Daughters of the Great Star

by Diana Rivers

  I was staring at her in shock. “All your family? All gone? Were you not bitter then and thirsty for vengeance? Did you not long for blood?”

  “At first I was running too fast to think of such things, trying to save my own life and the lives of others and to salvage something of the convent. Later yes—yes, I was bitter, and I longed to kill. I am not Olna that I can make peace with such things. But in the end I saw enough blood and enough dead bodies on both sides to last me a lifetime or more. And yes, I am still bitter and it still eats at my heart. Surely you can see that.”

  “And yet I was belled out for my bitterness.”

  “It was more than bitterness, Tazzi. It was bitterness gone mad. Besides, the Witch and the Star-Child are not the same. Your powers come from a different source and that source must be kept clear and clean. You have been muddying it for too long. A Witch can find ways to live with such bitterness and a Star-Child cannot. Understand this, child, if the Great Star had never passed over, you would still have been born a Witch, and so you have both powers, but at the core you are a Khal Hadera Lossien, though there are times when I wish it were not so.”

  “Alyeeta, I cannot understand your subtleties. You are too devious for me with your weaving of words.”

  “Yes, yes, that is part of it. The Khal Hadera Lossien are neither subtle nor devious. They are pure, clear, direct, honest and need to remain so if their powers are to serve them well. Witches are something else altogether. Now that is enough of this talk. The Goddess has sent you back to us, and it is time for sleep.”

  “Oh, Alyeeta, you lost everything, and I cursed Her for far less, speaking those dreadful words so full of evil.”

  “Well, others have cursed Her and She has survived. I have probably cursed Her in my day, though I still follow Her ways. It is by Her will you are here among us again. Let it be in peace.” She blew out the lamp, pulled the cover up around me and held me close. Next morning Alyeeta left and was gone for five days, long enough for me to wonder and to worry. Later, when she came back, she would say nothing to any of us of where she had been.

  ***

  For the next week or so I wrote and wrote, bent over the paper, trying to lose myself or rather find myself in those pages, trying to fill myself up again. The anger was gone and there was nothing to take its place. I felt only emptiness where that raw, raging pain had been. Also, I felt much shame for all I had said and done, the ugly words I had spoken. That made me reluctant to be with others, though no one appeared to hold a grudge against me. I often found myself making apologies. They all seemed glad enough to see me, even Rishka, even Olna after all I had said to her. As for the Witches, their circle opened for me now as if I had become one of them, though I told them nothing of my trip to the cave. Sometimes when my eyes blurred from writing, my head ached, and my hand cramped, I would go and sit among the Witches. Even Nhenoma treated me with a sort of wary respect. Shalamith, if she was there, would come and sit by me, touching me in that way she had, a hand on my arm or a leg against mine, her golden touch so full of healing. If she probed my mind I did not feel it, nor did I try to fight it. If that was what she wanted I let her have her way. For the sake of that touch, she could do as she pleased with me. As always, I was helpless in her presence.

  At dusk one evening, I came to their circle just in time to hear Hamiuri saying, “I am tired of wandering. I will not hide in a cave in the north, however warm and pleasant it may be. If the Goddess had wanted me to live in a cave She would have made me an Oolanth cat, not a Witch.”

  “But what will you do, Hamiuri?” I asked, startled by her words.

  “Find a village in need of a healer. There is always one somewhere. I am also tired of being alone.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “But you said you would never do such a thing again.”

  “So I did, without a doubt. Well, I have said many things in my life, not all of them true. Some of my words I have lived to see turn against me. If you believe everything an old woman says, you will be fooled more than once.”

  Alyeeta stood up, the firelight flashing on her dark hair. “But you have lost everything coming with us, Mother. How can we ever repay you?”

  “Give me a few coins and a small bag of grain. I will soon gather more of both. Witches may be reviled, but there is always work for us to do. If I cannot have my little house back, if it is truly torn down, then I will find another little hut near a city. Perhaps I will even travel with Vanhira for a while. I am far more comfortable with the horse in front of the cart than between my legs.”

  “Mother, I had thought we would have the the gift of your company and the advantage of your wisdom in these coming months.” Alyeeta was shaking her head, looking hurt and puzzled.

  “Well, you have more company here than you need. As for wisdom, you will have to use someone else’s or your own, perhaps. But I will not live all closed up underground,” Hamiuri answered irritably. “After all, I had not bargained to marry you all, only to travel with you for a little while.”

  After that there was a chorus of pleas and objections, but Hamiuri must have held her ground for the next morning I saw her riding out in Vanhira’s little travel-wagon. That night the Witches sat in a circle of silence, each with her back turned to circle and to the others as well, mourning Hamiuri’s departure. “I doubt any of us will ever see her alive again,” Alyeeta said to me later.

  As I could not write all the time, I also went at moments to sit at one of the other fires. There I watched, I listened to women’s words and to their stories, I saw all the little games being played out among them and felt separate and set apart from them, not by anger this time, but by that strange emptiness, a hollowness that seemed to fill the very core of my being.

