by Maya, Tara
Like Old Man and Old Woman, it occurred to her. She hadn’t thought of them in several years. They were the closest I had to a father and mother. They loved me. I wish I could tell them I understand that now.
When someone finally removed the blindfold, Vessia blinked at a large, familiar kiva. It took her a moment to recognize why it seemed familiar, for she had obviously never been here before. It was the same room she had seen in the Vision in the looking bowl.
The amphitheater-like room was mostly underground, except for high windows that let in the ruddy light of sunset. Three tiers of adobe seating steps traced the edge of the large rectangular room. Numerous fully masked Tavaedies and Zavaedies jostled for position there. Seven smaller steps led to a tall platform at one end of the room. Ensconced upon the divan, in the same mask and garments of bone as in the Vision, sat the Bone Whistler.
The main difference from the Vision was that now Vessia could see his face, for he wore his skull headpiece shoved back on his forehead. To her surprise, he had an unremarkable face: plump, slightly self-indulgent, but harmless. His little quirk of a smile even had some charm.
A warrior at the foot of the divan thumped the butt of his spear on the floor. Two drummers seated at the corners of the Bone Whistler’s platform took up the beat, which reverberated ominously throughout the kiva.
“Give honor to the Bone Whistler,” the warrior announced to the assembly. “War Chief of the Rainbow Labyrinth and all Faearth.”
The assembled Tavaedies and Zavaedies pounded their spears and war clubs, they howled and cheered.
The Bone Whistler didn’t bother to rise from his divan. Underneath the bleached white beads of his costume rolled handfuls of fat. He held up a hand to silence the cheering men and women. They hushed instantly.
“As War Chief, I now convene the Society of Societies,” he drawled in a bored voice. “Let all remember that these mouths speak only for these ears. Only those who are members of the Societies herein represented may know the secrets that take place in this assembly.”
The crowd cheered and pounded again. The Bone Whistler let the noise continue for some time before he gestured for silence.
“Where is my trusted sept?” he asked.
Six Zavaedies stepped forward. Vio had forewarned her who they would be: in purple, Vio himself, the Skull Stomper; in green, his brother, Vumo the One Horned Aurochs. Nangi the Thought Eater wore orange, and Gidio the Bull, red. The two unfamiliar faces were Chezlio the Crusher, in blue, and Ratho the Blood Drinker, the Yellow Zavaedi in the Bone Whistler’s retinue.
“What do you bring me, Skull Stomper?” asked the Bone Whistler.
“Prisoners, War Chief,” Vio replied. He pointed to the row of prisoners, who were forced to kneel in the center of the room. Vessia was there, as were Shula, Danumoro, Finna and Obran. Vio pointed at them one by one.
“The Waterfall Dancer, who led the resistance against you; her accomplices from the Green Woods; an Imorvae taken from the Yellow Bear tribe—”
“All very interesting,” said the Bone Whistler with an uninterested wave of his hand. “But you know, Vio, the enemies I find the most distasteful are the healthy husks that hide rotted cobs.” He raised his voice to address the whole chamber. “We’ve seen filthy Imorvae disguise themselves as Morvae before, haven’t we?”
Vio froze. Nearby, Nangi wore her nastiest smile like a jewel.
“Yes, friends!” bellowed the Bone Whistler. “We’ve seen it before, but it’s always hard to believe, always tragic! One of our own, of the highest rank and honor, is actually a traitor, and an Imorvae! Vio the Skull Stomper is one of the Enemy, conspiring to overthrow me. Me!
“Join the ranks of your fellow Imorvae, Vio!” thundered the Bone Whistler.
Chezlio and Ratho, prepped for the moment, grabbed each of Vio’s arms.
“And if Vio is an Imorvae, is it any surprise that his beloved baby brother is one too?” continued the Bone Whistler.
“What?” said Vumo. “I’m a Morvae!”
Nangi’s smile slipped into a frown of confusion. “Father, no, you must have been misinformed. Vumo is not Many-Banded, only his brother.”
