The Unfinished Song: Initiate Page 4

  Chapter Four

  Hex

  Dindi

  To Dindi’s dismay, the distance from the wooded cliffs down and across the lowland fields was greater than it had looked from up above. There were many switchbacks on the way down the hill, and then a long meandering footpath led them through more woodsy areas and cultivated cornfields. Unlike in the Corn Hills, where the clans tilled permanent fields, the Yellow Bear people still practiced swidden agriculture. They burned out an area to be planted for a season or two, then allowed the woods to grow back over it while they moved on to cultivate another spot.

  Settlements in the Yellow Bear lands were spaced farther apart than in the Corn Hills, and smaller. Several times over the next several days, they passed clanholds, all of the same peculiar design. The beehive shaped mounds that Dindi had mistaken for houses from the buff were actually steep, artificial hills of much larger dimensions than she had estimated. At the top of each artificial hill, a clay or log pike wall enclosed a dozen or less dome shaped houses. Warriors sat in bomas, crow’s nests. These cage-like platforms at the top of tall posts reminded Dindi of larger versions of her rabbit hutch back home. The Yellow Bear people did not seem to have kraals for horses or aurochsen, but goats gamboled everywhere, along with many kinds of fat, waddling birds and peccaries. Also, occasionally Dindi caught the tantalizing smell of smoking fish.

  The fae here were strange too, though not unfriendly. Brownies rode on the backs of the birds. Nymphs in flowing gowns dangled from the branches of the trees. Many of them waved at Dindi as she passed, but she scrupulously ignored them.

  They snaked along through Yellow Bear territory circuitously at first, in order to avoid trespass whenever they saw a warning totem post. These posts, of wood or stone, featured the tribe’s totem on the bottom, a bear standing on its hind legs with one paw raised, the clan marking in the middle, and a rayed disk at the top. Once, they saw a clanhold burning in the distance, mute evidence of war with a neighboring clan.

  They did not rest in any of the clanholds, but camped by night in the wilderness near the path, as they had before. The Tavaedis also allowed them each to scrounge the forest for edibles, with the caution to stay in pairs and beware of trespassing directly on the lands of any Yellow Bear clan lands. They had not packed enough food for the whole journey, so they needed to find more as they traveled. The Tavaedies set aside days to send the boys hunting and the girls foraging for food.

  Dindi wasn’t the only Initiate disappointed to learn they would not see the ocean in the far West. In fact, they had not caught a glimpse of the ocean since they entered the lowlands.

  “It’s better that we don’t go near the ocean,” snapped Abiono, in response to Tamio’s complaints on this point. “The settlements on the coast are often attacked by Blue Waters tribesmen. Sometimes the vicious thugs even bring their war canoes up the river!”

  “Really?” Tamio leaned into this news, enthralled. “Is there any chance they might attack while we’re here? A war would be really marvelous!”

  “Yellow Bear tribehold is the third largest in Faearth. Blue Waters barbarians aren’t foolish enough to attack such a hold when even the Bone Whistler himself did not dare,” Abiono said crushingly. “I suggest you worry about passing the Initiation and not go looking for more trouble.”

  As they neared the tribehold itself, settlements occurred more closely together. When the Tavaedies decided to ask for shelter at one of these, Sycamore Stand, the Initiates had their first chance to look at Yellow Bear tribesfolk up close.

  From a distance, Dindi had already seen that they built their holds upon some sort of mound. Sycamore Stand was no different. The travelers descended to the hold from some hills thick with chaparrals. From this vantage, the outline of the artificial earthen mound, raised from the valley floor, showed clearly. It was not a simple round hill, Dindi now saw, but a disk shape with a long extended earth walkway, like a tambourine with a handle. A ditch surrounded the disk. Sharpened stakes prickled the ditch. The only safe approach into the hold, then, was to cross the narrow walkway. Five clumps of dome houses, perhaps a hundred domiciles in all, dotted the flat disk top. The houses looked like beehives or birdhouses. Each was round, domed and plastered white. A tiny hole in the middle of the wall, well above ground level, served as the only entrance. Rope and wood ladders dangled from these window-doors.

  Most of the houses were painted along the bottom, patterns of stripes and circles in color pallets dominated by yellow, but graced by occasional touches of blue and orange. Those with the finest and freshest paint had also been crowned with a golden disk on a miniature ladder in the top center of their domes. “The ladder to the sun,” Abiono explained the ubiquitous symbol.

  Yellow Bear Tavaedies and warriors came out to meet the visitors and escort them across the long neck of earth to the hold. They dressed distinctly from Rainbow Labyrinth tribesfolk. The male Tavaedies here wore billowy knee-length elderbark skirts under immense diamond shaped masks that reached below their waists and far above their heads. The outsized ‘eyes’ and ‘lips’ of the diamond-head masks were plated in beaten gold. One Tavaedi wore an immense gold Ladder to the Sun disk above his diamond shaped mask. The female Tavaedies wore longer skirts and complicated crowns of golden beads and bangles formed into prongs, loops and horns.

  Yet, to Dindi, the ordinary clanfolk appeared no less outlandish. Matriarchs and maidens wore their hair chopped short, like the cap on an acorn. They swished about in full skirts made from bark rag strips and knotted cords. Patriarchs wore hats mounted with disks, warriors, hats mounted with horns. Gold necklaces and arm torques encircled the necks and limbs of both genders, and a few of the men’s disk shaped hats were plated in gold as well. Women wore gold ear rings and nose rings and seashell ankle bracelets that click-clacked when they walked.

