Chapter Three: Changes
Seasons changed.
The snows fell and brought with them hard days of hunger and the uncaring cold that froze the life out of many. The world warmed, life bloomed in the Hollows, if only to be plucked like berries from the bush before they could ripen. The merciless lightmaker grew fierce, leaving many exposed and desiccated while the flowing waters dried. The leaves on the hollows faded to brighter colors before falling dead upon the bloodstained grounds.
The cycling of the seasons remained constant, but the Hollows changed in many ways since that rainy day. Celegana’s Spire, the massive rise of melded earth and tree that loomed over the Hollows the way a giant man loomed over a little girl, never changed. The tamer who sat upon Munderra, the throne of earth and tree at its apex, did. The Great Ezen Tugal was no more. A more powerful tamer seized the title by wresting Tugal’s chimaera from him and sending Tugal from the top of the Spire down into the evil waters below. Gurgaldai ezen Celegan sat upon Munderra and overlooked the Celegan peninsula and the Hollows that extended for as far as eyes could see beneath him. The tamers spoke of Gurgaldai’s triumph over the giant pretenders of the sunset lands beyond the Hollows from where Zaya came. Now, Gurgaldai set his eyes upon new faraway lands, seeking to return the heathens and pretenders to Celegana’s natural order.
As the seasons changed, new women were brought into the Hollows. These newcomers were not like the giants Zaya had been, but neither were they the snowy-complexioned, dark-eyed folk native to the Hollows. Some had blood-tinted skins with earthy hair and eyes. Others had lightmaker-tinted skin that could either be dark or pale with eyes that bore the coloring of grass or sky and hair that was pure darkness. Neither group of newcomers looked like Tuya and neither spoke much to the natives of the Hollows. When they tried, the sounds were incomprehensible. Only with her mind strength, could Tuya understand their immense sorrows. Most of the newcomers died before, or not long after, they yielded their first tamer seedling, whether it was a khorota or a tamer. The tamers claimed these deaths were proof of their own superiority, of the might of Celegana, and the weakness of the pretenders. To Tuya, the dying of the newcomers only proved the cruelty of the tamers and each one she failed to save left her feeling hollow.
As the seasons changed, the suffering of the women living in the Hollows remained a constant. Yet, for some of them, in one region of the Hollows, pain became smaller. It was in this region, where one child unlike any other and exactly like every other planted the seeds of the Paintaker within every hollow where women might find shelter, and tended them so they thrived in every season.
The seasons cycled seven times in the life of the one who made pain smaller and still the wound of losing Zaya buried itself deep in Tuya. She carried on as she always did, trying her best to be the comfort that Zaya was to her for the women around her. She thought often of the woman she called mother and the first thing she did every day when she woke was remember her promise. The world changed, the people changed, even Tuya changed, but that promise never changed. Her promise was the constant guiding light in the dark world within which she persevered.
This morning, unlike any other and exactly like every other, was nestled in the space between the season of cold and the season of birth. The last several rises and falls of the lightmaker saw the heat rise and fall dramatically, like a tamer that could not decide whether he was going to beat you near to death or if he was going to let it pass just this once. This morning was one of the coldest in many, like an oppressive tamer bound on making you hurt no matter what you did. Alas, one change in these six cycles of the seasons was of most importance to the girl unlike any other. Tuya used her eyes to find freedom in the dark places where others could not see. On this day of change, Tuya lurked in a dark place beneath the Hollows where none could find her.
Tuya crouched near her small fire, enjoying the surfeit of roasted mushrooms, snails, and shrimp, skewered on a stick, savoring the warmth of the flames. She listened to the sizzle and crackle of the fire set against the susurrus sound of the evil water crashing against the dark place’s rocks. She kept her walls up, not letting the unchanging cries of the many tamed in this world nor the despair and the hatred of those living above her disturb this moment of bittersweet solitude and loneliness.
