Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (38 page)

After a few moments, Diun shook her head. “You are my other side,” Diun said. “My other half. My lesser one, perhaps....but what should that matter? Don’t you want to be complete, and whole?  Your whole life, you have been becoming me...if only in small. Huntress and archeress, maiden and free, the one who speaks to the wind and lightning, and is answered. What else could be better?  What else could you want to be?”

Mariarta blinked, feeling her eyes filling with tears—strange though it was. There was something pitiful in Diun’s voice and manner, and she found herself wondering whether having a goddess’s power for thousands upon thousands of years might not make one forget what it was good for. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that you might not know?” Mariarta said. “Don’t you want your creation to, what was it, ‘say the thing you never thought of’?  Can’t you see that’s what I’m doing?”

Diun’s expression was strange.  “It had not occurred to me,” she said softly. “What
is
it you want?”

“Help,” Mariarta said, “for the people I’m working with. Our rulers have turned cruel. We must be rid of them. We need our freedom: and to help that happen, I need the power to answer me reliably. As it stands, it can’t be trusted. That was your idea, of course....”

Diun looked wry. “War was always one of the great reasons we were called upon: hardly ‘the word I never thought of’. Oh, God, make us right, and be on our side!—that’s the cry. It hasn’t changed, I see.”

“We don’t need to be made right,” Mariarta said, getting angry again. “Is it wrong to want to live in peace, as free men, without having to suffer tyrants?”

“You say their words nicely,” Diun said, “but there must be more to it than that, to interest me. This talk of freedom, and tyrants: you think I haven’t heard it before?”

Mariarta stood still, gazing at a widening vista of memory in the back of her mind: the goddess’s memory, partially hers now. Long, dark, beaked ships, drawn up in a small bay, defying a vast armament of ships glittering in purple and gold. “A long time ago now,” Diun said, sorrow in her voice. “It lasted a while, that image of freedom. They triumphed briefly: and for that time, there was no people in the world like them. But they forgot what they had fought for, and became the tyrants themselves. The very word comes from their tongue. Can you be sure the same won’t happen to you?”

“Can you be sure it will?” Mariarta said. “And because it happened that way once, does it have to happen that way again?  I thought you wanted to go out in the world and live, see new things. Why bother, if you’re so convinced already that nothing new can be?”

Diun regarded her, silent. “There’s more,” Mariarta said. “Who have I ever been, until now, but a crippled you?—as you say. Now, knowing these people, making common cause with them, for the first time I’m something else besides the archeress, the huntress, the strange one. What they do matters!  For the first time, I’m becoming something besides what you made me. How should I not want that?  How should
you
not, if what you’re saying is true?”

Diun was gazing past her, out the door; that sorrowful look again. “The world matters,” Mariarta said. “You’ve forgotten how much it matters!  You’ve been away too long.”

Mariarta went to stand beside Diun. “Look,” Mariarta said. “Meet me halfway, lady. You want to come out into the world?  I’ll carry you there, let you taste it through my life. Let you see again how much it matters.”

“There is the business of my worship—” the goddess said slowly.

“For the time being,” Mariarta said, “leave that to me. What’s worship, as you say, but being spoken to with respect?  I think I can manage that. As for the rest—” It was her turn to shrug. “Perhaps you’ll earn it.”

The power that lives behind the lightning flared briefly in Diun’s eyes. Mariarta caught her breath. But Diun, after a moment, averted her glance. “I will do what you wish...sometimes,” Mariarta said. “In return—I want your wisdom, your counsel. Your aim. And the lightning and the wind.”

“Sometimes,” Diun said.

“They are not to be withheld without good reason,” Mariarta said. “Betray me, and you’ll swiftly find yourself without a hostess. Back here—trapped in this lovely timelessness—no chance ever to get out until the world’s over with, and everything becomes moot.” Mariarta swallowed, trying to keep her own composure in the face of the goddess’s own images of such an eternity.

“And immortality,” Diun said, watching Mariarta closely. “I cannot make you invulnerable: but ever youthful, and proof against death by disease and age, that you must be.”

Mariarta frowned. “I don’t know—”

“Sister-daughter, trust me in this at least,” the goddess said. “Those who have gods inside them burn out swiftly without the limited immortality that keeps their bodies safe. You’ve borne the power that’s been in you only because it was much diluted: no
tschalarera
has the strength that I their original have. Refuse my gift, and you may save your friends, but you’ll live to do little else.”

Mariarta frowned at that. “Trust you...” she said. “Well...I suppose we must start somewhere. So be it.”

Diun shook her head, smiling. Mariarta was perplexed. “Oh, the bargain will suit,” Diun said, and laughed. “But what a world I come into, where mortals will dictate terms to gods, and get away with it!  I look forward to teaching them how matters ran in older days....”

