I glanced left and right. More naked Dwarf females with lances. I noted that they didn’t hold the lances expertly. The woman to my left held her lance braced against the crook of her arm, with her free arm crossing to steady it. Her first lance, probably not trained, I decided. I could kill her easily and take her lance.
Past them were a strange assortment of female Dwarves. All naked, all unarmed. The girl I’d first met was among them. I stared with interest, I’d never seen naked Dwarves before. Like the Selk, they ran to fat, their thick musculature hidden beneath their flesh. The hair of their arms and legs was much finer than the mens’, and grew longer on the lower parts.
We were in a cave? No a strange room, lined with clay panels to give it the look of stone walls. The air was heavy with aromatic smokes and guttering orange flames.
Words in a strange tongue rolled at me. I jumped.
An old woman on a stone bench had spoken. I studied her. She was the oldest woman in the room, the muscle hung like loose ropes on her thick frame. Her hair, what she had of it, was almost snow white. On her legs it grew thick like down, bright against the sallow colour and rough texture of her skin. On her forehead a pair of thin horns grew and curved delicately.
I’d only ever heard of horned Dwarves, never seen one. Their kind were from far upriver, and they seldom ventured out of the high Kingdom. Curious, I glanced at her hands. Thick nails were visible on several of her fingers.
I noted several other horned females. One middle-aged woman with two rows running up her temples. Another with spikes protruding from her cheeks.
Again, the strange words. This time the tone was angry and demanding.
I jumped again. One of the women, startled, shook her lance at me. The old woman darted an angry glance away from me. I followed her gaze to another naked Dwarf. Was it the woman I’d spoken to? I couldn’t tell.
The old woman turned back to me.
I spoke the nonsense phrase. Her expression turned to shock. There was a little titter behind me.
“She has the accent, at least,” someone said. I couldn’t pick out the voice.
“Say it again,” someone else prompted.
I repeated it. General laughter rang about me. In spite of myself, I couldn’t help rocking from side to side, hunching down.
A new word snapped out. The laughter quieted.
The old dwarf woman stared at me.
“Speak slowly,” she ordered finally, using harsh Dwarf accents on the trade speech.
I repeated the phrase again, carefully, trying to remember it exactly the way it had been taught to me.
“Again,” she commanded.
I started. She stopped me, barking a similar word. I stopped and considered it. It was like the word the old Dwarf woman had used, but not quite. How much of that was accent, I wondered? They made their sounds differently than I was used to. I started over again, making the sound as she did.
Halfway in, she stopped me again. She barked another word.
I started over, beginning to say the phrase again. The room seemed to go still. I started to pronounce the word the way she’d said it. The tension in the air seemed to deepen. It was as if people were holding their breaths. Something was wrong. The stress in the word was different, it was hard at the start and soft at the end, its rhythm wasn’t the same.
I huddled down in the box. Finally, I said it the way it had been taught to me, putting the stress near the end. I stared around defiantly.
An excited murmur went through the crowd.
The old Dwarf regarded me. Finally, she spoke again. A single gibberish word. I nodded. It wasn’t quite what I’d been taught, but it was close. The rhythm was right.
I repeated the phrase again, this time pronouncing the words the way she’d said them.
She nodded slowly.
This time, she directed a stream of nonsense at me.
I stared.
She stopped and said something. The inflection rose at the end and she looked expectant. A question of some sort.
I repeated my phrase.
“That’s all you know how to say?” she said abruptly, cutting me off. “Isn’t that right?”
I grinned and shrugged, bobbing my head at her.
“What is it you want, Honoured Mistress?” I asked.
“You are no mystery beast,” she said. “What are we to do with you?”
“Mystery beast?” I asked aloud.
“The story races through all the Totems of the abomination who came into our midst and caused murder most dire,” she said, ignoring me. “Murder most strange.”
“This abomination,” she said, “put an arrow into a wise woman of the White Bear Totem, and cut the throat of a man of Owl Totem. She broke the bones of a Snow Leopard man, and killed two archers, again with their own arrows. All in one room. Passing strange that is. Stranger still, she vanishes from the room where she is trapped.”
“And then, a shit monster! An honest to gods Shit monster comes lurching through the streets, howling like a demon, but harms no one!”
“Then this vanishing abomination, fresh from the blood of a dozen men and women, appears magically in a kitchen. Accosts, but does not harm, an honest girl, hardly greater than and helpless as a child, speaking words she has no right to, in the hill country accent of the murdered woman.”
I glanced around.
“Perhaps,” she offered, “you can tell us how this unbelieveable fuck up came to be?”
“I did not kill the old woman,” I said, “or the Owl Totem man, or one of the archers.”
“Only the rest?” she replied, “is that it? Deny three murders and hold two to your breast? Are you stupid?”
I was silent.
“What the hells?” she demanded.
I waited.
