by Awert, Wolf
At this, alarm became etched on the mothers’ faces, for this last sentence was not part of the legend, but a warning. But why had Grimala given it?
Tiriwi slept badly that night, but the rising sun of the new day dismissed all murky thoughts. Tiriwi hurried to the forest’s edge and made a rope out of climbers, knotting a loop at the bottom of it, just big enough for her foot. She tossed the other end of it over a branch, tied it as tightly as she could, and so she could swing back and forth with one foot in the loop. Tiriwi would swing all day if she was left alone. The calming, soothing back and forth was what she loved about it. She could also stand on the spot for hours on end, doing nothing but balancing back and forwards on her legs. “It makes me healthy,” she would say. “Don’t talk nonsense, you aren’t ill,” one of the mothers would usually interrupt. It was not that Tiriwi felt ill. She just felt that swinging kept her healthy when she was not ill.
Grimala would always say: “Leave her be. She will stop swinging when she grows up.” Perhaps Grimala was right, but on the day Tiriwi’s small world was threatened she had not grown up yet, and had no intention of doing so. And so she swung. With one ear she listened to the creaking branch, stretching and bending under her weight, with the other she listened to the sudden calls and shouts over by the huts. She looked over to the commotion and had an inkling of what had happened. “Tiriwi, quick, a man!”
Tiriwi merely thought: So what? She had seen a few men, and the appeal of novelty had since evaporated. One man was not worth the excitement. “This has got to be the third one already,” she sighed. Barely a moon cycle went by without some man coming here, who sat in their midst, then retreated to the common house and was served by all the women. Well, almost all women. The mothers with small children usually stayed at home. The first man Tiriwi had seen had moved in with her favorite mother after only a few short days. She had had no more time nor interest left for Tiriwi. She could have easily lived somewhere else, but she did not consider it at all. She had a right to decide where she wanted to sleep. The man had just laughed and said: “Well then it looks like I’ve got two women.” Tiriwi had not been amused at all.
Her mother would rather have had her sleep elsewhere, but no mother made a child leave home. Tiriwi was indignant, but she did not leave the house for it. Oh, what jealousy she had felt then.
The jealousy had calmed down. But still, in her mind men were an annoyance, muddling up the peace and harmony of her village. What did you even need a man for? They just stopped you from doing all the important things. Well... swinging perhaps was not one of them. Her curiosity had got the better of her and she went to see the newcomer.
Grimala had given him food and drink. The man sat in the shadow cast by the common house and told stories. A large amount of women had already gathered around him. The first stories were new ones, and new stories were a rarity. Maybe he would tell something about spirits. That would have interested Tiriwi, but men seldom spoke about spirits. He would be brought down to the river later and washed. That was always a lot of fun, and in the end everyone was completely wet. Tiriwi kept her distance. Bathing the man was a woman’s right, not a girl’s, but there were men who did not want to be bathed. They preferred to stay alone. The older they were, the less they craved company. She had found out that much already. But this man was young, he spoke loudly, laughed loudly and tried to converse with all the women at the same time. Tiriwi pulled a face. This one had no manners at all.
The long, reddish-brown hair hung halfway down his back in matted locks. His torso was lean, bare and tanned brown. He wore half-length leather breeches on his hips and gaiters around his shanks, the dense fur of which he had turned to the outside. She liked doing this with her own gaiters when she wandered around in the meadows beyond the forest. Many sticky seeds, barbed seeds, pollen from flowers and leaves from the Sosawort would get caught in the fur. After about three hours of marching there would be an entire meal stuck to them; one just had to comb it off and cook it with some water. Indeed, life was simple in summer.
The most remarkable thing about this man’s appearance was his eyes. They were very light and Tiriwi thought she could see right through them. The man looked at her and said with a smile: “Hello, lovely.”
No, she thought loudly, turned around and ran back to the forest’s edge. She did not see the man grasping his head with his hands and his face contorted with pain.