  The Tavaedies in regalia strode out to meet them, led by a majestic woman in a headdress of gold spangles.

  Brena

  A black crow swoops toward the bear, shedding a feather, which becomes an arrow. A girl is there, with a bow, who unleashes the arrow into the bear, and watches as the whole world melts and dies. A baby’s cry. Brena tries to scream but she has no mouth.

  There is a wound in the world. The bear looks right at Brena. Help me heal it.

  Brena awakened from the nightmare with her hands digging into her thigh. The fire in the hearth had died to low embers. Her sleeping mat lay on one side of the ovoid, one-room house, her daughters slumbered together on the other side. All of her herbs hung in baskets on pegs on the curved mud wall, forming a nest of sage and chamomile. She breathed in the aroma and forced herself to relax.

  Dulled by mud walls, but not damped completely, came the sound of weeping—Ula’s younger sister, in the next compound, still sobbing over her miscarriage. The ugly affair with Ula hadn’t done anything to set Brena at ease. Ula and her sister had married the same man, because Ula had proven barren. In public, Ula had made a show of welcoming her younger sister’s pregnancy. In secret, Ula, who had no magic, made some nasty bargain with the lower fae, who gave her blue cohosh to slip into her sister’s acorn stew.

  The hexery had been discovered, and Brena, among others, cast stones on the mat to condemn Ula. The Tavaedi society of Sycamore Stands clan gave Ula the usual choice for a witch, to be sacrificed to the fae or given to the Deathsworn.

  Brena could not help but think of her nightmare, and how easy it would have been to slip the black arrow into Ula’s heart—Ula who was condemned to die anyway—and end the faery’s torment. It infuriated Brena to catch herself in these unworthy thoughts. She pushed away the temptation. In any case, Ula chose to be tied to the black obelisk at the edge of the clan lands, to be given to the Deathsworn.

  The clan of Sycamore Stands belonged to a clanklatch, a local alliance, of five clans, and did not often suffer attacks from outtribers. However, one morning, not long after Ula’s trial, the warriors who manned the bomas – crow’s nests bui
lt on tall masts – sounded their conch shells. Clanfolk fled their gardens and cornfields to huddle inside the stockade on the top of the hill. Outtribers, an entire band including Tavaedies, had been spotted crossing the totem poles marking the boundary of Sycamore Stands territory. The outtribers approached the earth ramp to the hill, where they left gifts and waited to be invited further. The Sycamore Stands clansfolk observed the newcomers, recognized them, then designated Zavaedi Brena to greet them when the stockade opened.

  The Zavaedi of the outtribers bowed his head and spread his arms. He raised his voice for all to hear.

  “Sycamore Stand Clan of Yellow Bear Tribe, we trespass without malice upon your hospitality. By your leave, Zavaedi Brena of Sycamore Stand.”

  “Zavaedi Abiono of Broken Basket of the Rainbow Labyrinth, welcome,” she said. “It’s been long since we’ve seen you. How many Initiates do you bring?”

  “Seven boys and seven girls, Honored Auntie,” said Abiono.

  Brena inclined her head. “We also have Initiates to send to the tribehold. I will be escorting them. The Initiates can all travel together.”

  Native and visiting Tavaedies danced and played rattles and drums to escort the Initiates into the center of the hold, where the hosts prepared a feast for the guests.

  Brena felt back in her element overseeing the preparations.

  “The friends you chose now will influence the rest of your life,” she warned her daughters as they rolled out the flat bread on large rocks. “When I was your age, I neglected the people who could have helped me become a better Tavaedi and only spent time with those I thought were ‘amusing’. That was a mistake. They held me back from being as good a dancer as I could have been. I didn’t want to humiliate my friends, so I didn’t try as hard as I should have.”

  The memory still irked her. One of her so-called friends later became her husband. Even then, all he’d cared about was that his wife not outshine him.

  “But Mama, you became a Zavaedi eventually,” said Gwena.

  “That’s just my point,” said Brena. “Not until after your father…” She caught herself. She’d never told the girls the full story. “…died in battle,” she revised in mid-sentence, “did I really focus on honing my skills. I don’t want you two to make the same mistake. When you reach the tribehold, there will be hundreds of young people. Search for the best dancers and make them your friends. Then you will be encouraged to be the best too. Don’t make friends with people who are likely to fail the Testing.”

  “Well, of course,” said Gwena. “Why would we want to spend time with failures?”

  “Maybe they might have other qualities besides just being able to dance well,” said Gwenika. She cuddled a chipmunk, her latest inseparable pet.

  Brena fought the same helplessness that always welled up in her whenever faced with her youngest daughter. Gwena is tough, like her father, but Gwenika is too much like I used to be. A weakling.

  “Maybe I should hold you back until next Initiation.” Brena combed her hand through her hair, considering that possibility. “You’re too young.”

  Gwenika brightened. “Yes! I can stay here with my pets and Gramma, while you and Gwena go off for seven moons to the tribehold.”

  “Never mind.” Brena punched another sticky ball of dough on the rock until it was flat. “You’re coming.”

  By noon, Brena saw to it reed mats laden with food were arranged in a square around the performance platform in the center of the dome-shaped houses. Tall structures of a wooden lattice leading to a disk of beaten gold, the Ladder-to-the-Sun symbol of Yellow Bear, surmounted many of the mud-and-dung houses. Brena noted with pride the awe of the Rainbow Labyrinth tribesfolk as they eyed the beaten gold. The Rainbow Labyrinth excelled in many things, but no one surpassed the gold smiths of Yellow Bear.

