20.
Travail
Standing at the grotto’s mouth, the pied mare gazed out over the rolling hills. White snow still blanketed the land—but the smell of spring was in the wind. The two young pans, Sismoomnat and Pitipak, had remained in attendance throughout the winter, making only brief forays at Jah-lila’s behest to gather medicinal herbs on the verges of the Pan Woods, barely an hour’s lope away. To Tek’s delight, a layer of fat had at last begun to sheathe her ribs, and her winter coat had thickened luxuriously. Her dam urged her to eat as much as possible to provide her unborn with all the nourishment she could.
Yet heaving her enormous girth about, Tek wondered at the strange herbs collected by the pans. Surely they did far more than merely sharpen appetite: with spring barely arrived, her belly was already bigger than many mares’ near or even past their time. Yet months remained before she was due. Progeny conceived at summer’s end never arrived until spring was well underway unless they came too soon. Tek suppressed a nervous shudder. Earlyborns almost invariably died, often taking the mare with them.
But Jah-lila continued to assure her all was well. Tek herself felt hale and rested, and her young seemed vigorous. Indeed, the pied mare almost suspected her unborn must have two sets of heels, so often did she feel the kicks. Her unborn must be growing crowded in the womb, she realized, eyeing her moon-round belly. Tek groaned. She did not know how much more her sides could be expected to swell. She could barely stagger about as it was.
Nevertheless, her most pressing fears sprang not from her pregnancy, but from the certainty that once the snows of winter melted, Korr would send his Companions through the pass in search of her. Surely he must guess where she had fled. Resolutely, the pied mare thrust such bootless thoughts away. Her mother, she knew, kept careful watch. Tek suspected some of Sismoomnat and Pitipak’s foraging expeditions were as much to scout for signs of the king’s wolves as to gather bark and herbs.
Whenever the pan sisters returned, Jah-lila questioned them at length in their own tongue, a strange mixture of clicks and hisses, guttural grunts—even gestures that were, in actuality, words. How long had the Red Mare been treating in secret with the pans? Tek wondered. It astonished her how rapidly she herself had come to accept her foster sisters. Their gentle, affectionate natures were much at odds with the unicorns’ long-held view of pans.
Before her flight, the pied mare had, like her fellows in the Vale, believed goatlings to be witless, speechless brutes. Now for the first time, she realized that discourse between her own people and the pans might be achieved: a negotiation of safe passage through the Pan Woods during spring pilgrimage and autumn trek, perhaps? Tek had mulled over the possibilities all during the waning months of winter.
And if truce could be reached between races that shared no common tongue, what might then follow between those that did? Perhaps parley—even peace—with species with whom the children-of-the-moon were in conflict: namely, the gryphons? And what of those with whom the unicorns were openly at war: the hated wyverns?
Standing at the entrance to her mother’s cave, surveying the far Pan Woods, the pied mare shook her head, unwilling to take her wild musings further. They felt dangerously new and untried, reminding her keenly of Jan. She had always thought him an extravagant dreamer. Only now did she begin to wonder whether his more fanciful speculations might, after all, turn out to be of practical use.
Dusk drew on. Tek watched the gathering shadows travel over the snow-shrouded hills. Far in the distant meadow below, a small band of shaggy boar plowed their way through the deep snow. Tek shuddered, thinking of the wolves that had pursued her across that same meadow, months ago now. She paced restlessly before the grotto’s opening, a vague sense of unease nipping at her.
She wondered where Jah-lila could be. After dozing the afternoon away in the warmth and pale glow of the cave’s phosphorescent mushrooms, she had awakened only shortly ago to find both her mother and the young pans gone. Surprised, she had strained to her feet and taken up her vigil at the cave’s egress.
The burden in her belly shifted, bearing down. The unaccustomed pressure made walking difficult, yet she could not keep still. Clumsily, she lumbered down the path leading from the cave—but quickly lost her breath. Her unborn seemed to weigh against her lungs. She stood lock-kneed for a few moments, panting, before moving on. Twilight deepened. The air grew dank and chill. She saw nothing of either the pans or Jah-lila. The boar in the far meadow had disappeared into the trees.
