by Diana Rivers
I turned to see her glowering furiously. “Soon enough,” I told her, “soon enough. You have just begun. Give yourself time. You will learn as you have learned other things. In Eezore I was the one who was the fool.”
“And it is not the riding that is the worst of it. Even that I suppose I could get used to. It is the endless empty space we ride through with nothing to mark the way, not one solid building on the horizon. I have a terror of that emptiness, a fear that we shall ride to the edge and stumble over it into a great dark pit. All the vastness could swallow up one’s soul or stretch it thin as mist. It makes me feel like a speck of dust that might blow away, as forgotten as if it had never been.”
I shook my head, “How different we are. For me it is the city that terrifies—that is the pit that will swallow me up. All the roar and motion, the flood of people, the maze of streets, the hard stuff underfoot, the press of life. Yes, I could drown in the city.”
“And for me it is all these minds at once, all clamoring, clamoring, clamoring, with their pains and their fears and their wantings. I can find no rest and no mind-peace anywhere.” Jhemar had ridden up on the other side of Murghanth.
“And for me,” Permeeth said suddenly, “it is the constant planning and worrying, being always responsible for others, most of whom I do not even know, being accountable for their very lives as if I cannot make a mistake as easily as the next one. I will be glad for a good night’s rest again where I do not sleep with my boots by my hand and start awake at every sound.”
I turned to her, no longer made shy by her dour countenance. “Permeeth, at the end, when all this is over, what do you want?”
“Oh my, what a question! Well my answer is simple enough. My garden, my shelter, my lover and myself, all together in some safe place. Oh, Goddess, would that it might be! Great Mother, hear me, I would make You a shrine and offer fruit and flowers there and not forget You a single day of my life.”
“And you, Murghanth, what would you want?”
A look of pain crossed her face, then she smiled with a sweetness I had never seen on her before. “A beautiful city where I could walk with my sisters, free and proud and unafraid, where the parks and the gardens and the fountains were for the Sheezerti as well as for other folk.”
“And you, Jhemar?”
“To follow the road wherever it leads me, whether alone or with companions, and not be afraid we will meet flaming death around each bend. Not much really, in the sum of things.”
“And you, Tazzi?” Murghanth asked.
I felt a great ache in my heart. “To stand still, to stop running. To find a home.” Even as I said those words I knew this was only part of what I wanted. The rest was still forming. I could not speak of it yet. I did not even understand it myself, but at that moment it filled me the way a grand sunset or music well played could fill me.
The women in back joined us, saying what was hardest for them in the journey and what they most wanted at the end of it, not a bad way to pass the time and get to know each other. We went on in that way till Shartell came up to relieve me and a woman named Yoshar relieved Permeeth.
I drew off to the side to let the line pass by me till I could find a place beside Rishka. She leaned toward me and said with amusement, “I think we are being followed.” After that I began to catch glimpses of a lone rider far off to one side or the other. I passed word back along the line to Pell and up to the front riders, but I felt no fear now of the Muinyairin. Of the Zarn’s guard there was no sign at all in that barren landscape.
Rishka and I rode next to each other for the rest of the morning, saying little but sometimes touching hands or exchanging glances, intense with meaning. I went all that day with the warmth of her loving bubbling high in my blood, and the heat of it, too, that being a different thing. The heat of it rushed up in me when sweat dripped down between my breasts, or the saddle pressed in my crotch, or we passed a small outcrop and the smell of hot rocks rushed to my nostrils. Then I could feel the pleasure of her hands and mouth on me again and shivered with delight in spite of the heat. This is what life is for, I thought. This makes living worth while. Perhaps we can patch our little differences after all. Then we could do this again and again. That thought brought a rush of joy with it, but in truth that was the last time we were lovers. At one of our resting places, not too long after that, Rishka and I went off to fetch water together. We had some foolish quarrel. I cannot now remember what it was about, or who started it, though likely it was Rishka. Suddenly there were swords of rage and anger flashing between us, cutting deeply as real swords could not have done. How strange not to remember a single word of that quarrel, not a single word, only to remember the rage bubbling up and spending itself almost like passion, and afterward the sense of waste and loss and emptiness, as if the Drugha-Malia and all we had shared there had been a lie or a trick of the place.