  The two Taveadi societies held an impromptu Vooma, a dance war. They took turns displaying their cleverest tama while the aunties of Sycamore Stand served roasted pigeons, acorn porridge, onions, carrots, celery and rhubarb in addition to corn pishas and corn beer.

  “Tama Tama,

  Tae Tae,

  Vooma Vooma

  Tae!”

  The chanting and the drums thundered and the Tavaedies flipped and kicked on the plantform. Zavaedi Brena won the Vooma against her counterpart, but Abiono took defeat with good grace. As they returned to the feast, his eyes twinkled and he gestured vaguely toward the gold ornaments and paint she wore which indicated her widowed state.

  “You still haven’t remarried? Neither have I. My offer stands . . .”

  She smiled, despite herself, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I remain as flattered as always. But I have no desire for a man to complicate my life.”

  “I wish you would let go of your grief for your husband, Brena. It won’t bring him back.”

  “It isn’t grief,” she said. “It’s anger. He brought his death on himself. He had no need to join his cousin’s clan’s war, he just wanted to win glory. He could never forgive me for having a Shining Name when he didn’t. But he would have found more glory protecting his own children than swallowing a spear. What good did a Shining Name do for him then?”

  Her eyes slid to her daughters. The elder, Gwena, had already attracted the attentions of several of the new Initiates. She laughed and tossed her hair, looking completely at ease and so like her father Brena’s breath caught in her throat. The younger, Gwenika, on the other hand, wagged her tongue at one newcomer after another, always with the same result: after a moment or two the other person’s smile began to twitch, and her partner abandoned the spot next to her to escape her chatter. Gwenika ended next to the last girl in the line, a pretty but mousy thing who looked twitchy to begin with, certainly not like someone capable of teaching Gwenika to better herself. Brena couldn’t say why, and she told herself she was being foolish and unfair, but she took an immediate dislike to the girl. There was something unsettling about her. Brena’s mouth thinned to a line.

  “Who’s that?”

  Abiono’s sigh held a basketful of untold woes. “That one would be Dindi.”

  Only then did Brena recognize her from the dream as the girl who had shot the bear and destroyed the world.

  Dindi

  During the feast and dancing, Puddlepaws escaped Dindi’s pack. She worried in case the kitten tried to steal foods from the feast mats, but found Puddlepaws preoccupied behind her. Head low to the ground, eyes glowing with intent, small furry rump stuck up in the air, tail lashing, the kitten stalked a scurrying rat.

  Puddlepaws pounced and caught the rat, which he didn’t know quite what to do with.

  A girl swooped down and picked up Puddlepaws. “Fa! Go! Leave her alone! Oh, you poor little thing, are you whole? Did that meanie cat bite you?”

  The girl was cradling the rat. No, now Dindi saw it clearly, it wasn’t a rat but a chipmunk. Puddlepaws scrambled away and peeked out from behind one of the huts.

  “That’s my cat,” Dindi said. “Don’t chase him off, he might get lost.”

  “He terrified my chipmunk!”

  “I’m sure he meant no harm,” Dindi said. “He just wanted to eat an arm or two. Maybe a leg.”

  The girl snorted. In her looks, she was typical of Yellow Bears folk, solid and healthy, with cropped, thick dark hair and sun-warmed skin that shone golden brown. Her dress was beaded with polished acorn caps and quail feathers, and she wore a single gold ring in her nose.

  “My name is Gwenika.” She coughed and plunked herself down next to Dindi, displacing Jensi, who had been chatting with Yodigo on her other side and not noticed her.

  “Hey!” protested Jensi.

  “Be careful not to sit too close to me,” said Gwenika morosely. “I have Drowned’s Man’s Lung.”

  Jensi scooted away. Now Dindi and Gwenika were isolated at the end of the mat.

  “Drowned Man’s Lung!” said Dindi. Normally, anyone with a contagious, fatal disease such as that was asked to
join the Deathsworn rather than risk infecting the rest of her clan.

  Gwenika chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “I may have the wrong diagnosis, I’m still not sure. My symptoms are fever, coughing and chest pain, which could indicate Drowned Man’s Lung. But it might also be the Black Boil Plague.”

  Either possibility seemed quite dreadful to Dindi. Several of her clanfolk—two younger siblings to Jensi and Hadi’s mother—had died from disease a few years ago, because Uncle Lobo had angered a troll.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dindi. “How were you hexed?”

  “I’m still not sure. My mother refuses to help. She thinks I’m not really sick.”

  “Oh,” said Dindi. “What does your clan’s Healer Tavaedi say?”

  “My mother is our clan’s Healer.”

  “Oh.”

  Dindi didn’t know what else to say, but Gwenika talked, and very rapidly. She asked a lot of questions but didn’t wait for answers.

  “So you have a cat? Where did you find him? What do you feed him? Other than chipmunks. I’ve never met anyone else with an animal. That wasn’t a horse, I mean. Or goats, but those aren’t really pets because you eat them. Some people do eat horse, though, which makes sense because there’s a lot more meat on a horse than on a chipmunk. No one has horses here, but I’ve heard all of the clans in Rainbow Labyrinth do—is that true? This is my chipmunk. I found him when he was hurt and helped him heal.”

  Dindi nodded.

  Encouraged by this response, Gwenika continued, “I was the lucky one. I had Stomach Upheaval at the time, and Stripe—that’s my chipmunk—helped me through it.”

