by Maya, Tara
“Don’t move her!” Dindi said sharply. “Can’t you see she is bleeding from inside? If you move her, you will kill her. You have to dance healing for her here, now. Or she will die.”
“I’m a smith! I don’t know anything about healing!” wailed Gwena.
“Same here,” Kemla shrugged. “Who here dances healing?”
Several Yellow Bear Initiates stepped forward. But they looked terrified.
“This is beyond the skill of any Initiate,” admitted one young man. “She needs a Zavaedi.”
“You all have Yellow magic in your Chromas,” said Dindi. “Even you, Kemla. You can heal, if you just do the right steps. I don’t have magic, but I can show you the steps of the tama you’ll need to stop the bleeding.”
Kemla frowned. “How would you know the steps to the right tama?”
“Does it matter now?”
“It does if you except us to follow you!”
Dindi drew herself up straight. “I studied with a Zavaedi.”
“Which Zavaedi?”
“None of your business.”
“Why would a Zavaedi teach a girl with no magic?”
“Again, none of your business. But I give you my word of honor what I say is true.” She looked around at the gathered Initiates. She didn’t give a damn what they thought of her. Why had she ever cared? Their stupid games, their vile teasing. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that they hated her and she was about to give them the secret that would kill her.
What mattered was saving her friend’s life.
She lifted her voice.
“Why do you think I was never around? Why I was never with the maidens even though I was not with the Tavaedies? You were told I was at the quarry, but did anyone ever see me there? I have practiced in secret, for months, every since the Test, and most of that time under the tutorage of a Zavaedi.”
“But you have no magic,” Gwena blurted. “It’s taboo—”
“Are you going to argue or are you going to heal your sister?”
Baldy bullied his way to confront her toe to toe, brandishing a spear. “Get out of the way, little girl, or I’ll…”
She twisted his spear out of his hand. With one sweep, she whacked the blunt end against his nose. From the crack and gush of blood, broke it, likely. She spun the spear in the rapid move Kavio had tried on her during their fight. When Baldy reeled back, she swept the spear under his legs, smacking him to the ground.
“You’ll keep out of my way,” Dindi growled. She pointed the spear at his neck. “Or I will kill you. Do you understand?”
His eyes bugged and his head bobbed up and down as he scooted away backwards on his buttocks. Dozens of others backed away too.
The whole crowd had fallen silent as a Deathsworn’s menhir. Frightened faces peered at her as if they had no idea who she was.
Kemla broke the silence. “Dindi’s right about one thing. Enough talk.” She put her hands on her hips. “If you can move it, let’s see you prove it.”
Kavio
The pointless yet interminable festival wore away at the afternoon the way an overused sharpening stone would dull a blade instead of hone it. Kavio did meet briefly with some of Hertio’s supporters, but there was not much they could say in public, so they had done little more than exchange nods. A brief encounter with Brena had been similarly restricted.
Feasting followed dancing, and Vultho insisted Kavio share the “honor” of eating at the main mat. All Kavio could think of, when he saw the piles of food, was how low their granaries were, and how if they had to eat what remained of their seed, they could not plant for the next year. How many times had his father fretted over the danger of that, even in the Rainbow Labyrinth, where there were always seven years of surplus stored in the underground chambers?
During the meal, a messenger approached Vultho and whispered something in his ear. At first, Vultho seemed dismissive, but the messenger added something else that caught the War Chief’s attention. Vultho became pensive. Then a realization struck him that changed his whole demeanor. He glanced sidelong at Kavio. An expression of vicious glee glowed on Vultho’s face.
Kavio had no clue what Vultho had to be happy about, but it sent a chill down his back.
Vultho stood up. “Kinsmen, tribesmen, friends! I have been informed of a most strange occurrence at the Tor of Initiates. I believe it requires my personal attention. Naturally, I welcome the company of those of you who hope to be of help to me in this matter.”
Naturally. The pompous ass. He made it impossible for anyone to decline to go. There was no question but that Kavio would have to go too. He had to know what brought pleasure to Vultho, since it was likely to be something that brought suffering to everyone else.
