Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

  “Anza…” He did not know what to say. She had saved him from the Skin-Back, and he wished more than anything she could have a mother. And her real father. They would have protected her better, Jerani was sure. “You'll be all right.”

  She patted his arm, as if he were the one who needed comforting, not her. A cold glob of sorrow lodged in his throat.

  A finger tapped his shoulder, and he saw the cowless woman with the crutch. With an unsteady hand she held out his war club. “I'm—I'm sorry.”

  He snatched his weapon and left, carrying Anza. Jerani was in no mood to look at a creature so mangled. A curved spine held together stiff limbs, a claw hand, and a sideways foot. The outlander's no woman, just a bundle of flaws.

  Jerani frowned. He was listening to the crescendo of stomping Rock-Backs, and he saw Tall Tachamwa waving his spear in the air to gather the warriors. Squeezing Anza's hand once more, Jerani set her down and ran to the line of cow haunches.

  More fires had been built, and not even the fresh smell of burning cow pies could comfort him. Amid the red light, the Bright Palm stood out like a man lit only by moonbeams, though the sky was black.

  “Gio!” Tall Tachamwa slapped the Bright Palm's thigh. “You'll be tipping over Rock-Backs with us, then?”

  “Night is here.” The Bright Palm gazed from the black horizon to patches of orange light from other camps. “The Feaster may be among the tribes. I must go.”

  Tachamwa grabbed Gio's arm. “Forget the Feasters. This is your tribe.”

  “I belong to the Order of the Innocent.” The Bright Palm strode on, breaking Tachamwa's hold.

  “Hoof my teeth!” Tachamwa gestured toward the racket from the Rock-Backs. “Can't you hear them?”

  “Many are exposed to the night.” The Bright Palm began jogging away. “The Feaster is the greater threat.”

  The warriors shook their heads in disbelief. Cows whisked their tails back and forth as they stared into the darkness. One bellowed a challenge.

  “They're coming!” A warrior hopped up and down, pointing between two horns. “All of 'em.”

  Dozens of mounds charged into view, reddish-brown eyes shining between rocky crags. The huge Rock-Back led them, surging into the air and landing in a roll.

  At that sight, Jerani felt like swallowing his own spear, point first. He half thought he should flee now, grab up Anza, and tell Wedan to start running and never stop.

  Red sparked over his arm, and he jerked, expecting to feel burned by fire. But worms of light zipped over the bracelet. The copper glowed with perfection, unmarred by so much as a scratch.

  Lifting his arm to the cinder-choked sky, he cried out for Celaise in a voice clear and strong.

  Celaise revealed herself in front of the Headless giant. Her arms outstretched in welcome as the thousands of pounds of muscle and carapace charged. Tonight, the depths of her gown steamed, volcano vents spraying white mist as if she wore a shifting lace.

  The Headless had dragged their wide feet when going up the mountain, and only slavering hunger had driven them within sight of the steam vents. Now I will taste their fear, she thought. They can't imagine falling, but the volcano terrifies them.

  The lead beast surprised her by not slowing, not shrinking away from the steam gushing from her gloves. It pounced into her.

  While she wore her True Dress, murderers could rush into her and past, and arrows and swords would slice through no more than air. The Feaster Elsben had called her a master of “displacement.” She thought of it as hiding her center of vulnerability, a dozen or so feet away where none would think to look for it.

  Her gown trapped the predator's mind. She blasted the Headless with hot vapor, made it feel the wetness, hear the hissing, see the peak spewing ash above it. She seized its inner ear, so it felt itself running uphill. Next it would sense the ground shake. It would cower. Its fear would flow down her parched throat.

  The rocky mound of a creature rumbled on, ignoring the sensations, bursting through the bindings of her magic.

  Her open mouth snapped shut. She spluttered on the saliva that had flowed over her tongue with anticipation. How? The Headless had trembled at the sight of the vents hours before. Or are these different beasts? Do they even feel fear?

  Am I just too weak?

  Celaise had never felt so helpless in her True Dress, so spent and shriveled within its rippling folds, as if she were the same bent creature that stumbled about on a crutch under the hateful eyes of the Sun Dragon.