  The rest of the meal, Gwenika merrily continued to discuss the various illnesses she had endured in her short life. For some reason, the more diseases she mentioned, the less Dindi worried about catching Drowned Man’s Lung.

  “You must be our guest tonight,” Gwenika said after the dancing ended and the revelers began to totter to the huts to sleep.

  Dindi followed her to one of the beehive shaped houses honored by a golden Ladder-to-the-Sun top piece. There was no way that either girl could reach the round window-door from ground level, and there appeared to be no ladder.

  “Hey!” shouted Gwenika. She slapped the side of the house.

  Another girl, Jensi’s age, appeared in the window-door.

  “That’s my sister, Gwena,” said Gwenika. To her sister: “Let us up!”

  Gwena shoved a dark bundle over the ledge of the window. A rope ladder with wooden slats snapped down to knee’s reach. Gwenika scrambled up, followed more slowly by Dindi. As soon as both had crawled over the sill, Gwena silently rolled the ladder back inside and pushed it into a nook next the door.

  It took Dindi a moment to adjust to the dimmer light inside the beehive house. Smoke stung her eyes.

  Two adobe steps led down from the window to the interior floor, which was raised compared to the ground level outside. A fire flickered in the hearth at the center of the round room, while about the edges were adobe platforms for sitting, sleeping and eating. Everything looked clean and well swept.

  It wasn’t hard to guess which platform belonged to Gwenika. Two rabbits snuggled on the blankets, under dangling birdcages. Other cages sat on the platform, which held a prairie vole, an opossum and a dozen lizards. A large, ventilated pot sat behind them all from which came the distinctive, and most unnerving sound of a rattle snake. Each of the animals that Dindi could see had an injury that had been lovingly bandaged—the birds had broken wings, the lizards lacked tails, one rabbit had a hurt paw, the other suffered a mite-infected ear. She wasn’t sure about the rattlesnake and didn’t care to investigate.

  Puddlepaws, who had returned to Dindi’s pack and was peeking out, looked extremely interested in the rabbits.

  Gwena and Gwenika’s mother turned out to be none other than the rather intimidating Zavaedi Brena. Her greeting was accompanied by a critical cross examination, with particular focus on Dindi’s family background.

  “So there are no Tavaedies in your family?” Zavaedi Brena asked several times, several different ways.

  “No, Auntie.”

  “Hrmf.” She glanced significantly at her daughters, with a tiny shake of her head.

  Gwena avoided close conversation with Dindi after that, but Gwenika appeared not to take her mother’s hint.

  “You’ll guest with us,” Gwenika informed Dindi.

  Late as it was, Dindi wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the platform barely had room for a single human, definitely not two.

  “Gwenika, sleep on the floor,” said Zavaedi Brena.

  “But her delicate health—” said the grandmother.

  “She will survive one night.”

  “I can sleep on the floor,” Dindi said.

  “You’re our guest, it wouldn’t be right.”

  Gwenika unrolled a mat of rushes and lay down beside the platform; while Dindi tried to accustom herself enough to the strange place enough to sleep. The animals shifted in their cages, except for the cat and bunny, which snuggled her. Once she closed her eyes, it almost felt as though the warm bodies breathing beside her was Jensi, and the smell of animal fur was the smell of goats milling in the pen below her loft.

  Dindi

  Wailing awakened her. Dindi sat up, her heart pounding as it had when she’d been kidnapped. The sky, visible through the smoke hole in the ceiling, showed the face of night freckled with stars. She identified the source of misery as Gwenika. While her grandmother patted her back helplessly, Gwenika threw up into the hearth. The burning vomit stank up the whole hut.

  “Is Gwenika sick again?” asked Gwena, rubbing her eyes. She sounded less concerned than Dindi would have expected. “What is it this time?”

  “I’m going to die,” sobbed Gwenika. “This time, I know I’m going to die.”

  “Fa, then, can’t you just die quietly for once and let the rest of us get some sleep?” demanded Gwena.

  Gwenika gagged and retched again, although nothing came out this time. She looked terrible. “One day I will die, and then you’ll be sorry you were so mean to me.”

  “I’ll be too busy catching up on my rest,” said Gwena.

  “Gwenika, don’t jest about such things, you’ll invite the Deathsworn. And Gwena, just focus on resting yourself,” said Zavaedi Brena. “You know your sister isn’t like you, but you mustn’t ruin your own chances at you-know-what.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Gwena.

  “She can sleep on my bed,” said the grandmother. “I’ll brew her a soothing tea.”

  They all returned to bed, except the grandmother, who stayed up long into the night, brewing tea and humming songs of healing.

  Dindi

  The next day, the Initiates from the Rainbow Labyrinth tribe were joined by another dozen Initiates from Sycamore Stands, as well as their chaperon, Zavaedi Brena. Among the new Initiates were the sisters Gwena and Gwenika. The new Initiates wore grass skirts and wood disk headdresses painted yellow instead of a woven wrap, but they also painted symbolic bands of kohl like blindfolds over their eyes, and stenciled rope designs around their wrists and ankles.

  Gwenika clutched Dindi by the elbow for the day’s trek. Dindi felt uncomfortable, like a leashed goat, but also pleased, just a little, someone besides the fae wanted her company. Also, Puddlepaws liked Gwenika, and that sealed it. The furry little traitor took to riding on Gwenika’s shoulder. As she pet Puddlepaws, she explained she’d had to leave her pets behind in the care of her grandmother.

