J’han was asleep with the others, but Lomito was waiting outside near her pile of gear to bid her farewell. J’han would remain with Karis while Lomito traveled west and Zanja east, to teach the Juras how to prevent the illness and how to care for those who were already sick, but above all to persuade them to avoid the gathering.
Lomito said, “Be at peace, Tar-wein-zan-ja. There never was a sham-re of the Ka clan that could be easily killed.”
“Thank you,” she said distantly. She felt like she was falling; Lomito was far away, and Karis was even farther. “Safe journey,” she said to him. She picked up her gear, and walked away.
From one crowded Juras camp to the next, as the rain gradually let up and the earth began to warm, Zanja traveled, told her story, saw the people institute J’han’s plan for killing fleas and preventing infection, and traveled on. It took fifteen days for the clouds to break apart and drift away. That day found Zanja alone as the vivid green plain unrolled before her feet like a bolt of green silk. Blue sky met green horizon, featureless and flat in all directions, and only Zanja’s own shadow could tell her which way she was going. She had spent much of her life alone, but never had she been without a tree or hill to inform her of her place on the world. Now, as she walked, her interior spaces remained empty as the plain and the sky: disconnected, all her ties illusory, all her hopes a vacancy. She became convinced that Karis was indeed dead, and wept as she walked, dazed by sorrow, dazzled by light, through a thick steam that began to rise as the sun warmed the wet sand.
The air even smelled of death: a faint, sweet stink that gradually became overpowering. She wiped her eyes and looked around herself, for she had gotten completely disoriented and might have been walking in aimless circles for all she knew. Ahead of her, a sturdy caravan rose out of the mist, still and derelict as a wrecked ship lying askew of the shore. A broken axle, Zanja thought, but her nose told her that something worse than a mere mischance had befallen this house on wheels.
When she drew close, she saw the remains of the dray horses, dead in their traces, half eaten by scavengers before the winter cold froze the remains. Now, fat flies blew up in a cloud as Zanja approached, and vultures fled in great, ungainly hops through the calf-deep grass. The message of the dreadful scene was not too hard to read: the horses, trapped by the broken wheel, had died of starvation with grass just out of reach. But what of their driver?
The caravan door was tilted skyward, and the wood had swollen from the long rain. She levered the door open with her knife blade, and then fell back, gagging from the stink. She caught only a glimpse of what lay within: a man’s dead body, rotting in a tangle of ruined trade goods. Holding her nose, she kicked the door shut, and fled beyond range of the smell to collect herself. No wonder her very thoughts had been infused with the stink of death.
In the warmth of the afternoon, the steam began to burn away, and Zanja noticed that underfoot, beneath the shelter of the grass leaves, a second plant was thriving and had almost completely matted over the sand’s surface with its small, lobed leaves. Looking closer, she saw the tiny green buds swelling. In a few more days, the sand would be decorated with flowers. She spotted a small eruption in the sand, and there emerged a fat black bee the size of her thumb tip. He basked in the sunshine after his mead-sipping winter underground, buzzing his wings occasionally, no doubt planning what he would do when the flowers came into bloom.
So Karis now sat, somewhere on this same empty plain, with the sunshine in her face, thinking how to restore her life after the ravages of illness and the hardships of that winter. Zanja sat back on her heels, beside the sleepy bee, and let her fear and sorrow go. She had chased Little Biting Dust across the plain, from one Juras camp to the next, and in each camp she had found fewer sick and greater surprise at her urgent message. Now, she had reached the end: A dead man, a peddler, with illness carried in his trade goods, and perhaps in stowaway rats as well. Here the plague’s journey had finally ended.
She slept for a while beside her buzzing companion until she was awakened by goats bleating in the distance. She followed the sound to the flock, which meandered its lazy way across the grassland, driven, or perhaps merely followed, by a loose cluster of heavily laden Juras. The giants lightly carried their children, their early kids, their furniture, and their very houses upon their backs. When they spotted Zanja’s approach, they stopped dead in their tracks, staring. One of them said, “Look: it is a very small person made of shadow.” Some rather ostentatiously loosed their clubs, which they generally used only to defend the goats from predators, but they relaxed quickly enough when Zanja gave proper greetings to the headwoman. She explained that they should give wide berth to the wrecked caravan in the distance, and eventually, when she had explained enough, they gave her some provisions, and loaned her a small ax, which she promised to return when she found them again at the gathering of the Juras.
