Moonscatter (45 page)

“Tchah!” Tuli said when she came up with her.

“Well, that's what they say. Actually, it's part of teaching us how to make any fool sorry he bothered us.”

Pottery. Fires out under the kilns. Too hot.

Smithy. Women and girls sweating over spear points and arrowheads, the smell of hot iron and sweat, the clang of metal on metal, the hiss of metal quenched in cool water.

Weaving hall. The great looms silent, the huge chamber dark, silent. “It's usually full of noise,” Dinafar said sadly. “The weavers have moved outside until the weather breaks.”

Kitchen. Pots, steam, noise, girls everywhere, irritation, laughter, fussing—like a seething stew, different ingredients popping to the top in turn to give a whiff of their own particular flavor. They were quickly chased from this place.

Maiden Shrine. “Can't go in there now. The Shawar are working there and they don't like to be disturbed.”

“Working?”

“Fighting the Nor, you know, trying to fix the sun so it's right again.”

Smoking sheds. Posser haunches wreathed in pungent smoke, strips of dark almost black hauhau meat drying, black sausages dangling.

Storehouses. Barrel on barrel of salt fish, salt meat, crocks of preserves, bins of grain, sacks of tubers, strings of dry fruit and wax-coated cheeses.

Barns. Empty of stock except for some hauhau cows kept for their milk and a few macain. Stuffed with hay, more bins of grain. “Until the weather breaks,” Dinafar said, “most of the stock is up in the mountains.”

Girls everywhere, a flood of girls drowning the older women, girls chattering, laughing, silent, intent, impatient, sullen, cheerful, glowing, lazy, bubbling with nervous energy, tie girls, tarom's daughters, city girls from Sel-ma-carth and Oras, girls from distant places and distant peoples whose names and locations Tuli didn't know. A culling of girls, the rebellious, the restless, the pleasure-loving, the pious, some fleeing the repression of the Followers, some seeking whatever it was the Biserica seemed to promise them.

The promise of the Biserica. Tuli began to see how little anyone knew of the Valley, they knew the keepers, the meien, the healwomen, they knew nothing at all about the craftswomen, teachers, fieldworkers and all the rest. The promise of the Biserica. Whatever else it was, it meant hard work, accepting responsibility, and in the end a kind of freedom not found anywhere else in the world, not that she knew anyway, though she was forced over and over again to realize just how little she did know.

As the day wore on, Tuli grew silent and thoughtful. One moment she was sure this was what she wanted, that this was what she was born for. The next moment she missed Teras dreadfully, missed her mother and her father, Sanoni and the ties and all the familiar and comfortable things she'd grown up with.

A vague nausea floated under her ribs and the revolting taste of the infusion kept coming up into her throat.

In the middle of the night a hand shook her awake—Vesset, with the third dose of the miska-pierdro. Tuli sat up, scrubbed at her eyes.

“Come, little one, one last gulp.” Vesset bent over her, stroked her tangled hair.

Tuli shuddered. “Must I?”

“Can't leave the job half done.” Vesset's high-cheeked face was tender in the shadowed light from the porcelain lamp sitting on the bedside table.

Tuli sighed, took the small cylinder and tossed the liquid it held to the back of her throat. “Gahh, that's awful.”

“Here.” Vesset handed her a stoneware mug. “Juice. It'll cut the taste.”

Tuli took the mug gratefully and gulped down half the juice before she lowered it again. “Maiden bless,” she said.

Vesset chuckled. “Be you blessed. Listen. In a little while you might feel some cramps—or you might not. This takes different people different ways. Even if it gets really bad, don't worry. It'll pass. By morning you'll be sure enough you're going to live.”

“Oh marvelous.”

Vesset bent down, touched Tuli's cheek, then went quietly out, taking her lamp with her.

Tuli sat in the quiet darkness, sipping at the juice, aware even more than before that she was in a strange room in a strange bed. She felt on edge, uncertain. She touched the sheet beside her, stroked her hand along the blanket pulled over her knees. Strange smells. Strange feel. Alone. She shivered, missing the soft night breathing of her family, she'd never slept in a room by herself before. Defying she didn't know what, she tossed down the rest of the juice, fumbled the mug onto the little table, wriggled and bounced herself out flat on the bed, pulled the blanket up over her and lay staring into the darkness. She was tired but the first hours of sleep had taken away the urgency of her need. Sleep evaded her. When she forced her eyes shut, they popped open again. She yawned, stared up at the dark-lost ceiling and tried to relax.

