by Don McQuinn
The river claimed the sharker. Spinning, wallowing, she swept downstream.
Soon afterward, Saris brought the ferry to a grinding halt against the bank. Sylah and Lanta questioned him while the others unloaded the horses. First, Sylah explained to Lanta, “He reached for his chest when he ordered his men to attack. I want to know why.” When she found the thin chain at his throat, she dragged out a flat, silver-shining disk.
“Moondance.” Both women made a whispered curse of the word.
Teeth bared, Saris pulled back against the hull. “Moondance will crush all of you, Church as well as witches.”
Sylah asked, “Who calls me witch?”
“You ride with those who destroy with lightning. Isn’t the Lanta one a Seer? They’re all witches, whether Church calls them so or not. Everyone knows the black woman witched the monk, Nalatan. Made him renounce Church.”
“They know all that, do they?” In contrast to Lanta’s trembling fury, Sylah was introspective.
Committed now, Saris grew evangelical. “We Rivers and Windband are joined with the Skan. We’ll make peace with Kos. Gan Moondark will find us coming from all the four holy directions. Waters and mountains will rise against him and all who stand against us. The Three Territories and false Church will be a harvest of slaves.”
Saris was unaware of Nalatan’s approach. Not deigning to look at the River, Nalatan said, “The horses are landed. If you’ll join the others, I’ll tend to this. I saw his accursed disk.” He raised his sword.
Saris shrieked defiance. “I die to live forever in the moon. I’ll be revenged! Moondance. Moondance!”
“Free him.” Sylah stepped back.
Ugly with contempt, Nalatan sliced the leather lashing.
Bending swiftly to his ankle, Saris rose with a shortknife from a boot scabbard. Grinning in a transport of religious ecstasy, he struck at Sylah. She saw him, dreamlike, saw her hands rise slowly—too slowly—to fend him off.
The knife filled her vision.
A glinting blur cut in front of her. Saris’ jacket stirred. A slit fell open in the material. The shortknife spun away. Shock warped his frenzy. He stopped, not believing the flush of blood staining his chest and forearm.
Nalatan aimed his killing stroke.
Sylah grabbed her companion’s arm, held on until he calmed. Then she moved to minister to Saris.
The River had his left arm pressed across his chest, the hand closing the wound on his right bicep. Immersed in fervor once more, Saris regaled her. “You’ll see, witch; you’ll see. You’ll curse the day you spared me. As I curse you.”
Nalatan spoke to Sylah. “You give mercy where it’s neither appreciated or wise.”
Calmly, Sylah rejected Nalatan’s anger. “That’s when it’s most needed.”
Chapter 9
Smoke coursed over the top of the stone-and-timber palisade of the Skan fort. Billowing blue-gray mimicked the waves of the hard green sea, an arrow-shot away. Morning’s early mist mixed with the smoke, gave the wall a brooding, watchful air.
Lorso limped along the battlewalk on the inner side of the vertical log palisade. He passed archer ports every few paces, tall slits cut at junctures of two logs. At the southwest corner of the square fort, Lorso turned left. The morning sun breaking the horizon warmed his face. Ahead, sharkers nested on the still surface of the natural harbor east of the fort. Looking at the bright gleam of dawn on the water, Lorso thought of a razor edge, heard the erotic whisper of honed steel drawn along leather.
It was his favorite sound. From childhood, it soothed him. Never before had he thought of it as sexually stimulating.
Jaleeta.
If sound could ignite desire, Jaleeta was the one woman he needed to fuel it. Quench it. So contradictory. Like the sharpening. Soothing. Exciting. How could that be?
Jaleeta. He stopped, put a hand to the wall. Beyond the harbor, the log cabins of the town swam in his sight. Yearning stole the strength of his knees. He glanced to the south. There rose the rounded split peak that represented the beak of Sosolassa, the octopus god of the Skan. Sosolassa, who heard all, saw all, and spoke through his chosen spirit woman, Tears of Jade.
Jaleeta’s owner. Jaleeta, the weapon Sosolassa ordered Tears of Jade to find.
Lorso was unable to look at Jaleeta without seeing the naked, fire-bathed form he’d captured. Vulnerable. Quivering. His, by right of strength.
Lorso’s stomach tightened painfully. Jaleeta was forbidden, claimed by a god.
