by Joy Nash
She cracked a stone on a boulder and used the sharp edge to fashion the tools of firemaking. She gathered tinder and firewood, then, with trembling hands, she looped the bowstring about the spindle.
The spindle whirled in its socket. Her arm burned, but she ignored the pain, focusing on the birth of the fire.
Black dust poured into the tinder. The smoke thickened. A spark flashed. With shaking hands, Gina lifted the tinder bundle and blew long streams of breath across the red coal.
I cast my breath into the flames.
The coal flared briefly, then shrank. Her chest tightened. She blew again, keeping her breath steady, using her body to shield the worst of the wind.
Flames burst to life.
The fire is born. It fills my heart.
* * * * *
Derrin arrived at the village of the Water Clan under the low stars of midnight. When he pulled the buckskin drape of Zahta’s dwelling aside, he was not surprised to find his grandmother awake, and waiting for him.
She sat by the glowing remains of a fire, her eyes two dark pools. He lowered himself to the ground beside her and watched an ember die.
“The Goddess shines on your coming, Gray Wolf.”
His head snapped up.
Zahta pressed her palm to her forehead and dipped her chin in the Baha’Na gesture of respect.
Derrin gave a short, bitter laugh. “So. It seems I am a man at last.”
“You have long been a man, my son.”
A charred log collapsed, showering sparks.
“You know Gina has returned to her world,” he said at last. It was not a question.
Zahta inclined her head.
“I’ve come for my crystals and clothing. I must return to Galena.”
“The Goddess is near you, Gray Wolf, even when you walk with the Outsiders. Listen for her call.”
Derrin nodded. “I will do what I must.”
* * * * *
The body of an unrecognizable creature lay in the stream, alive with maggots. Gina gripped her stomach and bent double, retching into the frost-blackened grass. She’d felt ill since early morning, after drinking downstream. Now she knew why.
The stench of death assaulted her, driving her from the writhing carcass. She’d been wandering for days, searching for a signs of human life, but she’d found none. No hunting party had crossed her path. No familiar landmark jogged her memory. She hadn’t even seen a trail marker.
She vomited again. Her gut had turned to water. Unnatural cold seeped into her bones. At sunset, she crawled into a shallow cave and covered herself with a blanket of forest debris. Shaking, she closed her eyes.
Ripe berries hung heavy on the vine like tiny stars, hidden by round leaves covered with fine hairs. The fruit glistened with dew, swayed gently in the early morning breeze. Some black, some red.
Choose.
She found the berries at dawn, near the entrance to the cave. A spindly vine with twisted branches hung from a crevice, bearing two colors of fruit. She dug deep into her memory, recalling Derrin’s words from her first days in the wilderness. One fruit would save her, the other would kill.
Which should she choose?
A whisper brushed her mind, a voice telling secrets. Gina stilled. The murmuring grew louder. Not a human voice. It belonged to…
The voice belonged to the vine.
Choose.
She touched one of its leaves, stroking gently. Which? She closed her eyes. The warm skin of a fruit brushed her finger. She plucked it and ate.
* * * * *
Derrin slipped into the shadow of the forest’s edge. An ornate carriage, accompanied by four outriders, rattled by at a brisk pace, headed toward Katrinth. One horseman called to the others with a jolly shout. Derrin couldn’t make out his words, but the sally must have been a fine bit of wit—the man’s companions erupted in raucous laughter. In the carriage, a slender female hand drew back a silver filigreed curtain. He glimpsed a flash of golden hair and a dimpled smile.
The merry procession glided by, framed by the ravaged landscape of what had once been the lush farmland skirting the Galenan capital. The destruction left in the wake of the Blight staggered Derrin’s imagination. Fields, denuded of its crops, swarmed with insects. Rivers flowed thick and slow, choked by fetid slime. The rain seared his skin.
Exhausted and burning with thirst, he made his way toward the capital. The land’s ruin increased with every step and he feared what he would find once he reached his destination. Yet in the hours since dawn, several groups had passed him, not fleeing the city, but riding toward it. Each set of travelers smiled and laughed, as if headed to a festival. His head throbbed. What in Tarol’s name was going on?
