An Acceptable Time (25 page)

Polly was as cold as when she had swum across the lake. Not only her body seemed frozen, but her thoughts, her heart.

The healer stood, helping himself up by pressing one hand against Polly’s shoulder. Then he kept it there, in a gesture of protection.

Klep pushed himself up into a sitting position. Polly saw, without really taking it in, that he had a curved knife at his belt, which he now took out and held firmly.

“Tynak, I warn you,” he started, but Tynak raised his hand threateningly. With his position of authority as chief of the tribe he did not need a weapon. And Klep, with his broken leg held stiffly between two staves, could not move.

Tynak gestured contemptuously to the two guards who held the struggling Zachary. They dropped him as though he were a dead beast. He fell to the ground, whimpering. The guards came to Polly. They looked at the healer, but he did not take his hand from her shoulder. Polly did not recognize these men, who were not Winter Frost or Dark Swallow. Murmuring what sounded like an apology, one of the guards moved the healer’s hand, not roughly, then jerked Polly away.

“Stop!” Klep shouted. “Stop!” But he could only watch in frustration and rage as the men dragged Polly toward Tynak.

“Tynak!” Klep warned. “If you hurt her, it will be disaster for the tribe!”

“Blood!” the people screamed. “Blood for the gods! Blood for the ground, blood for rain, blood for growth, blood for life!” The wind rose, making the flaring torches smoke. The moon began to lift out of the lake, enormous, red as blood. Polly thought her heart would stop beating. The people shouted, stamping their feet rhythmically in time to the drums, in time to their calls for blood. Zachary’s thin wails were no more than a wisp of smoke. “Blood!” the people chanted. “Blood! Blood!”

Slowly Polly was being dragged across the compound and toward the path through the forest that led to the terrible stone.

Zachary lurched to his feet and threw himself at Polly. One of the guards struck him and he fell again to the ground, mewling like a sick child.

“Look!” Klep cried, his shout rising above the noise of the mob. “Tynak! People! Look to the lake! Do you not see!”

There were shouts of surprise, of terror.

Polly looked, struggling to stand upright. Silhouetted against the great orb of the moon was a large canoe, with carved and curved ends. As the canoe came closer, she could see two men in it. Holding a great paddle was Karralys, with Og standing proudly by him. Standing in the prow was Bishop Colubra, with Louise the Larger twined about his arm in great shining coils.

“See!” Klep cried triumphantly. “The goddess has called and they come! Do you dare touch the goddess?”

The guards released Polly, recoiling in fear.

“Bishop! Karralys!” Polly raced to the shore.

Tynak was not far behind her.

The bishop and Karralys were dark silhouettes against the sky.

Polly splashed into the water, trying to drag the canoe to the shore. Tynak gestured, and Dark Swallow and Winter Frost pulled the canoe up onto the pebbly beach.

Suddenly the moon was obliterated by a black cloud which spread rapidly across the sky, blotting out the stars. The wind gusted, sending smoke guttering from the torches. Cries of fear and confusion came from the people.

“An omen!” Klep called. “Heed the omen!”

Karralys sprang from the canoe, then helped the bishop out. The old man’s legs were wobbly, and he leaned on the druid. Louise the Larger clung to him in tight coils. The healer came up to them, peering first at Karralys, then at the bishop, whose face was suddenly illuminated by a startling flash of lightning. It was followed almost immediately by thunder, rolling wildly between the two chains of mountains, those of the People of the Wind and those of the People Across the Lake.

Then the rain came, at first spattering in heavy drops into the water, onto the beach, the skins of the tents. Then it came in great sheets, almost as though the waters of the lake were rising to meet the rain clouds.

When Karralys and Tav had been blown by the storm to the People of the Wind, the rainbow had arched across the sky and been seen as an omen. Rain had been threatening for days and now it had come, but the People Across the Lake did not accept it as a natural result of clouds and wind patterns, a storm born of a cloud blown by a wind that veered around and came at them from the east, followed by downdrafts producing great charges of static electricity which birthed fierce bolts of lightning and roaring thunder. The storm was seen by the People Across the Lake as a wonder brought by the bishop and the snake, by Karralys and the dog, and by Polly, who had summoned them.