  The Headless tried to launch itself into a roll at the cows, but its sense of balance must not have recovered from Celaise's tweaking. It landed wrong and spun to its side.

  The cow Gorgeous mooed like a trumpeting war horn and plowed into the Headless. It flipped to its back, claws kicking up at the sky. The warriors whooped and rushed forward with their spears.

  “Gorgeous showed 'em who has horns!”

  “Greathearts!”

  “Celaise!”

  The last cry came from Jerani, and she was relieved to hear one person had not lost faith in her. He scrambled halfway up the Headless, but it tipped him off and regained its feet only to have Gorgeous and two other cows push it over again.

  Celaise drifted into the path of other Headless, making them feel they spun about in a maze of steam. I can't do any more. They reappeared on the other side of her dress wobbly, bumping into each other.

  A close moment came when a predator stumbled near Celaise's hidden vulnerable spot, but cow heads butted the Headless back. One beast reared up to try to bite a cow. Jerani broke its teeth and a few ribs with his cudgel. Another warrior finished it with a spear.

  The giant Headless regained its feet, sliding backward from the push of horns. It stamped twice light, twice hard, feet alternating. As one, the Headless bobbed around and shuffled away.

  The tall tribesman crept forward and peered about. “They gone?”

  “And we got one!” A tribesman whose skin was overstuffed with muscle stepped atop the smaller Headless that Jerani had bashed. His swagger irritated her, and she did not like his suggestive tongue clicking.

  The tribesmen grinned fire-lit smiles. “'Chantress, may your cows be strong in horn and tooth.”

  Their praise sounded like scorn, to Celaise. A Feaster should rule the night, she thought, not need farm animals to do her work. This had hardly been a victory. She needed to butcher every last Headless, before her hunger gnawed apart her mind.

  She caught Jerani staring at her, and there was a light in his eye, though she could not say if it was anger at her lateness or something else. He dropped his eyes to the glowing bracer, worked his throat, then met her gaze.

  She did not often look at faces, truly look at them, but she suspected Jerani had been born with a kindly one. Some might have even called it handsome, once. Now he was no more than scarred, even if those etchings were well drawn. She thought his face must have been cut to make him appear fierce, though a knife could never hope to match her magic. She had met Feasters with faces pulsing with maggots, skulls crawling with snakes, not to mention the three-headed Lord of the Feast.

  Jerani looked about to say something to her when the tall tribesmen drove his spear butt into the ground.

  “You've earned your rest tonight, Greathearts. Ow!”

  The Holy Woman had shuffled forward to grip him by one ear, while her other hand rested two fingers over one of Gorgeous' floppy brown ears. “Tachamwa, why were you always a lazy boy? Didn't start walking until he was two. Now, other tribes still are fighting. You're going to help them.”

  “Exactly what I was about to say. Ahh!” The tall man angled his head sideways to try to relieve the ear wringing. He counted out half the warriors, and they stomped off into the starless night.

  Celaise stayed behind, not wishing to stumble upon the Bright Palm. She still wore her veils of steam, and the women and children looked up at her with something like awe. She was not used to anyone staring at her except with horror, and i
t made her uncomfortable. She felt dishonest.

  She pried off a few Skin-Backs, and Jerani followed her to cudgel them to the consistency of rotten squash. Celaise wished Jerani could kill the parasites without them splattering him with their gooey insides. He tried to scrape off the sludge but only ended up smearing it. She also wished he would not walk directly behind her, but it seemed a habit of his people.

  “Celaise.” He sounded confused. “You leave no tracks.”

  “I never touch the ground.” The Black Wine lifted her past her tiptoes. She floated to the center of the tribe, looking for misshapen bags of skin slurping blood—or worse, the shine of the Bright Palm.

  A girl with a leather bandage over one eye—Anza—peered up at Celaise's fuming sleeves, at her misty tresses. A sweat of pain shone on Anza's brow, and her one open eye ticked at the corners, tears glittering at the ends of her lashes. A smudge of blood crusted on her chin. Seeing the one-eyed girl sent a breeze of tingling up Celaise.

  People had proven themselves unworthy even of her pity. Celaise did not care for them. That was her rule. But looking down at Anza, Celaise realized the Lord of the Feast was right. She did have to stop the Headless from harming people.

