by Maya, Tara
Dindi looked suitably terrified; she would not meet Kemla’s eyes.
Kemla played with a diadem and ‘accidently’ rolled it to Tamio. He played his part admirably, pretending to keep it from her, so she had an excuse to stomp back to him and scream at him to return it. The other Tavaedies turned away to pretend they weren’t listening.
Kemla held out her hand, palm up, as if demanding her diadem back, but in a low voice, she said, “Dindi has henna, and I know she won’t use it on herself. By the day of the Midwinter Rite, you must prove you’ve tasted her by painting your clan totem on her inner thigh. When I see it, I’ll know you’ve conquered her.”
And so will every other female Tavaedi in the room when I expose her naked shame, Kemla added silently. The gossip will spread like fire. Dindi’s clan will beg some token payment from Broken Basket, and above all, demand she leave the troop.
“Then, and only then, will you have your reward,” Kemla finished.
Tamio placed the diadem in her hand without releasing it.
“Easily done,” he murmured. “She’s ripe to fall into my hand any time I choose to pluck. But you, Kemla, I know you plan to wiggle out of your pledge to me.” He leaned forward so she could feel his hot breath on her cheek. “I will never let you go. You will be mine.”
Never, never, you arrogant boar, Kemla swore.
“Look at your eyes flash!” he laughed. He cocked his chin up. “You still underestimate my power. I always spear my prey.”
Never. She did not have a plan yet for evading him if he won. She would burn that worry down another night.
Umbral
His prey was not among the Tavaedis from any of the gathered clans. Not one of them had six Chromas. Umbral did not know how that was possible. There was no doubt in his mind, however. He had examined the auras of all the dancers for the Chroma of their magic. He would know this girl the moment he saw her dance. She could not hide her magic from him.
But perhaps she could hide it from others? Was it possible that the fools of her goat pen of a clanhold did not recognize her for what she was?
It was incredible if true. However, he had learned never to underestimate the stupidity of ordinary people. People saw only the colors they expected to see.
If her magic was unrecognized, she would not be a Tavaedi, but, but thanks to the barbarian customs of Green Woods, she would still perform in the Dance of Maidens, which was for unmarried girls with no magic. He knew from touching her strands of magic that she was still a virgin. She would dance for him yet.
Dindi
Back up in the Great Lodge, the Dance of the Maidens began. All the young girls without magic who were past puberty but still unmarried could participate in the Dance of the Maidens. Jensi and Tibi, her clan sisters, were both there. For Jensi, it would near be her last night as a Maiden. She and Yodigo planned to pledge their troth later in the week, with dozens of other couples.
The maidens defied the cold and stripped down to little more than fur straps across their curves. Dindi noticed that Tamio was already in the crowd too, ogling the girls. The uncomplicated dance involved nothing but thrusting bosoms and swaying hips. Watching Tamio watch the girls, Dindi suddenly regretted the irony that now she had a reason to want to, she was no longer eligible to join them. Even in Green Woods, one couldn’t be a Tavaedi and also participate in ordinary folk dances. Except she wasn’t a true Tavaedi either—it was the same as the dilemma with the gifts. She didn’t really deserve to accept them, but neither could she contribute direct labor to her clan.
When the Dance of the Maidens ended, Jensi found Dindi in the crowd. Sweat still gleamed on Jensi's forehead and her cheeks were flushed.
“Dindi, there you are. Dancing is fun! No wonder you like it. You should have joined us. It would have been a lot more fun than crawling on the ground in between the Tavaedi dances. I could hardly see you, and I was specifically looking for you. Oh! The Dance of the Warriors is about to begin. Yodigo will be in it, I can’t miss it! I’ve never seen him dance!”
Just as the young lasses danced to impress prospective grooms, so did the young lads have their chance to show off in turn to the watching ladies.
“There’s Yodigo,” Jensi said eagerly. “Mercy, isn’t he handsome!”
