the Year the Horses came

by Mary Mackey

  "Who speaks?" Rhom cried, but there was no answer, only another echo. Shema and Zastra turned in circles just as Marrah had, looking for the source of the invisible voice. Stavan put his hand on the hilt of his dagger and took up a position in the middle of the path. Only Arang did anything practical.

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he yelled, as if it were all a game. There was a peal of laughter, bright and quick like a strand of copper bells clinking together.

  "Hail, Arang of Xori, Sabalah's son," a chorus of voices replied. "Hail, little boy who has walked so far."

  Arang's mouth fell open.

  "Mountain spirits," Zastra whispered, biting her lips and peering anxiously at the juniper thickets that lined the trail.

  "Nonsense," Shema snapped. "Someone's playing a trick on us. She strode past Stavan, planted herself in the middle of the path, and cupped her hands to her mouth. "Come out where we can see you," she commanded in a thunderous voice. "What do you think you: doing, hiding like that? If you're honest people, come out and show your faces, and if you're spirits, go away and leave us in peace."

  "Hail, traders from the south and giant from No-One-Knows Where," the chorus of voices replied. There was another peal laughter, and three women stepped out from behind a large bush. One was old, with gray hair that hung down past her waist; one was a dark-eyed woman about Sabalah's age; the third was little more than a child, with newly formed breasts and legs like a young calf. All three were wearing deerskin shifts that had been dyed black, and each had a small crescent moon dangling from a thong around her neck.

  "Welcome to the Sacred Caves of Nar," the youngest said, and the three of them broke into fits of helpless giggles.

  "They look so surprised," the oldest woman gasped, leaning on the youngest for support.

  "Just like a flock of geese that doesn't know whether to fly or stay," the middle one agreed.

  "Dear Goddess, they take their lives so seriously!"

  "What's going on here?" Stavan demanded. "Who are these women?"

  Before Marrah could translate his question, the dark-eyed stranger interrupted. "Tell the giant that we're the priestesses of the Caves of Nar," she gasped. "Tell him we mean no offense, but that it's our duty to laugh at pilgrims to remind them that the Goddess Earth has commanded us to enjoy ourselves because our joy is pleasing to Her."

  Marrah was dumbfounded. "You speak Shambah?"

  The oldest shook her head. "No," she said, "but we know what he asked you. All pilgrims ask the same question when they first meet us: Who are these three foolish women, and why do they stand in the trail laughing like children?" She motioned to the younger women, who were still laughing. "Enough," she said. The dark-eyed woman stopped laughing at once, but the youngest had a harder time. Every time she looked at Stavan she had another giggling fit. Marrah had to admit that there really was something funny about the way Stavan was glaring at them. She had never seen less dangerous-looking people in her life. Before the misunderstanding could go any further, she translated.

  Stavan took his hand off the hilt of his dagger. "Laughing priestesses," he said, shaking his head. Marrah could tell he felt foolish, but he took it in stride. "What language are they speaking?"

  "The Old Language," Marrah explained. "Only priestesses speak it. And traders," she amended, glancing at Rhom and his sisters. "We'll probably hear nothing else until we get to Shara — at least nothing we'll understand."

  Stavan sighed. "Another language — and just when I was starting to understand some of the noises you Shore People make. Well, I suppose there's no help for it."

  "Does the giant understand?" the oldest woman interrupted. Marrah assured her that he did. "Good, then it's time for us to introduce ourselves. I'm Zahar." She pointed to the dark-eyed woman. "This is Emzate, and" — she indicated the girl who had finally managed to conquer her giggles — "this basket of mischief goes by the name of Ume."

  "In other words," Rhom interposed, "your names mean Childhood, Maturity, and Old Age."

  "Precisely." Zahar nodded. "The Holy Trinity, the three aspects of She-Who-Is-Everything: Maiden, Matron, Crone."

  "I don't call those names," Shema grumbled. "I can't see we're any better off than we were before they introduced themselves."

  "Oh, hush," Zastra hissed. "They're the priestesses of Nar, and they can call themselves anything they want."

