EXILED: Lord of Cragsclaw

by Bill Fawcett

  For all Talwe knew, the gods had just arrived. The Feast of the Harvest would begin tonight, and the Dancer who would judge him would dance it. Nothing would be done until tomorrow. Tonight, Talwe could drink until he forgot. Free unless he tried once more to escape the village.

  Over the hill to the west the Dancer’s company now appeared, and the villagers ran to form the Greeting. On either side of the trail they lined up, in order of their age, the youngest at the front and the eldest at the rear. At the very last, across the trail at the entrance to the village, stood Orrintar and Dalriatar. Between them stood Torwen.

  The villagers all wore capes today, and the colors were magnificent. Reds and golds and the deepest greens and blues glimmered in the late afternoon sun, and even the light brown capes of the children took on the color of the earth they represented. Talwe looked into the sky and saw two white aegels high above them, and he smiled as he thought of the sight they must see. These were the colors of the Harvest, and they were also the colors of the songomores in the fall.

  Now she was near, and the singing began. It was the Song of the Harvest, and when they had finished they chanted the Song of the Dance. For this day was the Dancer’s, and it was also the day of the Goddess of the Harvest, and for the mrem of the village it was the day the Harvest would prove they were worthy. In years of bad Harvest, the Dancer did not come. There was no food to feast on and her presence would be an added burden.

  Six uxen pulled three large wagons. The uxen were sleeker than those of the village herds, and their hair was not brown but rather almost gold. Their harness was strong, and the shafts of the wagons, like the wagons themselves, were stained white with streaks of gold. Groomed and washed, the uxen drew gasps from the village children.

  In the lead wagon rode three guards. By tradition, the Dancer’s retinue included six guards, three male and three female, and also by tradition the female guards entered the villages and cities first. They were tall, these females, taller than any villager and under their red and white cloaks their bodies were full and muscular. Always the rumors were that they gained their lead position by defeating the male guards in contests of strength, but if such contests existed no one had ever seen them. Their tails were held high.

  Riding with the female guards were the musicians. They, too, were women, and their lives were spent providing music for the Dancer’s dances. They spent their traveling time perfecting their skills, learning new music, and trying to become perfect. Talented and blessed with the experience of many, many Harvests, the musicians could make their audiences weep, laugh, or despair, entirely as they willed. When the Dancer danced, she wove her magic around these musicians’ brilliance.

  At the rear of the procession came the wagon of the male guards. Their lives, it was said, were lonely. Strong, swift, and highly trained in weaponry and the tactics of battle, they existed solely to protect the Dancer, and their loyalty, once established, must always remain perfect. If it faltered, they were killed.

  What made their lives worthwhile was the law of the land. Any who fought a Dancer’s guard, whether that guard was male or female, and whatever the result of the fight, was instantly marked for death. And the death was the responsibility of the village or city of the accused. Until they brought his body to a Dancer, all other cities were forbidden to trade or even communicate with them. If the guard was killed and the offender escaped, this trade ban would automatically last a full year.

  No city, and few villages, were self-supporting. An Edict of Banning was powerful and devastating. Most placed under the edict were simply abandoned.

  On his second day Talwe learned what could wait if he were found guilty. Dancer’s Guards who proved themselves by a heroic act or years of faithful service were assigned to guard the cloisters and temples in the cities. Here they were free to marry and were highly respected. But the prospect seemed distant to a newly recruited guard.

  In the middle wagon rode the Dancer. Her fur was dyed white, and her eyes were green, and when she narrowed her eyes to look at a mrem she brought to that mrem either fear or joy. Beautiful, intense, and some said harsh, she entered Talwe’s village with a look of sadness and of weariness. Talwe hoped the singing would help cheer her.

  Beside the Dancer sat a pure white mrem, more beautiful than Talwe had ever seen. She sat straight, turning her head slowly from side to side, examining, almost inspecting, the line of the greeting as she passed. When she looked on them the children stopped singing, and some of the youngest burst into tears. Her gaze was fierce, and it was not kind.

  In front of Torwen and the elders, the lead wagon stopped. Dalriatar and Orrintar raised their left hands in salute and in a gesture of obedience, and Torwen approached the guards. He stopped a few strides in front of them, lifted his head, and spoke so all could hear.

  “I am Torwen, and I would have the Dancer enter our village. We will protect her, and we will keep her well. We ask, in return, only that she dance for us the Dances of Truth and the Harvest.”

  The tallest of the three guards stepped down from the wagon. Approaching Torwen, she extended her left hand toward him. When he took it, she said in a strong voice, “I am a guard of the Dancer, and I ask your leave for her to enter your village. You must protect her, and you must keep her well. Do these things and she will dance for you the Dance of Truth and the Dance of the Harvest.”

  Torwen raised his free hand. “It is agreed,” he shouted, and the villagers sang their approval.

  Even the Dancer smiled at the song, but the white mrem at her side did not seem to hear it.

  •

  She writhed as she danced, her body a continuous flowing and her arms waving like stalks of grain in the wind. First she was a river, and then a storm, and she danced the sound of the earth as it drank the water from the sky. Those who watched saw the planting of the seeds, and the birth of the grain, and the coming to term of the growing of the Harvest. A short, tan skirt clung to her whitened fur.

