Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

  Tall Tachamwa stroked Sundew's head then positioned himself behind her horns. “You, well, your tribe did raid Greatheart cows. My boys were just taking them back.”

  “You admit you stole from us!” Melelek stabbed a finger at him, fresh pink bands of flayed skin ringing his knuckles. “Now what's this? Your hag wants all of the gods' children together so every Roller will know where to find us?”

  “It—it's not that.” Tachamwa spluttered, wringing his hands around the heifer's horn. She had lost interest in the men shouting over her and had begun chewing. Jerani tried to follow her example and calm his own fast-beating heart.

  Melelek said, “We lost two cows last night to Skin-Backs!”

  Tachamwa shrugged while backing away. The Holy Woman ambled forward along with two thousand pounds of bull. She shouted up at Melelek.

  “Then why didn't you call for help?” She leaned on the Greatheart bull's right horn, as she might be supported by an outstretched arm. “You self-biting toad, we could've had those Skin-Backs off.”

  “Can't take off the suckers without killing.” Melelek eyed the bull's horns, each the width of a tree, and he lowered his voice from ear-rattling to a mere shout. “I've tried.”

  “The Greathearts know a kantress,” the Holy Woman said. “She wakes cows from the Skin-Back.”

  “Nothing survives a spine nibbling. I'm pulling my tribe out and leaving you drag-udders.”

  “No, the kantress takes off the Skin-Backs. She is sent by the Sky Bull, I'm thinking.”

  “And the cows live?” Melelek narrowed his gaze, showing thin warrior marks even on his eyelids. “Where is she? I want her.”

  The purring growl in that voice alarmed Jerani. He liked it even less when the Holy Woman pointed to him, at the bracer he wore.

  A grimace stretched the lines over Melelek's face. “A she-bull?”

  “That's Jerani,” she said. “The bracelet is hers, and she travels from it back to us.”

  “Coming from a bit of metal?” Melelek gazed at the Holy Woman as he might at a cow that had stumbled in circles for days. “Vultures flying around inside your head, old woman?”

  “The Sky Bull is sending her back, you'll see.”

  Melelek yanked the bracer up to his eye level, Jerani's arm attached to it, at least for the moment. The copper dug into his skin, his elbow and shoulder tweaked. With a spurt of panic, Jerani realized the bigger warrior intended to steal the bracer from him, just as he had stolen the Greatheart cows. Letting Celaise's gift end up in Melelek's hands would feel like a betrayal, and Jerani would not allow it. He clamped his fingers over the jewelry, willing his hand to meld with the copper.

  His skin chafed as Melelek tried to peel off the bracer. Greatheart warriors clustered around, hesitating to point their spears at the rhino of a man, with his Blood Bull men so close. The Holy Woman was shouting.

  “You're always grabbing more'n you want, Melelek. Ever since you were a babe, couldn't stop popping stinging ants in your mouth.”

  Jerani feared his arm would be unhooked at the elbow, but Melelek's grip slackened. The warrior's attention slipped to a commotion behind them, where people were backing away from something. Two cows mooed like they had seen a snake.

  Tall Tachamwa peeked out from where he had hid behind Sundew. “No Rock-Backs at this hour. Not lions either.”

  “The freak.” Melelek took a step back, the whites of his eyes large. “Who's he got now?”

  Jerani's arm tingled and ached, and the feeling spread down to his guts. The warrior Melelek—who loved skinning himself—had gone calf-kneed and hesitant after spotting someone. Jerani feared he knew whom he would see.

  Chest-high grasses ended in white bristles. Their green shoots parted as a man dragged a body toward the camp. A rope harness connected the figures, and as the upright man heaved forward, his hands glowed.

  Celaise's mouth ached in pulses of pain that matched the tempo of her surging heart. Even with her eyes pinched closed against the Sun Dragon, she could sense the Bright Palm. He was a white smudge against her inner eye, and chills and prickles swept over the side of her body closest to him.

  Have to run, she thought. Before he sees me. One look and he'll know. He'll suspect and soon he'll know, and then it'll be too late. She was out of place here, a sickly stranger among a tall and strong people.

