In the Ruins (7 page)

“Ai, God!” She sat down beside him. Grass tickled her rump. Water dripped. “That felt good! I’m so tired.”

She yawned, cradling her head on her bent knees, arms wrapped tight around her legs. The world slipped so easily away. She slid into a doze.

Started awake, hearing voices.

Eldest Uncle stood farther up the path, under the shade of trees, speaking with two masked warriors, one male and one female. She grabbed her bow, and recalled belatedly that she no longer had any arrows. That she needed no weapons. She
was
a weapon.

Memory struck, because she was vulnerable. She was only half awake, unable to fend off the visions.
The soldiers burned like torches. They screamed and screamed as their flesh melted off them
…

“Liath!”

I burned them
. She was shaking.

Eldest Uncle knelt beside her. He did not touch her.

“Who are they?” she demanded, indicating the two young warriors with her glance. One wore a falcon mask and the other that of a buzzard, smooth and rufous and alert. She was shaking too hard to move. She felt sick to her stomach. “Must get up…. if Cat Mask …”

“These are not Cat Mask’s warriors. They will not harm you.”

Trust him, or do not trust him. “Why would you betray me?” she asked softly.

His smile had a bitter tinge, but he was not offended. “Why, indeed?”

She slumped forward, too weary to fight, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.

SHE dreamed.

She walks through grass so tall she cannot see beyond it. The whisper of another creature’s passage touches her ears, and she halts
.

Grass bends, golden tops bowing and vanishing. Something big approaches
.

She turns as the Horse shaman pushes through and pulls up short, seeing her. “Liathano! I have been looking for you!”

Other voices flood over them, and the grass and the centaur ripple like water stirred by a gusting wind
.

“This one, again! If Cat Mask finds her, he’ll kill her while she sleeps.”

“Then we must be sure that Cat Mask does not find her. Will you tell him?”

“I will not!”

“You spoke against her before, White Feather.”

“So I did. But now we are fallen safely back to Earth. It may be she had a hand in our homecoming, as she promised
us. If that is the case, she does not deserve death. Although I think it best if one possessing such power does not bide long in our land.”

Liath groaned and shook herself awake, startled to find a short mantle draped over her body. It covered her from shoulder to mid-thigh, and was woven out of a coarse brown thread. She sat up carefully, wrapping the cape around herself. She was sore everywhere. Her skin was rashy, and here and there marked with the imprint of a rock. Her neck ached, and she had a headache. Eldest Uncle offered her a pouch of water to drink. Sipping slowly, she surveyed her surroundings. There was noticeably more green than there had been when she’d fallen asleep. The trees seemed fuller, the ground moister. Even the distant meadow, seen across the flowing river, boasted a score of budding flowers, fresh growth that had sprouted while she slept. The light had changed; it was as dim as the gloom that presages a thunderstorm.

White Feather regarded her pensively, perhaps with distrust. Farther away, Falcon Mask and Buzzard Mask crouched on their haunches, watching her and then the river.

“How long did I sleep? Will it soon be nightfall?”

“Nightfall, indeed,” agreed Eldest Uncle. “Nightfall of a new day. You slept through yesterday afternoon, an entire night, and most of this day.”

She whistled, feeling as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I’m still tired! Hungry and thirsty, too.”

“Hunger is a pain we all share,” said White Feather tartly. “But before I left the council hall, I heard a half dozen reports that the old fields are already sending up shoots. If we can survive the winter with what stores remain to us, we may hope for a plentiful harvest. Still. I would not see you fall into Cat Mask’s hands because of weakness.”

She offered Liath a square of dried berries and grains, and although it was tough to chew, it was edible and filling. Liath took her time as she ate, knowing how little food the Ashioi had. At least there was no shortage of water. The vegetation seemed to be growing unnaturally quickly, fertilized
by the fading influence of the aether, as though all this potential had lain dormant for years, awaiting the flood. She nibbled. She knew she ought to save half for later, but she was so hungry she finished it all.

Like White Feather, Eldest Uncle looked away while she ate, to give her privacy or to restrain his own feelings of hunger.