  One time when I came to the fire circle it was Murghanth who was talking, gesturing angrily and speaking in her fast excited way. “I hear it told the Zarn is saying he has driven us straight into the sea. I would like to paint the sign of the double triangle in red paint on the very doors of his palace if he thinks he has done away with us so easily.”

  “Sheezerti recklessness, Murghanth. What does it matter to you if the Zarn thinks he has bested us at his games of death?” Pell answered, standing up to yawn and stretch. “We know what we know. What do we care what he thinks? We need more time to gather and build and learn before we are ready to clash with the Zarn. His ignorance gives us that time. Be glad of it.” I did not stay long that night. I had no wish to listen to them argue, and already I could see Murghanth gathering herself up to answer.

  The next time I came away from the writing there was only a small gathering at the fire. Jhemar and Pell were there as well as Alyeeta, Olna, and a few others. Jhemar was speaking, evidently answering some question of Alyeeta, speaking thoughtfully and gazing into the fire. “You are right, Alyeeta. It is true I am as much a Wanderer as a Star-Child. They are my people also, and the wandering is in my blood. The land calls to me, always beckoning from around the next bend of the road, the next bend of the river, pulling me right to the top of the hill to look out when I am down below, drawing me back down into the valley to drink from the river when I am high on the hillside. Always it keeps me moving. Wandering is as much a part of me as my eyes or my feet.”

  Alyeeta answered sharply, “Well, if you are ever to win out against the Zarns, I think you will likely have to make a choice in the time to come, a choice to be fully Khal Hadera Lossien and let the Wanderers go.

  “Alyeeta, how can you say that? The Wanderers were my first true family, the first people who sheltered me on the road. It is the Wanderers who kept this Star-Child alive.”

  “And so what does that matter now? That is all in the past. It is the Zarn who threatens now and the Wanders are not much of a weapon against him. They drift away like smoke or mist and will never stand up to that power.” Alyeeta’s eyes were glittering strangely, fixed on Jhemar’s face. Her expression chilled me. I thought of our talk of murder and vengeance.


  I saw Jhemar’s face grow hard and stubborn. “Alyeeta, we are our own free selves,” she said angrily. “We are not a Witch’s weapon to be used against the Zarns.”

  “Why not? You are surely the best that has been forged so far. Someone must answer those terrible wrongs. Besides, how do you know why you are here? What do you know of the Goddess’s intentions?”

  Pell stood up abruptly. “We are not talking now of the Goddess’s intentions,” she said loudly. “We are talking of Alyeeta’s intentions.”

  From the shadowed spot where she was sitting I heard Olna say in her calm voice, “Alyeeta, you well know that by the very powers they have, they cannot be used in that way. What is this sudden wish for vengeance?”

  Pell sat down again. Alyeeta shrugged and leaned back, her face changing again, losing its wild look. “Ah, well, yes, we Witches have long memories, longer than most, and sometimes what we remember is not pretty.” She shrugged again, then laughed in that sudden way she had. “Well, I suppose Jhemar must be who she is and live her own way just like the rest of us, Zams or no Zarns. Whatever will happen is waiting around the bend of the road for all of us.” That night I went back to the rock ledges again instead of sleeping in Alyeeta’s tent.

  ***

  It has been growing colder with each passing day. Some mornings the leaves are silvered with frost. The Wanderers’ Gathering is over and most of the Wanderers have left, going south for the winter, leaving their daughters with us. Hereschell is still here, for he will accompany us as far as the caves. After that he and Soneeshi will head south to meet with the other Wanderers. Soon it will be our turn to go, for no new stragglers are being brought in any more. We have already begun packing the camp.

  All day I have worked with the others getting us ready to leave. Now I have been sitting here for hours at the entrance to Alyeeta’s tent, writing the last of this by the quivering light of her one small lamp. This is the end to this part of my account, for tomorrow we ride out, going west and north all the way to the coast. Who knows when, if ever, I will write again?

  Save for the sentries, I think I am the only one awake of all the camp. Earlier there was a small fire opposite from where I sit and a circle of Muinyairin, Rishka among them, laughed and talked there, but for a while now there has been silence and darkness in that spot, broken only by the occasional red eye of an ember. Behind me Alyeeta snores gently. Sometimes I hear a horse shift or snuffle in the night. From way beyond our camp, from the hills that ring us, I hear the hoot of an owl or the cough of an Oolanth cat, those prowlers of the dark. From their watch places I know that Zari and Daijar are our eyes this night, but in our settlement of tents, sleep presses down with a heavy weight of silence all around me.

  For me sleep will not come, though my eyes are dry and gritty from the strain of writing in this restless light. My brain turns and turns in my aching skull, tormenting me with questions for which the answers lie before me in the living of them. Who am I now, I wonder? Who is the person who has come back from the hills, changed in ways I cannot yet understand? I have been returned to sanity, but not to my former self. What self is it that beckons from the future? And what of these hot-spring caves and the cold winter of the north? What of the food supply and the horses and all of us closed in together for so long? Questions and more questions that turn round and round in my head with no answers.

  In a little while I will rise to wrap these pages carefully in waxed cloth and shelter them in the bottom of my pack. Then I will blow out the lamp and sit here alone, watching the night fade and the morning come.

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