BIRANA

 

Arvil had fallen, I could not tell if he still breathed, my terror nearly paralyzed me. Somehow I pulled a stone from my pocket and placed it in my sling as the moon reappeared.

The man was already pulling an object from his belt as I whirled the sling and released the stone. For the first time, I found my target. The stone hit him in the chest, and I heard him grunt as he staggered back.

My stone did not have enough force to injure him badly; I had done little more than startle him for a moment. I saw him teeter as I groped helplessly for another stone, and then he lost his footing. He disappeared over the edge.

My legs gave way. I clawed at my sling, imagining that he would suddenly rise before me, come at me again. I tried to stand, but my legs would not hold me. At last I managed to crawl through the opening and peer over the edge.

He had fallen onto a ledge far below. His body was twisted sharply at the waist. I looked away and caught sight of another body; a horse lay near it. I retched, sick at the sight, heaving until my stomach was empty, shaken by the thought of how close death had been.

I remembered Arvil; I crawled to his side. Please don’t be dead, I thought, please, not now. As I leaned over him, I saw his chest move, then felt his head. His skull was not fractured, but a bloody gash marked the spot where he had struck the rock.

I tore a strip of cloth from the edge of my shirt, then pulled out my waterskin. Arvil gave a moan and opened his eyes; he seemed stunned.

“You’re safe now,” I said. “It’s all right, the men are gone. I must clean your wound.”

He moaned again as I bathed him, but said nothing. I wiped away the blood, then rinsed out the cloth and bound it around his head.

The wind had died a little, but the night was still cold. I reached for his coat and put it over him. When he closed his eyes, I ran toward the horses, took off a pack, and carried it back to him, kneeling as I slipped it gently under his head.

His eyelids fluttered. “Dizzy,” he murmured.

“You mustn’t move. You have to rest.” I checked his wound again; the bleeding had stopped. “I think you’ll be all right.”

“That man… he…”

“He’s dead.” Arvil tried to raise his head. “Lie still,” I said.

“What happened?”

“I used my sling. Somehow, I hit him. He lost his balance and fell.” My hands began to shake. “I was lucky. I might have missed. My stone didn’t hit him hard. If he hadn’t been standing where he was, I…”

“You did well.”

A new feeling was rising in me—a wild joy that I was alive and that our enemies were dead. This, I thought, is what a man would feel.

I lay down next to him, pillowing my head on my arm. I did not think then of what lay behind us, or what might lie ahead. Arvil was alive, and he would heal; he would be able to lead me to a refuge. I touched his arm gently as he slept, telling myself that it was only relief at having a protector still with me that gave me joy.

 

 

Arvil was able to move in the morning, although he seemed unsteady on his feet as we paced the top of the Ridge. “Will you be able to walk down the other side?” I asked.

“I must. Our horses will need food, and there is none here for them.” Arvil raised a hand to his head.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“My head throbs, and the ground seems to sway under me, but it will pass.”

“I can take the horses down alone, let them forage, tether them, and then come back for you.”

“No.”

“You were going to let me take them down alone before,” I said.

“We’ll go together.” He turned and walked back to the western side of the Ridge, then leaned against me as he gazed at the bodies below. “There may be food in those packs,” he said, “and one horse could feed us for a long time.”

I shuddered. “No.”

“It’s foolish to leave so much, but it may also be foolish to climb down. We might bring more loose rock down on ourselves, and my wound has weakened me.”

Much as I wanted to get away from the Ridge, I was concerned. “You should rest.”

“I’ll rest for a few moments, and then we will descend.”

He sat down while I fetched the horses, then followed me to the eastern side. There was firmer footing here, and a wider way over and down the rock, but we had to stop often so that Arvil could rest. It took us until midday to travel down the Ridge; only then did I see the strain on Arvil’s face, and the effort his descent had cost.

He stretched out on the ground, while I gave the horses some of our water and then stood with them as they nibbled at stalks of wild grain. I tethered them at a shrub before checking Arvil’s wound. He caught my hand, as I was about to stand up, and pressed it against his cheek; I tensed.

“You have saved my life a second time,” he said.

I drew my hand from his. “I had luck, that’s all. I could have easily been killed. I may not be so fortunate again.” I had only led him into dangers he would otherwise not have faced.

“You have learned one way of fighting. You will learn more.”

I never wanted to fight again. I stood up. “Can you ride?”

He got to his feet. “I can ride. We have no one to outrun now and can go slowly.”