With every rise and fall of the lightmaker, Tuya dreamt of what it would be like to have a friend down here. Someone to help prepare and carry the blessings she snuck to the others, someone to share her responsibilities and the pressures of her promise, someone to talk to, someone to love where no tamers could hurt them. Sarnai asked often where Tuya found her blessings, but Tuya never told her about the dark place that only she could find. As she always did when she felt lonely, Tuya reminded herself why she could not share this secret. The tamers could pry into minds, could use caring about someone as another means of control, could make pain so much more than it was. If a tamer like Makhun learned of the secrets of Tuya’s dark place, or how much she loved Sarnai…
Tuya must be alone because she needed to make pain smaller, even if it meant increasing her own.
She swallowed the last morsel on her skewer, a juicy shrimp gathered from the little flowing water that ran through her dark place on its way to joining the evil water beyond the rocks. The seasons of sustenance in the dark changed her. Tuya swam in the little flowing water, jumped over the deep cracks, crawled through the little holes, lifted the weird rocks, and ran, and ran, and ran through the dark place, dreaming of the day she would finally fly away from here.
Flesh covered her skeleton, giving her strength, and something else that meant much to the tamers. When she looked at her reflection in the little flowing water, she saw what the tamers could.
“The good khorota.”
Thus, spoke the tamers about Tuya of the Hollows. Too often the sobriquet was followed by their declarations of intent to claim her once her first blood arrived. She forced a smile when they spoke to her, kept her eyes down upon Celegana’s earth, promised to birth many strong tamers, and continued to give them just enough of her blessings that they would be pleased with her in deed as well as in appearance. They still pulled her hair and dragged her, they still smacked her bosom and spanked her buttocks, they still shoved her against the trees and barked at her, but no more did they strike her “good” face. In fact, since Makhun arrived they rarely struck her at all.
You did this, khorota.
Tuya darted toward the numbroot wall, running as far as she could from too many fresh memories. The memories chased her, Makhun’s voice repeating in her mind, You did this, khorota. Too many broken faces, none of them hers. Too many cries, some of them hers. Too much self-blame, all of it hers.
The numbroot covered the rocks where the evil water splashed, lapping up the salty wetness that found its way through the cracks. Tuya lowered her own walls, letting in the noises of the tamed, the feelings of the Hollows, but also opening herself to the numbroot. She attached her consciousness to the blessed plants, focusing on the needs of others to numb her own. If ever there was a better way of making her own pain smaller, she had yet to discover it in her cycles of the seasons.
Tuya ran her hand along the numbroot and listened. The roots were unhappy with the sudden cold, so she left some flaming sticks near their growing place. The stems wanted water without the evil, thirsty as any creature could be. Tuya filled her biggest weird rock with the good flowing water, and used a smaller weird rock to slosh some good water on the numbroot stems. The leaves wanted just a little light. She beamed brightness from her eyes, gazing upon the leaves of the numbroot. Lastly, they all wanted to be more of themselves. Tuya used her strength. The translucent earthy essence flowed from her fingertips, invigorating every numbroot she touched. With each wave of heat, each splash of water, each beam of light, each touch of strength, the numbroot emitted gratitude and pride. Their appreciation helped dampen the memories of others being battered in her place, but those screams could not be silenced.
You did this, khorota.
Tuya grasped a numbroot, wanting to fade to that place of oblivion where every pain and every joy numbed to nothingness, wanting to escape the Hollows, to run from her responsibility, to hide from her self-blame. All she needed was to pull the numbroot from the wall and chew on the root. A few bites of one so ripe and she would fade away, quiet Makhun’s voice, quiet the screams and the cries of the women and girls they battered because of her. Just a few bites and she could stop thinking about and remembering her failures to make their pain smaller.
Tuya cried, clinging to that root. Her escape would last a moment, the pain Makhun would inflict on somebody else if Tuya was missing at first light would last forever. She cried, knowing the right choice, but not wanting to hear those screams, to see those faces, to listen to Makhun whispering in her ear, pinching her cheek, and promising that it would happen again if she did not learn.