“To the tents!” Tynak cried, and people began to run, women gathering up their children, scurrying across the compound. Tynak held his face up to the rain, his mouth open, swallowing rain in great gulps.

The healer led the bishop to Polly’s lean-to, and she and Karralys followed.

“Oh, Bishop,” she cried. “Oh, Karralys, thank you. And you, too, Louise, Og. Oh, thank you.”

Klep was already soaked by the downpour, and Karralys helped the healer and Polly drag the young man to shelter.

Zachary was still huddled on the ground, the rain pelting down on him. Nobody seemed to notice him.

Polly looked at the bishop. Everybody was dripping rain. Louise the Larger had retired to the farthest corner of the lean-to. The lightning flashed again, hissing as it struck water. When the thunder came, she ran out to Zachary. “Zach. Get up. Come.”

“Let me die,” he moaned.

“Don’t be dramatic. Come on. It’s raining. There isn’t going to be any sacrifice.”

Zachary tried to burrow into the hard ground. “Let me alone.”

She pulled at him, but he was a dead weight and she could not move him. “Zach. Get up.”

Karralys was at her side. Between them they raised Zachary to his feet.

“Come on, Zach,” Polly urged. “Just get away from the lightning.” She flinched as it struck again, thunder roaring on top of it.

Karralys helped her drag Zachary to the lean-to. When they let him go, he fell to the ground and curled up in fetal position.

“Leave him be,” Bishop Colubra said gently.

The rain continued to sweep from the lake across the village. The lean-to was small protection, but the rain was warm. Lightning arrowed down, striking into the lake, onto the rocks of the shore. There was a horrible cracking sound, and then a crashing, which echoed as loud as the thunder.

“A tree,” Klep said. “The lightning has hit a tree.”

Slowly the storm moved off. Polly counted five beats between lightning flash and thunder, then ten. Then the lightning was only a general illuminating of the sky at the horizon; the thunder was only a distant rumbling.

Tynak came to them, holding his palms out to show that he was weaponless, and bowed to Karralys. Then to Polly. “You brought rain.” His voice was awed.

“No, Tynak. Rain came. I did not bring it.”

But there was no way she could make Tynak believe that the rain had not come because of her powers. Polly was a goddess who brought rain.

She did not like the role of goddess. “Bishop,” she implored.

The bishop was sitting on the pallet. The clouds had gone with the storm, and a flash of moonlight entered the lean-to and struck the topaz of his ring. “It is enough that the rain has come,” he said to Tynak. “We do not need to understand.”

“You are healer?” Tynak asked.

“Not as your healer is healer, or as Karralys. But that has been my aim, yes.”

Tynak looked at him, looked past him to Louise the Larger coiled in the shadows, then nodded at Karralys. “You will come?”

Karralys nodded. “Polly, too.”

“Where?” Polly asked.

“To hold council,” Karralys said. “It is meet.”

“Zachary—”

“Zachary will wait.” There was neither condemnation nor contempt in Karralys’s voice.

“Bishop Heron,” Karralys said, “it is fitting that you come, too.” He held out his hand to help the bishop to his feet.

“I go, too,” Klep announced. Klep had authority. Ultimately he would be the leader of the tribe. Winter Frost and Dark Swallow were summoned to help him.

“Klep,” Polly demurred, “you promised Anaral you’d be careful. This is going to be terribly hard on your leg.”

“I go,” Klep insisted.

There was still a tension of electricity in the air. Clouds were building up again, scudding past the brilliance of the moon so that light was followed by shadow, shadow by light, making strange patterns as they walked. When they reached the end of the path that led to the clearing, they were blocked. A great oak, the tree the lightning had struck, lay uprooted across the path. There was no way they could get across it to the clearing with the rock.

Karralys went to the felled tree, putting his hand on the enormous trunk. Og leaped up to stand at his side. Tynak drew back, but only slightly, standing his ground.

“This tree will do for our meeting place,” Karralys said.

“The goddess”—Tynak bowed toward Polly—“she has great and mysterious powers.”

“I am not—” Polly started, but Karralys raised his hand and she stopped.

Karralys’s eyes regarded her calmly, their blue bright as sapphires in the moonlight. “Polly, it is fitting that you tell Tynak the terms of our peace.”