“If I am misinformed, who do I have to blame, daughter, but you, since you are the one who informed me of their evil doings. If you say otherwise now, it must be because the Imorvae have ensorcelled you.”
Her face blanched white as the bones of her father’s crown. She lowered her eyes and her voice submissively. “No, Father, I see you are right.”
“I’m glad you feel better, daughter.” A smirk twitched his mouth as the full brunt of his malice swiveled toward Vio.
“I hear congratulations are in order, Vio. On your marriage.”
The agony in Vio’s face caused Vessia herself physical pain.
“You’re not like your brother,” continued the Bone Whistler. “If you married a maiden, you must truly care for her. And so, I think, nothing will hurt you more than to watch her die.”
A twitch of a vein betrayed Vio’s otherwise stone hard expression.
“And nothing could demonstrate my power over you more than to make you dance for joy as she dies,” said the Bone Whistler.
Vio fell to his knees. “I beg you for mercy.”
It was obvious he didn’t expect mercy to be granted, nor was it.
Instead, the Bone Whistler widened his smirk. “Chezlio. Ratho.”
The two Zavaedies grabbed Vessia. Although she didn’t resist them, they dug their nails into her arms and grappled her into the center of the room, where they made her stand on a black mat. Her hands were still tied behind her back.
A circle of Tavaedies walked by a large jar, grabbed a stone each, then circled around her. Chezlio threw the first stone. It hit her right above the eye. The force of the impact knocked her back a step. Blood poured from the gash, blinding her in that eye. She didn’t see who threw the second stone. That one caught her in the back. Then another stone hit her in the thigh, in the arm, in the back of her head. It was impossible to keep track after that. The blood felt tacky and warm. She could hear the Tavaedies shuffle around her on the stone floor, their soft grunts, the whir of the stones in the air, always followed by a blossom of pain. Stones rained on her from all around the circle.
“Dance for joy, Vio! Rejoice as another vile Imorvae scum is cleansed from the world!”
The Bone Whistler pulled out a slender object—it looked like a humerus bone from a man’s upper arm. This gruesome instrument he placed to his lips. An eerie moan drifted over the room.
She could almost hear words.
Out of the corner of her good eye, Vessia could just see Vio. He was dancing, as if to a happy tune, while the shower of rocks drove her to her knees under a curtain of her own blood. Eerie disembodied voices accompanied the song of the bone flute… the voices kept growing stronger…
Twirls the Windwheel, whizzes and whirls
In all its rounds, it never unfurls.
While corn starts small, grows tall and curls
then fruits and falls and grays.
So too be true of the boys and girls
Born of the mortal maize.
Over the voices, she could barely hear the sneer of the Bone Whistler. “Why do you not lift a stone, Vio? Kill the hexer! Kill her with your own hand!”
Tears streaked Vio’s face—it was the one thing the bone flute could not control. He fought the flute, he fought his own body, but like a doll, he was jerked across the room by the power of the magic.
His hand grasped a stone.
His arm arched back.
His eyes pleaded for her forgiveness.
As he unleashed the stone, she knew this would be the stone that killed her. Vessia did not care. She never looked away from Vio’s face. She knew that no matter what the rest of his body did, his eyes were trying to tell her he loved her.
Still trying puzzle out what had she done to deserve being loved, Vessia the Corn Maiden died.
Dind
i
Dindi felt herself plunging deeper into the Vision than she had ever fallen before. Vessia’s death agony recreated itself in the present. Every bruise from a flying stone, every gash from a jagged edge that had laid Vessia low, Dindi felt on her own body, right up to the final, fatal blow.
She could still hear the music echo from the bone flute, and she recognized the Bone Whistler’s song. She had heard her mother sing that tune: the Unfinished Song.