“Come, then,” Mariarta said. “How will we seal this bargain?  If we swear, what do gods swear by?”

Diun sat upright, reached off to one side for the bow that was the moon, upended it and undid the bowstring. The length of it, like a wire of light, sizzled with small lightnings as Diun pulled it free and wrapped one end of it around her left wrist.

“Our old oath is void,” Diun said. “The One’s child bridged that river. Now there is only my power to swear by: and that passes to you.” She held out the other end of the bright bowstring to Mariarta.

Mariarta took it. It stung like nettles, and made her hand shake, but made little feeling of heat—though the lightning-smell clung close as she wrapped the bowstring around her left wrist as well.

“Now we become one, as it was done in the ancient day,” said Diun: “I am in you, and my power is yours, until death frees you or your own will gives you to me utterly. And you are in me, mortal in immortal, as it was also done anciently—” Mariarta’s senses began to swim. She blinked and staggered, and Diun, standing, reached out and steadied her. Mariarta cried out at the touch, for she felt it from both sides, as if it were she who touched and steadied. And there was a burning about it, like the bowstring’s, but more intimate, more terrible—  “—together in Me,” Diun whispered, her voice trembling as she drew Mariarta close, “one until time’s end—”

Their lips met. The roar of wind was there, the crash of the lightning: a flush like fire passed through Mariarta and left her shaking as if with terrible cold. She ached and burned, but the burning was estatic, as if her blood ran fire, and her skin and eyes blazed from within. Mariarta staggered, wavered to one side, blundering into Grugni;  he braced himself and held her against his side with his head until she could see.

Mariarta pushed herself away from him, stared around her. Diun was gone.

Hardly,
  said that voice from inside her, like her own thought.
Come!  Let us go see this world you promised me.

“In a moment,” Mariarta said. She glanced toward the couch: the bow was gone.

Not quite,
  said Diun inside her. The goddess turned Mariarta and walked her to Grugni and his pack. It was an odd feeling, frightening at first, and Mariarta was determined that she would feel it no more than she had to.

But her hands worked at the fastenings, and brought out the crossbow.
I have been wanting to see one of these,
  Diun said, much interested.
It’s as I thought—
  Mariarta blinked at the wood of the bowstock. It had a silvery sheen about it; not plain moonlight, but a hint that it was there when needed.

I would hardly leave without
that,  Diun said, amused.
It will be needed later. But, quickly, come!  There are other ways out of here than the one you came.

“I should hope so,” Mariarta said. She patted Grugni, which was looking at her thoughtfully. “Well, old friend?” she said.

Grugni grunted, nosed Mariarta in the old affectionate manner, and made for the door.

Inside her, Diun laughed, the laugh of a young girl set free of her chores and about to go on holiday. Mariarta, who had never had a holiday, smiled wryly and went after Grugni, out into the moonlight: alone, and in company...possibly forever.

L’aura ei il meglier luvrer.

The weather is the best worker.

(old folk saying)

They came out into warm wind, the noise of melting water running hard to the rivers, the sky that paler blue of gentling weather: spring. Standing at the mouth of the valley above Fiesch, hearing the merry crash of the melt-water racing toward the town’s mill-wheels, Mariarta was horrified.

“How long did you keep me in there!” she whispered. “I knew I shouldn’t have drunk that wine!”

Inside her, she felt eyebrows raised in great unconcern.
You were outside time, as I told you,
  Diun Glinargiun said.
The wine had nothing to do with it.

“But what year is it?  Are the people who need me even alive any more?!”

Better find out,
  said Diun, and laughed.

“Come on,” Mariarta said to Grugni. They rode down the Fieschertal as far as the crags above the town, where Mariarta left Grugni. He went off to browse, and with some trepidation Mariarta took her pack and walked into the village.

People stared at her as she came, and there was recognition in the stares; that at least was a relief. Her worry kept being broken, though, by Diun’s wondering exclamations at everything she saw: the town’s wooden mill, the way house-eaves were carved, the stone fountain in the street where women were doing the washing.
One would think you’d never seen a village before,
  Mariarta thought.

Diun didn’t answer, but there was the sound of laughter again, delighted laughter like a child’s. Mariarta smiled, resigned, and made her way to the town’s inn. At its door the innkeeper met her, half in tears, but laughing too, and took her by the hands. “Why, where have you been all the winter?” the woman cried. “We thought you would come back to tell us you were alive, at least!”

Only one winter,
  Mariarta thought, 
thank God!
 

Indeed!
  Glinargiun said, indignant.

“Alive, yes,” Mariarta said, “and thankful for it. No, I can’t stay: I’m in haste eastward. Ah, no—!”