That evening Grimala called Tiriwi over to her.
“What you did today was very ill-mannered. Our guest was very shocked.”
Tiriwi was quite adept in making an innocent face, but this time she felt no guilt whatsoever. How rude could it be to run away from something one did not like? She wondered where he had gone.
“I sent him away,” Grimala said.
Tiriwi nodded, relieved.
“Well, that’s all. You may go.”
Tiriwi stood up, went a few steps and then stopped, hesitant. She turned around slowly and said: “You never said a word, and still I heard you, right?”
“I used the thought-language. You seem to know it too, although you are rather young for it.”
From then on Grimala taught Tiriwi about, and in, the thought-language. Just in passing she also learned all the important legends of the Oas which had so far been kept from her.
“Perhaps you can take my spot by the fire someday. Would you like to tell a story tonight?”
Tiriwi shook her head and thought a very clear No.
“Keep it down,” Grimala scolded her. “You must learn to think quietly. You have the strength, but you don’t have to run around all day screaming either. Come back to me tomorrow when the sun has passed its apex.”
When Tiriwi returned the next day she found Grimala in company. On the floor next to her sat a man. She recognized him immediately by his reddish-brown, matted hair. But from this proximity she also saw the many small nicks on his skin. He was not as young as she had thought. Tiriwi had never witnessed a man being allowed to enter Grimala’s house. It must have happened secretly. Tiriwi looked to the ground modestly, while at the same time spying out of the corner of her eyes as curiously and inconspicuously as only young girls can.
“This is Kelim-Ozz-Han. He is the son of Dakh-Ozz-Han and an old friend of mine.”
Tiriwi bowed politely. The name Dakh-Ozz-Han was well-known to the Oas. He was a druid like most of the men that came to visit, and he must have done the Oas a great favor once. But her hopes of finding out something about this mysterious man were dashed. Grimala merely said: “Kelim will teach you the basic magic of the five elements.”
Tiriwi flinched. The elemental magic was not of the Oas, but of the hated mages. As much as Tiriwi had enjoyed the thought-language, she was sure that she did not want the slightest to do with elemental magic.
But Kelim taught her more than the secrets of the elements. He let her explore her own body, opened her palms and soles and let her feel the pounding in her veins. Tiriwi learned to understand the calm beat of her body and then the rhythms of nature.
“Feeling the pulse of life is the first step to healing.”
And Tiriwi learned drumming. She was not yet strong enough for powerful beats, but she could hold a rhythm for a long time without the slightest mistake.
She stayed in Grimala’s house for two moon cycles. Two moon cycles she spent with Kelim and Grimala, learning of a life so different that she wondered how she could ever play with her friends again.
“Tiriwi.” The voice was gentle, but unrelenting, and pulled the girl back into reality. “I know how you must feel. And I know that the task ahead of you is no small one. But you are the only one.”
“Not to the mages.”
Tiriwi’s voice almost failed at the word ‘mage,’ and revulsion made her close her eyes.
The three wise women of the Oa exchanged glances and sighed. “How can we argue with you, for all you have said is right,” Kamana said after a while. “But there are times when the valid
is invalid, and what is right and wrong hides behind a higher truth.”
Tiriwi looked at Kamana, stumped. Sometimes the wise women were all but impossible to understand. All she wanted was for everything to stay as it had been and as she knew it.
Chiwita continued: “You understood everything. Whosoever changes the world does not just create, but also destroy many things that are good and valuable. It is for the best to weigh up everything before acting. But sometimes the world changes without asking. Then we must also change, and we cannot hold on tightly to that which we know. If we do not succeed, we become strangers in our own world.”
“Tiriwi,” Grimala began. “The world you love is crumbling, and we must save as much of it as we can. But all we know of the future is that it will be very different to our past.”
