Woman Who Loved the Moon (29 page)

“Let us begin,” she said.

Sedi moved opposite her. Her boots were black kid, and they made no sound as she stepped through the stubby grass. Kai felt a flower of fear wake in her heart. She almost turned to tell the page to wind his horn. But Alin set her staff to whirling, and it was too late. It spun and then with dizzying speed thrust toward Sedi’s belly. Sedi parried the thrust, moving with flowing grace. Back and forth they struck and circled on the rise. Alin was laughing.

“This one is indeed a master, O my sisters.” she called. “I have not been so tested in months!”

Suddenly the hard horn tip of Sedi’s staff thrust toward Alin’s face. She lifted her staff to deflect the blow. Quick as light, the black staff struck at her belly. Kai cried out. The head blow had been a feint. Alin gasped and fell, her arms folding over her stomach. Her lovely face was twisted with pain and white as moonlight on a lake. Blood bubbled from the corner of her mouth. Daintily, Sedi stepped away from her. Kai and Tei leaped from their horses. Kai unlaced her breastplate and lifted her helmet from her face.

“Oh,”‘ said Alin softly. “It hurts.”

Tei whirled, reaching for her spear.

But Alin caught her arm with surprising strength. “No!” she said. “It was a fair fight, and I am fairly beaten,”

Lightly Sedi mounted her horse. “Thy beauty is less than it was, women of Issho,” she said. Noiselessly she guided her steed into the white mist coiling up the hill, and disappeared in its thick folds.

“Ride to the house,” Kai said to the frightened page. “‘Bring aid and a litter. Hurry.” She laid a palm on Alin’s cheek. It was icy. Gently she began to chafe her sister’s hands. The page raced away. Soon the men came from the house. They carried Alin Talvela to her bed, where her mother the sorcerer and healer waited to tend her.

But despite her mother’s skills, Alin grew slowly more weak and wan. Lia Talvela said, “She bleeds within. I cannot stanch the wound.” As Kai and Tei sat by the bed, Alin sank into a chill silence from which nothing, not even their loving touch, roused her. She died with the dawn. The folk of the household covered her with azure silk and laid her oaken staff at her hand. They coaxed Kai and Tei to their beds and gave them each a poppy potion, that they might sleep a dreamless sleep, undisturbed even by grief.

Word went to Roko Talvela to tell him of his daughter’s death. Calling truce to his wars, he returned at once to Issho. All Issho county, and lords from the neighboring counties of Chuyo, Ippa, and Nakase, came to the funeral. Kai and Tei Talvela rode at the head of the sad procession that brought the body of their sister to burial. The folk who lined the road pointed them out to each other, marveling at their beauty. But the more discerning saw that their faces were cold as if they had been frost-touched, like flowers in spring caught by a sudden wayward chill.

Autumn passed to winter. Snow fell, covering the hills and valleys of Issho. Issho households put away their silks and linens and wrapped themselves in wool. Fires blazed in the manor of the Talvelai, The warrior sisters of Issho put aside their armor and busied themselves in women’s work. And it seemed to all who knew them that Kai had grown more silent and serious, and that proud Tei had grown more grim. The page tried to cheer them with his music. He played war songs, and drinking songs, and bawdy songs. But none of these tunes pleased the sisters. One day in desperation he said, “O my ladies, what would you hear?”

Frowning, Tei shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.

But Kai said, “Do you know “The Riddle Song?”‘ naming a children’s tune. The page nodded. “Play it.” He played it. After it he played “Dancing Bear” and “The Happy Hunter” and all the songs of childhood he could think of. And it seemed to him that Tei’s hard mouth softened as she listened.

In spring Roko Talvela returned to his wars. Kai and Tei re-donned their armor. At dawn and at dusk they rode the perimeter of the domain, keeping up their custom, accompanied by the page. Spring gave way to summer, and summer to autumn. The farmers burned leaves in the dusk, covering the hills with a blue haze.

And one soft afternoon a figure in silver on a coal-black horse came out of the haze.

The pale face of the full Moon gleamed at her back. “It’s she!” cried the page. He reached for his horn.

Tei said, “Wait.” Her voice was harsh with pain. She touched the long spear across her knees, and her eyes glittered.

