The Birthgrave (28 page)

“Wake!” I screamed at them. “Wake—an enemy is coming!”

It was the most ancient of cries; the flamelight crackled and lit up patches of the hall with red, yet nothing stirred. Men lay slumped, sleeping it seemed. Yet the branch glared on their open eyes. They smiled drowsily at my shouted words.

No use here. I ran to the leather door curtain, went out, and let it fall behind me. I stood still in the moon-obscured blackness, staring out at blackness, holding up the burning tree's-finger. Soon they came, not so quiet now. Thud of horse hooves, harness sound. My brand, not the moon, bit silver out of their dark shape. Now they were only fifteen feet away from me.

I did not know why, but I called out to them in the Old Tongue of the Lost, the single word:

“Trorr!”

And they halted as I commanded, and stayed still. Then a man at their head—their captain, I thought—detached himself and rode a little nearer to me. On his right arm a thick bracelet of twisted black and gold metals in the shape of knotted snakes. Through the skull-holes of his mask I could see no eyes, for they were covered by black glass.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a deep, cold voice. It was not the Old Tongue he used but something as close to it as I had heard in the living world.

“I am Uasti,” I said, speaking in the strange mid-language he had uttered, “and you come to carry away the people in my care.”

When I spoke the name I had taken, a little rustle of movement went over them, but quieted quickly.

“Stand aside,” the skull captain said. He dismounted and came toward me with a slow menacing stride, hands resting loosely on the ten bright-hilted knives at his hips.

I stayed quite still until he was very close, then I dropped to my knees before the door, in an attitude of supplication, still holding the blazing branch in my right hand.

“Lord,” I began, “I beseech you . . .” and caught at his belt.

He swore at me, cuffed me aside, and strode forward to the curtain. Yet, as I fell, the knife I had put my hand on dragged from its sheath.

I stood up. He was reaching for the leather.

“No farther,” I said.

He took no notice, and I threw the knife into his back, neatly, so that the blade pierced straight through the heart. He uttered a brief, surprised curse, and dropped on his face, his head going under the curtain hem so that only his trunk and limbs remained outside.

Confused yells, followed by sudden activity. Spears flew toward me. I dropped down, and they clattered harmlessly on the stone blocks of the hall, one only finding a mark in the hardened mud. But they were off their horses now, men with drawn, ice-pale swords, running at me, howling their anger.

Incongruously, it occurred to me that this was more than mere aggression—it was emotion. Their captain must have been popular among them.

I was confused. It seemed I was with Darak. I flung the blazing branch in the faces of the two men who reached me first, and, as they reeled and spat with pain, grabbed both the swords from their hands. One blade cut my palm almost to the bone as I took it, and the blood made it slippery and difficult to wield.

Still, I gave them some trouble.

The worst thing was my woman's dress—I had almost forgotten it, and so it hampered me with surprise as well as cloth. In the end, tangled in it, covered in their blood and mine, the skull-men closed on me, and I took my death wound.

I scarcely felt the pain, only a great numbness. The light and blackness ran together. The moon floated like a bulbous, pallid growth on the face of the sky, then darkened, and went out.

1

S
O I DID
not see them take the wagoners. For some days I did not see anything at all, except things in a fever dream, best forgotten.

I suppose it was two or three days I lay dead, if it can be called death when all the time the death wound is healing itself. I woke finally in great pain and very weak, in a place of oppressive darkness. I thought for a while I had returned beneath the Mountain, and must start again. Then the raw stench of bruised earth penetrated to me, and I understood. I was in the ground where the Dark People had buried me. Not so strange—like many primitive groups, they feared the hauntings of the unpropitiated dead. There were even a few dried-up fruits and a clay bowl of milk set down beside me, and they had left me my clothes and the shireen, and put a black cloth over my face. Luckily the soil was so dry and scattery it had not put much weight on me and left me air to breathe, and it was a shallow grave, for they had little time for me despite their spiritual fears. Nevertheless it took me a long time to tear and scrabble my way free, and, in my sickness, I knew all manner of terrors—that I would truly die, that I would never reach the surface, that perhaps I was dead after all, and this some sort of morbid fantasy. But in the end the ground gave way above and around me, falling onto me, into my mouth and eyes, and I crawled upward into the cleanness of a gray day. I fell on the earth weeping, and could not move again until the sun was a low purple on the horizon.

Then I sat and looked around me. I was some way from the steading; I could just make out the rock walls, the trees, and a drift of cook smoke going up beyond. Near, there was something more interesting—a patch of yellowish grassland, where three or four scraggy, bony horses were nibbling frustratedly.

In the lavender twilight I dragged myself toward this place, and reached the fence and gate just as a young boy was coming to bring the animals into the steading. He took one white-faced look at me, then turned and flew away, shrieking in fear. Small wonder—I had been a corpse, and behind me now gaped the uprooted grave; I was gray with dust and dirt, my hands covered in blood from my torn nails, my hair matted, stuck with clay, white and terrifying as the quills of some strange beast: a ghost, an undead. The horses, too, shied away from me, but I got one by its straggling rough mane. The effort it took me to swing onto its back drained the last of my strength. I leaned forward across its neck, kicked its sides lightly, and it started forward at a frightened gallop.