We mounted and began to ride east. When the Ridge was far behind us, I glanced back for a moment and nearly dropped my reins. A ship was flying high over the Ridge, moving from south to north. I told myself it could not be searching for me. Any passengers it carried might look at the bodies we had left there and see only another example of the cruelty and barbarism of men. I watched the ship pass and felt dread and regret as I thought of my city.

 

 

We came to a stream by dusk. Arvil, who had seen no sign of men in the region around us, felt safe in building a fire. I collected the dead wood, but Arvil refused to light the fire for me; he wanted to see what I had learned. I struck sparks from my flints onto tinder and tried to fan the flames into a blaze. By the time I was able to start the fire, it was nearly night.

Arvil felt well enough to gather cress and berries, which we ate with a little dried meat. After our meal, we stretched out on the ground, the banked fire between us. “It is said,” he murmured, “that the Earth is round, like the moon.”

“That’s true.”

“If we rode for many, many days, then we would come in time to the place where we began our journey.”

“If we could ride so far,” I said, “but we couldn’t. If we kept going east, eventually we’d reach the ocean, a body of water so wide that you cannot see what lies beyond it.”

“What is on the other side, Birana?”

“More land. Some is wooded; some is desert. On one body of land live animals you’ve never seen here—giants with tusks and long trunks, and creatures with necks so long they can nibble at the tops of trees. And in the centers of those lands, there are other cities, and men who are called to them.”

“And are those men like us?”

“They live much as you do.”

“I wonder what stories they would tell.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and gazed across the fire at him. “You wouldn’t understand their stories. Their languages are different from yours.”

“We could talk in the holy speech.”

“Even what you call the holy speech is different there,” I said. “But those women’s ways are the same as ours. Their speech may be different, and the Lady has other names, but we follow the same customs. The Lady rules there, as She does here. Long after the Destruction, we found ways to communicate with those in other regions of Earth, and eventually all women came to see what we had to do to bring about the Rebirth. It was women who swore then that there would be peace. There were men even then, when much of the world was in ruins, who would have continued their battles with other men. It was best that they have only spears and arrows for their wars.”

He got to his feet. “My head is clearer now,” he said. “I shall keep watch while you sleep.”

I closed my eyes as he stood guard, but even in my dreams, I seemed to sense his eyes on me as I slept.

 

 

The next days of our journey passed with no sight of men. Arvil captured two rabbits; from their skins, he fashioned foot-coverings for me to wear inside my boots. My socks were worn and full of holes by then; I was about to dispose of them, but washed them and put them inside my pack instead. I might have need of the cloth.

He asked me few questions about the city as we rode, and that eased me; perhaps his curiosity had already been satisfied. The peacefulness of this part of our journey, the knowledge that our enemies could no longer harm us, and Arvil’s calm should have reassured me, and yet I worried. I had believed myself safe once before, with Arvil’s band; their camp had not been a haven for long.

The cool but sunny weather did not last. One morning, the sky was red in the east as the sun rose; the light was soon hidden by heavy clouds. By afternoon, it began to rain. I huddled against Flame, miserable in my wet clothes.

There were more trees on the land, and forest ahead, and we were able to escape much of the rain as we rode on under tall pines. Arvil, however, seemed more fearful as he looked restlessly around at the trees. Without the sun’s light, the forest seemed nearly as dark as night; we could not know what the trees hid. Arvil stared at the ground as our horses walked on slowly.

Finally he reined in Star. “We are lost,” he said. “I see no trail and do not know this land. I cannot even tell if we are still going east.” He pointed. “Look there. It seems we have met our own trail once more.”

I had forgotten my compass. I reached toward my neck and pulled out the chain, angry at my carelessness. I was growing too dependent on Arvil, had too easily allowed him to lead. I peered at the needle. “We’ve been going south,” I said, then pointed east. “We must go this way.”

He leaned toward me. “What is that?”

“A compass. It can show you which way you’re going.”

“It is not used only to cast spells?”

“No. You see, this needle always points north. These markings are the different directions.”

He gazed at the compass’s face. “So you have brought some magic with you. Will that magic stay with you out here?”

I tried to explain how the compass worked but was not sure how much he understood. Magnetism, to Arvil, was magic or a spirit that directed the needle. I continued to guide us with the compass until it became too dark to see its face.

We spent that night under a tree, with our horses tied nearby. I could not sleep easily; the mournful whistling of the wind in the pines kept entering my dreams.