  “Though perhaps it’s for the best.” Gwenika hunched under the weight of her backbasket. “With the number of Upper Back Bloat Spasms I’ve been suffering, I won’t be around much longer to care for them.”

  They stopped an hour before sunset to eat evening meal and camp by a river. The two groups of adults were too busy talking amongst themselves to bother about enforcing the No Talking rule among the Initiates. The boys had gone hunting together.

  Jensi nodded
vaguely at Gwenika, but looked thrilled to meet Gwena.

  “Everyone in your clan thinks very highly of you,” Jensi told her. “They say you are the best dancer since someone called the Corn Maiden, and you’ll be invited to join the Tavaedi for sure.”

  “It’s too soon to say,” said Gwena, although she looked pleased.

  Her younger sister Gwenika chewed her lip and looked away.

  “Who is the Corn Maiden?” asked Dindi. A shiver had coursed through her as soon as she heard the name.

  “You’ve never heard of the Corn Maiden?” Gwena asked. “But she’s famous in the Rainbow Labyrinth too!”

  Jensi and Kemla exchanged a baffled look. “No.”

  “Maybe your people know her by a different name. She was the best dancer that has ever lived.” Gwena blushed. “I’m not saying I really dance like her. People just say that.”

  The Corn Maiden. Dindi’s heart thumped. Should she say anything about the doll, the Vision? Gwena, in particular, might know more about the Corn Maiden, and be able to tell Dindi if the corncob doll actually had some importance.

  Then again, she might make a fool of herself.

  She wished there were some way she could invoke Visions from the doll again, to learn more, before she started telling other people about it. That way she could be sure they wouldn’t just laugh at her—or worse, call her a liar.

  Dindi

  The days of walking blended together, not unpleasantly. Now that they traveled with Yellow Bear tribesfolk, it was easier to barter with clanholds along the trail, so they ate better and hunted less. The pace was swift but not grueling, and it must have been safe from marauders, as the Tavaedies let the Initiates hike at their own pace. For long stretches, Dindi and Gwenika walked alone together, mostly out of sight of the others.

  It was on one of these stretches that Gwenika asked, “Do you ever think about becoming a Tavaedi?”

  All the time. She answered, “Maybe. What about you?”

  “Maybe.” Gwenika chewed her lower lip. “Do you know what tama you’ll do?”

  Dindi looked at her in surprise.

  Gwenika lowered her voice, even though no one was close enough to hear them. “I know it’s a secret. And I know you said no one in your clan was a Tavaedi. But I thought you might have said that to… fa, you know. Hide. So no one would steal your tama. Mama says only the Initiates who perform the best tamas will make it. My sister knows enough steps to handle a difficult one, but it’s easy for her. Mama says even if I get an easy one, I’ll likely still flub it. But it’s not my fault! Whenever I try to dance, I get sick, because of the hex on me.”

  “I don’t know what tama I will do,” Dindi said. Her heart thumped so hard it hurt. This must be what her grandmother meant, that if only she had known the tama of the Unfinished Song, she would have passed the test.

  “I’m just being realistic. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy for my sister. She’s the important one. I don’t matter.” Gwenika’s whole body shuddered when she coughed. “How can I when I’m so sick with Incurable Coughing Foot Pox?”

  Dindi had never heard of Incurable Coughing Foot Pox.

  “I’ll be dead by morning,” moaned Gwenika. She examined her foot. It was a perfectly ordinary foot, complete with five healthy, pink toes, except for a single blister on her sole. “Look, the characteristic death poxes have appeared already!”

  “Try to survive the day, at least,” advised Dindi.

  “I’m sure my sister Gwena will do well in the Testing, but I probably won’t be able to participate,” Gwenika said, teary-eyed. “But really, what does it matter if I go through the Initiation? I’m likely to die before we reach the tribehold anyway.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “You don’t believe I’m really sick, do you?” Her faced purpled and she began to cry. “You’re just like all the rest! But I am, I really, really am—oh, Mercy—”

  Gwenika gasped. Her face had turned ashen. Dindi followed her gaze and saw several diminutive but ugly Yellow fae riding upon squirrels, creeping toward her.

  “They’re coming for me,” Gwenika whispered. “The yeech. Those are the fae who bring me the sicknesses. You can’t see them, can you?” Gwenika asked, already resigned to a negative. “No one can, except for…”

  “Who?”

  “Gwena.” She said her sister’s name with an odd catch in her voice.

  The yeech were following a faint, luminous trail, like a ribbon of pale yellow light, that led to Gwenika. One of them darted forward and pricked Gwenika with a tiny spear. She bent over coughing so hard she vomited on the dirt trail.

  “I believe you, Gwenika,” Dindi said. For the first time, she did. “Let’s get away from here. Maybe we can outrun them!”

  They took off running down the trail until they were both panting. Up ahead, Gwena and Kemla were walking together, and heard them coming.

  Gwena turned around and smiled innocently at her sister. “How are you feeling, Gwenika? Sick again? Poor baby!”

  She and Kemla burst into snickering laughter. Dindi’s skin crawled at the sound.

  Gwenika stopped and stood still until the older girls disappeared from view.

  “No one believes me about the yeech,” said Gwenika hoarsely. “No one believes I’ve been hexed. So who would believe me if I told them I knew who did it—or that it was my own sister?”

  Dindi put her arm around her shoulder. “I believe you. I don’t know what I can do to help. But somehow, we have to find a way to stop her.”

  Kavio

  The woman led Kavio to an isolated dome-shaped hut in a clearing in the woods. He did not dare leave his canoe unattended, so strapped it onto his already heavy rucksack.