I did not think they would follow.

* * *

There was a road—paved stone, the blocks irregular now, pushed up in places, sunken in others.

The first part of the ride had passed in a sick dream. Now it was moonlight-dark, the black and white world of the desert night.

I was a long way from the steading, and wondered why the horse had taken itself in this direction. It occurred to me later that probably the steaders would ride this way from time to time, and the horse, responding to the familiar kick, had started off to it accordingly. There seemed no point in altering its course.

I straightened, and looked around and ahead of me.

Desolation.

A flat landscape, occasional stark rock stacks, short and squat and crumbling. And the ancient road, so like the Lforn Kl Javhovor I had traveled with Darak. Ahead, the desert and the road repeated themselves across the land, tireless and monotonous. The moon burned white holes through my eyes.

* * *

I thought then I did not know why I let the horse take me along that ancient Road, but I think, perhaps, I did. Toward dawn, I began to feel the pull. A fish, dragged shoreward in the cruel net, cannot have felt more helpless. Yet I had no fish's terror. I was glad to be drawn, to be pulled; excited, elated, joyous. A new strength ran into me, hardened and warmed me. I sat very straight, and slapped the horse with the flat of my hand. It had been trotting for some time, now it ran forward again, very fast and sure on the rotten paving.

Overhead, the sky was melting into grayness, the stars dissolving like salt cast on water. In the east, almost at my back, golden cracks were splintering the cloud.

I did not see it for a long while, the light behind me, the sky indigo ahead. But then the sun broke free and struck on it, and I saw very well what I was hurrying to. About two miles away, the ground began to rise upward, and the paved road became a wide causeway, some fifty feet above the surrounding barrenness. A mile beyond that, two great pillars stood up on either side, made of dark stone, and the paving seemed reinforced and level. Beyond those, about five miles from me, the monotonous land had erupted into a great cliff, flat-topped and black as blindness. On the cliffs summit stood the City.

It too was black, but the gleaming black of basalt and marble. The rearing spires and many-terraced roofs caught the sun like mirrors.

I held the horse still, and stared at it, breathing quickly. How old was the City? Old enough. It had stood in
their
time; they, the Old Ones, had been the builders of it, through the medium of their human slaves. There was no repulsion in me, no fear. Only the need to be there among the glittering darknesses.

The horse leaped under my hands and feet, and rushed forward toward the causeway.

* * *

I had no thought I would see them on the road, but I had forgotten that many chained men move more slowly than a single rider, however hard they are flogged.

It had been a fast ride—the paving even underfoot. Between the dark pillars, very tall, crowned with the carvings of flames and phoenixes picked out in gold. The light was full and harshly bright now. Abruptly I saw the crawling shape ahead, a mile away, the black riders and the stumbling men, linked together by dull metal. The captive wagoners and the band that had come for them, the men with swords who had stabbed me in the heart, which to them meant death.

I kicked the horse, and it ran forward again. Its pace tended to slacken whenever I ignored it. The air sang, and the shapes of the desert rushed by. The unpleasant procession in front drew nearer and nearer.

Three black soldiers, riding at the back, heard me first. They turned swiftly, and the sun ignited whitely on their silver skull-masks. One let out a startled cry. They floundered their horses around in confusion, drawing their swords. But it was an impotent gesture. Had they not killed me once before? The halting rhythm of the march broke up entirely. The captives' gray faces turning, men grunting in despair, surprise, pain. The useless flick of the whips even now. Then twenty of the black soldiers riding back to confront me, one of them seeming to be their new captain, the thick armlet of twisted black and golden metals on his right arm now.

I reined the horse in, and sat looking at them. They were faceless, yet so was I. Thirty men in all, and I was not afraid. I felt only contempt. They and I knew how little was the damage they could do me.

The silence lasted a long while. Then one of them broke out breathlessly: “She was dead—Mazlek killed her. I saw the blade go in through her left breast—she fell.”

“Yes,” another added urgently. “Mazlek, then my own blade. I put it in her belly. She was lying in her own blood. She didn't move. Still lying there at dawn when we took them out of the hall. She was
dead.
”

“Be silent!” the new captain roared. His voice was iron, but he was afraid like all the rest. “You were mistaken.”

“They were not mistaken,” I said to him quite softly. “Your men killed me, and the steaders buried me. But now I am here, and I am whole, and I am alive. These people you have in chains are mine. Where are you taking them?”

“To the citadel,” their captain said, “to serve as soldiers in the war, under the Javhovor of Ezlann, the great city ahead of you. This is no business of yours.”

At their use of the ancient tongue, the ancient title, I was filled with fury. I knew they were not of the Old Race, though they strove so hard to emulate them.

“Who is this
man
that dares to carry the name of High-Lord? Are you his?”

An incredible sensation of Power came with the anger. I felt them shrivel before it.