Tiriwi turned her head to the door and looked out to the forest’s edge. A Mistglider leapt from a tree and sailed to the roof of a small roundhouse. I don’t want to, she thought. The world can’t change. Not mine. It’s perfect as it is. Her village, no more than a collection of ten or twenty huts, was very old. The magical wood of the first huts was older than the five kingdoms, it came from a time into which even the wise women could not delve. Something like this could not change. Was it not the task of the wise women to guard the old and deflect the new?
Chiwita took Tiriwi’s hand and stroked it comfortingly. “Do not fear, my child. It need not be the end of the world. But we know we cannot stop the Change. We must go with it this time. We need a glance into the future. And it looks as though the mages know more about what awaits us than we do, and as though they have a plan. They, though they kept Ringwall shut to everyone who was not of nobility, have opened their gates for all. Every learned person who wishes to study the world of powers. We do not know what they expect to come of this, but with this first step changes have been made. We believe that the changing of the world begins with the mages.”
Although the wise women had not lost their friendly smiles, and their faces contained no threat, Tiriwi felt disconnected from them, almost cast out from the Oas, and she lowered her head obediently. “But why me?”
“The mistrust between Oas and mages lies too deep,” Kamana said, “for them to grant us elders entry into their halls and chambers. But they do not see children as a threat. They want our knowledge: you must hide it. And we want their knowledge: you must find it. You will be the first Oa to know two schools of magic. And you will tell us what the mages expect and what they fear. Who knows, the truth may lie in the unification of all magics.”
“Let nobody know how far your magical talent goes,” Grimala warned her. “Although your studies are not finished yet, and you do not know many of the things the other students do, you still possess more and different abilities than they do. Do not flaunt them, and do not incite the mages’ mistrust. We have prepared you for this task long enough.”
Chiwita got to her feet. “Prepare yourself. In three days you will leave the village. Grimala has volunteered to accompany you on your journey. You may also choose which mothers you would have join you. You can also choose to take some friends instead if you believe they can make the trip. Your parting will be less sudden then. I can also ask a passing druid to join you.”
“No, no druids.” Tiriwi’s voice was strong and certain. “I don’t want to travel with a man.” She pressed her lips together. Like all her friend she had not yet properly met a man, but that which she had seen was enough for the rest of her lifetime.
*
The air stood still and quietened every sound. Nill sat on the stone rim of the well, dangling his legs, the hard edges cutting into his skin. The village well was special, because stones were rare in this part of Earthland, and they were usually of low quality. They were found only on top of the hills, and even there they were rarely more than thin flat plates that splintered easily. They could be used to scrape fat and blood from the fur of freshly killed game, if one had no better tool at hand. But they did not work well for building houses. The well was built from the few stones that possessed, by chance, a little more strength and durability.
Nill was watching a couple of skinny dogs that were sniffing each other and the corners of the nearby huts. A group of swift cloud-arrows cut across the sky, appearing out of nowhere and swooping down, stopped just short of the ground and was gone the next moment before anyone could turn to see. Nill liked those little hunters, but he was wondering what they were doing here at noon. As hunters of the dusk they woke only when the first feverflies rose from the damp depressions in the land.
The sky was blue. Far too blue, Nill thought, and a little too dark also. Nill squinted and sought the sun’s white sphere, around which the air looked nearly black. The dust’s dry taste had not changed but the air tasted of resin, and nature had become restless. Even the wind had hidden from the piercing sun, and so it was blisteringly hot. But the silence was deceptive. Now and again the wind woke up, broke its silence with small flurries that whisked up dust and made the eyes sore. Nill tilted his head back, flared his nostrils and drank in the air. He was not the only one who watched the sky and the gentle slopes of the hills with a worried look. The elders who spent their days sitting in the shade of the village’s huts had got up and gazed anxiously at the first tiny wisps of clouds that had appeared in the deep blue sky. They seemed like riders, transparent and swift, messengers of a coming event who had only stopped their horses for a very brief time.
Nothing indicated that a storm was brewing, whose winds were feared but whose rain was always welcome. Only the flurries grew more frequent, and the dust devils spun ever faster. Nill saw that the dust was gathering more and more leaves, although the closest bushes stood high upon the slope.