  They had seen the Dance before, nearly every year of their lives, but each time it moved them till they wept. They wept for the joy of being alive; and sometimes in fear, especially when the Dancer danced the strength of the winds and the heat of the summer. But mostly they wept because the Harvest had come and they would once again eat through the long winter.

  The storm ended and the music was clear and soft, breaking often in a series of gentle, happy climaxes. The Dance of the Seeds drew music that burst, and the Dance of Growth drew long, slow crescendos. But now the Dancer stood high on her toes, tail raised, her arms arcing slowly and gracefully over her head until her hands touched. As they met all the music stopped, except for one long, solitary note from a high-pitched reed. This was the moment of Harvest, and with the Dancer’s next step would come the Dance of the Future.

  She did not take it. Instead, leaping and turning, coming from nowhere, the young whitefur in a starkly white skirt entered the Dance.

  She was strong, dancing with vigor and energy, and yet her expression was impassive. As she drew closer to the older dancer the white female also began almost imperceptibly to move to the rhythm of the musicians. The new dancer was closer now, and to the spectators her movements seemed to blend into those of the gently swaying Dancer. The white mrem moved her arms down the older one’s body, her tail still oscillating in time with the older female’s gentle movements, finally standing up and reaching along the Dancer’s arms until all four hands met. And then the white-furred mrem separated the other Dancer’s hands, forcing them down until the Dancer fell to one knee and bowed her head, and the young female leaned over her and covered her all in white.

  Talwe smiled. This was winter, of course, but at no other Harvest had he ever seen it performed. Winter was harsh, and in the mountains they would see the white of snow. But now that harshness gained a beauty all its own, as the whitefur blanketed the Dancer and the musicians played the sounds of the cold.


  Both dancers knelt unmoving and then burst together into the Dance of Life Reborn. When it was over, the two dancers stood as the village sang the Song of the Harvest once more, and then the children formed a circle around the Dancers and sang their own songs. The older Dancer smiled to see them, and in the light of the moon even the whitefur’s expression seemed to soften.

  But even here she did not smile.

  Then came the feast. All around the village circle the villagers sat, as the youngest of the hunters served from the bunda that roasted over the fires at its four corners. This was the bunda Talwe had slain, and normally he would have had the honor of offering the first piece to the Dancer. In view of the judgment, it had been deemed best by the elders that he forgo the honor. Earlier this would have outraged him, but now he simply let it pass.

  Then the females served cakes and breads, made from every kind of grain. Butter and cheeses also filled the wooden plates spaced along the blankets upon which they sat. All this time the villagers dipped their cups into the huge pots of wines and other fermented juices. There was even sweet syrup made just for this day, and the children lined up for a cupful to dip their graincakes into.

  Together in the circle sat Torwen, Orrintar, and Dalriatar. Beside Orrintar sat the older Dancer, and on Dalriatar’s left side sat the young white newcomer. As one of the hunters, Talwe sat a little way down from her, but as he ate he stared at her almost constantly. Occasionally, he thought, she returned his gaze.

  At last the first eating was done, and the hunters were allowed to approach the Dancer. Talwe saw Forun talking to one of the male guards, and the two were clearly sharing a jest of some kind. Ondra, always the bravest or most brash, approached the elder Dancer first, taking her hand and rubbing the back of it over the fur on his cheek. She smiled her approval at him, and he approached the whitefur.

  She gave him her hand, and he put it to his cheek. But when he spoke to her, he quickly drew back. Talwe watched as his friend turned away from the whitefur and walked back toward him. Ondra’s eyes were filled with tears.

  “What did she say?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” said Ondra, and Talwe could tell he was in no mood to talk. He left his friend sitting with his head in his hands, ignoring even the sweetcakes that the young hunters were bringing around.

  Talwe greeted the Dancer, who remembered him from the year before, and who knew that the next day she would be judging his errors. When she released him, he turned to Torwen and took the old mrem’s hand, as he did with Orrintar and Dalriatar.

  He came at last to the beautiful young Dancer, and he took her hand and put it to his cheek. He stared into her dark green eyes, and unrelentingly she stared back. When he could hold his stare no longer, he said. “You have hurt my friend. Why?”

  She flinched. Unexpectedly, he had surprised her. To press his sudden advantage, he asked, “What did you say to him?”

  Her voice was soft, but it was not gentle. “I said to him what I will say now to you. I do not speak to young boys... or unwashed Da-mrem.” She paused, and a thin smirk crossed her lips. “He seemed to take offense.”

  Talwe felt insulted, but he did not leave. “He is an experienced hunter,” he said, “not a young boy. You did not judge him correctly.” This, he knew, was as good as blasphemy.

  “You are Talwe, are you not?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow you are to be judged, are you not?”

  Again, “Yes.”

  “Then I suggest you are unwise to comment on my ability to judge. Tomorrow you yourself will be subjected to my judgment.”

  Her eyes were cold as she spoke, but he caught in her voice a note of mockery.