  The vintner tends his grape vines, she told herself. Without people, there'd be no Black Wine.

  Anza's voice was high and sweet. “Are you the goddess?”

  Celaise could create truth, but she was no goddess. Still, she dreaded the moment the tribesmen stopped seeing her as one.

  Jerani was relieved to hear Anza speak, better yet that she asked Celaise if she was the Angry Mother. I'm not the only one thinking it. A delicate fume drifted up from Celaise's shoulders, mixing with her seething white hair. Waves of steam rippled up the sides of her skirt, and where they twined apart he kept expecting to see her strong legs but instead only a rocky ground of goddess-blessed vents smoldered up at him. Celaise was not inside the steam. It still clothed her.

  She gazed down at his bandaged sister without expression. She has more poise than Gorgeous.

  Celaise's stark brows tufted up at the ends, as if barbed. He had never seen another woman with that, and none with irises the stunning white of dried cow pies. He wondered if the Holy Woman would scold him for thinking a goddess beautiful. Tapping his war club against his temples, he pushed the disrespectful thought out of mind.

  Her right brow twitched, a tiny motion he would have missed if he had not been looking, and her eyes grew fierce. Jerani thought she too must be outraged at the hurt done to Anza.

  His sister shied away from Celaise, hiding her good eye behind him and clutching his waist. Jerani did not blame her for acting the calf. Her eye must be stinging, and the woman in front of her was fuming. He had a sense Celaise might burst into flames any moment. If she truly is the spirit of the Angry Mother.

  Anza's nose dribbled against his side. His muscles tensed with uncertainty. He imagined Anza as a woman missing an eye, every man looking the other way. Would she even be allowed to milk our cows?

  He asked, “Can you heal her?”

  Celaise lifted hands gloved with vapor, and they trailed a spiral of white. “I can't touch anyone.”

  Bowing his head, Jerani wondered. He wanted to ask Celaise why she had waited, why she had not burst out of the air at the first rush of Rock-Backs. Then…then Anza might not've been hurt, and not Wedan either. His insides felt chewed by jackals. He opened his mouth, but he could not speak, not that accusing question to that serene face with her unblinking white eyes.

  Dust caked his throat, thirst paining him from his neck to his belly. Twisting a plug from a gourd, Jerani poured water into a bowl. He cradled Anza's half-masked head in his arm, tipping back the bowl so she could sip. Once she was finished, he refilled the bowl and lifted it to Celaise.

  “From the purest vent,” he said.

  She hung back from the offered water. He reached further, and Celaise wafted away from him.

  His stomach clenched. He had insulted her, but he did not understand how.

  Isafo strutted between Jerani and Celaise, jutting his chin upward and to the right. The warrior said, “I can lift a calf with each arm.”

  Oh no, Jerani thought, this can't be happening again. Earlier this same night it had been Chiya, and now Celaise.

  He had to step around Isafo's hulk to see Celaise gazing at the warrior and his rock-hewn muscles. Jerani doubted that she would ever look at him again, not even when she demanded he take off the copper bracer to give to the bigger man.

  “Two calves,” Isafo said. “I can lift both at once.”

  “And I,” Celaise said, her voice a sharp gust, “could drop them three thousand feet and shatter every bone in their bodies.” Her eyes darted to Anza at Jerani's side. “Not that I would want to.”

  The warrior's chin slipped from its commanding pose, as if Isafo had expected a different answer. For the first time, Jerani saw his face flicker with uncertainty.

  Isafo asked, “Where are your parents?”

  Jerani bristled, thinking he was referring to his dead mother and missing father, but no. Though Isafo refused to give Celaise so much as a level stare, he seemed to be asking her.

  Her voice was the gale before the storm. “What did you say?”

  If Isafo had been looking at her, he would have seen the wind-scour fury in her eyes and not said another word about her parents. Jerani was sure of it.

  “Your mother and father,” Isafo said. “Need to find them, don't I? Before I can give them ten cows for your bride price.”

  Jerani felt as if his insides turned to obsidian. Jagged, brittle, and ready to crack in an instant. Did Isafo just ask her to marry him?