The devastation swept outward from the city on a relentless path to the wilderness. For the first time, Derrin considered the possibility the Baha’Na would be destroyed. A brutal rage smoldered inside him. The People trusted in the Goddess. How could she allow her children to come to such an end?
He continued his slow trek to the city, through the remnants of the world he once knew. The shadows of the ravaged tree line shielded his journey. He suspected Balek had found a way to bring the entire populace under the control of the webstone, showing them only what he wanted them to see. It was possible he could see through their eyes as well.
Derrin crossed the river and entered the Lower City. No crystal shadowed his movements, but the lack of cover didn’t concern him. His boyhood in the wilderness had taught him the art of hidden movement. Compared to stalking a forest creature, moving unseen among the Galenans was a simple task. Only a wizard actively searching would see him. He hoped Balek thought him dead.
He moved without difficulty across the market square. The Galenans, busy with their daily affairs, saw little of their surroundings. They clung to familiar routes, heads lowered, their awareness locked into the world behind their eyes. He passed unseen within a hand’s breadth of many of them.
An atmosphere of merriment prevailed in the market square. Women jostled at the stalls, picking over piles of half-rotted produce with bright smiles on their faces. One vendor did a brisk business selling moldy cheese, another had no trouble attracting buyers to a mound of stinking fish. Bile rose in Derrin’s throat. The air blew in putrid waves from the sea.
He threaded the maze of alleys leading to the Upper City. Once in the shadow of the Stronghold, he detoured toward the cliff road. Above him, the sun cowered behind a yellow haze. Below, the sea rolled as if a storm approached.
The wall encircling Ariek’s mother’s villa stood well over Derrin’s head, but he dared not risk the gate. Taking advantage of a gnarled pine, he hoisted himself over the barrier and dropped onto the soft ground beyond.
He remembered Lady Kalana’s garden as a beautiful place, a lush oasis in the confines of the city, where the tang of sea air mingled with the perfume of the flowers. Now the scorched patch of ground displayed blackened stalks, and what little life remained was yellowed. The orchard trees had lost most of their leaves, revealing a few pockmarked fruit. The ornate fountain spurted a sour white trickle from a sea nymph’s shell.
Derrin crossed the ruins, making his way toward a cellar door hidden behind a tangle of brittle shrubs. Bending, he grasped a heavy iron ring and heaved the door upward, then descended the stone stair.
Ariek was waiting for him.
His friend sat at a small wooden table, his hand curled around a silver goblet. Casks of wine filled with Galena’s finest vintages lined the stone walls behind him.
Derrin dropped into an empty chair. “It’s not yet midday, my friend.”
Ariek shrugged. He rose and produced a second goblet from a rack overhead. Uncorking one of the casks, he tipped it on edge. A stream of burgundy liquid spilled into the cup and dripped over the edge. He presented it to Derrin with a flourish.
“Waiting in the wine cellar has its advantages,” Ariek said.
“So I see.” Despite Derrin’s weariness, a smile played on h
is lips. He took a long draught of the wine.
Ariek’s eyes struggled to focus. “Gina…?”
Derrin’s smile abruptly faded, replaced by a twist of pain. “Gone. She has returned to her home.”
“How?”
“I sent her back. I used the webstone to open the path.”
His friend’s eyes widened. “Tarol’s blood. You put your mind into that cursed crystal?”
“The effort cost me dearly.” Derrin recounted the story of his capture and imprisonment, and what he could recall of his escape.
Ariek sat up, sobering rapidly. “In truth, I feared you were dead before I received your signal.”
“We must stop Balek. I’ll go before the High Council.”
Ariek laughed. “Balek is the High Council, my friend. The other Councilors stepped down when he produced the cure for the Blight. Now that the city has returned to normal—”
“Normal?” Derrin stared at Ariek, dumbstruck. “Katrinth is a cesspool!”