  The part of her mind not ringing with fright told her that she could never hope to outrun a Bright Palm, not on her crooked legs. Not even on straight ones. Neither could she defend herself against him, day or night. Stumbling away would only attract his light-fuming eyes.

  Celaise looked to the people around her, the woman with the basket full of collected cow flops, the boys and their small cudgels. They kept their distance from the Bright Palm, staring at the corpse he was hauling after him. Celaise forced herself to do the same.

  Dangling legs and arms left tracks in the sandy ground, along with a trail of blood. Red drops leaked down a bronze spike that had been wedged through the victim's thigh. Not dead yet. Heart still beating.

  Her own heart faltered through triple-beats then suffered long pauses before it regained rhythm. Celaise stifled her gasps behind twitching hands.

  She recognized the wounded man, and she knew with certainty that she was about to watch him murdered. Stubble clouded his balding head, and the Sun Dragon had burnt away his health and muscle and scoured off his mosquito tattoos. He was still Elsben, the Feaster she had met last night. He wore the same open vest and sheet pants, if faded under the daylight and stripped of their gold thread.

  The second man, the one dragging Elsben, shone. Instead of life blood, a sludge of light pulsed through his veins. The color of marble tombstones. His lips were white, his face dead of expression. Though he had the curly black hair of a savanna tribesman, his face was unscarred.

  The Bright Palm marched past the gaping crowd, toward a tree. He spoke in a quiet monotone.

  “Third tenet: You shall nail every Feaster against the door of its residence. If you find not the Feaster in a structure, employ the nearest wall or tree fit for the purpose.”

  The ropes were thrown over a tree branch, and the Bright Palm pulled on the harness to lift Elsben against the grey trunk. The Feaster's eyes were open, staring but not seeing.

  “The first nail,” the Bright Palm said with voice a tired carpenter might use to instruct his apprentice, “shall impale the Feaster's leg, so it may not run.”

  Picking up a rock, the Bright Palm hammered the bronze spike further through Elsben's leg and into the tree. Celaise choked and looked away, though she turned back a second later. She thought she heard Elsben groan.

  “The second nail shall impale the throat, so it may not speak.”

  The Bright Palm pulled another spike from his belt. The metal point slammed through Elsben's neck. The onlookers gasped, and Celaise could not help clutching her own throat.

  “The third shall impale the heart, so it may not live.”

  After the last spike, Elsben's arms twitched then sagged limp. The corpse's head drooped, chin resting on the bronze nail driven through his throat. Celaise felt her screams creeping through her flesh like splinters that could never be pulled out but only pushed deeper.

  Blood splattered the Bright Palm's face. He wiped the drips from his eyes but left his cheeks and chin stained. The nail beds of his fingers glowed.

  “Gio?” A tall warrior approached, concern in his voice. He lifted an arm as if to clasp the Bright Palm's shoulder but stopped himself. “Gio, this was a Feaster, was he?”

  “I tracked him from the east face, where he Feasted on two Innocents,” the Bright Palm said.

  “But really, old friend, you think he was a Feaster?” The tall warrior winced at the corpse. “This bag of bones? Feasters are well beefed, can force ten men to the ground.”

  “Arms thick as horns,” another warrior said.

  “Or with horns for arms.” A woman frowned at the pitiful remains of the man s
kewered to the tree. “Nothing to him.”

  The Bright Palm ignored them, his gaze sliding over the crowd. “His tracks neared another's. The second set of prints headed this direction.”

  His white-fire eyes locked on Celaise, and she felt as if she had swallowed her tongue. The lump of squirming meat lodged in her throat. She knew that whatever she did, she must not look frightened, even if every nerve in her body squealed at her to flee.

  Can't run. Can't turn away. Can't meet those eyes. She settled for gripping her crutch with both hands and staying upright.

  His tone never changing, the Bright Palm asked, “Did any die here last night? Were any Innocents injured by strange means?”

  “Rock-Backs gutted a few in the Light Hoof tribe. On the downslope.”

  “What of here?” The Bright Palm pointed downward, his eyes still on Celaise. “Did any fall, without wounds?”