A ferocious storm was brewing to the northwest, she noted, ambling laboriously along the path. Darkness seethed and roiled over the distant Vale. Blue-white flashes illuminated the rapidly rising thunderheads. Dense and incredibly black, the clouds built with a preternatural swiftness.
The storm was spreading this way, she realized, catching the first whiff of freshening breeze. Storm clouds devoured the setting sun. Best get underhill, she told herself, swinging ponderously around. This was sure to be a violent blow. She hoped Jah-lila and her pan fosterlings would return to the grotto soon, hating to think of any beast caught out on such a night. The path back along the hillside’s curve seemed steeper than she recalled.
Breathless, heaving, she had taken no more than a dozen steps before a crushing pain overtook her. Tek halted with a sharp outbreath of surprise. The pressure in her belly deepened suddenly into a pang. It passed quickly, but left her weak. Though the evening air was chilling fast, a fine film of sweat pricked her beneath her thick winter shag.
Alarmed, she had managed only ten more paces when a second pang constricted her, forcing her to exhale and drop her head. A low moan escaped her. This pain, too, was brief, though more protracted than the first. The pied mare’s thoughts spun. Something must be badly amiss. She and Jan had pledged on the autumnal equinox, only half a year before. Her young would not be full term till near the start of summer, more than two moons away. Cold fear gripped her.
Desperately, Tek staggered toward the distant cave. Her urgency only precipitated another pang, which nearly pitched her to her knees. Wincing, she forced herself on. She must get out of the cold and the coming rain, back to the hidden grotto’s shelter and warmth. Doubt chilled her. Could she even reach the cave? The path seemed endless, the grotto nowhere in sight. Another pain.
Rounding a bend in the hillside at last, she saw Sismoomnat, the elder of the pan sisters, standing in the grotto’s egress, casting about worriedly, a bundle of newly gathered bitterbark still clasped in her forepaws. Was Jah-lila with her? Tek did not see her dam. Gasping, she managed a wounded warrior’s whistle just as another spasm, the most severe yet, swept hard through her. She stumbled, crying out, heard Sismoomnat’s answering hail and the rapid two-footed patter of the young pan’s heels. A moment later, she felt the other’s nuzzling touch as her mother’s acolyte surveyed her with a few quick sniffs and glances.
“How goes it with you, sis-ter?” Sismoomnat asked gently, her flat, goatling brow furrowed with concern.
The pressure began to abate, not completely this time. Tek was barely able to raise her head and speak.
“Something…is wrong. Sharp pains…”
She felt the other’s tongue tasting the salt of her sweat—more than a gesture of affection, the pied mare knew. A midwife could tell much by a taste.
“Come,” the goatling urged her. “Walk while you may. Storm nears. Jah-ama is not yet home. We must make haste to shel-ter.”
Drenched in sweat, Tek stumbled along the narrow path. Its gradual incline seemed almost insurmountable to her now. Though the pain had eased somewhat, she still had to halt, panting, every half dozen steps to rest. The cold wind cut into her coat. Sismoomnat leaned against her, supporting Tek with her own frail goatling’s strength.
The cave’s mouth loomed. Sismoomnat whistled shrilly through her teeth. Her sister, Pitipak, scampered from the grotto’s mouth and hurried toward them. Tek put down her head. Her belly clenched again. She felt as though a relentlessly
tightening band encompassed her. She heard the soft guttural cries of the younger pan, felt hairless forepaws caressing her. As she struggled through the cave’s entryway, the warmth and windlessness of the ghostlit chamber hit her like a blow. She lost her footing, nearly fell.
“On-ly a few more steps,” Sismoomnat murmured.
Pitipak darted ahead, shoving a thick bedding of dried grass into the pied mare’s path. Tek collapsed onto it gratefully. “What…what is it?” she gasped, in agony again.
“Birth pangs,” Sismoomnat replied calmly.
Panic shot through the pied mare, redoubling the clenching jabs. “No! The foal isn’t due…for months!”
The two pans had sunk to their haunches beside her, one on either side, buttressing her lest she heel over completely. Tek struggled feebly, but found herself too weak to rise.
“Too soon!“ she panted. “I’ll…lose the foal!”
