Moongather

by Clayton, Jo;

  “My mind was elsewhere, child.” He shifted the reins into one hand and brushed the wild fleece off her forehead. It should have been a light caress but was not, was too stiff and forced, as if he calculated even the speed and weight of touch required by such a gesture. Deeply disappointed, she forced a quivering smile to hide her confusion. “What did you ask?” he said, looking down at his fingers as if he too didn’t know quite what to make of the failed gesture.

  “How may I call you?”

  “I have no name.” He spoke slowly, thoughtfully; she saw him give his shoulders a small shake like the twitch she sometimes gave to her boots when her feet were swollen and the boots didn’t want to slide on as they should. Like the boots, too, he grew easier with wear. When he spoke again, he had relaxed until she could feel the return of the warmth that had made her happy enough to come with him. “I am a Word-master of the Nearga-Nor. You may call me Ser Noris.”

  Serroi shook her hair back over her eyes. “Ser Noris, why did you take me from Grandfather?”

  “Were you so happy living with him?”

  “They’re my family.” She didn’t want to think about them; after all they were all she had; they made up the greater portion of the only world she knew. She rubbed her hand back and forth over the leather, leaving behind small wet tracks from her sweaty palms, but stopped asking questions, sensing under his calm exterior a warning restiveness.

  Ser Noris dropped back into his silence, his body beside her, his mind far away in some world he alone knew. The cart jolted steadily along, the vinat clicking off the hours with the strong rhythmic scissoring of his legs while the long sun rolled around the horizon, the passage of time measured more intimately for Serroi by the growling hunger in her belly. She sat in miserable silence, too shy to speak again.

  Perhaps he sensed her need, perhaps it was only a part of his plan, but soon afterward Ser Noris stopped the cart. He fished in the back, gave Serroi a flask of water and some pieces of dried meat. While she ate, he poured water in a basin for the vinat, then stood with his arms crossed over his chest gazing steadily southward while the beast grazed. After a half hour’s halt, he remounted the seat and flicked the vinat into a quick walk.

  He drove westward until Serroi was dizzy with sleep, clutching desperately at the seat arm beside her, jerking in and out of a light doze, only half aware of it when the cart stopped its bouncing and the seat creaked as he swung down. She sat blinking hazily while he unharnessed and hobbled the beast and came back for her. He lifted her down and carried her around behind the cart, setting her on her feet and placing her hands on the dangling rear gate so she could hold herself up while he lifted out a bulky bundle whose outside wrapping was a finely tanned vinat hide with the long hair still on it; the bundle was nearly as big as she was and weighed heavily in her weary arms when he handed it to her. “Spread these under the cart, child,” he said. “They’ll give you some shade.”

  “Thank you, Ser Noris.”

  “Are you hungry, child?”

  “No thank you, Ser Noris. Only sleepy.”

  “Then sleep.” He left quietly then, walking off toward one of the ever-present outcroppings of rock. Serroi blinked, yawned, spread out the bed roll and was asleep almost before she pulled the hide over her head.

  By the next nooning they came to a river, the first Serroi had ever seen. She stared at the rushing water, wider than a dozen streams, fascinated by the swirls of bright blue and green, the rooster tails of foam, the roar that seemed to merge with something deep inside her.

  For several more sleeps they followed the river west, eating fish the water threw out at them when Ser Noris commanded it. She watched the water as it widened, watched the land as it changed its form, even its substance, watched the houses they were beginning to pass, her eyes round with wonder.

  They reached the sea on a brilliant day when sunlight danced in shards among the waves and the blue of the water was a promise of delight. Where the river poured into a wide shallow bay there was a huddle of steep-roofed buildings, four or five piers reaching out to deep water, a few ships moored at the piers, visible as pointed dots against the bright blue of the sky. Some men, not many, sat in small groups on the piers, old men with yellow-stained beards and pale blue eyes sunk deep in nests of wrinkles, long lean men very different from her windrunner kind. The pale blue eyes followed them as Ser Noris drove the cart onto the first of the piers and out to the end where a small sailing ship was moored. A hunched grey man came limping from one of the buildings and followed them onto the pier. He took the reins from Ser Noris, stood with dull grey patience as Ser Noris climbed down and moved around the end of the cart to hold out his hand for Serroi.

