Exile's Children

by Angus Wells

  Despite Racharran’s oft-voiced support, his standing amongst the Commacht diminished like water dribbling through gravel. He could not dream: he could not warn of attacks or fouled waterholes, buffalo herds or deer slaughtered or driven away. The clan began to mutter; the hotheaded young men first, but before too long also the older warriors.

  “The Maker takes away his gift,” he heard them say; and, “What use a Dreamer who cannot dream?” and “He’s named no one to succeed him.” When they knew he heard them they looked shamefaced and turned away, but the soft-spoken words rang condemnatory in his ears and he was ashamed: he thought he failed his people.

  When the young men, and more than a few of the older warriors, spoke of raiding into the Tachyn lands to strike the enemy’s camps as Chakthi did theirs, he argued with them, speaking urgently of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko and the importance of its continued observance. He said to them what Racharran had said—that they were Commacht and should not stoop to the Tachyn’s low ways for fear of earning the Maker’s displeasure. And they gave him back that it seemed to them they already suffered, and that surely what Chakthi did must justify any measures they took; and he could only answer that wrong could not justify wrong, which satisfied them not at all. Some even dared question him outright, asking if he could still, dreamless, properly interpret the Will. It was Racharran who intervened then, exercising his authority to forbid such counterattacks, and though he supported Morrhyn, still that intervention eroded the wakanisha’s own standing. He felt he became shadowy, ever more insubstantial, as the clan’s belief in him slipped away. He felt his belief in himself shrink, as if he drifted powerless on a tide he could neither control nor properly comprehend. He grew morose.

  He spent long days alone in the sweat lodge, praying to the Maker for guidance, for enlightenment, and knew only the unanswering darkness. He ate the pahé root until Racharran and Lhyn came to him, together and separately, and begged him to cease for fear the narcotic leach out all his senses and leave him mindless. To which he answered: “And what matter? Undreaming, I am senseless: I am useless.” And laughed bitterly and said, “That blind horse we spoke of? I am less use than that. I am become nothing.”

  “You are our wakanisha,” Racharran said as Lhyn wiped sweat from his fevered face, his chest.

  That touch would, not long ago, have excited him, but now he felt only a terrible weariness, an aching and unnamable void that left him despondent and weak so that he only lay beside the fire and knew vaguely she wiped him dry and brought broth to his mouth. He would not have eaten had she not forced him. He said, “I am a Dreamer without dreams. They talk about me when they think I shall not hear.”

  Racharran said, “I’ll speak to them of that.”

  “No.” Morrhyn shook his head. “They speak only the truth. Why should they not? I betray them.”

  Lhyn said fiercely, “No! You do what you can.”

  He laughed at that, feebly, and raised himself up. “What I can do is not much, eh?”

  It seemed to him the darkness invaded his soul, and even when he sought the light he could not find it, as if it were dimmed or taken far away from him. He took the bowl from her hands and drained it and gave it back; she filled it from the pot she had brought and passed it to him. He looked at it and felt no appetite and shook his head.

  She said, “That would be betrayal, Morrhyn—to let yourself grow weak when we need your strength. Eat!”

  He looked at her and wondered how she could care so much for him when he was useless and she had lost her son. He looked at Racharran, who sat cross-legged and unhappy, his eyes narrowed in concern. He took the bowl.

  Racharran said, “I’ve sent riders to the Lakanti, to ask for Yazte’s help.”

  Morrhyn felt his belly grow warmer as the broth filled him. He felt weak and sick. He was not sure how long he had lain in the sweat lodge, nor how long since last he ate. He said, “Surely we need it. But what shall it mean? That this war is fought the fiercer? That more die?”

  Racharran said, “I hope it shall mean we defeat Chakthi.”

  “Or slip deeper into this chaos?” Morrhyn let Lhyn drape a blanket about his shoulders. “I feel a long night coming.”

  “What do you say?” Racharran asked.

