“Aye,” replied Velasa-pah. “All urkzimmuthi dwellings contain one.”
Dar noted that pegs were set into the walls and a wide variety of herbs hung from them along with numerous sacks and pouches. “Do you do magic?”
“I have some skill,” said Velasa-pah. He hobbled over to the wall and removed a sack. It looked antique, and the designs embroidered upon its worn cloth had faded until they were nearly invisible. Moving slowly, as if the effort pained him, Velasa-pah lowered himself to the earthen floor. “Come, Dargu. Sit beside me. Let’s see what guidance the feathers have for you.”
Dar sat down, and the old man opened the sack with palsied fingers. Feathers of different colors fluttered to the floor. Once they settled, Velasa-pah leaned over and blew upon them. The feathers moved, but it seemed to Dar that it wasn’t Velasa-pah’s wheezing breath that had rearranged their pattern. After they settled for a second time, the old man silently studied them. A long time passed before he spoke. “Visit Tarathank.”
“Where’s that?” asked Dar.
“It’s the urkzimmuthi ruin that lies close to this road. Washavokis avoid it.”
Dar recalled the tales she had heard at Garlsholding of a haunted goblin city. “I’ve heard of that place,” she said, “but I don’t know where it lies.”
“The road splits north of here. You must look carefully, for the western fork is never used and hard to spot. Follow it to the city.”
“Is that all I need do?” asked Dar.
Velasa-pah peered at the feathers longer and his expression grew sad. “Follow your chest.”
“What?” said Dar.
“Your chest understands what your mind cannot. Heed its wisdom. It won’t always be easy.”
“All right,” said Dar, thinking this advice was vague at best.
“There is a man who listens to bones,” said Velasa-pah. “He is your enemy, but the bones are a greater enemy.” Velasa-pah gazed at the feathers a while longer, then shook his head. “Perhaps you should blow upon them,” he said. “Blow gently.”
Dar leaned over and blew. The feathers crumbed into dust.
“So it ends,” said Velasa-pah. “I’m going to rest now, so you must wait for supper. Get your friends. This food is Muth la’s gift. It should be served by a mother.” Velasa-pah lay down and closed his eyes. “Vata, Dargu,” he murmured. Good-bye, Dargu.
Dar rose. She looked outside and was surprised to see that it was dark. She glanced at Velasa-pah. He was already asleep. “Vata, Velasa-pah,” she whispered, then hurried into the night.
When Dar returned with the orcs, the fire beneath the kettle had died to embers and she could see little by its faint light. The kettle and the sack of food were where Dar had last seen them, but the hut was empty otherwise. There was no sign of Velasa-pah and the walls were bare. Kovok-mah looked about. “Dargu, if I did not see this food, I would think you had another vision. This place has been empty long time.”
Zna-yat skirted a pile of dust to examine the kettle. “I can’t believe some washavoki made muthtufa.”
“He claimed he was urkzimmuthi,” said Dar. “Said his name was Velasa-pah.”
Zna-yat looked amused. “Velasa-pah? Well, that washavoki knew some tales.”
“Who is Velasa-pah?” asked Dar.
“Great wizard who died long ago,” said Zna-yat. “His clan is lost, victims of washavokis.”
Ten
Dar and the orcs traveled two nights to reach Tarathank. As they neared the mountains, the land turned green again, but few people tilled its soil. Holdings became solitary huts, surrounded by a sea of tall grass. On the last night of their journey, the travelers passed no dwellings at all. By then, the ancient road was so overgrown that it seemed little different from the surrounding prairie. Only the orcs’ keen vision allowed them to follow it at night.
As far as Dar’s companions knew, no orc had visited the city for generations. Yet it loomed large in orcish tales. It was the queen’s city, home to the Pah clan, from which a long line of monarchs arose. Other clans lived there too, so Tarathank was called the City of Matriarchs. It had been the center of orcish civilization, a place of marvels. As Kovok-mah and the others spoke of it, their voices reflected awe and excitement.