  “Old Buuli can't get up,” a child said in an eager voice.

  A woman gripped the boy's hand, pulling him away. “She hasn't been drinking much water anymore.”

  “Take me to her.” The Bright Palm strode forward, blood still dripping from his chin. “If she is Innocent, she will be saved.”

  The crowd parted around him. Warriors with weapons made room, though the Bright Palm carried neither spear nor cudgel.

  Celaise felt shallow relief when the Bright Palm looked away. He suspects. She knew she would stop living the hour he found proof. The other nails in his belt are for me.

  Only one young warrior dared to step into the Bright Palm's path. Copper glinted on an arm, and Celaise recognized Jerani. His short robe matched the red in his hair. He spoke with a rushing tempo of someone trying not to stumble on his own words.

  “The cows are well, Father.”

  “And so are Anza and Wedan,” Jerani said.

  Gio glanced at the bracer worn on his arm but did not slow, whisking past with doubtless strides. Jerani tried to see some sign of his father in that bloody face, in that slack expression, on those cheeks that had once proudly born warrior marks.

  The dead man on the acacia has more life in his face, Jerani thought.

  A tremor ran over the ground, and Jerani felt as if he were sinking. Down, down, down, to the root maze at the center of the world where he would never have to feel the pain of a father not knowing his children.

  Jerani remembered the day his father had left for the towns to find a cure for his mother. The swelling on her neck had grown to the size of an eyeball, a knot of flesh below her chin that stared at Jerani no matter where he stood. At twelve, he remembered seeing the bump even in his dreams.

  She died half a year before Gio returned. Jerani had not recognized his father at first, had thought the bland-faced man a stranger who might have seen him on his travels.

  “Have you met a warrior named Gio? From the Greatheart tribe. I think that's his spear.”

  “I am called Gio,” he said.

  “F-father?”

  “You shall have no family but the Innocent,” the glowing man said, “no goal but to serve. Twenty-second tenet.”

  Jerani stared at him, without believing. The figure had the same height, the same broad chin, the same arch of brows, but he did not wear his father's marriage ring in his left ear. His warrior marks had shrunk to traces, and his face was barren of his father's smile. Gio had been a man of laughter with eyes sparkling with warmth. The only light in the Bright Palm flowed as cold magic in his veins.

  “Mother,” Jerani said, and the air parched his throat, making each word sting, “she died.”

  The figure said nothing.

  “She's already dead. You're too late.”

  “Then it is my task to protect others who are Innocent.” The man with Gio's face walked away from his son.

  He isn't my father, Jerani had thought it then, three years ago, and today, too, as the grassland continued to tremble under his feet. Maybe this man stole his face with magic. The real Gio could still be out there, lost in the towns—Jerani had heard there were many of the crowded places—searching for a cure, ignorant of his wife's death.

  Jerani hoped it was so. Anything but this.

  The day darkened. Ash flooded from the Angry Mother into the sky.

  The branches of the acacia rattled above the dead man. A boom rolled over the grassland. Wave after wave of crashing sounds buried Jerani. He felt sick. Children covered their ears, and warriors cheered.

  He thought of Anza, how she was always scared during the Mother's time. Jerani stepped over a foreign woman, the one with the crutch and the black teeth who was cowering on her side. He would find his sister, but first he looked once more over his shoulder at the man who claimed his father's name.

  Gio marched with strides long and sure, as if he had not even noticed the world exploding above him.

  Celaise had heard two great sounds in her life.

  The first had been wind leaping off cliff tops and slithering around her as she fell. The air clawed her ears, hissing, whispering threats to her. It pulled her hair, cut into her legs. It forced blood from her newly shattered teeth farther into her mouth. She had fought back against the wind's harsh shouts, broken arm flailing for a handhold—for anything to save her. Celaise remembered the gold of the late-afternoon sky, the blinding sweeps of cloud, and the wind. The toneless murmurs of death.

  The second great sound was the volcano erupting. Head-high stalks of grass rippled in time with the blasting. The ground shuddered, and when she closed her eyes she imagined dragons stampeding around her, massive scaled legs flattening trees and kicking elephants into the air. Terror split her insides, and she was sure she would be crushed.