  His flesh was cool and smooth, his life running strong under the skin. Serroi shivered as the hand closed over hers. Once again he’d changed; something about him, she didn’t know what, frightened her. He was suddenly the savage animal again, his power visible as a predator’s teeth, as if he’d put a part of himself aside when he traveled inland and was only now reclaiming it. She jumped down from the cart, careless in her distraction, wanting so to get free of that disturbing touch that she stumbled and fell against his legs. With a gasp of dismay, she scrambled away and stood with her back against the cart’s wheel.

  He smiled down at her after a moment, patted her gently on the head, took her hand again and led her toward a narrow gangplank. The grey man took the vinat and cart away; as she trudged onto the deck of the ship, Serroi looked over her shoulder at the animal, watching it trot off with a damp sadness about her heart. For the first time she realized she might never see her people again, that she was being cut off from everything she knew. She looked up at the silent Noris, then down again, closing her teeth hard over her lower lip to fight back the surge of loneliness that made her eyes burn with tears.

  “Hold onto the mast—this—and don’t be frightened, child.” Ser Noris placed her hand on the smooth wood and waited until she was clutching at the softly humming mast, her cheek pressed against it, then he stepped aside and spoke a WORD.

  Invisible hands raised the sails, cast off the mooring lines. Invisible hands held the wheel and turned the ship toward the open sea. Though the wind blew inshore elsewhere, the white sails filled and the ship skimmed over the water, driven by a mage wind that left the old men on the piers gaping.

  The humming grew louder in Serroi’s ears; the wind flirted past her, tugging at her curls, flattening her tunic against her narrow body. For the first few minutes she was excited enough and pleased enough at this new experience to forget her sorrows, then her stomach began to protest as the deck moved up and down under her feet and the railing beyond tilted up and down up and down. She looked up at Ser Noris, sweat beading her face, one hand pressed over her mouth.

  He rushed her to the rail and held her as she voided her stomach. Even through her wretchedness she sensed his distaste; desolation and emptiness of another kind grew in her. Tears dripped from her eyes to mix with the sweat and sour liquid from her stomach as the convulsions diminished and finally stopped. She hung limply over the rail, so weak and distressed she was unable to move.

  Ser Noris carried her back to the mast and settled her on the heaving deck. He squatted beside her, frowning. “I’d better leave you in the open air until you’re over that.” He touched her cheek with a ghost of his former gentleness. “You may think you’re dying, little one, but it will pass. I promise you, it will pass.” He stood briskly, brushed at his sleeves, spoke another WORD.

  A rope end snaked from a coil hanging on the mast. Serroi watched it wobble through the air toward her and cringed away, but was prevented from moving far as the Noris squatted again and held her still, his hand on her shoulder. The rope slid around her waist and wove itself into a knot. She stared down at it, then at the other end which was looping itself about the mast. She reached down and touched the knot at her waist, jerked her hand away from the unnatural warmth of the rope fiber. She looked fearfully u
p at the Noris.

  He touched her cheek again. “This for your safety, child. Otherwise you could be swept overboard. My servants will care for you.” With smooth unobtrusive grace he was on his feet and moving away. About a body-length away from the mast, he stopped and faced the sea, spoke a WORD into the wind. When he’d paced out a square around her, speaking a WORD at each corner, the air touching her gentled and turned warm. He came back and stood looking down at her. “Remember, child, if there’s anything you need, call for it and my servants will bring it.”

  When he’d disappeared below, invisible hands fetched a basin of warm soapy water and bathed her face. They brought her more water to drink and a savory broth to fill some of the emptiness inside her. They tended her neatly and impersonally, went away as soon as they were done. Serroi crouched against the humming mast, the only thing that seemed real and comforting, too sick to care.

  Twice more she succumbed to the urgency of her stomach. The hands cleaned her up and left her alone. Finally she managed to sleep and found to her surprise that when she woke, her body had adapted to the dip and fall of the ship. She sat up, pushed aside her blankets, blinking at the sun which shone directly in her eyes as it dipped to its lowest point near the horizon. “Hands,” she called. “I’m starved. Bring me something to eat.”

