The Saga of the Renunciates

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “You might have told us,” Camilla said.

  “Yes,” said Marisela dryly, “I could have held your hand every step of the way. Don’t be a fool, Camilla. What I said to Margali is still true, I was not and am not free to discuss the affairs of the Sisterhood with outsiders, and that includes their abode, and the necessary search, unaided, to reach them.”

  “If they demand this much effort to reach them,” Camilla asked, “how do we know it is worth this kind of suffering?”

  “You don’t. No one forced you to come. Be very clear about that, Camilla. At any moment you could have turned back to safety and to known rewards and everything you have claimed for yourself from life. There is no reason to renounce any of it, and for you, less reason than most. Yet I notice that none of you chose to turn back.”

  “This is all beside the point,” Vanessa said. “Whatever psychic search you are talking about, Camilla, our interest is only in finding Lexie and Rafaella.”

  But it was Marisela who answered.

  “Are you very sure of that, Vanessa? I notice you have not turned back, either. Have you gained nothing from this trip yourself? Is your search entirely unselfish?”

  “I wish you’d stop talking in riddles,” Vanessa complained. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Everything,” said Marisela, “think carefully, now. Because on your answer may depend whether or not you are allowed to go on. Friendship may carry you far, and please don’t think I am deriding the good instinct to help your friends. But in the long run, Vanessa ryn Erin—” Magda was startled and shocked that she used, not the Guild-house name by which Vanessa was known there, and in the Bridge Society, but Vanessa’s Terran, legal name—“In the long run, nothing matters but your own motives for this quest. Have you gained nothing?”

  “Is that wrong?” Vanessa asked aggressively.

  Marisela hesitated and looked for a moment at the old priestess in her bundled rags, seated impassively on the stone dais. The old woman raised her eyes and looked sharply at Vanessa. For a moment Magda expected that she would attack, with those quick harsh words she could use and demolish Vanessa with some sharp answer. But the ancient’s voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “She does not question thee about right or wrong, little sister. Thee seeks right, us knows that, or thee would be outside in the storm, whatever thy need; shelter is not offered here to those who actively seek to harm their fellow beings. Thy sister asks thee, of many good things, has thee found something which is thy own and to thy liking? Speak sooth now and fear nothing.”

  “I can’t believe that you are asking me this,” Vanessa said impatiently. “Yes, one of the reasons I came on this trip was because I wanted to see these mountains, wanted a chance to climb some of them, and I knew I’d never get the chance otherwise, and I was prepared to put up with a lot for that chance. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t sincere about helping to find Lexie and Rafaella.”

  “I didn’t know you were so fond of her,” Marisela observed.

  “Fond has nothing to do with it,” Vanessa said angrily. “She’s not my lover or my bosom friend or confidante, I’m not—well, I know it’s the custom here and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m not interested in women as lovers. But we were in training school together, and she’s in trouble. She needs friends, and she doesn’t have many. I suppose if I was in trouble she’d give me a hand. Or what else is all your talk about sisterhood—and I don’t mean all this stuff about secret Sisterhoods and societies, either—what’s it supposed to mean, if I can’t try to help out a friend? And Rafaella, well, she’s a mountaineer. I respect her. Can’t you understand that kind of thing?”

  The old woman was smiling, but Vanessa took no notice of her. Marisela nodded to Vanessa, almost a formal gesture of recognition.

  She said, “Rafaella and I were housebound together in Thendara Guild-house; it seems a long time ago. I am worried about her myself; she was one of the reasons I came so far. She has a right to her own search, even if what she seeks is riches, but I was afraid she was getting into deep waters where she could not swim, thinking only that she was doing legitimate business. I knew Jaelle was concerned about her, and if it was only a question of bad weather and a rough trail, Jaelle, with you to help her, could have been left to the search. But there were other things involved and I hoped to keep her from getting into them without a clear idea of what she might be facing.” She sighed heavily. “So, you have not caught up with her?”