She looked at him, totally unprepared. His face was serene. The stone in his torque burned like fire. She swallowed. Breathed. Swallowed.

Then she turned to Tynak. “There will be no more raiding. If you are hungry, if you need food, you will send Klep, when he can walk again, to speak with Karralys. The People of the Wind are people of peace. They will share what they have. They will show you how to irrigate so that your land will yield better crops. And if, at some time, they are in need, you will give to them. The People of theWind and the People Across the Lake are to live as one people.” She paused. Had he understood?

He stood beside Karralys, nodding, nodding.

She continued, “To seal this promise, and with Anaral’s consent, she and Klep will be”—there was no word for “marry” or “marriage”—“will be made one, to live together, to guard the peace. Klep?”

“That is my wish.” Klep’s smile was radiant.

Tynak stood looking at Polly, at Karralys, who was leaning against the fallen body of the great tree, at Klep held upright between Winter Frost and Dark Swallow.

Polly said, “These are our terms. Do you accept?”

“I accept.” Tynak suddenly seemed old.

“Klep?”

“I accept. Gladly. Anaral and I will seek to bring peace and healing to both sides of the lake.”

Polly felt a small nudge in her ribs. The healer was poking her. “Blood,” he said.

She nodded. She did not know why she understood what he meant, but she did, perhaps because of childhood stories about blood brothers and sisters. She took the gold knife the bishop had given Anaral, then opened the notebook to a fresh page. She flipped out the blade, which was bright and clean. Looked at Tynak. “Hold out your hand.”

Without question, he held his hand out to her. She took the knife and nicked the flesh of the ball of his middle finger, then squeezed it till a drop of blood appeared. This she smeared on the clean page of the notebook.

“Karralys?” He, too, without question, held out his hand, and she repeated the procedure, then blended the two drops of blood on the page.

“This is the seal and sign of our terms of peace.” She took the page, then reached for the scissors and carefully cut the page in half, so that there was mingled blood on each piece of paper. One piece she handed to Karralys, the other to Tynak. Then she took the cut sketch of Tynak and handed him one half and gave the other to Karralys. “This is the sign that you will never break the peace. If you do, Karralys has your power.”

Again Tynak clutched his chest as though in pain.

“Karralys will never hurt you,” Polly said. “Only you can hurt yourself.” She felt infinitely weary. “I would like to go now. Back across the lake.”

The healer nudged her. “Zak.”

She was too tired to think of Zachary. “What?”

The bishop reminded her. “There is the matter of Zachary.”

She leaned against the fallen tree. She was too tired even to stand any longer.

The bishop continued, “You came back here to the People Across the Lake because of Zachary. However, you can forget about him now if you wish.”

“Can I? Oh, Bishop, can I?” She never wanted to think of Zachary again. But she pushed away from the fallen tree. “We’ll go back to him. I suppose he’s still in the lean-to.”

The procession moved back toward the village, Winter Frost and Black Swallow supporting Klep so that he could hop without any strain to his injured leg. People were beginning to emerge from their tents. The air, cleansed by the storm, felt fresh and fragrant. Now they looked at Polly with wondering awe.

Zachary was still huddled under the lean-to. She knelt down beside him, put her hand to his cheek, turning him so that she could look into his eyes.

He squeezed his eyelids tight.

She turned to the bishop. “I think he’s decompensated,” she said. “I mean, I think he’s beyond us.”

“No,” Bishop Colubra said. “Never say that, Polly.”

The healer knelt on Zachary’s other side.

Zachary whimpered.

The bishop said, “Often an alcoholic can start to recover only when he’s gone all the way to the bottom. When there’s no place to go but up. Zachary’s self centeredness was an addiction just as deadly as alcoholism.” He bent over the stricken young man. “Open your eyes.” It was a stern command.

Zachary’s eyelids flickered.

“Sit up,” the bishop ordered. “You are not beyond redemption, Zachary.”

Zachary moaned, “I was willing to let Polly die.”

“But not when it came down to it, Zach!” Polly cried. “You tried to stop them.”

“But it was too late.” Tears gushed out.

“Look at me! I’m here! There will be no sacrifice!”

Now his terrified gaze met hers. “You’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He sat up. “I’ll die if it will help you, I will, I will.”

“You don’t need to, Zach. There is peace now on both sides of the lake.”