The Unfinished Song: Taboo (24 page)

Warriors spilled like termites out of the houses to confront the travelers. They were big men, nearly naked except for tattoos and a coating of seal fat that made their muscles shine like oiled leather. Kavio tensed and put his hand around the grip of his obsidian knife. This would be the first test of whether an enemy clan would respect the peace staff.

Svego held up the feathered stick, the Staff of Peace, as he approached the warriors. He jabbered with them for some time.

He returned to Kavio.

“We have leave to pass through their lands,” Svego said. “But we must be past their last totem before sunset.”

“How far?” asked
Kavio.
The morning was young, but he preferred to take no chances. He would not make a promise only to break it. A warrior’s word was his shield; his oath was his spear.

“Not far,” said Svago. “We can reach the next clanhold by afternoon, an ally of this one, a larger clan. They will host us overnight.”

Kavio informed the others. The peace party did break briefly to drink and rest by the river, but then shoved off the canoes and continued rowing under the climbing sun. The next clanhold was no farther than Svego had promised. About three times the size of the first they’d seen, this clanhold also boasted better fortifications. Though the clan had not built their settlement right on the water, they had contrived to bring the water to them. All the houses were clustered into one area, surrounded by a moat fed via a man-made channel from the river. Impressive as that was, the barrier around their hold amazed Kavio even more. He could have sworn the posts were rib bones, but each bone stood as tall as Rthan.

“What beast has bones so large?” Kavio asked Svego.

“Those little things?” Svego gestured dismissively. “Wait until you see the tribehold.”

Tavaedies in masks and robes completely covered in tiny shells danced out to greet them. This was a better welcome than warriors, and Kavio unclenched his fists. He hadn’t even realized how tense he had been until he released his worry. Nonetheless, he could not relax fully as long as he was in Blue Waters territory.

He counted the number of enemy Tavaedies, studied the fortifications of the hold, and made a mental inventory of his own people. Who knew which threat would be the greatest to his plans? Rthan walked beside Brena. Their hands almost touched though they refused to look at one another. Vultho was sulking. Definitely, he must expect more trouble there. Svego touched Gremo on the arm before leaving to talk to the new Tavaedies. Interesting. Gwenika was whispering something to Dindi, who looked around with eyes as wide as the sky. He felt a strange unease, as if Dindi might do something completely unexpected to upset all his plans.

That wasn’t fair. She took in everything, but she was quiet and obedient, as one expected of a handmaiden.

He pictured moving his pile of rocks across the floor, a little closer to the rocks of Nargano.

“Don’t look at them, niece,” someone murmured. “It’s bad luck.”

Dindi jumped. She had not heard the Blue Waters guide, Svego, come up behind her until he spoke.

“What’s wrong with them?” she asked in a low voice.

Three ragged and gaunt human beings, so dirty it was only with difficulty Dindi guessed one was a man and two were women, sat outside the giant bone embankment around the clanhold. Their skin was horribly scabbed with a rash of discolored bulbous lumps
.
It was like seeing one of Gwenika’s imaginary diseases, Puss-Filled Putrid Pox, horridly, grotesquely real.

“They are the Shunned,” Svego said coolly. “Do not look at them, nor listen to their cries. They will beg you for food as we pass into the clanhold. Throw them scraps if you are moved, but never acknowledge the Shunned as you do so. Toss the food as if discarding trash, and let them scramble for it in the mud.”

Gwenika burst, “That’s terrible! Those people are clearly sick, they should be healed, not tossed aside like gnawed bones!”

Dindi was glad Gwenika had said it, because she felt the same way but wouldn’t have dared say so.

Svego darted a nervous glance toward the host Tavaedies, but they were marching a dozen strides in advance and hadn’t heard.

“The Shunned are taboo!” Svego hissed. “Do not befriend them or speak well of them, or you will be shunned as taboo yourself!”

“But that’s not fair!” protested Gwenika.

“
Zavaedi,
please shut her up.” Svego appealed directly to Kavio.

“Zavaedi, please let me help those poor sick people,” pleaded Gwenika.

Kavio turned around and looked at the beggars, at Svego, at Gwenika. He seemed troubled but he shook his head.

“Speak no more of this, Tavaedi Gwenika,” he said.

“But—”

“Enough, Gwenika!” snapped Brena. “Zavaedi Kavio has spoken. Do not shame our tribe.”

Gwenika crossed her arms. She smoldered in silence.

All of the skin houses inside the clanhold formed a ring around a large central space of hard packed dirt. The women and children of the clan waited here, alongside more warriors. Like the men, the women wore scarcely anything, except long strands of shells. They kept their hair long, most below their waists and some as long as their calves. Even the married women wore their hair streaming down, loose except for a criss-crossing of complicated tiny braids and cowry shell strings. Blue Waters women were undeniably beautiful, with pert breasts and huge eyes highlighted by black kohl. They did not look friendly, however. Their lips curled derisively when Kavio greeted the clan in a loud voice, to thank them for their hospitality. None of the women offered the guests anything to eat. The elderly aunties of the clan pointed to a spot under the sealskin awning against the embankment that had been emptied. Obviously, that was where they would be allowed to sleep.

