The Birthgrave (9 page)

A man roared, and Maggur flung himself at them seemingly from out of nowhere. I glimpsed Giltt. Little Kel was there too, or his arrow. A guard jumped forward from his saddle, and fell near me, the flight just showing between his shoulder blades. But Maggur was spinning down also, out of sight, and the two remaining blacknesses had reached and caught my arms.

I was lifted up by them, carried backward between them very fast, across the river. I was aware that they would half stun me on the nearest tree, then finish me as slowly as they had time for. It pleased them to do this to me, perhaps because I had killed some friend of theirs—if such men had friends or lovers.

But then a shock went through them. I looked up and saw Darak behind us. Both his knives had gone, flung one into the back of each of my captors. They toppled and their grip was still tight on me. I thought I should be torn in two, but the grasp lessened at the last second, and I fell backward into the water with them.

Darak leaned over me and lifted me up.

“Both your knives are gone,” I said. It had seemed foolish of him to let go both of them to save me.

“The fight's over,” he said.

I stared around me, and it was true.

“Maggur,” I said. “He came at them, and fell—”

Darak's hand came swift and fast across my face. I stumbled and he caught my belt to steady me.

“I came at them, too, bitch. Thank me for it.”

“I thank you,” I said.

I picked my way among the debris in the river, past him, back to the bank.

* * *

They cleared the bodies from the water and burned them, then organized the stuff in the wagons. I did not see any of this. Kel and I sat together in the shade, under a leather awning, where Maggur lay. Of the bandits only four were dead, but one of them was Giltt. My attackers had managed it as he ran at them, and I had not even seen them do it. Other wounds were few and not serious. Only Maggur had been badly hurt.

“There was a fourth one, Imma—he swung at Maggur from the back with an iron club they carry. I got him too, after.”

I had wiped the blood away and cleaned the deep cut, and the skull seemed whole under my fingers, but Maggur did not wake up, and I could sense a sort of death on him.

We sat a long while, Kel and I. Then he said: “Imma—can't you . . . ?”

“What?”

“They said you're a healer.”

A little bright shock went through my brain.

“You think I can save Maggur?” I asked softly.

“Of course.”

There was no doubt in his face.

* * *

There was mist in the morning, and Darak came.

He glanced at Kel asleep, and Maggur sleeping too, healthily and deeply.

“Today we are merchants,” he said. “We go on to the South Road, protected by our skull-guard, of course. The bandits are rife hereabouts they tell me.”

His voice was light, his face cold.

Suddenly he said to me: “Is that brute your lover?”

“Kel?”

“No. The other one.”

“No,” I said. “Except he loves me a little.”

Darak's mouth was set and sneering. “Of course, goddess.”

He bowed to me.

There was no one near to see. Kel and Maggur slept. I struck Darak across his set sneering mouth.

“Take back your blow,” I said. “I never deserved it of you.”

He looked as if he would kill me but he did not kill me. I had not hurt him, and no one had been near to see. Otherwise it would have been different.

1

T
HE WOODS WERE
gone, and the river which fed them was gone. The hills moved behind us in a slow procession, and before us lay the open plains. Yellow-brown as old parchment rolled the curve of their backs, farther off they melted into lavender and purple. The odd tree, leaning, its branches spreading low and still, the occasional rocky place, or little stretch of grassland sprung up by some muddy pool, stood out like isolated figures on a gameboard. It was to be like a game—hurrying from one watered square to another, across the parched listless land.

It was a merchant caravan again, now under Darak's leadership, and he was a merchant's son from Sigko, one of the northern towns, where these goods had come from. I had turned over the stuff myself—weapons and armor pieces, or raw metals in great bars. The bandits had picked a few items each, in payment for the battle in the ford. I took a long-knife, larger than I was used to but with a weight I knew I could carry, given practice. It was fine workmanship, the great blade seared and inset with a silver leopard. The hilt was made from some white stone, highly polished but roughened a little around the grip so it would sit tight in the hand. The sheath and sling, which went across the breast and back to hang under the left arm, were crimson velvet over leather, the buckle and notches were gold.

When I chose this knife, no one stopped me, or laughed, even though Maggur was still in his shelter. Despite the ignominious ending of my fight, I had done some skillful damage. The talk was mainly of how I had yelled my battle cry and ridden straight in among the guard, the long-knife wheeling in all directions at once. This was not as they thought, and I would not discuss it. They were probably glad the madwoman was not a boaster too.

But I think none of them considered me a woman any longer. A few women still journeyed with them, as a comfort, but dressed more somberly now, as prostitutes, and the men spoke of them in front of me, quite freely—not as a taunt, or to brag, but as if they had forgotten my sex, and expected me to tell the next tale.

All their clothes were altered. Darak wore black, the rest of them somber blues and clerical greens, stripped from the bodies, or provided beforehand. The men who rode as the guard had put on their covering, but kept the skull masks off their faces as long as they could. Only I remained unchanged, colorful, an oddity.

