by Maya, Tara
“I didn’t think I could.”
“Even after all I’ve done for you, you would not trust me?”
“It gets worse.”
“How could it get worse?”
She gulped. “The doll shows Visions…of your father. From twenty years ago.”
“What?”
“Not his memories, but he is in them.”
“Whose memories are they?”
“Someone called the Corn Maiden.”
A chill wind shushed through the forest, raising pimples on his arms.
“Do you know who she was?” Dindi asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“Yes.”
He crossed his arms and paced around the clearing. If his leg ached, he did not notice it.
“She was a slave my father picked up in Yellow Bear. After he used her, he killed her.”
Dindi was shaking her head. “No, no, no, I don’t think so. From what I saw…He genuinely loved her, Kavio. I am sure of it.”
“Yes,” said Kavio, in the same hard voice. “And then he killed her. Because he needed to marry someone else to defeat the Bone Whistler, and the slave girl was just in the way. My father was a hero, and a hero does whatever he must to get the job done.”
Dindi stared at him in shock.
“Tomorrow, I want you to wear a mask,” he said without inflection. “It must completely cover your face.”
It took her a moment to register the change in topic. “Where am I to get a mask?”
“Any Tavaedi mask will do.”
“But I’m not a Tavaedi. If people see me with a Tavaedi mask, they will think I am up to some foul business.”
“Then filch one without telling anyone. You can return it later, so it wouldn’t be real theft. It doesn’t matter what mask, only that you wear one. This is very important. Promise me.”
“Why is it important?”
“Dindi, for once, no questions. Just do as I ask.”
“I will try.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good.” He touched her arm. Despite everything, the feel of her skin jolted desire through his body. Like an eternal fae torture, the heat from his dream haunted him.
Her body is naked beneath him, slick with desire, her breath draws in sharply when he cups her breast. He kisses her and calls her name, Dindi, Dindi, you are mine! and she arches her back, crying his name… Except the dreams always ended before he heard what name she called out.
Tamio
In the sequoia woods, Gremo conferred with Kavio. To Tamio’s surprise, Kavio trotted away, and Gremo returned alone to the Maze Born.
“We’ll be practicing on our own the rest of the afternoon,” Gremo said.
Tamio raised his eyebrows. He started walking.
“Tamio!” Gremo said. “Get back into formation.”
Tamio grinned. “If our esteemed leader can take the afternoon off, so can I.”
When Gremo cussed at him, Tamio just laughed. Neither Gremo nor any of the others followed Tamio when he left. Perhaps they assumed that he would follow Kavio back to the Tor of the Sun. Perhaps they imagined that Tamio wanted to bask in the sun with a gourd of beer.
They would have been half right. Later in the evening, Tamio fully intended to enjoy a beer, dipped from the large jar kept by Vultho for his favorites.
But first Tamio needed to see for himself the secret spot where Kavio went everyday when he was not with the men. Unlike anyone else in the tribe, Tamio suspected he knew whom Kavio met there.
Kavio
Danumoro looked up from his examination of Kavio’s leg. “I told you this was a bad idea. What if you had been seriously injured? How would you have concealed your activities from Vultho?”
Danumoro thought that Kavio had injured himself while training with the Maze Born. If he had known Kavio was also tutoring a girl with no magic in secret Zavaedi tama…. Even Danumoro would have demanded Dindi’s death, Kavio was sure. Uncle Danu was from his father’s generation, and they were prickly when it came to hexcraft.
“He has spies following you all the time,” Danumoro went on. “Don’t think no one has noticed you disappear long enough every day for the shadows to change sides on the ground.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Danu, I have a plan to ease Vultho’s suspicions. I’ll be putting it into play tomorrow, as it happens. If you declare me fit and healthy, that is.”
“Insolent boy. Get on with you. Don’t exert yourself for the rest of the day,” ordered Danumoro. “Keep off the leg, but stretch it gently.”
Kavio promised to be good. Uncle Danu rolled his eyes.
