The Valley of Horses (35 page)

When Jondalar looked up, the eyes, whose indefinable color was merely dark in the firelight, were scrutinizing him. He felt power in them, and intelligence, but he appraised with equal intensity. The crackling, hissing flames cast moving shadows across the old face, blurring the features, but even in daylight Jondalar had been unable to define any specific characteristics, other than age. Even that was a mystery.

There was strength in the wrinkled face, which lent it youthfulness though the long mane of hair was shocking white. And while the figure beneath the loose clothing was spare and frail, the step had spring. The hands alone spoke unequivocally of great age, but for all their arthritic knobs and blue-veined parchment skin, no palsied flutter shook the cup that was lifted to the mouth.

The movement broke eye contact. Jondalar wondered if the Shamud had done it deliberately to relieve a tension that was growing. He took a sip. “The Shamud good healer, has skill,” he said.

“It is a gift of Mudo.”

Jondalar strained to hear some quality of timbre or tone that would shade the androgynous healer in one direction or the other, only to satisfy his nagging curiosity. He had not yet discerned whether the Shamud was female or male, but he did have an impression that in spite of the neutrality of gender, the healer had not led a celibate life. The satirical quips were too often accompanied by knowing looks. He wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how to phrase his question tactfully.

“Shamud life not easy, must give up much,” Jondalar tried. “Did healer ever want mate?”

For an instant the inscrutable eyes widened; then the Shamud broke into sardonic laughter. Jondalar felt a hot flash of embarrassment.

“Whom would you have had me mate, Jondalar? Now, if
you
had come along in my younger years, I might have been tempted. Ah, but would you have succumbed to my charms? If I had given the Blessing Tree a string of beads, could I have wished you to my bed?” the Shamud said with a slight, demure bend of the head. For a moment, Jondalar was convinced it was a young woman who spoke.

“Or would I have needed to be more circumspect? Your appetites are well developed; could I have aroused your curiosity to a new pleasure?”

Jondalar flushed, sure he had been mistaken, yet strangely drawn to the look of sensuous lechery and the catlike sinuous grace the Shamud projected with a body shift. Of course, the healer was a man, but with a woman’s tastes in his pleasures. Many healers drew from both the male and female principle; it gave them stronger powers. Again he heard the sardonic laugh.

“But if the life of a healer is difficult, it’s worse for the mate of one. A mate should be a man’s first consideration. It would be hard to leave someone like Serenio, for instance, in the middle of the night to take care of someone who was sick, and there are long periods of abstinence required …”

The Shamud was leaning forward, talking to him man to man, with a gleam in his eye at the thought of a woman as lovely as Serenio. Jondalar shook his head with puzzlement. Then, with a movement of the shoulders, the masculinity had a different character. One that excluded him.

“ … and I’m not sure I’d want to leave her alone with a lot of rapacious men around.”

The Shamud was a woman, but not one that would ever be attracted to him, or he to her, as anything more than a friend. It was true, the healer’s power came from the principle of both sexes but was that of a woman with a man’s tastes.

The Shamud laughed again, and the voice had no shading of gender. With a level look of person to person that asked human understanding, the old healer continued.

“Tell me, which one am I, Jondalar? Which one would you mate? Some try to find a relationship, one way or another, but it seldom lasts long. Gifts are not an unmixed blessing. A healer has no identity, except in the larger sense. One’s personal name is given back, the Shamud effaces self to take on the essence of all. There are benefits, but mating is not usually among them.

“When one is young, being born to a destiny is not necessarily desirable. It is not easy to be different. You may not want to lose your identity. But it doesn’t matter—the destiny is yours. There is no other place for one who carries the essence of both man and woman in one body.”

In the fire’s dying light, the Shamud looked as ancient as the Earth Herself, staring at the coals with unfocused eyes as though seeing another time and place. Jondalar got up to get a few more sticks of wood, then nursed the fire back to life. As the flames took hold, the healer straightened, and the look of irony returned. “That was long ago, and there have been … compensations. Not the least is discovering one’s talent and gaining knowledge. When the Mother calls one to Her service, it isn’t all sacrifice.”