We were on the plains two days when I went to Darak's tent. His captains would be there, I knew, but things were different now. No one would flinch when I came because I was female.

There was talk and laughter inside, and the clink of the bronze beer jug going around.

I lifted the flap and went in.

It was a big tent, the inside leather painted too, with red running deer, and high up a sunburst, which meant power. There were fine rugs on the floor, low chairs, and I recognized the carved table I had seen in the village. The five men glanced up, interested. Darak looked me hard in the face, then continued with what he had been saying. Ignoring that I had been ignored, I walked to a vacant chair—more stool than chair, but there was no help for that—and sat down.

They had taken their cue from Darak. They ignored me, and the talk went on—elaborate plans, which were really very simple in essence, of how they should get the stuff along the South Road, sell it in part before Ankurum, their goal, and what was to be done in Ankurum itself. It was a dangerous adventure. Their eyes were alight. The jug came around and I took it as it was bypassing me, and, easing it up under the folds of the shireen, drew a mouthful from one of the open tubes set in the sides. I did not want this drink, but that jug—one of their symbols—could not be let by so easily. I swallowed the viscous, bitter swill, wanting only to spit it out, then handed the jug on to the man it had been going to. There was a little silence. Then Darak stood up. He looked strange, nobler in the black full tunic, black leggings and boots.

“Drink, and get out,” he said pleasantly to his captains.

The discussion was over. They had covered all points, but I guessed a meeting such as this would have gone on much longer normally. They would have perfected details, unnecessarily perhaps, told jokes and stories of other ventures, and drunk very deep.

Now the men got up. They went past me uneasily, once outside, laughed and blundered around in some horseplay or other.

“What does the goddess want?”

He was abrupt, uneasy as they.

“To hear your plans. I am tired of knowing only a moment or so before we move.”

“It was a meeting between the chief and his people. Not for goddesses.”

I thought,
I
can go now, be free of him. I
must
go,
must
be free. Already there is blood on me, and will be more unless I go. And he does not want me.

But I said lightly: “The gods must be everywhere, Darak. Next time you will not send them away when I come in.”

He went to the tent flap, threw the lees of the beer across the grass. Coming in, he tied the flap shut, and began to strip ready to sleep. When he did this, it was somehow insulting. Every muscle flick, brazier gleam on his naked torso was a jeer at me. He began to pull off the high boots, slowly, with great care.

“I suppose you'll stay,” he said.

They have such pride in their sex, these men and women, that there must always be dignity and battle in it. He expected me to untie the tent flap and march out, my back stiff with fury, but it was no matter to me.

“I will stay,” I said.

He stood up and moved quickly over to me. He seized my arm, and his fingers and thumb were like five iron talons in my flesh.

“Did you make the mountain burn?”

It astonished me, this superstition again, festering in him.

“No,” I said.

But I was not sure. The curse had gone out with me from the volcano, so Karrakaz had promised me.

“The villages, all of them. That second time there would be nothing left,” he said.

I touched his face with my free hand.

Quite calmly now, and with precision, he began to undress me. When everything lay on the floor, he went to the brazier and pulled down its lid. The light turned smoky and purple.

“Take off the mask,” he said to me.

I felt utter panic then. Before I could move, he came at me, got my hands, and the mask, and wrenched it free. Air, cool and burning on my face. I screamed, again and again, struggling to get my hands free to cover myself, my eyes tight shut. His own hand came hard over my mouth and nostrils to stifle the screaming. I could not seem to breathe, and was losing consciousness, still struggling like a fish in its awful agony on a hook. All my being seemed to be struggle and terror, and behind my lids I saw that mirror under the volcano, and the devil-demon-beast that looked back at me from its burned-white eyes.

It was good for him, I suppose. He was conquering me in my fear, and his own fears, too. I felt him, but it was something done to me, disgusting in its remoteness.

I swam back to the tent from the darkness. I do not know how long it had lasted, but not long, I think. He lay by me, but he had put the shireen in my hand. I understood him, and what he had done, but it made no difference to me then. I held the shireen tight, but did not put it on. Tears ran down into my hair, but it seemed not to be I who wept them.

“No man and woman can lie together as we did,” he said. “This”—he touched the shireen—“has a face of its own, staring at me. Go masked with others, not with me. I saw you before. You can't be secret from me; every beauty and ugliness and strangeness and difference of yours is mine by right if I have a right to your body.” His hand slid between my thighs, but not to my sex. “You weren't afraid to let me find this in the dark—or rather to find the absence of it. A woman, but not human. Listen,” he said, but no more after that. He leaned and kissed my mouth, which he had never done before. I opened my eyes. His face, so near mine, was gentle, almost tender. There was no repulsion in it.

Life leaped in me, for there was no repulsion in it.

I saw that he had set me free of something, with him at least, but chained me too, of course. It was a happiness for me, but a conquest for him—of both of us. But nothing mattered. I let the shireen drop away, and put my arms around him instead.

