by Mary Mackey
Then one day, when almost everyone in the longhouse had gone out to help hunt for some missing goats, Arang brought Sabalah the new toy Stavan had carved for him, and as she held it in her hand, inspecting it from all angles, the clouds of fever cleared from her mind, and she saw that the disaster she had fled from fourteen years ago had not only followed her but overtaken her when she least expected it.
"What's this?" she demanded sharply, holding the piece of carved wood out to Arang. Arang looked at his mother's flushed face and her wild hair, and his voice wavered.
"Stavan calls it a horse." He pointed to the four-legged animal with hair on its neck. "You've seen one before, Mother, remember? Ama took it to Hoza to show to the Mother-of-All-Families, but she lost it on the way back, so Stavan made me another one."
"And what's this?" she jabbed her index finger at the two-legged figure seated on the back of the animal.
"Why, that's a person, of course."
"Arang." Sabalah lifted herself up into a sitting position, wincing as her foot touched the sheepskin. "Think very hard now and don't speak before you're sure. Are you telling me that Stavan's people actually ride these animals called horses?"
"Oh, yes." He was relieved that she wasn't angry with him. "Stavan says that to get a horse to carry you, you have to climb up on him and let him thrash around until he's tired. Usually the horse will try his best to throw you off, but after a while, he gets to understand that you're his master, and then he'll take you anywhere you want to go. Stavan says that when he came west from the Sea of Grass, he and his brother rode so swiftly that they often traveled five days' walk in a single day, and..."
She had stopped hearing him. She was counting something, counting it repeatedly as if she might be able to make the total come out differently: four legs on the horse, two legs on the man, six legs in all. The beastmen with six legs and two heads. Come from the east just as the Snake Goddess Batal had foretold.
"Stavan says — "
"I don't want to hear what Stavan says!" she cried, throwing the horse and rider to the floor. "Get out and leave me in peace!"
Struck dumb by fear, Arang ran from the sleeping compartment, and she fell back on her bed cursing the evil day that had brought Stavan to Xori.
Stavan returned to the longhouse in the late afternoon. When Sabalah heard the sound of his voice, she called him into her sleeping compartment and asked him to sit beside her. Although her face was pale and her chin set grimly, no one would have guessed by looking at her that she had spent the day alternately raging and crying. Being a priestess, she knew you couldn't bargain with Batal or any other goddess, and when the occasion demanded, she had as much self-control as any Hansi warrior. She had rebelled against the fulfillment of the prophesy with every fiber of her being, but after that first passionate outburst, she had come to her senses and realized that she had to find out as much as she could about the disaster that was clearly at hand.
"Tell me about your people," she commanded, and Stavan, seeing that she was no longer to be lulled by children's tales, told her what he had told Marrah, explaining the words that had to be explained and not glossing over things that might upset her. His description of Hansi life took a long time. For the most part, she let him speak without interrupting, but occasionally she asked questions.
"How far away is the Sea of Grass from the River of Smoke? How many warriors ride on these beasts called horses, and how long would it take them to reach the lands of those who worship the Goddess Earth if they traveled west?"
He couldn't give her exact answers, but he did his best. The Sea of Grass was a huge place, he told her, stretching so far that it took many months to cross, even on horseback. It was a world in itself, walled in by deserts to the east and south and endless forests to the north. The only opening was to the west, and although there were several mountain ranges and many rivers, a man on a horse could easily make his way into the valley of the River of Smoke if it lay where she said it did. How long this would take would depend on where the man started. The tribes called no place home; they moved constantly, never: camping in one place more than a few weeks. In ancient times they had followed a sacred white stallion, setting it free to choose the path of their migration, but since his great-grandfather's time, there had been too many tribes looking for fresh pastures, and battles over grass and water rights were common.