The innkeeper pulled Mariarta inside, and gave her morning porridge, and scolded her for even thinking of going on. By the time the porridge-bowl was clean, Mariarta was surrounded by half the village, all waiting to hear her tale.

What am I going to tell them?
  Mariarta thought desperately.

The truth, for all I care,
  Diun said, lazy-sounding.
But they clearly expect a tale of some kind, and I for one will be interested to hear what you invent....

Mariarta was no tale-spinner, so she told them the truth—as far as the marble house on the hill, and the opening of its door. Then, for all the expectant faces, she reached into her pack and brought out the old statue. The townspeople were awed. “I keep it with me,” Mariarta said, “and it guides me....” It was falsely true, and the townspeople stared at the statue, and looked relieved when Mariarta put it away.

“And after you came out of the mountain?” the innkeeper’s husband said.

“The weather was bad on the other side,” Mariarta said. “I had to stay a long time until I could cross back....”

“It’s true,” the innkeeper’s husband said, “there was terrible weather all winter. Great blizzards came, one after another, with lightnings in them. There haven’t been such storms of snow and thunder together in a long while....”

Your doing?
  Mariarta thought, rather severely, to Diun.

Not on purpose. But my surroundings echo my emotions. I was...annoyed, once or twice.

“I missed the worst of the weather,” Mariarta said. “But I must make my way quickly to the lake countries. Have you heard any news from there?”

“We only heard that their weather was as bad as ours.”

Mariarta nodded. It took an hour’s worth of thanking to get free and out onto the eastward-leading road. Grugni was waiting for her there.

When they were on their way, Diun said, 
They speak an uncouth tongue.

“Northern,” Mariarta said. “Our people call it
tudestg
, but the its own name for itself is
deutsche
. I know it well enough...”

But you don’t like it.

“It’s the oppressors’ tongue,” Mariarta said. “Anyone who doesn’t speak it is suspect, to them. Either a rebel, or a backward peasant.”

Diun laughed.
When the tongue you speak is the child of the one spoken by the mightiest empire in the world as yet,
  she said, 
and their upstart language is just another offshoot of the one Thor’s scattered children speak. How odd the world becomes....

“You don’t know the half of it,” Mariarta said. “But you’ll find out soon enough.” She nudged the stag; he trotted into the woodland, making north and east for the Furka pass, and Realp, and after that, Altdorf.

•

It was a two days’ ride this time, for the weather in the Furka pass lay calm before them.
Even swaddled in flesh like this, I can manage that much,
  Diun said scornfully.
Though most of the power has passed to you now. You had best start practicing: you may find the wind more amenable to your requests than it has been....

Mariarta took this advice, finding that the goddess was right. All by herself Mariarta cleared the sky, leaving them in warm sunlight as they climbed, even though the weather had had other plans, and had been thinking of snow. “The doing is easier,” Mariarta said to Diun, gasping as Grugni carried her up the pass road. “But my body seems to be complaining more afterwards...”

Because the power is fully seated within you,
  Diun said.
Don’t be misled by the complaints. I
am
you now, and you
are
the weather’s mistress, if you’ll just know yourself so: all the winds are in your hand...if you’ll only believe. Not that the weather doesn’t hold firm opinions of its own!  It was made to do so. Who wants to have to manage it
all
the time?  But know who gave it the power to have those opinions in the first place.
The smile inside her was smug.
And then change the opinions as you like.

“It’s just hard to believe....” Mariarta said. “After so long....”

It’s hard to believe anyone would jump into a crevasse in a glacier on a whim, either, but you seem to have managed.
Diun was wry.
Keep at it. Or give up now, and let me manage it—

Mariarta had her own ideas about
that
. Let the goddess become better than Mariarta at managing her power from within Mariarta’s body, and who knew what might follow? 

Soft laughter echoed inside her. Mariarta set her teeth, and rode.

They came to Realp. The innkeeper told her that Theo had set out for the forest countries some weeks after Mariarta left. No word had come from him since, and no one expected any with the weather they’d had.... Mariarta thanked him, staying only the night, and rode on.

The next afternoon Mariarta rode down into the Ursera valley, within sight of Andermatt. She thought longingly of the Treis Retgs, of warmth and roast chicken and a bed with straw recently changed. But at the same time she felt uneasy, and wanted, irrationally, to hurry south.

Not my doing,
  Diun said from inside her.
That is god-knowing you feel. Ignore it at your peril: it’s seldom wrong.

“What does it mean?” Mariarta said, looking at the town.

The goddess laughed.
In all the gods’ time of owning it, even we never knew. It never gives reasons, only warnings. At any rate, I would listen, if I were you...

Mariarta laughed. “You
are
me!” She nudged Grugni northward, along the far side of the Reuss, and over the Devil’s Bridge.