On the short trudge to his own hut, Kavio favored his bad leg. Fortunately, thanks to his mother’s fae blood, he healed more quickly than most people, and he felt sure his full strength would return by the next day. He dismissed the twinge of pain, and deliberated about his trick on Vultho. It was past middle meal, but he could smell cornbread and rabbit stew baking in an oven somewhere, which made his stomach growl jealously.
A sound from inside the hut snapped him out of his thoughts. Alarm sent energy coursing through his weary muscles, tensing them for action again.
There was an intruder in Kavio’s hut, rummaging through his things.
Damn Vultho and his spies.
Except for his fall, he wouldn’t have returned to his hut in the middle of the day, something he would bet the spy knew full well. Careful not to make a sound, he peered between the door hanging and the lintel, but it was not one of Vultho’s men.
Zumo!
His cousin systematically searched through the baskets and rafters of the hut, looking for something specific. What would Zumo risk being caught at thievery to find? Nothing I own could be that important.
Zumo found the alcove hidden by a weaving, and hissed an intake of breath. Kavio couldn’t see what it was, but the object was beyond doubt what Zumo had come for. He wrapped it up and prepared to depart the hut.
In silence, Kavio drew his dagger.
He hurled it straight toward Zumo’s back.
Zumo turned just a moment too soon, and the stone blade whistled a hairbreadth past his arm. He didn’t hesitate, but drew a short spear and launched himself at Kavio.
Kavio ducked and rolled under the attack. Zumo tried to close with the spear, but Kavio grappled him. A brutal wrestling match, with the arms of each wrapped around the other’s throat, slammed them around the room. Grunts and thumps punctuated the otherwise soundless fight. Both young men were too focused on their life-and-death struggle to shout out war cries.
Kavio flipped Zumo over his back, grabbling the spear from his hands in the process. Zumo didn’t land on the ground, however. He used the flip to somersault into the air and grasp the wooden slats of the roof. Climbing nimbly, he scrambled out through the smoke hole in the center of the roof.
Kavio raced outside, in time to see Zumo leap down from the roof and flee between the beehive shaped huts. When Kavio would have given chase, his leg buckled under him. Cursing mightily, he finally shouted out.
“Intruder! Intruder! Warriors, catch that man!”
There weren’t many warriors around. Women paused in their chores to crane their necks and children squealed and galloped in circles. But it seemed to take forever for Kavio to gather and command enough warriors to form a search party. By then he was certain Zumo had already slipped out of the Tor of the Sun.
“Our only hope is to trap him before he can make it back to the river,” Kavio said. He ordered a sept of warriors to scour the woods. He would have liked to have had more, but even in the evening, when more warriors poured into the war chief’s compound, those who were loyal to Vultho gathered around the war chief. They showed no interest in catching the intruder.
“You’re the only one who saw this spy,” said Vultho. He didn’t come out and say that Kavio had lied, but he packed a bellyful of innuendo into the statem
ent. “Strange, isn’t it? I thought you were supposed to be such a great warrior. Yet you couldn’t catch one man, when he was in your own hut?”
The warriors around Vultho laughed. They were already dipping into his cistern-sized jar full of beer. There was a new face in the entourage, one Kavio recognized: Tamio. He laughed louder than the rest at all of Vultho’s bad jokes.
Kavio left the smirking sycophants.
Back in his hut, he finally unfolded the wrappings around the object Zumo had tried to steal from the alcove. It was Dindi’s bowl.
Who would risk a war over a girl’s bowl?
He remembered things which had happened in Sharkshead, things he had never discussed with Dindi.
Kavio was being led away from Zumo’s hut in Sharkshead, a captive condemned to torture and death.
Behind him, he heard a warrior converse with Zumo.
“Zavaedi, here’s the girl.”
“What girl…?”
“She says you requested her presence.”
Kavio glanced back over his shoulder. Two warriors stood on either side of Dindi. They did not touch her, but he assumed she was a prisoner.
He exploded, “What do you want with her?”