 

 

The rain stopped by morning. The dark forest was filled with green light, and the weather had grown so warm that I longed to take off my coat. Arvil was alert, refusing to speak, starting at the slightest sound. Once, we heard a shriek in the distance, and Flame’s nostrils flared at the sound.

“A cat,” Arvil said; I tensed. “It will avoid us, unless it has young and feels its cubs threatened.” His words only increased my fear.

It was easy to lose track of time in the forest. Only the increased darkness told me that it was night. We had eaten the last of the food in our packs and had no food before we slept. In the morning, Arvil gathered a few green sprouts and mushrooms before we moved on.

I was still hungry, and tired as well; my clothes were dirty and the heavy coat made me sweat. I itched and needed to wash, but complained of none of these things. I imagined that here, in this strange land, Arvil was thinking of his old band and the lands he knew, of the life he had given up for me. What did he have in return? Only the loss of the beliefs that had made his life easier to bear.

We came to the bank of a stream. I was about to dismount and get water when a golden gleam caught my attention. A shrine, almost hidden by the trees, stood on the other side of the stream. I lifted a hand to my mouth.

“It’s all right,” Arvil said. “Those who did evil in shrines are dead. We’ll be safe.”

We let the horses drink before crossing to the shrine. Arvil surveyed the ground carefully. “It seems no men have come here for some time,” he said, “but some may travel here in this season.”

This shrine was smaller than those I had seen earlier, its surface more worn, its dome more tarnished. I wondered if anyone still came here. We were far from any city, nearer land we had abandoned long ago.

We tied the horses to trees and sat down in the small clearing around the shrine, letting the sun warm us. “We need food,” Arvil said. “I must hunt.”

“But if men come while you are gone…”

“They will not harm you here. You have heard me speak and know what you should say. Birana, we don’t know how far we will have to ride, or what meat will be there for us. We can rest here for a time and take meat with us. We must use the chance. If I cannot hunt, we should kill one of these horses.” He looked at Wild Spirit.

“Not the horses,” I said quickly.

His lips formed a half smile. “Would you starve before you would eat of a horse?” He shrugged. “It is true that we might have need of that horse later. I’ll let it live—for you.”

 

 

He explained to me that much of what meat he found would have to be smoked and dried, then set me to work gathering long pieces of wood that could form poles. While I set the poles in the ground, Arvil picked up his weapons and walked away along the stream; he was soon hidden by the trees. With a wide, flat stone, I dug out a pit for our fire, then set stones and rocks around it. It was arduous work, but I welcomed the effort. It was something to do, work that made me of some use to him.

I strolled away from the shrine, looking for firewood. I had my compass but kept the stream in sight. I broke pieces of dead wood with my foot, made bundles, and carried the wood back to the shrine, moving a bit farther into the forest each time. The song of a bird delighted me; the scampering of a squirrel across my path made me smile. There was some beauty in Arvil’s world, a beauty lost to the city, a beauty its tended parks could not match.

Suddenly I heard a snarl and saw a patch of yellowish fur. I dropped the wood I was holding as my eyes met those of a large cat. I hadn’t seen it before, had not heard it approach. The cat was no more than ten or twelve paces from me; it crouched and snarled at me. I froze, afraid to move, fearing that, if I reached for my sling, the cat would leap. It glared at me, seeming to sense my fear.

I stared at it a long time as my heart pounded, then chanced a step back. The cat crouched lower, about to leap. I could not run, would find no safety in a tree. Twigs crackled behind the cat. It turned its head away from me. At that moment, a spear flew and embedded itself in the cat’s side.

I heard the animal screech, and then Arvil was upon it, stabbing with his knife. He released the cat as he stood up. “Why are you here?” he said angrily.

“I was gathering wood.… I only…”

“You didn’t have to come this far. If you cannot be alert to danger, it’s better for you to keep to a safer place.” He knelt by the dead cat. “We cannot eat its meat, but I will take the hide.” He gestured with his head. “The game I have found lies there. You must get it back to the shrine.”

A few paces from the cat, I found the carcass of a small deer. I could not lift it; at last I began to drag it forward by the legs. The effort soon made me pant. I wanted to fetch one of the horses but could not lift the deer to a horse’s back alone.

My back ached by the time I reached our campsite. I dragged the carcass toward the poles, then collapsed beside it, exhausted.

Arvil finally emerged from the trees and threw the cat’s fur down at my side. “When you walk in a wood,” he said, “you must not be careless. You should have been listening and had your sling ready when you first glimpsed it.”

I refused to speak. The beauty of the wood had entranced me; I had forgotten the dangers.