I can put off deciding
, she thought.
Maybe there won't even be a Biserica when this is over. If I just knew, really knew, what I want. I need to see Teras. I need to talk to Mama
. But she knew even as she thought it that it wasn't really so, that Teras wasn't a choice for her anymore, that Rane was right, she had to let him go his own road, that her Mama would make her choose for herself.
Still, I've got time now
. She flattened her hand on her stomach.
I can make my own choices, not have them forced on me. Mmmm. If I go back to the mijloc I'll have to marry somebody, I wonder who
. She made a face at the darkness.
Not Fayd, aghhh! not that chinj
. She began turning over in her mind the boys she knew from Cymbank and around, those her age or a little older. As she drifted toward sleep, the many faces merged, blurred, blended and oddly enough finished up as Dinafar's laughing face.

About an hour later she woke as cramps like knife blades stabbed into her.

Yael-mri and the stable pria Melit rode with Rane and Tuli as far as the gate. Outside the protecting bubble, the air was hot and dry though not quite so terrible as it would be later on. The night's cloud cover was shredded and worn so that the swollen sun was partly visible through rents near the horizon. The dawn was quiet, the wind having dropped until it was only a sometime pat on the face. The three women spoke little until they reached the Great Gate.

Yael-mri held up a hand and pulled her mount to a stop. She leaned over and touched Rane's arm. “Take care,” she said. “We need your news, you know that, but not at the expense of your life.”

Tuli moved impatiently in the saddle. She wanted to leave this place that demanded too much from her and she seethed with impatience to get on with the ride north. She was excited, nervous and triumphant. When this was over she'd have more adventures than Teras would. She wanted to go back and show him he wasn't the only one to do exciting and important things. And all those tie girls with their giggles and hateful sly digs, she wanted to look at them with a face that said,
you're nothing, no one. Look what I've done while you sat around and gossiped
. She smiled at the pictures in her head, not quite able to believe they'd ever happen, she might be young like the Ammu Rin said but she was old enough to know the scenes you plotted in your head never worked out the way you thought they would.

She sighed.
Still talking
. She closed her eyes and thought about the morning. Dinafar had brought her breakfast—

She threw Dina the pillow, then settled herself cross-legged on the bed in front of the long-legged tray. Dina kicked the pillow against the wall and sat down on it, sat with her hands laced behind her head watching Tuli eat. “Wish I was going with you,” she said.

Tuli didn't have an answer for that so she kept quiet and sipped at her cha.

“It gets boring here sometimes, all the studying and everyone so serious, well, that's not true, it's just we know bad times are coming fast, worse than now, I mean, and it just feels wrong to play and be lazy, though we do it anyway, you know, and they scold us some but they smile when they do it.”

“Rane spent a lot of time talking with Yael-mri.” Tuli heard the sourness in her voice and winced.
I sound jealous
, she thought. She sneaked a glance at Dinafar to see if she'd noticed. Dinafar was looking with exaggerated casualness at the door. Tuli sniffed.

“Oh, they got things to talk about, you know. There's people out in the mijloc, well, all over, but the mijloc is what's worrying us now. Anyway, they keep an eye on what's happening and Rane is one of them that bring us news.” Having talked away her awkwardness, she gave Tuli one of her broad glowing grins.

“Yah, I know.” Tuli emptied the cha mug and went to work on the porridge. Spoon halfway to her mouth, she said, “We're going on a swing around the Plains when we leave here.”

Dinafar sighed, got to her feet and walked slowly to the door. In the doorway, she swung around, hesitated, said, “You'll come back, won't you? Please?” Without waiting for an answer she wheeled and fled down the hall.

Lost in memory, Tuli missed most of the conversation beside her until the pria Melit gave a sudden sharp exclamation and pointed.

The clouds in the east were breaking fast now, disappearing as if the sky absorbed them into itself. In a wide blue space the sun pulsed violently. Even as the four of them watched, there was a sound like a snapping lute string and the sun settled to a distant cool glow, its normal size and color in a sky that was suddenly a wintry blue without the distorting copper tinge they'd seen for passages.

