Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIV

by Unknown

  She put that pot and the larger one of black paint in a small basket, padding the pots with straw so they wouldn't strike against each other and break. Usually she had more to carry. Yongosona always took an apprentice with her when she painted a Soul Wall, but most of the girls were sent off on errands, or stayed at Yongosona's house making paint. Excitement rose in Tiva's chest. They were all going today!

  The girls followed their teacher along the plateau, through sandy lanes between attached houses plastered in brown, cream, and red. Chumana's brothers and other kinsmen had just finished adding her new home to her mother's, and were plastering it in the same warm orange-red shade.

  The men stopped their work and stood aside, nodding and murmuring "Grandmother" as Yongosona and her apprentices passed into the house. It had no door hanging yet; that was still on Chumana's intended husband's loom, at least a day from completion.

  Chumana and her husband-to-be, Mikwliya, entered after the apprentices, their faces shining with excitement. Chumana carried an armload of cushions; Honovi accepted one from her and helped Yongosona to seat herself cross-legged on it, then the apprentices all lined up behind their teacher, still holding their burdens.

  "Esteemed elder," Chumana said, touching her forehead at Yongosona. Mikwliya echoed her.

  "Sit." Yongosona pointed. They dropped cushions and sat before her, side by side, shoulders touching. Yongosona reached out, her multi-colored tunic's loose sleeves falling back as she spread fingers and rested them on the foreheads of the young couple before her. All three closed their eyes.

  Tiva quietly pulled straw from the basket she carried. Beside her, she felt Honovi doing the same. They never knew how long this part would take, but when Yongosona asked for paint it must be ready to set into her hand.

  Yongosona took a long time. Pamuya fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Yongosona's arms were shaking now, and sweat ran down the faces of the young couple.

  Yongosona began to hum, a monotonous up-and-down sound. Tiva wished she knew what Yongosona was doing. Somehow, she was discovering what to paint on the Soul Wall, but she never told her apprentices how she knew. Did a god tell her? Tiva could never paint Soul Walls if she didn't know what to paint.

  Abruptly Yongosona dropped her arms and opened her eyes. "Go," she told Chumana and Mikwliya.

  Chumana—only two summers older than Tiva—staggered to her feet and pulled Mikwliya up with her. Silently, they left the house.

  Tiva and Honovi helped Yongosona to her feet. The old woman took a paintbrush from Pamuya's basket and stood surveying the wall they had prepared that morning, blank white. She gestured with the brush, then said, "Red."

  Tiva took the lid off the red pot and placed it under Yongosona's brush. What did the old woman see as she surveyed the unblemished wall before her? Did the painting live behind her eyes, merely needing to be copied onto the surface? How had she known, before she came, what colors she would need?

  One long curving line, then another, red on the white surface. Then, "Black." Tiva held out the other pot, and Yongosona took another brush from Pamuya.

  Tiva watched carefully. At this stage in Yongosona's Soul Walls there was no discernable design. Tiva couldn't look at a section and say, "This will be a spine tree, this will be a gazelope." Later, when it was nearly finished, the parts came together, and she would be able to see that this black line was the gazelope's hip, and that brown one traced an eagle's wing.

  Today Yongosona told them what her lines meant. She murmured as she painted, and Tiva had to listen hard to understand. "Swiftness for their children, like the sandrat over the desert," she said as a line in gold earth, then a few more, became a sandrat's supple length. Tiva's heart began to pound. Yongosona was explaining what she painted! She had done this seldom since Tiva became her apprentice.

  The other girls didn't seem to notice. They held paints for their teacher and Pamuya clutched used brushes. They fidgeted and yawned as the painting grew before their eyes and Yongosona's voice, quiet as a breeze, described sandrose and corn stalk.

  Then Yongosona said "red" once more, but instead of dipping her brush into the pot, she squinted at it. "Not enough brilliant red," she said. "Need more tomorrow." She looked up at Tiva. "Go to Red Cliff now. Get the brightest red earth."

