by Diana Rivers
In a last rush of defiance I turned and shouted back at them, “I can see I am not wanted here!” No one answered. My own voice echoed back at me from the hills. A curse on you all, I thought as I saw their backs turning. “Cowards,” I muttered. “Cowards, every one of you, afraid of the Witches.”
It was not till I was out of the camp and alone in the valley, with the sound of the bells long faded behind me, that the terror of it hit me. It bit so deep into my soul that, with a cry, I stumbled in the path and went down on my knees. Alone! Oh Mother, what was to become of me? I was doomed. “Alone!” Nhenoma had shouted. I was indeed alone. I had never been so alone in my life. My family, my lovers, my tribe and all else that mattered to me in the world—gone with that one word. Alone!
At that moment my sense of despair was so great that in spite of my pride I might have been tempted to crawl back and beg for mercy. No use. I knew it would be of no use. “Be cured or die.” Once that curse was laid there was no mercy to be had from a belling out. And there was no cure for me, none I could imagine. I did not think to call on the Goddess or to pray to Her. I had cursed Her and cursed the powers She had given me. What was there left to pray to?
Finally it was my anger that got me to my feet again. Aloud I said to myself, “Get up, you fool. Are you going to lie down here in the road to die? At least go to this Asking Place and see what is there.” I stood there for a while, unable to move, wrestling with this terror as with a giant snake. Then suddenly I found myself on the road again, moving forward, setting one foot before the other in the direction of the northern hills.
It had been cool when I set out in the morning. By the middle of the day it grew unseasonably hot. The sun was beating down on the me. As the land on either side was open and grassy, there was no shade to be found. The pack straps were rubbing sores on my shoulders. My feet were soon blistered. Sweat was pouring down my body, making my clothes cling to me and stinging my eyes. I had to keep blinking it away in order to see. From the grass around me there came a loud heavy drone of insects that seemed to be boring into my head, making the day even hotter. It almost felt as if the land itself had turned hostile and was punishing me. The hills shimmered in front of me in the heat, appearing to come no closer no matter how fast or far I walked. For a while I was sure they were floating, backing away as I approached so that I would never reach them.
It was not till late afternoon that I got to the end of the valley and the land began to rise under my feet. At the start of the first hills I went in search of Alyeeta’s path, not an easy thing to find. Those are Alyeeta’s directions however, and not to be spoken of here. Once found, it was clear enough to follow as it was cobbled with river stones unlike any path I had ever followed, stones all smoothed and shaped by the water. I climbed up and up, the noise of the valley dying out behind me. As the climb grew steeper, a dull despair settled over me. Alone, alone, alone—that word seemed to echo back at me from the rocks. I could even hear the sound of bells still ringing in my ears. I had no doubt I would die there since I saw no possibility of being cured.
Suddenly a shiver went up my spine, and I was instantly alert. Well before I saw it, I sensed its presence. Then I heard a menacing deep growl that rose and rose until it burst into the terrible spine-chilling cry of the Oolanth cat. Instead of fear, all my anger came rushing back. With a challenging laugh I took two more steps forward. It was above me on the path, its rust colored mane raised stiffly in warning, its tail lashing, looking down at me as it paced back and forth to block my way. Lucky for me, I thought, that I had not been riding Dancer or she might have dashed back down the path, killing us both.
I shrugged off my pack and stood staring back at the beast with my hands on my hips. As a child I had made friends with the great cats. The child Tazzia would have soothed this creature with her thoughts. She would soon have been stroking its stiff rusty fur with her little fingers, reassuring it that its cubs were safe with her. I had no friendliness in me now. Instead of sending out soothing thoughts, I sent out a blast of rage, and felt a twisted pleasure when it screamed again.
“Attack me, you fool,” I said through my teeth. “Attack me and you will soon be lying broken in your own blood.” I took two more steps toward it and did not even flinch when the cat took a great bound in my direction as if to leap at my throat. It stopped only feet away. I could feel the heat of its breath.
“Here I am if you want me,” I shouted. “Are you afraid?” Then I squatted down, looking it in the eye. “If you want me you must come for me,” I taunted.