She pulled a couple numbroot from the rocks and quickly rushed over to her spotted hide and wrapped them with skewers of morsels she saved for the others. Tuya bundled the hide and thought of all the ways the meat and numbroot would make pain smaller. The root caused an oblivion that took away everything for a time, useful for one enduring immense pain and needing rest. When she was found with these, some of the tamers snatched them from her and descended into a stupor. Tuya did not mind. A happy, semi-conscious tamer was one who rarely hurt the women.
The stalks could be broken open for an ointment that soothed and healed bruises and lacerations, daily occurrences for a woman or tamer in the Hollows. For many seasons, tamers sent battered women to her, or she snuck herself to them. The tamers even came to her themselves for the blessings of the stem when the others were not looking, oft was there wounds, especially since the arrival of Tamer Jhorgal.
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The leaves were her pride. While the root numbed and the stalk mended, the leaves prevented pain. Since Tuya gave the women of her region the leaves to chew, few stomachs swelled with tamer seed, first blood came later, and later bloods were smaller. She was careful to hide this truth from both the tamers and the women, telling them all that the leaves provided mere sustenance. Given their acrid taste, the tamers were happy to let Tuya fill the khorota bellies with something they refused to eat. Given their phenomenal magic, Tuya was happy to disperse them regularly to each claimed and each girl nearing first blood, herself included.
Thinking about the leaves and what they did increased her urgency to reach the top of the dark place. Tuya looked at the fire and used her eyes to shine light on it. The heat went back to the air, leaving behind charred branches and logs that she could use the next time she came to the dark place on cold days. She used her small weird rock to drink the good water and put the big weird rock back by the fire stones. Tuya checked her firemakers and made sure she had enough of the moss and the little branches for at least a handful of fires. Satisfied, she grabbed the hide-wrapped bundle and dashed for the surface.
Tuya pressed herself against the cavern wall and slid through the crevice. This tight space long since stopped scaring her and was now more of a comforting protector. She reached her strength toward the spiders who made this space of several body lengths their lair and warned them to move. They scattered, her eyes beaming light into the small space until she entered into the jumping place. Tuya carried her bundle with both hands and dashed up the slope, leaping over the chasm. If any tamer followed her into this darkness and managed to make it this far, she savored knowing they would fall in, hopeless of ever climbing out if they somehow survived the deep drop.
She climbed the steep, twisting and turning, convoluted incline until she reached a little crevice. Tuya slid through a narrow passage, squeezing and contorting through this twisting pass for many body lengths until she emerged into the topmost part of the dark place. This final area was expansive, bigger even than her refuge below but teeming with very little life. Light from the little lightmakers and the big, beautiful, sky-colored lightmaker beamed in from the dark place’s entrance, not reaching her crevice.
Tuya wanted to rush out and find her hollow before the tamers sought her. That fear was real and bigger than the Spire in her mind. Alas, she could not lose the dark place, the numbroot within it, or the blessings of the good water and her fire. Be patient, she reminded herself, skulking toward the light.
Tuya opened her mind and used her strength to scan for life. She found two pulses of consciousness that set her into panic. Soon, she did not need her strength to know they were there, nor did she need to reach for their thoughts and feelings to know what they sought. Her two least favorite tamers lurked just beyond the dark place’s only escape.
“You think the good khorota hides in here?”
The deep voice belonged to Tamer Jhorgal, a gigantic man with arms that seemed thicker than a woman’s torso. He returned from the faraway lands some seasons ago, a triumphant warrior against the pretenders of the sunset lands. His first act upon returning was bludgeoning Khargoth to death with his bare hands and claiming Sarnai. Tuya did not think a rise and fall of the lightmaker had passed since where some tamer or khorota did not get hit by his monstrous fists. If only it were Jhorgal, Tuya might have been able to still her panic, to think her way through this, to hope for a happy ending to this day of change. The other tamer was, by far, the worst she ever met.