  She turned away from Tiva, asked for green, took another brush, and traced a line—part of a cornstalk—close to one of earth gold.

  Though Tiva wanted to stay and listen to Yongosona's explanations, she set her pots down next to Honovi and ran out the door. She held her hand up, gauging how high the sun stood above the village. It was already a few handwidths above the horizon. Red Cliff was half a day's run away, and after she gathered the earth she would need to grind and mix the pigment. She must make the most of the daylight.

  She hardly paused when she reached Yongosona's house. Food bags hung on pegs, already filled. Water bag here, basket for the earth she would collect here. Already on the run, she dropped the bags into the basket and left dark coolness for sunlight as she settled the basket on her back.

  The path from mesa to desert below was steep and zigzagged down the cliff side. But the men and boys who ran it daily to reach their fields below had pounded it hard and smooth with their feet, so Tiva sped up. Getting her stride now, she slowed little at each turn for the next long downward slant, ignoring the dizzying drop an arm's length to one side.

  Red Cliff, as far west as Tiva had ever been in her sixteen summers, was the western border of the land claimed by Tiva's village, Ayantavi. They shared it with their neighbor to the north, Shokitevela. Boundaries had been negotiated between their Talker Chiefs generations before, since both villages obtained earth for pigment at Red Cliff.

  Reaching the desert floor, Tiva settled into a steady pace, running with a long stride. She had learned that if she tried to run fast, she just tired herself. So she ran, face toward Red Cliff, thoughts wandering far from the desert she traversed.

  Yongosona would not let her paint, but that did not mean Tiva did not paint. Red Cliff had many caves and there was one—far up the cliff, a hard scramble—where she had smoothed and plastered the wall and sometimes tried painting for herself. But her lines were wobbly, and no matter what curves and lines she added, she rarely saw plant or animal. She had plastered over many attempts, but was beginning to think she would end up like many of Yongosona's other apprentices. She would find a nice boy in another village, bring him home, and Yongosona would paint them a Soul Wall. She would turn to decorating pottery or making patterns for weaving.

  Red Cliff was closer now, and Tiva sipped from her water bag, never breaking stride. She adjusted her headscarf so the sun, directly overhead, wouldn't burn the back of her neck. The basket on her back was beginning to chafe through her sweat-damp tunic. When she stopped, she'd adjust it.

  The desert, under the mid-day sun, was quiet. Animals, smarter than humans, hid in their cool dens when the sun was fiercest. Always running, breathing deeply but without panting, Tiva surveyed the area. Yellow sand everywhere, dotted with gray-green brush, with now and then a darker rock poking through. Nothing moved, no breeze stirred sparse branches; even the dust of her running sank almost immediately. She was alone with her discontent.

  Yongosona had told them things as she worked today. Usually she merely grunted words—requesting paints, brushes, or other materials. What were the others learning while Tiva was off gathering earth? In eight summers of helping Yongosona, Tiva could count the times when the old woman had explained her paintings on the fingers of one hand. Yongosona taught them to make materials, then bade them watch and think on what they saw.

  Tiva watched. Tiva thought. But she had not learned how to paint. She had not learned what made a Soul Wall the heart of a home, not just a decoration like a painting on a pot.

  "You run well, girl," said a voice close to her ear.

  Almost, she broke her stride. Almost, she stumbled. But she caught herself and stared, o
pen-mouthed and startled, at the young man running beside her. He must have been resting in the scant shadow of one of the rocks, or she would have seen him earlier. Now he paced her easily, running alongside, grinning at her shock.

  "Thank you," she said finally. "I have far to go."

  "You do," he said, words smooth, breathing easy, though he ran as swiftly as she. "May I run with you?"

  His face had a familiar look to it. Like the runners in Shokitevela, he had waist-length hair tied with a cloth striped in red and yellow, but his trousers and tunic were white, not the bright colors most men favored. Perhaps she had seen him before, at the races with Shokitevela last fall. There should be no harm in his running alongside her. "If you wish," she answered.

