Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  Two had recalled even more than I. The sword blade was

  triple-tempered, laminated, Isle-made steel. It could probably withstand even our fire. It could go into an iron-ore smelting

  furnace, and never melt.

  But Therkon’s hand was human flesh.

  The heat blazed upward from steel to ivory and that flesh

  reacted as it had to the blinding light: Therkon screamed and jerked in pure reflex and hurled the sword away from him as far as it would fly.

  Hvestang struck the foot of the recumbent stone’s right jamb with a ringing clash. Therkon reeled back, Tiran spun his body round and tried to take a step in pursuit and we said, “Stop.”

  It sounded like my voice, but the air shuddered. The very stones seemed to reverberate. Tiran managed one stride, and froze.

  Perhaps the Mother spoke through us again, as when we commanded Tiran before. We had no time to consider. We said what the Sight showed us, with Her authority.

  “Battle has been offered. And won. Go now. Find your proper place.”

  It raised Therkon’s face. The eyes were still wholly black, but now they glistened. Now, despite the black inhuman sentience, emotion was in them. Longing, perhaps. Unmistakably, grief.

  “You cannot possess the light. If you did, the world would die. There would be no light without the world.”

  Unspoken, impossible visions flooded through us, light as the product of air and earth and water and the sun’s operation, on some scope both larger than the planet and tinier than its grains of dust. Without those necessities, light would not exist.

  And in the dark, they could not exist.

  What it loved, what it most desired, it would destroy.

  The voice had grown gentle, when we spoke again.

  “But if you hold your place, the world will hold. You will not possess the light, but it will go and come again, and you will know of it. It will pass beside you. You will know that. As you could not have seen or known before.”

  I really did think my heart had stopped. Because Two and I knew what we were hearing now: not merely the restoration of balance, of the pattern, the ancient story, but the birth of change. We were the witnesses of a new bargain between gods.

  Of a new way of being a god.

  Tiran raised its—his—Therkon’s face, and Tiran’s eyes, and looked into ours, but this time I knew Who he was seeing.

  Someone lifted my right hand, upright, fingers straight, palm out. Go, that gesture said. The pact is made. The pattern changed. Peace returns. It is time to leave.

  Therkon’s body joined its hands before its breast. Ours did the same. Tiran bowed its head. We bowed mine. It was not a reverence, on either side. It was a peer’s acknowledgement.

  * * * *

  As my eyes rose again everything around us seemed to pause. In the edge of my vision, for one impossible moment, I saw snow-flakes halted in mid-air. Unable, unwilling, to fall.

  Then the last flake sifted down to earth and stopped. My lungs filled on a long automatic breath. And Therkon raised his head.

  Blinking, dazedly, at the bloody snow, the fallen sword. Turning his palm over, to find the great red scorch-mark that in a

  minute or so would begin to pain worse than any wound. Turning his face toward me.

  Looking at me with Therkon’s own bewildered, bronze-dark, human stare.

  * * * *

  I had to run about at once for snow to pack his palm and combat the worst of the pain, a purpose that helped swallow the tears and the convulsive shudders of aftermath, to curb the frantic need to scream like a lunatic and hurl us bodily into his arms. If I

  babbled throughout, I managed to get him, staggering himself now, to sit down on the recumbent stone. To upturn his snow-filled hand on a knee. To succor his body, before his eyes found the bloody wreckage on the snow.

  And after that one blank moment, he understood.

  Babble died in my throat. So I heard quite clearly, even though he had his good hand to his mouth as he whispered it, barely

  audible.

  “Oh. Oh, Dhe.”

  I should have been frantic with relief. He understood. Tiran had begun to relinquish him, his wits, if not scathed like his body, might be intact. But all I could see was the look on his face.

  The snow sifted, vertically, soundlessly, down through the frigid air, and I wanted to scream it at him: Not your fault, not your doing, not your blame, the Seer foretold it, it wasn’t you!

