The legends and deeds of warriors he had often recounted to barroom audiences for pay swirled in his mind, like the bright leaves of the fall season caught in a pool. CuChani was a weakling's god, a sneaking immortal thief. How much more worthy of respect and admiration were the mortal and demigod heroes of action. It was not by accident that Cuelon the Slayer ascended to his rightful place at the apex of all the other star constellations every year.
Drunk with pride and the surprise of discovering a new aspect of himself, Tralane reached the village war chief with a swagger in his stride.
"I am Tralane," he said easily, though still out of breath. "I hope you can give me shelter and food for my services in your quarrel with the hillmen."
The chief removed the mask—a construction of feathers, wood and hide—that had hidden his features. The fierce-looking insigne painted on his cheeks and around his mouth reflected Tralane's own anger as well as the symbolic outrage of the villagers. But beneath the paint there were other feelings. Awe, wonder, and fear danced in perfect synchronization across the chief's open face. Tralane basked in these reactions as he would in front of a warm fire after a cold night's outing. If even the war chief was overcome by admiration and respect, then how much more of the comforting emotions were being generated by the warriors gathering around him? Even his most finely told tales had never won him so much acceptance and approval from his fellow men. He had found another, more satisfying way to gain access to the hearts of others.
The chief reached out and touched Tralane's face, drawing the bard out of his self-satisfaction. When he withdrew his hand his fingers were bloody, and Tralane realized he was once again covered with blood. His sword's black blade was still dripping with gore, which splattered onto the ground even as he stood, forming a thick, grisly pool. The men surrounding him murmured in frightened tones.
"You speak the Sky Tongue strangely," said the war chief at last, with an accent equally difficult for Tralane to understand. "Your skin is paler than ours, but your strength is mighty. Are you a god?"
Tralane threw back his head and laughed.
"No, but by Cuelon and old bearded Pichen, I feel like one."
The chief nodded, then led the way back to the village. The line of observers had disappeared and the way was clear all the way down the main thoroughfare.
Tralane followed with the other warriors trailing behind him. He turned and searched for the Jade Warrior further up the river, but could not find him. All he could see were the village magicians, climbing out of their beds in the earth and returning his gaze with puzzlement and suspicion.
Briefly, he wondered what had happened to his companion. Perhaps, once the Warrior's sword was in Tralane's possession, the sorcerous being's mission had been fulfilled and whoever was watching over the bard had recalled him. Or perhaps Tralane's battle madness had given the Warrior cause to doubt the wisdom of harassing the bard. Anything was possible, in that moment of intermingled dream and reality in which Tralane found himself living. And if his physical stature was not truly that of a warrior born, and if his admirers hung back further than they normally would have had they thought him human, Tralane dismissed these negatives without much further thought. To march into a place; knowing he was its savior, was an event he had only dared dream through the telling of tales. He was not about to let that moment pass without savoring it to the fullest.
Chapter 9
The village resembled a Tribe Nations' encampment, though the huts were larger and sturdier than the shelters of that race on his own world. Apparently, due to some political situation in the northern kingdoms and empires that prevented them from expanding southward, this world's version of the Tribe Nations had spread into the Rechochoake Mountains and begun to settle there as hunters and farmers. The stronger tribes held the Valleys and river land, while the weaker nations hid in the mountains and, presumably, when hunting in the Plains was poor, descended to the valleys in raiding parties.
The people were darker in complexion than most of the Tribe Nations in Tralane's experience and they spoke a dialect of the Sky Tongue among themselves which he could not understand. They painted themselves more than was usual and were more involved in readily apparent ways with ritual and ceremony than their nomadic, shui-herd-following brethren. As he walked between their dwellings, heading for a large wood-and-thatch dome which appeared to be the war chief's destination, Tralane caught the secretive stares of the village's population in the shadows of doorways and windows.
Their shelters and dress styles were still better suited for the Ousho Plains than for hill living. They had not lived in a settled manner for long, perhaps a generation or two, and they were not fully adapted to their new environment. But already, the wild freedom that had made the people of the Tribe Nations such novelties at court and the feared enemies of southern kingdoms was transforming itself into something else, something complex, convoluted, and hidden.
It was as if to stay in one place and master the land was to be burdened by all the life that grew and died around them. The rhythms of the earth infected them; they were learning to till the land, plant the seeds, and gather the harvest. When they listened to the earth, it was no longer to hear the wild throbbing that represented galloping herds of shui in the distance, but to listen for the stirrings of a gentle, more intimate kind of life. They were learning to love the land, care for it, and coax its richness out into day. They watched the cycle of life from beginning to end, death bringing life and regeneration, and no doubt pondered the secrets they glimpsed. Their children grew like the crops, tall and swift, and those that died were still among them in the surrounding fields and hills, their souls mingling with the earth and rooting the people of the Tribe Nation to this place.