Dindi
The dance drew Dindi’s reserves from her. She could feel the other dancers in the circle, all the Initiates who danced Yellow, whether they were healers or not. She had to watch what they did as closely as her own moves, to see that they followed her correctly. If they strayed, she called out corrections, as Kavio would have, in a calm, clipped but imperious tone of command. The bands of Yellow light flowed through them, and through her as well. It hurt, as though someone were pulling her own guts out of her stomach. Maybe that was because, unlike them, she had no magic.
It seemed to be working, though. The puddle of blood stopped growing. Gwenika opened her eyes. Although she grimaced in pain and clutched her stomach, the delirium of pain that had previously consumed her had been broken.
Once the pattern of light had been woven—the strands of gold glow made a brilliant sun-like shape poking out rays in a dozen directions—Dindi called to the others to stop. She knelt beside Gwenika.
“How are you feeling?”
Gwenika squeezed Dindi’s hand so tightly it turned white. Her mouth opened but only the whisper of a sigh emerged. For once, Gwenika did not know what to say.
“You’re going to be fine,” Dindi said. She added to the healers, “Help me clean her up. I think we can move her now, and we should get her inside the lodge.”
The smaller group lifted Gwenika into the lodge, while the rest of the Initiates fetched water, soap, rags, fresh mats and clean clothes.
A ruckus down the hill drew the attention of the Initiates on the periphery of the crowd. Several of them ran into the lodge to announce, “The War Chief and a whole mess of Tavaedies are coming!”
Kemla perked up. “I’ll go see what’s going on,” she offered, and darted outside before Gwena or Dindi could reply. They continued to tend Gwenika, until Kemla poked her head back inside.
“War Chief Vultho wants every Initiate to join the assembly.”
“Go on,” Gwenika told them. “I’ll be fine.”
They tucked another blanket around her, and then Gwena and Dindi went back into the courtyard between the lodges. The area was packed full of bodies. All the Initiates stood facing the War Chief and his retinue of Tavaedies and warriors who had filled the whole area between the palisade and the first lodges. Dindi noticed Kavio immediately, and a bit later, Brena. Tamio was with the adults too, since he had found favor with Vultho. Tamio stood quite close to the War Chief. A narrow stretch of empty ground separated the two groups.
Vultho strutted into that empty space as though it were a stage.
“I have been informed by one of the warriors from the watchtowers that hexcraft was taking place here,” he boomed. “A girl, who admitted before you all that she had no magic, but had studied it illicitly with a Zavaedi nonetheless, danced forbidden tama right in front of you! And instead of stoning her where she stood for her insolence, some of you dared dance with her!
“All of you should be put to death! But I am merciful! Bring forth the girl, throw her on her knees before me, and I will spare the rest of you.”
A peculiar lightness enervated Dindi. An autumn leaf that broke off the branch to flutter-fall to the dead ground could not have felt as insubstantial as she did. The moment she had dreaded f
or almost a year had come, and instead of fear, all she felt was numb.
A dark mutter rippled through the Initiates.
Dindi took a step forward. She would not wait for them to turn on her like wolverines. She would walk right up to Vultho and tell him: I am the one you seek. I, alone, am responsible for what happened here today.
Gwena and Kemla stepped to either side of her and grabbed her arms, pinching tightly. Apparently they would not even allow her the dignity of turning herself in, but wanted to drag her like a war captive to her doom.
Anger sparked inside her. It helped combat the numbness. The earth under her bare feet felt solid again, hard and cool. A wind from the direction of the woods diluted the smell of close pressed bodies with the scent of pine.
“Hold her,” Kemla told Gwena. “I’ll speak to the chief.”
She let go, but several other Initiates helped Gwena grasp Dindi.
“You don’t have to bind me,” Dindi told them stiffly. “I know my duty. I won’t let the rest of you be punished for my transgression.”
Gwena and Kemla exchanged a glance.
“Shut up, Dindi,” said Kemla.