  Her home was not far from the river. Someone had erected sticks and slim tree trunks in a fence around the clearing, but it was a shoddy defense at best. Inside the fence, a shallow ditch formed a circle around the hut, but it was not deep enough to constitute an obstacle.

  She invited him to sit, but though he removed his rucksack and his canoe, and stretched the pains from his back, he remained standing.

  “Have you no clan?” he asked.

  “I do,” she said. “I am Ruga, daughter of the Lark Creek Clan. But they won’t let my son in the clanhold, and I won’t leave him alone. So we live here, we two. My sister and her husband help me, though they won’t spend the night here. I’m no beggar. If you heal my son, I can give you your price.”

  “What sickness hexes him?” asked Kavio.

  Ruga figeted with her rope necklaces.

  “I’ll let you judge,” she said, then cupped her hands over her mouth, calling, “Gremo! Hey ho, Gremo!”

  Kavio expected to see a small child, but a full-grown man shambled into view, from round the backside of the hut, walking in the ditch. He was skinny enough his ribs showed, but otherwise seemed healthy, and obviously strong, for behind him he dragged a boulder almost waist tall. It was the immense stone, Kavio saw, which slowed Gremo’s pace to a crawl. Hundreds of ropes had been wrapped around the boulder, and thrown around Gremo’s body, so it looked as if a nest of mad spiders had spun a web to glue him to the rock.

  Gremo would not meet his eyes, or acknowledge his greeting. Instead, the man muttered to himself and shambled forward, ropes streaming behind him, dragging the great stone across the yard, following the curve of the ditch. The stone would never fit through the door of the hut, but Gremo did not remove the ropes, or make any attempt to enter. He kept going round the yard, in the same rut, which indeed, he must have created.

  “The ropes are knotted too tightly to remove,” said Ruga. “That is his curse.”

  Kavio walked closer, and Gremo flinched away, ashamed. He kept slogging forward, the rock grinding behind him. Kavio sliced at the ropes with his obsidian blade, but the stone edge only dulled against the cords without cutting them.

  Ruga was right. The ropes glowed in his Vision with many Chromas, Blue and Yellow especially, ent
wined like a nest of snake. The bindings between Gremo and the rock were magical as much as physical. The magic web would have to be destroyed before any blade could hew the ropes.

  Gremo cringed and whimpered during the inspection in a way that made Kavio want to slap him and tell him to stand like a warrior. I am not my father, Kavio reminded himself, and I should pity weakness, not punish it.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Kavio hoped he kept annoyance from his voice, but Gremo cowered under his arm. Exasperated, Kavio walked to the far side of the yard and sat against a log in the fence.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Ruga. “Why aren’t you dancing? Do you wish me to hide my face?”

  “I need to look at the knots,” Kavio said. “Then I will tell you if I can untie it.”

  “You promised me you would heal my son!” Her voice rose to a screech.

  “I promised nothing. Please, auntie. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

  Grumbling, she went behind the house, and he head the sound of a mortar on pestle. He let the rhythmic thud-thud-thud fade into the background. Dimly, he was aware of the wind in the trees, the smell of bread when Ruga began baking, the purpling sky as day shifted to evening. But he never removed his gaze from Gremo, the ropes, and the rock. Gremo made several rounds about the house while Kavio watched. Ruga brought a piece of flat corn bread and set it beside him on a leaf, but he ignored it.

  In his mind, he reworked the knots seven upon seven times and then seven upon seven more, but try as he might, he could not make the pattern unfold. The bread, now stiff, tasted flavorless and gritty with sand. He ate the whole thing. His stomach growled afterward, less satisfied with the small offering than complete neglect.

  At sunset, a man armed with a spear and painted for war entered the compound.

  “You! Outtriber!” He jabbed the spear toward Kavio. “My wife’s sister told me a stranger was here.”

  Ruga hurried from behind the hut. “Lambo, I asked him here. He’s a healer who can cure Gremo.”

  “Is he, now? Doesn’t look to me like he’s done any healing, only lounging around on his arse, guzzling your food and beer.”

  Beer? There was beer?

  Lambo stomped over to stand chest to chest with Kavio. “You may think Ruga is an unattended basket, but she has kin to collect her deathdebt.”

  “And Gremo?” asked Kavio. “Would his clan collect his deathdebt?”

  “Gremo is her baby, and Ruga would die before letting harm come to her baby.”

  On the other side of the yard, Gremo continued to grunt softly as he heaved the rock. The muscles across his emaciated back gleamed with sweat. He was no baby.

  “He’s never gone through Initiation?” Kavio asked. “He’s been suffering this hex for that long? No wonder the magic is so tangled and strong.”

  “Smoothly spoken, but fancy gabber about magic doesn’t prove you are even a Tavaedi, still less that you can free Gremo from the stone. Others have tricked Ruga out of her gold. But look at her, outtriber. She has no gold left, or she would be wearing it. She’s promised you a sun and a star, I’m sure, but she has nothing left to barter. So save your tricks and your lies.”

  “I’ll take your warning for what it is worth to me,” Kavio said. “Which is not much.”

  He turned his back to return to his spot by the wall.

  The shuffle in the dust and a growl would have been warning enough, but Lambo’s attack was also clumsy. Kavio ducked beneath the first blow and lifted up into a throw that sent Lambo sprawling onto his back. In the same move, Kavio grabbed the spear, which he held to Lambo’s throat.