The orcs could see the ruins long before they reached them, but Dar got her first glimpse of Tarathank only when dawn lit the plain. The city was distant, but prominent, for it sprawled over the only hilltop. Every town Dar had ever seen possessed a defensive wall, but the crumbled structure that encircled the city could not have served a military function. It was a negligible barrier, dwarfed by the ruins it enclosed. A roadway zigzagged up the hillside to its entrance. Surveying the landscape, Dar said, “There’s no one to see us. Let’s go on.”
The immense ruin seemed closer than it actually was, and the travelers didn’t reach Tarathank until midmorning. Its entrance had been a delicate, gateless archway. Though broken, it still looked elegant. Beyond the ruined arch, Dar saw a city ravaged by war. Its defenselessness made its destruction seem all the more wanton. Most of the buildings near the low wall were burned and reduced to rubble. Only farther in was the demolition less complete.
The travelers entered Tarathank and walked its silent streets, where they found time and nature had continued the destruction wrought by war. Weeds and trees pushed up between paving stones and filled the interiors of roofless buildings. Vines shrouded most of the structures. The vegetation didn’t seem wholly out of place, for the city’s builders preferred natural forms. The ruined structures favored curves and arches over right angles. Even the stones within the walls were not rectangular, but varied in shape and size. Doorways, window frames, and pillars were carved with flowing botanic lines. Thus, even buildings several stories high seemed to have grown from the earth.
Tarathank was the first city Dar had ever entered, and even in decay it awed her. The orcs were similarly impressed. Everyone walked quietly, feeling that the city’s grandeur and tragedy required it. When Dar finally spoke, she thought her voice sounded unnaturally loud. “We should find place to rest.”
After wandering the winding streets, they encountered a vine-covered building that still had its roof. It was modestly sized compared with its neighbors, but it seemed grand to Dar. Like the other structures on the street, it was a home.
From her conversations, Dar knew orc dwellings housed extended families, and the size of the house reflected that. All the females who once had lived there would have been blood relations—mothers and daughters, spanning several generations. When sons married, they left to join their wives, but daughters always remained under the same roof. As Dar passed the numerous rooms in the abandoned house, she gained a sense of the collective power of mothers. Husbands would come as outsiders to live among females united by blood and a lifetime of association. Dar thought, No wonder they treat mothers with respect.
Though the house was structurally intact, it had been looted and vandalized. Most of the rooms were bare except for dried leaves that had drifted in through smashed windows. Occasionally, they encountered bits of moldy cloth or pieces of splintered furniture, but little remained that spoke of the lives spent within the rooms. Dar spied pieces of sand ice lying on the leaf-littered floor beneath a window. She picked up a shard to examine it. It did seem like warm ice. Dar gazed through the pale green fragment, trying to imagine it filling the window.
As Dar explored with the orcs, a pattern to the house became apparent. A main passageway snaked through the structure connecting a series of large, circular rooms, each featuring a hearth. Smaller rooms branched off from those. Kovok-mah explained that a room with a hearth was called a “hanmuthi”—fire of mother—and it was the center of a family’s daily life. The adjoining rooms were primarily used for sleeping. On the house’s second floor, they found a hanmuthi that was particularly grand. Its floor was mostly clear of litter and a series of large windows admitted ample light and air. Above the hearth was a hole in the ceiling sur
rounded by the remnants of a metal chimney.
“This is good place to rest,” said Dar, who had grown accustomed to making decisions.
Usually, the orcs set up camp by marking off the Embrace of Muth la. This time, they behaved differently. Duth-tok and Lama-tok wandered into one of the small adjoining rooms and Varz-hak and Zna-yat entered another. Dar was left standing with Kovok-mah. “Should we not mark circle?” she asked.
“Walls of hanmuthi form Muth la’s Embrace,” said Kovok-mah.
“So we can sleep anywhere?”
“Hai. Everywhere is within sacred circle.”
Dar glanced at the empty chambers, feeling reluctant to enter any of them. “I’m not used to sleeping alone,” she said.
“This is fearful journey,” said Kovok-mah. “Your nearness brings me comfort.”
“Then let us rest together.”
