The Shore of Women (26 page)
“Yes, and farther than any man I have met.”
“Did he ever hear a story of a place, a place outside the cities, far from them, where others of my kind might have been seen, a place where they might live?”
Arvil frowned as he turned toward me. “Could there be such a place?”
“There have been others who were expelled from the cities. I can’t believe they all died. Some might have found a way to survive.”
“Wanderer never told a tale about such a place,” he said. “He did tell one, when I first met him and Shadow, about a man who lived in a shrine and whose body was changed to a woman’s form.” His mouth twisted. “Wanderer’s tales were not always filled with truth.”
I tried not to feel disappointed. Wanderer, after all, would have roamed in lands where men lived.
“I do not recall that Wanderer spoke of the east,” Arvil continued. “He didn’t know what may lie here. Is that what you seek, Birana— a place where others of your kind live?”
“If there is such a place.”
“If that’s what you seek, I would have you find it. But you would be with your own kind then. You’d have no need of me.”
“There may be men among them,” I said. “They may have found a way to live together.” Such women might have mastered the means to inseminate themselves, as they would have to do to keep their refuge alive, to have daughters to care for them when they grew old and sons to learn from any men who had aided them. I refused to dwell on how, without mindspeakers and the images used to rouse men, these women might gather the men’s seed.
“If they live together,” Arvil said, “then they would make the men their worshippers, as those in the enclaves do. It would give me joy to know you are safe, but, among your own kind, I would be nothing to you.”
“It isn’t so,” I replied. “You are my friend now. You’re probably the only true friend I have.”
I spoke these words only out of pity for him, and because I feared his darker moods, but his eyes glowed as he looked at me. “Is that so, Birana? Do you call me your friend?”
I thought of Laissa, no longer my friend. “Yes, Arvil. You are my friend.”
His chest swelled under his coat; his hood fell back, exposing his blond hair, as he gazed up at the sky. “I am your friend,” he said, as if those words were filled with a greater significance.
By evening, we came to a small rise in the land, where a few slender trees grew, and stopped there. The horses grazed, and we gave them water from our skins, holding the liquid in our cupped hands as they lapped. “Star,” Arvil said as the black horse drank from his palms.
“What did you say?”
“Star. She should have a name, and her white marking makes me think of a star.”
“And what shall we call the pinto?”
“Perhaps you can name her.”
The pinto gazed at me balefully as she drank. She was learning to tolerate us, but neither of us had ridden her. Her hide was marked by thin scars. I supposed the man who had once ridden her had lashed her often, but he had not been able to quell her spirit. “Wild Spirit,” I said. “That’s what I’d call her.”
“It suits her.”
When the horses had grazed, we secured their reins to the trees. I was about to take some food from our packs when Arvil shook his head. We had heard the twittering of birds in the bough above; Arvil climbed up one tree, disappeared in the branches, then dropped down, holding out five small birds’ eggs. I forced myself to choke down two raw eggs, while he ate his with relish; the dried meat could be saved for another day.
Arvil kept watch as I rested, then woke me. I sat up, surprised at how soundly I had slept; I was used to sleeping on the ground by then but ached from our long ride. A howl suddenly broke the silence, and I started.
“Wolves,” he said. “If they come too near, the horses will warn us.” He led me out from under the trees, then pointed up at a group of stars in the east. “When those stars are above the trees, you must wake me. Wake me also if you see anything move on the land.”
“What if…”
He knew what I was going to ask. “They would still be far behind us, and they will have to stop as well. I shall not rest long.” He gazed at the stars. “I have been told that the stars are fires so far from us that, if we could walk to them, it would take the lifetimes of many men to reach them.”
“It’s true. Long ago, we once dreamed of traveling to them.”
“But how could they be reached if they are so far away?”
“We could have built ships able to travel the distance. Such a ship would have to travel at a speed approaching the speed at which light moves, and then time for those on the ship would not pass as it would for those on Earth. A season might pass here while only a day passed on the ship—a lifetime could go by here while those travelers remained young.”
“The ship would have to be under a powerful spell.”
“You might put it that way. Such a spell is possible.” I did not know how I could ever explain what we understood of the physics of interstellar travel to him.
“It is said that the stars are camp fires set by the Lady for the spirits of men in the next world. If the souls of those in the ship entered that world, they could not return to this one.”
“They are not fires, Arvil. They are suns, like the one you see in the sky.”
“They are suns?” he asked.
“Yes. They seem so small because they are far away. Some are much larger than our sun, and our sun itself is so large that you could fit many Earths inside it, hundreds upon hundreds of Earths.”
