“They are listening to you, Tarwein-zan-ja.” Indeed, the people had all fallen silent, and even the children had ceased to fret.
“I will tell you a story,” she said in the Juras language. Her pronunciation, she knew, could only be atrocious, and the vocabulary provided in the book she studied had not taught her even half the words she needed to know. She did what she had always done: she improvised, while her ally aided her by re-saying the words she terribly mispronounced, or offering other words that carried her meaning more clearly.
“There was a tiny man who wore a black coat and was named Little-Biting-Dust. I am afraid I cannot tell you all his names, for his shushanis very great, and saying his name would take all day. One day, Little-Biting-Dust found a dark magic in his dinner, and he ate it. Though he was just a tiny man, so tiny that he hardly could be seen, this dark magic made him powerful, for from that day forward everyone he bit with his little teeth sickened and died. You see, the dark magic had become part of his blood, and when he bit someone, the magic went into their blood too, and killed them.
“Little-Biting-Dust boasted to his shushanthat although he once had been almost nothing, now he was a man of great importance. They begged to know his secret, and he said, ‘You must follow me, and watch. When I bite someone, wait for that person to fall sick. Then you bite that same person, and the dark magic will go into your blood, and you will be as powerful as I.’ So his numberless shu’shanall did as he said, and soon they all had his power. His clan became the most important people in the north. People came and bowed down to Little-Biting-Dust and gave him everything they owned, even their clan goatherd, in exchange for his promise not to bite them. But as you can tell, he was a very evil man, and he broke all his promises, and he bit everyone.
“Soon, Little-Biting-Dust’s clan began to starve. They had killed every person and animal in their town, except for the rats, and now they had nothing to eat, for even they would not eat rats. ‘What shall we do?’ they cried.
“ ‘We must go to a new town,’ said Little-Biting-Dust. Now, as I said, these people were very small, so they could ride the rats to the next town. Soon, the people in that town also began to sicken and die. There was nothing they could do to fight back, for Little-Biting-Dust’s people were so small and fast that nobody could catch them.
“But then one day, there came into that town a woman with a short name who had a lot of goats she did not want, who had the gift of the Ka-clan and was a sham-re.Her magic was stronger than Little-Biting-Dust’s magic, and soon the people who were sick began to get better, rather than dying. Little-Biting-Dust was angry, and he jumped onto her leg to bite her, but she reached down and caught him by the coat collar. ‘Now I have you, you evil little man,’ she said, and she put him in her mouth and cracked him open with her teeth. And so died Little-Biting-Dust, and not a day too soon!
“But by now, Little-Biting-Dust’s shushanwere numerous as the blades of grass that sprout up during the spring mud, and they all fled the wrath of the short-named woman, riding on the rats. Some went east and some went west, and she chased them and found them and killed them all. But some went south and they hid in a place they thought they never would be found: a good place where the skies are big and the people sing with loud voices, a place far away from the short-named woman’s home. ‘She will never find us here,’ they said, and they started to bite the people, and the people began to fall ill. ‘That sham-rewill not stop us from becoming the most important people in the world!’
“But then one day the sham-rearrived, for Little-Biting-Dust’s relatives had settled in the home of the short-named woman’s mother. And there was nowhere left for the little people with the dark magic to run, for after the grassland come the steppes, and after the steppes comes the waste, and no one has ever crossed the waste alive. So they all prepared for a great battle, and today that battle begins.”
Zanja awoke from a long nap and found herself alone beside a smoldering fire. Her sleep had not relieved her weariness, but instead had sent it deeper, into the center of her bones, where it filled her marrow with lead. Yet, like all her weary awakenings during this long winter and spring, she awoke satisfied. At last she had something to do, and it required all her faculties, body and mind. She got up, groaning but not complaining.