“I think you should be asking, what does she want with me?” Zumo smirked.
Then Dindi stepped into his hut.
Why had Dindi gone to Zumo’s hut?
The air whistled through Kavio’s hair as the giant osprey, Gremo in altered form, swept over the enemy tribehold. Many of the Yellow Bear prisoners jumped into the water, trying to reach the boats, but Dindi was not among them. Kavio scoured the ground for her.
At last he glimpsed her. Zumo had grabbed her and thrown her over his shoulder. He dashed away with her. Kavio directed Gremo to follow.
Zumo tossed Dindi down onto a pile of reed mats.
“I’m trying to save your life, you little fool!” Zumo shouted at Dindi. “If you go with Kavio, you will be killed with the rest of them!”
She held up one arm as if mutely asking Zumo to help her up. When he reached to assist her, she used another dance move to haul him down, off balance, step up onto his shoulders and leap into the air.
Kavio caught her and slung her behind him onto the back of the bird.
Why did Zumo try to save Dindi’s life?
The third image that flashed before his eyes was not exactly a memory. It was something he had only seen in a dream. Yet it felt more vivid than the real events.
Her body is naked beneath him, slick with desire, her breath draws in sharply when he cups her breast. He kisses her and calls her name, Dindi, Dindi, you are mine! and she arches her back, crying his name… The dreams always ended before he heard what name she called out, but he knew whose name it wasn’t.
It wasn’t Kavio.
For the man embracing Dindi in his dream was not Kavio.
He was Kavio’s murderer. The man in black.
How did Dindi get a hexed doll with memories of his father’s slave girl?
Why had Dindi gone to Zumo’s hut?
Why did Zumo try to save Dindi’s life?
Who would risk a war over a girl’s bowl?
A man in love with that girl. Or a man using her as a spy.
Gwenika
Gwenika felt sick to her stomach. “I don’t want to do it.”
“But she’ll take it from you,” her sister Gwena said.
That’s the problem, thought Gwenika. In the dark of the lodge, the other girls, who sat in a tight circle around the hearth, looked like demonic fae. Their noses and eyes seemed to shift and shiver over their faces in the unsteady firelight. Outside, crickets chirped loudly, and inside other girls in the lodge snored on their mats. The popular girls, however, had important business to conduct, and Gwenika knew she should be honored they had included her. If only they had asked her to do anything but this.
Kemla pushed the Duck mask into her hands. “You aren’t going to let us down now, are you Gwenika? I thought you were better than that.”
“I just haven’t been feeling well lately,” Gwenika said.
“Aw, poor baby, are you feeling Oozy Woozy Achy Head Syndrome?” mocked Kemla.
“Or maybe Yucky Tongue and Tummy Disease?” Her sister Gwena giggled.
The other girls all jumped in.
“Spotty Fever?”
“Withered Wankers?”
“Slippery Shins?”
They laughed until they snorted. Seeing Gwenika’s pale face, Kemla punched her in the shoulder.
“Don’t be upset, we’re only joking. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you roll with a laugh?”
Gwenika forced herself to stretch her lips over her teeth in something approximating a smile. She wondered why it seemed like the other girls tormented her as much now as before she had been ‘popular.’
It could be much, much worse. She mustn’t forget that.
“So you’ll do it.” Kemla made it a statement.
“I…” Gwenika realized she had taken the Duck mask. “What if she won’t put it on?”
“Your job is to convince her,” said Kemla.
“But what if I can’t?” Gwenika felt a glimmer of hope. “I mean, she has to put it on herself, right? No one can force it on her. That’s the rule.”
“Yes, she must put it on herself. You can sew it up once it’s on, in fact, you’ll have to, in order to make sure she can’t take it off again. We are counting on you to convince her. If you can’t…” Kemla pursed her lips. “Then we will ask Tamio to do it,”
Gwenika’s heart lurched. Ever since that night, he had been avoiding her. At least it felt that way. The one or two times she had managed to corner him, he’d explained that he was helping Kavio with something important, but as soon as it was done, he would spend more time with her. You’re the only one I’ve ever opened up to, Gwenika, he’d told her. You’re special to me.
