The Warrior's Tale (22 page)

It was that sort of game I found myself engaged in with Cholla Yi. With a seaborne horde at our heels, he was betting I would be the first to falter, and relinquish command. The stakes were our lives.

So, I must admit, Scribe, when I left him that night, displaying my most evil, knowing smile, I was bluffing. But, you should also know that I always
back my bluff. You see, it was I
who was one of the combatants in that final game of Hobble I told you about. No need to sneak a look at my feet. I have
all
my toes.

But the conclusion of that test of wills was delayed for a long time. And it was Gamelan who delayed it.

Two nights after the meeting a heavy fog settled over us. It was so dense we dared not continue, or the fleet might have been separated for good. I ordered a halt, using horns to signal, and we lay becalmed to wait until the fog lifted. We could only pray that Keehat was doing the same.

Gamelan called me to his cabin. There was a cheery light glowing in his magical brazier when I entered.

'Come sit and share a little brandy with an old man,' he said.

'I should be on deck, keeping watch,' I replied.

'Nonsense,' he said. 'There's nothing to see. If there were, it would be too late and those savages would be on us. Come and sit and I shall tell you how to end this chase in our favour.'

I had reason to be nervous as I obeyed and better reason to empty the first tumbler of brandy with one swallow and pour another. The first spell he'd made me cast had left me shaken from the strange world I had encountered. When I'd duplicated the Spell of the Tongues for the others - again, at his insistence - I'd become more fearful still. The feeling of being drawn down, as if by a water devil, had been even stronger. To my horror, I realized I was reluctant to withdraw. There seemed to be so many promises beneath the surface of that magical meniscus; promises that drew me as much as when I'd first seen that map of the Western Ocean, and ached to know what was beyond.

Gamelan fumbled in his robe and came out with the scrap of feather he'd stolen from Keehat's staff. Blindly, he held it out to me. 'We have something that belongs to that barbarian King,' he said. 'Something he prizes above all else
...'
I took the feather, knowing what he was going to say next:'... His manhood.'

I took the feather, my fingers trembling. 'I know what you want, wizard,' I said. 'And I cannot - will not - do it.'

'What is it about magic that you fear so much, Rali?' he asked.

'You know,' I said.

'I don't know! Tell me!' He hissed.

'Get someone else!'

'There is no one. Tell me!'

And so, I told him. It is a tale that has nothing to do with Halab's tragic ending. And I have told it to no other person in my life, with the exception of Otara, and she is dead. So, write carefully, Scribe. I only tell it now because of my promise to speak only the truth.

I became a woman at an early age: my monthlies began at ten; by eleven I had the breasts, hips and feminine beard below my belly of a full-grown woman. But although my body had blossomed, my mind was still in early bud and I went about my days in tormented confusion. I thought about sex a great deal, which disgusted me, because I didn't yet know my inclinations and connected all such yearnings with men. I'd become all hot and sticky for no apparent reason, but whenever I saw a man when I was in such a state, my stomach turned when I contemplated their rough beards, hard forms, and sour smells.

It was in my twelfth summer, and we were visiting one of my uncle's estates. He had vast olive orchards, a good kitchen-garden, and kept several herds of goats as well, so summers at his estate were always filled with plump black olives, good white cheese, my aunt's rich black bread, and tomatoes and onions as sweet as any confection. One day my cousin, Veraen, and I made up a lunch of such things and took a long hike into the hills to watch the young goats play. Veraen was fifteen, and although he had grown since I'd seen him last, I was taller than he, and stronger as well, so our time together had been uneasy and conflict-ridden. Normally, we were the best of summer friends. This was one of those afternoons, however, that was so blissful that all thoughts of such things had disappeared along with the dandelion fluff that flew over the green hills on scented winds.

That day, we ate our fill, drank from a small spring that sprang out from under an old oak tree, and lay down to enjoy the shade of the tree. It was a hot, quiet afternoon. The cicadas buzzed among the wood, a few birds twittered and hopped about, and a solitary wasp hunted for mud to daub her nest. The air was thick with the smell of wild rosemary, oregano and thyme that had gone to blossom.

Veraen began to tell silly stories, which made me laugh, and then he started to tickle me and I tickled him back. We reverted to childhood, becoming nearly hysterical with laughter - rolling about and wrestling and tickling.

Then childhood ended, and before I knew it my hem was up, my undergarments were down, my legs apart and Veraen was clambering on top of me. Then my senses returned and I pushed him up with a hard forearm. Veraen was on his knees, his breeches open, and I saw his penis - not a boy's, but a man's organ, thick and hard rising up like a drawbridge. The sight soured my stomach.

'Get away!' I said.

Instead he fell back on me, pinning my arms, and driving blindly at me, trying to force entry. I bucked and fought and finally managed to get one hand free. I hit him as hard as I could, got my other one loose and was about to hurl him off when I felt a heavy blow against my head.

'Stop fighting,' he shouted and I saw he had a rock in his fist.

Instead, I screamed in anger and pain. My strength surged and somehow I rose up and somehow he struck me with the rock again and somehow I killed him.

Yes, Scribe, I slew my cousin. And, yes, I am speaking of Veraen Antero, and I know what you are thinking, and I am telling you to speak not one word to me, but write all I say,
exactly
as I say it.

One moment Veraen was on top of me, hitting me with a rock, and the next I was standing and Veraen was motionless on the ground -his neck twisted, his dead eyes fixed in terror and pain.

I stood there, too shocked to feel anything but the sharp knowledge that my life had just plunged from a cliff. Now only evil could follow.

A woman's voice came from behind me. It was a sweet, lilting voice that drew me around as if I were a compass head, drawn to the will of Sirens Of The South, who command all direction.

