Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

  A pack of Headless rumbled around to attack them, but Celaise was not worried. Not now. Landing in front of Jerani, she peeled off the layer of shadow on her arm to reveal a glove of hissing white steam. Her dress churned with vapor, and she blasted the hot spray into their undersides of the beasts and scalded their mouths. They pattered and rolled away, and Celaise tore hunks of dripping fear from them like meat from a butcher's hook.

  She would kill as many Headless as she could tonight. Perhaps all of them. Be done and be free. Then she could turn her attention to more choice meats. With a glance to Jerani, she realized he had spoken something. Whatever he had said, she had missed her chance to answer.

  Celaise gestured him onward then refocused on the false image of the wretch on top of the bull. Pulling magic threads, Celaise could make her creation speak like a puppet. Even this connection to the beggarly figure sickened her, but she wanted to ask Jerani a question without drawing suspicion to herself.

  “Jerani,” the cripple croaked, “did you kill him?”

  “I…” He dragged his eyes away from Celaise to the vermin riding on the bull. He slid his hand down his cudgel then held it away from him, and he began to stink of root-soup anxiety. “…I think I must have.”

  “Did—did he darken?”

  “Darken? Ah, some. What does that mean?”

  If the Bright Palm still glowed, he would live. Anything short of decapitation would only slow a Bright Palm.

  Disgusted, Celaise made the false woman grip her mouth and wipe off blood. She was tempted to ask Jerani to go back to the shining abomination and bludgeon out the last of his light.

  Celaise worried the Bright Palm might have already healed himself and begun to track them. Unless the Headless ate him. That was a pleasing thought.

  “Take the woman to your tribe.” These words Celaise said with her true voice. “Then take the bull. We protect the other tribes tonight.”

  Celaise hoped the Bright Palm now warmed the guts of a Headless, but she would be cautious. He would expect her at the Greatheart camp, and he might lose their tracks amid the trodden ground.

  The splotchy red lips of the beggar woman moved at Celaise's command. “Don't know why he tied me up. But he—he was frightening me. Thank you for getting me away.”

  It was a silly, pointless thing to say. Celaise thought Jerani would expect it from her.

  He asked, “Was it your teeth? Sometimes even cows need to lose one or two.”

  She swiveled the mangled woman's face away and did not have her answer. Celaise's tongue licked the inside of her own teeth.

  Smooth, even, perfect.

  They reached the camp. One warrior asked Jerani, “What were you doing out there? Trying to poison them Rock-Backs with the outlander?”

  Wooden jewelry clattered on the Holy Woman as she slapped Jerani's nose. “Why're you taking Hero into a night full of hungry stompers? Don't you know better?”

  Celaise did not approve of how the Holy Woman spoke to Jerani. She acted as if the bull were more valuable than him, but Jerani's multilayer aroma was far more delicious than any beast's.

  “I—I had to save her.” Jerani pointed to the woman clutching her crutch.

  Celaise pushed on the image of the false woman. She slid off the bull and scampered away into the camp. Celaise hid her center of vulnerability above the bull, behind the two bony stakes curving from its head. Seems a safe place for it.

  The Holy Woman said, “I suppose it'll all be green with the handmaiden beside you.”

  “Worried you wouldn't show,” a warrior said to Celaise, “the Rock-Backs are soon to stop stomping and start chomping.”

  “We'll protect other tribes tonight.” She beckoned Jerani after her, away from the camp. “Come.”

  “Where're you going?” The man's voice had a shrill tone.

  “To kill Headless,” she said, and no more.

  The Holy Woman said, “You're not taking Hero. Without him the Greatheart herd—”

  She shut up when Celaise steamed her with a stare. Without me your cattle would've been eaten, and again it's 'bull bull bull' and not one word about Jerani. Floating backwards, Celaise locked the tribe down with her eyes, while Jerani led the bull away by its ear. She wanted the horns of that animal to protect her soft spot, until she was sure the Bright Palm was dead.

  The three of them, Celaise, Jerani, and bull, traveled between the dirt pillars, iced with moonlight. Jerani asked, “Do you think they'll be safe? My family, I mean.”