He turned toward me, rubbing at his chin as he considered this. “I see. A thing far away seems small and then becomes larger as a man moves closer to it. If this is true about the stars, that each is a sun, they must be even more distant than I can grasp.” He clutched at my sleeve. “And if they are suns, do they shine upon other Earths?”
His imaginative leap startled me. “There are other worlds—that we know. But we know little about what they are like. We might have tried to reach them, or to communicate with them, for just as it is possible for my kind to speak with others in distant parts of Earth, it’s possible to find a way to speak to the stars. Yet we have not done so. In ancient times, it was because we had to save what had survived and rebuild. Now, we lack the will, perhaps because we’re afraid of what might be there, and of how it might change us.”
“Other suns.” He lifted his head again. “Other Earths. I don’t know how this can be, but it gives me joy to think of them. Perhaps men live at peace there. If I had the magic of such a ship as you spoke of, I would wish to see those other Earths.”
“Arvil, you must rest now.”
“This is a wondrous truth you have told me.” He reluctantly settled down under the trees as I paced along the rise, trying to stay awake, but still tired even after my rest.
Arvil’s thoughts had surprised me. I had seen that men possessed more reason than I had once believed. Wanderer and Shadow had shown signs of intelligence, and Wise Soul had been a reflective man, but Arvil could listen to me and then reason to what I had not told him. I wondered how many other men might be as he was. I was wrestling with my thoughts, beginning to see the enormity of the evil we had committed in order to bring about the Rebirth.
I had worried over how much to tell Arvil in answer to his questions. Now I feared that he might deduce the answers with only a few hints from me, and I had seen how angry he became with me before. Whatever qualities he might possess, he was still a man and had grown up in a violent world. If I angered him enough, he could, without intending to, hurt me badly.
The wolves howled again; they seemed to be farther away. I felt how alone I was. I had thought of myself as lonely during the past years in the city, when it seemed that one old friend after another found excuses not to spend time with me. I had been living alone before my expulsion, been kept in a room by myself while the Council decided my fate, but that loneliness could not match what I felt as I stood under the stars that night.
I stopped pacing and looked down at Arvil, my only friend. His face was hidden in the darkness. He sighed once, and I wondered what he was seeing in his dreams.
ARVIL
The lady was drifting toward me, but I could not see her face. My arms encircled Her waist as I sought to join myself to Her. Birana’s face looked up at me. I was suddenly aware of some purpose to the Lady’s blessing, something more than the need to bind men more closely to Her, and yet I could not grasp it.
“Arvil,” She said. I gripped Her, but Her body became as elusive as smoke. “Arvil.” She was melting away before I could satisfy my longing.
I opened my eyes. “Arvil,” the dark form above me said, “you must wake now.”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, then got to my feet. The spell of my dream still held me. Without thinking, I pulled Birana to me and rested my cheek against her head.
She did not pull away, but her body was stiff, and I could feel her resisting my touch. Dismayed, I released her. “I wanted only to hold you,” I said, “as I might hold a loved friend. If you don’t want my touch, then tell me rather than suffering it.”
“I’m afraid to anger you.”
“You anger me more in this way.”
“I anger you eventually whatever I say or do.”
“In my dream,” I said, “a spirit-woman was with me, but she wore your face. She welcomed my touch, but then…”
“You mustn’t think of that. I can’t endure your embrace. You don’t know what it might lead to, what the consequences could be.” She covered her mouth as if afraid to say more.
“Then I shall try not to touch you again,” I said angrily, “but the spell you have cast on me is a strong one.”
I went among the trees then to relieve myself but still ached even after my water had flowed. My embrace, if she welcomed it, could lead only to blessings, and her kind had made men want them.
“I have no spell on you,” she said as I came toward her. Her head was bowed, and she had folded her arms across her chest as though protecting herself. “I understand your feelings. I know that men of your band sometimes joined together at night. You wouldn’t feel the same way if you had a man to join with—it’s only that you lack other companions.”
She was wrong. Her spell was stronger than a man’s would have been, for she evoked thoughts of blessings.
“I am not a man who cannot control his needs,” I said firmly. “There are those who go to boys and prefer them to other men, even when the boy is unwilling, and there are boys who will offer themselves for an extra piece of meat or a gift of some kind.” I thought of Cor, who had given himself to the Wolf when the Wolf was Headman, and then to Geab. I had despised him for it, for I had known he did not go to those men out of love or respect.
“However great my need was,” I continued, “I preferred to satisfy it alone rather than go to a boy I might overcome or a man I didn’t like, for there is no pleasure in that for me. I was happy to grow strong enough to resist those I did not want, and when the Lady began to bless me, it was that I longed for most. I will not touch you again.” In spite of my words, I knew how hard it would be to keep that promise.