With this ax she chopped apart the rolling mausoleum and used its wood for fuel with which to build a pyre. By noon the next day only black skeletons of wood and bone remained.
Zanja’s boots had fallen apart at the seams, and she arrived at the gathering of the Juras barefoot. She had let her long hair out of its braids to dry, and had never bothered to plait it up again. As she made her way among the gathered flocks of goats, where many a goat lay in labor or nursed her newborn kids, the old does kept a close and hostile eye on her. At the center of this tremendous goat gathering lay the camp, where several hundred goatskin tents stood like tan sails on a green sea. Here, the Juras people sat in the sun, and talked, and sang, and roasted fresh meat on open fires. For once, it was not goat, but buffalo, and it smelled delicious. Like the goats, the people turned in astonishment to watch Zanja pass.
When she returned her borrowed ax, the children of that household followed her through the camp, asking question after question and begging to be allowed to touch her hair. They trailed behind her like a pack of enthusiastic but clumsy puppies, until at the very heart of the camp they suddenly disappeared. She lifted her gaze at the sound of a familiar, hoarse croak. A lone raven had landed on the tip of a tent pole. “Raven, is Karis here?” she cried.
“Follow me,” said the raven.
He led her to a tight circle of tents, where she found a big Juras woman sitting among her cousins, with her hair cropped short and tied in tiny bunches all over her skull. Karis’s face had gotten more alien as well: pale and hollow, gaunt with illness. She listened attentively to an elderly woman as though she could understand her, while at her shoulder Lomito struggled out a framework of Shaftali words, with all the heart stripped out of them.
Zanja knelt behind Karis and asked quietly, “Is this your mother’s relative?”
“Her aunt,” Karis said, without turning her head.
Zanja took over the translating, which seemed a relief to Lomito. The old woman said, “Do you know, there are some goats that cannot be watched. The moment the herders turn their back, this goat sets forth from the flock. The wise goats call to her to come back, and warn her that there are places without water, and places where hungry lions roam. But they cannot convince her, and so we find her later, dead or injured. And if she lives to be returned safely to the flock again, she sets forth again, sooner or later.”
Karis was nodding. “Yes, yes,” she said in the Juras language, which was probably the only word she had learned.
“My sister’s daughter was like that goat: restless, heedless, deaf to advice. After she came into her womanhood, she only grew worse: she often disappeared for days at a time, and nothing could keep her at home, or make her contented with her mother’s fine flock. At last, she disappeared entirely, and never was seen again.”
“Was it in the spring?” Karis asked. Karis knew all about the springtime restlessness that sets the feet to roaming.
“It was in the spring, during the gathering. I remember that Man-in-Rolling-House came, and we traded winter wool for fat and sweets to make a feast. Perhaps Kasanra w
ent with him, hidden in his house. My sister Karisho had no other daughters, only sons, and so the goats went to my other sister’s eldest daughter, Kamole. Kamole was born before Kasanra disappeared.”
“Do I look like Kasanra?” Karis asked.
The woman studied Karis’s face. “I think you look as your mother would have, had she not killed herself with foolishness. You look somewhat like Kamole, who now has three children, and her eldest bore a child this winter. Here is Kamole now.”
Karis murmured, astounded, “My cousin is a grandmother?”
Everyone in the circle was rising to their feet. Zanja stood up as well, but Karis only looked up politely as a big, angry woman came into the circle. Zanja, her hand on Karis’s shoulder, said, “This woman is your enemy, I’m afraid.”
“She does look grim. You should tell her they carried me here in a litter, and I am too weak to stand.”
“What are you doing here, then?” Zanja asked, appalled.