  “As you can see, we have not,” Camilla said dryly. “As if you did not know, being a leronis… ”

  “I’m no more omniscient than you are, Camilla. Until I actually came here, I still hoped. But if she was not safe here during that great storm, there are two possibilities; either she is safe somewhere else… ” she spoke the words with a careful intonation and a hesitant glance at the old woman, and Magda knew suddenly that she was speaking of Acquilara and her followers, “or she is dead. For there was no other shelter and nothing could have lived unsheltered in these hills. I can’t bear to think they could be in the hands of—” She blinked angrily, and Magda noticed she was trying hard to stifle uncontrollable tears.

  The old woman bent toward her and said soothingly, touching Marisela’s hand, “Thee may hope she is safe dead, granddaughter.”

  Cholayna, who had been following all this with close, concentrated attention—Magda, who had been through the same kind of training, knew what effort it would take her to follow this conversation in the language they were using, though Cholayna had had the best and most effective language training in the whole of the Empire— spoke up for the first time.

  “Marisela, I’m like Vanessa, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Are these people so jealous that they’d really hope Lexie and Rafaella are dead, rather than involved with some religious heresy? I’ve heard of religious bigotry, but this beats anything I ever heard of! I’m not ungrateful to these people. They saved my life, saved Vanessa from being lamed for life—they saved us all. But I still think that’s terrible!”

  It was the old woman who spoke, slowly, as if—she were trying to make Cholayna understand across an insurmountable barrier.

  “Thee is ignorant. This old one canna’ give thee a lifetime wisdom in a few minutes on this floor. But if thee canna’ imagine worse than simple dyin’ thee is worse than ignorant. Are there na’ things thee would die rather than do? Those whose names we would not speak—” she stopped, frowned, shook her head in frustration almost tangible.

  “How to say to thee? Would thee rather die, or torture a helpless child? Would thee rather die, or betray thy innermost honor? It is their joy, those ones, to see others do that which they thought they would rather die than do, out of their weak fear of dyin’ because they know nothing an’ believe less about death.” Her head shook with wrath. “An’, an’, to speak their name is to invite them into thy mind. Think this old one hates thee, that she takes that risk for thee and thy ignorance, sister, to try an’ teach thee a crumb’s worth of wisdom.”

  Magda looked at Jaelle, and for one blazing instant, whether it was laran or something deeper, it all came together in her mind. It was all one with what Jaelle had said the night before: We’re all going to die anyway.

  Magda was remembering dreadful things done, in the history of the human race, by men to their fellow men—and women—because they so feared death: guards who had forced their fellow creatures to death in concentration camps; the immense slaughter of war where the killer justified himself by fear of being killed in turn; infinite terrible betrayals out of that most ignoble fear— I’ll do anything, anything, I don’t want to die… It was bad enough to do these evils because in some demented way you thought they were good, like the religious monsters who burned, hanged or slaughtered others to save their souls. But what possible justification could there be for anyone who did these things because the alternative was personal death? In a single blazing moment, Magda felt a fierce joy. It suffused her with a
flush, an almost physical rush of total awareness, knowing how strong was life and how little death had to do with it.

  In a great rush she felt totally involved and caught up in it; aware of her intense love for Jaelle, of course, this was why I risked my life for her; her wholly different love for Camilla. Love reached out for no reason even to encompass that ridiculous old woman, she doesn’t even know Cholayna and she is risking what she thinks of as a very real spiritual death for her, she fears she’s inviting Aquilara and her crew into her very head to play games with her, and because she loves us…

  They could only kill me, and that wouldn’t matter. Dying hurts, but death won’t.

  And then she snapped out of it, astonished at her own thoughts. There was no question—nobody had asked her to die for anything! What’s wrong with me? I don’t want to die any more than anyone else, why am I indulging myself in heroics?

  And then she wondered if it had all been imagination; for Cholayna was saying, with polite strained patience, that she didn’t really think the question had any application here.

