The Shore of Women (20 page)

BIRANA

I thought he was dead.

He lay on the ground without moving. His spear was stained with the blood of the man he had killed to save me. I could not look at him. My hands were cold; my body icy with shock.

I had wept over my mother’s body but had no tears for this man. I had been sent outside to die; it seemed that the harder I tried to escape my fate, the more death would surround me.

Then I glanced at Arvil and saw that he still breathed.

I could not go back to his tribe. I might have ridden away from that place and left Arvil, but I also knew that I wouldn’t live long alone.

I began to shake until my body was shivering violently. Flame pawed at the ground as though scenting the death around her. I was surrounded by beasts. I had forgotten that fact during my short time among men, when the light of reason flickered dimly in their eyes, and their mouths uttered familiar words in my own language.

Arvil’s knife lay next to his hand. I could take that knife, cut my throat, and end my struggle, but my will to live was still too strong. Even then, I clung to the hope my mother had aroused in me.

There was a refuge, she had said. Against all of the evidence, she had believed that.

We will be spared, I thought. The Council will only frighten us and then forgive. I held to this hope until the wall closed behind us.

I hardly saw where we walked. No one in the city had spoken for me; no one had visited me. I thought of one former friend, the gray-eyed girl who had once been close to me, but who had grown more distant as my feeling for her grew. I had waited for the time when she might notice me again, would no longer care what her friends thought of me, when she might return my love. She would forget me as completely as though I had never lived; that thought was the most tormenting of all.

We were in a forest; the trees were so thick around us that we could not see what lay ahead. “My mistake,” Mother said suddenly, “was in not making sure that wretched Ciella was dead.”

“You would have been found out anyway,” I replied.

“True enough, but I would have had that satisfaction.”

I did not want to hear more; her deed had condemned me. I had gone to her rooms that day only out of concern for her. I should have left before she and Ciella began to lash out at each other, but I had not, and Yvara had struck before I could stop her. My mother’s love for Ciella had somehow fed on the pain, the cruel remarks, and belittlement that Ciella had inflicted on her. Ciella had bent my mother to her will before striking the one blow Yvara could not stand—the announcement that Ciella was leaving her. I had waited while Ciella’s life was seeping away, and had done nothing although part of me rejoiced that Yvara had finally struck at her tormentor.

“I’ll tell you why I was punished,” she continued. “Ciella lived, so they might have shown some mercy, but the Council fears it’s losing its grip, and Ciella was so convincing when she spoke against me. I have only one regret—that I brought you to this.”

“It’s too late, Mother. You don’t have to pretend you feel something for me now.” Yvara had given birth to me only reluctantly; that was one of the truths Ciella had revealed to me in her insidious way. My mother had not thought of me while striking at Ciella, but then she rarely had.

She groped at her neck and pulled out a necklace; a compass hung from the gold chain. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Someone gave it to me long ago,” she answered. “It was useless in the city, of course, so I wore it only as an ornament once in a while. I happened to be wearing it when they came for us, and no one thought to take it away.” She stopped and pulled the chain over her head, then pushed back my hood. “You wear it, Birana.”

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“Take it and speak more softly.” She hung it around my neck and covered it with my coat. “If we’re separated, you may need it. You’re younger and stronger than I am, with more of a chance to survive.”

“We mustn’t be separated,” I said. I was not thinking of survival, but only that I did not want to die alone. I touched the necklace, thinking of other small gifts my mother had given me, gifts that were substitutes for the feelings she lacked.

We walked through the wood for most of the day without seeing signs of men. The forest was thick and often the sky was hidden from us, but the compass guided our steps. At last the trees grew more sparse, and we were able to look back at our wall from a hillside.

I gazed one last time at the city that had condemned us. We had been given warm garments, some water, a little food. This, I saw now, was not an act of mercy, or a way to be certain that we died at some distance from the wall and any witnesses there who might pity us; it was part of our punishment. It would have been kinder and quicker to strip us of everything and thrust us from the wall.