  "How did you know our names?" Arang asked in perfect Old Language.

  Ume looked surprised. "He speaks the Holy Tongue?"

  "Of course." Zahar smiled. "What else would you expect from Sabalah's son?" She turned to Arang. "I'd like to tell you that we saw you coming in a vision, but the truth is the Forest People have been keeping track of you ever since you left Xemta. The village mother told them that six people were making the forest crossing: three traders from the south, a white-haired giant, and a young woman and a boy who had introduced themselves as the children of Sabalah. I remembered Sabalah well; she came here many years ago when I was the Matron of Nar, Emzate was the Maiden, and the former Crone was in her sixties. Your sister over there was a babe in arms, a fat, laughing bundle. I held her on my lap and sang her to sleep, and now I see she's grown into a fine woman. A few days ago, the Forest People sent a runner to tell us that the six of you had taken the west fork of the Ibai Nabar and were heading our way. It didn't take any magic to figure out you'd probably arrive sometime this afternoon, so we sat down beside the trail to welcome you in our customary way."

  She turned to Marrah. "But I think we've kept you waiting quite long enough. You must be tired and thirsty after that last climb, and eager to see the caves, and we're not doing our duty by you. Those who wear Her sign must never want for anything we have to offer, little as that may be. So if you'll follow us, we'll lead you to a place where you can eat and rest awhile, and then if you feel up to it we'll take you down into the caves and show you the oldest mystery the earth has to offer."

  Having delivered this intriguing invitation, Zahar turned and without another word led them all up the trail, with Emzate and Ume bringing up the rear.

  When the Shore People told guests they were welcome to what little the village had to offer, they were merely being modest and polite. It was customary to protest that the food was inferior as you heaped slices of succulent venison onto huge pieces of fresh bread, brought out vats of stewed fruit and cream, filled the guests' cups with fermented honey, and made sure they sampled every delicacy. But when the priestesses of Nar said they had little, they were speaking the truth. It soon became apparent that the three lived like hermits, eating only acorn mush and sleeping outside as often as the weather permitted. When it snowed or rained, they retreated into a small cave and kept one another warm. Unless they were performing a religious ceremony, they were forbidden to use fire after the sun set except when one of them was sick or the ice on the creek was more than a finger thick.

  Yet Marrah had rarely seen happier people. The three were like a trio of six-year-olds, constantly talking and laughing and teasing each other, incapable of walking along a path they had walked along hundreds of times before without stopping to point out a butterfly or a pretty rock or a breathtaking view. Of course it was the duty of the priestesses of Nar to remind pilgrims that joy was holy, but as Marrah sat at the entrance to their cave eating cold acorn mush, she got the impression that they would have been happy even if it hadn't been their duty.

  "It's like they're drunk," Stavan observed.

  Marrah asked Ume if she and the others drank any sacred potions or ate any special herbs. Ume shook her head and laughed. "Nothing but acorns and water," she said. "But wait until you see the caves." And that was all they could get out of her. The priestesses of Nar weren't allowed to describe the caves or even talk about them except in the most general terms when they were above ground.

  After they all finished eating, the priestesses rose to their feet, picked up several torches made from pine pitch, and without any ceremony led the trave
lers to the entrance of the caves. It was not an impressive opening, only a hole partly covered by bushes, unmarked and easy enough to overlook if you didn't know it was there, but a cool wind blew out of it.

  Zahar turned and faced them. "I hope no one is afraid of the dark" she said. And then she proceeded to explain that they would have to crawl for a long time through a narrow tunnel before they got to the first cave. "It's forbidden to light a fire in the tunnel," she warned, "and even if we could, there's not enough room for us and torches too. It's also forbidden to speak, but don't worry; there's no way you can get lost."

  Marrah didn't find that very reassuring, and from the expression Arang s face, she suspected he was also having second thoughts. Shema and Stavan, on the other hand, looked as if they welcomed the idea of a long crawl through the dark. Rhom and Zastra's faces were hard to read. Both of them were looking at the entrance to the caves, but what they were thinking was anyone's guess. In any event, no one backed out. One by one, they fell to their knees and followed Zahar into the hole.

