In Stone's Clasp

by Christie Golden

  Kevla hesitated. Her instinct was to aid them, but if they were responsible for the massacre she had seen earlier…

  I will not condemn them without being certain of their guilt, she thought fiercely. “Can you find something for them to eat?”

  “I can try,” the Dragon answered. “Although I have not noticed an overabundance of animal life in this land.”

  “I’ll stay here. I want to show them what I can do—how I can help them. Maybe if we demonstrate that we have good intentions, they will believe us.”

  “As you wish.” The Dragon gathered himself and sprang into the sky. The villagers watched him, mouths hanging open. When he had disappeared from view, they again turned their attention to her. She shifted uncomfortably under their scrutiny, and for several long moments, no one spoke.

  Suddenly a cry of fury shattered the air. Out of the corner of her eye Kevla saw a blur of movement. A boy charged at her, screaming and brandishing a torch.

  “Olar, no!” cried the head woman.

  Reacting instinctively, Kevla gestured. The orange-red flame at the top of the torch blazed higher and the youth, shocked, dropped it. He clutched his hands, checking to see that they were undamaged. The fire sizzled and died in the snow.

  Kevla was frustrated. She didn’t want to frighten these people further, she wanted to win their trust. She stepped forward and picked up the torch the youth had dropped.

  “Burn,” she said.

  The sodden torch flickered to life and an instant later blazed as strongly as if it were good, dry wood. Slowly, smiling, Kevla stepped toward the boy who had attacked her and extended the torch.

  She locked gazes with the youth. He was so very young, and his blue eyes were wide with terror. Even though she knew he couldn’t understand her, she said softly, “It’s all right. Take the fire.”

  Cautiously, the boy reached out a trembling hand and took the torch from her. Their fingers brushed and he hissed, startled. She kept the smile on her face, and as she hoped, he relaxed ever so slightly.

  Kevla looked up from the boy’s face to discover the head woman watching her intently, blue eyes shrewd.

  They think the fire’s a threat, even though I gave it to the boy, Kevla realized. What else could she do to win their trust? How could she use her skills in a positive way that would not frighten them? If only the Stone Dancer were here! He knew these people, he could…

  Stone.

  Kevla squatted and began to paw through the snow. The villagers murmured to themselves but made no move to stop her.

  They probably think I’m mad, thought Kevla. There are moments when I wonder that myself.

  At last, she found what she was searching for—a large stone, bigger than her head and partially buried in the frozen earth. Kevla cleared the snow away from it, so that the villagers could see it easily. She pointed at the rock and motioned them forward. Not surprisingly, no one moved.

  Kevla placed her hands on the rough surface, hoping that after such an obvious display that she would be able to execute her idea. She had only recently come into her powers and she did not know their limits. With luck, this would work.

  Heat, she thought.

  Immediately the large rock began to grow hot. Within five heartbeats Kevla could see the waves of heat distorting the air around it. She made a sound of pleasure and held her hands out to the rock as she might to a fire. To make sure they understood and did not hurt themselves, she tossed some snow on the rock. It hissed and melted at once.

  Kevla stepped away from the stone and waved them to approach. The woman was the first to do so, stepping forward hesitantly on her strange footgear and reaching her hands out to the rock. Her lips curved in a slow smile. It did something remarkable to her face, which suddenly softened and seemed to lose many hard years. She waved another, younger woman forward who repeated her gestures. They spoke in voices so soft that Kevla couldn’t hear them.

  The woman turned to regard Kevla. Kevla returned the gaze, although she wanted to duck her head. She had spent most of her life as a servant who had not dared to be so impertinent as to look an uhlala straight in the eye, but Kevla sensed that to break the gaze now would be unwise, possibly even dangerous. Kevla had never felt as seen as she did now.

  “The sky-monster said you could understand us. Is this so, fire-woman?”

  Kevla nodded.

  “You have shown us you can make warmth that does not harm. Are you offering to aid us?”

  Again, Kevla nodded.

