The Unfinished Song: Taboo (3 page)

“Is that like a faery ring?”

“It is
the
faery ring. Humans have many dances but the fae have only one, which touches all times and all places. That's why a human who joins a faery circle dies. Only immortals can survive eternity and then return to the present.
Except here, where a mortal can see the past, or the future.
But you'll learn all this soon enough, now that you're a Tavaedi. You don't need to hear it from a scruffy exile.”

He scratched his chin, embarrassed by several dawns’ worth of stubble he'd had no opportunity to shave. He hadn't applied mud in a while either. The day she'd paid him her lifedebt, she avoided looking him in the face, as if he disgusted her, and she cast her glance aside the same way now. Yet she didn't order him to leave. She listened attentively as he babbled and lead her outside the taboo
area,
to the spot he had assembled his two piles of pebbles.

“After the war against the Aelfae, the Deathsworn built the final ring, enclosing the other two. Someone told me this represents the plight of humankind, trapped between the vagaries of the fae and the Deathsworn, forced to make sacrifices to both.”

The speech had sounded more dramatic when he’d had an obsidian blade to his throat.

“Why are you here?” She picked up a stone from one of his piles. “What are these for?”

“I also have things to think about. I use the stones to help me.”

“How?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Another Tavaedi secret?”

He laughed, but he felt curiously protective of this odd habit, which he had never shared with anyone. “Hardly. Fine
—
I’ll explain. I have a decision to make. It doesn’t matter what, the point is there are reasons to do
it,
there are reasons not to do it. For each reason, I put a stone in one pile or the other, until I run out of reasons. I follow the larger pile.”

He waited for the delicate curl of her upper lip, or a baffled wrinkle in her fore
hea
d. Or giggling.

“Can I try it?” she asked.

Spread hands invited her to the piles of stones.

He remained alert for any hint of mockery, but Dindi soon became so absorbed he felt forgotten. First she scooped all the stones to her,
then
she began to place the stones one by one into a single pile on the right side. He kept waiting for her to add stones to the second pile, but she didn’t.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he finally burst, unable to contain himself. “You’re supposed to put some stones in each pile, reasons for and reasons against.”

“I know,” she said. “So far all of the reasons have been against.”

She kept going until she reached the final stone. She held it a long time before she placed it to the left, all by itself.

“That decision was easy.” Kavio envied her.

“Actually, I still haven’t made up my mind.”

“
You can’t let one rock outweigh any other rock.
Are you
sure you understand the method?”

“Are you sure you do?
What if
this is
the only
stone which truly matters?”

He reached for the lone stone in the left-hand pile at the same time that she did and their hands touched. She smelled of wild flowers, and earthier, feminine flavors that made his blood pound in his ears.

“Thank you for sharing your thinking stones with me.” She whispered it so softly he had to lean forward to catch her words. “I know what I will do.”

“Dindi…” he said.

“I must go. There's to be a banquet to honor some hero who fought in the battle here last night. Will you be there?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“I understand. Without a clan...” She looked uncomfortable again. “I'm so sorry.”

She left as she had come, a straight walk across the center of the three circles of stones he had taken such pains to warn her against. She disappeared down the hillock into a sea of grass. Stone by stone, he reassembled his own piles of thinking stones, and again ended with an even division. He picked up another stray pebble to be tiebreaker. Eyes closed, he could picture the exact way sunlight had dappled her cheek and bare arms when she’d asked,
What if this is the only stone which truly matters?

Brena watched her daughters dress in their newly earned dancing costumes. She was one of the adults supervising the girls’ lodge as the Initiates changed. They had all been given new clothes to fit their s
tatus. The lodge was filled with the sound of clinking necklaces, rustling feather skirts. The sweet voices of young girls mingled in a high pitched,
high energy
chorus of exclamations, declarations, revelations, pleas and giggles.

Most of the young people imagined that the Test on the Tor of the Stone Hedge, the dark night they had spent entombed beneath the ground in homage to death and burial, was the most difficult part of the Initiation. It was not. Granted, the Initiates this year had come far closer to real death than had ever been intended, because of the cursed attack by Blue Waters tribesmen. Nonetheless, in her experience of teaching Initiates, the rest of the year, which was the true heart of the Initiation, would be more difficult for most of the young people than the first night. For now they would be asked to demonstrate patience, loyalty, obedience, discipline and discernment—virtues most younglings lacked in abundance.

Speaking of lack of discernment,
Gwenika
was showing
her new costume to
that
girl. Dindi.

Brena’s dislike of the girl had deepened to disgust after last night. Every Initiation, one or two fools tried to lie to the Tavaedies. It never worked, even when the lies were much better crafted than Dindi’s absurd claim to see the stones shine.