“I ask myself,” she continued, “how did they die? And how did an abomination come by holy speech? You’ve shown that you have a tongue of sorts. Use it.”
I hunkered.
“And then Mistress?” I asked. “What happens to me then?”
“We’ll decide that, creature,” she said. “You’ll not bargain here and you’ll not bargain with us. Say your words and we’ll make our decisions. Say nothing and we’ll finish with you now.”
I growled low in my throat and rocked back and forth.
Four lances around me, but not expertly held. I could take the woman on my left, take her lance...
And what then?
Cut my way through a roomful of Dwarves? In the middle of their city? Even if they were naked and unarmed I didn’t reckon my chances well.
I told them the story. I started with my first sight of the ruined body of the Mermaid. I related my journeys across the city, and the people that I’d spoken to.
They were quiet for the most part. Different parts of the story brought bits of whispered conversation here and there. I continued, ignoring the murmur.
Once, the old woman interrupted me.
“There is no Fish Hawk totem,” she said. “There’s no such thing. One lie there.”
Another woman spoke up in the strange language. There was a brief flurry of unintelligible argument. I waited.
The old woman did not look pleased.
She snapped something, listened to several replies.
“Not a lie then,” she admitted finally.
Finally the old woman looked back to me and told me to go on.
I continued. I was very careful when I related the encounter with the White Bear Mother to try and speak the exact words the old woman had spoken, even the strange language she’d spoken.
Several times then, I was interrupted. Different variations of words were put to me and I was asked to choose. I shook my head. They argued amongst themselves in the strange tongue. At length, they seemed satisfied that there had b
een a proper, if unorthodox, death ritual.
At last the story was finished.
They paused.
The old horned woman looked left and right.
“This is a strange tale. Usually, strange tales become simple when you sort them out. You get stranger with the telling. I don’t like that. I invite the eldest of us, Ryusha, to speak, to tell this creature here, in the mock speech, of mystery beasts.”
Another woman parted from the crowd. She was vastly more ancient than even the horned woman. The layer of fat under their skins was gone from her, so that her skin sagged across stringy muscle and bone. She grinned exposing toothless gums. Glanced around with rheumy eyes. She was nothing but loose skin and swollen joints. Two other women helped her to the bench.
She sat, radiantly pleased to be the centre of attention.
She cleared her throat.
Behind her, the horned women began to whisper to each other, their voices hushed, their heads bent so close together their horns touched.
“This is the good story,” she said, “the story of the way things were, and the way things will be again. This is the story that women gather to tell in the long night of the third world.”
She coughed a little.
“In the beginning, there was only the first world. In this world, there were only women. This world knew peace and plenty and all things, from the fish in the sea, to the birds in the sky, and the beasts in the field all spoke the one tongue.”
A ritual mutter grew up around me.
“A woman named Effa ate of poisoned berries. She became ill. Day upon day, the poison of the berries accumulated in her belly. Finally, after nine days did a woman give birth to the first man, Akut. Akut was the first thing to come into the world since the creation.”
“Akut,” chorused softly around me. A refrain was whispered in that strange language.
“Effa looked upon Akut. The other women came to look as well. What is this thing? They asked. It is so ugly, they told each other. How awful, they said. What should we do with it? They wondered. But there was no death in the world, so they knew not what to do.
“Akut was allowed to grow up. Was this a bad thing? Some say it was, for Akut brought the second world through his ignorance and ugliness. But who is to say that the killing of Akut would not have brought the second world anyway? Who is to say that had Akut been killed, that the second world might never have ended?”
The questions seemed to have a ritual rhetorical quality. Uttered and asked so often it had lost meaning. Again, there was a refrain in that unknown tongue.
“Akut was born without true speech. He could not speak with the beasts or birds or fish, or with the sky or earth. Akut was clever though, and a nonsense speech was made so he could converse with women.”
“Akut knew no peace, however. One day, Akut was out among the stones, when he came upon Apnut the golden ram. Akut, in jealousy over the ram’s beauty, hit it with a stone. The stone cleaved the ram into six portions. Two before and behind, two above and below, two on either side, thus are all things now measured. Thus did death come into the world, the second new thing since the creation. From this then did the shadow fall, the third thing, and the end come upon the first world.
“Akut hid the body of the golden ram, but there was no hiding what he had done. The shadow deepened and turned to night, the first of nights, but there were no stars in this night, nor moon. Cold came upon the land.
“All the living things came together to debate over what happened, and what to do. Then was it seen that Apnut was nowhere to be found. All the living things did then call out Apnut’s name and search in six corners of the world. But none was found. Finally, Akut returned, in his hands he held the thing that he had found. All gathered around to see this new thing. It was like stone, but without colour. It was ice.”
This was wrong, I thought suddenly. This wasn’t a Dwarf story. It was no Dwarf story I’d ever heard. In the Dwarf stories, the world was made from ice by the warring totem creatures. There was no world of women, there was no first world, no second world. I shook my head.