“Oh—trying not to waste any more of my life. Look at me: no goats, no grandchildren . . .” She was smiling, but her hand closed over Zanja’s as Kamole towered over her. The supposedly peaceful Juras told tales of wrestling matches between rivals, and it was rivalry over goats as often as it was over lovers. Kamole certainly seemed to be in the right mood and Zanja hoped she wouldn’t have to draw her dagger in Karis’s defense.
Zanja said in the Juras tongue, “Karis apologizes that she is still too ill to stand.”
Kamole gave Zanja a startled look, as though she were a goat that had abruptly spoken. “What are you?” she demanded.
“I am a crosser of borders, a speaker of languages, a reader of signs. I am Zanja na’Tarwein.”
“Huh,” said the woman. “The gathered Juras talk only of the sham-re daughter of lost Kasanra. You must be the one of her shu-shan who tells stories.”
Zanja said to Karis, “Well, she is unimpressed with us, and implies that anyone who admires us is frivolous.”
“What’s to admire?” said Karis. “I am too weak to stand, and you don’t even have shoes. But perhaps you’d better reassure her that I don’t want her goats.”
“And insult her by implying that her goats are not desirable?” Zanja spoke to Kamole. “Karis says that everyone has spoken highly of the daughter of her mother’s sister, whose goatherd is the finest in the southern plain. She is glad to finally meet you.” She instructed Karis, “Look glad. Clasp her hand.”
Karis did, and everyone but Kamole relaxed and sat down.
Kamole said, “Why have you come here? We prefer that the people of the forest lands leave us alone.”
Karis said, “This illness we have chased here would have killed so many Juras that perhaps the tribe might not have recovered.”
Kamole replied obstinately, “Every other stranger brings grief to the Juras. We have not forgotten how the forest people brought their sheep onto the plains and let them graze before the grass as properly rooted, and so laid waste the land that our goats began to starve and the grassland turned to desert.”
Karis grumbled, “That was forty years ago. Neither one of us was even born then.”
“I won’t translate that,” said Zanja.
“Well, remind her that Harald G’deon intervened, and forbade Shaftali people to graze upon the plain, and replanted the grass, and sent wagon loads of hay to feed the goats. And remind me to thank Emil and Medric for forcing me to learn so much history.”
After Zanja had reported this history, Kamole replied, “That may be what happened. But now this illness was brought to us by evil fleas, and none of the Juras brought those fleas to our land. I know this is true.”
Zanja said, “It’s true that Man-in-Rolling-House brought the fleas here, inadvertently, and now he is dead.”
“So!” said Kamole.
“And we have come to cure it,” Karis said. “The healer will remain with the Juras as long as you need him—will you refuse him hospitality?”
No, Kamole did not plan to turn away a resource so valuable as J’han, despite her objections to strangers. And it would have made no difference if she had, for the fourteen Juras clans were fiercely independent, and would give J’han shelter no matter what Kamole said. Zanja wondered if Karis would ask hospitality for herself, but she did not, and if she were hoping it might be offered voluntarily, she was disappointed.
As the sun began to set, Karis, leaning on Zanja, walked slowly out of the great camp, among the goats upon the open plain. There they drove a staff into the sand for the raven to perch on, and spread their blankets in the grass. Karis lay for a while with her face in the sand. But then she turned onto her back and looked up at the sky. That broad expanse, unbounded by tree or mountain, had unnerved Zanja, for in the high mountains, with all the world below her, she had never felt so exposed. But now the sky was a glory. “We’ll watch the stars come out,” Karis said.
They watched, huddled together for warmth, Zanja with her head resting in the hollow crook of Karis’s bony shoulder. The goats closed in, and wheeled around them in a benign examination. The fearless kids, with the remains of umbilical cords still hanging from their bellies, came right up and stared them in the face. The sky’s colors slowly cooled, and stars pricked through the blue like distant lamps. Zanja told Karis of her travels. Karis said she could not remember being ill, and when her delirium had passed she wondered why her hair had been cut. Lomito had returned from his trek by then, and explained it was bad luck to have tangled hair.