“We are soldiers of the High Commander of the Javhovor,” the captain said hoarsely. “You see our strength. Turn back and we will not harm you.”

“Harm?” I said. “Will you kill me again?”

There was a new silence. The dry desert wind hissed by.

“Let go these men you have taken,” I said, “or I will kill them, one by one, before you. They are mine. Either Death or I will have them, not you or your lord.”

“If you're their witch, you seem to care little enough for them. Better a chance of life in the war than death, here and now.”

“They mean nothing to me,” I said, “but they are mine. Either Death or I will have them.” And it was true. I felt no compulsion, only great anger and great Power.

The captain cleared his throat. With a mailed fist he struck the dagger hilt in his belt.

“The woman is mad,” he said. “She has no weapon. Let the desert deal with her. Turn!” he shouted. The men wheeled. And waited, their backs to me, uneasy. “On!” the captain called. Dust clouded up under the metal-shod hooves, the dragging feet and chains.

A white heat rose from my belly and filled my brain. I felt my skull would split open if I could not let it free. A blinding white pain gushed from my eyes. My hands clenched into knots of agony and fury. I stretched them above my head, I rose in the stirrups, my whole body arched and straining as I screamed after them the single word.

A jagged sheet of numbed color flared on the causeway. Horses shrilled and reared. The ground rumbled and shook. Thunder and cold heat eclipsed the world.

Only my horse stayed still, a rock beneath me. The pain had gone out of me, leaving me weak, trembling and sick. I straightened myself with an effort, and opened my eyes, which instantly ran water and would not focus. The black soldiers and their horses were in chaos, men thrown, animal bodies lurching and kicking. The wagon men had toppled in neat rows among their chains. Their skin seemed drained of all color, and a sort of silver deposit, fine as dawn frost, lay over them and the ground about them. They were all quite dead.

I was near to vomiting, giddy and ill. It took me a while to notice that the black men had fallen on their knees on the causeway, dragging off their skull-masks to reveal arrogant, well-set features and silver-pale hair. The captain approached me very slowly, a handsome man, his face, like the rest, cruel and cold, but now stripped naked like the rest.

“Forgive us,” he said, kneeling in the dust before me. “We have waited long for you. So long, we have grown unthinking.” And then he spoke my name, the healer's name I thought at first, and then I knew the difference, for he repeated it over and over, a sibilant hissing word, the “U” softened now to the “O” sound of the Old Tongue. “Forgive us, Uastis, goddess, Great One, forgive us, who have erred, Uastis, goddess. . . .”

2

It is difficult now to explain that I felt at that time no anguish or remorse of any kind at what I had done. There can be no atonement made now in words. Yet the murder had brought its own punishment. As if in the throes of some violent illness, I swung in my saddle, sick, half-blind, half-deaf, shaking uncontrollably, my body running, my clothes and hair dank with icy sweat. But still the sense of Power; no defeat. This was only a temporary disorder. The black soldiers flanked me, once more masked. The dead wagoners they had left for whatever predatory life might exist in this barren place.

The wind whistled.

We did not ascend the farthest stretch of the causeway which led upward to the burning black gates of Ezlann, the Dark One. Instead there was a rock shelf, wide enough to take five men riding abreast, which ran away around the body of the cliff. Finally, a gaping arch-mouth, dim greenish torchlight in the walls, a ramp sloping down, then upward. In places there were iron gates with a mechanism that responded to certain pressures from the armlet of twisted metals. All this I saw, but did not question until much later. The last gate was not iron but water, a curtain of it, but they could control that too, it seemed, for great slabs closed over above our heads, and shut it off until we were through.

I sensed we were now in the City, yet still underground. Black man-hewn passages, half-lit. Then a new light, cold and gray, under the open sky. We emerged into a circular courtyard, ringed by a black wall and black gleaming columns. One break in the wall, a meandering white stone avenue, flanked by towering dark green cedar trees; beyond, on either side, the bluish vistas of gardens. We rode between the cedars, where black marble statues stood, men and women, entwined with animals and birds, light sliding and oozing on their frozen flesh. And then, the last turn, and ahead, the palace of the Javhovor's High Commander. It was built like one single tower, stretching up and up, narrowing by design and also with perspective, ten stories high. Steps led to it, white, veined with black and scarlet. In the first section stood a succession of vast rounded archways filled with doors that seemed to be made of many-colored crystal. The pattern of those doors was repeated in the subsequent sections of the tower, this time as long windows. Fires seemed to come and go in the rainbow-shot glass—violet and emerald, mauve, rose, lavender, and gold. Shining drops of color spilled over the steps, and on our bodies.

All this I saw in confusion then. This new landscape seemed surreal. Now my escort was at a loss, torn between their military duty to their commander, and their new, spiritual duty toward me. Their captain and three others conducted me inside. I do not remember much of this. There was great beauty all around me, but I needed every atom of my strength to hold myself on my feet and could spare none to observe. I think I fell into a dull sleep-trance, and only woke when I heard the irritated, derisive voice strike into their reverence and my silence like a knife.