The cat had also crouched down. With its ears laid back, it was shaking its huge head back and forth as if in puzzlement, snarling menacingly. Its tail lashed like a whip as it stared at me with wide yellow-green eyes.
Growling deep in my throat, I drew back my lips in a grimace and snarled back at it. Then, on sudden impulse, I threw back my head and howled like one of the great cats myself. With a cry of bewilderment, the creature leapt to its feet, whirled about and fled back up the path, yowling as it went as if in pain. I stood up and laughed a bitter mirthless laugh at the sight of an Oolanth cat fleeing from a human while howling in fear.
When there was silence around me again I picked up my pack and went on. Soon my footsteps were faltering. I had gone no more than a short distance from my encounter with the cat. I had a moment of fear when I thought of sleeping so close to great cats and wondered if my powers would guard me as well asleep as awake. Then I thought, what does it matter? I am probably about to die one way or the other. Not caring any more, too weary to go on, I unrolled my bedding on the only flat spot I could fmd, fell out on it and slept with surprising soundness, utterly wearied by all that had happened.
When I woke I was chilled and shivering. The weather had turned cool in the night and seemed to grow cooler as I trudged upward, munching trail bread, cool enough so that I soon stopped to pull on whatever extra clothes I carried. The way was so steep that at moments I caught glimpses through the foliage of deep green valleys, though never the one I had come through, and sometimes I saw the blue flash and rush of a river. The path I traveled was rich with amazing beauty, though I had little heart for it: vines, ferns, deep moss, lush brilliant flowers, huge leaves, and everywhere a myriad of bright butterflies moving and shifting through the scene. Instead of this bringing me any joy I felt saddened by it. It was a last gasp of summer before the chill of winter. Soon all that beauty would be dead and gone, withered and blackened in the cold.
Thirst nagged at me as I went. I had neglected to fill my water gourd. Now I emptied it in a few quick gulps. After that I went on with my throat dry and painful until I heard the roar of falling water. Then I hurried my steps, going as fast as I could, struggling and panting up that steep incline with the noise of the waterfall growing louder and louder in my ears. At the end I had to fight my way through a tight-woven thicket of shrubs to the pool. The pool itself was quivering under the impact of the water, which was falling some hundreds of feet from the cave mouth above. The ground under my feet seemed to vibrate with the pounding of it.
For a moment I gazed up at the silver sparkling water. It caught the sun in tiny rainbows as it arched outward like a long silver tongue flashing out of that dark cave mouth, the cave that was surely my destination if I could ever reach it. With a loud shout, I rushed forward, knelt down and scooped up water in both hands. I was about to suck it up when I saw Kara’s reflection quivering in the pool and heard her voice in the sound of the water. “Tazzia, let me go, let me go, let me go.”
With a cry I spit out the water and jumped back. This spot, that had seemed so inviting just a moment ago, now seemed haunted and full of menace. Hurriedly I backed away from there and began pressing up the path again. Now the way grew even steeper and my thirst more painful. In my rush to be away from there I had not filled my water gourd. I could see the path ahead of me winding up almost perpendicular till it reached the cave mouth. The air seemed thinner the higher I went. My lung
s ached with struggling for breath. My heart was pounding in my chest and in my ears, mixing with the roar of the water. When I wanted to give up and lie down where I was, right on the stones of the path, it was my thirst that pulled me on. I went the last few yards on my hands and knees, hauling myself over the lip of the cave and crawling to the pool that had formed at the front of it. There I threw myself flat out with my pack still on my back and drank like an animal, sucking up the water in huge noisy gulps.
When my thirst was finally sated I pushed myself up to my knees and found myself staring into the dark water. It seemed to hold my gaze with some power of its own. Like Hamuiri’s dark glass, it reflected what was before it. I was shocked at the mad face that stared back at me—haggard and hollow-eyed—and could hardly recognize it as my own. I looked for a long time at that person, trying to understand who and what I had become.
