The Unfinished Song: Sacrifice

by Maya, Tara

  “What are you babbling about? You know the Looking Bowl was lost.”

  “Fa, I know you have it. You spent hours sitting in your room staring at it. I saw you. I almost stole it too, if you hadn’t come in at just the wrong time.”

  “Are you talking about Dindi’s bowl? Zumo, it isn’t magic. It’s just an ordinary bowl. Here, you can see for yourself.”

  Kavio untucked the bowl from its hiding place in a nook. He displayed it for Zumo to examine.

  “That’s not the Looking Bowl,” Zumo said.

  “Exactly my point.”

  “You weren’t planning to attack the Labyrinth?”

  “No. Were you?”

  “No!”

  “And yet, here we are, on the edge of civil war.” Kavio sighed. “What am I going to do with you, cousin? You can’t ask the Yellow Bear clans to accept your word for it that your intentions were good.”

  “No.” Zumo tried to gesture, encountered the ropes, and shifted on his knees. “This time the Blue Waters and Yellow Bear warriors fought and died instead of the Morvae and Imorvae of the Labyrinth. But how long can that last, Kavio? As long as one of us is alive, the Morvae and Imorvae will be tempted to fight to bring one of us to power as their figurehead. If I had killed you before—when you were vulnerable…” He jabbed his elbows out against the ropes again. “I wouldn’t be here, on my knees, at your mercy.”

  “If exile solves nothing, that leaves only…”

  “Death,” said Zumo. He met his cousin’s eyes with hollow resignation.

  “I have a third alternative,” Kavio said.

  Chapter Seven

  Broken

  Dindi

  Dindi stood alone in the center of the hedge of stones. Water had turned the tor into an island, and beyond the stones, she was dimly aware of the battle that raged. She could do nothing about the war, however, for the fae coalesced on the tor.

  They swirled around her, near enough to fill the air with light, yet at a distance. All of the familiar types, as well as fae she barely recognized, began to form a wide, rough circle around her. Soon it seemed that every fae in Faearth must be upon the tor. Not only were there the familiar clouds of willawisps, darting pixies and gambling sprites, even the rarer, more reticent types had shown themselves: bearded bwewachs, nisses riding upon the backs of cats, tiny yatus riding flies or ants, goat-legged bandiwoons, leafy-haired dryads, fish-scaled naiads, feathered kinnaras, and the frightening troll-like boggarts. Each one glowed with a specific color, Green or Red, Blue or Orange, Yellow or Purple. The whole tor shimmered with the cacophony of luminance.

  And that was just the lower fae.

  The posse of golden bears arrived first. The Brundorfae shifted to beautiful lords and ladies of glowing Yellow light.

  Across the circle from them, their foes arrived, for this was neutral ground. The shining Blue Merfae stank of fish. Salt water dripped from their scaly thighs and webbed fingers. Their long wavy hair swished down their backs, braided with pearls and shells.

  Fire flared upward and undulating in the flame stood the frightful Red Malfae. Their eyes burned like black coals, their fingers crackled with lightning and their hair burnt down their backs like molten lava. They hissed at the Merfae, who steamed back at them in contempt.

  Across from the burning Malfae, another group of high Faeries arrived, as cool and serene as the Malfae were fiery and fierce. The gleaming Green Sylfae maidens wore gowns of leaves and wreaths of flowers in their nut-brown hair. The men had horns like stags and beards like vines.

  A flight of giant eagles alighted in the circle. As the Vyfae arranged their wings behind them, they transformed into majestic men and women, caped in radiant Orange.

  Last to arrive, huge shaggy aurochsen shambled into the circle. The bulls and cows shifted into horned men and snub-nosed women, dressed in furs, glossy with Purple light. The Taurfae.

  Representatives of all six races of High Faeries had come to answer her challenge, in addition to the seething mass of Low Fae. Fear throbbed in her throat, nearly suffocating her. She touched her skirt, smoothed the white doeskin. Three days. If I can just last three days… She took a deep breath.

