my palace in the city.”
Sarah followed a thin line of pulsating green westward, and realized what could power a spell for hundreds of years. “This spell was cast by one of the Queens or Kings of Cahokia.” She didn’t say: using the Orb of Etyles. “It’s powered by the Mississippi River itself. I expect it still works.”
“That may well be,” Alzbieta said. “The carvings on the temple stones suggest that the great Onandagos built this place. The mound and the stone buildings, I mean. The rulers of Cahokia have always been magicians, and could have protected the shrine against rot.”
“Excellent.” Sarah stepped into the palace of life.
“Of course, what would be the source of that magic, but the goddess?” Alzbieta turned and walked down a narrow hall that seemed to be the axis of the building.
“Tricky little Handmaid.” Sarah followed. “So does Cahokia have many places like this?”
“Palaces of life?”
“Well, that’s an interesting question too, but I really meant…places that don’t count as earth, for purposes of your taboo.”
“The Greek word was a temenos. It meant a place marked apart from ordinary space.”
“You said you weren’t a wizard.”
“I’m a Handmaid of Lady Wisdom, a priestess. And as a priestess, there are many old books I want to read. The answers to your questions are, palaces of life: fairly common. Temples have them, and universities, and some monasteries and palaces. My own city home holds the scrolls that were once here, and is therefore a palace of life, of sorts. As to whether the others have magical protection like this one does, I don’t know. I have no gramarye myself.”
“So you told me before. And yet just now you said the rulers of Cahokia have always been magicians. How is it that you aspired to be queen?”
Alzbieta was briefly silent. “Your own native power as a magician certainly contributes to your claim. As for me, I had hoped that…some stage in the process of becoming the Queen of Cahokia would bestow magical power upon me.”
Enthronement? Coronation? The act of becoming queen might bestow magical power? But Alzbieta looked at her feet and said no more on the subject.
“I understand,” Sarah lied.
Alzbieta continued. “As to temenoi, to borrow from the Greeks: fewer all the time. We’ve lost the means of making them.”
“You as a priestess can’t make a…sacred place? A temenos?”
“I’ve simpl
ified too much. There are holy places, and holier places. None in Cahokia can now make a holy place.” Alzbieta shook her head. “That is a royal power.”
“But with an empty throne, surely no one would mind if…”
“You misunderstand me. I didn’t say it was a royal prerogative. I said it was a royal power. I cannot do it.”
Again Alzbieta looked at her feet.
“And a holier place?” Sarah asked.
Alzbieta said nothing.
“And if I press you, you’ll evade my questions, because here, and not for the first time, we have come up against that space where you have knowledge you aren’t willing to discuss with me. Some of it, that is, not unless in the right time and place, but some of it, in no time and in no place. Some of this being knowledge you aren’t supposed to have yourself, having learned it from my father, your beau.”
Alzbieta hesitated. “Here, I will tell you, I simply lack knowledge. But our holier places are all very, very old.”
Sarah sighed. “Show me the palace of life, then, cousin Alzbieta.”
Alzbieta led and Sarah followed.
The palace of life’s long central hallway, now that Sarah was inside and could see it better, passed through four rooms and ended in an open window, empty of glass or other covering. Opposite each other at regular intervals, three additional doorways pierced both sides of the hall. Sarah realized with a jolt that the air inside the palace of life was not only dry, but was significantly warmer than the autumn chill outside. She saw no sign of a fire; it must be the effect of the same magic.
The rooms to the side of the central hall connected with each other by doorways, and connected also diagonally with the rooms on the main passage. The whole thing felt like a honeycomb, or a lattice.
The honeycomb impression was strengthened by the interiors of the rooms. The walls of each room—and of all the hallways—where not cut into by doorways, were covered with diagonal wooden slabs crossing each other at regular intervals to create a lattice of diagonal cubbies, all painted white. Bookcases holding cubbies of the same diagonal lattice construction stood free in the middle of the floor of each room, running all the way up to the ceiling.
“These nooks,” Sarah asked the priestess. “They would have held scrolls?”