As for how many warriors there were, that was even more difficult to say. When all the tribes of the Hansi got together, their campfire looked like the stars. And the Hansi were only one tribe. There were others: the Tcvali, the Zikulzu, the Abakaz, and so forth. How many warriors were there on the Sea of Grass? Only Han knew. Go down the beach, he suggested, and count the grains of sand. Go down to the ocean and count the water drop by drop.
When he had finished speaking, she sat silently for so long that he began to fear he had offended her, but she was not offended; she was frightened. This was worse than she had feared. If Stavan was telling the truth — and she had no reason to think he wasn't — the beastmen weren't coming to steal Marrah; they weren't even coming to conquer Shara. They were riding west to destroy every family that worshiped the Goddess Earth.
That evening Sabalah had Seme and Belaun carry her to the temple. There, alone in the sacred darkness, without a candle or a fire, she opened a small doeskin pouch and spilled a piece of dried fungus into the palm of her hand. Although she couldn't see what she was holding, she knew the fungus was black and shaped like a thorn. The Shore People called it the Bread of Darkness, and it was so potent that those who took it without the proper training sometimes went permanently insane.
"Dearest Batal," she prayed, "I'm so far from your dreaming cave and so far from Shara that perhaps you can't hear me, but if you can, I beg you to give me another vision. Show me what I can do to save my people from the beastmen, because I can see that our world is about to end and this is too much knowledge for me to bear all by myself." When she had finished praying, she turned and kissed the earth; then quickly, before she lost her courage, she put the Bread of Darkness in her mouth, swallowed it, and lay back, trembling with fear but determined to see whatever of the future could be seen.
For a long time nothing happened, but finally, when she was almost ready to give up, Batal heard her prayer. The vision she had asked for came without warning, and this time when it swept over her it was terrible beyond words: time stopped, space stopped, and her heart paused between beats. She knew she was dead and alive at the same time, she was there and not there, and in her agony she cried out for light, and light came, whirling out of the darkness. All colors and no colors, it burned her until she screamed, licking at her lips and eyelids, searing her flesh. When at last she was completely consumed and nothing was left of her but darkness and cinders, a voice spoke.
Who seeks to know My mysteries? the voice demanded.
"I do," she cried courageously. "I, Sabalah, daughter of Lalah."
Send to Shara the two things you love the most.
"What things, Batal? What do you mean? Do you mean my children? Am I to send Marrah and Arang back to Shara with a warning?"
Don't ask me. Ask your heart.
"Spare me this!" she cried. "Dear blessed Goddess, don't make me send my children away." But the voice was silent and spoke no more.
She waited for three days after her vision, trying to convince herself that she had misunderstood Batal's message, but on the third day when she looked at her foot and saw the black flesh beginning to form around the wound, she called Marrah to her. "Hold out your hand," she commanded, and when Marrah stretched out her palm, she placed Arang's toy on it — such a little thing, light as a stick, cunningly carved, pretty to look at, but such a grim omen that it might as well have been made from the bones of the dead. "Count the legs," she ordered. Marrah, who knew the prophecy, didn't have to count. One look at her mother's face told her more than she wanted to know. With a cry, she let the toy fall to the floor.
"The m
en of your dream," she whispered. "They're Stavan's people." She waited for Sabalah to deny it, waited for her to say no, of course not, but instead Sabalah nodded. Marrah tried to speak, but she couldn't. She sat down next to her mother, picked up the toy, and looked at it again, trying to understand how she could have been so blind. Stavan had told her his people rode horses, but she had never understood that a mounted man would look so much like a part of the beast. For a moment she felt numb, then terrified, then angry.
"I saved his life." She nearly choked on the words. "I hauled him back to the village when I could just as easily have let him die the on the beach. You and Ama nursed him back to health. We fed him, gave him a place by our fire, put up with his bad temper, and even took him to Hoza, and this" — she pointed to the toy — "this is our reward? We should have let him die; we should have let the birds have him."