  “Taaskali are a dangerous lot, but you have skills that we need.” She glanced up at the gray sky. “When winter lasts forever, we must take aid where we may. Even from a taaskal. I do not know where your monster has gone, but if you wish to come to our village, you would be welcomed.”

  Kevla was pleased, but she pointed up at the sky.

  “He is returning?”

  Kevla nodded.

  “Then we will wait.”

  And wait they did, all of them. One by one, at first, then in small groups, the villagers came forward to warm themselves by the heated stone. Their fear seemed to dissipate as they extended wrapped hands to the welcome heat Kevla had provided. Kevla regarded them, wondering if they were victims or perpetrators.

  At length she heard the familiar sound of the Dragon’s wings as he approached. In his forepaws, the Dragon clutched two large animals. They were covered in brown fur, dotted now with blood, and faintly resembled liahs, save that their horns branched into several smaller ones and their fur was thick and shaggy. More murmurings, but this time there was a definite note of appreciation in the sound. The Dragon landed and dropped the limp bodies to the earth.

  “Dragon, you are wonderful!” Kevla exclaimed. He inclined his head modestly. “Tell them that these are gifts.”

  The Dragon obliged. The woman turned again to regard Kevla, smiling. “We will take a Fire Maiden over an Ice Maiden gladly,” she said, “and rejoice to have a taaskal with us and not against us.”

  Kevla smiled in return, relieved. At least now, she had begun to win their trust. She wondered at the term “ice maiden” and had opened her mouth to have the Dragon inquire about that term and taaskal when the older woman spoke.

  “I am Gelsan Tulari, and I am head woman of Arrun Woods. You may stay with me until you can speak our tongue.”

  “Thank you,” Kevla said.

  “The Flame Dancer is grateful for your hospitality,” the Dragon translated.

  The young woman Gelsan had spoken with a moment ago now stepped forward. She was an attractive girl, with wide blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a soft flower-bud mouth. Thick ringlets of golden hair peeped beneath her fur hat.

  “I am Mylikki, Gelsan’s daughter,” she said. “It would be my honor to show you our village. Come with us.”

  The group headed back down the hill. Kevla again noticed the strange items strapped to their feet. Some of them had long, flat poles tied to their boots. Others had wide circles that looked to be made out of curved branches interlaced with animal sinew. She made her way downward carefully, stepping sideways to avoid slipping as much as possible. Mylikki slid quickly down the hill on the poles, making a wide, graceful turn to wait for Kevla.

  “I hope you will forgive us, especially Olar,” Mylikki said. As Mylikki spoke, Kevla realized that she was starting to grasp some of the stranger words. It was as if the learning was taking place inside her, somehow. “We were not always so unwelcoming to strangers. The killer winter has been hard on us. But ever since the bayinba started—”

  Raids, Kevla thought, translating the word in her mind. The word bayinba means “raids.”

  “—we have, unfortunately, had good cause to fear strangers.”

  The people of Arrun Woods were victims, then, not attackers. Though sorry for their losses, Kevla was pleased to confirm that she was not aiding murderers. Mylikki had said something else, though, that confused Kevla, and she didn’t think it was her not understanding the word. She tapped Mylikki�
��s shoulder and the other girl looked at her questioningly.

  Kevla repeated a word Mylikki had said, cautiously wrapping her mouth around the unfamiliar term. She had apparently gotten it right, for Mylikki said, “Killer? The killer winter? Oh…you don’t know. You must be from a far land indeed.”

  Mylikki looked up at the gray sky. “Winter usually only lasts for a few months, even in the most northerly parts of Lamal. Then of course spring comes. But this year, something happened. Something went wrong. Winter never went away.”

  She looked at Kevla gravely. “We have had nothing but winter for over a year.”

  10

  Kevla stared at Mylikki. No wonder there were so few animals left, and some of the people had begun behaving like animals themselves. If only she could talk to them! Kevla had so many questions. She put a sympathetic hand on Mylikki’s shoulder as they made their way toward the houses in the clearing.

  The Dragon had made room for himself, Kevla saw, by uprooting several trees and placing them in a pile. The villagers were chattering happily and pointing to the pile; clearly they appreciated not having to cut the wood. Looking rather pleased with himself, the Dragon had settled down, folding his forepaws like a granary cat, and was lowering his head to talk to the villagers.