  “The time has come,” growled the sultry leader of the Brundorfae, the Golden Lady herself. She held out her hands. “Join our circle, Dindi.”

  “No,” Dindi said. “You are going to join my circle.”

  The Golden Lady laughed. The rest of the fae cackled and guffawed.

  “This is my bargain,” she told the assembly, raising her voice although they probably would have heard a whisper. “You will dance with me, for three nights and three days and no longer—“

  A roar of negation rose from the fae all around her. The boggarts gnashed their slavering jowls. Dindi first cringed; then anger came to her rescue.

  “You must accept it!”

  “Why should we, human girl?” asked the Golden Lady. “Whenever you came to dance with us, we gave you gifts in exchange. You ask now us to dance on your terms. What do you offer us as a gift in exchange?”

  Dindi had anticipated this and searched her thoughts furiously for an answer. There were really two parts to the question. First, what could she offer the fae? Second, how, without magic, could she prove to them that she could deliver on her word? After all, her grandmother, she now suspected, must have tried to strike a similar deal with the fae. Maybe she had even asked the fae to give her the illusion of magic so she could dance with the Tavaedies.

  As the price of their cooperation, the fae had given Gramma Maba a riddle to solve, an Unfinished Song that ended in eternity for fae, but in death for humans.

  But I have something Gramma Maba didn’t have.

  “I will solve a riddle for you,” she said. “I will finish the song my grandmother could not.”

  The low fae gibbered and snickered. The High Faeries lifted their chins in haughty contempt.

  “You ask much,” scoffed the Golden Lady. “And offer little. To dance with representatives of all the High Faery races and their minions amongst the lower fae, upon one of the Sacred Directional places of power, you must offer more than to answer some foolish pixie riddle.”

  She would make them accept it.

  “Now I will dance, to seal our bargain on these terms. If you join me—” Dindi tried not to let her voice quaver, for her whole plan balanced on this— “If you dance with me, it will mean that you accept and the bargain is sealed.”

  She began to dance.

  Not one fae joined her.

  Failure. Just like the Test. Upon this same hill. She almost stumbled to a halt, but forced her shaking legs to keep moving.

  Ignore all that.

  Just keep dancing.

  She was bartering with the fae in earnest now, and could afford no ambiguity for them to twist to their own purpose. If she stopped dancing for even a moment, they could say that her dance was finished without the bargain being sealed. She would never have a second chance.

  Just keep dancing.

  That was their intention. They knew she would eventually tire, and drop from sheer exhaustion. She had hoped that the mere sight of her dancing would excite their impulsive natures and entice them to join her. She had underestimated their self-control.

  They underestimated her determination.

  And her secret ally.

  From the belt in her tunic, she grasped the corn doll and lifted it with both hands above her head. She began to chant as she danced:

  Came a faery cross some kits

  Suckling at their mother’s tits,

  Pawing, kneading with their mits;

  Ma, content to laze

  ‘neath these tiny, mewling bits

  Hid in a row of maize.

  Cat and kittens were all a-purr.

  Their mama licked and cleaned their fur.

  Cat met the faery’s eyes, demure,

  And yet with pride ablaze.

  Strange the mood that crept on her,

  She
watched them in amaze.

  Not from the corncob, and yet from the streams of light that flowed from it like ribbons as Dindi danced, another verse followed on the two she knew, a different third verse than the one her mother had taught her:

  “Why,” the faery asked, “Must I miss

  to cuddle, to fondle and to kiss

  babes of my own—oh!—just like this?”

  She flew off in a daze.

  She swore no matter what the risk

  She’d turn “May nots” into “Mays.”

  Dindi did not even notice at first when a tiny light, a single Yellow willawisp, broke ranks with the circle of fae to join her dance. The incandescent golden spark spiraled around Dindi protectively. Then more willawisps joined the first dot of light. Next a host of pixies fluttered towards Dindi with a rustle of wings. Then in a rush, for that first willawisp had already sealed the bargain, all of the fae gave in and joined her. The High Faeries joined last of all.