  It was a tight fit. The floor of the tunnel was smooth but slimy. For a few seconds as Marrah crawled in a dim twilight, she could see the walls and ceiling were limestone. Then Zastra crawled in behind her and the light went out. She crawled farther, trying not to think about the mountain of rock that lay above her. It was so quiet she could hear her heart beat. The only noise came when someone dislodged a pebble. Gradually, she became aware of Arang's breathing as well as her own. Reaching ahead, she found his leg and gave it a friendly pat. Arang stopped and then started crawling again. She wondered if he wanted to turn back. If he did, it was too late. The tunnel had a slight downward slant; it was too narrow to turn around in and growing narrower all the time. As she inched forward, found herself wondering if anyone had ever gotten stuck.

  That was not a good thought to entertain, and she put it out of her mind as quickly as she could. The tunnel was drier now, but the roof was so low she had to lie on her stomach and move forward by pushing against the walls. The darkness was beginning to get to her. It wasn't like closing your eyes; it was deeper than that. It had a kind of solidity, as if it were almost alive. When she looked at it (which was a strange thought, because how could you look at darkness?), she saw things swimming in it. She crawled on, determined not to pay any attention to them, but they kept multiplying. I'll just close my eyes, she thought, but when she did, it didn't make the slightest bit of difference. The darkness behind her eyelids and the darkness of the tunnel were all the same.

  Time passed. She slid forward on her belly wishing she could have just one breath of fresh air. She was losing all sense of how far she had come, and she was getting scared. I want out of here, she thought. She gritted her teeth and kept on going. More time passed. The swimming things were blue now, the sort of blue you sometimes saw at sunset. After a while she forgot why she was crawling. She just did it. It was clear that darkness was never going to end, so she gave herself over to it and let the blue things lead her.

  Suddenly she realized her back was no longer scraping the rocks. Raising her hand, she tried to touch the roof of the tunnel. Nothing. Cautiously, she rose to her feet, took a few steps forward, and stumbled out into a vast black emptiness that smelled of damp earth and mold. A cold breeze was blowing out of the darkness, and somewhere close at hand water was running noisily.

  "Hello," she called. "Is anyone here?"

  "...here? here? here?" the echo mocked.

  "Come over this way," a voice suggested. It was Zahar. Moving toward the sound, she bumped into Arang, who clutched at her hand.

  "I'm scared," he whispered.

  She wanted to whisper back that she was scared too but that wasn't something an older sister could admit. "Hang on," she urged. She put her arm around his shoulder and drew him closer. "The priestesses will light a torch soon." Behind her, she could hear the others coming out of the tunnel. Ume giggled as she bumped into someone.

  Feeling their way to the front of the line, the priestesses of Nar conferred in low voices. There was a scraping sound as one of them struck a flint. Suddenly a spark jumped out of the darkness and Emzate's torch flared, filling the cave with a dull orange light.

  Marrah blinked and then gasped. The cave was much larger than she'd realized. Large gray boulders littered the floor, casting strange shadows. Above her a frozen waterfall of white stalactites and glittering crystals was pouring down from the ceiling.

  Emzate passed the fire to Ume, and Ume passed it on to Zahar. The light multiplied in flickering orange tongues. When all the torches were lit, the priestesses held them high over their heads and turned to face the pilgrims.

  Zahar smiled at them as if she were about to make a speech, but instead she did the sort of simple thing the priestesses of Nar were famous for. "Turn around," she suggested.

  They turned, and what they saw made them cry out in wonder and astonishment. Directly above the entrance to the tunnel, seven great stags were swimming through an invisible river, their massive antlers tilted back slightly, their hooves beating the water.

  "The stags were painted very long ago," Emzate said softly. "So long ago no one remembers when. The memory songs say our ancestors created them before the Great Spring, when the world was still covered with ice, but perhaps they're even older than that." The priestesses lowered their torches, and the stags disappeared into the shadows. "Come. There are more — three caves in all — and the spirits of the animals dance in all of them."