  A shadow fell over her, and after she realized she would not be smashed under a clawed foot, the darkness comforted her like a cool cloth pressed to her brow.

  Celaise propped one eye open after the other. No dragons. A cloud spouted from the top of the sheer mountain, a blackness spilling into the sky and dousing the light with billows of ash.

  With the sun's cursing rays blocked, she felt strong enough to stand. Short, questioning moos came from the cattle. Their big-eyed faces showed little expression, but the cows pressed their shoulders together, making the herd as small as they could. White and brown speckled legs trotted over the ground while black-tipped horns reached upward as if in worship of the volcano.

  “The Angry Mother's time!” One man thrust his spear toward the cinder cloud.

  Another tribesman shouted, “She births again!”

  Children squashed their hands over their ears, but only the youngest cried. Jerani picked up his sister, and she wrapped her thin arms around his neck and held on. “Too loud,” the girl said.

  “We'll head out soon.” Jerani stroked her shoulders and back.

  Celaise only had her crutch to help her up to her feet. From the front of the cattle, the cow named Gorgeous mooed. Celaise recognized the lead cow by the drooping udder, the splatter pattern of brown fur on her sides, her calm face, and white eyelashes. The herd had chosen a direction, away from the volcano, and Celaise pottered after them along with the tribe.

  The ash cloud reached down with pointed tufts of grey. A pebble hit her head, then another. They felt like heavy raindrops, and sharp. They scraped through her thin hair. Celaise wished she could slip into her True Dress. Its magic would protect her, but she could not reach it, not with daylight glaring.

  That light grew less and less painful as the ash cloud spread. A trickle of Black Wine kept back the agony of keeping up with the tribe on her blighted legs. She often looked for Jerani, to make certain she stayed with the same tribe. Other herds and bands of tribesmen traveled alongside, kicking up dust clouds.

  In the distance, brown plumes of dirt stalked the tribes. Celaise was not the only one who had spotted the bands of predators.

  “What tribes are—are—those?” The boy's voice cracked. Jerani's younger brother pointed a thick finger toward the horizon.

  Jer
ani snapped his eyes away. A bloody flake fell from his red hair.

  “A bit thick for wildebeests,” a warrior said, pointing at one of the dust clouds following them.

  A tall warrior waved away falling ash from his face. “None of 'em left alive on the 'land.”

  “Then they're Rock-Backs. We're due for a drumming tonight.”

  “Night's come early.” The tall warrior gazed up at the darkness cascading toward them. All sight of the volcano had been lost. Ahead of Celaise, the sky shone a smeared red, and she felt trapped between night and day, between safety and hatred.

  Her joints clicking, Celaise felt a hair-splitting unease, as if the ash sifting onto her was in fact a rain of dead bugs. She had to stay away from the Bright Palm. If he touched her, even with gentleness, she thought she would faint.

  Jerani tied a cloth around his sister's head. “It's not good to breathe in the Mother's blessing. Not safe until after the rains.”

  “Then the ash will green the fields?” She gazed up at him, her whole being caught up with her question.

  “Yes, Anza.”

  The younger brother was puffing. “The cows will—will they be hurt?”

  “Can't let them graze. No stopping under this cloud.”

  “Owie! One in me eye.” The girl's short fingers covered the right side of her face.

  Celaise draped a dirt-caked sleeve over her mouth to stop breathing in the ash. A boy bumped into her crutch. His mother steered the straggling child away, and the woman crinkled her nose. “Are you from the Blood Bulls? Your tribe is over there.” She gestured to a herd of brownish-red cattle.

  Celaise shook her head, and as soon as the woman looked away, Celaise began to conceal herself. She slicked her skin with shadows. Celaise could still be seen, if anyone cared to look closely. The Bright Palm would spot her from a dozen paces, but no farther. The scowling glances of the tribesmen skipped over her, and she was not troubled again. Not until they stopped.

  At a word from the Holy Woman, a tribesman jogged to Gorgeous and hugged her to a standstill. The cows stood. The people crouched to rest on their ankles, and Celaise huddled among them in her shadows, ignored by all.