An adjoining room lit by windows attracted Dar. She entered it, and Kovok-mah followed. Upon its walls was a relief showing children running unclothed through a field of flowers. Someone had gouged their faces, reducing them to shallow craters in the limestone. Yet, even in its marred state, the relief was a beautiful work of art. The flowers were carved with delicate detail and the running children seemed alive and joyful. Only the claws on their fingers and toes marked them as urkzimmuthi.
Dar noticed a line of curious marks beneath the relief. “What are those?” she asked.
“Words,” said Kovok-mah, pointing to them as he read.
“Laughter echoes not
In soft spring fields.
Flowers always return.
Children visit only once.”
Dar had heard of reading, but had never seen anyone do it. She was unsure which astonished her more—that Kovok-mah had read those lines or that they had moved him so deeply. His eyes were mournful as his fingers caressed the exquisitely worked forms.
“I think urkzimmuthi are like these children,” he said. “When we depart, no one will recall our faces.”
“Why do you speak of departing?” asked Dar.
“This empty place shows how we’ve dwindled. When we are gone, who will remember us? To washavokis, we are only monsters.”
Dar thought of Leela, who had killed herself rather than face orcs, and guiltily recalled the gruesome tales she had told Theena. Beholding Kovok-mah’s sorrow made Dar want to ease it. “Thwa, Thwa,” she said softly. “You are gentle and good. I am washavoki and…”
“Thwa! You are not.”
“I am. My teeth are white like dog’s.”
“So? Now mine are also.”
“I smell.”
“I like your scent.”
“Look at me! What do you see?”
“Dargu, why do you speak like this? You are mother…seer…guide. Your chest is not washavoki, and chest is most important.”
“My chest wishes you were not sad,” said Dar.
Kovok-mah smiled wanly. “Then I must strive to be happy.”
Dar dreamed of Velasa-pah. He sat silently upon the floor of the room where she and Kovok-mah slept, watching her with an expectant look on his face. When Dar asked what he wanted, he crumbled to dust. The image was so disturbing that it woke her.
Dar was sitting in Kovok-mah’s lap. She had grown accustomed to the orcish upright sleeping position, but it was comfortable only because Kovok-mah supported her. Dozing folded in his arms was preferable to lying on the ground, and Kovok-mah liked her to do so. It calmed him. Dar recalled a doll of twisted straw that one of her little half sisters took to bed, and imagined she served a similar function. The idea made her smile.
Vines draped over the room’s shattered windows, dimming the light and keeping the room cool in the afternoon’s heat. Dar was still tired and wished to sleep some more, but she kept thinking of Velasa-pah. She had never seen deep magic before, but felt certain she had witnessed it in his stone hut. While what happened there might be explained away, instinct told Dar that would be foolhardy. Velasa-pah’s advice, like her visions, shouldn’t be ignored. Yet what he had told her seemed of little use. She knew of no man who listened to bones. The feelings that stirred within her chest were unsettled and often contradictory, hardly guidance at all. Well, at least I’m in Tarathank. Dar wondered why she was directed to the ruined city. Perhaps I’m supposed to find something. She couldn’t imagine what it could be.
Realizing she wouldn’t sleep, Dar rose carefully so as not to disturb Kovok-mah. Her bare feet made no noise as she walked over to the window and peered out. The overgrown city looked like a forest of bizarrely shaped trees. It was eerily quiet. No birds called, and the air was still. Judging from the low angle of the sun, it was late afternoon.
Dar turned about and saw that Kovok-mah was watching her. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” she said.
“I’ve been awake awhile. You seem restless.”
“I was thinking of Velasa-pah. Zna-yat said he’s mentioned in old tales. Who was he?”
“Muth la made urkzimmuthi first,” said Kovok-mah, “and for long time we knew no washavokis. When they first appeared, we called them ‘urkzimdi’—second children. In those days, some urkzimdi were reborn into clans. One was Velasa-pah. He became great wizard, though great was his sorrow.”
“Why?”
“It can be painful to see future.”
“I know,” said Dar, thinking of her own visions. “What happened to him?”
“He foresaw destruction of Tarathank, but queen didn’t understand war. It was his fate to see all he loved perish.”
“Yet, he lived.”
“Thwa. All urkzimmuthi perished in Tarathank.”