“With Zelandonii, not all who serve Mother know when young, not all like Shamud. I once thought to serve Doni. Not all are called,” Jondalar said, and the Shamud wondered at the tightening of his lips and the creasing of his brow that bespoke a bitterness that still galled. There were hurts buried deep within the tall young man who seemed so well favored.

“It is true, not all who might wish are called, and not all who are called have the same talents—or proclivities. If one is not sure, there are ways to discover, to test one’s faith and will. Before one is initiated, a period of time must be spent alone. It can be enlightening, but you may learn more about yourself than you wish. I often advise those considering entering the Mother’s service to live alone for a while. If you cannot, you would never be able to endure the more severe tests.”

“What kind of tests?” The Shamud had never been so candid with him before, and Jondalar was fascinated.

“Periods of abstinence when we must forgo all Pleasures; periods of silence when we may not speak to anyone. Periods of fasting, times when we forgo sleep as long as possible. There are others. We learn to use these methods to seek answers, revelations from the Mother, particularly for those in training. After a time, one learns to induce the proper state at will, but it is beneficial to continue their use now and then.”

There was a long silence. The Shamud had managed to ease the conversation around to the real issue, the answers Jondalar wanted. He had but to ask. “You know what is
need. Will Shamud tell what means … all this?” Jondalar spread his arm in a vague all-encompassing gesture.

“Yes. I know what you want. You are concerned about your brother after what happened tonight, and in a larger sense, about him and Jetamio—and you.” Jondalar nodded. “Nothing is certain … you know that,” Jondalar nodded again. The Shamud studied him, trying to decide how much to reveal. Then the old face turned toward the fire and an unfocused look gathered in the eyes. The young man felt a distancing, as though a great space had been put between them, though neither had moved.

“Your love for your brother is strong.” There was an eerie, hollow echo to the voice, an otherworldly resonance. “You worry that it is too strong, and fear that you lead his life and not your own. You are wrong. He leads you where you must go, but would not go alone. You are following your own destiny, not his; you only walk in tandem for a pace.

“Your strengths are of a different nature. You have great power when your need is great, I felt your need of me for your brother even before we found his bloody shirt on the log that was sent for me.”

“I did not send log. It was chance, luck.”

“It was not chance that I felt your need. Others have felt it. You cannot be denied. Not even the Mother would refuse you. It is your gift. But be wary of the Mother’s gifts. It puts you in Her debt. With a gift as strong as yours, She must have a purpose for you. Nothing is given without obligation. Even her Gift of Pleasure is not largesse; there is purpose for it, whether we know it or not …

“Remember this: you follow the Mother’s purpose. You need no call, you were born to this destiny. But you will be tested. You will cause pain and suffer for it …”

The young man’s eyes flew open with surprise.

“ … You will be hurt. You will seek fulfillment and find frustration; you will search for certainty and find only indecision. But there are compensations. You are well favored in body and mind, you have special skills, unique talents, and you are gifted with more than ordinary sensitivity. Your vexations are the result of your capacity. You were given too much. You must learn by your trials.

“Remember this as well: to serve the Mother is not all sacrifice. You will find what you seek. It is your destiny.”

“But … Thonolan?”

“I sense a break; your destiny lies another way. He must follow his own path. He is a favorite of Mudo.”

Jondalar frowned. The Zelandonii had a similar saying, but it didn’t necessarily mean good luck. The Great Earth Mother was said to be jealous for Her favorites and called them back to Her early. He waited, but the Shamud said no more. He didn’t fully understand all the talk of “need” and “power” and “Mother’s purpose”—Those Who Served the Mother often spoke with a shadow on their tongue—but he didn’t like the feel of it.

When the fire died down, Jondalar got up to leave. He started toward the shelters at the back of the overhang, but the Shamud was not quite through.

“No! Not the mother and child …” the pleading voice cried out in the dark.

Jondalar, caught by surprise, felt a chill down his spine. He wondered if Tholie and her baby were burned worse than he thought, and why he was shivering when he wasn’t cold.