After the Bridge, Grugni took to the heights. They passed Göschenen around nightfall, but once again, Mariarta felt reluctant to stop. They went northward still, in the brief light of a moon growing toward first quarter. The sight of the narrow valleys on the west side of the river, and of the tiny towns, made Mariarta smile, for the memory of the Knight’s son of Attinghausen was wound up with them—that smile of his, the way he mispronounced the villages’ names. All the memories of that journey with a knight and a bullcalf came back to be considered, and Glinargiun, at the back of Mariarta’s mind, might look cool and scornful as she pleased: Mariarta didn’t care.

Two hours before midnight, Diun said, 
If you drive your body like this all the time, it won’t last you long, immortality or not—

“Something’s going to happen,” Mariarta said. They were looking toward Ried village from the slope of the Rainen hill across the river.

What?
  said the goddess.

Mariarta thought about that, and found she hadn’t the slightest idea. “Something. We mustn’t be late for it...that’s all I can tell.”

Diun shrugged.
We should stop, nonetheless,
  she said.
If something’s going to happen, we—you—must be fit for it.

Mariarta consulted that niggling feeling and won from it a grudging agreement that it would be all right to stop here for the night. She dismounted and undid her pack and Grugni’s saddle, stowing it as usual in the lower branches of a handy tree. Grugni nudged her, then strolled off into the woods to browse and sleep. Mariarta shouldered her pack and walked down to Ried.

At the inn she found everything so quiet that she began to distrust the niggling feeling, no matter what Diun might say. No one had come north from the pass for some weeks, the innkeeper told her: the bad weather was just now breaking, and the first
föhn
was melting the snows in the high country. Mariarta steered the conversation to how sales were in the markets, in Altdorf for example?—and got what she had been hoping for: news that the bad weather had kept even the bailiffs and
vogten
quiet that winter. “Especially,” the innkeeper said, lowering his voice, “after that night they had at the Axenstein last year. Did you hear about that?  Seems Gessler and some of the
vogten
made a plan to take some of the chief men hereabouts and stuff them into Kussnacht, or Hell maybe. Thought they’d be there by the mountain together one night. Well, no one knows where they were, but the
vogten
’s soldiers were in the Axenstein right enough, and an avalanche came off the mountain and killed the lot. People say it’s God’s punishment on them for these stealings and house-burnings and people’s eyes being put out. Wickedness it is, a good thing they’re punished for it—”

Mariarta could feel Diun, inside her, smiling with grim approval. “If they’ve been quiet,” Mariarta said to the innkeeper, “it could mean they’re planning....”

The innkeeper put his finger by his nose. “There may be others who’re planning too,” he said, taking the empty pitcher away.

Mariarta grew thoughtful. This time last year, it would have been an incautious man who spoke out loud to a stranger of the wickedness of governors and bailiffs. If this man was typical, then things had changed. Something might be about to happen....

Something is,
  Diun said, 
or so you tell me.

Mariarta was out of the inn early, and met Grugni in the woods on the Rainen hill. He danced about uneasily as Mariarta got the saddle back on. “What ails you?” she said, after his shifting from foot to foot made her fumble the girth-fastening for the third time.

The stag lowered his head to look into her eyes, and moaned, that uncertain sound that Mariarta had learned meant trouble. Inside her, Diun took note.
They have senses neither gods nor mortals have: that’s the One’s gift to them. Something else it’s wise to pay mind to.

“That I knew already.” Mariarta mounted and made sure her bow was well stowed in her bag. Things might have changed in Altdorf...but it would be unwise to assume so without making sure.

An hour past dawn they forded the Bristenlobel stream and passed through the woods above Amsteg. By mid-morning, across the wide green fields on either side of the Reuss, Mariarta could see the rock of Schweinberg mountain, and Attinghausen castle cut sharp against a fair blue sky. “Now then,” she said to Grugni, “you go where where you went the last time, and have a good feed. I’ll be in town tonight.”

Grugni put his head against Mariarta’s, nuzzling her. He trotted up the meadow toward the Stockberg, looking back several times as he went.

Mariarta walked northward, pausing as she crossed the Schachen bridge. The town seemed peaceful—smoke rising from its chimneys as the noonmeal was got ready, a normal-looking traffic of people and carts and animals on the road’s far side.

Slowly Mariarta went into Altdorf. Within her, Diun Glinargiun gazed at everything, turning Mariarta’s head every now and then to look more carefully at a roof-cornice, a carving on a street-fountain, a woman’s face staring out a window.
You’ll make me look like a hick just in from the country,
  Mariarta thought reprovingly, 
when everyone here knows I’ve been here plenty of times....

Uncaring, Diun smiled at Mariarta from the bottom of her soul.
I shall look while I have a chance.