Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One (13 page)

He turned onto his stomach. Last night Mariat had lain exactly here, beneath him. His body ached for her, his groin swelled at the thought of her. But he’d made the right decision to let her go.

The mattress held too much of her, and he could bear it no longer. He rolled onto the floorboards, and there he spent the long, hard night.

A thorny vine dragged him down. Like a sensate needle and thread, it whipstitched him onto the dirt, and out of the cuts emerged a myriad of root-like worms. A cry stuck in his throat and Sheft awoke, sitting bolt upright on the floor. He tried to rub away the crawling sensation in his arms, tried to calm himself, while the black rectangle of his window gradually faded to grey. The reality was as bad as the nightmare: it was the first day of Hawk, the dark of the moon, and only hours remained until the time of the Rites.

Etane had said something about the Rites “appeasing” Wask, which posed ominous questions that crept up the back of his spine. He crawled onto his mat and tried to pray to Rulve. But the presence and the love had disappeared as if they had never existed.

At first light, feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all, he dressed and went in search of his mother. He shouldn’t go to her; he knew that. She’d been despondent even before Ane died and was in no shape to give comfort. But he didn’t know where else to go.  

The weather had turned cooler, and low grey clouds rolled over his head toward the deadlands. He found Riah at a place by the river where a willow tree had washed down from some long-forgotten flood. Soil had built up in a hollow, and in the midst of decay, a few dwarf plants grew. His mother sat there under her hooded cloak, staring at the river.

He stood beside her, tense with questions, and waited for her to acknowledge him.

Her low voice came out of the hood. “What do you want?”

He took a quavering breath. “How do you pray? How do you pray to Rulve?”

She continued staring straight ahead. “How indeed, S’eft.”

The name she used should have warned him, should have told him not to expect any answers, but he was desperate. “You said Rulve cared about us.”

“Perhaps. In his own way.” Her hands lay in her lap, and she opened one in a brief gesture of futility. “But not in any way I understand.”

“You used to understand.”

As, he once thought, did he. Even though this God had no face and this Goddess no form, he had still sensed her in different dawns: sometimes veiled in lavender clouds edged with gold, sometimes as a sun-disk that laid long ribbons of light across the furrows. In the month of Sky-path, when the winged seeds spiraled down on his head like a blessing, he felt his touch. In the old man’s tent, regardless of whatever else had happened there, he experienced the permeating love.

But today he felt afraid and abandoned. “You told me I was placed into his hands, but I can’t feel them. I can’t feel Rulve at all now. The Rites are tonight and I don’t know what to do!” 

The cold murmur of the river was his only answer. Blindly, he turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.

“There is a verse, written long ago. From the
Tajemnika,
the red book of tales. It’s in Widjar, and a poor translation is all I can offer you.” She paused, then recited:

“Under a wide and icy sheet, the waters sleep.

Looking for a seed, the wind fingers the hard ground.

The earth lies in frost, waiting for the low command:

‘Rise up now.’”

The words meant nothing to him, and he trudged back to the barn.

For the rest of the day, what little he had gleaned about the Rites followed him around like a grotesque shadow. He forked straw into Padiky’s stall, remembering the broad hints Gwin and Voy had dropped about a self-inflicted wound. Dealing with accidents was hard enough, but the thought of cutting his own skin, in front of the priestess and the council of elders, made his stomach twist. He hauled water into the house crock, and his breath came short at the remembered image of a sickle spinning toward him. If Gwin had done that in broad daylight, what might transpire in the dark of the moon? He cut back the stems of the paper-plants, and his throat closed at the image of drops of root-ridden blood falling into the earth. Bleeding by day in village’s common field had already summoned the Groper. What would happen if he bled by night in the creature’s very domain? He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. He’d have to control the ice more tightly than he ever had, and control it in front of the priestess and twenty men. Some of whom may have accused him of crimes he didn’t commit.