Ariek’s brows drew together. “What do you mean? It’s a paradise! Within minutes of Balek’s announcement of a cure, the waters cleared. Green returned to the forest. It’s nothing less than a miracle!”
“Ariek—”
“The commoners worship Balek as though he were Lotark returned. The Lords have pledged him their allegiance. Even Solk’s successor has bowed to him. The city is crazed with joy.”
Derrin stared at his friend, dread twisting his gut with an icy hand. Ariek grinned and raised his goblet. “The crisis is over, Derrin. Perhaps it would be best to acknowledge Balek’s success.”
Derrin wrenched the goblet from Ariek’s grip and slammed it onto the table. Red liquid sloshed over the rim and sunk into the wood, darkening it.
“Can you not see the truth?” he said, his voice deadly calm.
“I see what everyone sees.”
“Come.” Derrin grabbed Ariek by the arm and hauled him up the stair to the garden. The odor of rot hammered his nostrils when he pushed the door open.
He shoved Ariek into the barren plot. “What do you see?”
Ariek turned to him with a bemused expression. “My mother’s sea roses.”
“I didn’t ask what you want to see. Look again.”
“I don’t understand.”
Derrin’s hand clenched into a fist. “See what is real, Ariek. Understand what you have lost.”
Ariek blinked, studying the scene. Derrin watched him. Was his friend blind, mad like all the rest?
Ariek’s gaze roved over the contours of the garden he’d known since boyhood. Derrin noted the exact moment the illusion vanished. Grief, then anger flooded his expression.
“So many will die,” Ariek said, his voice distant.
“There will always be more.”
“Tarol’s blood! Why did I not see it?”
Derrin couldn’t reply. His own anger swelled, reaching unbearable proportions. A realization, one he’d avoided facing, smashed into his gut like a fist.
“I will kill him, Ariek. There is no other way.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The young tree stood at the edge of the clearing. Its trunk was deformed—it bent at head height and ran parallel to the ground for an arm’s length before straightening. Gina had noticed it two days ago, but hadn’t until now realized its significance.
She ran across the meadow and searched the ground at the base of the tree until she found what she sought—a pile of rocks with a flat stone set to one side. A crude representation of a bird had been cut into the slab, pointing the way to the Skyeagle Clan.
The path sliced through a section of barren land littered with bones. They lay strewn across the hardpan, bleached white by the sun. In the sky above, graceful ornas rode the spiraling updrafts, their black wings spread wide. One of the creatures dipped low to the ground, searching. It landed and advanced on its goal with a waddling gait, the purple feathers of its head catching the rays of the morning sun.
Gina wondered what had died in the night.
She followed the trail across the field and began a steep ascent, the rising sun at her back. The Day Traveler hung high in the sky when she came upon the village.
The laughter of children rang from a rough collection of stone huts. She caught sight of a small group of them throwing sticks at a target set to one side of the communal firepit. Several women worked hides amid cheerful chatter. The steady ping of stone on stone rang from the center of a group of men. The community was larger than the other Baha’Na villages Gina had visited, for here the Skyeagle Clan dwelt with the Seventh.
The Seventh Clan. Her family. Gina caught her breath at the sudden, visceral realization. For most of her life, her father had been her only relation. Now, she wondered if one broad-shouldered man could be her cousin, or if an older woman with a lilting laugh had known her mother. Drawing a deep breath, she walked into their midst.
All work and play came to a halt. The villagers rose and formed a circle around her, joined by several more who emerged from their huts. Gina felt a presence in her mind, fleeting and soft, touched with love. She snapped her head around.
A gray-haired woman stood before her. A talisman shone at her forehead. Gina’s hand shook as she slipped her mother’s stone from the braided cord at her neck. She held it out, drawing reverent murmurs from the villagers.
A name echoed in Gina’s head. “Dahra,” she whispered.
“Welcome, Gina.” The Na’lara embraced her.
Several more villagers emerged from the forest and gathered at the fringes of the crowd. One woman slipped through the others and took Gina’s hand. “The Goddess shines on your coming, volah.”