Makhun’s distinctive, high-pitched voice was discordant for a man so strong with the taming sense. His body was smaller than any other tamer in the area, a fact made more salient when juxtaposed with Jhorgal’s massive frame. That did not make him less terrifying. “Like all khorota, and like Tamer Jhorgal, she is a stupid creature. She hides here.”
Tuya could not silence the screaming women that he beat, each blow followed with his high-pitched, You did this, khorota.
The big lightmaker had not even crested over the evil water. She did everything right to get back up in time! She cursed Celegana and the pretender gods. She cursed the tamers and the Spire. She cursed Makhun and Jhorgal. She cursed herself for being so stupid to let Makhun find her dark place. She cursed the unfairness of this life she lived, but if one thing never changed it was the unfairness of life. She could refuse to accept this reality, but reality simply did not care whether little girls rejected it. Reality made its claim on her with power that transcended even Gurgaldai ezen Celegan, and she was bound and tethered to it no matter how much she wished life were different.
Tuya knew these truths, but she rejected them. This could not be happening today. Hyperventilating, she set down the bundle of blessings and crouched in the darkness, hoping they would give up and go. She could not go out and face them. She could not!
One thing that never changed was the bickering of the tamers. Makhun belittled Jhorgal’s stupidity and Jhorgal belittled Makhun’s size. They pecked at each other’s insecurities, trying to gain the upper hand in asserting their purpose: the claiming of Tuya. The good khorota would blood soon and they both believed they would prevail and send the other into shameful flight of the region.
Tuya tried to remember, remember to breathe and think of Zaya. She tried to plan. Yet, all she could think of was the beatings. Jhorgal would shove her against the rocks and would hit her everywhere but the face. Worse, Makhun would try to pry into her mind, he would make her watch as he hurt someone else. You did this, khorota.
“We should leave her in here,” Jhorgal said, voice hushed as though afraid of who might hear. “Keep her between you and me, little tamer.”
Makhun scoffed. “How many times did those pretenders hit your big, ugly head? That is even stupider than I thought possible from even you, dumb Jhorgal. It takes one tamer who wants us gone to tell the Ezen that we hid away our favorite unblooded from him. Do you know what would happen then?”
“Think, Makhun,” Jhorgal spat, growing flustered. “Do you want to share our prize with Gurgaldai?”
“My prize, Jhorgal, and no, that is why we do what I say. Gurgaldai will overlook her after we are done. If you keep her from him, he will know.”
“I have been in more lands than you. I have seen this world. There are none like her. None! Even after you try to conceal what she is, Gurgaldai will touch her mind and know the truth and he will take her for himself. He will know what we did to her and why. What then, stupid Makhun? What then?” Jhorgal paused for a moment before cutting off Makhun’s response. “No, Makhun. No. We do not present her at all. We hide her. I will scare the others into silence.”
Makhun released a high-pitched squeal of delight. “You? You will scare tamers? Beside Gurgaldai ezen Celegan, you are nothing. You think you could triumph over the one who has been chosen by the chimaera, the one who slew the last of the Gidiites and wields his giant abomination, the one who will claim the world!” Makhun laughed and laughed. “You are far stupider than I imagined.” The tamer laughed.
Tuya lurked in the dark place, terror gripping her. If Gurgaldai took her to the Spire, she would be surrounded by tamers with nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no blessings to ease the pain, no numbroot leaf to slow her blooding and block tamer seed. She would become property of the most powerful tamer, a man whose taming strength made Makhun’s look puny. Her eyes saw Gurgaldai ezen Celegan’s taming strength flow from the height of the Spire and down into the Hollows more than once. His power could swallow entire regions and it was said his body would make even Jhorgal look like Makhun. She would never escape, never fly away, unless leaping to her death from atop the Spire. Whatever Makhun planned for her today could not possibly be worse than such a fate.