Tarn came home just before dinner, his face like stone. “Greak sold me some hens, but wouldn’t part with a rooster. That means a trip to Ferce tomorrow, where I’ll have to spend at least fifteen ducats to stay the night.” He sat down at his place at the table. “I stopped at the Council House on my way home,” he said to Riah. He turned to glare at Sheft. “There is a matter we have to discuss, and we will discuss it tonight.”

“The Rites are tonight.”

“I know well when they are. Our discussion will take place afterward.”

All three ate in silence, the only sound being the clink of Tarn’s spoon against his bowl. A part of Sheft wanted to insist on having his father’s discussion immediately, but the larger part was too agitated about the ordeal ahead to risk what was sure to be another argument. His stomach was so knotted up it rebelled at the sight of his lentil soup. Under Tarn’s disapproving gaze, he pushed it away. Twilight faded into darkness as they put on two black cloaks that Tarn took out of the clothes chest and shook out. They pulled the deep hoods over their heads and left the warm house for the dampness of a heavy autumn fog that had crept into the Meera Valley.

Sheft hitched up Padiky, hung the lantern on its pole in front of the wagon, and they rode off. Soon the smell of smoke from their chimney gave way to the tang of old, wet leaves. The small circle of light from the lantern passed over skeletal trees and twig-fingered bushes that reached out of the darkness on either side of the Mill Road.

“On this night,” his father said, “we can travel safely after dark. On this night, Wask doesn’t have to cross the Meera.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tonight
we
cross, and go to him.”

What felt like a leech dropped onto his hand and Sheft almost cried out. But it was only a sodden leaf, which he quickly peeled away. “What—” the word came out as a croak, and he tried again. “What else happens?”

Tarn stared straight ahead. “Just don’t shame me in front of the others.”

The words screwed into his heart. He could never redeem himself in Tarn’s eyes, but tonight at all costs he must not add to his humiliation.

They reached the Council House, across the road from the House of Ele, where they tethered their horse next to the other wagons. A group of silent figures waited in back. Several of them held torches, which seemed to be smothering in the foggy night.

“They’re tense,” Tarn muttered. “More than usual.” He disappeared into the murk, leaving Sheft left alone with a group of cloaked and hooded men. One of them would be Gwin, a resourceful and intelligent enemy who’d already made an attempt to get rid of him. Others were no doubt convinced he was a lecher who molested women and a coward who attacked from ambush.

He tried to keep his eyes and face out of the torchlight and his hair well covered. In only a few hours, he told himself, it would be over. Then he would go home, to face what was sure to be an unpleasant confrontation with his father. Even worse, he’d have to tell Mariat their relationship had ended.

He soon realized no one was paying him any attention. The hoods all faced the Meera, as if the eyes within sought to penetrate the wall of fog. He found his own gaze drawn there, but could see nothing. Yet, across the river, he felt a diffuse awareness, slowly separating itself from the gauzy blanket of the night.

He turned away, trying to think of something else. Etane and Moro, son and father who loved each other, were probably sitting warm by their fireplace at home. Perhaps Mariat had made tea, and they were reminiscing about Ane, their faces half in shadow, half in hearth light.

The men stirred as Parduka, wearing a red cloak, emerged from the fog. Six hooded figures marched behind her. Four carried a live sheep tied by its legs to a pole and two bore a ceremonial drum suspended from a wooden stand. Was one of the figures Tarn? Was that tall one Gwin? He couldn’t tell. His eyes cut back to Parduka. She carried two objects at her belt: a narrow leather pouch and a knife. The blade of the knife, finely honed, flashed out of the dark and into torchlight as she walked.

A sharp rattle startled him. It was a pebble-gourd, which began to shake out a slow and measured rhythm. As if for protection, everyone gathered closely around Parduka, who moved toward the river. They followed her like blind men, marching to the rattled cadence and crunching stones underfoot, while the sound of the gourd ran up and down his arms like shivers. Fog hemmed them in on all sides. Torches glimmered inside pearlescent spheres and illuminated nothing. They marched on, and the Meera seemed much farther away than it did in daylight. At last, with a long shake, the gourd fell silent, and Sheft heard the riffling of the invisible river. 