  Her dress seethed white, and Jerani pulled Anza a step back, worried Celaise's gaze would burn Isafo and everything around him to a fine ash. The vapor within her gown hissed and writhed, and a freezing wrongness wafted from her that made Jerani feel scorched and helpless.

  Even Isafo was gaping at her now, mouth open, his eyes huge like a cow's lost from its herd and unsure what to do.

  Celaise lifted her arm, cape of mist trailing behind her, and Jerani believed she would sweep Isafo away to the steam vents, where the Angry Mother would rain rocks on his head.

  Celaise's arm lifted above her own head, hiding her face. The steam fell away to reveal the room Jerani had seen before, cluttered and with wood floors. A doorway stood before Jerani to another place, one with moonlight shining through a window plated with what looked like sheets of water. This strange scene collapsed in on itself, and the doorway and Celaise were gone.

  The bracer pulsed red then dimmed. Jerani was thankful to have the opportunity to breathe out.

  “Huh,” Isafo said.

  “You hoof licker!” A woman's voice shrilled, and Hafia plunged her thumb into Isafo's side, drawing a gargled gasp from him. “You never offered my father no ten cows!”

  “May be,” Isafo said to Hafia, rubbing a new welt below his ribs, “you can't tip no Rock-Back over.”

  Jerani picked up Anza and was walking away, not wanting her to hear any nasty phrases the two might shout. Hafia's next shriek set his teeth on edge.

  “Go milk yourself!”

  Anza's one visible eye rolled about. She needs rest, Jerani thought. She's hurting, she's tired, and she's afraid. He decided to stay up and look after her. His worry would be enough to drive off sleep.

  As he set her down on her calf pelt, he glanced at the bracer. Odd, he thought, the circle with wings isn't anything the Holy Woman ever told us about. Perhaps the design was common among the handmaidens of the Angry Mother, those who kindled her holy fires. But the place with wooden floors that must have been Celaise's home did not look like it was buried in the hot caverns of the goddess.

  He thought something about the steam in her dress had seemed wrong, even for a gown that may have been made by a goddess. His weariness stopped him from pinning down whatever had bothered him about it.

  His sister breathed
in ragged bursts of air. Taking a damp cloth, Jerani began dabbing the sweat and dirt from her face.

  Celaise awoke with her ankle tied and trapped.

  She jerked, and the interwoven strips of leather scraped her skin. She scrambled, and the rope yanked her back, toward the Bright Palm. The other end was tied to his wrist, and magic in three veins crossing up his arm shone through its knots.

  Celaise rasped a silent howl. He'll kill me. Her mind rocked with a torrent of fear, and she felt that she drowned on dry land, a frost chilling her from toes to mouth, each gasp cold and hopeless.

  “Rising late,” the Bright Palm said, his voice like a broken flute that could only hit one note, “is not a sign of Innocence.”

  He dragged her toward him by the ankle, and the rags of her skirt crept up to her thigh. Squinting, she saw the dusky sky, red to the north and to the south a rumbling blackness of ash. Celaise had never known a midday so bleak. Same as my chances.

  The Bright Palm lifted her as he might a fallen chair and set her on a leather pallet. A pot bubbled between them that smelled like cooking laundry. He knelt and rested himself on his heels, staring with pupils of ice light.

  Understanding exploded through Celaise. The Bright Palm was not certain. He suspects, but he doesn't know. Not yet. He was watching her for proof, and if he thought he saw any, those shining hands would choke her, crush her throat.

  “You met the Feaster.” He stirred the bubbling clay pot. “At least you saw him, two nights ago. You lived. Your tracks led back to the tribes.”

  At night she left no footprints, and she sat bewildered, until understanding leveled her. Her center of vulnerability—her soft spot—did leave some manner of tracks as she dragged it behind her.

  Those traces would not have crossed paths with the other Feaster's tracks, would not have stopped at the same spot as he. Close but not too close. Perhaps she still had a chance.

  She knew she had to act like an outcast, a beggar who had trudged onto the savanna out of desperation. 'Least I look the part. Celaise forced herself to meet his gaze then decided no street waif would try to stare down a Bright Palm.