As the warriors of the village stood in awe of Tralane's feat, so did the bard slowly awaken to the wonder of the metamorphosis that had occurred. He loved the brash, proud independence of his native world's Tribe Nations. They learned from technologically advanced neighbors, taking such useful tools as wagons and harnesses. But their way of life was not traded away in the exchange. Skins, meats, herbs, and roots found on the Plains, delicacies found grubbing in the mud after a sudden rain, and even the deftly woven figures of deities made of grass and the blankets which described the cosmology of the Plains were all fair trade items. Their spirit was untouched.
Yet on this world, there was something in these people's lives that was like the blooming of a flower long held in check by the night. Tralane regretted the loss of the Nations' freedom which, ironically, had been averted on his world by the avarice of petty kingdoms. These people had surrendered the past for the sedentary security of the river valley, and in this there was an admirable quality of courage in the face of newly discovered mysteries that was unfamiliar to Tralane. They had come upon a world they had never before experienced, thinking to find safety, and then finding the circle of their lives rimmed with questions. They had developed the courage to look within that circle for answers and not scoff and continue in their old ways with the foolish bravado of the unquestioning. Tralane wished to fill himself with the answers they had found. The honesty with which they approached and resolved the paradoxes of life would surely turn out to be the balm to soothe his inner wounds.
Tralane, in the tumultuous wake of his rage, had found a home.
He entered the domed hut after the war chieftain. The thick smoke and heavy aromas assaulted him immediately, causing his head to swim, but he remained standing steadily, his face set, his eyes calmly taking in the new environment.
To either side stood or sat—depending on their nearness to the central aisle—a horde of men and women, all older than the warriors who had taken the field. They whispered to one another as they bobbed their heads together and blew out smoke from pipes with each word they spoke. Some of the elderly who sat on blankets in the first row, in front of their children sitting on long benches, pointed at details of his appearance they found peculiar, nodding their gray-hair
ed skulls as if he were meeting some previously specified regulation of appearance. Their middle-aged descendants, wearing the tokens of their crafts and trades around their necks like pendants—a wooden wheel, a bright red triangular piece of cloth, a square of leather, and other symbols—were more concerned with the events that had just transpired at the battle site. A few wept and were consoled by their neighbors for the loss of their relatives and friends, while others exchanged views on trade, weather, bandit hillmen, and gods.
Tralane suddenly remembered Wyden's Eye, still hidden in the pouch around his neck. He rebelled against the analogy between his pouch and the villagers' pendants. Once, he knew, he would have reveled in the symbolic ties between the stolen Eye and the craft of thievery and mischief, but now he wanted it understood by everyone, especially himself, that the honest edge of a sword had replaced and cut the bonds to an unfortunate past.
The warriors, filing in behind him, took up the rear behind the people of the crafts. They stood next to women wearing tunics and bands of metal around their necks and arms. He, too, would soon have a priestess for a wife and join the village's hunters and warriors in the community's high esteem.
He looked ahead and saw the war chieftain engaged in earnest discussion with a young woman. She was tall and darker skinned than most of the other people, clad in a tunic of brightly colored, complicated beadwork patterns. Black hair burst from the edges of a gold mail helmet, settling on her shoulders. Around her hips, a wide belt was snugly drawn, from which hung a broad sheath housing a sword with a pommel of glittering jewels. Next to her stood a man in black and red robes, with a golden band encircling his forehead, peering at Tralane with the unmistakable eyes of a sorcerer.
Tralane could barely hear the chieftain and high priestess converse, since the background of susurrant voices with their fragments of meaningful words and phrases vied for his attention. From what he could gather, he understood there was general puzzlement over his appearance on the battlefield and questions concerning the meaning of his arrival and his nature—mortal, demigod, or god.
In their well-ordered world of succeeding nights and days marking off the steady passage of seasons and setting the tempo of their existence, he had arrived with no warning or precedence. They believed in predictable gods and a smooth flow of magic between the planes of existence, not whimsical, autonomous entities who watched them dispassionately and appeared among then, out of boredom, with aloofness or, out of fear, with anger.
He walked the length of the aisle leading to the woman who now appeared to be not only the high priestess of the warrior's wives, but also their queen. With their curiosity satisfied and their suspicious natures appeased, Tralane hoped he would then be able to exchange his services as their protector for their acceptance into their community.
A hush fell over the enclosure when he moved forward. The smoke from the torches seemed to clog the roof openings, blocking out the natural light. The gloom thickened, clinging like fog to Tralane.
When he ignored the chieftain's warning signals, the queen sprang up from the throne that seemed to be carved from a single, giant piece of wood. She drew her sword, which looked far heavier and more imposing than Tralane's black blade, with the practiced ease of a warrior. The sorcerer stepped up behind her, a tall, menacing shadow. The war chieftain retreated to the side of the aisle, where his warriors stood after having filtered down through the crowd.
The queen lifted the sword over her head, holding it horizontally with only one hand. Her face did not show any strain of effort, nor was there any consternation over his approach. Her eyes were locked to his as the sorcerer made a sign over the sword's point, sending bolts of brilliant light flashing along its double edges. Tralane's mouth went dry. Magic charged the air.
"This is the Sword of Ara, vanquisher and giver, punisher and replenisher. Stay where you are, demon, unless you are prepared to force the death fight here and now."