  Celaise was thinking first about her own safety. The Bright Palm would not be so gentle with her, if he lived. She had to put more distance between them and where he fell.

  Before she could answer, they heard the patter and clomp of many approaching feet.

  Jerani said, “Those aren't Rock-Backs.”

  Several reddish-brown bulls tromped to stand before Celaise. Hero backed away from them, tossing his head out of Jerani's grasp. Tribesmen walked after the bulls, leading cows with a decorative crimson stripe painted from horns to tail. A big man clomped in front, the one with his entire body vandalized with scars.

  “You must be the Celaise,” he said to her in a bold voice. “Brought down that mountain of a Roller last night, didn't you.”

  She gave half a nod, guessing this Blood Bull tribesman had been heading toward the Greatheart camp but found her halfway there. Jerani stepped beside her. He had picked up his spear.

  “That's one fine sheet you're wearing.” The scarred warrior glanced at her dress, or perhaps her chest.

  She doubted he understood he was seeing a swirl of steam instead of lace.

  “Can tell from the quick about people,” he said, “that's what they say about Melelek. And I can tell you're a keeper.”

  To this, she said nothing, but Jerani fidgeted. He passed the spear from hand to hand and wafted fear. Not wanting the brute to hurt Jerani, she drifted between them.

  “So,” Melelek said, “my tender yearling, married yet?”

  Celaise had promised herself to kill the next man who hunted her with such arrogant words. She wanted to douse this warrior's eagerness in a boiling river. The Lord of the Feast had said nothing of killing men, only that she must not feed on them.

  But if she did the first, she could not help but do the other.

  Her fear and hunger twined about each other in razor-thorned vines, and she concentrated on keeping them within her and not striking out at the Blood Bulls. Men and women tiptoed closer to watch the exchange.

  “You'll have forty cows.” The warrior waved a massacred hand at the painted cattle. “Never been a higher bride price in the Lands of Loam.”

  Celaise said, “I won't ever belong to a man.”

  Her thoughts returned to the Lord of the Feast. Perhaps she belonged to him. But he's not a man. He's the Father of Nightmares.

  “You'll be first among my wives,” the warrior said, “and as you can see, no man's more fierce.”

  He pulled his red robe down from his chest, revealing muscles and dark skin crawling with white scars. To Celaise, the skin looked gnawed by rats. She thought he had done it with his own knife, which disgusted her more. The scars on Jerani's poor face were bad enough. This crossed into the realm of the ridiculous.

  Another Feaster had told her some people were addicted to pain and terror. 'Chasers.' Celaise had always wanted to meet one, but this warrior so disturbed her that she doubted she could even bring herself to consume him.

  She scented human fear rising from the east, and she curled a misty finger to have Jerani follow her. They had Headless to kill.

  Hero had trotted several paces away, one eye gaping at all the other bulls. Jerani started after him but did not get far.

  The warrior growled from behind Celaise. “Not standing for bulls, are ya? Well, more'n one way to claim a woman.”

  His spear slipped into the back hem of her gown, and she felt the horn-tip yank upward, as if the warrior wanted to pull her dress, to rip it and
expose her rear.

  He wants to strip me of my True Gown. Leave me bare and helpless before his manhood. Her eyes fell on the copper bracelet on Jerani's arm in front of her, and her insides rang with fear, outrage, and past shame.

  The spear did not so much as ruffle her dress. Her vaporous trimmings writhed from her mood. While Melelek looked to his spear and back to her gown, she gripped her skirt and whirled to catch him in its folds.

  Celaise had not meant to do it. She realized at once she should not have seized the tribesman. He tumbled into the white and yellow furnace of mist, the steam vent that would soon scald his ragged skin off. The passion-fruit taste of mortal anguish would drip into her mouth, and she would try to resist but soon succumb. She would Feast on him.

  To avoid that doom she shifted the scene of her dress to a blizzard of sparkles. She had designed this mesmerizing gown to lure dimwits from their homes at night. Celaise could turn the glittering points into swirling steel for a quick mincing. Instead she let him fall through the waterfall of glitter and out of her dress to measure his face against the ground.