“It is good that I found you,” he said more gently. “It would have grieved me greatly if you had been harmed.” I sat up. “You must light the fire and gather more wood, but do not roam far this time.”

He began to skin the deer while I struggled with my flints. I nursed a spark into a flame and fanned it with my hands until a large fire blazed; then I collected more wood while Arvil butchered his game. “We need more wood,” he muttered as he worked. “This fire must burn for a time.”

He cut thin strips of leather, bound them to the poles near the fire, then draped thin pieces of meat over them. It was night by the time he had finished his labors. He had cut off two large pieces of meat for us, which were roasting on skewers of green wood. I had thought I would be too tired to eat, but the smell of the meat revived me. Once, I would have turned from it in disgust; now my mouth watered.

We ate until we were full. When I yawned, Arvil said, “You must go to sleep now. I’ll feed the fire. We must keep it going—that meat will draw other creatures.”

I might have gone into the shrine but stretched out on the ground, not wanting to leave his side. I did not dwell long on that thought before falling asleep.

 

 

I kept the fire going through the last part of the night; Arvil awoke at dawn. He went to collect more wood, then gathered cress from the bank of the stream. As we ate, he lifted his hand to his head for a moment.

“Are you well?” I asked.

“My head still pains me a little.”

Concerned, I peered at his wound. He had healed, but the injury must have been greater than he would admit. “How much does it hurt?”

“It lessens. It grows no worse.”

I sighed. “You have to conserve your strength while we’re here. You’ll need it when we go on.”

“We have food. I’ll be able to rest.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “Is it my well-being that concerns you, or is it only that you need my help to get to the safe place you are hoping to find?”

My eyes met his. “I need your help, but even if I didn’t, I would be sad if I lost your companionship.” I had intended to say that only to ease his feelings but, to my surprise, found that my words were sincere. “On the Ridge, when I thought you might be dead, I grieved, and not just because I thought I had lost a protector.”

He reached for my hand. I let him hold it, fearing that I had said too much. “My soul longs for you,” he said. “Does yours begin to long for mine?”

I slipped my hand from his. “I long for a friend, that’s all.”

“Two friends can share love.”

I stood up quickly and went to the shrine’s entrance. The door opened and I retreated inside. The shrine seemed crowded and cramped; only five couches stood near the wall, and the fabric covering them was worn and shiny. An image of Hecate stood near the altar; I sat down on the couch in front of it. For the first time since I had met Arvil, I had accepted his touch without wanting to pull away; I had wanted my hand in his, and that frightened me.

His footsteps sounded behind me as he came up to the altar. He gazed up at the image for a while, then turned to face me. “I have a question, Birana. Why did the spirit-women choose Tal as my guardian?”

“It wasn’t the spirit-women who chose him. A woman now living would have chosen him. Those who spoke to you must have chosen him.”

“Why was Tal chosen, and not another?”

“It was thought that he could best care for you.” His eyes narrowed; I would have to say more and dreaded saying it. “I must explain something to you.” I looked past him at the altar. “It isn’t the spirit-women themselves who bring boys into the world. Those living in the city do that.”

“I thought it must be so, now that I know you have bodies of flesh, but you must tell me how.”

My cheeks burned. “Men are summoned to the wall, and their seed is taken from them while spirit-women…” I bowed my head, wanting to hide my face. “A woman then takes the seed of a man and combines it with her own, and carries the child that results inside her until it’s ready to be born—to come out of her body. When children are born, they’re small and unable to care for themselves, so all of them, boys and girls alike, those of your kind and mine, stay with their mothers in a city. When a boy is old enough, he is sent outside with a man as a guardian. All his memories of the city are taken from him so that he’ll be able to adapt more easily to his new life.”

Arvil said, “Memories are taken from him so that he won’t know the truth.”

“That is part of it as well.” I stared at my folded hands. “The girls stay, and the boys are sent out.”

“And both the girls and the boys enter life in the same way?”

I nodded.

“Then a boy and a girl can come from the same woman’s body and grow up together, but the female remains in your world while the male is sent from it.” His voice was low, but I sensed his rage.

“Animals must push their young from them when their offspring are old enough to survive. Even a girl must leave her mother’s side eventually.”

“But she can live in her mother’s world.” He paused. “There is a man then who gave seed so that I could live, if what you say is so.”

“There is. I think…” I forced myself to lift my head. His lips were pressed tightly together; a muscle along his jaw tightened. “You have a father, a man who gave his seed to the one who was your mother, and the seed of both gave you life. It is our custom, whenever possible, to give a boy to the man who was his father. You and Tal resembled each other strongly. I think he was your father. I think that Hasin, the boy you both brought out, also had Tal as a father.”