  Morrhyn sipped the broth. It strengthened him; or perhaps it was the concern of these true friends. It did not matter: he felt his spirit climb a little way up from the darkness. It was as if he lay in a deep pit, but now a glimmer illuminated handholds, showed how he might ascend into the light again. He said carefully, “That this war blinds us to the other. That we fight the Tachyn, and does Yazte lend us men, then three clans fight. Shall Chakthi seek alliance with the Naiche or Juh’s Aparhaso?”

  Racharran said, “I think he’d not find it, nor we. I think both Juh and Tahdase would sooner stay clear of this.”

  Morrhyn shook his head and felt it spin. He closed his eyes awhile, gathering his confused and random thoughts. “I think it makes no difference,” he said at last. “Colun brought us warning of that war the Whaztaye lost. He told us the impossible had become real, and of the Grannach’s fears—that the invaders breach the mountains and come to Ket-Ta-Witko. And we ignored him! We had our own concerns, no? That Vachyr stole Arrhyna and Rannach slew him for that sin.”

  “And was punished for it,” Racharran said, his face gone tight.

  “And was punished for it,” Morrhyn agreed. “And did we not then wonder what part Chakthi had in that, and Hadduth? What darkness had entered them that they played so dangerous a game? That Chakthi had likely chanced his own son’s life to strike at us?”

  Racharran said, “I do not understand.”

  Lhyn sat silent, her gaze fixed firm on Morrhyn’s face, as if she sought the answers he was not sure he owned behind his eyes.

  He said, “I wondered then if some greater darkness entered Chakthi. Think on how that Matakwa ended—in chaos and rage. Now we fight a war such as we’ve never known—the Ahsa-tye-Patiko is forgotten by the Tachyn, and our own young men speak of ignoring the Will. I think there’s chaos abroad—and what better time to invade a land?”

  He licked his lips as Lhyn flinched. He saw Racharran’s hands tighten into fists. He wondered if the Maker guided his tongue, or only his own worst fears. He said, “I eat the pahé root and still cannot dream. My head is all clouded and dark. The Tachyn ignore the Will and every custom: chaos. We are divided. And should Colun’s warning prove true?”

  He saw Racharran’s hands close tight again, this time the right folding about the Grannach knife he wore. Lhyn reached out to touch his wrist, her other hand nervous at her throat. Like her husband before her, she asked, “What do you say?”

  He answered: “That a madness is on us. And I fear worse to come.”

  Her hand clenched tight. He dropped the bowl he held, the broth spilling unnoticed between his legs.

  Racharran said, “Wakanisha, if this is your true belief, what must we do?”

  Almost, he shrugged and answered, “I am a wakanisha who cannot any longer dream—why do you ask me?”. But he could not shrug off that duty: he was wakanisha of the Commacht, and if he was to fulfil that duty, then he must accept it wholely or else be nothing: fail his clan and all the People. He wished the burden were not his—that he might turn from it and pass it to another; but there was—as the whispers about the camp had said—none other to whom he could hand it. And so, he thought, I must shoulder it like that blind horse, and trust to those instincts left me to carry it safely on. But to where, and to what end?

  The entry flap of the sweat lodge faced west, looking toward the invisible mountains. It was closed now, but it was for a moment as if his sight grew vital enough that he saw through the hide and across the grass beyond the woods and the hills and the valleys and the rivers to where the Maker’s Mountain loomed. It was as if he saw that peak standing bright into the sky, as if it came to him and stood above him and called him. He felt afraid and at the same time excited. For an
instant he remembered the time Gahyth had named him a Dreamer and revealed to him those mysteries that belonged to the wakanishas alone.

  He heard Lhyn say, “Morrhyn?”

  And Racharran, “What ails you?”

  He smiled then, a thin and narrow spreading of his lips, and answered them both: “I must go away.”