  She thought he deserved some additional punishment, so her magic coated and masked his scars. His skin now appeared healthy and smooth.

  “You don't look so fierce to me,” she said. “No more than a swaddling babe.”

  The warrior's fingers bent and twitched as he gaped at himself. “What've you done!” He jerked his robe forward to stare down at his chest, and his eyes rolled about in his head. “What'veyoudun!”

  “You should thank me.” The metallic shine of her dress shifted and pulsed, as if schools of silver fish swam through a storm of stars. “Now you'll have the pleasure of cutting yourself all over again.”

  A laugh drew her attention to Jerani, and though he kept his scarred face as serious as he could, the corners of his mouth still smiled at her. She liked the tone of his laugh. The chortling of Feasters had a hollowness to it.

  Jerani's face changed, brows lifting, eyes and mouth expanding into circles of surprise. That was her only warning before she sensed him. Sensed it.

  And by then it was too late.

  The Bright Palm punched an arm through her chest, tearing her dress asunder.

  Celaise did not scream. Jerani wanted to scream for her. He felt as if he had been the one to have his heart ripped open.

  He had seen a flicker racing up behind her. By the time he realized it was the Bright Palm, a glowing-veined arm rammed through her spine and out between her breasts.

  The edges of her torn dress frayed and blackened. Cracks ran over the calm of her face, the dark lines expanding as her features broke into fractured terror. The pulsing arm of her attacker burned her flesh into soot that burst in all directions.

  Her wonderful gown unraveled into nothing. And she was gone.

  Jerani's knees hit the ground. He could not even see a fragment of the handmaiden's face. He felt a sudden, bottomless pain, and he doubted he would hurt more if a Rock-Back disemboweled him.

  “Where is she?” The Bright Palm said it as if asking after a lost sandal. He jogged a circle to look in all directions, a bronze nail held in each of his fists.

  Jerani stayed on his knees. He could not believe he had witnessed the murder of a handmaiden of the Angry Mother. A spark lit in the emptiness inside him, the first kindling of rage.

  This time the Bright Palm shouted, his voice still flat but so loud that the Blood Bulls women and children flinched away.

  “Where. Is. The. Feaster.”

  Jerani felt so ear-battered that he was sure he had heard the last word wrong. Even the cows mooed their complaints.

  His ears ringing, Jerani said, “You killed her, you white-tongued hyena!”

  Jerani's shook as he forced himself to his feet. His war club slid from his belt into his unfeeling hand.

  The Bright Palm did not even look at the weapon, and if he realized it had bludgeoned him that night, he gave no sign of it. He gestured by swinging a spike toward the empty ground where Celaise had stood. “She is not here. She never was here, and now I must track the—”

  “You killed her! The goddess sent her, and you killed her!” Jerani staggered forward and swung at the Bright Palm. He was not sure of his aim because hot, blistering rage fogged his vision.

  He heard a crack, and he thought he had broken the Bright Palm's skull. When his eyes cleared, he saw his club on the ground. The Bright Palm must have whacked it from his hand with the bronze spike. The glowing man kicked Jerani's weapon into the night then began to walk past him as if nothing had taken place.

  Beyond thought, Jerani grabbed at the Bright Palm's neck. He dropped the nails to seize Jerani's wrists.

  “You are still Innocent.” The Bright Palm's sleeves were torn, his shirt in ribbons from what might have been a mauling, yet his skin was pristine, his voice uninterested. “She tricked you with her illusions, as is a Feaster's want.”

  “With her what?” Jerani wrenched his arms but could not free them from those glowing fingers. “What did you—”

  “She is a Feaster. A crafter of falsehoods. Unless I stop her, she will kill you. She will kill all of you.”

  One woman held her child closer and hissed. “A Feaster!”

  A man scratched his chin, giving the Bright Palm a doubting look.

  “A Feaster, ay?” Melelek stood, running his fingers over the warrior marks on his arms. He sounded shaken. “I knew she were a rotten teat the moment I spied her. Can always tell.”