***
Before the sun reached its midpoint and the heat turned intolerable, we rode out of the drylands and into woods and fields again. Now we were forced back onto the hard road, and our horses’ hooves were a steady thunder ringing in the ear. Rishka and I parted there, though this was well before our quarrel. She went forward to keep company with Shartell, and I rode for a while with strangers.
What can I say of those next few days? We rode on and on and on. Tempers were short. The horses were stumbling. There was never enough water, enough food, enough rest. The relentless riding was wearying us all, wearing us down. I began to lose track of the days. As a child, many times I saw cattle being driven along the road to market, heads down, reluctant and helpless and harried, lowing their distress. It felt as if we were cattle being driven on and on by an invisible master. For the first day or so we sang. Then we fell silent, plodding, enduring, only wanting it to be over. I so longed to be free of these hounds at our heels that, like Pell, I was almost ready to turn and face them, but I knew the uselessness of that. If we were ever to have any peace we needed to vanish out of the Zarn’s sight as suddenly as if we had all ascended to the Great Star itself.
It began to rain, the first of the fall rains. Perhaps we should not have sung that song, perhaps we had called it to us. It was a gray, relentless, slanting rain that soaked us through and chilled us to the bone so soon after being burned by the dryland sun. There was nothing to do but go on. We could not even stop to make our fires and dry ourselves out. If we had been miserable before, that was now increased a hundred fold. Clothes clung like a second skin; water ran down our backs. The saddles rubbed and chafed. We were each our own island of misery, enduring, huddled inside ourselves, moving along in silence through the grayness. Even the sound of the horses’ hooves was muffled.
Toward evening of that day I was in the lead, peering through rain and gathering dark for some sign. Finally, ahead I saw a tiny glimmer of light and soon, through the trees, the red and yellow and orange of Vanhira’s little travel-wagon glowing like a sun of hope through that gloom. I passed the word back along the line, and Pell made her way up next to me. She squeezed my arm. “We are almost home, Tazzi. The Zarn’s palace and all the fine houses of Eezore could not look half so pretty as that little wagon looks at this moment.” Home, I thought bitterly. To driven fugitives what is home but another temporary stopping place? Luckily I had sense enough to keep my silence.
Permeeth had ridden up on the other side. The three of us dismounted and went to greet Vanhira. “Well you have quite a crowd there from what I can see in this dusk,” she was grinning widely. “Who would have thought when I sent those poor speechless girls to shelter with you that you would gather such an army.”
Pell reached out her hand in greeting. “You will never know how fair your little light looked shining through the rain.”
I saw a flash of gray, then Hereschell himself stepped out of the gloom and somehow I felt closer to ‘home’, whatever that might mean. He clapped his hands on my shoulders and looked in my face, nodding and grinning at me. “So, Alyeeta’s litt
le book-girl has come through it all, a little thin on the bone but alive enough.” Then he turned to Pell, “Well, I am the one left here to guide you this last part of the way, with Johalla’s help, that is. Vanhira will cover the traces of your turning as soon as you are all safely off the Great Road.”
I was wondering how, by the Mother, Hereschell had gotten there so quickly and who this Johalla was, when a slim young woman who seemed barely out of childhood stepped from Vanhira’s doorway. She looked at us all with wide dark eyes—one of the silent ones! “Oh you are so many!” she said with amazement, the first clear run of words I had ever heard her speak.
Hereschell smiled at her as if to give assurance. “Her twin-born, Illyati, is already in the valley encampment. This is a hard road at night, even for me, but they have a strong mind-bond, the strongest I have ever known. She will help draw us there.”
“Let us go as quickly as we can,” Pell said urgently as she remounted. “It will take some time to get us all off the highroad and we hope to do it unobserved.”