  Then he gave one great shudder and jerked his torso upright, and his bronze-dark eyes turned, as a drowning man’s hand claws for succour, to my own.

  I whispered, “How much do you—did you—know?”

  Snow-flakes drifted, slightly out of vertical, one alighting, a white moth, on the shoulder of Nouip’s furs. Imperceptibly, it

  began to melt. He shuddered again, and spoke.

  “It was like—seeing through water.” He was still whispering too. “Wavery. No . . . sound.” He rubbed the back of the good hand across a cheek. “I was—there. I . . . felt. But . . . no words. No thoughts.” He lifted the burned hand and stared at it. “No . . . Nothing would move. Not for me.”

  In his palm the snow had melted too. The great red weal showed slick and wet and my own body moved without conscious decision, scooping up another handful, fitting it tenderly among his fingers. Anything to avoid the expression on his face.

  “You had,” my own voice shook, but I could say it, “no choice.”

  He looked blankly at the snow-pack. His face was remote as the stones.

  “And you did act. At the end.” I tried not to shiver. “You threw away the sword.”

  “I don’t—” He stopped, dazed again. “That wasn’t—me.”

  That was your body, I told him silently. If not by conscious volition, it was the act of your flesh and blood.

  And thank the Mother that flesh and blood had reacted before Tiran caught up, before it, he, understood and could make you hold on, and force me to yield. Or else to watch your hand burn, hear your pain, myself torture your flesh.

  I sat down beside him with something near a thump and seized his good hand as substitute for hurling both arms round him and clutching hard enough to hurt. He let me take it. He was still staring, more dazed than before.

  “Rathi.” He swallowed, as if it hurt his throat. “I remember—Rathi. That was my choice. But the rest.” He shook his head like a drunkard. “Chaeris, what was all the rest? What were we—who were we? What were we doing?”

  He had been a conscious witness to it all. But how much, and in what form, did he retain?

  “I remember—light.” He had screwed his eyes up involuntarily. “I never saw light like that. Not just shining. It hurt. My eyes would not shut . . .”

  I had inflicted that too. I gripped his hand hard enough to crush bones and tried not to haul him bodily into my lap.

  “That was me, that was Two, that was the only way to stop it, once it had you.” Even now I can hardly bear to remember that first glimpse of Tiran in his face. “I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I didn’t even know . . .”

  If you were still alive, let alone conscious. If anything of you remained.

  The snow had begun to thin atop the great recumbent stone. Dark bumps and hollows shadowed the white blanket, hard stone pressed up under my flesh. Against my shoulder, Therkon shook his head again.

  “That was you? Like the qherrique?”

  For all that Tiran, all that I had done to him, he had kept his wits.

  “That was Two and me. Yes.”

  He drew in his breath. And more than his wits had survived.

  “You shone? Not like on Skall? Not the knife or, or something else?”

  “Not this time. No.”

  Oh Mother, I was thinking as the tears pricked, tears of sheer grati
tude, I know now why they light You candles across the Isles. The philosopher has survived. Next time, I’ll light a dozen myself.

  Beyond my feet the blood no longer steamed. The great red pool glistened though, starkly aberrant, ringed now by slick brown stone.

  “The light stopped it?” He hunched suddenly and it came

  almost in a moan. “I need never have, should never have touched Rathi? You and Two could have—?” He tried to put the wounded hand over his face.

  “No.” I snatched it down. The snow in his palm had melted. I scooped up more. “With Rathi, it, Tiran, Sthassamaer had taken me. You said it. You saw. It was the water. The black water.” Could I, did I have to rehearse for him the inner terrors of that too often told dream? “I couldn’t stop it. If you hadn’t. If Rathi hadn’t been . . .” I did not want to say, I know you felt what you had done then, to me as well as Rathi. But if Tiran had taken me, what else might it have won?

  “If Tiran had won then, all would now be lost.”

  We spoke no exaggeration, the Sight affirmed. From Two and me to Therkon, on to Anfluga, to the rest of Kaastria, the Isles, Dhasdein, the River. Beyond the River. Tiran would have had the world.