“Was Tal…” She cleared her throat, and I sensed how hard it was for her to speak his name. “Was he one you loved in that way?”
I was shocked. “No guardian would seek pleasures with his charge. I don’t think even the men who attacked us would stoop to that, unless in their madness they embrace all evil.”
“Was there anyone you loved before?”
“There were some I did not refuse, but love…” I paused. “I think that love might have grown between me and Shadow, but I didn’t wish to seek him out until he became a man.” It was hard for me to speak of my feelings for Shadow, now that he was lost to me, and yet his soul had not drawn me as much as Birana’s. “Were there any you loved?”
“Few sought me out. There was no one who loved me.”
I found that hard to believe. How could others not have longed for her? “What about the one who was with you, the one we buried? Did she care for you?”
“She was my mother,” she replied, “my guardian. A mother to me is like a guardian to you.”
“I know that is what a mother is. Our legends call Mary the Mother, for She is the aspect that is guardian to us all. Earth is our mother, for we’re created from Earth’s dust.” Something in my words reminded me of my dream, where my thoughts had seemed slippery and out of reach. “The Mother brings life into the world.”
“Arvil, we must go before it grows light.”
Suddenly, I saw a great truth. Men were called to enclaves, and sometimes they were given boys. The creatures of the earth, male and female, joined, and young ones came into being. I had always known this, but had never thought of the Lady’s aspects as creatures like them. From Birana, I had learned that her kind had bodies of flesh and bone, as we did. Now I saw that the spirit-women might join with men to create boys. I did not know how it was possible, but their magic was powerful.
Then another thought came to me. It was not only boys they created, but those of their own kind, for animals brought both female and male into the world. Did Birana’s kind need us for that as well? Was that what she had meant when she said that men were needed?
All of this came to me in an instant. I groaned and nearly fell to the ground. “What is wrong?” Birana cried as she stepped toward me.
“I see a truth you didn’t tell me. I know why men are called. It is from our joining with the spirit-women that boys come, and perhaps young ones of your own kind as well, unless you have other magic for that. Is this so?”
She sank toward the ground. “It is.”
I clenched my fists as I glared down at her. “So that is the purpose for which men live.” I had thought that knowing there was some purpose to our lives would ease my mind, but this knowledge chilled me.
“I didn’t know how I would tell that truth to you,” she said. “From your seed, that which we take from you, others, male and female, are created. You don’t have the power by yourselves to bring more of your kind into existence.”
“You need us and make us long for you. What fools men are. If we did not go to the enclaves, we would have no more boys, but perhaps there would be no more of your kind. If men wanted to punish you for what you have done, we could travel to your enclaves no more.”
“You would only bring about the end of your own kind. We have enough of your seed to survive, or could find other ways.” She spoke words then that I did not understand, but somehow I saw that seed from many men was more desired than seed from only a few. “We might become less adaptable, less varied,” she said, “but we would live.”
I wanted to strike her and through her strike out at all of her kind. We were not called to be blessed, but to have part of ourselves stolen from us.
“You have come to see the truth,” Birana went on. “I dreaded knowing I might have to tell it to you, but you were able to see it for yourself. Other men might see it as well, perhaps not so quickly, but in time, if we didn’t take so much trouble to hide it.”
I pulled her up roughly by her coat. She put up her hands, and I could not bring myself to strike. “The smallest creatures of Earth are treated more kindly than we,” I said, “for although their females rule the males, they allow the males to dwell among them.”
“Arvil, I…”
“Do not speak to me now.”
The sky was beginning to grow gray in the east. I went to Star, freed her reins, and mounted.
My mind cleared at last while we rode, although my world was becoming more merciless with every truth I learned.
The plain was giving way to rolling land, and as our horses carried us over a small rise, I saw the dome of a shrine to the southeast. Sunlight danced on a stream flowing past the shrine, and a man was standing near the water.
“We must go to that shrine,” I said as I reined in my horse. “We may be able to learn something of this land from that man.” I looked back toward the west. I did not expect to spy our pursuers and did not see them. But a man knows when he is being hunted, and I seemed to sense them following our trail.
“I’m afraid to enter that place,” she said.
“We need not fear attack there. What happened to us never happened before and is unlikely to happen again. If this man is with others, we’ll ride away and be far before they can follow on foot, but I think he is alone.”
We rode quickly toward the shrine. Although I would not admit it to Birana, I could no longer look upon a shrine as a safe refuge. The attack upon us had marked me and given me new fears.
The man looked up, saw us, and ran inside. As we rode up to the entrance, I looked down at the ground but read no signs of other men.
