by Diana Rivers
As I said those words, Lorren turned pale and took a step backward. I saw a look of horror cross his face. “Never wish for such a thing, Tazzil! Never! Never! Never wish for the ability to kill. You are lucky beyond compare to be free of the wheel of killing. If I had been like you, my father could never have forced me into the Zarn’s army to make a soldier of me. In my work as captain, I have killed men, women, and, yes, even little children when they got in the way of my army. And what of the men under my command? What terrible things have they done that I did not even see but am still responsible for?” Shaking his head, he looked as if he were about to cry. The anguish in his voice went through me like a knife. “I will see their faces and hear their cries for the rest of my life. There is nothing I can do to change that, to bring back those lives, to undo that pain. You cannot know how lucky you are to be off the wheel of killing. You are too young to understand what luck you have.”
“Luck!?” I shouted. Suddenly I was shaking with fury. “Is that what you call luck? To have every hand turned against us and a price called down on our heads? Is it luck to be hunted from one end of this land to the other? To be driven out of our homes? To be hated? To be burned alive? Is that what you call luck? What do you know of our lives? You have only been a fugitive these last few months. Before that, you had every privilege Eezore could bestow on you. We have been fugitives almost since birth, cursed by some disturbance of the stars, not of our making. We have been outcasts in our own villages, often in our own homes. Do you think any of us asked to be born under the Great Star? Do you think we asked for this so-called gift, this curse of luck? To you we are only some new toy, creatures to be observed with interest. But believe me, Lorren, we are just as real as you are, our lives are just as real as yours. What do you know of our luck?”
Lorren looked stricken. I felt his pain in my own heart, felt the impact of my words beating against him. He raised his hand, almost as if to protect himself. “But all that is over now, Tazzil. You can have a home, a safe space, and some promised peace, a place to flourish, to become whatever it is you are meant to be. You are young. Things will be better. Soon you will begin to forget all that.”
I sighed and shook my head. More gently I said, “I am not a child, Lorren. I can no more forget my horrors than you can forget yours. We each carry our memories and our burdens. I saw my lover murdered before my eyes by the village mob, with even my brother’s hand raised against her. I have lost mother, sister, brother, father, my whole village, my home, everything—all in one night. I have had young women die in my arms of burns inflicted by the Zarn’s men. I have even killed some with my own hands while they screamed and begged for the mercy of death; these hands that had been healer’s hands…It will be a long, long time, if ever, before I can forget what I have seen.”
He was nodding, staring out toward the ocean, silent for a long while. I could still feel his pain vibrating inside me. When he finally spoke again, the sound was so low I had to strain to hear him, but his voice shook with passion. “Tazzil, if you are ever to have peace in this place, you must bring peace to it. If you cannot do that, then for the sake of all that you love and care for, go far from this place to settle. If you cannot bring peace here, then you Hadra will do far more harm with only your feelings than the Koormir can do with all their clumsy weapons.”
I came to stand in front of him. “Lorren, now is the time. No more evasions. Tell me what has happened here. You must answer my questions before I can truly answer yours. If you want me to bring peace to this place, then you must tell me what sort of war has been fought here. I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones, at the core of my being. It is as if there is some ancient power here, something strange that wants to force me to pick up a weapon, to strike out, to take what is ‘mine,’ to get vengeance for all the wrongs that have been done to ‘my family,’ going back generations. Something here moves my heart besides the beauty of this place. I think there is old bloodshed and anger still here in these rocks and in this soil. I feel the echo of it stirring itself in me.”
He sat down on a rock and beckoned me to sit by him. For a while he said nothing. We watched together in silence as the last fiery edge of sun sank into the sea. Finally, he sighed deeply and began, “Yes, it is true, I have been less than honest with you. But I was afraid that if you knew the whole story, you would not even come to see this place. And yes, there is blood and anger here. How could I think you would not feel it, with your Hadra senses? The story is that this land has been fought over by two bands of Kourmairi for three generations or more. Legend has it that it started as a feud between two brothers over a woman, but who knows the truth of those old tales. And what does all that matter anymore?
“The side that won would try to settle the land. The other side, once they had recovered from their defeat, would come to raid and plunder and destroy until they had driven the new settlers out. Then they would settle in their place, and the cycle would begin again. So it has gone for years, back and forth between them, with young men growing up pledged to avenge their fathers and uncles and older brothers, with animals slaughtered, fields burned, houses burned and torn down, women raped, and little children trampled under the hooves of horses.
“Those fields you see are watered with blood. This is one of the fairest places in all of South Yarmald, yet neither side can allow the other to prosper here and there is too much old bitterness for them to even think of sharing it.
“The Wanderers have been trying to make peace here but have had little success. Right now there is an uneasy truce, with neither side living on the land. When I first saw this place, I remembered Hereschell’s stories of the Star-Born. I thought in particular of that one Star-Born I had met with face-to-face, the one who gave me back my horse and waved to me and wished me safely gone. Strange as it may seem to you, considering our near-lethal first encounter, you were the only Hadra I could think to trust. When I heard you were looking for a place to settle and make a city, I decided to find you and bring you here. I know of no better place in all of Yarmald.”