  Kevla made a small, amused noise. “The people of Lamal are great of heart,” Mylikki said. “We do not fear something for long. Here is our house.”

  Kevla turned where Mylikki indicated. In her mind’s eye she saw the ruined house she and the Dragon had happened upon earlier. She blinked, banishing the image. Mylikki opened the door and Kevla was immediately struck by the smell of smoke.

  It was dark inside, as the other house had been. Kevla stepped cautiously into a single large, long room and looked around. Hard-packed earth served as a floor. As her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she saw the source of the smoke. In a pit in the center of the room, a fire burned. A cauldron hung on a tripod hovered over it. Smoke curled upward, escaping through a small hole in the ceiling. Oil lamps also provided some illumination, adding their smoke to that produced by the fire. Kevla’s first thought was to extinguish the fire and simply heat the room with her thoughts, but she realized the flame was needed for cooking. She herself was unaffected by smoke, but Mylikki began to cough almost as soon as they entered. This cannot be good for them, Kevla thought. But it is so cold, they need the fire burning all the time if they are to even survive.

  Gelsan looked up as they entered and emptied a bowl filled with chunks of meat into the water boiling in the pot. “It will not take long for the meal to cook, since the sky-monster brought us fresh meat,” she told them.

  “Dragon,” Kevla said. She pointed outside.

  Gelsan looked out the door where she pointed, smiled, and nodded. “Dragon, then. Whatever he be, we will eat well tonight.” Gelsan had divested herself of her heavy outer garments and now wore a stained, oft-mended overdress in a shade of bright blue. Beneath it, she wore a long-sleeved linen underdress. Her hair, once clearly as golden as that of her daughter’s but now shot through with silver, was braided and pinned to her head. In place of the long poles that had been strapped to her feet, she wore leather shoes.

  Mylikki hurried over to her mother and whispered something in her ear. Gelsan’s eyes brightened as her daughter spoke, but then she frowned.

  “We should not ask her for such a trivial thing,” Gelsan chided.

  “It is not trivial,” Mylikki retorted. “It is cleansing and healing. We know it is no great thing for her to do it.”

  Gelsan sighed. “Very well, Mylikki. Show the Flame Dancer the hut, and let her decide if she wants to misuse her powers for our entertainment.”

  Mylikki grinned and turned to Kevla. “Let me take these off first and I’ll show you.”

  Kevla leaned against the carved wooden door as Mylikki sat on one of the raised platforms that lined the rear walls of the house. Quickly, she removed the poles from her feet and hung them on a hook, then hurried back to Kevla.

  Kevla smiled at the young woman. Curious, how she thought of Mylikki as “young.” The other woman was no more than a year or two younger than she, but Kevla no longer felt a mere two decades old. She felt ancient; she had seen too much. Done too much. Her innocence had died with her lover.

  “Come, Kevla!” Mylikki darted out the door, her short legs churning through the snow. Kevla followed, wondering why Mylikki had removed the poles that had helped her glide so easily over the snow. Then she understood—they were heading into the forest.

  Kevla had not ventured deep into any of the woods that she and the Dragon had encountered. They were too dark, too dense, to feel comfortable to a woman used to living in a spacious, bright house in a land in which trees were as rare as rain. She reluctantly followed her guide through a well-worn path that suddenly opened up to the banks of a frozen lake.

  Kevla stared at the flat expanse of solid water. Most of it was covered with snow, and that part was indistinguishable from the land. But there were some places where the wind had cleared the surface, and there Kevla saw a deep, rich green.

  So beautiful, she thought. If only he could be seeing these marvels with me.

  “Here we are,” Mylikki said. Kevla dragged her gaze away from the green ice and saw what seemed to her to be a smaller version of one of the houses in the clearing. Mylikki tugged open the door and Kevla peered inside. There were no windows, indeed, the little building seemed to be well sealed. The interior was entirely black, and for a moment, Kevla thought that the place had been burned.