  He muttered, “The Dancer will judge. You will not.”

  She withdrew her hand. “One day I will be Dancer, Talwe. I am being trained even now. Would you test my power to judge you?”

  He said nothing.

  “Leave me,” she ordered. “Others wish to see me.”

  A hand grabbed his shoulder. Turning, he looked into the eyes of the female guard who had led the Dancer into the city. “You must leave now,” she told him, and grabbing his arm she led him away.

  “I will warn you only once,” she said as they walked. “Do not go near her again. She is far above you, and she despises you just as she despises all who live in the wilds.” She stopped and glared at him. “Speak to her again, and I will strike. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. There was nothing else he could do. He would not be allowed to strike back.

  Suddenly he heard a voice rising above the rest. Looking back to where he had come from, he saw Forun engaged in conversation with the Dancer. Talwe knew that he was speaking to be heard by all, and he knew as well that Forun was talking about him.

  “How do you punish magic?” Forun asked her.

  She straightened. “The old punishment was banishment, sometimes death. Now we have only banishment, but the instances are very few. Only outside the cities do any worry about magic any longer. Inside the cities, it is feared, but even accepted.”

  The first part of the answer was a ritual, but Talwe hadn’t heard it before. He had always hated the cities, as all the villagers had, because they thought of the villagers as fools and idiots. But now he wondered if maybe he belonged in a city, where his unwanted magic would no longer be a sin.

  “We have a magician here, my lady,” Forun continued. “And he has practiced magic in front of us.” The villagers gasped. “Tomorrow when you judge him, will you not banish him, according to your law?”

  The Dancer was taken aback. “There is no proof as yet,” she said hesitantly. Then, recovering herself, “And the judgment will take place tomorrow, not tonight.” She tried to turn away, but Forun would not stop.

  “But he is not only a magician, Dancer,” he said. “Talwe is also a spy.”

  “What?!” Talwe shouted, and the Dancer’s guard gripped him tightly.

  “A spy, Talwe!” Forun returned the shout. “I went into the forest after you returned from it, and I found the tracks of many mrem. I knew you had lied about the songomores, and I wanted to see why you had gone in. Several strides in, I found this.”

  He held out his hand to the Dancer. From it she took something small, too small for Talwe to see.

  The Dancer gave it back. “It is of no importance to me now, Forun,” she said. “Tomorrow I will—”

  “By tomorrow he may be gone!” Forun yelled. “This is fur,” he cried to the villagers. “Fur I found in several places in the forest. And the fur is the color of Talwe’s fur.” Over the din he screamed, “In the songomore forest Talwe met with mrem of his own kind, and he gave them our herd beast as proof of his loyalty!”

  The village erupted.

  Breaking free from the guard’s grip, Talwe raced toward Forun. From a few steps distant he dove toward him, and his elbow hit hard on Forun’s throat. Forun fell, clutching his neck, and one of the Dancer’s guards jumped on Talwe. She was quickly joined by a male guard, and together they held the furious mrem apart.

  “You lie, Forun!” Talwe screamed.

  Forun stood up. “The Dancer will decide,” he spat. “Tomorrow, at the Dance of Truth.” His smile was broad.

  Talwe looked up and he saw the young white Dancer slowly shaking her head.

  •

  He lay on the floor of his hut, a blanket thrown carelessly over him. Outside the hut stood one of the guards. He was a prisoner, because of Forun’s words. He had not planned to leave; now he could not escape.

  Nor was he sure he wanted to. Forun would do everything to have him banished, perhaps even killed, but there was little he could prove. Still, he had roused the village against him, at least those who didn’t like him anyway. His only hope was the ability of the Dancer to judge fairly. And if the judgment was to be done by the
whitefur, well, anything could happen.

  He heard talking outside the hut, but he could not make out the voices. Suddenly the door opened, and a white figure passed through. She stepped forward in the dark, and Talwe reached to light his lamp.

  “Don’t,” came the whitefur’s voice. “I don’t want to alert the village.”

  “You are welcome,” Talwe said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” she replied haughtily but matter-of-factly. “You are in trouble, Talwe.”

  In the dark he furrowed his eyebrows. Of course he was in trouble. “Yes,” was all he could say.

  “Are you a magician?” she asked. The female was staring at him very strangely.

  He was stunned. How should he answer? If he told the truth, she could banish him instantly. But he didn’t know if he wanted to lie any more.

  “I can’t answer that,” he replied simply. There was a glow around this female, something he could almost see.

  “Of course,” came her whisper. “It was an unfair question. But I will not be judging you tomorrow. Tonight’s actions were far too drastic for the Dancer to ignore.”

  Talwe stared at her silhouette. “Do you hate me for what I said?” he asked.

  “And I can’t answer that,” she answered. “But now I must go.” And with that she left the hut.

  Did I insult her, he wondered? Why did she leave? But then he wondered why she had come in the first place. The whole thing had been very, very strange.

  He closed his eyes, but he could not sleep. For a long time he tossed in his blanket, but the fear of the next day kept him awake. So, too, did the vision of the whitefur that kept entering his mind—though those thoughts were more pleasant.