The Unfinished Song: Sacrifice

by Maya, Tara

  Hertio grunted and paced. “I don’t know if I can believe you. You say you were lying to him, but you could be lying to me. Either way, you’re a worm-sucking liar.”

  Kavio offered a rueful shrug of apology.

  “Will you help me overthrow Vultho?” Hertio asked.

  “No.”

  “You ass.”

  “He was elevated by the Council of Elders. I’m not going to kill him in cold blood just to satisfy my powerful urge to feed his liver to crows.”

  “What about my powerful urge to feed his liver to crows?”

  “Sorry.”

  Hertio snorted. “What’s this nonsense about sending envoys to Blue Waters clanholds? What’s so great about Vultho that they would follow him?”

  “He’s not Nargano.”

  “I thought Nargano had many allies.”

  “He who has many allies usually has many foes.”

  “Not foe enough to go over to their tribal enemies.”

  “There are Imorvae hidden among the Blue Waters tribesfolk. They are called the Shunned. But not every Blue Waters clan is happy with that situation. There’s no way they can change the system from the inside. No Blue Waters War Chief would ever allow the Shunned to become Tavaedies. So they are interested in going somewhere else, at least for temporary refuge. Sound familiar?”

  “Well, well.”

  “I’m sure if more Shunned pour into Yellow Bear, they would be glad to earn their keep with labor on the Unfinished Tor.”

  “I’m liking this plan of yours a little more.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Fa, why are you standing out here, nephew?” Hertio clapped him on the back. “Come into my sister’s house and eat while the pishas are hot.”

  Brena

  Brena wanted to sleep, as a bear would, hidden away in a cave for the rest of the winter. She did not want to return to teaching a gaggle of snickering, swaggering, pimple-faced pubescents. No one ever asked her what she wanted, and they did not ask her now, they simply assumed she would resume her duties as a Zavaedi to the Initiates; and she did.

  In the courtyard between the lodges on the Tor of the Initiates, the teachers set mats out for an assembly. The young men and women tumbled into their seats, laughing and hooting. They were adults, or would be by the end of this year, but to her they still looked like children, a mess of skinny arms and bonny legs, constantly grappling one another like boisterous cubs. Even after she snapped out a command for order, and they seated themselves in rows, they could not sit perfectly still. They hummed and buzzed, like bees hovering over flowers. Bright, clean faces stared up at her, and that’s when it hit her, the terrible knowledge that many of them would soon be dead.

  “You are here this year to assume the mantle of manhood or womanhood,” she told them. “And I know you think you know what that means, but you don’t. You think adulthood means freedom to do what you want, when it actually means obligation to do what you must. You think it means power to take what you desire, when it actually means the necessity to sacrifice your desires to the service of others. You think it means it means you will earn glory slaying your foes, but it actually means you will have the duty to protect your families.”

  “Fa-fa-fa-‘sacrifice,’ fa-fa-fa ‘duty,’” a high-pitched voice imitated her mockingly.

  A wave of giggles swept through the Initiates.

  “Stand up, Tamio of Broken Basket,” Brena ordered.

  Nonchalant about being caught, he stood up with a cocky grin. He spread his arms and bowed his head toward the other Initiates, as if accepting the acclaim that was his due.

  “You think you know better what manhood is about?” she asked caustically.

  “Sure do.”

  “Please,” she drawled, “do share your vast wisdom.”

  “A man needs only two staves. He has to fight. And he has to fu—”

  “That will be quite enough. Sit down.”

  He didn’t obey. Just crossed his arms and grinned.

  “If he is the best at those two things, he’s the top wolf. And the top wolf takes what he wants. He doesn’t give up muck all for anyone. The only sacrifices he makes are to slit the throats of the slaves he captures in battle.”

  “And you think that’s so easy?”

  “For a real man.” His voice turned sly. “But I guess you prefer to do other things with your slaves, don’t you, Zavaedi? By the way, where is your slave? You know, that big brooding bloke? Raaaathan of Blue Waters. You didn’t lose him, did you?

