Hanna, though weary, went again to the well to dredge what little water she could for the new mother. But Brone didn't even realize the older woman had left her side. Instead she traced Janak's soft ear and the delicate curl of Adya's spine as they curved into her skin. No sound but their breath reached her and she forgot her own aching flesh. Even the waxing light of the east failed to distract her. For a time Brone was at peace, a circle of warmth, and she slept, happy and calm in that dry, empty land.
She still bled from the birth and Brone's blood mixed even with the barren baked stone around her. Hanna cleaned her and the children with a damp cloth and helped Brone move to a shady corner, but a high wall of blooming rose and sharp thorn sprang from where she had lain in her labors. It frightened Hanna to see a thick wall of twisting wood and fragile flowers burst without water, without sun or time from the dry ground. More and more she shrank from touching Brone. Hanna thought of her sisters, of the last pilgrimage they had made to this desolate place, just a few of the massive throngs of people that swept into the sea, now all gone, burnt away, leaving no memory upon the earth except for Hanna's. It had started months before, when the sun had died in the western sky. There had been a column of flame reaching into the blank sky, visible for miles. It wavered and crawled, leapt and devoured until it came to rest at the edge of the sea and there remained. Hanna's sisters believed it was miraculous, holy fire through which they must pass and they had no fear. But Hanna, who had lived all her long life thinking that her faith had carried her through each difficult and lonely trial of cloistered life, found herself in doubt. She spoke not, but hoped the belief of her beloved friends would infect her, change her and give her courage. So they set out, a small band of women chasing the holy flame. Everywhere Hanna's sisters gathered people or joined them, finding them in the endless dark somehow. A few at first and then more and more until a multitude swept along the charred ground, a living sea under the starless sky. Sometimes it was quiet with only the sound of trudging feet or the occasional cry of a small child. Sometimes a song would sweep through the crowd and Hanna thought she could feel her heart lift, her doubt dissolve. But when she looked upon her sisters' faces or those of the tired men and women around her and saw the wonder and joy in them, she knew she did not belong to them. Still, Hanna kept her peace hoping once she saw the miracle first hand, it would be the only proof she needed. She desperately craved the faith she saw in the others. They seemed to know little fatigue, though among the throng walked people older and frailer than Hanna and parents carried many children for mile after mile. Hanna, though, struggled to keep up with her sisters, her bones ached and clacked together at every step and her back seemed pierced with glass. The pain became the focus of all of her awareness and her mind had no more room for miracles. She fell farther and farther behind and finally saw her beloved sisters no more. She was pulled out of the heart of the crowd and clung to its outer fringe. In vain she looked for someone like her, someone lost and frightened and utterly alone. She found no one who seemed to doubt or even question. Hanna wondered at this, for mankind of that world thought themselves wicked and faithless, greedy and cruel. But at the end, in the cold dark, with nothing except each other left to them, Hanna saw no wickedness done, no cruelty, no doubt. Yet neither were they mindlessly following, Hanna had spoken with many. They seemed as thousands and thousands of weary children wandering finally, back home.
They arrived at a place where flame and sea fought like wild cats, hissing and roaring, whipping the very stone into smooth black peaks as if flame itself had frozen. Hanna had drifted far to the back, stumbling in the half light of the fires, a forest of people between her and the sea, but still she could see the fire horse, Enik towering above all. The beast glowed black and ruby, as if he was charred driftwood, a towering twisted remnant, flame still licking its neck in place of a mane, a blue ever shifting corona as violent as its surroundings. The beast stood upon a high and narrow bridge of stone. Its surface was slick and smooth as an arc of dark, still waters rising over the flames. Where it led, Hanna could not tell for it disappeared into a dense gray smoke. The people stopped before end of the bridge and Enik began to speak. His voice was deep and dry, as if live coals tumbled around his great throat. Though the writhing sea hissed and the flames roared with rage as they met, everyone could hear the words of the Fire Horse.
"This world is no more. Your brothers have all been gathered and have gone. The last of you, the very last have now arrived here, at my bridge. Among you are the young and old, poor and rich, good and wicked. There is but one way forward for each of you. But what you will find at the end of my bridge is not the same for all."
The great beast stood for a long moment, its mane a stream of gold flame around his dark head. The crowd was silent, but Hanna could see some faces splinter into weeping and others lift with pure joy as all except her gazed at Enik. For each could see for a brief time in the wavering flames what their own fate would be, a picture, fair or foul of what they had earned. Some saw beloved friends returned to them across many years' distance, while others saw nightmare beasts that awaited a chance to devour the very people that created them. All saw some portrait, some hint, except for Hanna, who bewildered, saw only gold flame and nothing more.