The queen had spoken, her voice sharp and clear, though tainted with the same foreign accent as that of the other villagers. Tralane replied slowly, careful to enunciate his words so he would be understood.
"I am not a demon, I am a man. My name is Tralane, and I come from a land far from your home. I would like to settle here, to help you master your enemies and live in peace. I am a bard and a warrior." He said this last with new-found pride, then regretted its vanity. He quickly added, "I have been to many places, seen many things. I can show you how to live better, how to please the earth so it will share with you more of its treasures. All I ask is the warmth of your hearts."
The queen was immobile, her face hardened into a mask which kept the fierce wildness in her eyes from spilling out and overwhelming him. She was the repository for the tribe's untamed spirit. These men had not yet forsaken their heritage, after all. They had only placed it aside so they could contend with the day-to-day demands of life. She was the vessel, containing in her sturdy, feminine form the wrath and power of their traditions. Yet she did not speak. Instead, the sorcerer answered.
"You are a plague," he said icily.
Tralane was caught by surprise, but did not give ground.
"I have destroyed your enemies," he said indignantly. "They broke and ran before me like your river birds before a predator. I saved the lives of your young warriors, who deserve life in the families of their village rather than death at the hands of barbarians. I can rout these outsiders again, if you wish, whenever they show themselves on your lands. I am your protector, yet you call me a plague?"
This time the queen replied. "There was no need for magic or for blood. The time had not yet come. The hillmen were only testing. You disturbed the pattern."
"You have power," the sorcerer continued for her. "It does not have the taint of hillmen, but that does not mean you are not also our enemy." There was a tone of distaste in the sorcerer's words.
"Then let me repair the pattern," Tralane appealed to the queen.
"How?" the queen asked.
Tralane could not find the answer.
Before he could cover himself with a blanket of words, she had asked another question. "Where were you born?" Again he was left speechless. Mathi's tower was the only home he had ever known, and that, in the end, was a place to avoid, not to seek. Yet she was probing for that place for which the tower was only a shadow. And he had run away from that shadow, turning his back on the source.
"You do not know that, either. Were you born of mortal woman? Or goddess? Are you a dead man's restless soul cursed with the wandering fever?"
"He is not a ghost," the sorcerer interjected, and the queen turned sideways to look at him. Her expression softened as they exchanged glances, and Tralane was unaccountably envious of the sorcerer. "A spirit occupied the ghost hut when this one entered our village."
"Then you are haunted and evil," the queen exclaimed, facing Tralane again.
He gleaned their intention. They were attempting to trap him into a category so as to compel him to leave under the laws of the community. To join them would automatically mean exile.
"No, I am a man. I am Tralane. I can help you."
The queen lowered the sword, which still gleamed with restless energies. The priestesses had begun to chant a low, ominous prayer in the unknown tongue he had overheard the warriors speak. The queen joined them.
"You desire land space in our community," the sorcerer said disdainfully, "yet you know nothing of our ways, our gods, our magic. The hillmen are barbarians, but they share with us the knowledge of Ara and the other forces of the elements, though they may name them differently. You are worse than they, Tralane. You are a death carrier. Your help is unnatural."
Tralane's strength and self-confidence withered before this rejection. They were protecting themselves against his presence, using words and spells to drive him out, raising the solid wall of their commonality. As he stood his ground, still refusing to give up the chance for the settled, secure life he craved, tendrils of smoke rose from the ground a
nd entwined themselves around his legs. They grew like vines, spreading, constricting, rooting him to the earth. His hands passed through the smoke tendrils, shattering the illusion of their physicality, but not their effect.
"Do you know what it is to be born and raised on the land belonging to your family? Can you tell me the laws that govern your people, the questions they seek to answer? Can you tell me the purpose of your life? Or will you confess that you are a lawless demon of chaos, that you have no people, no land, no gods to protect you?"
The sorcerer had stepped beside the queen, who was lost in the singing of the chant, her eyelids trembling and body swaying. The smoke still oozed from the earth, climbing up the length of Tralane's body and reaching for his throat. Its tendrils tightened around his chest so that simple breath became a violent struggle.
But when the smoke reached the pouch in which Wyden's Eye was kept, the tendrils dissipated and released their crushing hold on Tralane. He stamped his legs and moved his arms to restore circulation. A ripple of dismayed mutterings swept through the crowd on both sides of him. In their momentary surprise Tralane might have easily forced his way out of the hut and escaped, but he did not take advantage of the opportunity.
"Sky magic, wind magic," the sorcerer exclaimed with consternation. He retreated to his previous position behind the queen.
Magic, whatever its source, had proved antipathetic to the tribe's earth-based sorcery. Wyden's Eye had defended itself against an entire people's power. The depths of the amulet's strength, summoned without Tralane's call and protecting him in the heart of an opposing force, shocked him. Whatever its origin, Wyden's Eye was a mightier enigma than he had ever imagined. And if the Eye could act of its own or some controlling agent's volition, then were not Gibron's warnings far more serious than he had first taken them to be?
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