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” Kavio said. “I don’t care about the gold. I don’t require payment. The magic of the knots is an interesting puzzle, and I hope I can untangle it. If I can, I will. If I can’t, I’ll say so. Either way, I will be moving on in a few days, at most. So I would appreciate it if you didn’t eat my time.”

  “Forgive me, Tavaedi,” Lambo quavered. “Let me keep my life, I, I, I have children of my own and, and, and my wife…”

  Kavio dropped the spear on the dirt. Fighting a man of little skill made one’s Shining Name smaller, his father had always taught him.

  He walked away and went to the river. He relieved himself under a tree and then bathed. The water washing over his skin felt cold and made him think of the icy mountains between him and the home he would never see again.

  A bowl of beer would have been welcome.

  When he returned to Ruga’s compound, Ruga and Lambo both greeted him with astonishment. Ruga clapped her hands and squealed.

  “You’ve returned! You’ve returned!”

  “I feared I had offended you, Tavaedi,” Lambo said. “And that you’d changed your mind about freeing Gremo and departed.”

  “And left my rucksack and canoe here?” Kavio raised an eyebrow. “Hardly. You didn’t touch it, did you?”

  “No, no, Tavaedi!”

  “Good,” he said. “Don’t.”

  Kavio

  The next day, another woman joined Ruga, Lambo and Kavio for morning meal. Kuruga was Ruga’s younger sister, Lambo’s wife. She looked like a less tormented version of Ruga, still a twitch too lopsided to be pretty, but with more black than gray hair and a more thoughtful tilt to her head. During the meal, she shared trivial news about the clan with Ruga. Lambo spoke little, and Kavio said less. No one mentioned Gremo, who, after sleeping beside his boulder, had started up walking in circles again as soon as the sun had risen.

  Kavio spent the day sitting by the barricade, studying Gremo, the ropes and the rock. He ate when bread was set beside him, but otherwise did not move. The tangle of magic cords still perplexed him.

  Kuruga brought him the evening meal once it was obvious he did not intend to join the family.

  “Lambo is right,” she said after a moment. “You’re not like the others who promised they could heal Gremo.”

  “I promised nothing.”

  “I know. But Ruga won’t believe that, no matter how many times you tell her. When you fail, it will hurt her. The longer you stay, the greater her hope, the more it will hurt her. You should leave, tonight. Say nothing to her. Just go.”

  Kavio gave her his full attention. “Give up on your nephew? Strange advice from a loving aunt.”

  “There’s something you should know about Gremo,” she said. “Something Gremo himself doesn’t know. He was fathered by the spear. Blue Waters warriors came up the river and raided our clanhold. When Ruga found out an enemy left his hate in her belly, the Tavaedies gave her a drink to rid her of the poison, but though she drank it, the kicking in her belly did not stop. When the babe was born, she was advised by all to return the thing to the river, and let it float back to him who made it. She took the babe to the river, and threw it in, but when she saw it start to turn blue she fished it out. They told her again to get rid of the spawn of our foes when Gremo started toddling and talking. She tied him to the black stone of the Deathsworn one night, but in the morning, when she found him still there, again she took him back. All were disgusted by her weakness, but there was nothing we could do. No one was surprised when the spear’s spawn grew wrong.”

  “There’s no law in the light or shadow that says a woman must void a child she wants, even if she was raped,” said Kavio. “Or are you telling me that someone hated the baby so much it might have been a motive for the hex?”

  “I’m just telling you.”

  “Unless it can help me solve the puzzle, I don’t care who Gremo’s father was. It’s not his father’s spear a man throws in battle, but his own.”

  “You arrogant boy.” Kuruga curled her hands into fists in her lap. “I know your kind. You are young, strong, headstrong. No doubt you’ve led raids on your clan’s enemies and earned a fine Shining Name. You probably have some rival, as young and strong and headstrong as you. Like two bucks, you locked horns and he drove you off for a time. But you plan to go back, fight him again, and w
in or die trying.”

  His lips curved very slightly, and he shrugged. “Your arrows hit their marks except for one. I will never go back.”

  “All those weapons in your pack—don’t look at me like that, how could I not notice the sharp bits straining the leather?—and you tell me you don’t intend to fight?”

  “A man needs to defend himself.”

  “You have enough weapons for an army. Are you carrying an army in your pack, Outtribber? Are you carrying a war?”

  “Your sister asked me here to heal, not fight,” he said. “That’s what I’ll do.”

  “You’ll fail.” Kuruga said flatly. “No one can heal Gremo. Many healers have tried. None succeeded. You won’t succeed either.”

  “I have to try.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I just have to try. Let me ask you something. Is there anyone in the clan who hated him enough to curse him?”

  “To curse him as cruelly as that? I don’t know. But to be rid of him, and the shame he brought us through his birth?” Kuruga stared hard at him. “I will tell you the truth. None of us, not even among our Tavaedies, has the power to create such a powerful hex. But among us all, only Ruga would have not wanted to.”

  Kavio

  Just before sunset, Kavio stood up and began to dance. He danced each of the five colors of light in the cords binding Gremo to the boulder, using his movements to lift the strands of light in an intricate series of steps. Loop by loop, he unwound the knot, until the last band of light dissolved. Kavio took his obsidian dagger and sliced apart the physical ropes, which fell away gracefully as autumn leaves.

  Gremo looked up in amazement. He straightened his back and met Kavio’s eye for the first time.

  “I am free,” he whispered. His cry lifted to a shout. “I am free! Ma, ma, I am free!”