  I shuddered. Therkon turned his head and stared at me. More than stared.

  “Chaeris.” Then he half withdrew his hand. His muscles began to contract. “Chaeris, is that—you?”

  “It’s us.” Suddenly there was no more room for alarm or affront or that ancient fear of being rejected, being different. I pushed the hood back on his shoulders. Then I leant in and actually kissed his cheek in pure exuberance. “It’s me and Two both. Nouip Saw truly. Now, so do we.”

  “Oh.” He breathed it, a rising note of comprehension, wonder. Actual joy. For the first time, I suddenly realized in how long, his haggard, bristly face opened in a smile. “Oh, Chaeris!”

  His hand turned, grasping mine. He would have used the wounded one as well, had I not caught his wrist. “That is—” It was pure imagination that the light itself had changed, brightening the mid-winter murk. “That is—”

  He kissed the back of my grasping hand as impulsively as I had kissed his cheek. He even straightened a little. Though the frown revived, it held a shadow of philosopher’s eagerness.

  “Was that when you talked? I could see that. Not hear. Not what anyone said.”

  I opened my mouth to say, Yes, and stopped. Someone had spoken, yes. But how could I presume, suppose, suggest, let alone attempt to explain Who?

  Did he even know the truth about the Winter Man?

  “Do you remember Grithsperry?”

  He nodded, looking puzzled.

  “They, the shippers, talked about the Winter Man.”

  He nodded again.

  “Veenn told me. Outside Ve Pool. The Winter Man is the

  Mother’s adversary. They fight in autumn, and in spring. In spring, the Mother wins. In autumn, it’s the Winter Man. It—His name is Tiran.”

  He blinked. “The name you said?” His brows creased. “Then what is—was—Sthassamaer?”

  I wanted to kiss him, this time, in pure relief at the speed of his wits.

  “Sthassamaer was Tiran. Tiran gone mad. Trying to make Winter last forever. Trying to take,” I swallowed, “the light.”

  He had not spoken to Veenn, but he had heard sagas. I could have expected the world pattern to be spelt out more than once.

  “To stop the seasons? But. But that would stop the world.”

  I could not help but smile at him, however lunatic it might appear. “Oh, yes.”

  He frowned again. And made the next, for him predictable leap.

  “So you had to beat Tiran, to stop Sthassamaer?”

  I could only nod.

  His face had gone blank as the stones. But then his eyes

  dilated, almost as widely as when he looked at Rathi.

  “But if you fought Tiran . . . Chaeris, that’s the story. If you fought Tiran—who were you?”

  I swallowed, hard. “If, if Tiran had taken you. And it really was the story. Who could I, who would I have to be?”

  He actually pulled back along the stone. Drops cascaded from the furs and water scattered round him as naked rock appeared between us, under our feet.

  “You mean we were—?”

  Gods?

  “I think—we took Their places. Or They took ours. Or They spoke through us. Or They used us, or—I don’t know how it worked. I don’t think we can know. At least, I don’t think we can explain.”

  He licked his lips and then he said it with conscious quotation. “Your words do not work, do not work, do not work.”

  “Yes. I think, Yes.”

  He shivered as if back in Aspis’ gale. I remembered those moments when I had felt, known another voice speaking through me, and shivered myself.

  “But the story.” We were not finished. “Putting that right wasn’t all.”

  “What?”

  I steeled myself. “At the end, I think. I think She did speak. For Herself. She told Tiran that the way things were would change. The light could not be part of the dark, but, now, the dark could know the light was there. Beside it. And that was something the dark could never have before.”

  His eyes shot up to mine. His mouth opened, and nothing came out. Only his expression spoke.

  Before he lowered his eyes again, and very carefully, made, left-handed, a gesture that might have been a salute, and might only have mimed taking up a handful of water and letting it slip away.

  The gesture he had made with real water, I recalled, when he remembered his dead.