The rain had eased, and the Juras had built a bonfire in which they were burning everything that might shelter a flea. The children danced; the young people wildly flung objects into the fire. The old people sang: a wild, big noise that issued from the deep of their chests and made Zanja feel giddy and powerful. Inside the main hut, she found a pot of something and helped herself to it, then ducked outside to avoid the dust of cleaning. A woman told her that J’han was in the sick hut, but Karis had gone away. Zanja’s informant gestured vaguely.
Bringing their rain capes, Zanja climbed the cliff and looked out over the empty land, where the sky still hung so low she felt that she could touch it with her hands. Karis was easy to spot: the tallest thing between Zanja and the horizon. As Zanja drew closer, she saw that Karis sat beside a long, shallow stretch of standing water. An ecstatic cacophony of toad voices croaked the praises of this temporary pond. A pair of long-legged birds, white as clouds, stalked through the clear water, snatching up the love-frenzied toads to feed their own hatchlings.
Zanja squatted down beside Karis, who sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. The toads cried. “Water here! Come make babies! Beware the toad-eater!” The clouds, which had seemed so still, revealed themselves to be in motion—or else the earth itself was moving. The grass rustled, growing so quickly that Zanja thought she could see it. At times like these, she almost understood the land as Karis did. How impatient I must seem to her,Zanja thought.
Karis said, “Such big people! So loud, and crowded! They are exhausting.”
“They keep each other warm, I guess.”
The sky spit rudely at them. Zanja unrolled their rain capes, which smelled of dung smoke now. She wrapped one around Karis. Looking into her lover’s face, she saw an unfamiliar strain. She said, surprised and concerned, “What is it?”
Karis dug a hand into wet sand. She said, “When there are no words for what I know, how am I to explain myself?”
“I’ll teach you words from other languages. Or I’ll make words up for you.”
“Must there be words? I just want my toolbox, so I can whack away at something for a while.”
After a silence, Zanja said, “You’re tired of people. I’ll leave you alone.”
Karis’s hand, wet and gritty, took hold of hers. Zanja subsided, leaning against Karis’s shoulder, and watched a white bird stalk into the grass with a hapless toad dangling from her beak. Zanja told Karis her mother’s long name, her own short name, and the name of her cousin who owned such a quantity of fine goats. Karis listened in silence.
“The Juras people will all gather together in a few weeks, and you’ll be able to meet your entire clan then, if not before.”
Karis nodded. “That would be worth doing, I guess. But they are not my people, not like the Ashawala’i were to you. You already understand the Juras better than I ever will, and you’ll spend our entire time here explaining them to me.”
“That’s true,” said Zanja. “Is that too bitter a truth for you?”
“It’s not bitter to know that my mother Kasanra named me,” Karis said. “I assumed she just dropped me in the street like a dog drops her litter.” She took a harsh breath, and turned her face away. “But do I want to know that bearing a child broke her heart?” Her wrecked voice sounded worse than usual. “If every truth is bitter, then we’re better off with lies, aren’t we?”
“Without the truth, we’d never solve a single problem.”
“Without the truth, we’d have no problems. Or at least, we wouldn’t know we had them.”
“What darkness there is in your heart today.”
Karis uttered a weak laugh. “I’m just talking like a smoke addict. A single
breath of that stuff and all pain went away. How easy it was!”
Zanja had never feared that Karis would return to using smoke, and now she simply nodded without comment. Their love had been conceived in the midst of pain, and so they had always allowed room for each other’s sorrow. But Zanja could not guess what made Karis so wretched now. While Zanja had napped, Karis had probably wandered the Juras camp, killing fleas, giving immunity to the healthy and making certain none of the sick would get the illness in their lungs. She had done the same in every town they had passed through, and in her wake some people died, the rest recovered, and the illness disappeared. It was a normal sequence of events by now.
“Something new has happened,” Zanja said at last. “Something the ravens know, perhaps.”
“Yes. I can’t explain it.”
Zanja could feel Karis’s bulk, her muscle, and even some bone now that she had gotten thin with travel. But Zanja could feel her sturdiness also, and a physical warmth that kept the chill and damp at bay. “You’ll tell me when you can,” she said.