“What now?” she asked him, getting his attention. “Am I in danger from Cat Mask? Will he come hunting me?”

“Only if he discovers you are here,” said White Feather in her blunt way. “He fears an invasion of humankind.”

Liath laughed bitterly. “Have you walked the land beyond the white path, north of here? Nothing lives there, nor can any living creature cross it.”

“You crossed it.”

“I created it.”

White Feather touched the obsidian knife tucked into a sheath at her hip. “What do you mean?”

“I am born half of fire. The one you call Feather Cloak glimpsed the heart within me. That is why they called me ‘Bright One.”’ She wiped sweat from her brow. Although cloudy, it was hot. Even the breeze made her uncomfortable.

Eldest Uncle looked more at ease than she had ever seen him. He looked younger, an old man restored to vitality by his return to the world where he had been born. It was as if the waters flooded him as well, as if he were greening like the plants.

“Look!” cried Falcon Mask. She leaped to her feet. Far above, a pair of buzzards soared. She pushed her mask up to get a better look; she was crying, silently, with joy.

“A good omen,” agreed Eldest Uncle. “You are not the only one who can cross. Others will come.”

“Our enemies,” said White Feather. “How is that a good omen?”

“Feather Cloak has birthed twin girls. What more powerful omen could there be?”

The older woman snorted. She had a stern face, no longer young. The white feather fastened to her topknot bobbed in the warm wind. “You are weak, Bright One. I
make this promise to you in exchange for the promise you made to us, that you would see us safely home. Rest here to regain your strength and I will divert Cat Mask’s attention from this place. After that, you must depart, or I will set Cat Mask and his warriors on you myself.”

“Do not do that, I pray you,” murmured Liath. “You do not understand….” She was shaking again as memory gripped her hard. It was too much. She still heard their screams, the way the sound choked off when the fire burned away their voices. She squeezed her eyes shut and
willed
the memory to shut itself away behind a closed door.

“Whsst!” called Falcon Mask. “Gone now, into the trees. Yet there! Do you hear?”

From nearby came a raspy cry. At the unexpected sound, Liath opened her eyes.

“What is it?” demanded Buzzard Mask, pushing his mask up. He was as young as Falcon Mask. They might have been twins with their bronze faces, broad noses, and dark eyes.

“It’s a tern,” said Liath, recognizing the call. “It must have been blown inland. How far away is the sea?”

“I’ve forgotten,” said Eldest Uncle.

“I’ve never seen the sea,” said White Feather as the young warriors nodded to show that they, too, had never seen it. “I’ve only heard stories. How far the shore lies I do not know. I walked most of yesterday and all this morning to reach you, Uncle. Feather Cloak asks that you return. The warriors have moved out to explore the borderlands. There will be a council soon.”

“What of my daughter?” asked Eldest Uncle.

White Feather shrugged. “She is stubborn.”

“Ha! Tell me a truth I do not yet know.”

“Feather Cloak thinks Kansi-a-lari has left the land. She cannot hear her footsteps on the earth. If she crossed the White Road, she would be invisible to us.”

“How could she cross such devastation? It is a steaming wasteland.”

“North of here,” said Liath. “But what about the coasts? It might be possible to cross along the coast.”

What had become of Gnat and Mosquito? No way to
know, not unless she reached the sea, and even then she might never find them.

She barely had strength to rise and relieve herself in the privacy of the woods, barely managed afterward to stagger up the path with the mantle clutched around her torso and find her way to the remembered clearing that she had walked in so short, and so long, a time ago. Once, the burning stone had appeared here. The pallet of leaves and grass she had gathered days—nay, months or years—ago was scarcely disturbed. She collapsed onto it, under the shelter of a holm oak, and plunged into sleep.

Sanglant, riding on an unfamiliar horse. He is filthy and his expression is grim
.

Fire burned in her heart, and in its flames she glimpsed Hathui and Hanna, looking for her, seeking, calling … but she was too exhausted to rouse.