  “No one has offered me that choice. And with all respect, I find it hard to believe that these rival sisterhoods, or whatever they are, will behave like some old legendary dictator or brainwashing expert and offer them a choice between death or dishonor. How absurdly melodramatic!” Then Cholayna bent toward the old woman, very serious.

  “Whenever I hear anyone say there are things more important than life or death, I find myself wondering whose life they are planning to risk. I find it is seldom their own.”

  The old woman’s toothless smile was gentle, almost despairing.

  “Thee means well, but thee is ignorant, daughter of Chandria. ’Varra grant thee lives long enough that thee may one day learn wisdom to match thy good strength and will.”

  Marisela stood up, as if gathering up the scattered threads of her discourse.

  “It’s time to go, while the weather holds, and the only way to go is to get going. Are you ready to leave?”

  Jaelle said quietly, “I told you, Magda. We were warned to be ready.”

  Camilla thrust her hands into the pocket of her tunic, and demanded, “Go where?”

  “To the place you have been seeking. Where else?”

  “To the City of—”

  “Hush,” Marisela said quickly, “don’t speak it aloud. No. I am serious. Word and thought have power.”

  “Oh, in the name of the Goddess, or of all Zandru’s demons, Marisela, spare me your mystical rubbish!”

  “Do you dare to tell me that? You know better, however you have tried to barricade it, Elorie Hastur.”

  Camilla actually laid her hand on her knife.

  “Damn you, my name is Camilla n’ha Kyria—”

  Marisela stared her down.

  “And still you say names have no power, Camilla?”

  Camilla folded herself abruptly into a seat, her voice gone.

  Magda began matter-of-factly to gather their possessions. The enforced stay of days in that room had made it a gypsy-camp clutter, though they had tried to keep what order they could. The old woman rose stiffly; Marisela stooped to assist her. Camilla strode toward her.

  “Grandmother of many mysteries! Is a question permitted the ignorant?”

  “How else shall they be instructed?” asked the old woman mildly.

  “How did you know—” she stopped and swallowed and finally said, “all that?”

  “To those who see beyond surfaces, little daughter—” her voice was infinitely gentle, “it is written in thine every scar, every line of thy face. In the energies which surround thy body it can read as clearly as a hunter of the wild chervine reads the spoor of his game. Fear not; thy friend—” she nodded at Marisela, “broke not thy confidence. This one swears it.”

  “She couldn’t,” said Camilla brusquely. “She didn’t have it.” She stared quizzically at Marisela, and Magda could almost hear the words: did she read me too, does she know everything about me?

  Then she asked, her voice abrupt and harsh, but speaking clearly in the mountain dialect the old woman spoke, “Thee makes it thy task to search out old names and buried pasts. May I then ask thine own, Mother?”

  The toothless smile was serene.

  “This one has no name. It was forgotten in another life. When thee has reason to know, chiya, thee will read it clear as I read thine. Avarra bless thy long road, little one. Few of thy sisters have had such trials. How shall the fruit grow unless the blossoms are pruned from the tree?”

  She smiled benevolently, and closed her eyes as if falling into the sudden light sleep of senility. Marisela looked at Camilla almost in awe, but didn’t speak.

  “How soon can we get out of here? It’s a fine day; let’s take advantage of it.”

  In a surprisingly short time they were ready to leave. The sky was cloudless, but the wind blew across the heights as they approached the cliff. They went in two shifts, and Magda, edging unobtrusively back to wait for the second, watched with horror as the basket jerked and wobbled and bumped against the cliffs. The rope looked too small to hold it, though it was a mighty cable of twisted fibers almost three fingers thick. She turned away her eyes, knowing if she did not she would never have the courage to get into the contraption.

  Jaelle, Cholayna and Camilla, with Marisela, had gone in the first load. As the basket came bumping back to where she stood with Vanessa and the old blind woman Rakhaila, Magda recoiled; coming up in the dark was one thing, but in broad daylight, she could not, she could not force herself to step into it.

  Rakhaila felt her cringe, and guffawed.