2

Darak rode a little ahead of the caravan, and I, astride one of the smaller merchant horses, rode at his side from then on. Maggur and Kel came behind me, a handful of Darak's men behind him. At evening, when we halted, he would try my fighter's skill and my skill with the bow. But I was excellent with both; Maggur and the others had been good teachers.

“You have eyes like a hawk,” Darak told me. With the bow I was better than he, but it did not seem to trouble him, surprisingly. He knew his hold on me, I imagine. At night we were lovers in the tent, and later, when the River Road, days away from the river, found the South Road, and the nightmares began, he was very good to me.

It was strange, the way we came to it. We had followed the track so long I was used to its roughness, and the undergrowth which strangled it in the woods, the drifts of loose soil blown across it on the plains. It was a dull hot day, the sky full of black hammerheads bringing the first of the autumn storms. We rode through a little scrubby tangle of bushes, over a small rise among rocks, and the track faded away like a snail's trail in front of us.

Beyond the rocks, the ground stretched open and flat, and on the horizon stood up two giant pillars, the same brownish color as the plains. Once they had been even taller, now the tops were split and crumbled away, but still towered over thirty feet above our heads. There was carving on them, some deep, some surface, most of which was weathered smooth. I had ridden ahead to them, and Darak had followed me, waving the others back, I suppose, for they did not come up for some time. My face, in its daytime mask, could have told him nothing, but perhaps he knew me enough now that he could sense my thoughts.

I got down and put my hands on the stone. Ancient, ancient, far-back greatness seemed to throb through the pillar I touched. I was cold and burning as I traced the figures of birds and lions, dragons and serpents. A hollow giddiness went through me. I shut my eyes, and under the lids the pillars stood whole, ten feet higher, with capitals of phoenixes and flames.

“What?” Darak asked me.

I had spoken, and did not know what I had said. I could not seem to take my hands from the tall stone. Between the two uprights a paved road stretched away, straight as an arrow shaft, and fifty feet across. The pillars were wide apart, but so huge they must be close together on their own scale, a different scale from anything else around them.

Suddenly the horse Darak was riding flung up on its hind legs, teeth like yellow marble glinting in the storm-light. It ran around on itself and tried to bolt. Darak got it in hand a few yards away, but the merchant horse which was mine was running too, straight off toward the rocks. I heard Darak swearing as he spurred after it.

The sky was indigo, choked and bruised with hate; the air seemed filled with the wings of beating blue eagles. Then the cloud split. There was a blind light, a cold heat—boiling and terrible. I felt myself thrown backward, turning in the air, blazing.

Rain fell on my face in icy needles, and far-off thunder curled and rolled. I felt someone's hands touching every part of me, very carefully. My eyes cleared and I saw Darak.

“Are you hurt?” he said. “I can't find anything broken or burned.”

Maggur spilled water on my wrists, but I sat up and pushed the bottle away.

Lightning had struck the pillars, but they had received no more damage than I.

I felt light-headed and dizzy, but that was all. I laughed a little. Darak got me around the waist and lifted me onto my horse, quiet now, and trembling. As I smoothed its ears and neck to comfort it, I was still laughing.

We rode back toward the pillars through the rain. As I passed between them I saw the inscription, carved deep into the paving. None of them would know it, for it was not their tongue.

KAR LFORN EZ LFORN KL JAVHOVOR
This way is the High-Lord's Way

I blinked the rain from my eyes and saw that the inscription was so weathered now, I could not read it at all.

* * *

The rain lasted two days, but seemed to do the land no good. It was sucked in and lost, or turned to mud which dried blackly. The road was untouched. Magnificent, it had kept itself countless centuries for the merchants who now used it. For me, it was peopled with ghosts, and the voices and the wills of ghosts.

That was the time of the dreams.

There had been a time before then, when my life had been half dream, when I had lain in the temple or by the water in the ravine. Now my life was awake, and my dreams were little things as I lay by Darak. Yet the road made it otherwise.

All those first two days of rain, riding with the road, there had been a feeling on me, like oppression before storm, though the storm was here. The third day we made our evening camp at the road's side by a shallow pool, with a little stream plunging into it, among the stunted stretching trees.

There are no particular laws in the dream places. I was a man, and that did not seem strange to me. I say a man, but not a man like any men I had met since I came from the mountain. I was a man of my own race, that special and arrogant people I did not remember, yet knew in myself.

Things were very different in the dream.

Great gardens, falling in terraces, dark green cypress, rose trees and lemon, behind, the huge mansion, built with an architecture I had seen before in sleep, very white and tall and soaring, its crown far up in the sky. Beyond the garden wall, the High-Lord's Way, winding on toward the cities of the Mountain Ring.

Walking down between the scented avenues of trees, and ahead the great oval pool set around with marble statues and steps. Fountains tumbled into the pool, and near them, among the marble blocks angularly carved to represent rocks, a girl was splashing water over her body. She was naked, magnolia-colored against the jade-green water, and her hair streamed around her. The man I was walked to the water's edge and spoke to her. And it was the tongue in which the inscription on the road had been written.