Sabalah put her arm around Marrah's shoulder and drew her close. "Shh," she said, stroking Marrah's hair, "calm down. This isn't your fault. Stavan's not the problem. Of course you saved him. No daughter of mine would let a man die. Stavan isn't a bad man; oh, he had fits of temper when he first arrived, but he's changed. It was almost as if no one had ever taught him that people could get along with each other. He seemed to think he had to fight us for every crust of bread, and he was afraid of us. Ama said he acted like a child who'd never had a mother, and when I asked her if that meant we should cast him out of the village, she shook her head and said no, it only meant we had to give him more love; and you see, it worked. We've loved him as best we could, and now I think he loves us — or at least cares for us." She took the toy from Marrah. "No, Stavan isn't the problem, but his people are." She put the horse and rider down on the ground and looked at them for a moment. "Did he ever tell you how many Hansi warriors there are?"
Marrah shook her head.
"They're like grains of sand, he told me; like the stars. And if they choose to ride west, there's nothing to stop them. And they will ride west; the prophecy tells us they will." Her eyes narrowed. "I've lain here for three days trying to imagine what it will be like when they arrive. I've lain here lost in an old nightmare." She raised Marrah's hand to her lips and kissed it. "At first I was only afraid they were coming for you, but after I talked to Stavan I began to understand they were coming for all of us. It will take them a long time to get to Xori, perhaps so long that by the time they arrive you and I will be dust, but Shara and all the cities of the East are close to the Sea of Grass." She spit on the ground. "May the Goddess send a flood to drown the Hansi; may She send a great wind to blow them away and a fire to burn them and their horses to ashes!"
Marrah was impressed. She'd never seen her mother so angry. "What can we do? How can we warn them?"
"I've asked myself that; I've lain here asking myself the same question, and when I couldn't come up with an answer I went to the temple to beg the Snake Goddess Batal to tell me what to do. I ate the Bread of Darkness and gave my body to the shadow world, and a voice spoke to me telling me something I didn't want to hear. 'Send to Shara the two things you love most,' it said. I cried out against it; I begged to be spared, but the voice wouldn't speak again."
Marrah turned the words over in her mind, trying to make them mean something less terrible, but the message was clear. "I'm supposed to go to Shara; I'm to warn them, and Arang's to go with me. Is that right? Is that what Batal wants?"
"I think so, but I don't want to think so. Arang's so young. And you, my precious daughter, how can I send you so far away? I can't; I won't. At least not until I'm sure. Not until I hear something besides riddles. The Bread of Darkness can lie. It can make the seeker hear false voices. I won't ask you to go to Shara, because I know that if I do, you will. I won't force this decision on you. If the Goddess wants you to be Her messenger, let Her tell you plainly. You're ready; I've taught you everything I know." She picked up the horse and rider, put it in Marrah's hand, and closed her fingers around it. "You're a woman now, and the time has come for you to ask for your own visions."
Between the temple and the communal oven was a small round hut with no windows. The hut, which was only six feet long, looked like a tunnel. On the end closer to the temple, there was a door so small that anyone entering had to crawl; the other end was the back wall of the oven. When water was thrown against the hot stones of the oven wall, the hut filled with steam.
That night Marrah and Sabalah went to the steam hut to purify themselves. Breathing the steam, they rubbed their bodies with mint and scented oils, and as they sweated out the impurities of everyday life, they prayed. "Make us worthy," they chanted. "Make us ready to receive You."
The steam filled their lungs; it grew hotter and hotter in the hut, so hot that Marrah felt as if she might faint, but she went on chanting and praying. At last, Sabalah picked up a large bowl of cold water, poured some over her own head, and dumped the rest on Marrah. Crawling out of the hut, they dried themselves with deerskins and sat for a few minutes in silence. The temple was dark, lit only by a single lamp. Beyond the light, deep in the shadows, Marrah could feel her fear waiting for her, but she had been well taught. She breathed deeply to still her panic and concentrated on the flame.