  They ran together, the only sounds their sandals swishing through the sand and the slight huff, huff of their breathing. Soon the young man's silence began to disturb Tiva. Why did he want to run with her, if he had nothing to say? Did he spy out where Ayantavi got their colored earths, to take for his own village? Men did not paint, but they did weave, and the brilliant red earth would color his yarn far better than the faded red in his head-cloth. She began to regret allowing him to run alongside her.

  "Sensing souls is difficult," he said, startling her from uneasy thoughts.

  "Yes," she said, to cover renewed shock. "I... I don't know if I have the right soul to sense others." Why had she told him that? It was her most private fear, one she had told no one else, and now she had blurted it to a stranger.

  "You try too hard and not hard enough." He said the words casually, as if he knew her, as if he were not a stranger from another village, with no business to know what she did or why.

  It stung her, his response, and she answered again without thinking, "I watch, and I think, as I have been taught."

  "What do you watch?" he asked.

  What did she watch? Yongosona. How she mixed colors. How she drew curves and lines. How she shaded paint into paint, how she used colors, what colors she used. What brushes she chose, which feathers and sticks she used to smooth and delineate. Tiva had watched this for eight summers, and thought she knew well enough what Yongosona did. But she still did not know why.

  "I watch my teacher," Tiva told him, to break the silence.

  "Do you watch what she does not do as well as what she does?" he asked.

  Why did his questions fret her so? She remembered this morning, standing bored and restless as Yongosona touched Chumana's and Mikwliya's foreheads. She had not watched when Yongosona was not painting. Something stirred deep in her mind. Watch and think.

  "You have far to go," the stranger said, and his stride grew longer, his steps quicker. She lengthened her own stride to keep even with him, and he sped up even more.

  "Are you a painter?" she asked, and noted with shame that her voice was breathless with their current pace.

  "I am a painter, yes," he said, "and more. As are you." His voice was as even and easy as it had ever been, though he ran as if he were in the fall races, sprinting to prove his village's superiority.

  Her lungs began to feel the pace, as did the joints in her hips, knees, and ankles. Her arms pumped at her sides, as if to pull her forward through the air.

  "Look to your walls," he said, and with satisfaction she heard him panting slightly. But then she frowned. My walls?

  "What do you... mean? I'm not... married yet. I don't... have a Soul Wall." She didn't think she could run faster. She was sprinting, not pacing herself for the rest of her journey to Red Cliff. He was drawing ahead, and for some reason she could not let that happen.

  "Change how you watch. Change how you think." He turned his head, grinned at her, and put on a greater burst of speed.

  She could not keep up. He must be his village's champion runner, sent out to gather earth from Red Cliff. He had seen her, and chosen to tease her on his way. Regaining her normal pace, she fought gasping breaths back to steadiness. He ran on toward the cliff until sight of his dark hair and white clothing was lost in desert heat shimmer.

  Now Tiva slowed for a moment, to adjust her headscarf, smooth the wrinkle out of her tunic where the basket rode on her shoulders, and take another sip of water. She had allowed herself to become overheated; that was bad. Her tunic was soaked with sweat, and her skirt flapped clammily about her calves.

  What had he said to her? Change her way of watching and thinking? Again something—an idea—flickered in the back of her mind, but she could not catch it. She set out again in her accustomed stride, and slowly the ache eased from calves and hips, and her throat ceased burning.

  * * * *

  Red Cliff was much closer than she had expected. How far had she run while sprinting against the man? The ground underfoot changed, from yellow-white sand to gray earth streaked with red. There were more stones here. She had to watch her footing, not lose herself in thinking.

  At the cliff's base she paused, shading eyes with a hand to peer at the sun. She had arrived more rapidly than anticipated. If she dug quickly she might have time to practice painting.

  Practice painting. What could she change to make her paintings better? Always before she had painted as Yongosona did—starting with bold lines and working from them. But what if painting worked differently for her? She had never tried painting what felt right for her; she had always tried to copy her teacher. Was that what the young man meant, when he said, 'Change how you watch, change how you think'?