Kemla walked to the front of the mass of Initiates, to directly face Vultho.
“O Great War Chief,” she said. “We want to help you punish the hexer. But we don’t know her name.”
“That’s right!” shouted another Initiate.
“We have no idea!” said another.
“We never learned it.”
“We don’t know who she was.”
The whole cohort of Initiates vied to declare, with innocent faces, that they had no idea either.
Dindi’s jaw dropped.
Vultho, however, purpled with rage. “She is one of you! She danced right in front of you! How could you not know her name! You!”
He pointed at Baldy. “If you don’t know her name, you must at least know what she looks like. Point her out to me!”
“I never got a good look at her,” Baldy said.
“None of us did,” said Kemla. “Right, my friends? Did anyone see her well enough to point her out? Any of you? The rest of us will be glad to show our gratitude to the one who does what the rest of the cohort cannot. Did you see her?”
“NO!” shouted more than a hundred Initiates in unison.
Dindi felt something wet on her cheeks. Once it would have made her angry to see Kemla bullying the whole cohort with a thinly veiled threat and watch them all fall in line. But it was hard not to appreciate the unity of the cohort when it was suddenly, if inexplicably, transformed from tormenting her to protecting her.
Vultho raised a stone ax. “You won’t be so eager to protect her once I start killing everyone who defies me!”
“You can’t kill all of us!” Kemla lifted her chin.
“It usually only takes one dead calf,” smirked Vultho, “to stampede the rest of the herd.”
He smashed the stone ax toward Kemla’s head.
A spear smacked against the ax, intercepting the blow and saving Kemla’s life. It was Tamio.
“Please, War Chief!” Tamio exclaimed. He placed himself between Kemla and Vultho.
“Stop this at once!” wheezed an old white-haired woman. She was an elder on the council of matriarchs. “You cannot kill innocent Initiates, War Chief! Not all of them, not even one of them! The elders will not allow it!”
Brena also stepped forward. “Neither will the Tavaedies. We will agree to the execution of the hexer, but no one else. You must find the hexer another way!”
Vultho panted in fury. For a moment, Dindi thought he would explode and start striking out like a rabid bear, no matter what the elders or Tavaedies said. He regained control of his rage after a visible struggle. Unfortunately, reptilian cunning replaced his bestial wrath.
“I don’t need to ask the Initiates who she was,” he said loudly. He rubbed his hands in manic glee. “I can ask the Zavaedi who broke the ultimate taboo by teaching someone with no right to Tavaedi secrets. And I already know exactly who that was.”
He jabbed a finger to point.
“Zavaedi Kavio!”
Kavio
Everyone turned to stare at Kavio.
He stiffened his back and met their shocked gazes implacably.
Vultho shrieked like a raptor closing on a kill. “Yes, you, Kavio! I knew you were too cold a fish to be rutting in the bush! But you weren’t rutting that girl, were you, you son of a faery bitch! You were teaching her to dance! You did it in secret because you knew it was wrong. You violated the law of light and shadow, and you will pay.”
Brena said sharply, “War Chief! You overstep yourself! Only other Tavaedies can punish one of our own.”
“Of course, Zavaedi Brena.” Vultho laughed. “But as War Chief, I can punish a war leader who refuses a direct order.”
Kavio knew what Vultho was going to do next.
For a split second, Kavio moved the players around on the inner ground of his mind, searching for the right set of moves to evade Vultho’s trap. He found ways to delay the inevitable, and drag other innocents down with him, but the outcome was the same no matter how he played the pieces.
“War Leader Kavio, I command you to give me the name of the girl you taught to dance!”
Hundreds of people fell so still the whir of insects sounded loud by comparison with the breathless silence.
“No. I will not.”
Vultho didn’t try to hide his triumph. “Warriors, seize this traitor. Unless he submits to his chief and gives up the girl, he will is sentenced to go through the Gauntlet. In the meantime, throw him in the bear pit without food or water.”