He took a step toward me. “So Tal gave me life, and I brought him death. His seed is in me, his spirit, and this was hidden from me. What kind of sin have I done? He will haunt me even more!”

I held out my hand. He moved toward me, as if about to strike it away, then lowered his fist. “Once,” he said, “female and male lived together, our legends say. I believed you were holy, but there is no holiness in what you do. Your magic is only a shield to hide what you are. Except for my member and your female parts, we are the same, as the stallion and mare are, or the buck and the doe. You could allow us to remain among you if you willed it. You could dwell among us.” He stared at me for a long time, then strode from the shrine.

I was afraid to go to him. I ached; my breasts felt bruised and my abdomen had swelled a little. I thought at first that tension and fear had brought about the aches, and then realized that I would soon begin to menstruate. I had not bled at all since leaving the city and had worried that the rigors of my new life had affected my cycle, but I did not welcome this bleeding now. I remembered my happiness when I first experienced this sign of my womanhood; out here, it was only another sign of my weakness.

At last I rose and went outside. Arvil had rendered the deer’s fat and stored it in entrails; he was now picking over what remained of the carcass for useful bones. He did not look up at me. I went to the edge of the clearing, collected more wood, and carried it back, setting the wood down near him. The day had grown warm; I took off my heavy coat and sat down on it.

“Arvil.”

He glanced at me. “You must cover yourself. Someone may come and see what you are.”

“Arvil, listen to me. You ask me questions, and I answer them. You say you want to know the truth, but hearing it only angers you. I know how hard it is for you to bear, but you frighten me. If I anger you enough, you might injure me in your rage.”

He looked up sharply. “I would not hurt you. I couldn’t, even now.”

“I fear that you may without meaning to do so.”

“Never.” He sat back on his heels. “Those garments you wear— you must change them. Only a small boy who has come from an enclave wears such things, and they reveal too much of your form.” He got up and went to Wild Spirit, then opened a sack.

He returned with a shirt and pants he had taken from the men in the shrine by the plateau. He worked at them with a piece of bone and cut at the edges of the pants with a knife. “You should wear these.” I hesitated. “If you must hide your form from me, then put them on inside the shrine.”

I stood up. “I must wash first, in the stream. It’s warm enough. Will I be safe?”

“I shall stand guard,” he said. “You must be ready to cover yourself quickly.”

I picked up my coat and my clothes and hurried into the shrine, relieved that his anger had passed. Taking off my cloth garments, I tore my shirt into strips, knowing I could use them while I bled and wash them out to be used again. I pulled on my coat and held it tightly around me as I went outside.

Arvil picked up his bow and quiver, then followed me down to the stream. He turned his back to me as I dropped my clothes, took off my boots, then crouched by a tree to remove my coat.

I tested the stream with one foot before plunging into the water. The stream was shallow, warmed a little by the sun. I sank down, letting the water flow over me, loosening my hair as I bent my head back. When I felt clean, I climbed out. Arvil was watching me; he turned away slowly. I hid behind the tree while making a loincloth with my belt and three thick strips of cloth; I looped the cloth through the belt and pulled it up between my legs.

As I reached for the leather shirt, I realized that Arvil was looking at me again. I held the shirt to my chest, feeling shamed and vulnerable. “Please. You mustn’t look at me yet.” He did not look away. I pulled on the shirt and picked up the pants.

“Why do you wear that loincloth under pants?” he asked.

I blushed. “I must explain something else to you. Every twenty- eight days or so, a woman bleeds from her female parts.” He started and stepped toward me. I was burning with embarrassment but knew that I could not hide this from him for long. “It isn’t an illness, and the blood does not come from any wound. It’s something that happens to all women. Inside a woman’s belly there is a womb in which she carries her child, and from time to time the womb sheds its wall. I wear this cloth so that…” I could say no more.

“Does it pain you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I ache sometimes. There was never much pain for me.”

“I must wash,” he said suddenly as he handed me his weapons. He stripped off his clothes quickly, not troubling to conceal himself, and then walked into the stream. His arms thrashed at the water; he ducked under it and rose, his hair streaming.

He climbed out onto the bank. His clothing had hidden how muscular he was, had made him seem leaner. His member seemed to swell a bit as he gazed at me; he walked out from under the trees and stood in the sun. I clutched at my coat and retreated to the fire. Still naked, he carried his clothes to the horses, took out the other shirt and pants, and went into the shrine.