We dismounted and rubbed down the horses quickly, then tethered them to a willow near the stream. “Do not speak,” I said before we entered. “I shall question this man, and then we’ll ride on.”
We walked inside. The man was sitting near the altar, alone, under the image of Mary. He was clothed in a leather shirt and a vest of fur. His leggings were also of leather, and feathers hung from a cord of leather around his neck. His hair was black and fell past his shoulders, but he had no beard.
He looked up. “A truce while we speak,” the young man said in the holy speech.
“There is always peace in Her presence,” I replied. We went to the altar and sat down in front of him. “And I pray that there will be peace between us when we leave this place, as we must soon, for we will not stay in this land.”
His brown eyes narrowed. “Do you pledge, before Her, that you will not harm me when I depart?”
“I promise that.”
“Then I shall promise the same, since I would not wish to battle against two who ride the beasts you left outside. I cannot speak for my band, for I am a boy, but we have always roamed this land freely without the need to fight others.”
“We wish no battle,” I said.
“Yet your presence here could mean that others might follow. I have not seen horsemen in this land, although a traveler has told us of how some men live with the horse.”
“We are alone,” I said. “Our band has met misfortune, and we must now travel to another place.”
“The camp of my band lies to the south,” he said. “I am called Ilf, but when I have been called, I’ll return to my band and take a man’s name. I had hoped the Lady would call me now, but although She sent me Her blessing, She did not call me to Her side.”
“I am Arvil, and I was called not long ago. The boy is called Spellweaver.” That name came to me easily now, for it was what Birana had become to me.
Ilf glanced at her, and she lowered her eyes. He turned back to me. “Do you wish to pray and don the Lady’s crown before we speak further?”
“We will pray, as we should,” I said quickly; I had forgotten to bow and kneel before Mary. My beliefs had been shaken, but I would have to observe their forms before other men. “But the Lady has already blessed us at another shrine we passed. I think She will forgive us if we are grateful for that blessing and do not call to Her again.”
He peered sharply at me then. Clearly my words had aroused some suspicion in Ilf, but we had pledged a truce, and he said nothing. Birana and I knelt and went through the motions of silent prayer as it came to me how much I had lost with my faith. My prayers had become empty words. The image of the Lady was only a lifeless form, placed there to deceive us.
“I must ask some questions of you,” I said as we sat down once more, “and in return, I’ll tell you something it would be well for you to know.”
He nodded. “I will answer what I can.”
“We are traveling east. Can you tell me what is ahead, and what dangers may lie in wait for us?”
Ilf was silent for a moment. “I can tell you only what I have heard from others, from the few who have traveled through our land. In three days, perhaps four, you will come to hills, and above these hills to the east you will see what we call the Barrier.”
Birana leaned forward, and seemed about to speak. I put my hand on her sleeve for a moment, then said, “And what is this Barrier?”
“It is not a range of mountains, but neither is it a wall like that around the Lady’s enclave. Some say that the Lady set it there long ago to keep us from straying too far from Her side. I have seen this Barrier once from afar, and the sight filled me with terror. Yet there are men who were brave enough to cross over it, and some men dwell on the other side, so it seems that the Lady will allow some to live there.”
“And what lies beyond?” I asked.
“It is said that there is a vast lake to the east of the hills and that many bands make their camps there.”
I frowned at that.
“There is little to fear from those bands, I am told,” Ilf continued. “It is said that each band is at peace with those nearby, and that a traveler wishing them no harm will not be harmed by them. I was told that, long ago, a band went to that lake and struck at one camp, but men came from other camps to drive them off. By the lake, it seems, an attack on one camp is seen as an attack on all.”
“That is a remarkable thing,” I said.
“It isn’t all that is strange by that lake. It is also said that, in times not long past, one of those bands was especially honored by the Lady, and that She appeared to them in a vision.”
Birana started at those words. The young man’s dark eyes met hers, and in Ilf’s glance I saw lust for the one he thought of as a boy. It was natural for him to feel such an urge, and he would not seek to satisfy it in a shrine, yet his look enraged me. I felt as if he had already laid hands upon her.
I swallowed my rage. “Can you tell me more of this vision?”
“I can tell you little. Of the few who cross the Barrier, even fewer return. I heard this tale of the Lady from one of who did return, but he had not seen the lake for himself. He heard the tale from another man.”
“And these lake bands do not harm travelers?”
“Not if they come in peace. It is even said that strangers can find a place with them.”
“And how far from here is this lake?” I said.
“I cannot say.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “if we’ll seek out those bands, but I thank you for telling us of them.” Ilf would speak the truth in a shrine, but what he had said had been told to him by others and was not something he had seen for himself.