Hereschell swung onto his horse. “I have no doubt this rain has been a misery for all of you, but it will help with secrecy. This rain has kept the curious off the road. Also, this is a very isolated spot, not near to any farm or holding. We may yet manage to have you vanish off the earth.”
Vanhira drew Johalla to her in a great hug. “Mother’s Luck go with you, child, and keep you safe until we meet again.” Then she kissed her on both cheeks and pressed a pouch into her hands.
“Time to go,” Johalla said with a nod to Hereschell as she swung up on a little mountain pony. It looked so much like Marshlegs that for a moment my heart leapt up in my chest. Johalla on horseback looked taller, older, stronger, as if she had gained years in that one step. In the light of Vanhira’s wagon, I could see her draw herself up straight, her hesitancy giving way to a look of pride. She glanced back at us all with something unfathomable in her eyes, then turned and rode up next to Hereschell. So, this child who had been robbed of everything, even her voice, was going to lead an army of some two thousand women through the night to safety. Alyeeta was right. The Zarns should be trembling in their beds.
Pell and Permeeth went back along the line to make sure everything went swiftly and smoothly while I fell into line somewhere nearer to the front. As soon as we entered the woods the darkness closed in around us. We went single file, with hardly enough room for our horses to pass between close-growing trees. Branches hung low, wet and heavy, with their leaves slapping our faces. The way quickly turned steep and winding, making the damp saddle chafe between my legs. In spite of these new miseries, I was so relieved at no longer being pursued by those phantom guards on the Zarn’s road that I dozed off quite easily in the saddle.
I have no notion of how long I slept, but I think it must have been several hours. I was wakened by the woman in front of me calling back, “Wake and beware. Steep way ahead, danger on the right. Pass the word on.” Wide awake now, I passed the word on and heard it echoing down the line. I thought the way already steep enough, but soon I was clinging to my saddle with one hand and the horse’s mane with the other. The path there seemed even narrower. Off to the right there was nothing but a dark void. Far below I could hear the sound of rushing water. I hugged the left-hand rock face. One glance to the right had been enough. Once Dancer stumbled, and I felt myself lurching in that direction. I clung to the horse’s mane in terror till my hand ached from the grip. Then I thought of those women among us who had hardly ever sat on a horse before and what this ride must mean for them.
At least the rain had stopped. Once the worst of the danger had passed and it felt safe to look around, I could even see stars, some so low they seemed caught in the branches of the trees. The air had a sharp chill in it, a warning of fall. Unable to sleep again, I watched the stars fade and the ghostly shapes of trees emerge out of the misty dark. We had cut away from the bluff edge. Soon we were moving through such a confusing maze of trails and paths that we could only creep forward. Often we had to stop altogether while Hereschell and Johalla consulted with each other and I suppose with Illyati, hidden somewhere ahead of us in the darkness. Finally, much to my relief, the road flattened and widened. Filled with a sudden excitement, I rode up next to our two guides.
When the sun rose, the light of it glistened and sparkled in tiny rainbows of iridescent colors from every leaf and branch. As soon as its warmth reached our wet clothes and wet horses, steam began rising from all along the line. Though the day above was bright and blue, we rode in our own swirling clouds of mist. For a short way the road grew steep again, then we topped a small rise and saw stretching below us the bowl of a wide green valley with hills rising in the far distance and mountains blue beyond them. I found myself shouting and crying, both at once. The women around me were shouting, a great wild deafening roar.
There were people already camped in the valley. They were rushing toward us, in a wave, greeting us with their own cries and roars of welcome. Tired as they were, our horses quickened their pace at the sight of all that grass. We poured over the hill in a huge mass, singing and shouting for joy. Over all those other voices I heard one calling, “Johalla, Johalla, Johalla.” Johalla put her pony in motion and went dashing down the slope ahead of us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“But why have they done all this for us?” I asked, gesturing at the scene below in the valley.
