INTERLUDE 8A: THE DREAMER AND THE ARCHER
“I am the terror to be found in the darkness. I am the secret that cannot be spoken. I am the final and forgotten ego, beyond all that clings to former shapes. I am Lady Chaos.”
– from the Mekestan Creed
Shahaila had always had her dreams. She fetched water in the morning, walking with her sisters to the well down in the Unkeminak, the Dark Valleys where decades ago hundreds of men had fought and died in the wars of succession. There were trees in the valleys – one tree for each fallen soldier, they said, the souls trapped by black magic, fused into the roots so that the shadowy bark grew into contorted shapes, branches like the fingers of the dead, reaching up to the harsh, uncaring sky in supplication. Some of her sisters, especially the younger ones, would get scared once they reached their destination, leaving behind the bitterly-dry soil of the higher grounds and entering the coolness of the gloom. Shahaila, the oldest daughter of the chieftain not yet to attain maturity, was the obvious leader, the one supposed to walk in front – but she’d often drop back, leaving the place of prestige to Asaya or Yinelon, and walk alongside the youngest instead. She couldn’t put her arms around them to comfort them, not without setting down the urn she was balancing on her head, so she’d talk to them in her most-soothing voice, tell them about her dreams, get them to talk about their own. She had it in her mind that she wouldn’t marry a chieftain or warrior when she came of age, but would submit herself to the Test instead. If the priestesses of Byla accepted her, she’d never have to endure a marriage – she’d be able to clean the shrine, keep fetching water, tend to the livestock; and when the time came she’d be permitted to sit there herself before the altar in the incense-smoke, interpreting the dreams of wanderers and princes…
That was her real dream, the dream that she lived while she waked and walked and worked.
She was busy providing quiet reassurances to one of the six-year-olds, Anstira, and helping the little girl navigate the needle-coated slopes, when Asaya came sprinting back from the front. Shahaila’s eyes immediately narrowed. It wasn’t like Asaya to abandon the lead.
By the time Asaya reached her, Shahaila realised everyone in front of her had been told to stop. Her sisters were strung out in a line over thirty yards or more, winding between the trees.
Stopping – that could only mean one thing.
The watering-grounds of the Unkeminak were shared by many tribes, each allied with Shahaila’s father to a greater or lesser extent. It wasn’t the spirits of the dead that you had to fear when you entered the woods – it was the outriders of the Yellowbur Clan. The tribe which was allied with them to the least extent; the killers for whom atrocity and open war were always options these days. The Yellowbur had the greatest number of horses, and young men to mount them. They’d taken the Dayrocks five years ago, and Yellowbur’s potential expansion into the Unkeminak was something many of the older girls had often overheard their chieftain-father talking about in terse tones.
Asaya’s eyes held none of their normal ego, her pretty face warped into an expression of fear as she moaned, “Five Yellowbur. All riding!”
Shahaila set down her urn with a quiet sigh.
She thought with some satisfaction: And this, Asaya, is why it is good for you that I am not yet a woman.
“Get moving back – retreat,” she said in her firmest voice. “Wait on the edge of the wood. I’ll take Yinelon and we’ll keep watch. I’ll send for you when they’re gone.”
Asaya nodded forcefully, and, a few mutters and gestures later, the majority of the girls were withdrawing. Many of the younger ones didn’t really comprehend the nature of the threat, and merely wore dubious, curious looks.
Yinelon, short for her age and heavy of limb, looked just as fearful as Asaya had. Shahaila wondered whether her own face looked like that. She felt in control, at least.
After a minute of crawling through the dry soil, the two girls found a vantage point beneath a twisted tree-branch from which they could view the enemy, looking down the incline towards them.
The packs of their steeds were laden with water-skins and they were walking their horses along the dirt path, moving barely faster than Shahaila did with a full urn. There weren’t five, there were seven: tall, muscular fighters with shaven heads, sharp spears in their hands, and yellow feathers in their armbands.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” she whispered to her sister.
Yinelon shook her head.
“Chieftain-Father would appreciate any insights we can bring him.” Shahaila frowned. “This is an opportunity. That’s what he always says, isn’t it?”
“Shahaila!” Yinelon snapped. “You’re always trying to make yourself look –”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
But the heavy girl’s outburst was louder than she’d intended – one of the horses turned its head, and the rider atop it followed its gaze.
They were both watching – they both knew instantly that they were about to be spotted.
Yinelon – ignorant, obstinate Yinelon – fled straight back in a line, doing her best in her selfishness to lead the Yellowburs towards the area in which their younger sisters were now waiting.
Yells erupted. Whinnies of steeds, reins yanked.
Shahaila knew instinctively, as soon as she saw Yinelon’s chosen direction, that she had to sacrifice herself. Not for Yinelon – she’d have eagerly given the halfwit’s life in place of her own – but for her sisters.
I must make the riders follow me.
Thus it was she chose to flee at a less-difficult angle, almost inviting pursuit.