“O my sister, let us not wait,” said Kai softly. But Tei seemed not to hear. Sedi approached in silence. Kai lifted her voice. “Stay, traveler. There is no welcome for you in Issho.”

The white-haired woman smiled a crooked smile. “I did not come for welcome, O daughters of the Talvelai.”

“What brought you here, then?” said Kai.

The warrior woman made no answer. But her gray eyes beneath her pale brows looked at Kai with startling eloquence. They seemed to say, patience. You will see.

Tei said, “She comes to gloat. O my sister, that we are two, and lonely, who once were three.”

“I do not think—” Kai began.

Tei interrupted her. “Evil woman,” she said, with passion. “Alin was all that is trusting and fair, and you struck her without warning.” Dismounting from her dappled mare, she took in hand her long barbed spear. “Come, Sedi. Come and fight
me
.”

“As you will,” said Sedi. She leaped from her horse, spear in hand, and strode to the spot where Tei waited for her, spear ready. They fought. They thrust and parried and lunged. Slowly the autumn chill settled over the countryside. The spears flashed in the moonlight. Kai sat her horse, fingering the worked setting of the ruby on her sword. Sometimes it seemed to her that Sedi was stronger than Tei, and at other times Tei seemed stronger than Sedi. The polish on their silver armor shone like flame in the darkness.

At last Tei tired. She breathed heavily, and her feet slipped in the nubby grass.

Kei had been waiting for this moment. She drew
Song
from the sheath and made ready to step between them. “Cease this!” she called. Sedi glanced at her.

“No!” cried Tei. She lunged. The tip of her spear sliced Sedi’s arm. “I shall win!” she said.

Sedi grimaced. A cloud passed across the Moon. In the dimness, Sedi lunged forward. Her thrust slid under Tei’s guard. The black-haired woman crumpled into the grass. Kai sprang to her sister’s side. Blood poured from Tei’s breast. “Tei!” Kai cried. Tei’s eyes closed. Kai groaned. She knew death when she saw it. Raging, she called to the page, “Sound the horn!”

The sweet sound echoed over the valley. In the distance came the answering calls from the Talvela men. Kai looked at Sedi, seated on her black steed. “Do you hear those horns, O murderous stranger? The Talvela soldiers come. You will not escape.”

Sedi smiled. “I am not caught so easily,” she said. At that moment Tei shook in Kai’s arms, and life passed from her.

The ground thrummed with the passage of horses. “Do you wish me caught, you must come seek me, Kai Talvela.” Light flashed on her armor. Then the night rang with voices shouting.

The captain of the guard bent over Kai. “O my lady, who has done this thing?”

Kai started to point to the white-haired warrior. But among the dappled horses there was no black steed, and no sign of Sedi.

In vain the men of the Talvelai searched for her. In great sadness they brought the body of Tei Talvela home, and readied her for burial. Once more a procession rode the highway to the burial ground of the Talvelai. All Issho mourned.

But Kai Talvela did not weep. After the burial she went to her mother’s chambers, and knelt at the sorcerer’s knee. “O my mother, listen to me.” And she told her mother everything she could remember of her sisters’ meetings with the warrior who called herself Sedi.

Lia Talvela stroked her daughter’s fine black hair. She listened, and her face grew pale. At last Kai ended. She waited for her mother to speak. “O my daughter,” Lia Talvela said sadly, “I wish you had come to me when this Sedi first appeared. I could have told you then that she was no ordinary warrior.
Sedi
in the enchanter’s tongue means Moon, and the woman you describe is one of the shades of that Lady. Her armor is impervious as the moonlight, and her steed is not a horse at all but Night itself taking animal shape. I fear that she heard the songs men sang praising the beauty of the women warriors of the Talvelai, and they made her angry. She came to earth to punish you.”

“It was cruel,” said Kai. “Are we responsible for what fools say and sing?”

“The elementals are often cruel,” said Lia Talvela.

That night, Kai Talvela lay in her bed, unable to rest. Her bed seemed cold and strange to her. She reached to the left and then to the right, feeling the depressions in the great quilts where Alin and Tei had been used to sleep. She pictured herself growing older and older until she was old, the warrior woman of Issho, alone and lonely until the day she died and they buried her beside her sisters. The Talvelai are a long-lived folk. And it seemed to her that she would have preferred her sisters’ fate.