Zanja said, “If they had cut my hair I would think they were making me an outcast.”
“Well, they just want to make me seem more like them. Untie the knots, will you? I don’t care if I offend them.”
Zanja worked by feel to undo the knots of yarn. “J’han remained in the sick camps, I assume. Why did he let you go to the gathering?”
“He sent me away to get some rest.”
“You were healing people?”
“I couldn’t help it,” Karis said, and added, “You’re laughing at me.”
Zanja put her fingers through Karis’s springy hair. Her own hair kept getting in the way. Karis lifted away the hair curtain and clasped it in a fist at the nape of Zanja’s neck. Zanja kissed her. Karis’s mouth opened under hers; she uttered a small sound. The goats that had lain down around them looked at them in some surprise.
There was an amazing sound, a swell of loud, sweet, deep voices. The Juras had begun singing to the stars, which filled the sky in a brilliant crowd of lights. Karis was crying hoarsely, undoing buttons ahead of Zanja’s mouth and tongue, and kept getting herself tangled in Zanja’s loose hair. The voices rose; the empty sky blazed with light; the sand vibrated with sound. Karis gasped, uttered a small shout. A newborn kid asked its dam a sleepy question. The Juras sang glory into the sky.
Later, Zanja put Karis’s clothing back on her so she wouldn’t get chilled. When she finished doing up shirt buttons, she discovered that Karis’s face was silvered with wet starlight. “What?” Zanja said gently. Karis put her arms around her, but was too weak to hold on for long. Resting on Karis’s breast, Zanja said, “I thought the cards told me you would die. I should know better than to ask them a personal question.”
Karis rubbed a sleeve across her face. The Juras were still singing, but softly. Perhaps it was a lullaby for their children and their goats. Karis said, in a rush of ragged words, “Just before I fell ill, Mabin apologized for her wrongs, and asked me to sit in the G’deon’s chair. Norina says she was sincere. But I did not accept.”
Zanja thought, I must not flinch. But she already had.
“I could not accept!” Karis’s voice was raw—not just fatigued, but fearful, agonized.
Zanja rested her forehead against Karis’s shoulder. After such sweet intimacy, to confront the fact of their increasing estrangement seemed unendurable. “Karis, if I’ve made you feel like you have to justify yourself to me . . .”
“Fighting the plague has been a joy to you,”
said Karis. “Now the fight is over, you’ll be aggrieved again.”
Zanja wanted to contradict her, and could not do so. She said painfully, “If I could choose not to be angry or disappointed, I would make that choice with all my heart.”
“And if I could choose to make you happy—”
“My happiness is not your responsibility.”
“Oh, but your unhappiness is.”
“Dear gods, is that what you think? That I blame you for my own failure to be contented?”
Karis’s big hand had lifted to clasp Zanja’s shoulder, but now it slipped down again and she said fretfully, “I can’t hold you.”
“You don’t have to,” Zanja said. She raised her head. “For five years I’ve shaped my life by waiting, though you never said that you would every say yes to Shaftal. So my impatience is my own fault.”
Karis’s had lifted again, and again it fell weakly to the sand. She said hoarsely, “The plague is over. But the land still cries out to me for healing. Do you—does everyone—think I am deaf to that? I know I must do something. But I cannot act. It’s not a choice. I have no choices. I have no choices.” Her voice was blurry with fatigue.
Because she could not say she understood, Zanja said, “You need to rest.” Then she lay beside Karis, silent.
The Juras sang—such an astonishing song!—and the stars whirled wildly in the sky. Karis had fallen asleep. The goats slept around them, a field of goats that spread as far as could be seen. Zanja blinked—she had been dozing, and in her sleep she heard Medric, warning her not to put too much importance on the plague. “Nothing changes,” he whispered in her ear. “Nothing changes.”
The cards had not been wrong. Zanja had asked if she and Karis would be separated forever—and the dreadful answer was that they would not separate at all. They were bound together on the side of the cliff, trapped there, each of them unable to choose to let the other one fall. And there they were destined to remain.
Earth Logic Page 8