  Her blood turned to ice. “Sit. Down.”

  “Yes, auntie,” he said with mock servility.

  The light felt too bright, her head throbbed and her hands tingled. She realized she was clenching her fists so hard they were going numb. She had completely lost track of what she wanted to say. The urge to beat Tamio with a large stick overwhelmed every other thought.

  Waves of giggles swept through the Initiates. Being young, they easily mistook rudeness for cleverness. Out of habit, she sought her daughters, and saw them sitting together, arm and arm, next to Kemla and two or three other well-respected girls. This would have made Brena happy, except they were giggling madly, just like all the other young fools.

  This is it. It hit her all at once, like an arrow to the heart. This is the moment. It didn’t happen during the formal ceremony, or during the attack, or even during the blighted peace journey. It is happening now, in front of my eyes. They have withdrawn their loyalty from me, and given it to their friends. They aren’t my babies anymore.

  She had always imagined she would feel proud at this moment, not betrayed.

  Somehow she finished her speech, but all she could hear was the mocking, fa-fa-fa.

  When the ordeal ended, she stumbled to Zavaedies Abiono and Danumoro.

  “Brena?” Abiono asked. “Are you well?”

  “I can’t do this any more,” she said through grated teeth. “I can’t teach any more. I look at them and I don’t see humans. I see animals. Mindless, grunting pigs. Growling wolves.” Her voice cracked. “Fawns doomed to be slaughtered. ”

  Abiono patted her shoulder. “This will pass.”

  “No,” she insisted. “No more. I cannot do it.”

  Danumoro said quietly, “There might be an alternative, Zavaedi Brena. Would you consider serving Yellow Bear as an envoy?”

  Dindi

  The kiln was as tall as a hut, but narrower, with two mouths. The lower mouth stuck out a long tongue of stone. Sliced tree trunks fed into this mouth to feed the fire. The upper mouth ate the stone bowls containing nuggets of gold gleaned from the river.

  Gold smelting kilns and their secrets belonged to Tavaedies who danced both Red and Yellow, a rare and precious combination. Gwena and Kemla both trained with the Gold Smith Tavaedies several hours each week. If only Gwenika did, Dindi could have appealed to her for help with destroying the corncob doll. Unfortunately, Gwenika was Morvae and danced only Yellow: good for healing, but poor for smelting or smithing. Dindi had learned the hard way all about the differences between Morvae and Imorvae in Blue Waters. According to Kavio, Morvae were better at simple and direct tasks, but in a complicated endeavor, with many steps and different stages, Imorvae excelled. He admitted, though, that his perspective might have been skewed since he was Imorvae.

  Dindi had a much more basic interest in the kiln. Ordinary fire had not harmed the hexed doll, but she knew that a gold kiln burned hotter than any torch, hotter even than a bread oven. Perhaps it would succeed where torch fire had failed.

  She had already tried throwing the doll in the river, tossing it off a cliff, feeding it to raccoons, chopping it into bits with a stone ax. Nothing worked. The doll just popped up again, on her sleeping mat, next to where she sat or even on the cord around her neck, when she was least expecting it. She never saw it re-appear, it was simply there when she turned around or moved her hand, as if it had been quietly there all along, awaiting her renewed interest.

&nbs
p; Ordinary maidens and warriors helped the Gold Smith Tavaedies with menial tasks, like preparing the bowls of raw nuggets, or fetching wood for the fire. Dindi hoped to blend in as one of the serving maidens.

  She staked out the kiln and studied the Tavaedies and their assistants going to and fro. During a lull, she hurried up to the kiln. Darting glances, to check for onlookers. None. She leaned over the blaze in the bottom mouth of the kiln. She tossed in the corncob doll.

  The doll writhed like a captive being burned at the stake. Fierce flames lapped all around her. Her blank face slid into itself, for all the world as if she oozed tears.

  Dindi watched until the cob blackened into a thin crisp of coal.

  “What are you doing here?” A hand spun Dindi around by her shoulder.