"Are you ready?" Sabalah whispered. Marrah nodded, never letting go of the light. Sabalah reached into her medicine pouch, drew out a small piece of the Bread of Darkness, and broke it in half. "Take and eat this. Whatever you see will be sacred knowledge that can only be told to another priestess. This is the promise we make when we put Her Bread between our lips." She handed Marrah the Bread, and Marrah put it on her tongue. It tasted slightly sweet. She looked at the flame and swallowed.
Time passed. And then stopped passing. The lamp went out. There was darkness. Marrah stopped being Marrah.
When she woke again, she was flying high above the land of the Shore People. Sabalah was flying next to her, and they were both birds. Marrah saw that her mother had powerful black wings; her own wings were the wings of a seagull. With a cry of delight, she soared upward, riding the wind. Below her, she could see Hoza and, south of Hoza, the village of Gurasoak where Mother Asha lived. Beyond Gurasoak was a great forest and beyond the forest a sea so blue it looked like a morning glory. Deep-keeled boats with white linen sails skimmed across the waves, carrying copper and obsidian, pottery, olive oil, salt, wine, and rare herbs. Along the shores of the sea, there were great cities with temples and public squares, and she could see people going about their daily lives: making pottery, working gold, mining, weaving, worshiping in the temples, planting seeds in the earth, nursing the sick, making love, giving birth, and caring for their children.
She flew higher. Beyond the cities there were more cities and villages, stretching east and north as far as the eye could see, and there were rivers and forests and many peoples, all different yet all worshiping the Goddess Earth. Some raised Goddess Stones to Her; other carved Her image in marble or jadestone; still others took clay and formed it into Her likeness. To some, She appeared as a sacred snake whose coils were the endless energy of life itself; to others, She was the holy bird who brought life and death, or the dog who guarded young life, or the womb-shaped frog. In the north, She was often worshiped as a pregnant bear or doe, while to the south, She often appeared as a bull bearing the horns of the crescent moon, but no matter how She revealed Herself to Her people, Her commandments were the same, and in every city and village and forest, Her children sang of Her love for them and their love for Her.
As Marrah hovered over all this, a voice spoke to her. Go higher, it commanded, and so she went higher, and as she rose, the air grew cold, and she saw that beyond the lands of the Goddess there was another land all covered in grass, where men in leather tents prayed to a God of War and killed each other in His name. Their God was a God of Exile who lived in the sky, and the earth was a dead thing to them.
And as Marrah watched, the men mounted their horses and began to ride west, setting fire to the land, killing the animals, destroying the fie
lds and forests, laying waste to the cities, and people fled in terror before them, and a great moaning rose up in the East like a dark cloud, drawing nearer all the time.
Look, the voice commanded, the Time of Destruction is coming, and you, Marrah, are my messenger. Go to Shara and warn my children that the riders are on their way. Take your brother with you, and take the stranger also to prove you speak the truth.
"Yes," Marrah cried, "I'll go!" and as she spoke, her wings failed, and she began to fall and fall and fall until everything was darkness and falling.
She woke crying in Sabalah's arms.
"The Goddess gave you a vision?" Sabalah whispered.
Marrah nodded.
"You have to go to Shara? And Arang too?"
Marrah nodded again.
"This breaks my heart!" Sabalah cried, and folding Marrah in her arms, she wept with her.
Finally, Sabalah kissed Marrah and released her, and the two sat quietly for a time, each lost in her own sad thoughts. After a while, they began to talk about how Marrah would find her way to Shara.
"When you were a child," Sabalah said, "I came west with you on my back, and as I was crossing from the Blue Sea to the Sea of Gray Waves, I stopped at the Caves of Nar. The caves are the oldest temple on earth." She took Marrah's hands and held them; her fingers trembled slightly, but her voice was steady. "When I left, the priestesses told me that if I ever returned I should stop at Nar again and there would be three gifts waiting for me. Then they took you from me and held you on their laps. The oldest blessed you with a kiss and promised that if you came in my place, the gifts would be yours."