  Excitement swept through Tiva. She wanted to try now, try to paint with her own eyes and mind, not Yongosona's. She ran down the long cliff, away from where most apprentices collected red earth. Then she scrambled up the wind-carved stone face, fingers and sandaled feet easily finding places. She had often wished she didn't have to paint the way Yongosona did. She had pushed that desire away, thinking she had to paint like her teacher. If she changed....

  The cave was cooler, out of direct sunlight. She didn't have time to plaster the wall, didn't have many pre-mixed paints available. That wasn't important. Today she wanted to try something different, to experiment. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she laughed breathlessly. To get so excited about something she did every day of her life. It was only painting, after all.

  But today it wasn't only painting. In fact, she didn't even open the tightly covered paint pots hidden in a niche. Instead, she took a charred stick and stood before the fresh white wall, the wall she had covered over so ferociously after her last failed attempt.

  Think. Change the way you think. Instead of drawing a line and expecting the painting to emerge from it, think first of what should be there. Cornstalks in Father's fields, heavy heads waving in a slight evening breeze? Mother's cat, curled in the exact center of a woven rug with an expression of extreme satisfaction? Youngest brother, half-asleep against Father, finger in mouth as he listened to evening tales? All these things were part of her family's soul.

  Is this how Yongosona knew what to paint on a Soul Wall? But Tiva's thoughts were of how her family was now. How could she draw what was to come? How could she draw a family's destiny before the family even began?

  Change the way you think. Yongosona had lived in Ayantavi, and painted Soul Walls, since Tiva's grandmother was a girl. She knew everyone, watched children born and grow. She had seen boys leave for other villages, seen girls bring home their excited young husbands-to-be. Yongosona's husband was dead. Her sons lived in other villages. Was the whole village now her family, so she could see into their souls as Tiva could see her own parents and brothers? But what about the boys marrying in? Yongosona couldn't know their souls. She had not watched them grow up, did not know if they were smart or lazy or rambunctious.

  Tiva shook her head. Too much to think on. She'd never paint anything if she thought too much. For now, something she knew, and knew well. The little peach tree outside the front door of her house. It was near the end of its life, but its gnarled branches yielded the sweetest peaches in the village.

  She closed her eyes and sm
iled. She pictured the curve of the tree's trunk, one side uneven where her brother had hung on a branch and broken it off. Now it was in full leaf, and peaches hung heavy, nearly ripe. Her father had propped the branches up with forked sticks. That curve—the branch, the twigs, the leaves....

  The curve she drew on the white wall wasn't wobbly or aimless. The next curve, although making the branch thicker than it was in real life, was pleasing. She sketched on, adding hints of leaves here and there, shading fat peaches with her thumb. When she finally stood back and looked at her work, excitement gripped her again. Here was the first thing she had ever made that looked as she thought it should. And she had done it merely by changing her thought. What power in the grinning young man's suggestion.

  She shivered a little—not from cold, but from the force of what had just taken her over. Then she looked up in alarm. It was cooler in the little cave than it had been. The sun was behind Red Cliff now, and the day was passing quickly. She had still to find red earth and get back to Ayantavi.

  Assuring herself her basket was in place, she backed carefully down hand- and footholds in the stone. The best, the brightest red earth was at the northern end of the cliff, near Shokitevela's territory.

  Tiva jogged along the cliff's base, searching out veins of bright red in ochre and gray. There—near the ground. It was very trampled here—other girls must come here often. She dug the darker earth with her wooden paddle, and found very little bright red. She packed it into her basket and covered it with straw, then ran on along the cliff side.

  She found one other place, also very trampled, with a small vein of brilliant red. Had Yongosona used so much of it lately that her apprentices had dug all the easy-to-find earth? A glance behind at the cliff's long shadow told her she had little time to find enough and begin her long run home.

  The ground began to rise, and Tiva saw only gray stone for stride after stride. She had come too far north; she would have to turn around and see if she had missed other places to dig brilliant red. Ah! There, just above head height on the side of the cliff, where scattered stone showed a recent fall, was the brilliant red she sought.