  When all had joined the circle, every stone in the three circles of basalt sentinels came to life with shining glyphs as well, as if the hill had swallowed the moon and belched its light back upward into the tar black sky. She had achieved the trance where neither exhaustion nor pain could reach her. In such a trance, one could dance oneself to death—could one also dance oneself to life?

  Just. Keep. Dancing.

  Dindi lifted the corncob doll into the air. Though it did not seem possible to illuminate the hill any more, what had been mere moon before became burning sun. In the center of the faery circle, the living memory of the Corn Maiden unfolded in reenactment, as if ghostly Tavaedies performed the history there in chant and dance.

  “Corn Maiden, join me!” she cried. “Show me your true Shining Name!”

  Vessia

  Still trying to puzzle out what had she done to deserve being loved, Vessia the Corn Maiden died.

  Dying itself hurt, right up until the end. Then lassitude stole over her, bringing serenity, and a sense of well being. She heard music. It thrummed all around her.

  Vessia became aware of winged beings skipping and swirling in a circle around her. My sisters. They held out their hands to her. Join us. You are one of us.

  She spread her wings and flew to join them in the circle of light.

  The eternal ring of light and shadow passed through all things. Mountains clasped hands with sky, the sky cuddled the clouds, the clouds caressed the rain, the rain reached down to tickle the rivers, and the rivers curled their fingers around the palms of the mountains.

  The eternal ring of light and shadow passed through all places. Vessia and her sisters danced through the kiva, where her crumpled body lay on the floor. She saw Vio and the others forced to dance on bleeding feet to the tune of the bone flute. She held out her hands to Vio, and he looked up, saw her, and delight beamed from his face. But then he shook his head wildly, and refused to join her in the wider circle. He turned away.

  The eternal ring of light and shadow passed through all times. Vessia flew or danced in another time, in the past.

  She danced before her parents, the Old Man and the Old Woman, as they sat together in their beehive house, dying.

  “I did love you,” she told them, holding her hands out to them, as she had to Vio.

  “Vessia!” cried Old Woman. “Look! It’s Vessia!”

  “Where? Where?” cried Old Man.

  “Take my hand!” said Vessia. “Then take his. Join me in the circle!”

  Old Woman took her hand and took Old Man’s hand. Then Old Man saw her and tears of joy streamed down his face.

  “I always loved you,” Vessia told them, “I never told you.”

  “We knew,” said Old Woman.

  “Daughter, of course we knew,” said Old Man. “Will you help us close the circle?”

  She took Old Man’s other hand, closing the circle on the three of them, and yet somehow, joining them to the eternal ring of light and shadow. They smiled at her with intense joy, but too briefly, and then they were gone.

  Vessia flew or danced in another time, in the future, upon the Tor of the Stone Hedge. A young human girl danced there, weaving in and out of the eternal ring, yet not quite part of it.

  “You are not just the Corn Maiden, are you?” the girl asked. “You are the White Lady—the last of the Aelfae, the Rainbow High Faeries.”

  “I am?” asked Vessia in surprise. “Why, yes…how odd, I didn’t remember…”

  “I think I am in love with your son,” said the human girl.

  Vessia laughed. “I am a faery. I don’t...”

  Then she yanked her hand away and clapped her palm over her mouth in horror. Past the girl, a creature with wings of darkness fluttered at the heart of the faery ring. Vessia recognized the abyss.

  Dindi

  Beating wings sounded over the tor. A new color wove into the circle, or rather, the void of color, the shivering dark of the underside of rocks, of secret caves beneath the earth where blind worms grubbed, of eclipses when the moon ate the sun. A new dancer joined the circle.

  Lady Death.