  It was Kemla. She shook Dindi by the shoulders. “Did you throw something in our kiln? Did you try to hex our kiln?”

  “No! No!”

  “What were you doing here? Who invited you? You don’t belong here.”

  “I was only… I was just leaving,” Dindi stammered.

  “Where do you belong?” Kemla’s eyes narrowed. “Where do you go all day? Who do you keep company? You failed the magic Test, like all your sorry clan, and just as I always told you that you would—do you remember—so you’re not one of us, a Tavaedi… but I never see you with your own kind, either. What are you, a friendless freak? No one wants you?”

  “I have to go now,” Dindi repeated. She wrenched free and ran.

  The gold kilns were located on the Tor of the Sun. After Dindi escaped the kiln courtyard, she wandered into the mess of beehive huts where ordinary Yellow Bear families went about their daily chores. A mother helped her five-year-old daughter grind corn with a mortar and pestle. She felt a pang of homesickness.

  Where did she belong? Ever since they had returned from Blue Waters, Dindi had been an unraveled basket, all loose ends curled in circles that didn’t add up to a pattern. One question burned through her waking days and sleepless nights: Would Kavio continue to teach her, now that they were back?

  She had not seen him since their return.

  The problem was that she had been waiting for him to summon her. Maybe this was a test of her resolve. She had to prove she wanted to see him. She must seek him out.

  She felt better after making her decision, but finding Kavio wasn’t all that easy. He was curled into his own loose ends, and seemed to meander all around the Tors, always a step ahead, always somewhere other than where she looked to find him.

  Finally she surreptitiously trailed Sveno, who led her to Gremo; and once she had found Gremo, she followed him around like a puppy wanting scraps until he met up with Kavio. To her delight, although it was somewhat mysterious, they met in the woods far away from the Tors. It was near the spot where Kavio had first caught her dancing.

  It had not been her intention to eavesdrop. How was she to know that Gremo had asked to meet Kavio to discuss a private problem?

  Gremo had gone back to wearing a big rock on his back. He paced in circles, while Kavio leaned against a tree and studied him.

  “I’ve been trying and trying and trying and TRYING AND TRYING and I can’t mucking change again!” Gremo’s rant grew from a mutter to a bellow. “I did it once! Why can’t I do it again?”

  “Did you really think it would be that easy?” Kavio asked. “You ignore your magic for years of your life, and then, bam, in one spectacular burst of light, you’re cured, you find your wings, you fly away and become the envy of every Tavaedi in Faearth?”

  “Yes! What’s wrong with that?”

  Kavio chuckled. “Nothing, except that it doesn’t work that way. It takes practice and discipline, and you’ve had neither. Being born with magic is not enough. Magic can be lost. It can be hidden. It can be wasted. I have seen those born with great magic throw it away, through laziness, through arrogance, through sheer stupidity.”

  Gremo paced and scowled.

  “Stop walking in circles,” Kavio said.

  “It helps me think.”

  “I’d have thought you’ve dug enough circles to last you a lifetime.”

  Gremo paced circles and scowled more darkly.

  “Isn’t there another way?” Gremo asked. He glanced sidelong at Kavio. “I’ve heard there’s a ritual sacrifice which a Tavaedi can use to augment his power.”

  Kavio folded his arms, silent except for an arch of his brow.

  Gremo ended his circle at the base of another tree. He bashed his head against the trunk three or four times.

  “Zavaedi, I am at my wit’s end,” pleaded Gremo. “I don’t want to go back to what I was before, but I don’t know how to move forward. I know you know a secret ritual. Everyone whispers about it. Please, tell me what kind of animal I have to hunt and kill for the ritual. I need this.”

  Kavio uncoiled from his pose against the tree. Now he was the one who walked a circle around Gremo.

  “Fine. Let’s do it your way. You’re right. There is a secret sacrifice, the most important Tavaedi secret of all.”

  “I knew it!”