'Rali,' she called. 'Raaaleee.'

She was under the oak, just by the spring. She was beautiful; otherworldly beautiful; goddess beautiful. Her hair was black as night and spilled like water across skin of fresh cream. Her eyes were smoky-black with lashes like a dancer's fan, and they were so striking that for a moment I did not realize she was naked. But she wore her nudity like clothing, as if this were her natural state.

She motioned to me with a long, slender arm. 'Come to me, Rali,' she said.

So, I went. I felt as if I were floating slowly across the ground. She took me in her arms and I wept for me and what I had done, and I wept for Veraen, for what he had done. Then she raised my head up from those soft, mother's breasts, and looked deep in the eyes. I looked back and lost myself in the welcome darkness I found there. All else vanished from my mind.

'I love you, Rali,' she said.

Instead of surprise, her words seemed natural - right. I knew that she loved me.

'I have been waiting for you, Rah,' she said. And that seemed right, too.

She took me by the hand and led me to the place where the spring leaped from beneath the oak's great roots. We walked into the little pool and a gate opened just where the spring came out and then we walked into her garden, the gate swung shut behind us, and we were standing before a house made of green forest bowers.

'This is your home now, Rali,' she said.

And that is what it became. I lived there with Basana for one month short of a year. We were lovers. Basana said she was the goddess of the spring and had fallen in love with me when Veraen had first showed me the spring two years before. It did not occur to me to wonder why. Youth accepts such things blindly - as its due. Except, perhaps, with Otara -and that only once -
1
never felt such passion as Basana fired in me. I say this as a woman of much passionate nature, which is a trait all Anteros share. It is our greatest weakness. She enveloped me in love: gave me gifts, sang me songs, fed me delicacies, praised my beauty, my wisdom, my nature, my all. I forgot my home and family - indeed, all the world I came from. Until one day when I tried to rise from the bed of blossoms she made fresh for me each night, and found I could not. I was so weak, I could barely lift a hand, or voice a call for help. And when Basana came into the room, her loving smile became a hungry snarl.

She came to the bed, and pinched my flesh all over, saying: 'So sweet, so sweet.'

I tried to weep, for I knew I had been betrayed, but could only shed a single tear. Basana giggled when she saw it, and kissed it away. Her mouth lingered, but not from love.

Then she rose, and said: 'Don't cry, Rali. I've fed you on love for nearly a year, and now that you're ripe you mustn't complain, because it's my turn now.'

I tried to move, and she gave me a soothing pat. 'There, there, dear,' she said. 'It's my nature that's at fault, not you. I have no soul of my own, and require a young girl's every ten years for nourishment. It's true, I didn't really love you, dear Rali, but I had to make you believe I did, or that withered little thing I found by that boy's body would have been no good at all. The best soul, I've learned, is full of happy, love-fed sweetness. Not just flavour, mind. You have no idea, my dear, what wonders it does for my mood. To be
so
young,
and so
...
alive
year after year!'

She told me she'd leave my room for a small while to prepare. While she was gone, I could take comfort in the fact that although she did not really love me, of all the girls she'd pretended to love, she'd come closest to not pretending with me.

As she was turning away, I smelled sandalwood and then my mother entered. She was naked, like Basana, and more beautiful, I think. She moved like a panther and fire sheeted from her eyes. The only thing she carried was a sharpened willow switch.

Basana shouted and sprang to meet her - great talons reaching where hands and feet had been before. Her teeth became long fangs snapping for my mother's throat. Before she could reach her, my mother thrust with that willow stick and it pierced Basana through the heart. Blood spurted from her breast, and she fell dead to the floor.

My mother didn't look at her but came to me and took me in her arms.

'I've come to take you home, Rali,' was all she said.

I struggled to rise, but she pushed me back on the bed. She sang me a song, whose words are always at the edge of my memory, but I can never call them up. And she stroked my brow until I closed my eyes
...
and slept.

Veraen's voice awakened me. I opened my eyes, and found myself lying beside him, beneath the oak. It was just as before. The same warm summer afternoon. The smells and sounds. He said something silly and I laughed. Then he tickled me, and I tickled back.

I heard my mother's voice calling me. Veraen jumped away, with a guilty flush. I stood and answered her and she came over the hill. My mother was dressed in a simple short tunic of blue, with blue walking breeches below, stuffed into high boots. As she came near us, I smelled her sandalwood perfume.

She looked at me with her
gentle
eyes, and said: 'I've come to take you home, Rali.' And that is what she did.

I told Gamelan that I didn't know if what hap
pened was real, or a dream. Mostl
y, I believed it a dream, Scribe, just as you do. You were going to call me mad, when I began this tale, for as all know, my cousin, Veraen Antero, is very much alive with good family and good fortune of his own. Now, you'll say it was just a dream. A dream of a young, confused girl.

But, sometimes, I told Gamelan, I thought it no dream at all. I thought that I really had been stolen by a wood sprite, if that's what Basana was, and that my mother had rescued me. One thing - my mother was never the same again. She became weaker, day by day. Until, nearly a year later, she died. On my weaker nights, I wonder if she made a bargain with god or demon - my life for hers.

'And that,' I said to Gamelan, 'is why I not only fear what you ask, but refuse it.'

'I understand your reasons now, Rali,' the wizard replied. 'And I'm very sorry. But have you told me all? Is your mother truly gone to you? Does she come to you sometimes? Is her ghost still near her child?'

I didn't answer - which for Gamelan was answer enough.

He said: 'It doesn't matter just now. You've confessed your reasons and your fears. But that doesn't change our circumstance. If we continue like this, King Keehat will catch us and kill us. Between the two of us, however, we can stop him. We can stop him now, and the only blood that will be shed is his.'