Sandals slapped the ground, sending dust and needles flying. She picked her way through the treeline, choices too frantic to be coherent, barely even increasing her lead. She could hear it behind her, the practised tread of hooves, a drumbeat for her to run to. Or was it her heartbeat she could hear? The two sounds melded into one, both of them screaming the same thing:
Run!
The moment she reached a short stretch of relatively flat ground she risked a brief glance over her shoulder. She saw with mingled satisfaction and terror that they’d all taken the bait, seven of them goading their horses into trots, pouring through the trees after her.
Yinelon was gone, way out of sight.
Shahaila was all alone.
She turned back just as she fell over a root, and a strong, white-fingered hand snatched out to grip her by the upper-arm, keep her on her feet.
She screamed, trying to fight, but it was pointless. This new stranger had already stepped away, a smile on the devilishly-pale face.
“What?” she gasped. “Who are you?” She cast around wildly, staring. “What have you done to me?”
Everything was frozen. The birds and insects had fallen silent. The horses behind her were halted mid-canter, hooves aloft in the air.
“I’ve placed you under a spell, that’s all,” the white-skinned girl said nonchalantly. “Just want to take the chance to try something, if you don’t mind too much. An old friend gave me the idea.”
It wasn’t a question. The black-robed stranger unslung her bow, its silvery string already in place, then drew an arrow from the quiver on her shoulder, nocking it confidently.
She loosed the arrow without even seeming to aim, drawing back and releasing smoothly, barely even glancing down the shaft at the men on the horses.
Again and again, she drew back, loosed, drew back, loosed, until seven arrows hung there in the air, just a few feet away. Shahaila stared at them in wonder.
Then the witch lowered the bow, turning her back on the arrows – and they sprang away with every bit of their speed, every bit of their force intact.
When Shahaila followed their courses with her eyes, she watched the seven Yellowbur outriders receive one missile apiece, taking it in the bicep of the spear-arm.
The witch had even shot the one man who carried his weapon in the off-hand in the left arm.
A chorus of shrill moans erupted from the warriors and they reined in, wheeling about – their leader called for them to retreat and then within seconds they were dissipating in complete disarray, each of them clutching at the shaft protruding from his arm.
“I-if you mean that’s the first time you’ve done that,” Shahaila breathed, “I want to see you do something you think you’re good at.”
The white witch in the black robe laughed good-naturedly. “I knew I chose well!” she said, a delighted smile on her oval-shaped face. “So, Shahaila, you want to hear something funny?”
“Anything you want to tell me, after that!” the girl replied, waving at the empty space that had just contained her would-be-enslavers.
“Oh don’t worry, you’re going to be able to repay me for saving your life very soon –“
It seemed the witch had anticipated Shahaila’s sudden change of heart, the minute way she drew away from her saviour:
“– but it’s nothing insidious, really, don’t be alarmed… I just want you to make me something. A brooch.”
Shahaila regarded her quizzically. “Your voice sounds funny. Insidious. No one uses this word. I think I heard an old man say it once – what does it even mean?”
“Ah – oh, damn it.” The witch tapped her chin in thought. “Nothing… ominous? It’s nothing ominous. And my voice, it sounds funny because I’m from Mund.”
“And, there again – using the version of ‘Mund’ that means the, you know, home, the city, rather than the actual place –“
“Mund is my home.”
“No, see – it’s like this: ‘Mundic Realm’…”
She stared at the witch’s face.
“Wait – wait. You mean, you’re from the actual city? From Mund itself?”
The white girl curtseyed, nodding – a motion Shahaila took for a confirmation.
Her jaw dropped. Mund was a legend – most people she’d met didn’t even think it existed.
“But Mund – that has to be h-hundreds of miles away…”
“Two-thousand, three-hundred, give or take. Archmages are rare out here, you know. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“But y-you sp-speak Panagri…”
“I’m a witch, aren’t I? Just don’t question it too much or your head’ll hurt.”
She was breathing heavily. “A-and you w-want me to… to make you a… a brooch?”
“Or twelve.”
“Twelve!”
“I can’t account for all eventualities… Look, I know you’re full of questions but I can’t spoil the surprise or it won’t happen, okay? I’ll bring you everything you need, and we can help each other, alright? I just couldn’t… let it happen this way. It’ll be… tough enough when it happens, trust me.”
“Not ominous?” Shahaila muttered with a full-body shudder.
The Mundian’s button-nose wrinkled. “Er, yeah. Sorry. You’ll get me, don’t worry. Go, rejoin your sisters. I’ll be seeing you next week.”
The witch walked aside a few paces, waved jovially, then turned and vanished.
* * *
When she became a woman two days later, Father refused her permission to see the priestesses of Byla, refused her permission to take the Test – and in the very moment Shahaila peeled open the canvas flap to behold the warrior selected to be her husband, she came into her inheritance as an archmage.
She was an enchantress – and she understood at last what the crazy diviner from Mund had been getting at all along.
It was tough, there was no denying it, but she sorted out her situation before night fell: by the time Tanra came again to see her she was well into her role as one of the many new neophytes at the shrine of the dreamers, sweeping dirt off the porch and waving down at the white girl as though they were old friends.
Too late, she realised what had changed.