So why did Kemla say that you were spending time with Marika? she’d asked.
He’d looked at her with wounded eyes. I thought you were different. But you’re just like all the others, listening to Kemla’s lies, unable to trust me the way I trust you.
That had made her feel terrible, and she’d promised him that she did trust him. But more than a moon had passed, and he still had not made any time to be alone with her.
“Have you seen Tamio?” she asked the other girls now, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Last I heard, he was dangling himself around Vultho’s beer pot,” Kemla said scornfully, “Sniffing around the girls of the Yellow Bear chief-maker clan. He should be careful. If he tries his usual tricks, he’s likely to find himself on the end of Vultho’s spear.”
The other girls giggled.
Don’t listen, Gwenika told herself. They don’t know Tamio like I do.
“Maybe it would be better to let Tamio give her the mask,” Kemla reflected. “He could talk a bird into thinking it was a fish, he could convince her to do that for him…and probably a lot more.”
Kemla tried to take back the mask, but Gwenika clutched it tightly.
“No,” she said. She hated the ugly feeling inside her, but the thought of throwing Tamio into Dindi’s path stirred her to wild panic. “I can do it.”
Kemla gave her a flat stare. “Fine. But don’t let us down, Gwenika. If you fail, we will make you very, very sorry.”
Gwenika shivered.
The circle broke up and each girl returned to her own mat. Gwenika took the hateful mask with her.
She fidgeted on her mat without sleeping. The longer she brooded over what she had agreed to do, the more disgusted she felt with herself, until at last, she couldn’t stand it any longer, and she jumped up from her mat and darted outside. She didn’t make it as far as the piss pit before she threw up her entire evening meal. It brought physical relief, but no succor. She leaned against the rough log wall of the lodge. The air stank of damp wood and vomit. Tears streamed hot down her cheeks.
Dindi
Kavio had made her promise to wear a mask to their next practice, but Dindi had no idea where she would find one. Her only choice seemed to be to sneak into the kiva beneath the Tor of the Initiates and steal one—temporarily—from the storage chamber. Not long ago, she had sneaked into the kiva on a regular basis, so she was confident she could get it; but she had never stolen anything before. She imagined the hue and cry that would arise if someone discovered what she had done, the ensuing hunt for the thief and her humiliating capture.
There was no use drinking from upriver, she chided herself. Trouble would flow to her in its own its own time, and meanwhile her river of worries was deep enough right in front of her.
Her goal was to loiter by an air chute until no one was in sight, then climb down into the storage kiva. However, the other Initiates were acting weird around her. Again. They hovered in clumps near enough to see her, but far enough away that she could not hear what they were whispering. She caught them glancing at her, even pointing.
It annoyed her greatly.
Most of the other Initiates had already found themselves morning food, and here was Dindi, still waiting for the area to clear. No matter where she wandered, small groups of people followed her.
She had just decided to offer her apologies to Kavio and turn up without a mask when Gwenika bumped into her.
“Dindi! I’m, uh, glad I found you.”
Gwenika flushed and grimaced. She did not look glad. She clutched something in her hand.
“Well…” said Gwenika. “Um. That’s all. Nice to see you!”
She started to hurry away.
“Gwenika, wait!” Dindi fell into step beside her, and almost collided with Gwenika when she stopped cold.
Gwenika was holding a mask.
It’s fate, thought Dindi. Or magic. Or just amazing luck. But how do I ask her to borrow it? She probably needs it for Tavaedi practice.
“So…” Dindi began. She trailed off.
“So…” Gwenika said. She held up the mask. “Um, I was wondering if you would try this on for me? It’s actually my mask, but I need someone to, um, stretch it, you know, like a new pair of sandals, and I can’t because, I um, I’m not feeling well, I’ve been feeling a little claustrophobic, actually, lately, and so I just didn’t feel like stretching it myself, and this must sound so stupid to you.”