  They followed the priestesses along a wide, well-worn path, past an underground river filled with pale fish that had never seen the light of the sun and white salamanders that scuttled out of their way as they approached. Sometimes a bat twittered or water fell over a precipice and disappeared into the darkness, but otherwise there was no noise, not the song of a bird or the rustling of leaves or even the hum of an insect. The silence was so vast they spoke in low voices, reluctant to disturb it.

  The second cave was smaller than the first but even more beautiful: immense bulls, herds of leaping deer, and black stags with spreading antlers galloped around the walls and across the ceiling. There were other animals Marrah didn't recognize, beasts from dreams perhaps: a great cat; a woolly cowlike thing with a massive head; a fat animal with powerful legs, a long canoe-shaped muzzle, and a skinny piglike tail. The animals were painted with quick strokes so that they seemed to move, and as she stood there, enraptured by their beauty, she could easily imagine them charging through the high grass of some long-forgotten meadow.

  Once again Zahar, Emzate, and Ume lifted their torches above their heads so the light shone into every cranny. Now Marrah saw that there were other things on the walls: prints of human hands, dots, lines, rectangles, and, scattered among them, half a dozen triangles drawn in red ocher.

  "So they worshiped the Goddess also," Rhom whispered.

  "Yes." Emzate nodded. "They too knew Her love. Here in Her womb they painted the eternal herds. Perhaps they brought their young people here when they came of age to teach them the sacred art of hunting, and perhaps their priestesses came here just as we do, to sit among the spirits of the beasts. But come along; there's one more cave to see."

  "The third cave is the best of all," Ume promised, and, lowering her torch, she led the way.

  As soon as Marrah stepped into the final cave, she knew Ume had spoken the truth. One entire wall was a mass of white marble stalactites that dripped toward the floor like giant icicles. The other three walls and the ceiling were so covered with the bodies of animals that they overlapped in one great, dizzy swirl that took her breath away. Here and there, sticklike human figures appeared to be hunting with bows or spears while others danced or lay in trance. Marrah was taking a closer look at a strange animal that looked like a bear with a human face when she heard Stavan inhale sharply.

  "Look," he whispered, pointing to the ceiling. She looked up and saw a herd of the beasts called horses. "Perhaps they used to live in these mountains a long time ag
o," Stavan said softly, and she heard the homesickness in his voice. "Perhaps your ancestors also rode them."

  Marrah shook her head. "I don't think so." She was sorry that the sight of the horses made him miss his own people, but as far as she was concerned she would have been just as happy if there'd been some other animals painted on the ceiling. She stared up at the beasts, wanting to dislike them, but she couldn't. They were too beautiful. Ten, twenty, thirty of them galloped across the vault of the cavern, heads raised proudly, manes and tails flowing, embodiments of a wild grace that had vanished so long ago that not even their name had been remembered.

  The priestesses let them look as long as they wanted. Then they led the travelers to a natural bench of limestone and told them to sit down with their backs to the wall of stalactites. "Close your eyes," she commanded, "take one another's hands, and don't look until you hear the music."

  Marrah wondered what music she could possibly be referring to. Perhaps they had brought flutes with them. Certainly not drums or harps, not through that tunnel. Well, no doubt she'd soon find out. Obediently she reached out and clasped Arang's hand. Stavan had sat down to the left of her, so she took his hand too. As she touched him, he flinched slightly, grasped her hand with trembling fingers, held on. The sight of the horses must have upset him more than she realized. She was just wondering if she ought to say something when suddenly the cave was filled with a sweet, bell-like sound. As she listened, the sound broke into separate tones, and then sounds came until the whole cave was vibrating.

  Opening her eyes, she looked over her shoulder and saw Ume gently striking the stalactites with a wooden mallet. As she played, Zahar and Emzate began to walk slowly back and forth, holding their torches aloft, and as they moved the shadows moved with them and the animals seemed to spring to life. The overlapping bodies of the bulls merged into a single bull charging forward in time to the music, and as he danced, the horses and stags danced with him.