“Only that it is someone else’s,” I answered harshly. Anger, grief, and bitter disappointment filled my heart. “You are right, Lorren, I would not have come. It is too cruel to show me this when we cannot have it. The Hadra need peace. We do not need to settle in the midst of someone else’s war. We have had more than enough of that already.”
“Wait, Tazzil, hear me out. There is more. It is not so simple or so hopeless. The Koormir know they cannot live here, that it only means more death for them. That much they can agree on. We have talked to them of passing it on to the Hadra, if you wanted it. They are thinking on it, meeting among themselves. We have promised to bring their leaders together to meet if you came and wanted to settle here. If they can agree to it, they will make a temporary peace among themselves, at least long enough for both sides to pull back and settle farther up or down the coast.
“It is very likely they will leave you this place. But first you must find the peace in your own heart to make me an answer. And for that you must understand what you are, the power that you have. From you, even wishes to kill can cause harm and disturb the balance.”
“Oh, Lorren, who is to teach us what we are and what we can do when not even the Witches know?”
“You will have to teach yourselves, but do it with much care. Great power is not a free gift. It is both wonderful and terrible. If not held with respect, it will destroy better than the sharpest sword.”
“Enough! Goddess! Spare me your lectures!” I turned away and began pacing up and down the rocky headland. Lorren was telling me again what Alyeeta had tried so hard to make me understand. “O Mother! Sometimes I grow so weary of all this talk of powers and gifts. I think they are nothing but a burden. Sometimes I would rather be an ordinary mortal and…”
“But, Tazzil, think what…”
I threw up my hands. “Please, Lorren, no more speeches about my great good fortune. I am what I am and cannot be othe
rwise. You will, no doubt, get the pleasure of observing me along with the rest of these strange new creatures. I assume you plan to settle nearby, to see how we behave. That, I suppose, is to be your reward for this work. In some way we are to be your toys.”
“My reward is to stop the bloodshed, to help make peace among the Koormir, and to find a place for the Hadra to settle. I am trying to make up, in some small way, for the great harm I have done; trying to help mend the tear in the Circle, the Cerroi. If I get a chance to watch how you shape yourselves, what you become, then that is a gift indeed, but it is not what I do this for.”
After a moment or so I shrugged. “I suppose there are worse things than being bugs under the observation of a Shokarn captain turned Wanderer. It is much better than being roast meat for the Zarn’s men. At least you are not trying to burn us alive with fastfire. I should be grateful for that. And we have already survived under the scrutiny of the Witches. You are certainly much kinder than they are.”
Sitting down by him again, I put a hand on his arm and said intently, “Lorren, even seeing only this much, I already know I love this place, love it with as much passion as I have ever felt for any woman. I would answer you yes, yes, yes, and yes! We, the Hadra, will build our city here. Gladly would I live here all my life. But I understand there is some other sort of answer that is needed, something that is much harder to say. Leave me alone here for a while so I can give you that answer. Leave me for the night. Darkness is when the earth speaks most clearly to her children, when the Mother comes among us.”
“Oh, no, Tazzil, I could not possibly leave you here alone. I have brought you here…There are hostile men…I am responsible…Alyeeta said…”
I burst out laughing at his distress. “Come, Lorren, after all this talk of powers, do you think I am some ordinary girl that you must protect in that way? I will be far safer here alone than you will be wherever you choose to sleep tonight. And do you think this is the first night I have spent sitting by myself in some high place?”
“Forgive me, Tazzil, I meant no offense. I see I have many new things to learn and many old habits to unlearn if I am going to succeed at this new life. Until tomorrow, then.” Though he spoke quite formally and even made a slight bow, I saw the corners of his mouth turn up with a little smile.
As he was walking away, I called out to him, “Lorren, if you think we need protection, remind me later to tell you some stories of our adventures on the road.” Let him hear what sorts of things we had managed without his help. But, of course, that was for future nights around the fire, after this had all been settled. I shivered as I heard his steps crunching on the rocky ground, but I did not turn to watch him leave. Instead, I sat staring out to sea as if the answers could be found there.
Soon it grew dark, and that lovely land faded away. I sat very still, just where Lorren had left me, trying hard to find some peace in my heart. I sat for so long the moon rose behind me, lighting the water and revealing the shape of the hills. It was so bright that even the trees seemed to come alive; even the shape of my own hand before my face was clear to me.
All this time, instead of finding peace, my hunger for this place grew and grew, as if feeding on itself. That hunger was too full of violence. The longing for violence throbbed and burned in my heart. It barred my way. My spirit shook and ached. Thinking only made things worse. The more I sought to subdue my anger and control my desire, the angrier I became and the more my desire swelled. Yet I knew I must subdue it if I was ever to have what I wanted. No matter how I tried, it seemed I could bring nothing but more turmoil to that place. At last my pride failed me. I saw the riddle was too much for me. “Mother, Mother, help me! Please!” I called aloud to Her. Then I threw myself down on the ground.