Enik at last turned and walked back into the dark smoke at the end of the bridge. A few moments passed and then the first person, a young woman, fair of face and joyful followed after the great horse. Though she did not look at the narrow bridge, nor hesitate as she strode over the glassy surface, she never slipped but disappeared into the darkness. One by one the people followed her, each disappearing into the mist without a backwards glance until forty or fifty people had crossed the Fire Horse's bridge. And then came a man who was different from the others. His face was red from weeping and he shook as if the ground beneath him quaked. He edged himself onto the bridge, crouching low and watching his feet intently. Slowly, slowly he made his way across the bridge, until he came to the center. The crowd heard a loud clatter, like a heartbeat in the stone and the man stood up straight, startled. Enik came bursting through the smoke, a sizzling, sparking gem of black and ruby, his mane a whipping, cracking star in the dark. The beast bore down upon the man who screamed in terror and fell from the bridge before Enik reached him. The crowd gasped as the man slipped into the leaping flames at the side of the bridge and was gone. The Fire Horse stopped and switched its burning tail before turning and walking slowly back into the dark smoke. Hanna wept for the man and it was a long, long while before the next person tried the treacherous bridge. Hanna watched as nervous people backed away, out toward the edges, toward her. Even people who had been rapturous now had a check upon their happiness as mothers clung to their children and husbands and wives wondered if their loved ones would make it across. But eventually, the exodus began again, for so it must, there being nothing but dark cold behind and around them and flame ahead. Most people, Hanna was gladdened to see, made it across the thin, slippery bridge without trouble and passed out of her sight forever.
It took a very long time, as people could go only one at a time. It would have been many days if there had still been a sun to measure it. Early on, Hanna saw a large group of people huddled together in the back. They were frightened, some by what was beyond the smoke, some of falling into flame or of Enik. One of them was a holy man who convinced the others that if they made an offering, they would be protected and no harm could reach them. And so these people decided to build a sacred house in that dark and fiery place, where stone and flame and sea all met. They began to hew out large bricks of stone and piled them, building the wall that Brone would lean against to bear our grand sires. Hanna thought the idea was foolish, but pitied them in their fear. For though Hanna knew doubt, she was not afraid. She had lived as she wished, and though she was sad to believe her life was ending, was grateful for what she had and could not fear what may come after. Still she did not like to see others suffer, even if it was of their own making. S
he brought water from the well to the workers and walked among them trying to speak words of comfort that she had known her whole life. Gradually, the crowds began to thin as more people took their turn crossing the bridge. The food they had at first shared among them was running low and weariness began to take over their fear. One by one, the workers dropped their tools and the stones and tried to cross the bridge. Occasionally the flames would claim someone when they were frightened by Enik's wild gallop, but many made it into the shadowlands on the farther edge. And a few did not wait for Enik's hoof beats to sound on the stone nor attempt to reach the far edge of the bridge, but willfully leapt into the fire themselves. At last, Hanna shook hands with the last man left and watched him walk over the bridge and disappear. She sat next to the bridge in the shadow of the half built wall alone. She tried to will herself to cross the bridge, even to decide if she felt sad or happy or scared about crossing, but she could not. She felt nothing and decided it must not yet be time. So she sat or slept or wept for the emptiness of the world a long, long while. The great beast, Enik, came across the bridge and stopped in front of her.
"Well grandmother," he said in his dark, smoky voice, "Are you coming?"
"Are you here to force me?" she asked.
"No, it is always your choice to move on or to stay."
"What lies beyond the bridge? Where did all of these people go?"
The Horse snuffled, startled and flipped his ears back. "Can you not see? Does your heart not know what it has deserved? Then I cannot tell you."
"Then I cannot cross. Perhaps I still have some task to do, something to decide where I am to go."
Enik snorted and pawed at the stone, his hoof making streamers of white sparks. "Very well," he said, "I can smell the cold reek of my brother on the air. He will soon come for you either way." The Horse turned and began walking away. He paused and craned his large head around to look at Hanna once more. "You know," he said, not unkindly,"I might just trust in myself if it were me. I might just act as if I believed, even if I couldn't quite." And then Enik crossed the bridge once more. Hanna never saw him again. Arvakir arrived with Brone after that and promised to return when his work was finished. And so Hanna, alone of the old peoples, saw both the end of the old world and the birth of the new, though she did not know it. She thought of what Enik had said many times and dreamed of that last man walking over the bridge, away from her, away from the world almost every night.
Chapter 39
The light in the western sky grew stronger, gradually blending with the ruddy light of Enik's fires until Brone and her children lay in a perpetual midday. Hanna knew nothing of Ganit, and believing fires were blazing over the whole world, thought only that their time was growing shorter. Brone was not strong enough to move, and Hanna tried to make her comfortable as she lay with her babies in peaceful happiness. But the well gave less and less water and Hanna wept to herself for the fate of the infants. She watched Brone hold them, lightly, as if they were warm petals in her hands and worried. The roses that had at first bloomed impossibly in the dry dust now withered, curled in blackened silk shrouds and the thorns baked hard and sharp in the heat. Brone did not seem to notice, her whole existence shrunk into the faces of Adya and Janak. She did not think of going on, not yet. Still, Brone barely slept, unwilling to close her eyes. She did not speak, except to thank Hanna, and she heard nothing except for the breathing and waking of her babies. Many, many hours she watched them, until finally, she could no longer hold up her head and she slipped into a deep sleep cradling both babies. Hanna watched her sleep and saw the vines that curled around her begin to bud and leaf in the light, pushing hard, thin tendrils in tighter and tighter spirals on Brone's skin. Hanna could see the shadow of bruises underneath the plants and Brone's face was drawn and tired. Hanna walked to the well and could hear herself creaking with the short walk. She ached as she sent the well down to the bottom and heard the dull chunk of the bottom hitting sand. She tried to move it, to scoop what little water she could. But the bucket came up and was filled with dirt that was not even damp. Hanna turned around and walked back to where Brone lay. The light had grown almost unbearably bright, overcharging the air so that Hanna could see every dark peak of the glass sea before her and the glitter of the real ocean in the distance. She looked at the bridge for a long time, thinking of how the mothers with their young children had wept and wept before crossing, had held their breath until they were out of sight, and of the terrible moments when a parent had pushed a young child forward and then leapt themselves into the flames below. She looked at Adya and at Janak, curling pink shells of warmth at their mother's side and thought of all of the things they would never see or hear or do.