Svego told Kavio in a low voice, “This clan gives tribute to Nargano, but they are not great allies of his clan. They will tolerate us, but it would be better if we spent as little time inside the clanhold as possible. Can you send your people to hunt and forage the rest of the day? If you bring back meat, they might soften to you.”

“Yes, but we will claim our space first,” Kavio said. “Will they really offer us no better than that half-tent?”

Svego shrugged, as if to suggest they should feel lucky to get as much as that.

Kavio scowled. “Then we will put up our own tents, as if we were camping in the woods.”

So they set up the lean-tos in the spot near the bone wall. Dindi felt better after the leather skins hid them from unfriendly stares. They built a small fire, although the weather remained fair, especially considering it was the middle of winter. Nonetheless, Dindi and Gwenika huddled together. Everyone else also crowded as closely as they could around the weak flames. Even Vultho—he hunched in on himself, snarling at everyone, even his own kinsman, but he kept close. Only Gremo sat as far away from the rest of them as he could, without falling out of the tent.

“So, Svego,” Kavio said, “What is this business of the Shunned? If those people carry plague, why haven’t they been sent to the Deathsworn?”

Svego crouched before the fire, balanced on the balls of his feet. “They cannot infect others. They were born with spoiled magic, so they cannot become Tavaedies. Their magic rots them from within, bubbling like pus out of their skin, scarring them, revealing their inner ugliness to
all the
world. They are a curse, above all to themselves. Their families tolerate them, feed them, but feel for them no love, only shame.”

From the far side of the fire, Gremo jerked up his head and stared at Svego through narrowed eyes. Dindi saw the aura around Gremo crackle fiercely, and she shivered.

“Spoiled magic?” Kavio asked. “Are they hexers?”

“No, Zavaedi,” said Svego. “They have magic. But it is taboo.”

“What crimes have they committed?”

“They were born. For such as they, it’s crime enough.” Svego shrugged. If he heard Gremo growling like a bear, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“I don’t understand,” Kavio said flatly.

Svego shrugged again.

“They are Imorvae, fool,” Rthan burst out, unexpectedly. “But you knew that.”

“Lady Mercy,” breathed Brena. “You do
that
to your Imorvae?”

“Don’t break
my
arm!” said Svego. “I am just the guide. The law is as old as the tribe. It is forbidden to question it, even to speak of it.”

Brena glanced at Rthan. “You
approve
of this?”

“My opinion is not the dung you have to step in,” Rthan said. “The question is whether Nargano will treat with you, Kavio, or treat you as one of the Shunned.”

“No, no,” said Svego quickly. “Nargano already knows that the son of the White Lady has six Chromas. We don’t care about others, because you are our inferiors anyway. It is only of our own kin that we demand purity of magic.”

“Now I feel better,” said Kavio, richly sarcastic. “But Svego is right. There’s nothing any of us can do to change the traditions and taboos of the Blue Waters tribe. We should go hunt now, as Svego suggested earlier. Gwenika, stay away from the Shunned, do you understand?”

“
Yes
, Zavaedi.”

“Stick with your mother and her slave.” He smiled sardonically at Rthan.

“I need some herbs…” Gwenika began.

“Your handmaid will gather them. Tell her your needs.”

Dindi did spend about an hour gathering the herbs Gwenika described. Fae helped her find the trickier ones in exchange for a bit of play. She did not expect to see Kavio again before sunset.

Then, suddenly, he was there, watching her from behind some foliage. Her heart flipped and she wasn’t sure if she feared being caught dancing with the fae, or if it was just the sight of him that made her feel short of breath.

“We don’t have long,”
Kavio
said, as if continuing a conversation they’d just left off
.
He used arrows from his quiver to mark out a clearing, and stamped down some brush to enlarge the grassy flat. From a pouch tied at his waist, he took a pinch of salt and tossed on the ground. He’d planned this. “I want to be back at the clanhold before sunset.”

“But…here? Now? I thought you needed to hunt.”

Wordlessly, he held up a deer and two partridges, noosed together by the feet. He
set  them
on the ground on the other side of the arrow markers.

“We start simple,”
he said.
“Show me your animal positions.”

“My what?”

“The basic positions.” He jabbed the air impatiently. “The Bull, the Jaguar, the Coyote, the Snake, the Bear, the Mouse, all of them. Start with the Still forms, then try the Moving forms, if you know them.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“The basic positions you learned as a little girl from your clan’s Tavaedi.”

“Our clan was too small and had no Tavaedi of its own. Three clans all shared a secret society to provide magic.”

“Then your parents or another relative must have taught you the animal positions to prepare you for the Testing.”

She shook her head.

He stared at her. “But, Dindi, I saw you dancing. You were
using
them. You
went much beyond the basics. You
must
know them.”

She shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Mmfff.” Kavio blew out huff of frustration. “This may take longer than I thought, then. We really must start at the beginning.”

“I warned you I was the worst dancer in Faearth.”

He looked at her oddly. “I don’t think so. When I saw you dancing by yourself on the outcrop above the Tavaedies, I mistook you for one of the Yellow Bear teachers, bored of her charges, stretching her legs. I should have realized no teacher would leave the salted ground. Maybe I assumed you had prepared your own ground, or…honestly, I don’t know what I
thought
.