“She did it,” Yael-mri cried. “She pulled him off us.” The three women laughed and wept together, and pounded their saddle ledges and threw back their heads, whooping. After a few moments, though, Yael-mri sobered. “I doubt he can reestablish the lens, not with the Shawar warned and ready to fight him. There's still Floarin and her army, but the army won't march until Spring now. We've won some time—no, Serroi won it for us. Time,” she sighed. “Take care, Rane. You could have some stormy riding now the weather's broken.”

Rane nodded. “Maiden bless,” she said softly. “You and the Valley.” She stretched, settled herself in the saddle, grinned at Tuli. “Let's go, Moth.”

CHAPTER XIV:

THE QUEST

A dash down the river, tedium in the marches, chaos on the Sinadeen.

Low Yallor, loud, noisy, crowded, busy.

Behind them the sea.

Outside the breakwater the storm-prodded sea lashed at the stones as it had lashed at the
Moonsprite
.

In front of them, Yallor Market.

Around them, a confusion of ships.

Trading ships that hugged the southshore of the Sinadeen and went south along the west coast of Zemilsud, or north to stop at Trattona of Sankoy, Oras of the mijloc, nameless ports north where the ivory fishers lived. Tiny outriggers from a dozen swamp clans on the north shore of the Sinadeen. Ocean-goers from the Sutireh Sea. Noise, color, confusion. Land merchants, ship's captains on shore wandering about, examining merchandise piled high in market booths, bargaining in loud roars or near inaudible whispers. Local porters trotting along under huge burdens, shouted on by anxious buyers.

And everywhere, pulling at her—sickness, pain, needing. Sores. Deep-hid tumors. Syphilis and related ills. Burns. Cuts. Rotting teeth. Suppurating ulcers. Fever. Fever. Fever—the breath of the swamp breathing over the town. She clung to the low-slung guardrail, blind to the confusion swirling about her, to the corrupt and stinking water below her and fought to win some control of the compulsion that threatened to drain the strength out of her until she was hollow. Roots writhed within her feet, immaterial roots wanting to be real and plunge down and down into Earth's cool heart.

Someone touched her shoulder. Blinking and trembling she looked around. Hern was frowning down at her. His lips moved. After a moment, she realized he was speaking to her. “… wrong?” he said.

“Hold me,” she said.

“The healing?”

“Yes.” She leaned against him, his strength shielding her from some but not all of the needing. His arms came around her. She clasped her hands over his.

Norii and Vapro swung overside. Standing in a water-taxi they waved at her, then sat and let the waterman row them to the shore. Hern's arm tightened about Serroi. She felt briefly like laughing, knowing his relief at seeing the back of them, though he'd said no more to her about them.

He murmured into her ear, “What can I do?”

“Get me through the market.” With a quick round gesture she took in the noisy throng on the shore. “To someplace where there aren't too many people. I'll be all right then.”

“You're sure? You know I have to see about transport and supplies for crossing the Dar.”

“Hunh! I'm sure of nothing.”

“Sounds better.” He laughed. “Over the side then. You can do the rowing. I'll sit and watch.”

“In a possess fat eye you will.”

“Then we better take a taxi.” He scooped her up and swung her over the guard rail, lowered her into a boat nuzzling against the
Moonsprite
, startling the waterman seated in the stern.

The Dar stretched out to the horizon on all sides, a sheet of shallow water ruffled by the constant wind into painful glitters, broken by scattered clumps of feathery reeds twined about with blue-flowered vines. Day in, day out, always the same. Day in, day out, the wind blew, driving the double-hulled craft south and west toward the mountain range they could not yet see.

Swarms of small black biters rose at dawn in swaying swirls like dust devils in the Deadlands. Hern and Serroi were fresh blood for them, tender delicacies that called them from all over. At first they tried burning green reeds. Instead of driving the biters away, the choking black clouds seemed to entice more of them. They tried going overside and spending the worst of the day in the water, but the water had its own pests, small round leeches the size of Hern's thumbnail, boring worms that took only seconds to bury themselves in living flesh. Serroi had to spend an hour driving them out of Hern's body and out of her own.