Karis let go of her hand, and wiped a palm across the sand to smooth it. Then, she began to shape the wet sand into a map, complete with geographical features. Even though Karis had never seen those places, the map would be accurate; where she went, the land was never strange to her. “There’s ten more infected camps,” she said, and marked them with her fingertip. “Seven to the east of us and three to the west. When do the Juras gather together, do you know?”
“After the spring rains have fallen, when the grass is deeply rooted enough that the goats can be allowed to graze, there’s a white flower that blooms at around the time the goats drop their kids, and that’s the time that the Juras people gather to sing to the stars and to make marriages.” Zanja gasped for breath.
“That was an unspeakable statement,” Karis observed.
“It’s how they talk. They have big lungs.”
“Well, the goats will start dropping kids in about twenty days.”
Zanja studied the map. “How far apart are the camps?”
“About a day’s journey. The herds need a lot of room.” Karis frowned. “If the infected people go to the gathering, bringing their fleas with them—”
“You and J’han need two or three days in each camp. I’ll have to run ahead, and persuade those people to stay where they are.”
Karis gave her a look of despair. Confused, Zanja said, “For years before I met you, I was a solitary traveler, so I am fairly skilled at it.”
“I never forget that,” said Karis hoarsely.
“Well, it’s too bad we couldn’t bring a raven, but still, you’ll always know where I am—” Zanja let her voice trail away. “What do you mean by that?”
Karis was trembling. “What’s wrong with me?”
Zanja felt a sudden horror. She put her hand to Karis’s forehead, and it was like putting her hand into a crackling fire. “Dear gods. You can protect everyone—”
“I’m sick?” Karis sounded blank. “Why am I sick?”
Zanja tried to speak calmly. “Little-Biting-Dust wanted revenge, I guess. Someone must have told him that you can’t heal yourself.”
“War makes me sick. Norina said so.”
“War only makes you sick at heart,” said Zanja. “Get up. I’m taking you to J’han.”
Chapter Six
Zanja knelt on the floor of pounded sand, near the edge of the crowded, stinking hut where after a feverish night the sick had lapsed into exhausted silence. An old man had died during the night, and as soon as the sun rose, J’han had gone out with the weary volunteers to expose his body to the sky, which was the Juras way of disposing of the dead. J’han would have preferred to burn the bodies, but the closest firewood lay four days journey to the north. Lomito, the translator, had assured Zanja that Juras tradition would keep people away from the body while the scavengers did their work. Now, the volunteers began to come back in: all old people whose names were getting short. They lay down on their pallets with groans of exhaustion; like Zanja they had been awake all night. They muttered among themselves about the danger that the old man’s ghost might haunt them because they had been too tired to sing him properly into death, but soon they fell silent.
All night, while Karis lay restless and muttering with fever, Zanja had sponged her with cool water. Now Karis lay quiescent, pallid, stark. The distinct marks of Little-Biting-Dust’s dark magic had become visible in her flesh, mysterious bruises that J’han said were battlegrounds. Feeling how cool Karis was now, Zanja covered her with a blanket.
Karis opened her eyes. “Are you still here?” she said accusingly.
“Karis—”
“You have to go!”
“I can’t bring myself to leave you.”
Karis looked at her: a strange look, resolved, not particularly tender. “A solitary traveler,” she mumbled.
“That life is over.”
“No. It is your gift.” Her broken voice cracked. Her bruised eyelids closed.
Zanja sat back on her heels. In four or five days’ time, J’han would be able to say with some confidence whether Karis would survive. But by then Zanja should be far away, with no raven messenger to tell the news. If Karis lived, she wouldn’t forgive Zanja for remaining with her while a whole people was devastated by this awful plague. And if Karis died, Zanja’s presence or absence would make no difference in the outcome. But she could not make herself stand up and go.
The hut was dim, but outside the heavy clouds allowed in a promise of sunshine. The people within breathed in and out, some snoring, others mumbling vaguely in their sleep. Zanja took out her glyph cards and whispered a question. “If I leave, will Karis and I be separated forever!”