Dindi made a vague noise of agreement. In her opinion, none of the young men were as handsome as Tamio. Nor could they compare to his grace as a Tavaedi. The Dance of the Warriors involved nothing more than glorified stomping and spear-brandishing. The boys also made ferocious shouts and some of them had drums. Their chests were bare above fur legwals.
After the last yowl of manly power, the Dance of Warriors ended. The War Chief of Green Woods, a middle-aged woman called Nann, took to the stage. She pounded her staff a few times to quiet the room.
“The Tavaedies and the Maidens and the Warriors have all danced,” she said, “Now it is time for the Warriors who wish to marry this year to choose the Maidens of their choice. If the Maidens they ask follow them back on stage, we will begin the final dance of the day—the Marriage Dance!”
Cheers and whoops of laughter rang out in the Lodge. About half the Warriors, looking more nervous than if they faced a sky full of attacking Raptors, threaded the crowd. Some male Tavaedies also joined the parade of hopeful suitors.
A young Green Woods warrior approached Jensi. He went down on one knee before her, holding up a bowl of dried apples.
“I saw you dancing, beautiful stranger,” he said. “You smell good, too. I want to make you my wife.”
“I don’t even know you!”
“My name is Paro. There will be plenty of time for us to grow to know each other after we are wed.”
Yodigo arrived with a bowl. His eyes bugged when he saw he had a rival. He began to back away.
“Yodigo!” Jensi snapped. “Are you going to give up so easily?”
Yodigo swallowed and knelt before Jensi. “Will you be my wife, Jensi?”
“Yes, Yodigo, I…” she began, but Paro drew a stone knife. She cried, “What are you doing?”
“If two or more ask for the same maiden, they must fight for her,” Paro said.
“That is madness!”
“Don’t worry, Jensi,” Yodigo said, drawing his own dagger. “I will fight for you.”
“No! I don’t want—“
The men ignored her. Paro leaped onto the stage, and Yodigo, after some prompting from nearby strangers, did the same. A number of other pairs or triple rivals did the same. The fights began immediately.
“I hate this place, Dindi!” Jensi clutched her hands together. “I hate everything about it!”
Paro and Yodigo circled and slashed at each other. Their initial probes soon gave way to more vicious attacks. Paro landed the first cut, but his knife deflected off of Yodigo’s bone-beaded armband. No blood was drawn. Yodigo retaliated with a left-handed punch, and then they began to pummel each other in earnest.
“If that beast kills Yodigo, I will marry him just so I can slit his throat,” Jensi promised.
“You don’t have to marry Paro,” Dindi said to Jensi. “Look around, other maidens are refusing suitors, even if they win.”
“But the losers aren’t allowed to marry either,” Jensi said. “Their stupid customs could still keep me from Yodigo. It’s not fair!”
Unfortunately for Jensi, not to mention Yodigo, Paro was the better fighter. Dindi felt there was something familiar about the way he moved; she had seen someone fight that way recently.
Paro slashed his flint across Yodigo’s cheek, and the crowd hooted, “Blood! Blood! Paro wins!”
Yodigo touched his face. His fingers came away sticky red. Despair flooded his face.
Paro howled in triumph. Suddenly, Dindi knew where she had seen someone fight like him before. She began to shuffle her feet and wave her arms, not quite dancing, but almost. Just enough to brighten his aura, so she could see it better….
Members of Paro’s clan jeered and pelted Yodigo with weasel bones.
And as Dindi tugged at Paro’s aura, his expression changed to horror; his flesh rippled like water. The man-form collapsed into something more powerful and compact, the fur legwals became fur, the face a snout.
“No…!” he yelped. “Why now…I cannot…”
Paro howled in despair. He became a wolf, just as the wolfling who had attacked Dindi and Tamio had shifted during the fight to become a human.
Paro’s kin stopped throwing trash at Yodigo. Instead, they cried with alarm and grabbed weapons. Even Green Woods tribesmen would not tolerate a wolfling inside the Great Lodge. From their surprise and dismay, it seemed they had not known what Paro was.
The wolf turned its gold-green eyes on Dindi.