She looked at them and knew without any doubt in her mind at all, that Brone would have died in childbirth if Hanna had not been there to aid her. Hanna thought of this, and wept at the choice she thought she saw before Brone now. If Hanna had heeded Enik's advice, she thought, both Brone and she would be beyond suffering. Now, Hanna believed, they waited for the fire behind them to consume them or to gather the courage to crawl across the bridge into the fire ahead of them. And now Brone would have to face losing her children as well. Hanna found she could not stop crying for the Brone's pain and she felt that there was only one more thing to do. Hanna crouched near Brone and first pulled Adya into her own arms. The baby did not wake and Hanna gently positioned her in one arm and gathered Janak up as well. The boy stirred but did not cry. Brone slept so deeply that she did not wake or even move as the warmth of her infants was pulled away. Hanna stood up painfully and without looking back, tottered on cracking joints and tired legs toward the sheer, smooth stone of the narrow bridge.
Hanna still did not know if she truly believed as her sisters had. She did not know if Enik would appear to drive her from the bridge or if she would be devoured by the thick darkness at the far end, but she no longer doubted that it was time for her to move on. For a few moments only she felt fear for the babies if she should fall, but the thought dissolved, was cast away as her feet kept slowly moving forward without her knowing it. She had time to feel the weight of her arms with her two tiny bundles and wonder at her weariness. The babies woke in the heat and began to cry in Hanna's strange arms, but Enik did not appear. She did not try to hush them but just trudged forward, her knees creaking and shaking with fatigue. The roiling black cloud before her that seemed to grow thicker and more forlorn as she neared it. She stopped to peer at it, trying to see a thin spot where some picture might peek through, or to hear the sound of the multitudes that had passed into it. But the light behind her grew so that it was as if she were trying to see into the heart of night itself. The cry of the babies, though they were small and musical overwhelmed any other sound around her. The heat overwhelmed Hanna and she grew dizzy, but as she felt herself about to faint, a man's voice cut through it all like a quick, cool breeze. "Stop!" he yelled, and Hanna turned to see a star had fallen to the earth, a brilliant, winking column of light. "Stop!" shouted Ganit again.
Chapter 40
Ganit watched the shrunken woman who trembled and turned to look at him. The crying of his children fell upon him like the great swells of the ocean and Ganit felt panic rising within him.
"Please stop!" he called again, but Hanna cowered in the center of the slim bridge. He ached from the long ride and it was difficult for Ganit to stand upright without anything to lean on. He looked frantically around for something to help him walk out onto the bridge, to get to his babies. He saw Brone who slept deeply still, in the shadow of the wall, the thick briars a forest around her. Ganit fell upon his knee and crawled toward her. Hanna saw this and was startled. She tried to hurry back across the slick stone bridge but it was long and the babies were wriggling. By the time she reached the wall, Ganit was cradling the sleeping Brone. Tears flowing from his tired eyes. Hanna stopped a moment, still shocked at seeing another person, if person this was. For light streamed from him and warm breezes circled them as if
Hanna had suddenly walked from a furnace into the airy freedom of midsummer. Ganit was thin and drawn with pockets of gray ash still caught in his hair and beard and brow, still beneath his nails and filling every line in his skin. Hanna caught sight of the stump of Ganit's severed leg and drew in a sharp breath of sympathy.
"Who are you?" she stammered, "Where have you come from? Everyone is gone. What do you want?" She tried to pull his arms from Brone but the babies hampered her. "Don't touch her!" Hanna cried, "Leave the poor girl alone. She's suffered enough."
For a moment Ganit shook with weeping. "I know," he said when he was calmer, smoothing Brone's hair, "I know she has suffered. But that's all done now."
Hanna was dumbstruck. The babies grew louder in their distress and Brone began to stir. "May I see them?" asked Ganit gently.
"What? No! I don't know what you are. You'll kill them." Hanna tensed, ready to run if Ganit tried to grab the infants from her. She was torn though, not wanting to leave Brone helpless with this stranger.
"I'm their father." said Ganit, wiping ash and tears from his face with one hand. Hanna stared at him, this strange dusty star that had fallen crippled to the earth. "And I won't harm them. Though you seemed ready enough to do that a moment ago."
The Jade Seed Page 20