Dindi
Chaos erupted after Vultho’s accusation and verdict. Everyone began to shout at once. Warriors surrounded Kavio and hedged him inside a ring of spear tips. Dindi waited for the Tavaedies or the elders to object, but they were not willing to confront Vultho a second time.
The Initiates felt differently. Kavio had taken their side. He was their hero.
When the warriors tried to lead him away, the Initiates reached through the cluster of guards to touch him, pat him on the shoulder, call his name and tell him, “We are with you!” The warriors yanked him through the human molasses.
Dindi also tried to reach him. The sea of people helped her toward him on tides but then on ebb tides pulled her away again.
Finally, she reached him, and grabbed him, as so many of his other admirers were trying to do.
“I won’t let you do this!” she said. Although she shouted, the noise was so tremendous not even the nearest guards could hear her, only him.
He gripped her hair, as if he were trying to pry her off, but actually so that he could hiss in her ear. “You will say nothing! You cannot betray me and your entire cohort by revealing yourself now! Promise me! It is my last command to you.”
Tears sprang into her eyes. “Kavio!”
“Keep this safe. I no longer can.”
He slipped something into her hands just before the warriors dragged him away from her.
It was the corncob doll.
Tamio
It was clear that Vultho was ascendant and Kavio was not. It was clear too what Tamio’s response should be. Ride Vultho to the top, ditch Kavio rather than follow him into the piss pit. Tamio felt no guilt about that. He had a duty to look out for himself. No one else would.
So he didn’t understand why he was wasting a good jug of beer on a bribe and risking Vultho’s ire to drop into the bear pit to see Kavio. Maybe just to secretly stick Vultho’s fat on the fire. Maybe just because it was dangerous and a lark.
Kavio seemed just as surprised to see Tamio as Tamio was surprised to be there. Well, he raised an eyebrow, but from Kavio that was like a dropped jaw from another man.
“What can I do for you, Tamio?” Kavio gestured grandly to the bare prison pit as if it were his court.
“It’s what I can do for you, Kavio,” Tamio said. He didn’t bother with ‘uncle’ or
‘Zavaedi,’ seeing as Kavio was a prisoner and in disgrace. Kavio noticed the omission and his eyes narrowed.
“Do tell,” he drawled.
“Vultho summoned me and a couple of other fellows he trusts,” said Tamio, “to pass on some very special instructions during the Gauntlet.”
“Let me guess. One or more of you is to ‘accidently’ strike a fatal blow.”
“Nope. He wants you to survive.”
“That’s surprising.”
“Not when you hear the rest of it. He wants you to survive…as a cripple. One of us will gauge out your eyes. Two others are to smash each of your kneecaps. Another will cut your hamstring. One fellow is supposed to rip out your tongue, if he can get it. And one is even supposed to…” Tamio flushed.
Kavio only raised his brow.
“Mercy, Vultho told…someone…to rip your balls off barehanded. He gave pretty clear instructions on how to do it, too. There’s a grip and a twist and then… How come you never taught us that?”
Kavio leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed, apparently not disturbed. “Is that all?”
“Muck it all, Kav, isn’t that enough?”
“Don’t call me ‘Kav,’ nephew.”
“Right. Uncle. Zavaedi. Soon to be Uncle No-Nuts Zavaedi. Happy?”
“How does Vultho think to get away with that? It’s a violation of the time-honored rules of the Gauntlet.”
“Yeah. I kinda gathered he doesn’t give a leaping goat’s ass about time-honored rules.”
“What did you tell him?” Kavio asked.
“Huh?”
“When he asked you to do…one of those things to me during the Gauntlet.”
“What do you think I told him? He’s already mad at me because I stopped him from braining Kemla. That was stupid. Now I have try twice as hard to get back in his good graces. I said, ‘Sure, Uncle, with a song and a smile!’”
“And will you?”
Tamio scowled. “No, because you’re going to figure out some way to escape first. Or kill Vultho. Or something. Right? You better. Because otherwise, I’m going to have to do gross crud I really don’t want to do, and I hate that. You know, if I wanted to squeeze a guy’s balls, I’d go smooch Svego.”