  Confusion stung every inch of Jerani's skin. “She was a handmaiden. Her fires warmed the Angry Mother. She was here to save us, and you—”

  Melelek smacked the back of Jerani's head. “She be a Feaster, boy. Look at me arms. Marked to the fingertips again. Listen to the Bright Palm and do some thinking in yourself. No breed of real woman would have said no to forty cows.”

  Jerani did not know what to make of Melelek's arms, but Jerani did know about Celaise. “You don't understand. She had a magic dress that—”

  “She is a Feaster,” the Bright Palm said.

  “She can't be. She—Celaise only ever wanted to help us.”

  “She only pretended to help, to force me to doubt.” The Bright Palm let go of Jerani's hands, which tingled from the released pressure. The Bright Palm gazed out into the night. “Now I am certain.”

  “You're wrong.” Jerani caught the Bright Palm's shoulder before he could turn away. “Celaise fought for the Greathearts on the Angry Mother, before you…”

  The Bright Palm ducked out of Jerani's hold and began scanning the ground.

  “Did have a mighty fierce kick in her.” Melelek pointed his spear to the dead colossus, visible in the distance by a sheen of starlight.

  The Bright Palm leaned down to brush the ground then stood again. “She has to be close. Search for her tracks.”

  “Then—” Jerani's voice broke. His throat felt as raw and painful as after the hottest day in the dry season without water. “Is she still alive?”

  “The pit from her crutch cannot be mistaken.” The Bright Palm jogged to another stretch of ground, head down. “And look for the sweep from her twisted foot.”

  He's a glowing madman, remember? But he seemed to think Celaise still lived, and Jerani wanted to believe that. A glance at the bracer showed it dull and scraped. Celaise had disappeared before, though never had she shattered into smoke.

  “She won't leave tracks,” Jerani murmured. “Her feet don't touch the ground.”

  No one listened to him, and few enough paid attention to the Bright Palm. Most women hummed to calm the cows, and warriors listened to the growing sound of Rock-Backs in the distance.

  “Horns to 'em!” Melelek stormed about, sawing a glassy-sharp knife back and forth over his own hand, without seeming to realize he was cutting himself. “The Blood Bulls do not lose cows to Rollers. We don't play the culled steer for anybody. You!”

  He pointed a scar-webbed finger at Jerani.

  “Tell yo
ur holy hag us Blood Bulls are done with her game. We're better off without you and your Feaster friends.”

  Another warrior gave a yellow grin. “We stampeding to safety?”

  “Bet your last daughter on it. Blood Bulls, let's show 'em our hooves!”

  “No,” the Bright Palm said, “I have not found her tracks, and—”

  The stamp of cattle drowned him out. The men ran after the herd, some carrying spears on their shoulders, others holding their children. Women lugged water gourds.

  Not faster than a Rock-Back can roll, Jerani thought. He had never liked the Blood Bull tribe, but he still worried for them. His core ached with throbbing sourness for Celaise.

  He wanted to believe that she still lived, that the Bright Palm had not had the power to kill her. Even if that was true, Jerani doubted she would come back. Not after their insults. Sliding the copper bracer up his arm, he did not believe he would ever see her again.

  “And what will it mean for the tribes?”

  He spoke the words to the dust and the darkness. As far as he could tell, he was alone, except for the Bright Palm. So, yes, I am alone. The glowing man ran in wider and wider circles, looking for tracks Jerani knew could not be found.

  Jerani felt lost, and he did not know how long he listened to the rise and fall of the Rock-Back's chorus of feet. He thought he might just wait here for them.

  His brother's voice jerked him to his senses.

  “Jerani?” A pudgy hand touched his arm. “Hero trotted back to camp, and I started to worry. Where's your club? Oh, here it is.”

  Wedan began leading Jerani between the termite mounds. His head felt light, and he stumbled a few times. The Bright Palm raced past them, heading after the Blood Bulls. The brothers looked to each other then away again.

  “She's gone, you know,” Jerani said.

  The two of them padded over the grasses, white tufts in the moonlight. Wedan squinted in every direction while Jerani stared dead ahead, dragging his spear.