  She looked back at Mylikki and shook her head, trying to communicate her lack of understanding.

  “This is the stonesteaming hut,” Mylikki said, as if that explained everything.

  Kevla shook her head, still not understanding. “Hmm,” Mylikki said, chewing on her lower lip. “I thought when you heated the stone, you knew about it. How to explain…long ago, our ancestors designed the stonesteaming huts. They’re made of wood and we seal them up well. We light a fire to heat up several stones, just like you did earlier. When they’re hot, we bring them inside and pour water on them to create steam. It feels good—very warming, very cleansing, and very relaxing.”

  She pointed. Kevla could now see a cluster of rocks sitting in the fire pit.

  “It takes a long time, almost all day, to get the stones hot. And with so few people left, we don’t stonesteam as often as we would like. But this place means more than just comfort to us.”

  Mylikki spoke of a sacred place of birth and death, a place of community, where the seasonal changes were celebrated by ritual both practical and meaningful. Kevla nodded as the other girl spoke. She felt the power of the place as she stepped gingerly inside.

  “Careful,” said Mylikki. “The benches are safe to sit on, but don’t touch the walls or ceilings, or you’ll get all sooty.”

  Kevla, who had been just about to do precisely that, nodded and kept her hands in close. To her surprise, the wooden benches, as Mylikki had promised, yielded no soot to the touch. Their surface was a rich, shiny black, as if somehow the soot had been sealed and baked into the wood.

  She looked at the stones in the center of the hut. Gathering up her rhia so she didn’t accidentally brush any soot with it, Kevla squatted beside the stones and extended a hand. Pleasure was warm inside her. In her effort to connect with these people without speech, she had inadvertently stumbled upon something they cherished: the ability to heat stone.

  Heat, she mentally instructed.

  The stone obeyed. Kevla touched another, and another, until all the stones were putting out a great deal of heat.

  Mylikki stood in the doorway, her hands to her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide with shock. “It is hard to believe,” she whispered. “Even when I see you do this with my own eyes.” She suddenly grinned. “Maybe we should have tried to befriend your people long ago.”

  Kevla again wondered just what they thought she was. She got to her feet, duste
d off her hands, and smiled.

  “Thank you, Kevla. You don’t know what this means to us. It’s been so long….” She blinked hard, and Kevla saw tears in the blue eyes. Quick tears of sympathy sprang to Kevla’s own brown ones. Well did she know how it was to live a harsh existence with few luxuries. She recalled a girl who loved to swim in the cool caverns of the House of Four Waters, and how that simple indulgence restored her. If the stonesteaming made Mylikki and the others happy, then it was as good a use of her Dancer’s abilities as any she could think of. And despite Gelsan’s dismissal of Mylikki’s request, the place clearly represented far more than simply a place to relax.

  Mylikki cleared her throat. “Let’s go get the others.”

  Within the next few minutes, several of the women who had not so long ago been eyeing Kevla with suspicion now clustered around the stonesteaming hut. Mylikki filled a bucket with snow, which she placed inside near the hot stones. Kevla’s eyes went wide with shock as the women quickly divested themselves and stepped, quite naked, into the building. They handed their clothes to one of the younger girls, who carefully wrapped them into small bundles and put them into a large sack.

  Mylikki, whose pale skin and rosy breasts looked to Kevla like something out of a storyteller’s tale, noticed her discomfiture.

  “If you don’t want to participate, it’s all right, but I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s thanks to you that we have this at all. It would mean much to us if you shared this with us.”

  Kevla looked at the dozen or so women, all fair-haired, all pale-fleshed, sitting on the benches and talking quietly. They were thin…so very thin. She could clearly see the outlines of ribs underneath their pale breasts.

  Kevla swallowed, knowing that it would be a good gesture to join them, her own cheeks hot at the thought of being naked in front of so many strangers.

  When she had been a handmaiden to the khashima, she had slept in a room with the other women. And she had often enjoyed a bath in the caverns that made the Clan of Four Waters the envy of all other clans. But she had worn a sleeping rhia at night, and timed her visits to the caverns when she could be alone. To disrobe in front of so many—