Then a breath seemed to blow across the water, the reflection shivered, and my face thinned and faded. Kara’s appeared in its place, rising out of the darkness. This time I did not leap up and run off. I knelt there gazing at her. At first she appeared much younger, the village girl I had first loved. Then, as I watched her reflection, she changed and changed again till she was the young woman I had left in the valley. She looked at me with pain in her eyes and seemed about to speak. Just then the water quivered again, her image faded and my mother’s face appeared. She was calling out, “Tazzia, where are you? Where have you gone? I cannot find you anywhere.” I gave a cry and reached for her, breaking the reflection. When the water calmed again it was my sister Ghira looking back at me, then Irdris’s gentle loving face, then Askarth with her forehead bare and the brand clearly marked there, then Shaleethia, the first burned one who died, then more burned ones one after the other, even the one I had smothered under my hands. Tears were running down my face. I began to cry louder, rocking back and forth on my knees. Thinking myself to be where none could hear me, the crying soon turned to howls of grief for all that had happened, howls that filled the cave and were not so different from the cries of the great cat.
Suddenly, sensing another’s presence, I shut my mouth on my grief and looked into the pool again. The water was still and black. The face that looked back at me was very old and wrinkled, with deep-set dark eyes and golden-yellow skin. It was a face I had never seen before. When the hand fell on my shoulder I wanted to jump up and flee, but though the touch was very light, I could not move. With just a slight pressure she turned me around to face her.
“Who are you to come here destroying the peace of this place, wailing and howling in our sacred cave? For two days now I have sensed you coming closer and closer with your uproar. What do you want of us that you make this terrible disturbance? What do you want of the Ashara, Valley-Dweller? And how did you find your way here?”
Very embarrassed and frightened as well, I bowed low, my forehead almost touching the ground. “Nothing, Mother, I want nothing of you. I was sent here. I had not known this was another’s place, or I would not have come. Please forgive me, I thought this shrine empty and the Ashara long gone from here.”
“And so, no doubt, you would like us to be. We, the Ashara, have gone from everywhere else. We have left all that we made and all that mattered to us. We have watched you fill up our valleys with your noise and your power, your games of war and bloodshed. In despair we have left you the valleys and then the river edges, and finally the hills, going up into the steep rocky mountains, going as far away as we were able into desolate and infertile places. We ask so little, only some peace and that our sacred places not be defiled. All the rest is yours, all the wealth and plunder of the world. Yet you presume even here. Will you rejoice when we are all gone, when there is no place left on earth for the Ashara, the First People? Will you finally be satisfied then?”
I tried to look up at her, but it made my eyes hurt. She had some of Shalamith’s golden glow about her. It had been easier to see her reflection in the dark water of the pool. “Please forgive me,” I repeated. “I came here because my soul was sick. The Witches have belled me out. They sent me to the Mother for some healing, saying that if I cannot be cured I will die. My grief was so bitter the Witches themselves could not cure it. It was like a poison among us.” I was amazed at this sudden rush of honesty, as if my words had been compelled.
All in one smooth motion she sat down cross-legged in front of me, “So, so,” she said in a very different tone. “Poor little Kourmairi, the Witches have belled you out and now this mad old crone is scolding you for coming here. Sometimes life is a hard place. Belled you out, eh? I did not know they still did such things. Sometimes I am just as glad to live on the far fringes of this world. Well, let us look at the nature of these troubles.” She reached out her hand to press it to my forehead, and then drew back quickly without touching me. Immediately she shook her hands well away from her body as if shaking off some dangerous and invisible liquid. It seemed to me that sparks flew in the darkness of the cave. “What are you then? I thought you to be Kourmairi, you are dark enough. But you are something other.”
“I am indeed a Kourmairi, but I am also...,” I stopped, shy of saying the words to her in Asharan.
“Yes, tell me,” she insisted.
“Khal Hadera Lossien,” I answered almost in a whisper with my eyes lowered.