  Ruga ran to her son and they embraced, both crying unabashedly. Lambo clapped Kavio on the back, saying, “I knew from the first time I saw you that your powers were not fool’s gold!” Even Kuruga murmured, “I was wrong.” But she looked more troubled than pleased.

  The family celebrated until the moon rose. Gremo spoke haltingly, but he smiled hugely, and even sang drinking songs with Lambo, after the beer, which did exist after all, made an appearance and filled many a bowl.

  “Your son has powerful magic,” Kavio told Ruga. “Five Chromas. Perhaps that was why a jealous enemy sought to bind his power. Gremo, do you have any idea who did this to you?”

  “It was my father,” said Gremo.

  The other three family members shifted on the eating mat. Ruga laughed shrilly. “Impossible. Your father—“

  “I know he was a Blue Waters warrior who misused you, ma,” said Gremo. “I always knew. I heard all every ugly whisper, saw every nasty stare. I don’t know how he hexed me, how he even knew I was born. But I heard him calling me to finish what he started, kill all of you, kill the whole clan, then travel to the sea and join him. I heard him telling me you deserved it for what you did. Even you, ma. Sometimes I hated you for bringing me into this world. I could have done it too. My magic was stronger than any Tavaedi in the clan. But I wouldn’t let the monster win.”

  “But, Gremo…” Kuruga hesitated. “Why did he tie you to a rock if what he wanted was for you to slay the clan with your magic and then join him at the sea?”

  “Monster,” said Gremo. To everyone’s embarrassment, tears made streaks in the dirt on his unwashed face. “I hate the monster.”

  Kavio

  The next morning, Kavio slept late. When he woke up, he heard a strange noise outside the hut. Poking his head out, he saw Gremo, grunting and waving his arms.

  Kavio hopped out of the hut. “Enjoying your freedom?”

  Gremo cringed, did not look at him, and did not answer.

  The awkward arm-waving, with occasional kicks, continued, forcing Kavio to step back. Bands of light snaked around Gremo. Powerful magic made the air crack the way it did on the cusp of a storm. The hairs on Kavio’s arms stood on end.

  “Gremo, what are you doing? Stop!”

  Gremo threw back his head and howled at the sky. Spittle foamed at the corners of his lips, and his gaze, when he glared at Kavio, burned with hate. Black clouds boiled overhead out of an empty sky. Lightning crackled, touching Gremo and illuminating his aura like a blaze.

  There was a monster. Kavio had set him free.

  He rushed forward, but Gremo waved an arm and a shock of pure power knocked Kavio off his feet. He gasped for breath. The man’s strength was astounding, like a force of nature, and Kavio realized that during years of winding circles around the hut, Gremo had accumulated such power no ordinary human could subdue him.

  Kavio had no choice but to try.

  He rolled to his pack and groped blindly for a weapon, any weapon. He pulled out a spear head with a short haft, which he thrust up just as Gremo assaulted him again. He blooded the man, but Gremo never even slowed. He pummeled Kavio with fists of granite. Another blow like that would knock him senseless. He leaped out of the way again, and again, when Gremo kept coming, but he wasn't used to be being always on the defensive. Trying to regain control of the fight, Kavio attacked with a series of punches followed by a round-house kick.

  Bad choice.

  Gremo locked his leg and twisted, slamming Kavio into the dirt. Then, before he could wrest himself free, Gremo bent and lifted him up over his head and threw Kavio against the boulder that had once imprisoned him. Winds screamed in Kavio's ears, with gale force, pinning him there, helpless to stop Gremo's advance.

  Then Gremo reached him and clenched his fingers around Kavio's throat.

  "I am my father's son!" roared Gremo. "I will slay you and everyone in the clan!"

  This would have been a good time for Kavio to come up with something heroic. If he did not, Gremo was going to snap his neck like a twig. Instead, maddeningly, Kavio felt a wave of weakness, accompanied by a flash of light, and knew that his cursed fae blood, his mother's legacy, had caught him at the worst possible moment. His eyes rolled back in his head and he surrendered to the fit and a memory.

  Kavio (10 years old)

  He stood behind his father, and his father's warriors. Across the defense ditch around their camp, another group of warriors stood, led by a man in headdress that sparkled with golden bangles. The man in gold was Hertio, War Chief of Yellow Bear.

  "He is his father's son," said Hertio. "I demand the boy as my surety or none at all."

  "I have seven sevens of men who would serve as your hostages," said Father.

  "You would sacrifice them all in a heartbeat," said Hertio, "if it suited your purpose. Your son is your own blood. I think even you might hesitate to betray me if it meant his death."

  You don't know my father, thought Kavio. He would never abandon his men. Me, on the other hand...

  His father put his hand on Kavio's head.

  "Please don't make me go, Father," Kavio whispered. "I don't trust him."

  "Give me your hands, Kavio," Father said.

  Kavio held up his wrists, and Father wound a sinew rope around them, pinching the flesh painfully. Kavio swallowed a foul taste in his mouth. There was no plea he could make, no way to save himself. Father tighted the rope into a knot.

  Father pushed Kavio in front of him. Loudly, he announced, "My son will be your hostage and your slave, yours to command and yours to slay."

  Kavio

  Kavio snapped out of the memory. It had felt as vivid as if he'd relieved it, and Gremo stared at him wide-eyed in shock. The man had apparently shared the Vision from the past. However, Gremo shook himself free of the daze. He still held Kavio by the throat and now he lifted his other fist to deliver the killing blow.