  “To make it work, you must acquire a rare beast,” said Kavio, “a beast that every one of us hunts for and hungers for, that we would devour days without end, were it not so elusive to spear. If you can capture this beast, and offer it up as a sacrifice, you can achieve your heart’s desire.

  “My father taught me the secret sacrifice,” Kavio said. “He used to say, a man has no choice about most important things: the color of his Chroma, whether he has more than one Chroma, or whether he even has magic at all. He is born this way, which is why my father always believed it was wrong to kill a man for something he could not change.

  “But despite all we cannot change about ourselves, there is one thing we can change, if we catch the beast and make the secret sacrifice. If a mediocre Tavaedi makes this sacrifice, he can become great. If a great Tavaedi makes this sacrifice, he can become the best of his generation.”

  “So what is the mystery beast? A wild boar? A stag with ten points? A poison snake?”

  Kavio smiled and shook his head.

  “A dozen aurochsen? A herd of horses? A giant shark from the Blue Vast?”

  “Nothing like that at all.”

  “It must be a fae beast then…a unicorn? A sphinx? A griffin?”

  “No. The fae do not know it.”

  Gremo growled. “How can I hunt the beast if you won’t even tell me what I’m looking for?”

  “I want you to think about it and tell me yourself when you’ve figured it out.”

  Gremo sputtered a series of words that weren’t nice, but Kavio just laughed at him. “Get out of here. Oh, and if you see Tamio, tell him I want to see him.”

  After Gremo stomped off, still muttering, Kavio leaned against the tree again. Pixies who had stayed clear while Gremo was nearby now floated by him, kissing whispers to the breeze.

  “Dindi,” said Kavio. “You might as well stop lurking now.”

  Abashed, she shuffled forward. “I didn’t mean to spy. It’s just that I’ve been looking for you, and it seems that you’ve been avoiding me, but I needed to see you. Kavio if you don’t want to continue as my teacher anymore, I will understand. All I ask is that you tell face to face. Don’t leave me to wonder if I’ve done something wrong.”

  He looked startled. “Dindi, no… you’ve done nothing wrong… Well, technically, you’ve done quite a few things that are wrong, but we both already knew about those, so, no…. I’ve just been very busy, and very tired lately. It was not you I was avoiding but Vultho’s minions. He has them follow me everywhere, taunting me, trying to provoke a fight, spying on me, trying to catch me out at something…. It’s exhausting.”

  “I’m so selfish. I never even thought about what you were going through.”

  He slanted a rueful smile at her. “I’ll survive. I have not recently had the freedom to spend time with those I would prefer. But I will find time for you, Dindi. I haven’t forgott
en I gave you my word to be your teacher… if you still want me.”

  Want him? His body seemed to blaze with energy that drew her to him. She wanted things from him she could not even name.

  She blushed and turned away from the intensity of his eyes. “Of course I do.”

  “Are you sure? After all the danger and misery of our journey to Sharkshead, I thought maybe you would be sick of me, and want to return to the simple life, with your cohort and kin.”

  “I want to dance. With you.”

  For a moment, he did not answer and she feared again that she was imposing on him. If it had been any other request, she would have backed away from her need, lied to him, reassured him that it would be no bother to return to her old life. But this need was too strong to deny. She knew even if he forbade her from dancing with him, she would stalk him until he tied her down, and then she would gnaw the ropes off with her teeth and crawl after him again.

  “Dindi…” he said hoarsely. He stepped so close to her that their bodies were separated by only a hair’s width of air. The heat from his body felt like the blaze from a kiln. His hands outlined her arms and hips, yet he never touched her. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to continue our lessons. We are at a crossroads. We have to either stop, or… take it to the next level.”

  “You mean like the secret sacrifice?”

  His lips curved. “Yes. But in your case, it works a little differently.”

  “Can someone with no magic sacrifice this beast to become a Tavaedi?”

  “My father would say no,” said Kavio. “But I say…maybe. I think you could be a great dancer, Dindi. I don’t know if you will ever have magic. If you make this sacrifice, the most I can promise is you might succeed. But if you don’t make this sacrifice, I can promise that you will fail.”