Women of War (6 page)

There was feasting that night. Ruana would rather have been upon the road, but it would have been unkind to blight their pleasure, and in feasting, they reassured themselves that there was reason to feast. And in truth, it was late in the day to set out, for one who wandered where the road took her.

When the feast was done and the fire burned low, the villagers asked her, over and over, for the tale of the monster's death, and from this Ruana knew that Moonflute had said nothing to them, though he could have told the tale in her absence and said what he wished.

She could give them safety. She could give them their lives. But she could not give them the words they hungered for.

“Hear me and heed me, villagers of Paloe, and I will tell a tale like no tale you have ever heard, and more: the tale of a true thing. I will tell the tale of how Ruana Rulane, the Twiceborn, came to the village of Paloe and slew the Death that comes in the night—yes, took into her immortal hand the god-sword Shadowkiss, forged before the world was forged, and slew a monster out of legend.” Moonflute moved closer to the fire and held out his cup to be filled, in the way that tale-singers did when they began a tale.

He spoke of terror in the night, of a creature with burning eyes birthed by Darkness Itself, a monster that fed on man-flesh and would not be slaked.

He spoke of a hero who rode out of the East, a hero who carried a sword forged by gods, who slew the monster in a mighty battle, though it screamed and fought and called upon unholy powers to aid it.

Of himself, he did not speak.

And the eyes of the folk of Paloe grew round with wonder and satisfaction, and their lips moved silently as they told over the best parts of the tale to themselves.

“And so it was that with one great blow the Twiceborn clove the monster of Paloe in two, and the light of Evil departed from its eyes, and the shadow of darkness departed from its heart, and its black blood poured out upon the earth in a steaming gush, and it lay dead. And Ruana Rulane leaped to her feet with a great cry of triumph, and brandished the god-sword Shadowkiss above her head, and the droplets of the monster's blood fell upon the earth like rain, and she shouted aloud with joy at her victory. And now is my tale told, the tale which is no tale, but the true account of the slaying of the monster of Paloe,” Moonflute finished.

Now the villagers were satisfied, and the ale-jug went around one last time. The women gathered sleeping babes into their aprons, and the husbandmen lifted larger children onto their shoulders, and all moved slowly toward their beds.

Ruana lingered before the fire, watching Moonflute stare into it.

“Art a tale-singer, then, hinny?” she asked, when the silence had stretched long enough.

“No,” Moonflute said wearily. “But I was a pot-boy in an alehouse in Corchado. I heard them often enough. I know how a tale should go. I told the people what they wanted to hear. If ... it wasn't all the truth, I know their lives. They don't have time for more truth than this.”

“Aye,” Ruana said. “I know them too.” Once she had been one of them. A very long time ago.

“I wanted all the tales to be true,” Moonflute said. “Not more. Not less. Heroes, and justice, and glory at the sword's point. I wanted ...” he stopped.

There was only one thing in her gift, and Ruana gave it.

“I knew ...” Ruana thought hard. “Not thy sire. He'd have left no bye-bairn of his to rot. Nor yet thy gran'ther. But a laird of thy blood, so I reckon. 'Twas he who trusted me to keep the sword.”

Moonflute smiled, and his smile was painful to see. “He was a hero, then.”

“Aye,” Ruana said. It was the truth. “Precious little glory in it, d'ye ken. Glory is for kings and priests and the dead.”

There was no more to say, and so she got to her feet, and walked to the headman's house where she would sleep that night.

The birds that called before the dawn woke her. In the darkness, Ruana got to her feet and dressed, picked up her sword and her saddlebags, and headed for the stable.

Moonflute was there waiting for her.

His injured arm was in a sling—it would be many days before the bruised shoulder was well again—but he stood beside a new-bought horse with his saddle upon its back.

Waiting for her.

She saddled her horse in silence. There was nothing to say. She knew what he wanted, and would not ask her for.

Would it indeed be such a bad thing, to have a companion upon the road?

He will tire of it,
she thought, and knew he wouldn't.

He will die,
she thought, and knew he would.

It will hurt when he dies,
Ruana thought with an inward sigh.

But pain was life, was being human—and a moment in the brush on the side of a hill had shown her the peril that could come of forgetting to be human.

She swung into the saddle and looked down at him.

“Well, come on then, my hinny; an' tha want to be uncomfortable, I'd best show thee the easiest way of it.”

“I will,” said Moonflute.

LIKE MANY YOUNG BEINGS, it came as something of a revelation to me that my elders had been young once themselves. Or at least younger, with all that implied about having made choices—or mistakes.

It was the latter that intrigued me most. Or formed the single defining aspect of my own life—whichever way you preferred to look at it.

Me? I'm Esen-alit-Quar, Esen for short, Es in a hurry or from a friend. During my first few centuries of life, however, I was almost always “Esen-alit-Quar! Where's that little troublemaker?”

Not that I ever intended to cause trouble. In truth, I went to great lengths to avoid causing anything at all, understanding that anything that attracted the attention of my elders was not going to end well.

Unfortunately, I possess a curiosity equal to any hunger of my flesh. Half answers, hints, suggestions of “you'll know when you're as old as we” only fanned that curiosity, particularly as I found it hard to believe I'd ever be as old as any of my Web. The Web of Ersh. We were six, led by the oldest and thus first among us, Ersh herself. Unimaginably ancient. Different. The center of all things. And the most likely individual to find fault with me at any given moment.

Or the secondmost. For Ersh had younger sisters, daughters of her flesh: Ansky, Lesy, Mixs, and Skalet. It was Skalet who took my occasional missteps as her duty to announce—or even better, cause.