  I did not have to say, Do you understand? I did not need, I realized with boundless relief, to say anything. He too had caught the greatest wonder. That we had enacted not merely pattern, but change.

  On the heels of that came another, differently appalling thought.

  “Oh, heavens, what will my father say?”

  “What?”

  “My father Sarth.” Consternation pulled me to my feet. “My mother says he’s a philosopher. He reasons that there’s no such thing as a god.”

  Therkon’s mouth sagged open like an emptied purse.

  “If I have to go back and tell him they exist, that I know they do, firsthand, I’ve felt it, I might even have been one. Oh, how will he deal with that?”

  My father’s whole thought-edifice, his world-view, assembled with such pain and struggle in the teeth of others’ easier, prescribed beliefs, the scaffolding of his new life, dismantled. By first-hand experience, the one argument he could never overthrow.

  Therkon was laughing. I realized it with disbelief, with outrage that burnt out the shock. “How can you sit there and just, just—! Stop it! Blight and blast it, stop!”

  “My lady. My . . . Chaeris.” He was still laughing, shaking with it, tears had streamed unheeded down his cheeks. But he got himself on his feet, and reached his good hand to clamp over mine.

  “We are stuck here in the snow, in the furthest reach of the Isles, uncounted voyages from anywhere. And we have still to get down this hill, let alone reach the one small ship. Your father is upRiver. Beyond even Iskarda. Do you not think his answer might be—a matter for some other day?”

  I stared at him, as stupidly as he had looked at me. But Two agreed. Yes. We remained in the heart of desolation, we had still to reach Hringstenn, let alone Anfluga, let alone Hamair, Sandouin, all the countless other islands northward. Dhasdein, let be Iskarda, was beyond the limits of our ken.

  And if he laughed, perhaps it had been the release of tension, close kin to if not pure hysteria itself.

  This truly was here and now. The gods had departed. All that remained was us.

  A strand of hair touched my cheek. Fallen from a plait at some point in the upheavals, dropping loose.

  And dry. Softly fanning acr
oss my cheekbone. Carried by a breath of air.

  Therkon’s head came up almost as quickly as mine. He half-turned on a heel. As he moved, wind breathed across us, a tangible drift.

  “The snow’s stopped.”

  I heard myself say it, stupid with disbelief. Because it had not only stopped, it had been melting. The recumbent stone’s top, the circle-stone salients were all darkly wet and glistening, their white thatches gone.

  And the light, that I had thought pure imagination at Therkon’s joy, really was brightening. Illuminating more vividly, more terribly, the great pool at our feet.

  * * * *

  Therkon was staring at it too, face speaking all that I felt. Loss. Regret. Rage. Protest. Grief. Abiding guilt.

  I did not repeat what Azo had told me on the Sea-fort tower, or Two had argued on the way into Gildair. Whatever prizes death bought, they could not mitigate the price.

  I shut my eyes a moment, letting Two carry me through the passages of memory, Eithay, Skall, Gildair, Rangar, the long spaces of ocean, the kaleidoscope of images. What use to ask wh

  ere or when Sthassamaer had found him, if there had been

  influence, or knowledge, or how much knowledge, before the end? Perhaps it had already been happening on the way to Gildair, when I had seen that contradictory flash of greed in Rathi’s face. Who, using the words of humans to trace the path of—gods—through time, could possibly say?

  Therkon’s arm came round me. Very softly, Therkon’s voice spoke in my ear.

  “We will come back. With the others. With a bier. We will not demean him. Nor will we leave him. Not like this.”

  He moved away from me. The furs swirled and stooped. Steady-handed, he lifted Rathi’s head from the muck of blood and water, brought it to the body. Suddenly knowing what he

  intended, I hurried in turn to help re-arrange the corpse. To draw the weather-canvas over all.

  To make my own invocation as Therkon made his strewn-water reverence. We will come for you. You will be cared for. We will not forget.

  When we turned, at last, for the circle’s entrance, the blood had already diminished. It was seeping away into the earth, I