“Khal Hadera Lossien,” she said slowly and thoughtfully, speaking in a very different accent from my own, but with no trace of mockery. “Then it has finally happened as it was foretold so long ago. The old prophecy was right after all. The Star’s Children have come to take our place. I have heard some talk, sometimes a Wanderer comes through to us, but I never thought to meet one such, certainly not to have one come wailing into the Malia-Humia, the Cavern-of-The-Mother-of-Waters. Was it you that sent the great cat running off howling in distress?”
I nodded, still looking down, flushed with shame now at what I had done and too embarrassed to raise my eyes.
“Not a very good use for so much power,” she said dryly. “I trust you will not think to do such a thing again. She is my neighbor and we live in peace here. Now raise both your hands and set them against mine, palm to palm, so we may see the manner of this soul sickness.”
I raised my hands and then began trembling. I could not make myself reach them out to her. “I am afraid of your power, Mother. I saw the sparks.”
“Not my power, your power, your own power all in disarray. I was unprepared. This time I will shield us both. Give me your hands, shut your eyes, and let your mind open to me.”
I gave her a quick glance. This time my eyes did not hurt as much so I ventured a longer look. She was smiling, though I could not tell if it was for me or only for herself. At that moment she was just a tired-looking old woman watching me with care and concern in her dark eyes. With a quick nod I shut my eyes and did as she said, abruptly surrendering to her will. The contact did not hurt, though I could feel the power flowing from her hands to mine and running up my arms. How long we stayed that way, hand to hand, I have no way of knowing. After a while all I could feel was heat from her hands and a gentle pressure in my mind, nothing more, until the contact was suddenly withdrawn and my eyes snapped open. The old woman was shaking her hands again in that same way. This time clearly sparks flew from her fingertips, showering into the darkness of the cave.
When she was done she took a deep breath and shook her head. “Well, child, that is more contact than I have had with your world for many years. I cannot say that I find it very comforting. If that is how things are done there, then I would far rather live in these wind-torn mountains than in your lushest valleys. So they hunt you like wild animals for your powers? I must say, things in the world of men have grown even more terrible and I see no end to it. But you, the Star’s Children, you are a new people. You have some of our powers and more of your own. And you are different from us, all sunlight and burning fire, while we are cool, like moonlight on water. We have slipped away like shadows out of that w
orld, but you will stay and make your place in it, that much I can see.” With those words she stood up suddenly and held out her hand to me. “Come, poor little hunted animal with the angry heart. We will make some peace in that heart. Only in that way can we bring peace back to this place.”
I looked at her. “Mother, what is your name, that I may call you something?’
She shook her head. “My name is of no importance now. I am only an old Asharan who will not live much longer, abandoned even by my own people for returning to this place.”
“Why are you here when all the others have gone away?”
“I have served Her at this Asking Place since I was not much more than a child, much younger than you are now, served Her as keeper. How could I leave and stay away and not know what happened here? Who would keep the cave swept and the altar cleared and make the offerings?”
“But you are all alone.”
“With Her, you are never alone. Come, come, time is passing. I have not much strength left to do what needs doing. It would be a waste to have you die for lack of a little healing.”
I stood up slowly and reached for her hand, a little unsteady on my feet, still dizzy from her probing of my mind. She was shorter by at least a head. The hand that held mine was no bigger than a child’s, but there was no mistaking the power in it. She drew me back to a darker part of the cave, had me spread out my sleep roll there and lie myself down on it. There was no sign of where she herself slept in that place.
When I had stilled myself, she came and sat cross-legged by me, laying one hand on my forehead and the other over her own heart. She spoke softly, and I seemed to hear it in my inner self as well as with my ears. “What you have of power is new and raw, still untried, but it will serve you well. Respect it, learn to live with it, shape it, and be shaped by it. It will grow as you grow. And the symbol that you wear there at your breast, it is an old Asharan sign from way before your time, from before the Witches, even.” My hand flew up protectively to cover the pendant I wore concealed under my shirt. “It will also serve you well,” she went on, “if only you remember to use it for protection in times of peril. Remember also to use it in times of peace, for it will take you to the core of things. Now keep your hands cupped over it, and we will begin. Are you ready?” I nodded wordlessly, glad that she did not ask if I was afraid.