Gwenika couldn’t contain her giddiness. “Dindi, look what I was given to wear!” She twirled around in her bright yellow costume of bangles of gold and a disk headdress. The gilded beadwork humbled the maiden’s frock worn by the other young woman, a white sheath with black maze patterns around the hems.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Oh—I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have…I didn’t mean to make you feel worse.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Dindi. “It’s not your fault I have no magic.”

“Your dress is…nice too,” Gwenika said with forced enthusiasm.

They both smiled brightly at one another.

Brena cringed.

“Will you help me fasten my costume?” Gwenika was asking her friend. “I can’t do it by myself, and I’m afraid of ripping it.”

“No, dear.” Brena stepped out of the shadows to place her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Tavaedi secrets are not for outsiders.” She looked the young woman Dindi straight in the eye. “My daughter won’t tell you, so I must. You and she can no longer remain friends. You each move in different circles now. I’m sorry. Come away from her, Gwenika.”

“But Mama!”

“
Now
, Gwenika. It’s not open for discussion.”

“It’s all right, Gwenika. I understand.” Dindi lowered her head. Her dignified acceptance raised Brena’s opinion of her a notch. Not enough, however, to redeem her as fit company.

Brena steered her daughter away. Gwenika protested the whole while. “I’m an adult now. I can do what I want and you can’t stop me!”

“You’re still an Initiate, a novice Tavaedi, and I am not only your elder, I am a Zavaedi, one of your teachers. You
will
do as I say or you will lose the privileges of belonging to the secret society. You will behave with honor and restraint.
That
is what it means to be an adult.”

Gwenika wiped her eyes and glared at her mother. “I hate you.”

“Let me fasten the rest of your costume.”

“Leave me alone!” She ran out of the lodge.

Long after she finished dressing, Dindi lingered in the lodge, until she was the last young woman still
dressing.
Puddlepaws played with the tassel on her dress until she distracted him with a scrap of food. Then she sat down,
pulled the doll out of her basket and studied it.

She had
seen
magic on the Tor of the Stone Hedge, the night of her Initiation, the night she failed the Test. There was no doubt about that. But just as clearly she did not
have
magic herself.
At least not enough to be worthy.
Otherwise, she would have been able to follow the steps of the
tama
of the Unfinished Song. Instead, just like her grandmother, she had made a fool of herself. In fact, she was sure now that the only reason she had even been able to see any magic at all was because of the doll.

She’d surrendered the totem doll to Tavaedi Brena during the ceremony, but it had been returned to her this morning. Dindi had half expected someone to discover the doll’s strange magic, but no one had even commented on how old and worn the doll was, how strange a totem it was for a young girl. Dindi knew she should tell someone that the doll was hexed. She also knew she wouldn’t.

Once, the doll had been painted with a face of whosever totem it really was. Who was it? Could it be Vessia the Corn Maiden, the young woman Dindi saw in the Visions? The maiden who had flawlessly danced the
tama
Dindi yearned to learn?

Did you save me or destroy me? Are you a gift or a curse?

The brilliant light of an oncoming Vision
glittered in the air
.
She made the choice: she would not resist it. She
welcomed
it.

“Dindi…” Gwenika entered the lodge. Her mouth fell open. Clearly she could see the shimmering light in the air. Her expression transformed from surprise to horror. “Dindi, don’t do it!”

Dindi panicked and wished she had never taken out the corncob doll. She threw it as far from her as she could. But it was too late. She couldn’t stop the magic now.

The Vision
flooded
her
.

The enemy warriors bound Vessia’s hands behind her back. Beside her, Danumoro was similarly bound. Vio the Skull Stomper, Vumo, Gidio and their warriors marched the two prisoners across the turf walkway, over a temporary bridge of logs across the river, onto the far bank where their army had set up camp. The camp had its own sharpened pikes in a protective ring around it. Within, fire pits burned in front of temporary wikiups, conical tents made from branches and hide. Men in white legwals, bone headdresses and skull war paint came to observe the prisoners being brought in. A few jeered, until a sharp gesture from Vio quelled them.

An extremely ugly woman stomped up to Vumo. Pockmarks disfigured her angular face. Her chin jutted forward like a blade. She hunched her shoulders over her caved-in breasts and her breath stank. Most unpleasant about her, however, was the expression on her face—a suspicious sneer—and the pitch of her voice—a nasal screech.

“There you are, husband!” She grabbed Vumo by they ear. He grinned at her good-naturedly.

“Er, hello, darling Nangi.”

“Don’t ‘darling Nangi’ me, you were out all night!”

“At the parley, my darling! We were conferring with the enemy.”