“But he was washavoki.”
“He was not,” said Kovok-mah. “He had been reborn.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t happen anymore.”
Dar thought of the lonely old man in the stone hut. “That’s sad tale,” she said. Yet she hoped it was true, for the one she imagined was even sadder.
“Tales told here lack happy endings,” said Kovok-mah.
“Yet we were supposed to come to this place,” said Dar. “I don’t know why.” She sighed. “I fear we must stay awhile.”
Dar’s decision to linger in Tarathank didn’t disappoint the other orcs. Rather, it gave them a chance to pursue their interests. The following day, Zna-yat found an iron kettle that still held liquid. After scouring the rust from its interior, he searched long-abandoned gardens for culinary herbs. By the time Lama-tok and Duth-tok returned from studying the city’s stonework, Zna-yat had a stew cooking on the hearth. Varz-hak came back a little later with a collection of glass shards in colors he had never seen before.
Only Kovok-mah had no personal project. Instead, he accompanied Dar as she wandered about the city. She was looking for something, but she had no clue as to what it was. Kovok-mah tried to be cheerful as they poked about the deserted buildings, but being an orc, he was unable to disguise his feelings. The ruins depressed him, and Dar knew it.
The only discovery that lifted Kovok-mah’s spirits was a bathing pool located in a nearby courtyard. A steady stream of water poured into it from a stone spout set high in the wall above. The tiny waterfall made a soothing sound. Moreover, the constant flow of water prevented leaves from accumulating, and the pool was the first they had encountered that wasn’t choked with muck and weeds. When Dar was ready to depart, she saw that Kovok-mah was reluctant to leave, so they stayed a while longer and watched the falling water.
After dinner, all the orcs but Kovok-mah were brimming with talk of things that had fired their imagination. Zna-yat had encountered two herbs that were new to him. Varz-hak passed around his collection of shards so that everyone could hold them up to the light. Duth-tok and Lama-tok waxed eloquent on stonework and prevailed on Dar to visit a wall they particularly admired.
Dar returned at dusk to find Kovok-mah gone, and his absence made her feel that she had neglected him that evening. She had been caught up in the
other orcs’ enthusiasms while he sat silent and alone. When the orcs retired to sleep and Kovok-mah hadn’t returned, Dar decided to find him. She suspected that he had gone to the pool. It wasn’t distant. If she hurried, there would be enough light for her to find the way.
Dar left the building and made her way through the street. So many plants grew between the paving stones that it resembled a meadow. The house that contained the pool was huge and burned. In the twilight, its entrance was a black hole. Dar nearly turned back, but recalling Kovok-mah’s sadness made her press onward. She felt her way through the passage until she saw a dim light ahead. She moved toward it, heard the sound of falling water, and entered the courtyard.
Kovok-mah stood waist-deep in the pool, facing away. Water cascaded over him, and he seemed unaware of Dar’s approach. She halted at the pool’s edge. Kovok-mah was ten paces away, motionless. The water flowing over his skin made it look as if it had turned to silver. Dar was transfixed by Kovok-mah’s beauty. He seemed the embodiment of strength and power. Dar knew he possessed a gentle spirit—a spirit that made her feel secure. Gazing at Kovok-mah, Dar envisioned his arms about her as she slept. He’ll be fresh and clean tonight. I should be also.
The idea of bathing with Kovok-mah made Dar both nervous and excited. The mere sight of him awakened a need she had long denied—a desire for tenderness and intimacy. Kovok-mah remained absolutely still, as if waiting passively. This will be my choice, Dar thought, not his. She wavered a moment, uncertain what she wanted. Then Dar shed her clothes and entered the water. It was warm, yet goose bumps rose on her flesh. What am I doing here? she asked herself. Bathing. Dar knew that wasn’t true. Still facing away, Kovok-mah stepped back from the stream of water, then froze. He knows I’m here, but I can still leave. He won’t turn around. Dar moved closer, instead. Soon, she was near enough to touch him. Kovok-mah remained motionless. Dar reached out her hand, then hesitated.
[Queen of Orcs 02] - Clan Daughter Page 7