Poor Mad Maba. Her grandmother never had a chance. In the Corn Maiden’s dying moments, Dindi had seen the secret of the Unfinished Song. For the fae, all songs were unfinished, all dances formed an endless circle, because fae were immortal. For fae, life was a wheel, which never stopped spinning. For humans, life was an arrow, which flew one way and struck swiftly. For humans, the only way to end the unfinished song was in death. Her grandmother had promised to finish the song, never realizing she had promised her life.
Death was the riddle’s answer.
Vessia died.
Dindi felt her die and felt herself dying too. The arrow protruded from her chest. Blood soaked her white Initiate’s shift. Kavio supported her on his lap. “No, no, no…”
“I. Love.” She could no more than gasp the words.
“You…”
Death reached out a hand for Dindi.
Grasped her.
Dragged her down.
It felt just like when she’d fallen into the river, when the current had pulled her under and hauled her toward the whirlpool. A maelstrom swallowed her now, a whirlpool infinite in size and eternal in darkness, a ring from which she would never escape.
Death reached out a second hand to Dindi. To close the circle.
Chapter Six
Flood
Brena
Brena watched the arrow soar into the blue sky, trace a gentle arc, and then dip back toward the earth, toward Kavio as he endured the flagellation of the Gauntlet. Beside Brena, the Golden Bear lay curled up in a ball.
Suddenly, Dindi ran into the middle of the Gauntlet. She flung herself in front of Kavio just as the arrow hit.
Brena fought the vertigo of shock. Dindi collapsed in Kavio’s arms.
But Brena had no time to deal with the tragedy. The Bear began to convulse. Golden light billowed around her, especially her leg. A snake of vile darkness shrieked and slithered away from her leg, only to be annihilated by the pulsating rays of light.
The Bear transformed into a tall, glorious woman. No trace of the wound remained.
The Golden Lady beamed at Brena.
“You have freed me from the Curse of Death! My Champion!”
Brena bowed her head. She could not share the Golden Lady’s triumph. If the faery lived, it meant Dindi had died. A girl whom Brena had always treated with secret scorn, a girl who had saved her daughter’s life, a girl who had never hurt anyone in her sad, young life. And now Brena had done her the final insult.
Brena knelt in the dirt, to pound the ground, to scrub her hands in dust and rub dust in her hair. Dirt felt clean by comparison with how she felt.
“Why did it have to be her?”
“You could have used the arrow to take the life of your neighbor in your clanhold. You could have used it to kill the enemy your people took as a slave. Instead, you chose to kill your friend, and that other human chose to die in his place. But why do you grieve? One life or another would have ended. I do not pretend to understand humans.”
Brena stood. Trembled. Shouted. “Get away from me!” Threw dirt at the bear. “I never want to see you again!”
“The lost swan has fallen,” said the bear. “But if it had not been her, it would have been the White Lady’s son. It had to be one or the other.”
The faery flew away without waiting for a response.
Kavio
Blood flooded everywhere.
Kavio sank to his knees, with Dindi collapsed in his arms, her chest pierced in the center, her white dress soaked to crimson. Her blood coated his hands and thighs, it smeared his chest and had sprayed his face; the viscous liquid felt like syrup, but tasted like iron.
“Healers! I need healers now!” a man screamed, in such agony it sounded demented. He realized the madman was himself. He kept shouting for healers, even though he knew there was no way she would survive a direct blow to the heart. No one could live after losing so much blood. No healer could save Dindi now.
He intended to try anyway.
The blood-soaked gauze of her blouse tore when he tugged it open. Beneath, her breasts swelled like gentle hills. She had some kind of amulet on, dark red now, like her dress, which he pushed aside to look for the wound.
There was no wound. Her breasts were round and firm, and the gentle dip between them bore no gaping hole. There was no sign any arrow had entered her chest.
But if Dindi had not been injured, where had the blood come from? Why did she lie pale and seemingly lifeless in his lap?
The black shaft had fallen harmlessly on the grass. The arrowhead was wedged into the amulet, which he saw now was the corncob doll.