Nill looked along the dirt track that snaked among the hills and disappeared somewhere in the direction of the Waterways and Woodhold in the haze. All Nill knew about these two realms was that the sun rose between them and one had to follow the path for a very long time before one came to the next human settlement. The path was the only safe connection to the rest of Pentamuria, the civilized world that the village possessed. Beyond the village lay waste land which grew ever more barren the further it reached, until it finally merged with the Great Belt of the Borderlands. Even the most experienced hunters and shepherds knew no more to tell about the Borderlands than horror stories that were passed on from generation to generation.
But now Nill’s exceptionally keen eyes had spotted a black dot between the mirages and the hazy, dusty heat. The dot jumped around like crazy and steadily grew in size. Heat and dust devils had always made it hard to see anything in the distance, and Nill waited patiently until he could make it out more clearly.
The wind seemed to die down, but its restlessness was replaced by an invisible presence that began to fill every nook and cranny. The last grass stalks that had escaped the sharp rams’ hooves in some shady corners bent fearfully towards the ground, and Nill felt as if the earth itself was trembling under mighty steps. Although they could not see what was nearing yet, the dogs began to bark madly.
The elders’ faces grew solemn, until someone uttered what they all feared in secret.
“This is magic. The raw, wild power of a mighty druid that announces his arrival like a wave. My father told me about this. He experienced this often, when he was still a young man.”
The other elders nodded. Everybody had a father, grandfather or uncle in their family who had stories of the druids to tell. Those mighty sorcerers of nature who always turned up where they were not expected, sweeping the land, always searching for something they called the Heart of Magic. These druids stood outside the society of Pentamuria and were persecuted, cursed or treated with the highest respect by the various rulers of the world, depending on their respective plans. There was no consistent role written for the druids in the history of Pentamuria, and nothing indicated that this would ever change.
“I’ve only ever once met a druid. More than twenty harvests ag
o. Was looking for my herd, it got lost in the storm,” remarked Kren, who constantly rubbed his nose with his thumb. “Nothing good ever comes from it.” He did not elaborate what happened when he met the druid, and nobody asked, for now was not a time for stories.
“If we’re lucky, he’ll just pass through and only asks for food and drink.” Olfa scratched his head. The worry in his voice made what he said sound strangely unfinished.
“And if he doesn’t just pass through?” his wife asked from the darkness of their hut’s open door.
“Then he has come to kill someone, or to take them. Most often they take children, but I’ve also heard they take the eldest.” Kren was known to always presume the worst.
Each of these sentences was accompanied by a moment of silence and hung in the air on its own, as if it had to wait for the previous sentence to be blown away by the wind. But in truth the voices had to gather the strength before they had the courage to speak out loud.
“They are immortal.”
“You are talking nonsense. Only the Gods are immortal.”
“No one has ever seen a dead druid,” ranted Cramas Clumpfoot, but then fell into a whisper. “There are no graves, there are no women and there are no druid children. Druids are always men. Nobody knows where they come from and where they go.” He absent-mindedly brushed a few wood chips off his apron that had fallen when he had left his hut.
“I have heard that witches abandon their children, and those children then become druids.”
“Foolish talk! Even witch-mothers are mothers, and mothers don’t just abandon their children.” The old wives shook their heads at such lack of judgment from the men.
“Perhaps the druids simply take the children from the witches,” Kren speculated.
Some nodded appreciatively, others shook their heads.
Nill pretended to gaze disinterestedly in a different direction while his keen ears followed the conversation closely. He knew every single voice very well and did not need eyes to ascertain who was speaking. Esara had never spoken to him about druids, and so he did not really know what to make of them. But someone who was able to rouse the wind, cause nature to become restless and the village folk to gather in scared little groups was certainly worth a careful look. Much to Nill’s disappointment, everyone had heard of the brown men, but no one knew anything in particular.