She stared around her at the grotto full of roots and herbs—if only she had known which ones to take! A healer’s fosterling, she held some knowledge of the worts that treated wounds and other ills, but none at all of those used in the midwife’s art. Wild with frustration and pain, she half whinnied, half groaned. Where was Jah-lila? If the Red Mare were here, she would know what to do.
“Peace, sis-ter,” Sismoomnat soothed, stroking the pied mare’s neck and mane. “You need no herb to delay this birth. The pains are ear-ly, but Jah-ama has prepared for this. Have no fear. She will return from her task ver-y soon. Till then, we will aid you. She has instruct-ed us tho-roughly in mat-ters of mid-wifery.”
The goatling’s nimble forepaws smoothed and kneaded Tek’s heaving sides with firm, steady strokes. The ache remained excruciating. Shuddering, the pied mare sensed the younger pan bustling about under her sister’s direction, fetching this herb and that. A bundle of bruised and fragrant leaves was thrust beneath her nose. Sismoomnat urged her to breathe deeply to dull the pain. Tek tried futilely to deepen her rapid, shallow panting but the pangs were coming harder and faster now.
The pains crowded out all else. She felt the unborn within her shifting, shifting with maddening slowness, as though overly cramped within her tightly constricted womb. Tek writhed and rolled, unable to find any position that could relieve the unrelenting contractions. Outside, the downpour grew deafening. Violent flashes of lightning seared her vision even through her clenched eyelids. Roaring thunder rumbled unendingly as though the mountain were preparing to fall.
Her mind glazed, only dimly aware how late the evening had grown. The birth was taking too long. In the Vale, she knew, most mares accompanied the midwife to the birthing grounds in the morning, were safely delivered by noon, then returned before dusk. But this arduous labor had already lasted hours without issue. A monstrous sense of foreboding gripped her. After a time, she realized it was full night.
No moon shone outside. Even without the storm, she knew Alma’s heavenly daughter would not have lit the sky—for tonight was moondark, the time of the nothing moon, when the pale moon mare ran paired with the sun on the other side of the world. This was the night each month when unicorns of the Vale huddled underhill, hiding from haunts and spirits: a time of hazard and evil influence, the hour of freaks and miracles.
Superstitious nonsense, all of it, Tek tried to tell herself, contracting and crying out yet again. The young within her, striving so gamely to be born, would not come forth. At last her strength gave out. She could not even moan anymore. Breech birth. The realization rolled through her like the thunder. Neither she nor her foal would survive this travail. Mad Korr would have his victory after all.
Hollow hooffalls suddenly, barely audible above the booming of thunder and the clatter of rain. Tek smelled the sweet, spice scent of her dam shaking off in the entryway.
“Daughter!” Jah-lila’s voice called, full of urgency and dread. “I came with all speed but could not outrun the storm. Curse the work that called me from you this day….”
The pied mare could not answer, could not even open her eyes. She lay on her side exhausted, unable even to twitch an ear. No curiosity stirred in her to wonder what task had kept the midwife so long from her side. Jah-lila had come too late. Tek knew no herb could save her now. She waited only for death.
“Haste!” her mother was saying. “Sismoomnat, Pitipak—rub your forelimbs with bitterbark.”
Someone lay gasping hoarsely nearby. Dimly, Tek realized it was herself and clenched her teeth against the sound.
“Reach, Sismoomnat,” she heard her mother saying. “Aye, slow and smoothly—reach deep.”
The pied mare felt a sudden pressure moving through her, gliding upward toward the womb. She kicked reflexively, but someone was kneeling on her hind legs, pinning them. She smelled her mother’s rain-soaked scent, felt her reassuring nuzzle.
“Peace. Peace, daughter,” she murmured. “All will be well soon. Soon.”
Tek thrashed feebly, too weak to drag herself away.
"Have you got firm hold, Sismoomnat?” the Red Mare was saying. “Pull, then—pull hard!”
Something slipped struggling from her womb. Tek felt a rush of blood-warm fluid.
“Well done!” she heard Jah-lila exclaim. “Well done, my fosterling. Now, Pitipak, you must do the same: reach deep and pull, exactly as your sister did.”