But Lorso knew Jaleeta didn’t want a god. Jaleeta wanted Lorso. Tonight.
* * *
Tears of Jade refused to live within the walls, saying, “Sosolassa gave our sea, our land, to those who had the courage to reject the first Siah and that one’s weak ways. Skan walls offend Sosolassa. Skan seek out and destroy trespassers, prey on all who are not Skan.”
Rising from the bed in his tiny cabin, Lorso smiled, thinking how the old woman shamed the wall-trusting warriors mercilessly; the Chief, bold as a mouse, and the Navigators, old and worn out. They crept up to her cabin for her unerring counsel and tried to escape before her tongue stripped their bones.
Strapping on his sword, Lorso sobered. Aside from her contempt for the Skan leadership, there was nothing funny about Tears of Jade.
It wasn’t right for a man—even adopted—to fear his mother.
Sweat dampened Lorso’s palms. He dried them on his coarse, canvaslike trousers.
The solitary window admitted light from a quarter moon. Scudding clouds alternately filtered and exposed its face. The room held a table, two chairs, and a large chest for storing clothes and blankets against one wall. There was a smaller chest opposite the door, by the darker blackness of the fireplace. Lorso’s sealskin rain cape and conical rain hat of woven cedar bark hung on a peg driven into the door.
Stepping outside, he closed the door soundlessly.
Through fitful moon shadows, he slipped from cabin to cabin across the town. There was no watch, as such. There were eyes in plenty. Not everyone slept.
There were dogs, too, prowling in packs. Essentially feral, they lived in the forest, occasionally tame enough to hole up in a barn or tunnel under a cabin. Usually that was to birth pups. At night, they slunk in among the dwellings. Wolves wouldn’t pursue them into the populated area, and the dogs scavenged freely. They could be very dangerous. At least once a year, someone was badly bitten. Less frequently, a pack killed. When that happened, there was an intense hunt. For a while, dogs were fewer. Soon things were as before.
Lorso often thought he shared a disturbing similarity with them. They belonged to no one, yet found protection because they had utility. Among the Skan, Lorso was renowned, yet ever the lone one. His entire family was taken by Sosolassa. That was why Tears of Jade adopted him.
He reminded himself he was loved. Adopted, yes, but loved. Absolutely.
For a moment, Lorso was unsure if his thoughts of the dogs created the sense of their presence, or if he was actually being followed. Bared sword in hand, he turned.
The pack leader, crouched low to the ground, was no more than a body-length away. Discovered, it settled even farther. A warning growl shivered the darkness. Hair rose on Lorso’s neck, his arms.
Slowly, weapon extended, Lorso backed away. Fear of exposure demanded he retreat. Infuriated, he ached to lash out. It was a very large dog, and the pack followed it under good hunting discipline. Aside from the scratch of claws and some panting, they were utterly silent.
Lorso leaned forward, lifted the sword point. Like smoke, the pack rolled back on itself, drifted away.
Once at the fringes of the town, buildings were farther apart. Brush and trees provided better cover than corners and doorways. Lorso relaxed a bit.
Light gleamed through a gap in Tears of Jade’s door.
The old woman was awake.
Fear knotted his guts into a frozen chain.
The spirit woman knew.
Panic shrilled in his ears. H
e clutched his sword in both hands. If he was discovered, he was determined to die fighting rather than provide entertainment for a howling crowd.
Then he heard the soft music from the cabin near Tears of Jade’s. The dark cabin. Jaleeta’s.
Sweet, intricate, the melody was like the smell of flowers on the night air. A tarn, the deep-bodied stringed instrument of the Skan, chanted mellow chords, background for a voice softened to confiding yearning.
Lorso crawled across the open ground. Carefully skirting her flower beds, he crouched at Jaleeta’s door. He tapped gently.
Without missing a beat or changing the tune, Jaleeta melodically sang, “Come in, my love. Make no sound. Come inside. Be still, wait for my touch.”
Lorso slipped through the door. Sword still in hand, he hunched against the wall, waiting as bid. His heart threatened to break his ribs. His breath caught in nostrils overcharged with her presence. Woman-scent and scrubbed skin, brushed hair and sweet oil of cedar. Sweat dappled his lip, tingled at his temples.
When the song ended, she said, “We must be careful.” The voice was fire; the sighing whisper of movement in the dark raised the heat to an unbearable pitch.