The sun was setting; the lights of the distant towers winked on. I thought of the world I had lost and wept.

We took shelter at the bottom of a hill. The air had grown colder; the ground was blanketed with snow.

“We can’t rest long,” Yvara murmured as we huddled together. “We’ll freeze to death if we do.” She swallowed a handful of snow. “Eat only a little food—it has to last as long as possible.”

“Why?” I said. “So that we can postpone our deaths?”

“We’re not going to die. I won’t let us die, do you hear? Other women have been expelled. Some of them must have survived.”

“The cities would know if they had.”

“They could be hidden. There are many places to hide: lands we haven’t mapped for ages, places our ships rarely see. There are lands to the east and west we surrendered to the Goddess, where no man can dwell. We might find a refuge there, where women wait to welcome other exiles.”

“You’re not defying the city now,” I answered. “You don’t have to say such things to me.”

“Do you think I didn’t believe it when I spoke? We’ve been fortunate so far. And you forget one thing, Birana. These men have been taught to worship us; we can use that to survive.”

She was mad. A tribe of men spying two lone travelers would not see what we were before taking our lives. She was deluding herself with her talk of refuges and survivors. I shivered, afraid to look up at the sky, remembering that a force field no longer protected us.

“There are places to hide,” Yvara continued, “wildernesses we haven’t mapped, shores near the oceans where women might hide. The cities have grown lazy and complacent and are no longer as vigilant as they once were. Earth could hide many things from their eyes.”

“And what good will staying alive do?”

“Living, when all the cities believe one is dead? It would be my triumph over them. When I’m older and ready to give up my life, I’ll return to the wall of our city and show those who condemned me that it was I who defeated them.”

Her exile had unbalanced her; whatever shreds of rationality she had possessed were gone. Her talk of growing old only reminded me that, even if we avoided starvation, a violent death, or a thousand other perils, disease could still claim us. Unlike the men who were called, we could not enter the wall to be cleansed of infectious diseases. Our immune systems, untended, would start to weaken. Without rejuvenation, we would age more rapidly.

I despaired, and yet a bit of hope had been planted in me. I was just beginning to nurture the seed of my own delusion—that if I could survive, my city might choose to forgive me and take me back, believing I had been punished enough.

“Exactly how do you plan to live?” I asked.

“We must get to a shrine. We’d have warmth there and a place to sleep.”

“Men would come there.”

“They can’t attack others in shrines, you know that. Keep this in mind, distasteful as it is—we’ll need the protection of men.”

“If they put on the mindspeaker bands,” I objected, “they might reveal we were there, and then…”

“Think, Birana. We might show them how to cloak certain thoughts. We could even tell them that they don’t have to use a mindspeaker in our presence.”

Yvara went on to tell me that, once we gained the protection of a tribe, we would have a chance to stay alive. Eventually, we might hear of where other survivors could be found. I tried to listen but could think only of the cold and my weariness.

Arvil stirred, then opened his eyes, but moments passed before he seemed to see me. He groaned and hid his face as he whispered words in his own language.

“Arvil,” I said.

“My guardian,” he replied in words I could understand. “He brought me out of the enclave, he cared for me, he taught me what I know. Now he lies dead because of you.”

“I can’t fight you, Arvil. You can take my life as well.”

“Then his death would be for nothing, and your death won’t cleanse my soul now.” He stood up and went to Tal’s body. The dead man, I was sure, was Arvil’s father; I had noted the resemblance. The man had seemed to have little affection for Arvil, but perhaps he had not always treated him that way. Arvil let out a cry, then fell at Tal’s side; his shoulders shook.

I thought of what he had told me earlier about his tribe and their changing feelings toward me. They would use me as they used the images presented to them by mindspeakers, as they used one another; I had heard their groans in the night. I couldn’t go back; I would come to welcome death if I did.

I waited for Arvil to purge himself of his grief as I wondered what he would do.