“Jondalar!” Markeno hailed. The tall blond man waited for the other tall one to catch up. “Find a way to delay going up tonight,” Markeno said in a hushed voice. “Thonolan has had enough restriction and ritual since the Promising. It’s time for a little relaxation.” He removed the stopper from a waterbag and gave Jondalar a whiff of the bilberry wine, and a sly smile.

The Zelandonii nodded and smiled back. There were differences between his people and the Sharamudoi, but some customs were evidently widespread. He had wondered if the younger men would be planning a “ritual” of their own.
The two men matched strides as they continued down the trail.

“How are Tholie and Shamio?”

“Tholie is worried that Shamio will have a scar on her face, but they are both healing. Serenio says she doesn’t think the burn will leave a mark, but not even the Shamud can say for sure.”

Jondalar’s concerned expression matched Markeno’s for the next few paces. They turned a bend in the trail and came upon Carlono, studying a tree. He smiled broadly when he saw them. His resemblance to Markeno was more apparent when he smiled. He was not as tall as the son of his hearth, but the thin, wiry build was the same. He looked once more at the tree, then shook his head.

“No, it’s not right,”

“Not right?” Jondalar asked.

“For supports,” Carlono said. “I don’t see the boat in that tree. None of the branches will follow the inside curve, not even with trimming.”

“How you know? Boat not finished,” Jondalar said.

“He knows,” Markeno interjected. “Carlono always finds limbs with the right fit. You can stay and talk about trees if you want, I’m going on down to the clearing.”

Jondalar watched him stride away, then asked Carlono, “How you see in tree what fit boat?”

“You have to develop a feel for it—it takes practice. You don’t look for tall straight trees this time. You want trees with crooks and curves in the branches. Then you think about how they will rest on the bottom and bend up the sides. You look for trees that grow alone where they have room to go their own way. Like men, some grow best in company, striving to outdo the rest. Others need to grow their own way, though it may be lonely. Both have value.”

Carlono turned off the main trail along a path not as well traveled. Jondalar followed behind. “Sometimes we find two growing together,” the Ramudoi leader continued, “bending and giving only for each other, like those.” He pointed to a pair of trees entwined around each other. “We call them a love pair. Sometimes if one is cut down, the other dies, too,” Carlono said. Jondalar’s forehead wrinkled in a frown.

They reached a clearing and Carlono led the tall man up a sunny slope toward a massive giant of a twisted, gnarled old oak. As they approached, Jondalar thought he saw strange
fruit on the tree. Drawing near, he was surprised to see that it was decorated with an unusual array of objects. There were delicate tiny baskets with dyed quill designs, small leather bags embroidered with mollusk-shell beads, and cords twisted and knotted into patterns. A long necklace had been draped around the huge bole so long before that it was embedded in the trunk. On close inspection, he saw it was made of shell beads, carefully shaped with holes bored through the centers, alternating with individual vertebrae of fish backbones which had a natural center hole. He noticed tiny carved boats hanging from branches, canine teeth suspended from leather thongs, bird feathers, squirrel tails. He had never seen anything like it.

Carlono chuckled at his wide-eyed reaction. “This is the Blessing Tree. I imagine Jetamio has made her a gift. Women usually do when they want Mudo to bless them with a child. The women think of her as theirs, but more than a few men have made her an offering. They ask for good luck on first hunts, favor on a new boat, happiness with a new mate. You don’t ask often, only for something special.”

“Is so big!”

“Yes. It is the Mother’s own tree, but that isn’t why I brought you here. Notice how curved and bent her branches are? This one would be too big, even if she wasn’t the Blessing Tree, but for supports, you look for trees like this. Then you study the branches to find the ones that will fit the inside of your boat.”

They walked by a different path down to the boat-making clearing and approached Markeno and Thonolan, who were working on a log that was huge in girth as well as length. They were gouging out a trough with adzes. At the present stage, the log resembled the crude trough that was used for making tea rather than one of the gracefully shaped boats, but the rough shape had been hacked out. Later a stem and stern would be carved, but first the inside had to be finished.