  “Haw! Haw! Ye rather climb down cliff, missy? I be old an’ blind, an’ I do so every livin’ day. Steps be right yonder.” She gave Magda a push toward the edge, and Magda cried out and fell to her knees, grabbing for safety; in another moment she might have stumbled over that terrifying edge.

  Vanessa caught her arm. She whispered, “It’s perfectly strong, really. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Magda, they’ve evidently been going up and coming down here for centuries and it’s never failed them yet.” She steadied Magda’s arm as she managed, carefully turning her eyes away from the narrow dizzying gap between basket and ground far below, to step over the edge, and sink in, her eyes on the floor of the basket, strewn with bits of straw and grain.

  Where do they get their food and grain up here? Does it all have to be hauled up in this one basket? she asked herself, knowing that it was just a way to keep herself from being afraid. And then she was sourly amused at herself.

  All my fine theories about not being afraid of death, and here I am almost wetting my breeches with fright because of a primitive elevator that’s probably just as safe as the ones in the Terran HQ!

  Acrophobia, she reminded herself, was, by definition, not a rational fear. But surely it hadn’t been nearly as bad as this when she first crossed Scaravel with Jaelle seven, no, eight years ago. And she remembered positively enjoying her first trip to Nevarsin with Peter when they had both been in their twenties.

  With unbelievable relief she felt the basket touch ground and scrambled out.

  “You’re going with us, Marisela?”

  “Of course, my dear. But I don’t know all the ins and outs of the trail; Rakhaila will guide us. The horses will have to stay here. We’ll take one pack animal and leave everything else for the return journey.”

  Wondering vaguely how a blind woman could guide them on a confusing trail which even Marisela could not find, Magda volunteered to lead the pack chervine for the first stretch. Down here the wind was not the jet stream of the heights, but still blew so strongly that old Rakhaila’s matted hair blew out behind her magnificently as she set off in the teeth of the gale.

  The snow was slushy under foot, and the wind cut hard; but Magda, wrapping her woolly scarf over her face, was grateful that it was not freezing. Vanessa, she noticed, was still limping a little. She followed Rakhaila close; behind her came Jaelle, then Cam
illa with Cholayna at her side; at least at the start, Cholayna set off fresh and strong and rested, and her breathing was good. Perhaps she had managed to acclimate to the altitude by now. They would not have let her go, she told herself, if there had been any sign of continuing pneumonia.

  They set off along a trail which led across the knife-edge of a ridge, with a long drop to either side. Magda, leading the chervine behind Cholayna and Camilla, looked to the right, where the slope was gradual and gentle, and did not make her dizzy. The trail was just wide enough for one, but looked quite well-traveled; where the snow had melted Magda could see that it had been beaten down hard as if by generations of feet.

  Behind Magda and the chervine was Marisela bringing up the rear. The fierce wind prevented much talk, and they went on at a smart pace.

  An hour on the trail; part of another. The five days of rest had done Magda good; her heart no longer beat furiously with the altitude. Lower down she could see the tops of trees. A good place for banshees, she thought dispassionately, looking out over the icy wastes below her, on either side of the ridge, but even they would have starved to death centuries ago.

  Rakhaila flung up her arm with a long shrill cry and they came to a halt.

  “Rest ye here; eat if ye ha’ need.” Rakhaila herself, thought Magda, looked as if she had been battered into stoicism by all the winds of a hundred years; as they got out the camp stove and brewed tea she hunkered by the trail, immobile, looking like a random bunch of rags, and when Camilla offered her a mug of the brew she shook her head contemptuously.

  Camilla muttered, “Now there’s an Amazon who makes us all look like puppies!” She gnawed on a half-frozen meat bar.

  Cholayna had one of the cakes made from ground-up nuts and fruit stuck together with honey; she munched at the stuff with determination.

  Magda heard her ask Camilla: “Do you really think they are dead?”

  “Marisela isn’t given to exaggeration and I’ve never known her to lie. If she says they’re probably dead, she means it. Or else, as she said, they’re in the hands of Acquilara, or whoever else is hanging around.”