“The ice grew and grew. It covered the world. Everywhere in the second world it spread, and where the ice spread, nothing could live. What the ice touched, died. Many were the women who died.”
Another strange refrain. I noticed the whispering women would pause to join in the refrain, and then an instant later, they’d be touching horns again.
“Akut confessed what he had done, but it was too late. The second world had begun. Many were the beasts of the earth that died.”
The same refrain, the same words came again. I glanced around, my lips unconsciously mimicking the sounds.
“The night without end had come upon the world. Many were the birds of the sky that died.”
The refrain. I assumed it meant ‘many deaths.’
“The magic of life gave way to the magic of ice. Many were the fish of the waters that died.”
The refrain. I was certain now. Death.
“With each death the ice spread further and it grew colder, until finally, all that lived in the world were trapped in a little cave. All the birds and fish and beasts and women and Akut. All the life left remaining in the world was in the cave. All the women danced, on and on, to save what was left from the ice.
“Finally, the women could dance no more. Then alone, did Akut dance, to keep the ice at bay while the women rested.
“All that was left alive in the world came together in the cave to debate. There they resolved that they needed a new sun to dispel the ice.
“The women who yet lived made a plan. Each of the fish and birds and beasts and women gave up a piece of their life to make the new sun. Thus did all but the last of the true women lose the power of true speech. Thus were all their lives bounded to spans of days.”
“Only women who made and bound the magic were able to retain true speech, and even their lives, though longer, were left bounded.
“The new sun was bound up in the golden hide of Apnut and then did Akut take it into the sky to set it where it might shine.
“But too much life had gone out of the world and the new sun faded and grew faint.
“Thus did the women come together, and in the true speech they determined to make a new magic to preserve the world and renew the sun. Thus did Akut wound each of them with the penis bone of Apnut, and thus did give up blood from their wounds to make the new magic.
“This new magic they bound in a cradle made from the white bones of Apnut and again did Akut carry it into the sky, where it became the moon. The cradle of bones did not hold all the magic: spilling from the moon, were the stars, which filled the balance of the sky.
“This is why women bleed with the changing of the moon, for it is their blood which holds the moon in course and renews the sun each morning.”
The whispered conversation was finished. Now they waited heads bowed, speaking the refrains as they came, but otherwise silent and motionless.
“Thus was the third world made, a lesser world.”
“The ice retreated, but it did not go away entirely. Instead it advances and retreats. Truly this is a lesser world that is unable to banish ice forever.
“Truly this is a lesser world where all things die in time.
The refrain again, but with some differences. I tried to wrap my tongue around the new sentence. If my life had been saved by a line of their speech, it seemed wise to me, to capture other bits of it.
“Women and females of every kind had lost the magic to reproduce by themselves. Only by joining with the magic of males could they make more of their kinds.
“Truly this is a lesser world where only women are left the true speech.
The new refrain. I guessed that this had something to do with diminishment, with a smaller, lesser world.
“Should women ever forg
et the true speech, or the magic by which the sun and moon were made, then shall the ice spread again to cover all things forever.”
These last statements had the intonation of ritual to them. Her speech was strange. It seemed to have a different rhythm than the normal speech of Dwarves. I thought that this story was probably told in the strange dialect that I’d heard.
“The women alone of all living things had retained the power of true speech, but of the other creatures, some fell farther than others. Of all the creatures in the world, those who fell furthest were your people, the Hagrik, who lost even the power to reproduce themselves and must use the mock speech of others.”
I grunted irritably. It seemed that nobody could tell a story but that the point was that the Arukh were shit. I wondered what they would all do with their stories if we were not around.
She paused, seeming to stare at me, though I doubted her filmy eyes could make out my shape.
“This is how we have come to the world we know. But some say that a new world will come, like the first world again. Some say that as a sign of the new world there will come Mystery Beasts: Beasts or birds or fish to whom the true speech has returned.”
She stopped expectantly.
I stared back at them. I was completely at a loss.
The old horned woman spoke.
“This creature is false. It speaks not the true speech. It knows only what it is told, it speaks without understanding.”
Suddenly I understood the purpose of the story. It was to keep us occupied until she and her cronies had been able to decide my fate. I gathered myself.
There was a buzz of discussion at this.
The old horned woman held up a spadelike hand.
“But hear the words she said: Were they not spoken with the intonation of Meg Alam, the old mother? Were they not spoken with her accent? Could you not hear her the whistle in her speech?
“This creature is not a mystery beast, but a message. Through this ignorant creature, Meg Alam has named her murderers.
“Sisters,” she concluded, “we must consider her wishes.”
She addressed me.
“Our sister has asked us, speaking her words through your throat, that your life be preserved. We will honour this. You will be taken from this place and set free outside the Kingdom. Does this suit you?”
The Mermaid's Tale Page 31