She did not know if Paro-the-beast was lost to human sensibility, or if some part of him recognized Dindi had ripped open his nature with her secret prodding. Its hackles rose and a growl rumbled in its chest. Jaws slathered.
The wolf leaped at her throat.
A jet-black dog dashed out of nowhere and rammed the wolf’s flank.
Wolf and dog tumbled over each other in a flurry of yaps and growls.
The rest of the crowd in the Lodge all turned to chase the wolf. Men tried to spear the beast. The dog scurried out of the way of a cudgel, but the wolf also evaded the blow. It snapped at a man’s leg and raced under a woman’s legs.
Finnadro pushed to the forefront of the mob. “Back! Back!” he ordered. “I will take care of this!”
He jumped into the fray, much as the black dog had, and wrestled the wolf as if he were a predator himself. They fought until the wolf whimpered and turned its belly up to Finnadro. He grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and led it out of the Lodge.
Yodigo looked bewildered. Paro’s kin surrounded him. Yodigo flinched, in the expectation they might want to avenge their kinsman, but, on the contrary, they were ashamed of what Paro had done, and promised Yodigo wedding gifts to expiate Paro’s crime.
“Maybe this tribe has some redeeming features,” Jensi whispered to Dindi.
Jensi had no intention of letting anything else interfere with her plans. She joined Yodigo on the stage. The excitement of the wolf fight dissipated and other couples also formed on stage. Helpers set up a dais of fresh cut logs, which they draped with green blankets, pine wreaths, holly and mistletoe. The newlyweds sat in pairs on the dais. Tavaedies with Green Chromas chanted the marriage song and danced their blessings. Then the drums began and everyone else was invited to dance around the couples to celebrate their union. Real Tavaedies of the Green Chroma lent magic to the blessing, while the other dancers had only to move in a circle with the same sequence of four hops and two skips, over and over. During the wedding dance, Dindi tried to catch Tamio’s eye, but he wasn’t paying her any attention.
Finnadro had promised earlier he would perform with the Singing Bow, but he had left with the wolf, so for now, it was ordinary folk, most quite drunk, who danced in circles, with arms linked. With so many stumbling drunks around her, Dindi was free to ignore the stilted steps of the actual dance, improvising to her heart's delight. It was almost as free as dancing with the fae.
She let her mind wander too. She imagined Tamio had come to kneel before her and ask her to be his wife. She imagined him fighting for her—well, hadn’t he after all, already killed a wolf? She imagined herself and Tamio sitting where Jensi and Yodigo were now. She knew she was just torturing herself, but she couldn't help it. Not needing to see to keep in rhythm with those around her, she shut her eyes and let the heady fragrance of pine and the tumultuous beat of the drums carry her deeper into her fantasy.
Umbral
Umbral bent over Shadow, as he’d taken to calling his black hound. The fire-eyed beast seemed to have dog-like loyalties when in dog-shape. At least, Umbral could not think of any other reason it had leaped at the wolf to save an unimportant serving girl from being mauled. The black hound was tied to his power, and should only have responded to his wishes, but he did not remember wishing to save her. Not for more than a fraction of a moment, out of some misconceived instinct to protect, which had no place in his mission.
But Shadow had been injured fighting the wolf. The black hound did not bleed as a real dog would have, but it panted in seeming pain. Umbral petted it and fed it with his own Penumbra, until its strength returned.
He should leave. There had been no six-Chroma dancer among the Tavaedies or among the Maidens, and there was nowhere else for her to hide. The one he sought must have been killed already, in which case his job was done for him. He should be glad.
The hound whined. Umbral rubbed its head. The dog lolled its tongue and wagged its tail.
“Silly boy,” chided Umbral, petting it some more.
Suddenly the black hound growled at the door to the Lodge.
Finnadro had returned. He did not have the wolf. The crowd cried out for him to sing, and he let them talk him into it.
Caution suggested itself. Umbral had no reason to stay and every reason to go. Yet, Umbral had never heard a Singing Bow, and he admitted to himself that he was nearly as curious as the yokels.