* * *

The following spring travelers on the highways of Ryoka were treated to a strange apparition—a black-haired woman on a dappled horse riding slowly east.

She wore silver armor and carried a great curved sword, fashioned in the manner of the smiths of the Middle Counties. She moved from town to town. At the inns she would ask, “‘Where is the home of the nearest witch or wizard?” And when shown the way to the appropriate cottage or house or hollow or cave, she would go that way.

Of the wisefolk she asked always the same thing: “I look for the Lady who is sometimes known as Sedi.” And the great among them gravely shook their heads, while the small grew frightened, and shrank away without response. Courteously she thanked them and returned to the road. When she came to the border of the Middle Counties, she did not hesitate, but continued into the Eastern Counties, where folk carry straight, double-edged blades, and the language they speak is strange.

At last she came to the hills that rise on the eastern edge of Ryoka. She was very weary. Her armor was encrusted with the grime of her journey. She drew her horse up the slope of a hill. it was twilight. The darkness out of the east seemed to sap the dappled stallion’s strength, so that it plodded like a plowhorse. She was discouraged as well as weary, for in all her months of traveling she had heard no word of Sedi. I shall go home, she thought, and live in the Talvela manor, and wither. She gained the summit of the hill. There she halted. She looked down across the land, bones and heart aching. Beyond the dark shadows lay a line of silver like a silken ribbon. in the dusk. And she knew that she could go no further. That silver line marked the edge of the world. She lifted her head and smelled the heavy salt scent of the open sea.

The silver sea grew brighter. Kai Talvela watched. Slowly the full Moon rose dripping out of the water.

So this is where the Moon lives, thought the woman warrior. She leaned on her horse. She was no fish, to chase the Moon into the ocean. But the thought of returning to Issho made her shiver. She raised her arms to the violet night. “O Moon, see me,” she cried. “My armor is filth covered. My horse is worn to a skeleton. I am no longer beautiful. O jealous one, cease your anger. Out of your pity, let me join my sisters. Release me!”

She waited for an answer. None came. Suddenly she grew very sleepy. She turned the horse about and led it back down the slope to a hollow where she had seen the feathery shape of a willow silhouetted against the dusk, and heard the music of a stream. Taking off her armor, she wrapped herself in her red woolen cloak. Then she curled into the long soft grass and fell instantly asleep.

She woke to warmth and the smell of food. Rubbing her eyes, she lifted on an elbow. It was dawn. White-haired, cloaked in black, Sedi knelt beside a fire, turning a spit on which broiled three small fish. She looked across the wispy flames and smiled, eyes gray as ash. Her voice was clear and soft as the summer wind. “Come and eat.”

It was chilly by the sea. Kai stretched her hands to the fire, rubbing her fingers. Sedi gave her the spit. She nibbled the fish. They were real, no shadow or illusion. Little bones crunched beneath her teeth. She sat up and ate all three fish. Sedi watched her and did not speak.

When she had done, Kai Talvela laid the spit in the fire. Kneeling by the stream, she drank and washed her face. She returned to the place where she had slept, and lifted from the sheath her great curved blade. She saluted Sedi. “O Moon,” she said, “or shade of the Moon, or whatever you may be, long have I searched for you, by whose hand perished the two people most dear to me. Without them I no longer wish to live. Yet I am a daughter of the Talvelai, and a warrior, and I would die in battle. O Sedi, will you fight?”

‘“I will,” said the white-haired woman. She drew her own sword from its sheath.

They circled and cut and parried and cut again, while light deepened in the eastern sky. Neither was wearing armor, and so each stroke was double-deadly, Sedi’s face was serene as the lambent Moon as she cut and thrust, weaving the tip of her blade in a deadly tapestry. I have only to drop my guard, Kai Talvela thought, and she will kill me. Yet something held her back. Sweat rolled down her sides. The blood pounded in her temples. The salty wind kissed her cheeks. In the swaying willow a bird was singing. She heard the song over the clash of the meeting blades. It came to her that life was sweet. I do not want to die, she thought. I am Kai Talvela, the warrior woman of Issho. I am strong. I will live.