Me? Oh, I sprang from Ansky's flesh, not Ersh's. Worse still, I wasn't a sister/daughter—or whatever one called a relationship in which being given life was more like amputation. I'd been born.

How was this possible? The question would prompt Lesy to giggle. Solitary Skalet would scowl and confer in anxious scents or other means with the like-minded Mixs. Ansky herself would smile and say it took practice.

The subject of my origin was one I knew not to bring up around Ersh.

There was no one left for me to ask, for we six were unique and alone among all other forms of life. Only we were Web beings, able to manipulate matter and energy—more specifically, our matter and our energy—in order to disguise ourselves.

And to hold information. Our Web's noble purpose was to gather and retain the accomplishments of other, ephemeral intelligences within our almost immortal flesh, shared only with Ersh, to be assimilated by her and then passed, in the amount and content she saw fit, to each of us.

The least of that bounty to me. Which didn't help quench my curiosity, leading me very early to seek my own answers.
Why?
was my favorite conversation starter, perhaps because it made my elders flinch.

Now when Ersh deigned to offer the answer to a question, one had no choice but to live with the consequences. But my curiosity was so vast—or, more accurately, my ability at that age to imagine such consequences so limited—that I would continue to push Ersh for answers long after any other of my kin would wisely back away. It didn't help that those answers were most often doled out to me, in typical Ersh fashion, not when I first asked, but rather when she felt knowing them would educate me even more than in their substance.

So it was with war.

War wasn't a new concept to me. I'd assimilated the cultures, histories, and biologies of thousands of intelligent species from Ersh. I was familiar, if never comfortable, with war as a fact of life for some, the inevitable end of life for others.

What was new was the warfare lately shared by Skalet. Even filtered through Ersh, her memories of the Kraal's battle for Arendi Prime and its aftermath were like a stain, affecting my every thought. How had a Web-being, sworn to preserve ephemeral culture, become so very good at waging its wars?

Not that I thought the question through in quite those terms. With what Ersh would doubtless consider a selfish fixation on my own life, I wanted to avoid learning any more than I had to about war and destruction. In particular, I didn't want any more lessons on the subject from Skalet.

Skalet probably felt the same. Certainly she made it abundantly clear our sessions together were a waste of her talents in tactics and strategy. When Ersh wasn't in range, that is. Otherwise, as well argue with the orbit of Picco's Moon as one of Ersh's decisions about my education.

Still, there had to be a way. Rather than grumble to myself, I decided to go to Ansky. However, it is the way of our kind that we literally have no secrets from Ersh. Something which hadn't actually occurred to me when I decided it was safer to approach my birth mother than the center of our six-person universe.

My chance came during Ansky's turn to make supper, a tradition at those times when our odd family gathered in the same place, in this case, Picco's Moon.

Carved, like the rest of Ersh's home, from rock almost as old as she, the kitchen was a sparse, practical room, able to accommodate a variety of cooking skills while safely housing a maturing Web-being prone to explode without notice. When it was just Ersh and I, food came out of the replicator and the counters became cluttered with what had her attention at the time, from greenhouse cuttings to bits of machinery. When Lesy played chef, gleaming porcelain of unusual shapes appeared, and woe betide any who disturbed her delicate—and often unidentifable—concoctions. I was definitely forbidden entrance.

Ansky, being more competent and Esen-tolerant, greeted my arrival with a friendly, if absentminded, wave of welcome.

“I can help,” I offered, grabbing the largest knife available and curling lip over fang in mock threat. Assorted vegetables were already cowering on the countertop.

For some reason, Ansky rescued the knife from my paw with a deft slip of an upper tentacle. She liked to cook as a Dokecian, the five-limbed form possessing sufficient coordination to stir the contents of pots, dice vegetables, and carve meat all at once. I watched her wistfully—my own ability with the form still limited to pulling myself around and under furniture, at constant risk of forgetting which handhold to release before tugging at the next. A regrettable incident involving a tableful of crystals and a coat rack had led Ersh to forbid me this form indoors.

“I'd ask you to do the dishes, but ...” her voice trailed away meanfully.

My current self, my Lanivarian birth-form, abhorred water, something Ansky knew from experience. “I've gloves,” I assured her, my tongue slopping free between my half-gaping jaws. I resisted my tail's urge to swing from side to side. Smiling was fine, but Ansky wouldn't approve a lapse of good manners.

We settled in, shoulder to shoulders, working in companionable silence. If my washing technique lacked finesse, at least the clean dishes arrived intact on the counter. I wasn't the only one who measured my growth by such things.

But I hadn't come to Ersh's steamy, fragrant kitchen—which had perfectly functional servos, so the physical effort to produce both steam and fragrance was unnecessary, but no one asked me—to be helpful. I'd come with a problem.

Of course, Ansky knew it as well. “So. What is it this time, Esen?” she asked after a few moments.

I almost lost my grip on one of Ersh's favorite platters. “It?” I repeated, keeping my ears up. All innocence.

My birth-mother wasn't fooled. “Let me guess. Skalet's latest enterprise.”

My tail slid between my legs as I scrubbed a nonexistent spot. Confronted by the very subject I'd hoped to discuss, I found myself unable to say another word.

“She's become such a nasty morsel.”

I couldn't help but stare up at her. Each of her three eyes were the size of my clenched paws. Two looked down at me, their darkness glistening with emotion. “Did you think this sharing was welcomed by any of us? The taste of her memories, even first assimilated by Ersh, were—unpleasant.”