  A moment later she had a platter of steaming rolls with butter and jam, a pot of cha and a dainty small cup with no handle and long thin slices of cream-colored posser flesh. She sniffed, grinned, began eating hungrily. The wind was crisp and fresh even filtered through her invisible walls, the sea jewel blue, singing past the sides, rising and falling like a breathing beast. Fish leaepd in schools from the water making tiny whistling sounds like damp, iridescent birds.

  When she finished her meal, she submitted to the invisible hands while they bathed her and brought her fresh clothing, more things her mother had packed away for her. With their usual wordless efficiency they polished her and the deck until both were painfully clean, then they left. Serroi shook out her tether, wrinkled her nose at it, then moved toward the railing, testing how much range of movement she was going to have. The rope proved long enough to let her lean on the rail and stare down at the water hissing past.

  A whale broached nearby. Breaking water first, its back was a shining curve of dark grey with black mottles like sooty hand prints. It spouted a rush of steam, then sounded with a comic flirting of its tail flukes. Laughing her delight, Serroi raced back along the rail, the rope whipping behind her until it pulled her to a stop, She leaned out over the rail, still laughing, her eye-spot tingling. She called the whale back, clapped her hands in joy as it played with the ship, loosing it finally when it began to chafe at the restraints she put on it.

  Birds flew by overhead, riding the wind that drove the ship. Sometimes they settled around Serroi to preen russet, gold, green, or blue fur with long narrow tongues, to search each other for fur-mites, crunching them between tiny dagger teeth lining the lips of their leathery beaks. Serroi scratched at small heads, coaxed some of the birds into her lap where they twittered with pleasure under the probing of her fingers.

  The ship moved south without pause, the days growing shorter and the stars shifted into new patterns. Serroi contented herself with the birds and the creatures of the sea, left utterly alone by Ser Noris. Yet she wasn’t lonely; her happiest times had always been when she ran and played with the animals drawn to her by the siren-song of the eye-spot. These days were an endless playtime without the painful and often incomprehensible demands of adults. The rope confined her and at the same time freed her from the need of watching her feet so she ran heedlessly about, tagging the birds, racing the fish that sometimes leaped the rail and slid across the deck into the sea on the far side.

  The ship danced southward until days and nights matched and the winds were warm as her own breath—always no land, only the blue water, the blue sky and the mage wind blowing them into summer. Her life in her father’s wagon following the vinat faded into vague dreams. She had a child’s perception of time, the hours stretching out and out until one day was swallowed by the next, until she might always have run about the deck of the ship surrounded by an endless sea.

  The rising sun was red in her eyes when she woke on the last day of the voyage; she blinked and yawned, sat up rubbing her eyes. Kicking the blanket away, leaving it in a heap for the hands to carry off, she trotted to the railing to see what was happening, squinting against the glare of the morning light. Her eye-spot tingled, a sourceless itch crawled about beneath her skin, and she had an uncomfortable sense of waiting-about-to-end. The nose of the boat pointed toward a triangle of black cutting up to spoil the smooth line of the horizon. She shivered. What there was about that rising dark fang to make her so uneasy she couldn’t tell, but when she looked at it, she felt a hollow coldness spreading inside her. She watched it grow for a while then went slowly back to the mast and her cooling breakfast.

  The black form became a tall cone-shaped mountain breathing out a wavering plume of steam. Other small dots grew into dark islands, an archipelago of stone whose tallest peak was an active volcano.

  Having begun to think the South was all water, Serroi went to the rail again to watch, fascinated, the nearing islands. The ship dipped neatly through a ring of foam and slid past a large island of brown-black stone, then past a blunt stone pier with a huge stone house high above it rising from a glass-smooth cliff, a house that seemed big enough to stable her family’s vinat herd. She stared up at it as they went past, wondering about it, pounded small fists on the rail in frustration because the hands were mute and couldn’t answer her questions and Ser Noris was out of touch and she wouldn’t have dared question him anyway.

  The ship nosed through the twisting passage between the islands, past more tall houses and silent piers. The air felt heavy and dead, except for the mage wind driving them. The islands were barren with no touch of green. Even the water had lost its brilliance and sighed heavily and darkly under them.