Tek felt again the sliding reach, the clench and pull—and her womb emptied suddenly, the sense of unbearable distention abruptly gone. She felt herself subsiding, her heartbeat slowing, pulse beating fainter, fainter yet. Weariness smothered her. She knew she must be dying now, only distantly aware of the young pans’ joyous cries.
“Behold, Jah-ama!”
“So vig-orous—and so well grown!”
“Rejoice, daughter,” the Red Mare whispered in her ear. “In thy progeny and Jan’s brought hale into the world.”
A sensation of warmth stole over her. The pied mare managed a wordless sigh. Her young lived. She had accomplished the task she had set herself in fleeing the Vale: to see Jan’s offspring safely born. Her own life scarcely mattered any more. Surely her magicker dam could rear an orphaned filly or foal—even a suckling newborn—as she had the two young pans. Utterly spent, Tek drifted toward beckoning darkness.
The foreboding that had gripped her earlier, she realized drowsily, portended not the stillbirth of her progeny, but only her own end and that of this aged and withered season, now passing with great gnashing and thundering away. Winter’s deathgrip was broken at last. By morning, the torrential rains would have battered months of snow and ice into muddy slush. Tomorrow would dawn the equinox, first day of the new and long-awaited spring.
21.
Equinox
The dark unicorn stood on a vast clifftop. Swept clean of snow, devoid of vegetation, the broad, flat expanse before him lay fetlock deep in straw, withered flowers, and the sweet-smelling shavings of spicewood. Behind, the chon’s great timber palace stood. All around, a sprawling press of two-foots stamped and swayed.
“Dai’chon!” they chanted. “Dai’chon!”
The daïcha stood to one side of the crowd, flanked by her female companions and her green-plumes. The great crescent of skystuff gleamed silver on her breast. Behind her, the sacred daya of the palace milled, coats brushed to gleaming, manes intricately braided. Tai-shan spotted Ryhenna among the rest, her color all coppery fire. She huddled, miserable-seeming.
“Dai’chon!” the crowd shouted. “Dai’chon!”
Tai-shan remembered the arrival of green-garbed keepers to the warm enclosure scarcely an hour before, hustling the daya and himself from stable to clifftop through the surging press of celebrants, many of whom had fallen to their knees at the sight of the dark unicorn. Tai-shan cavaled and shook himself as petals and wood shavings, seedpods, and whiskered ears of grain continued to rain down. Even here in the open, the thick, soft carpet of tindery stuff underhoof scarcely muffled the din. The noise on the clifftop was deafening.
“Dai’chon!” the crow
d roared. “Dai’chon!”
Before the throng stretched an open space, empty save for a great dais of stone. Offerings heaped its base: provender of every kind, bolts of vivid falseskin, coffers of glinting river stones mixed with little disks of skystuff. Jars of oil and the dark, fragrant juice of crushed berries gave off a sharply aromatic scent. Beyond the platform stretched more open space until the clifftop dropped abruptly away.
“Dai’chon!” ranted the throng, stamping rhythmically. “Dai’chon!”
The chon’s purple-plumes held back the crush. Of the chon himself, the dark unicorn saw no sign. He stood trapped, purple-badged minions holding twin tethers to the silver halter imprisoning his head. An impassable sea of two-foots surged to one side of him. To the other lay only clifftop and empty air. Storm clouds roiled to the east at horizon’s edge, devouring the rising sun.
“Dai’chon!” the crowd thundered. “Dai’chon—”
Without warning, silence fell. The rhythmic stamping abruptly ceased. Two-foots stood panting, covered with sweat in the cool morning air. Tai-shan’s ears twitched. The stillness seemed to reverberate. Even the restless daya quieted. The only sound upon the clifftop now was that of seabirds and the foaming crash of unseen breakers dashing themselves to spume upon the rocks far, far below.
With one accord, the throng parted. A glittering raft, mounted on poles and borne upon the shoulders of eight brawny two-foots, emerged from the press. Hushed onlookers sank to their knees as it passed. Tai-shan recognized the conveyance as that which he had once seen carrying the chon—but the figure now seated upon it bore little resemblance to the firekeepers’ king. Drawing even with the dais, the raft’s bearers halted. Its occupant rose and stepped regally onto the high stone platform.
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