Then there was total silence. Thick, choking. An overwhelming sense of someone—something—else nearby threatened to suffocate him.
Tears of Jade’s pinched, withered visage claimed his mind’s eye. The face hated him.
When something touched his cheek, he flinched. Fingers pressed to his lips. “I’m here, my love. With you. Yours. As this night is ours.” Her hand left his face to cover his grip on the sword. Jaleeta laughed quietly. “You won’t need this. Tonight you conquer with a different weapon.” Then the hand was at his throat, moving down to his blouse, freeing the first toggle from its loop. Sly fingers reached inside to explore his chest.
He lunged forward, reached to enfold her. His embrace closed on tantalizing laughter. Words came from across the room. “I’m here, Lorso. Naked. As you saw me once. As I was when I hated you, as I am now that I must have you. As you must be when you come to me.”
Lorso dropped the sword to the floor. Frantic hands fumbled with toggles, loops, belt, laces. Everything fell heedlessly beside the sword.
Crossing the room, hands outstretched, he contacted flesh so soft, so firm, so deliciously inviting he halted in sheer wonder. Jaleeta caught his wrists, denying him further touch. Maddened, he strained forward. She spun away, avoiding his grasp, maintaining her own. A different tone, steely sharp, demanded, “Not yet. The bonding. Afterward…” The lone word promised.
Jaleeta released him. A moment later—a moment that seemed forever to Lorso—metal pressed into his hand. He recognized a shortknife. His thumb sought the blade, relishing the eager edge, the one he’d put there when Jaleeta promised him this night. Quickly, he drew a line across both forearms, just below the elbow. Jaleeta’s hands traced his muscle there, lingered on the wetness. “Now me,” she said. “Hurry, Lorso. Hurry.” Two quick inhalations marked the corresponding cuts on her arms. Then she was pressed against him, warm, yielding. He raised his arms over his head in contact with hers. The razor-thin wounds joined, the flowing blood melded.
“There.” The word clung to his tongue like a clawed thing. He forced out the oath. “Blood of one, blood of both. I swear my life to you. Sosolassa hears me.”
Jaleeta repeated the bond, bending forward, whispering them in his ear. The plosive sounds were moist caresses, the sibilants drawn out, insinuating. Between words, her tongue played across his flesh. Her body moved against his.
With a throaty, inarticulate rumble, Lorso picked her up bodily, took her to the fur-blanketed bed.
* * *
Tears of Jade hobbled into Jaleeta’s room with one hand grasping the arm of another woman. In the free hand she held her ornate walking stick. She prodded the curled-up, sleeping Jaleeta. “Get up,” she said. The ancient, dry voice was surprisingly light. Amusement danced in it.
Jaleeta immediately rolled to a sitting position, feet on the wooden floor. She drew the bearskin about her.
Tears of Jade smiled, a slash through the myriad wrinkles. Her teeth were blindingly white, their gleam equal to that of her quick, probing eyes. “You seem to have weathered the storm well. My lovely little seabird has caught her first fish. Fully fledged, you are, and on the wing, my darling.” Instantly serious, she leaned forward. The silent woman beside her took her weight. “All went well?”
For a long breath, Jaleeta was expressionless. Sleep-deprived eyes stared. The rich, full lips were slack. One hand rose to comb fingers through disarrayed hair. And then she grinned, transformed herself from a tired, just-wakened waif to a lascivious, sated woman. “Well? Wonderful would be a better word. If there is any word.” She pouted. “I wish he didn’t have to go.”
“You naughty thing.” Scandalized, chuckling, Tears of Jade detached herself from the support of the other woman, walked to a chair by the window where the first light of day brought hints of color to objects. With the walking stick, she indicated the corner where the other woman should retire. The spirit woman continued speaking to Jaleeta. “I’m not interested in your nasty rutting, young scamp. Show me your arms. He swore?”
Jaleeta held up the thin wounds.
Tears of Jade nodded satisfaction. “We progress.”
“Progress where?” Again, Jaleeta pouted, this time seriously.
“That’s not for you to know. Or concern yourself with. Have I made your life a good one? Have I lived up to every promise I made you?”
“You treat me like your own daughter.”
“Better. Believe me, far better. Because you are the one who will bring the Skan the glory we deserve. With my help, you will rise to rank no woman of Skan—perhaps in the world—has ever known. You will rule. I am re-creating me, Jaleeta. A mind as nimble as mine, a body and energy to do the things this old husk will never do again. You live in order that I live.”