  It seemed not his lungs that pumped the air that vitalized the words, nor his throat that drummed the cords, nor his lips that shaped their forming, but some other’s. Perhaps the Maker’s. He thought that likely presumption, but still the words came clear, and he knew as he spoke them that there was no retraction possible, nor any turning back. He was compelled by a force he did not understand, nor wanted to: it was too strong. It was if he climbed those handholds he had envisioned, clambering from the pit toward the hope of light, driven by hope and fear together to ignore the pain and grip where no grip was possible, only the frail strength of himself and his own hope, which was no less fear. There was now only forward to …

  He could not name it. Only know that it must be, else he be less than nothing.

  He said, “I must go to the Maker’s Mountain.”

  Racharran said, “No! Not now. We need you.”

  He laughed again and rose. The blanket fell from his shoulders as he went to the entry flap and flung it aside. It was dusk. The Moon of Dancing Foals waned; the sky was full of stars. The cookfires and the watchfires lit the encampment, and he heard the voices of his clan raised like sparks into the night. There was laughter and the sound of children, of dogs and the horses, and he felt a great love encompass him, and a terrible dread that he might never see this again. He stepped outside and felt a hand upon his bare shoulder and turned to look into Racharran’s eyes. Lhyn stood beside her husband, her face all filled with such emotions as he’d not seen since her son was banished. He smiled at them.

  “I must go the Maker’s Mountain,” he said again. “I am no use here. But there …”

  He looked again toward where the mountain stood. It was no longer as in that brief vision, but its memory stood proud and he knew he had no other choice.

  “I think I might find answers there.”

  19 Sanctuary

  The Moon of Hairy Horses hung low above the valley, filling the strath with yellow light. The timber cascading down the terraces whispered a gentle song as the summer breeze caressed the leaves, and the stream murmured in counterpoint. The breeze was warm; nightingales trilled and were answered by the soft hooting of owls. It was a fine and perfect night: Rannach felt at ease.

  He raised his head from where he lounged on the moon-washed grass to look to where Arrhyna sat. The fire emphasized the perfect lines of her face, and the moon dusted her hair with dancing silver. She caught his eyes and smiled.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “That I am very lucky,” he replied. “That the Maker is kind to me.”

  She said, “To us,” gravely, and looked toward the great stark peak that dominated all the hills, and then lowered her eyes and looked at the fire.

  He saw thoughts hidden and asked her in turn, “What are you thinking?”

  She raised her face from contemplation of the flames and said, “That we are lucky, but—” She paused, her teeth a moment on her lip as if she were not certain she should speak. He motioned that she continue. “… That perhaps our people are not so blessed. I wonder how they fare.”

  He sat up, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees. He shrugged. “You are my clan now,” he said. “My father agreed to my banishment, so I am no longer truly of the Commacht.”

  She frowned. “He is still your father. And what of your mother? What of my parents?”

  His features darkened a moment. Sometimes, Arrhyna thought, his moods shifted so swift, he frightened her. He was like an untamed horse, a stallion not yet broken to the saddle and as like to stamp and bite as allow itself ridden. Was there a constant, it was his love for her, which she could not deny. She knew he loved his mother; nor any less his father, although that love was all caught up in troubled emotions as if—she thought again of stallions—Racharran were the old horse and Rannach the young: new blooded, prideful and … She was not sure. Envious? Ambitious? Or only young? She could not define it: he was too quixotic.

  He said, “Likely they’re safe. The clan will be on the summer grass now, and that’s a long ride for the Tachyn. Likely Chakthi rants and does nothing. And if there’s worse, what can I do? I am banished, fair game should I go back.”

  “No!” She shook her head, hair spilling so that moonlight danced there, suddenly afraid he might decide to go. “I do not say that you should go back. I only wonder how they fare.”

  He shrugged again and laughed. “I’ll not go back. Why should I?” He swept out a hand in indication of the valley, of her. “I’ve all I want here. I’ve you and good hunting—this is a fine place.”

  She nodded and asked, “But what of Colun’s news?”