Jhorgal and Makhun continued to belittle each other and argue over who would claim Tuya. Jhorgal’s temper was stressed to its meager limits and the only thing keeping him from ripping Makhun apart was the little tamer’s strength of mind. The beast of a man would take that out on Tuya or the other women if she could not calm him down. Makhun’s irritation would be impossible to soothe, but he might make less pain if she gave in to his plan.
Tuya realized today was a day of change and change was rarely a good thing in Celegana’s Hollows. All she could do was her best to survive, to keep hope alive that one day she would fulfill her promises, and that today she would do whatever she could to make pain smaller. Fortifying herself with these truths did not make her any less scared of what Makhun and Jhorgal would do to her or to the women she loved. Neither did it lessen the threat of Gurgaldai ezen Celegan, but they gave her the bravery to face the changes.
Tuya would not greet them empty-handed. She would sacrifice the numbroot to them, use that as her reason for being in the dark place. Even better, she reached down to a wilted flower that grew in the warm seasons within the dark place. The angertaker, as she called it, was dull, like her hopes of this being a good day, but when this flower glowed it brought inner peace. Tuya linked with the flower and begged, Please help me. Please show them your beauty and make their hearts soft today. Please shine a light in this darkness.
Tuya infused the angertaker with her strength and it shone a luminescent sky color, much like the big lightmaker in the night sky. You are beautiful, Tuya told the angertaker. Plucking it from the ground, she remembered Zaya’s lessons, remembered to breathe, remembered her promises. Gathering her courage, Tuya marched into her terror, knowing that pain would be large today, but that she would do whatever she could to make it smaller.
The air outside of the dark place was a shock of cold that went through Tuya’s hides and straight to her bones. The evil breeze cut into her like the lash of a tamer’s switch. Snowflakes fell atop her head, wreathing dark hair with light powder. The angertaker glowed just like the big lightmaker of the night and the edges of the world were starting to change to the pleasant color of an unpleasant bruise as the big lightmaker woke from its sleep.
Eyes on the ground, Tuya walked toward the two tamers and offered her blessings upon them. “For you, mighty tamers.”
Jhorgal snatched both of the numbroot. “What is a khorota doing lurking beneath Celegana’s land when the lightmaker sleeps?”
Tuya’s jowls trembled from more than cold. “I woke with a full belly because of the blessings you provide me. I wanted to find something worthy of the great tamers who may claim me, of their seed that will take root in me and grow mighty.”
“Good khorota,” Jhorgal said. The pulses of anger that emanated from him moments before were replaced with desire. He caressed her face with his gigantic hand. “Good to look at and good bringer of blessings. I will claim you when the time comes and plant a future Ezen within you.”
“Celegana bless us and make it so,” she said, hoping they could not sense what she harbored beneath her reverent fear. Tuya extended the angertaker to Makhun. “For you, Tamer Makhun. I found this shining in the dark place, and thought of your strength.” Her hands trembled as the offering hung between them, untaken, for many rapid heartbeats.
Makhun startled her when he seized the flower. Tuya shook, suppressing the urge to leak on herself. You did this, khorota. You did this.
“Do you think I am as stupid as Jhorgal is?” Makhun asked. He sniffed the angertaker and sighed. “Smells like lies. Smells like a khorota who thinks herself wiser than she is.” Makhun dropped the flower to the ground and stamped it into the dirt.
The little tamer seized her arm and she shielded herself from whatever blows may come. She would have preferred the fist to the mental attack he unleashed upon her. Makhun’s consciousness penetrated hers, probing through her mind like grasping fingers reaching into the bush for berries to pluck.
Seasons changed in the Hollows. Tuya changed, growing stronger and finding new ways to survive and make pain smaller. The tamers in charge changed, whether Gurgaldai atop the Spire or Jhorgal and Makhun in her little region of the vast, vast forest where the trees all had holes. Alas, no matter the season, no matter how she changed, no matter who was in charge, the cruelty of the tamers remained as it always had, and Tuya had yet to meet one as cruel as Tamer Makhun.