Parduka turned toward them, in the direction of the House of Ele, and raised her arms. “Come, O Ele,” she chanted. “Red Mother, All-Mother, hear me! We come to do your will and to obey your command. We come to keep your covenant with Meerghast and your bargain with Wask. Protect our circle this night, and for another year deliver us from the grasp of Rûk.” Uttering the three solemn names by which Wask was known, her voice quavered so badly that Sheft, standing in the back, could hardly make out the words. The damp seeped through his cloak while she repeated the prayer twice more.

The priestess turned and led them forward. They trudged slightly downhill, the weedy terrain giving over to stones. The gurgling of the river grew louder, and black water appeared suddenly at his feet.

He, along with most of the people in At-Wysher, had never learned to swim. The river was usually too shallow, except during the rare spring floods when it was swift and dangerous. The Meera was a boundary they were never meant to cross. Except for tonight.

Fear roiled in his stomach as he waded in after the others. Cold water crept up to his ankles and then to his calves. Keeping close to the nearest man with a torch, he pushed his way through the gliding water. The fog was even thicker here. All he could see ahead of him were pearlescent spheres of light moving like will-o’-the-wisps, and vague, backlit shapes.

The black-clad man in front of him dissolved into the gloom and Sheft hastened to keep up. But it was as if he struggled against the stream of time, as if he were traversing an underground river in the land of the dead.

He had no idea how far they had come. The current spun past his feet, coming out of nowhere and disappearing; the sideways rush of water tugged at his legs; light-reflections spattered through the dark. All this confused and unsteadied him, and he feared stepping into a pothole or tripping over a rock.

Just as the water lapped against his knees, just as he pictured the river rising to his waist and sweeping him away into the night, he found himself climbing up a slight incline. The last to emerge, he stood on a gravel bank with the others, his cloak dripping and his pants sticking to his legs. He waited, shivering, an intruder in the land of Wask.

Parduka seized a torch from the figure behind her and peered ahead. Nothing moved.

But behind the veil of fog, he sensed a presence. A warning, sharp as a thin blade, keened inside him. 

“We come under the protection of Ele!” the priestess cried.

Her voice was swallowed by the fog. With a shaking arm, she lifted the torch higher. “The Red Mother sends us!”

Cold air crept down from the direction of the Wind-gate, heavy with the smell of earth, as if from an open grave. The torch-flames wavered. Sheft’s chest thickened with so much fear that he could hardly breathe.

Slowly, reluctantly, the presence backed away.

Parduka led them forward, then stopped to face them. The hooded figures carrying the bound sheep laid it on the ground in front of the priestess, and the two bearing the suspended drum placed it near the animal’s head. The rattle shook, unexpected and loud. This was apparently a signal, for they all formed a circle with the priestess facing them and her back to the woods. She raised her arms, and this time she held the knife. Starting with the man directly opposite her, the circle began unwinding into a line in front of her.

Sheft watched, his shoulders tense, as the first man took the knife, shook back the sleeve of his cloak, and with careful deliberation, made a long cut on his forearm. The sight screeched inside him all the way, as if the blade were cutting across his spirikai.

Blood flowed. Avid interest sparked behind the curtain of fog.

The man knelt on one knee, wiped the knife on the back of the sheep’s neck, and rubbed his bloody arm into its fleece. He stood, passed the knife to the figure behind him, and moved to stand beside Parduka. The line of hooded cloaks edged forward. As each man finished, he turned alternately either right or left, forming the circle once more.

Sheft tried to concentrate on the rough fabric of the hood in front of him, tried to use the man as a shield against what waited ahead; but the line kept advancing, kept reeling him into a black tunnel that ended at a sharp blade. He pulled his hood down as far as it would go, but the hungry gaze still crawled over his body like a swarm of ants.