She looked down at the card her fingers had picked. It was Unbinding-and-Binding, with its illustration of two people tied at either end of a rope looped around a rock, hanging helplessly from a cliff. For one to climb, the other must fall. Zanja put the card back into the deck. She felt very strange: empty—so empty she felt almost light—and giddy, though not with joy. She stood up and went out.
J’han was asleep with the others, but Lomito was waiting outside near her pile of gear to bid her farewell. J’han would remain with Karis while Lomito traveled west and Zanja east, to teach the Juras how to prevent the illness and how to care for those who were already sick, but above all to persuade them to avoid the gathering.
Lomito said, “Be at peace, Tarwein-zan-ja. There never was a sham-reof the Ka clan that could be easily killed.”
“Thank you,” she said distantly. She felt like she was falling; Lomito was far away, and Karis was even farther. “Safe journey,” she said to him. She picked up her gear, and walked away.
From one crowded Juras camp to the next, as the rain gradually let up and the earth began to warm, Zanja traveled, told her story, saw the people institute J’han’s plan for killing fleas and preventing infection, and traveled on. It took fifteen days for the clouds to break apart and drift away. That day found Zanja alone as the vivid green plain unrolled before her feet like a bolt of green silk. Blue sky met green horizon, featureless and flat in all directions, and only Zanja’s own shadow could tell her which way she was going. She had spent much of her life alone, but never had she been without a tree or hill to inform her of her place on the world. Now, as she walked, her interior spaces remained empty as the plain and the sky: disconnected, all her ties illusory, all her hopes a vacancy. She became convinced that Karis was indeed dead, and wept as she walked, dazed by sorrow, dazzled by light, through a thick steam that began to rise as the sun warmed the wet sand.
The air even smelled of death: a faint, sweet stink that gradually became overpowering. She wiped her eyes and looked around herself, for she had gotten completely disoriented and might have been walking in aimless circles for all she knew. Ahead of her, a sturdy caravan rose out of the mist, still and derelict as a wrecked ship lying askew on the shore. A broken axle, Zanja thought, but her no
se told her that something worse than a mere mischance had befallen this house on wheels.
When she drew close, she saw the remains of the dray horses, dead in their traces, half eaten by scavengers before the winter cold froze the remains. Now, fat flies blew up in a cloud as Zanja approached, and vultures fled in great, ungainly hops through the calf-deep grass. The message of the dreadful scene was not too hard to read: the horses, trapped by the broken wheel, had died of starvation with grass just out of reach. But what of their driver?
The caravan door was tilted skyward, and the wood had swollen from the long rain. She levered the door open with her knife blade, and then fell back, gagging from the stink. She caught only a glimpse of what lay within: a man’s dead body, rotting in a tangle of ruined trade goods. Holding her nose, she kicked the door shut, and fled beyond range of the smell to collect herself. No wonder her very thoughts had been infused with the stink of death.
In the warmth of the afternoon, the steam began to burn away, and Zanja noticed that underfoot, beneath the shelter of the grass leaves, a second plant was thriving and had almost completely matted over the sand’s surface with its small, lobed leaves. Looking closer, she saw the tiny green buds swelling. In a few more days, the sand would be decorated with flowers. She spotted a small eruption in the sand, and there emerged a fat black bee the size of her thumb tip. He basked in the sunshine after his mead-sipping winter underground, buzzing his wings occasionally, no doubt planning what he would do when the flowers came into bloom.
So Karis now sat, somewhere on this same empty plain, with the sunshine in her face, thinking how to restore her life after the ravages of illness and the hardships of that winter. Zanja sat back on her heels, beside the sleepy bee, and let her fear and sorrow go. She had chased Little-Biting-Dust across the plain, from one Juras camp to the next, and in each camp she had found fewer sick and greater surprise at her urgent message. Now, she had reached the end: a dead man, a peddler, with illness carried in his trade goods, and perhaps in stowaway rats as well. Here the plague’s journey had finally ended.
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