  The Grannach had not visited them often since delivering them to the valley. He had gone away with his people, and they had spent weeks exploring the confines of the place before deciding on a permanent campsite. It was a valley large enough that an entire clan might have lived there and not gone hungry: it was as if they two were delivered alone into a newborn world, separate and distinct from the wider country that was Ket-Ta-Witko. They had erected their lodge where the stream bent round in an oxbow, lush grass bordering the water, osiers behind. Rannach had hunted and she had planted: they were happy. The moons had faded, one dying to birth its successor, and it had been a good time, free of those concerns that had driven them from the People. Rannach accepted his banishment with a stoic indifference that she knew concealed his hurt, but that had waned as he settled and grew content, and she had wanted only to be with him, thinking there could be no true life for her without him. It had seemed to them both perfection, and were it not for the world beyond their idyllic confines, it might have been, had they been able to forget the larger world beyond the hills.

  But then Colun had come back when the Fat Moon waned, telling them of the invaders beyond the mountains who, he said, massed about the foothills, now seemingly masters of all the Whaztaye country.

  “And of what beyond that?” he asked rhetorically. “Where did they come from? What are they?”

  Rannach shrugged then and said, “I’ve never seen them and cannot say. Can your golans not tell?”

  “The golans speak with the stone, not dreams,” Colun replied. “And no, they cannot tell. But I have seen what I have seen.”

  His tone, his face, was grim, and Arrhyna asked, “Shall they breach your defenses?”

  The Grannach shrugged then, and said, “Not yet. And a hard fight if they attempt it. But they are so many. They camp in the foothills as if they’d settle there, or wait for something. They herd their beasts on the plains below and, the Maker knows, but such creatures as they ride are past my imagining.”

  Rannach asked, “Do they not ride horses?”

  Colun shook his head and answered, “What they ride are more lion than horse. I told you they had slain the Whaztaye, no? I was wrong—their animals feed on the Whaztaye!”

  He shuddered then, and Arrhyna felt a cold dread invade her, her world. Rannach frowned as if he found this impossible to consider and asked, “They ride lions?”

  “Not lions,” Colun replied, “but things like lions, as if lions and horses and lizards had combined. They roam the plains to hunt the Whaztaye sheep—and anything else that lives and has blood in its veins. And their riders hold those of the Whaztaye who still live in pens and feed them to these animals—still quick. They are like some sickness come into the world. By the Maker, they make Chakthi look benign!”

  Arrhyna asked, “What are they?”

  But Colun could only shake his head and shrug and tell her he did not know, nor any of his people, and Rannach asked, “How do you know all this?”

  “We watch,” Co
lun said. “From the hills where our golans have cut new tunnels so that we may observe them.” And he shook his head and added, “It is not a pleasant observation.”

  “Is that not dangerous?” Rannach asked. “Might they not find such tunnels?”

  “Perhaps.” Colun shrugged then, and looked uneasy. “But better we know what they do, eh? And if they find those openings, we can bring the stone down on them.”

  “Shall they?” Arrhyna said. “Find the tunnels?”

  “Not save they’ve Grannach eyes,” Colun told her. “Nor the high passes, which are well guarded now. All well”—he looked toward the holy mountain and shaped an obeisance—“the Maker shall see us safe.”

  “All well,” Rannach said, “then, yes. But if not?”

  “Then we fight a bloody war,” Colun replied. “But not for a while. And you’ll have warning enough. Now …” He dismissed concern, staring intently at Arrhyna. “What news of tiswin?”

  It had been hard to shake off the fear his news induced, but she had essayed a smile and told him, “I believe I can make you tiswin when the junipers grow ripe.”

  “When shall that be?” he asked eagerly.

  “In the Moon of Ripe Berries,” she answered, and for all her fear could not resist smiling at his expression as she added, “And then the winter to ferment.”

  “Ach!” He grimaced at that. “So long?”

  “I thought,” she said, laughing at his exaggerated unhappiness, “that you Grannach were patient.”

  “We are,” he said. “But patience is patience, and tiswin is tiswin. And I had hoped that bringing you flatlanders here meant I should have my own supply.”