Through the mindcaster, I had experienced something of life outside our wall. I had built a simulated fire and had gazed out over the re-creation of a plain. For most of the girls I knew, one such experience had been enough, for their fear ran deep, but I had experienced such imaginary journeys several times.

Those mental tours had not prepared me for the aching of my body, the fear of injury, the pangs of hunger, the dirt I could not wash away, the need to squat over the ground to relieve myself. For the first time in my life, I saw myself as physically weak.

We did not rest long by the hillside. The wind picked up and we pulled our hoods around our faces. Before morning, snow began to fall; it was soon so thick around us that we could hardly see each other.

We stood under a tree, clinging together as the storm swirled around us. My body grew numb; we stamped our feet in an effort to keep them warm. “I won’t let you die,” I heard my mother whisper; the wind swallowed the rest of her words. I do not know how long we stood there, but at last the snowstorm began to abate, although flakes still sifted down from the sky.

We stumbled on. A shelf of rock suddenly loomed before us; a creature crouched against the stone.

I nearly screamed as the creature’s hand gripped a spear. My mother cried, “The Goddess is with you!” She quickly threw back her hood and opened her coat. “Look at My form,” she shouted, “and know that I am of the Lady.”

She stood there before the man as the flakes fell on her hair and onto the shirt outlining her full breasts. The man was clothed in hides and fur, and hair concealed the lower part of his face; I shuddered at his ugliness. His small dark eyes glanced from my mother to me; he called out strange words and then threw himself to the ground.

“Why have You come before me?” he called out. His hands, covered in leather, clawed at the snow. “Am I to be blessed or punished? Oh, Lady, forgive me my sins.”

I was surprised to understand his words, but remembered that the men knew our language, for they used it in their prayers. His fear of us astonished me. Then I thought of how easily he might have struck at us, before seeing what we were, and nearly collapsed myself.

“I come among you to test you, to see that you are truly My servants,” Yvara answered. “Rise, and answer the Lady’s questions. Where are you bound, and where is your tribe?”

The man climbed to his feet. “Oh, Lady,” he whimpered. I opened my own coat quickly and his eyes widened. “Two aspects! Never could I have dreamed—I am Your true servant, I swear it. I am now traveling back from Your holy enclave to rejoin my band.” He knelt. “They roam in the west, some five days’ travel from this place.”

“I shall test your devotion to the Goddess,” my mother said. “She knows of your worthiness and will have a special place in Her heart for you if you serve Me. First, you must lead us to a holy place, to a shrine where My spirit resides.”

He stood up again. “I was to stop at a shrine not far from here to pray,” he said. “I shall take You there.”

“Are there other tribes near that shrine?”

“Not in this season. But surely You know that, Lady, for we can hide nothing from Your eyes.”

“I am only testing your honesty. Remember, you cannot lie to Me.” Yvara took a breath; her voice showed none of the fear I was certain she felt. “You will travel with Us to that shrine. If you show Us what a worthy servant you are, you and your band will forever be blessed.”

“I will take You to the lake shrine,” the man responded, “where the aspect known as the Wise One dwells. I’ll be a worthy servant to You, Holy Ones.”

That man was the first I had ever seen in the flesh, for I did not count those I had watched at a safe distance from the wall. He was called the Bear, and in his hides with his thick brown beard, he had seemed much like that beast, but a beast that spoke words.

Our weakness seemed to puzzle him. He believed in the Lady’s strength, yet during our journey, we often stopped to take shelter under the tree limbs and hide he would set over us. Yvara directed him to turn his eyes from us whenever we knelt to relieve ourselves. He guarded us while we rested, then rested while we watched, ready to awaken him if we saw any distant movement. Our feet grew blistered and sore, and it was soon hard to walk at more than a slow pace.

Yvara explained to the Bear that, in our bodies, we shared some of the weaknesses of men, that this was necessary if we were to live among men without harming them with our greater powers—yet I wondered if, in time, the Bear might see what we really were. He could read signs in his environment invisible to us; he seemed capable of some reason and thought. Brutal as he was, he remained patient as he guided us to the shrine.