  The Black Lady stood in the center of the circle, in the empty core where no light shone except her own dark rainbow. She wore black leather legwals and black breastbands, but both were hemmed in brightly colored beads, and her elaborate necklace of animal canines had also been painted many colors. An odd sort of black feather cape swept behind her. Her skin was paler than bone, her hair darker than obsidian. A quiver of arrows hung from her hips. All the details about the woman in black were subtly wrong. Wind kicked over the hill, and Lady Death’s hair waved in the wind, but in the opposite direction, as if answering to an independent gale. It unnerved Dindi that she could not look Death in the face. Every time she tried, she found her gaze sliding away. Worse, her stomach heaved, as if she were falling. The harder she stared at Lady Death, the worse Dindi's vertigo. She had to look slightly to the side and watch Lady Death out of the corner of her eye. The Lady’s exquisite beauty flickered, her youth slipping on and off like a mask, to reveal blink-short glimpses of a decay and maggots.

  Even now, Dindi dared not stop dancing. As Dindi circumscribed the faery ring, Lady Death did not move, yet always faced her, like the pivot of a windwheel. Death held out her arms. The wind about her stank of rot, dead leaves. Fast as a hiss, her face twisted into a shrieking child before it matured, wrinkled, wizened, putrefied down to bare skull, smoothed back to flawless beauty. Dindi’s stomach clenched.

  “I am the only one who can help you finish the Unfinished Song, Dindi. Take my hands, and I will whisper the secret lost to the waters of the kiva beneath the world. I am stronger than secrets, stronger than mountains, than fires or winds or waters or rains.”

  “There is a power stronger than you, Death,” cried Dindi.

  Vessia stepped between Dindi and the Black Lady. “You cannot have this girl.”

  Death cackled as a hag, then became a sweet child, and then her face mirrored Dindi’s own. “You fear me now. But you will learn to love me.” She pointed a finger that rotted to bone. “Even you, Vessia! Even you will one day embrace me gladly.”

  “You cannot have this girl,” Vessia repeated.

  Lady Death cringed before the Aelfae’s light. “It was the Aelfae who cursed you, Dindi, you and all your lineage! It is an Aelfae hex hides that your magic!”

  Dindi stumbled, but caught herself on the next step. “Why would they do that?”

  “Don’t listen, Dindi!” cried Vessia. “It was Lady Death who replaced your totem with that hexed thing! She tried to do the same to me, but I fled from her, though she stole my memory. She needs someone with six Chromas to complete the Curse!”

  “The only way to save humanity is to destroy the Aelfae.” Death looked beautiful, clear skin, shinning black hair. She held out her arms to Dindi, like a child begging to be scooped up in a hug. “Otherwise they will destroy us first. You have to choose sides. You have to choose me. You will love me!”

 
“I will never love you!” Dindi threw the corncob doll at the Black Lady. Death screamed from a bone bare skull and exploded into dust.

  Dindi knew she had no chance to survive the dance without the corncob doll. She needed the doll to maintain the Vision, and the Vision to maintain the trance and suspension of time.

  So what.

  She would not give up.

  Just keep dancing.

  Strands of light rushed out of her hands, threads to a loom, in all the six Chromas. The strands braided themselves into a perfect harmony that transformed into dazzling white light. Gwenika had hinted at the truth, but it was not just two colors cancelling each other out, it was all of them. The colors emanated from her own aura. There, too, they were interwoven so tightly that they merged into one shining white luminance.

  Like a woman seeing her reflection in the water for the first time, Dindi saw herself glow. She tasted strange, warm joy, sweet like honey. The power to invoke the Visions of the Corn Maiden had never belonged to the doll.

  All along, Dindi had been the one weaving the rainbow.

  Vessia looked at Dindi. “My dance is not over. I must go back.”

  Vessia

  Vessia woke up, as if from sleep, on the cold stone ground of the kiva. Blood pooled near where she lay, and she could hear the wail of the bone flute, but from afar. Except for herself, the room was empty.

  I am not dead, thought Vessia. The humans killed me, but I am an immortal faery. A night and a day must have passed since they stoned me to death, and I returned to life again.

  That was as obvious as it was astonishing, and it left her with more questions than answers. She knew who she was, but not why.