A snatch of a memory danced behind Gina’s eyes. The face she remembered was younger, but the almond-shaped eyes and quiet smile were identical.
“You…you look like my mother,” she whispered.
The woman nodded. “I am Lana, her sister. Your mother was the elder by three winters, but it was often said we were like babes who had shared the womb.” She took the talisman of the Seventh Clan from Gina’s fingers and cradled it in her hands. “Now you are home.”
As if she’d given a signal, the villagers pressed forward and embraced Gina. She returned their joyful greetings, awkwardly at first, then with tears of happiness. After the last child hugged Gina’s legs, she followed Lana into one of the dwellings. She replaced her torn T-shirt and shorts with a doeskin dress while her newfound aunt set about preparing a meal.
The Baha’Na woman looked up and smiled when a younger woman entered the hut. The newcomer gave Gina the smile of a girl, but the fabric of her dress strained to accommodate a belly swollen with child. A grunt escaped her lips as she lowered herself to the ground.
Lana was beside her in a heartbeat. “Are you well, my daughter?”
“The babe is restless,” the girl said. As if in answer to her words, her stomach bulged out on one side.
Gina stared, fascinated and horrified at the same time. “Does that hurt?”
The girl cradled her belly between her palms. “There is no pain, but much tightening since midnight.”
Lana’s eyes gleamed. “Does the rhythm quicken with each pass?” At the girl’s nod, she smiled. “Pasha’s babe has begun the journey. Gina, we will welcome our new kin together, before the next dawn.”
Gina’s mouth dropped open. “You want me to attend the birth?”
Lana inclined her head. “You and I are the nearest kin to the babe. It is our task. Pasha’s partner, Sleeping Kana, will assist us.”
The memory of a terrifying junior-high health class video ran through Gina’s mind. She choked. “But…I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know the first thing to do.”
“You will soon learn.” Lana helped her daughter to her feet. Her tone turned brisk. “Walk in the forest, Pasha, but do not stray far. Gina will stay with you.”
She turned to Gina. “I will fetch Sleeping Kana and prepare the birthing hut. When the pain becomes too strong fo
r walking, bring Pasha to us.”
She left the hut. Gina watched the door flap drop, too dazed to reply.
* * * * *
Pasha moaned. Her soft sigh evoked images of lovemaking and dark passion. It was not at all a sound Gina associated with childbirth.
The contraction eased. The expectant mother lifted her head. She’d gone down on all fours and rounded her back during the worst of the pain. Now she sat on her heels and cradled her stomach, rocking back and forth. Her eyes glazed, watching some inner vision, then cleared. She gave Gina a tremulous smile.
“The babe is eager, I think.” She held out one hand.
Gina took it. She gave her young cousin what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and wondered how much longer it would be before the baby put in an appearance. She’d spent most of the morning walking with Pasha in the forest, her heart pounding every time the pregnant girl groped at the branches for support. Well past midday, the pain increased, leaving Pasha gasping with each contraction.
The birthing hut, a small shelter covered with woven grasses, boasted a single door facing the sunrise. In the center, a pit held rocks that had lain in a fire just outside the door. Upon entering the heated air, Pasha had shed her clothes. Her swollen breasts hung low, brown-tipped pendants brushing an impossibly huge belly.
Sleeping Kana threw a dipper of water over the rocks. A burning cloud of steam seared Gina’s face.
“It is too hot.” Pasha twisted away from the pit. Her partner lifted a stone with a forked stick and ducked out of the hut.
Another contraction began. Gina eyed the covered doorway, wishing Lana would appear. Pasha’s shoulders tensed. She bent her head to the ground and emitted a guttural sound that made Gina’s heart skitter. Gina rubbed Pasha’s lower back, trying to ease her pain.
Sleeping Kana reappeared. He knelt close to his partner and bent his head to hers, whispering something Gina didn’t hear and smoothing the wet strands of Pasha’s hair. His own long hair was plastered against his upper torso.