Jaleeta nodded.
Tears of Jade continued. “The man we need is in our net. Now it’s my turn. He’ll leave for the Three Territories with two more sharkers tonight. Let his needs ripen a while.”
The woman in the corner broke her silence. “The attack on Gan Moondark’s capitol will wait for them?”
Head down, the old woman shook her head, gray locks swaying. “The Kwa aren’t the allies we need to destroy Gan Moondark. If he is overthrown by this attack, so much the better. In the end, they all work for me.” She turned to Jaleeta. “For us. We use their strength, their dreams, their minds. Men are the sea, thunderous and irresistible, terrible. We sit beside Sosolassa, hidden in the darkest, stillest calm. We watch. Wait. Mystery and misdirection deflect mindless greed and brute strength. Like the moon, woman’s sister ever, our light is deception, our darkness blinds and snares.”
Gnarled, blue-veined hands worked painfully up the walking stick, pulling Tears of Jade erect. When the woman in the corner rose swiftly to assist, a single glance from Tears of Jade sat her backdown as effectively as a blow. Shuffling to the door, Tears of Jade said, “Stay with your daughter, Mena. I will call you when I want you.”
Long after the older woman was gone, the two in the cabin remained unmoving. Finally, Mena went to the window. Before she spoke, she was careful to turn her face back into the room. “She’s gone. Are you all right?”
Jaleeta threw aside the bearskin and stretched luxuriously, a catlike move, enhanced by a satisfied smirk. Then she looked at her mother, and the self-possession collapsed. She clutched the cover to her again, blushing. Lowering her eyes, she nodded. “I’m all right. It was… not troublesome.”
Mena wrinkled her nose, hurried to a tall cedar chest, its exterior completely covered with carved representations of Sosolassa. Pulling open a door, she reached inside and brought out salve. “It’s a good thing your Lorso knows how to use a knife. The cuts are very thin. They’ll heal quickly. Tears of Jade says you must keep them hidden, but you can’t wear bandages.” Her voic
e caught, and when she turned to her daughter, unshed tears marred her eyes. “I should have killed myself long ago. None of this would have happened. My poor child.”
Extending her arms for medication, Jaleeta spoke wearily. “How many times have we talked about this? Our life is good. Tears of Jade was cruel only until we learned to see her as our friend. You struck me often enough, when we were For. ‘To make me understand,’ you always said. Tears of Jade only struck harder.”
Mena sniffed, dabbed at the injured arm more vigorously than absolutely necessary. Jaleeta barely flinched, then smiled. “You see? Pain. The same as I get from Tears of Jade.”
“I don’t understand you. I had such hopes.” The mother’s face crumpled to abject misery. “I punished you for doing wrong things, to keep you from harming yourself. She tortured you. No sleep. Only enough food and water to keep you alive. No one but her to talk to. I prayed for you to die, because I thought your mind would break. Now you act as if she’s…” Mena choked to a stop.
“My mother?” Jaleeta stroked the wet cheeks bowed before her. Suddenly, the younger was the acknowledged comforter and sustainer. “I was prepared to go insane. Or die. Tears of Jade saw that. It pleased her. Only when she hurt you could she bring me to her side. But her way is the right way. I see it. You heard her. I will rule. What did I, a For girl, have to hope for? More fish? A better canoe? In my whole past life, the only memories I cherish are of you. The rest is nothing. You are the only mother I have, ever will have. But I need some time alone, now. Please?”
Stricken, Mena reached to grip the hand still lingering on her cheek. “Are you hurt?”
Rising, drawing the bearskin around her, Jaleeta turned away, hiding a slow, secret smile. “I’m not hurt. I just want to think.”
Muttering, unsatisfied, Mena left without argument.
When she was gone, Jaleeta inspected her arms, as if expecting to learn something from the cuts. “Your plans died under Skan swords, Mother. Tears of Jade’s plans are her secret. No one even suspects that Jaleeta has plans. ‘You will rule.’” The latter was Tears of Jade’s voice, the rasping dryness accentuated to burlesque. Even the old woman’s appearance was precisely caricatured; Jaleeta suddenly bent, doddering, head wagging. She straightened. Stretched languorously. Her muted laughter was like a warning from the darkest corner of an unknown room.