Hereschell shook his head, “Not for you. Make no mistake about it, Tazzi, it is not for you, not for the Khal Hadera Lossien that the Wanderers have set up this camp within their camp. It is for the sake of their own daughters.”
Hereschell and I were standing together at the top of a small rise. From there we could look down at the Wanderers’ brightly painted travel-wagons gathered in many small circles and watch the bustle of activity around them. This was the Wanderers’ Great-Gather, so much like the Essu, the fall festival of the Kourmairi that I remembered from childhood. In the midst of all this they had somehow made our huge numbers welcome, setting aside camp space a little ways past their own circles, stocking it with grains, vegetables and dried fruit and offering us whatever help we needed.
“The Wanderers have done this for their own daughters,” Hereschell repeated, “those daughters whom we must give over into your hands. Having no way to protect our young women who are Star-Born, we cannot keep them with the band. If we did so, the Wanderers could no longer travel freely, but would have to live always in fear and hiding. We have become a danger to each other. Yet it is not easy for Wanderers to abandon their own. After all, what do we have? We own nothing. We have our children, our horses, the clothes on our backs. We have only each other in this world. And among us daughters are just as welcome as sons. We do not sell or trade away our girl-children as the Ganjarin do.” There was a raw edge of pain in his voice, this man who had no children of his own and no other person in his life, only a gray wolf.
Sounds of laughter and music floated up to us. The bright colors of clothes and bedding, hung up to dry after the rain, made the scene look festively decked. It reminded me again of the Essu. I felt a sudden aching longing for home and for the familiar things of home. With a stab of grief I wondered if my mother and sister still lived and if, at this moment, they themselves were on their way to the Essu. I even gave a passing thought to my father and my brother, but when my mind touched on Kara I slammed that door shut.
Shouts interrupted my thoughts. At the far edge of the valley I saw Muinyairin racing their horses with banners flying. Rishka was no doubt among them, probably in the lead. At the thought of her, my heart filled with pain, and a raw bitter anger rose in my throat. Rishka! Rishka, whom I had loved and protected and defended when no one else wanted to be near her. And what did she care for me now, now that she was among her precious Muinyairin? Perhaps she had never really cared for me at all. Perhaps all that had passed between us at the Drugha-Malia had been a trick of that place. It was clear to see that she preferred even
Olna’s company to mine.
Suddenly I was conscious of Hereschell speaking to me again. “Besides, it was the coins Pell gathered that paid for the goods, and some extra for us as well. It will be a well-stocked winter this year for Wanderers, better than most.” He turned to look at me with amusement. “Khal Hadera Lossien, that is a fine fancy name. It sounds Asharan to me. Did Alyeeta choose that for you?”
“No, Telakeet did,” I answered sharply.
“Ah, yes, no doubt in memory of old glories when there were Witch convents in every city and Witches still had power there. Alyeeta used to tell me of those times. It is a name well suited for that glorious past, but it will not last long here in this world. It will soon be shortened. You will end up being Hadera Lossi or perhaps even Hadra. Yes, Hadra, that would suit you better and it is far easier to say, though not near so grand. What does it mean, this ‘Khal Hadera Lossien’?”
“‘Daughters of the Great Star’ in the Asharan tongue,” I told him curtly, annoyed at his mocking tone.
“Ah, yes, very accurate no doubt, but still too much of a mouthful.” With a sudden shift in mood, he clapped his hand on my shoulder and turned me so he could stare straight into my face. “You seem troubled, Tazzi. I feel some sickness in your soul. Life does not sit well on you at the moment. Look to some healing of yourself girl, while the Khal Hadera Lossien sit still in one place for this little time.” With that he turned and was gone in that quick way he had, striding back down into the valley and over to a cluster of tents where people soon gathered around him.
“Hadra,” I said aloud, staring down into the camp. A shiver ran through me. The scene below me wavered and shifted, changing to something I had never seen before, another camp altogether. For that moment I seemed to be in a different place, in a different time, though whether in past or future I could not tell. Then the grass rustled. Startled, I turned to see Zari near me. “Greetings,” I said softly.