Kavio held up the doll, fighting the knot in his stomach. Revulsion tingled down his back. The arrow had plunged into the doll’s ‘chest.’
Blood gushed from the doll.
He threw it away from him with a curse.
Several men jumped back. Only now did Kavio become aware of the bodies encircling him. The warriors had broken the Gauntlet formation to form a loose ring around him, and beyond that, the crowd who had been witnessing his humiliation now pressed close against the ring of guards, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl who had given her life for him.
Healer Tavaedies wedged their way into the ring of guards. Danumoro arrived first, followed by several others, and then Brena. She looked terrible.
“Dindi is not dead,” Kavio said. “The arrow hit her amulet.”
He pointed to the gruesome, uncanny thing. Not for all the gold in Yellow Bear would he touch it again, though the unnatural bleeding seemed to have stopped, finally.
Danumoru felt Dindi’s wrist. He confirmed what Kavio had already known.
“Her pulse is weak, but I feel it. But if the amulet blocked the lethal blow, why isn’t she breathing?”
Kavio looked again at the doll. The cord holding it around her neck had broken, yet a slender strand of gold still connected Dindi to the doll. When he reached to touch it, his fingers passed through the strand. It was magic, not physical.
“She’s caught in a Vision,” he said. “The doll died in her place, but she is connected to it, and so it is taking her down with it into the dark. We must break the chain.”
“How?”
“Follow my lead.”
He showed them where to stand and demonstrated the moves they needed to make. He was not unaware of the irony that he was doing exactly what Dindi had to save her friend Gwenika only a few days ago. She had learned her lessons too well, and it had come to this.
The rest of the crowd gave the healers room for their dance. Kavio kept an eye on the chain of light. It seemed to fatten, as if their efforts made it stronger instead of weaker, but then all at once it exploded.
Dindi gasped and sat up.
Instantly, Kavio knelt beside her and gathered her into his arms.
“How are you?”
She blinked at him wide-eyed. “I’m alive.”
Behind them, Kavio heard an evil chuckle.
“Perfect,” said War Chief Vultho. “That means you can now be executed for your crime.”
Dindi
Dindi struggled to stand up. Her head thrummed like the string on a bow. The crowd rustled around them. People whispered and pointed.
“Kavio is blameless,” said Dindi. “I learned on my own. In secret, and knowing it was forbidden, I watched the Tavaedies practice from afar, copied the tama and learned them.”
“The Tavaedies have already held your trial, girl,” sneered Vultho. “They decreed your death. Isn’t that right, Zavaedi Brena?
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Brena bowed her head.
“There must be a new trial,” Kavio said. “One where Dindi is allowed to speak in her own defense!”
“No,” said Dindi. “No trial. I am guilty. I know what I have to do.”
“Dindi—”
“I demand my right to die on the Tor of the Stone Hedge!”
“What?” Brena frowned. Around them, the crowd buzzed with confusion.
“I’m sorry I broke the taboo,” Dindi announced to all the watchers. “I knew it was wrong from the start. I will not plead innocence. I will not shame my tribe and clan and family.” She notched up her chin. “Instead of a trial by human beings, I ask for the Trial of Light and Shadows. I ask to be left alone upon the Tor of the Stone Hedge for three nights, to dance in the faery ring and there meet my fate.”
“It is her right to demand that,” said Danumoro.
War Chief Vultho looked mystified but he shrugged. “Let her be eaten alive by the fae if she prefers. Or did you think the faeries would be content to just skip and play with you, little girl? The fae will come to dance with you all right, including some I’ll wager you’ve never met.”
He grinned at the prospect, but Dindi was not daunted.
“If I survive three days and three nights,” she said, “Then both I and any tainted by my crime,” she glanced sidelong at Kavio, though she did not name him, “will be declared fully exonerated?”
“Yes,” said Brena and Danumoro.
“Yes,” said Vultho, “but that has never happened. Good luck. I will have warriors escort you there this very night!”