Suddenly I was sobbing with my face in the dirt. All in a rush, scenes of the fighting came to me. The flood of feelings that surged through me then was not mine. Those feelings seemed to be coming up from the very ground itself; waves of hatred and the lust for vengeance. Sometimes I was the killer, hot with rage, clearing the way with my sword; the next moment I felt the terror of the dying and my blood was soaking the earth. Death and pain were all around me and nothing else existed. I felt as if years were passing in this way, with no end to the killing and no hope in sight. Everything was gone but this agony, this terrible struggle being fought out against the cold ground. For a long while I lay there thrashing about, caught in the throes of that horror.
At last, after what seemed like hours, the passion wore itself out. A strange calm entered my heart. With no will of my own, I found myself sitting again on my vigil rock. It was as if some large hand had lifted me there. The thinking of my mind had been turned inside out. My riddle was solved. It was not that I must calm the rage of my longing so as to possess that place. Instead, if I could not calm my rage, I must leave that place, so others could live there in peace. It was a simple enough truth, I suppose, and one that Lorren had already tried to tell me several times. I had not been ready to hear it then. Now I saw that I must be fully prepared to leave, for the sake of the land I loved and the Hadra who had followed me there. Otherwise, nothing but disaster would follow.
LEAVE!? Leave this place now that I had finally found it? The pain of loss went through me so sharply that I had to press my hands against my chest. I almost expected to see blood running out between my fingers. No crying came, none of the relief of tears. I pressed that knowledge to me, holding it between my breasts like a knife blade pressing into my flesh. I filled myself with that awareness and my acceptance of it, going so deep into pain that I was no longer conscious of the rock I was sitting on or the sound of the ocean or the light of the moon on everything. I kept going further and deeper into pain, not struggling against it or seeking the escape of tears or rage, when suddenly it released me, letting go of me completely. I could feel my heart again, beating under my hands; hear my breathing and the rush of the waves and the kin crying; feel the wind against my face and in my hair. Finally, I could feel the wetness of tears on my cheek.
The moon was sinking into the ocean. The whole night had passed. Dawn light was filling the world. I stood up with a groan to stretch my cramped and aching body. I reached my arms up to the sky. Aloud I said, “In Your hands, Mother. I stay or leave at Your will. As it must be.” Something had happened to me that night that would change my life. Something had been given and something taken away. It might take me years to fully understand, but at least I had an answer for Lorren.
* * *
Lorren rode up the hill by the first morning light, with Dancer following. He came by a different path than the one we had struggled up the night before. Some echo of pain from the past night’s struggle still rode in me. I did not rush to meet him or shout my answer but waited quietly on my rock till he came and sat by me. Gently he reached out and brushed the dirt from my face. “Well, you look to have had a hard night. Do you have an answer for me?”
I nodded. “Here is your answer, Lorren. I will never wish another’s death, not for this place or any other. If it is the will of the Goddess, and the Kourmairi can peacefully let it go into our hands, then I will gladly live here in peace for the rest of my life. If, at any time, I cannot find that peace in my own heart, then I will go away and live elsewhere.” I put my hand over his in the manner of a pledge.
With something like pity in his eyes, he said, “I think those words were not easily come by.”
I sighed. “No, it was very hard. When I could not struggle anymore, I turned myself over to the Mother and begged for Her help.”
He looked surprised. “I did not think to find you believing in those old superstitious ways. Do you really think some ancient woman the size of a mountain hovers in the sky, waiting to answer your pleas?”
Heated answers rose to my lips, then just as quickly faded away. I took a deep breath. What did it matter? In some things we would never see eye to eye. “I know what I know, Lorren. There is more to this life than can fit between the cove
rs of a book. And what do you believe in—Rha-is, the god of war?”
“Certainly not.” He jumped to his feet and began pacing about. “I do not believe in gods any more than I believe in the magic of little black toads. I believe in the natural world. There is enough mystery and wonder there for me, far more than I can learn in this lifetime. As for the rest, the heavens go on their glorious way, with or without our small presence. Some think to search there for signs and omens, portents of their future. If there are gods, I think they have else to do than writing large messages across the sky for us. All we can surely read in the heavens is the weather. Even that is not always clear. We are free to shape our own lives and free to give them meaning. All else is foolishness and self-deceit.”
I felt myself losing patience with this speech. “I have found my answers in my own way,” I said boldly. “And that will have to be good enough for you.” In the realms of the mind, Lorren may have been right, but there were mysteries at the core of life not accounted for in his books, my own powers among them.
His face broke into a wide grin. Nodding, he reached out to clasp my hands. “Something wonderful will come of this, Tazzil, I can feel it.”
“Well, whatever comes of this night, it has cost me much. I am worn out and must get some rest.” I spoke with some of my old sourness, but it was more in jest. Even so, I had a hard time getting onto Dancer’s back.
In silence, we rode slowly down the hill. At times, the mist from the river engulfed us. At other moments, sudden shafts of sun broke through. Each turn of the road brought some new wonder into sight. At first I was floating in a dream of the future, filled with excitement at the possibilities for a settlement and a city. The rocks in that place gleamed white in the morning light, very different from the brick red rocks of the northern coast. I pictured wonderful white buildings rising on the green hillsides, buildings shaped by our own hands with the aid of our powers.