Blessing shouts at a young man whose face seems familiar although Liath cannot name him, and he turns to face

a landscape of burning sand. A lion with the torso and face of a woman rears above her, raking with its claws as the girl screams, only it is not herself she sees but a young woman as dark of complexion as she is. A silver-haired man leaps into the fray, thrusting a burning torch between sphinx and bleeding girl. As he spins, panting, he sees her and cries out

“Liathano! Where are you?” The centaur shaman walks on the shore of a shallow river that snakes away through grassland

but the bright currents drag her away. She drowns, yet at the same time the aether feeds her as it feeds all that is elemental
.

She stirred at intervals, sometimes finding food and drink waiting for her although she barely recalled eating and drinking; the threads of aether nourish her; it is all the food she needs. Other times she woke hoping to see the stars, but the haze never lifted and it was ungodly warm.

Thoughts emerged with unexpected clarity.

I should have looked for him at nightfall with Eagle’s Sight
.

Land displaces water of equal volume
.

Did all the Seven Sleepers die, or did some survive
?

If the thread that bound the Ashioi land to Earth is severed, then is the aetherical realm closed to us? Is the mage’s ladder gone? Is my mother’s home lost to me now? Where does the aether come from that is woven around the Earth? Is it constantly replenished or will it fade? Is there less of aether in the world now that the gateway is closed
?

At nightfall, with Eagle’s Sight, Hathui seeks in the fire, but sees only fragments, glimpses of fractured sight shot through with flames and shadow
.

Sleep claimed her, and her thoughts, and what coiled in her heart and mind dissolved into dreams so finely spun that each filament frayed away into nothing, all a hazy white drift of ash spreading in all directions over pale dunes that had neither beginning nor end, only desolation.

“Will she die? She’s been like this since I left. That was five days ago!”

“I think she will not die. She’s not wasting away. The substance that knits together the universe feeds her. It is invisible to us because it exists beyond our five senses. Remember that she walked the spheres and crossed through the burning stone, and what else after that I do not know, but we can imagine it was no easy task. Now she is paying the price.”

“What if Cat Mask comes? He has gathered his warriors. He’s made his peace with Lizard Mask, and they are making their plans, wondering when humankind will attack us.”

“Cat Mask does not scare me, White Feather. Return to Feather Cloak. I will come when I can.”

“Feather Cloak cannot delay the council any longer. If you do not walk back with me now, I will have to tell her you are not coming. The council will speak without your voice.”

“I will not leave her until she is strong enough to fend for herself.”

“Does no one look for her, Uncle? Has she no family?”

“She has her husband, but how can we know whether he lives or is dead? I have stood many mornings at the edge of the desolation to the north, beyond the White Road.”

“A wasteland worthy of He-Who-Burns! It is a terrible sight.”

“I do not know how far the destruction extends. I do not know who and what has survived or if they can even reach here, or will attempt it.”

“Then perhaps we will have less fighting to do! It would serve humankind very well if their sorcery hurt themselves worst of all in the end.”

“I am thinking we have all suffered, and will continue so. This weather makes me uneasy. We should see the sun.”

“Should we? Does the sun often shine? It was always like this before.”

“Because it was ‘like this’ when we journeyed in the aether, the land died. So will it now without rain and sun. These are not natural clouds. I remember what it was like when I was a young man. It was not like this. We saw both rain and sun.”

“All this I will tell Feather Cloak. But if you will not accompany me, Eldest Uncle, then you must not complain if Cat Mask’s views are accepted by the others simply because he talks the loudest and puffs up his manly chest.”

A chuckle. “I trust you, White Feather, not to be dazzled by his words. Or his chest. Is there still no sign of my daughter?”

“A small sign. Scouting groups have walked the coastline and brought news of many strange things washed up on the shore. On the western coast about a day’s walk from here, this green wing feather was found among the rocks. Do you recognize it?”

“Ah! Ah! Yes. It is the color of her eyes. This is surely the one I gave to her when she gained her woman’s power. I cannot believe she would have discarded it so carelessly.”

“Uh,” said Liath, trying to rouse, but they did not hear her and she was so tired. How could anyone be so tired, all vitality drained from them?

“There were markings in the sand, too, but we could not interpret them. Something like this….” A fine scritching eased her back into a dreamy haze. So soothing. So tired.