  The mage wind died and the ship glided smoothly along one of the stone piers. As it nudged into place the sails came down with hasty snappings and sighing slaps and the mooring lines snaked out to snub it against the pier. Serroi felt the rope about her waist come alive and writhe loose. It wriggled away from her to coil itself back on the masthook. Rubbing at her waist, she tilted her head back, her eyes moving up along the dark shiny face of the cliff to the tower that continued its ascent into a heavy sky. A dead place, cold and unwelcoming. She turned to face north, yearning for the tundra where life was thick and warm even when it snowed.

  Ser Noris came up onto the deck moving with a calm, slow dignity. He stood a moment, she heard the soft sounds of his feet stop and knew he was watching her; she refused to look around. “Come, child.” The music of the words wooed her and surprised her almost as if she were hearing his voice for the first time, having forgotten the magic it made for her during the silent weeks on board the ship.

  She turned slowly and walked across the deck to him, her feet dragging, her head down. She wanted to say to him that she needed to go home, that she didn’t like this place, that it was dead and made her feel dead—but she didn’t quite dare. She could feel an itch building in her that she couldn’t describe or even fully understand, a growing resistance to being pushed along without understanding what was happening. When she forced herself to look up at him, his beautiful face was quiet, he was even smiling a little—but he was still a long, long way off and the smile was a grimace that didn’t touch his eyes. She said nothing, simply took the hand he held out to her.

  He lifted her onto the pier and led her down it to the cliff face which was glass-smooth and without a break she could see anywhere. She opened her eyes wide, wondering what the Noris was going to do, then gasped with surprise and fear as her feet left the stone of the pier.

  They rose smoothly, soaring with the ease of the sea birds lately her companions. After her fright passed away and she was certain
she wasn’t going to fall, she laughed with delight and kicked her feet through the flowing air. The Noris ignored her antics. At the top of the cliff he halted the flight and glided smoothly to a landing inside a deep alcove cut into the tower’s outer wall. Facing the tall bronze doors at the back of the cut, he spoke a quiet WORD. The doors sprang apart, crashing against the stone not far from his impassive face. He strode between the age-greened slabs into the thick blackness beyond, pulling Serroi along with him, a draggled kite tail almost forgotten.

  As soon as the Noris stepped over the threshhold, the door clashed shut again, almost nipping Serroi’s cloak between its jaws. She gasped and stumbled, blind and frightened in the sudden darkness. Clinging to the Noris’s cool fingers, she turned and twisted with him through darkness, having to trust him to lead her back to light. He walked as freely as if the dark were light to his eyes, but she felt her terror growing until her breath was near strangled in her throat. When she knew absolutely she couldn’t take another step, he stopped, dropped her hand, spoke a WORD.

  The wall split before them and a cool pearly light flooded into the blackness. The Noris stepped through into the room beyond. To Serroi’s watery eyes, he was a tall black column with opaline fringes. She rubbed at her eyes with fisted hands, then went timidly through after him.

  The room was a domed cylinder that looked as big as the inside of a mountain to her. The light came from all over as if it filled the room like air. There were tall chairs around the walls, some tapestries—images of plants and animals in bright splashes of color, three long narrow ink-paintings—again natural images suggested in splashes of black and white. On the far side, opposite the doorway, a dais jutted from the wall with a massive throne-chair centered on it, the dark wood carved into serpentine twists of vine with animal heads snarling through the leaves. On the floor the rug was a shimmer of brilliant leaf and flower forms. Serroi gave a soft exclamation of delight and stooped to caress the thick silky fibers, to trace one of the twisting vines and stroke a crimson flower the size of her hand. She glanced at the Noris, a question on her lips that died when she saw the look on his face. “All the things I’m denied,” he said. She felt the pain and self-mockery in the soft voice and crouched trembling on that magnificent rug, more frightened than she’d ever been in her short lifetime. Then he was calm again, his face a sparely sculptured mask. He held out his hand. Slowly she straightened, got to her feet, crossed the rest of the rug to him and took the extended hand. He led her to the tapestry that hung behind the throne chair, pulled the edge aside to reveal a barrel-roofed corridor. “Through here, child. Walk ahead of me.”