He decided to stay just a little bit longer.
Dindi
Finnadro stepped up to perform his dance. He had painted himself with green paint, though sparingly. He took the bow that he always wore from off his back.
A hush fell over the crowd.
Just then, Hadi, lubricated with corn beer, staggered over to Dindi.
“It’s jush an ordinar’ bow,” Hadi blurted to her in what was apparently a confidential whisper gone wrong. “I looked at it myself. It doesn’t sing anymore than it speash.”
Fortunately, Finnadro did not take offense.
“All bows speak,” Finnadro said. “But we alone know how to make them sing.” He removed the gut string from his bow, and restrung it with another. He did not stop there. He added a second, a third and then a fourth string, hooking each of these later gut cords a little higher up on the arc of the bow. Next he cradled the bow with one arm, in an odd position, which allowed him to stroke the strings with his other hand. He began to pluck the strings, the way a hunter would test for tensile strength before shooting off an arrow.
Twinga, twing-twing, twinga…
The eerie twangs reverberated in a most extraordinary way. Each string had a different pitch. Finnadro touched them with such deftness that the notes tumbled, one over the other, like water in a fall over pebbles. Stillness crept over the assembly. Every ear strained to touch the unearthly sounds. No one from the Corn Hills had ever heard such an instrument before. Drums, rattles and flutes, yes; not this miracle of shimmering sound. Finnadro began to dance, but it was a solemn and grave series of movements that never jostled the bow in his arms or interrupted the sparkle of notes.
Dindi stared. She could see the music. Each string glowed a different color: Red, Green, Blue, Orange. As the strings danced beneath Finnadro’s fingers, the vibrations traced tiny, tiny zigzags and loops in the air. The squiggles of magic floated away and dissipated, as if mist, sighing with a choral voice as they did.
Last, Finnadro added his own voice to the strands of melody. His tenor poured out words as warm and creamy as fresh goat’s milk, a cheery melody about an elm tree who married an oak.
After Finnadro had performed several jigs, Dindi took a deep breath. She had not made any progress in solving the riddle since she’d discovered Mayara had not been killed by humans. In fact, Dindi had not even thought much about it recently. She’d been too obsessed with Tamio. Now she remembered the Unfinished Song.
“Uncle, do you know a song like this?” she asked. She hummed a snatch of the Unfinished Song, which her mother had first taught her so long ago.
Finnadro frowned. “Aye, niece, I do know that tune. But those are not the words I have heard put to it. I would not sing them at a wedding.”
“Please,” Dindi pleaded, “If you knew how much it means to me, you would not deny me.”
“In
that case, little niece,” he said after a moment, “I apologize if this song casts a pall on the celebration, but I will do as you ask. It is a lay called Beiro’s Bane.” His fingers brought the strings of his Singing Bow back to life and he sang:
Since the day he glimpsed her,
floating, singing with her sisters,
when only froth clothed with mist her
limbs as pale as sky—
All he craved was this, to kiss her,
he craved the lorelei.
Ever yearning, ever dreaming,
with all his skill at plot and scheming,
this one mad goal always deeming
would be his by and by—
To hold that beauty to him, gleaming,
To kiss the lorelei.
Nor of warnings, nor of pleadings,
from his clan or kindred heeding,
Beiro son of Swift Oar needing
none to tell him why—
Poison this, to dream of breeding
with a faery loralei.
Full turn of moon he sailed the deep,
sworn off food and staved off sleep,
Until the lorelei was his to keep.
A sapphire glow he did espy.
The sight so hoped for caused him to weep.
It was the lorelei.
Beiro beheld her, shinning, glowing.
He yanked at oars and sails, not slowing
while winds about him all were blowing,
until they heaved him high,
into the water Beiro throwing.
As he drowned he felt a sigh,
and kissed at last his lorelei.
The words weren’t right, but the music…the music folded itself around her like gentle wings. Something in her lifted; for a moment she felt as though she could fly free of some restraint she had not known bound her. The air hummed with light.
But something was wrong.