I stood near the fire, waiting for my hair to dry. My mother had once taken me to the wall, after I had become a woman, to show me the images of men who were inside after being called. Most women would have shrunk from showing such sights to a daughter that young, but Yvara had defied custom in this as she had in so many other matters. I had glimpsed Arvil’s body in the shrine where I first saw him, when he danced, before revulsion made me look away. I knew what a man looked like and had been prepared for what Arvil’s nakedness would reveal.

I had not been prepared for my reaction to this sight of his body. The men I had seen on the screen had seemed ugly and misshapen, with their body hair, flat chests, and stiff members covered by tubes; they had been no more than providers of sperm for new generations. But Arvil’s body did not seem ugly to me. The water on his pale smooth skin had glistened in the sunlight, and, for a moment, I had seen beauty in his form, in the body hardened by his life.

He came outside and sat down near me. I looked away as I tied my hair back with a leather thong. “Those clothes are looser on you,” he said. “They will hide much of your form, although I wish it did not have to be hidden.” He pulled the deer hide to him and began to scrape at the skin with stone. “You will need another garment to conceal what you are, and the weather will grow too warm for your coat. I’ll make you a garment from this hide.”

I seated myself and watched as he worked at the hide, making it supple. He would make me a garment; I was strangely moved by the gesture. Occasionally, he glanced at me and opened his mouth, as though about to speak, and then he set down his tools and held his hands against his abdomen.

“In here,” he said, “in this part of yourself—it is where you say a woman keeps her child before it is born, as an animal carries her young.”

I nodded.

“But you must put a man’s seed there with your own. How do you take this seed and put it inside you?”

I kept my eyes down. “When you join with the spirit-women, it is taken from your male member. A woman who wants a child…” I swallowed. “The seed enters her body through her female parts. It’s taken from the man and brought to her. It is inserted with a syringe—a device we have—and then a child begins to form inside her.” I could hardly force these words out. “What the spirit-women do allows us to collect your seed.”

“It is from the joining. I had wondered—there was a mystery in this joining, and now…” He was leaning closer to me; I could feel his breath on my face. “But why must it be that way? If seed comes during such a joining, why don’t you come to us yourselves instead of sending spirits? The spirit-women have pleasure with men, as we have with them… why could you not… ?”

I jumped to my feet, disturbed and frightened by this turn in our talk. “There would be no pleasure in it for us,” I cried. “We can find that only with our own kind. We can no longer feel that with a man.”

“Are you saying that once you…”

“I don’t want to speak of this!” I paced by the fire, then spun around. He gazed at me as he picked up the hide.

“You asked me not to grow angry at the truth,” he said. “Now it is you who grow angry at it.”

I moved closer to him. “In ancient times,” I said as calmly as I could, “some women could bring themselves to enjoy a man, but it is no longer so. Men could use that pleasure to enslave women, and often they sought their own enjoyment whether or not the woman was willing. We’re free from that now.”

“Perhaps men were also enslaved by it. You enslave us now with spirit-women in the shrines and enclaves. Even men with strong lusts and willing boys and men to satisfy them can find the Lady’s blessings greater. If we didn’t have the knowledge of the Lady’s pleasures, perhaps we would find more enjoyment with each other and more love. With your magic, you might find a way to take our seed and give us boys without such blessings, but you would rather bend us to your will with that reward.”

He reached up suddenly and seized my wrist. I tried to pull away; he got to his feet. “I cannot wear the circlet now,” he continued, “without the risk of betraying you again. There will be no more spirit-women and their pleasures for me. I have no friends to love. You are all I have left. What am I to do, Birana? I can hold myself back, but I don’t know if I am strong enough to do it forever.”

“You will find friends in time. It may be…”

He pulled me to him. His hand gripped my hair, and my face was against his chest. “It is you I want now,” he said. “You tell me that women can love each other, and I have seen how the spirit-women perform with a man. Would it be so hard for you to show me what you do with another of your kind, and for me to give blessings to you, so that we could share some pleasure?”

“What you ask is impossible!”

He held my head so that I was forced to look up at him. “I saw how you looked at me when I came out of the water. For a moment, in your eyes, I thought I saw your spirit warm toward me a little.”

I tore myself from his grasp and stumbled toward the shrine, huddling against the wall. I could hide nothing from him, not even my fleeting thoughts. Could he have seen something in me I could not acknowledge to myself? I was nearly sick at the thought.

I knew then what I would have to say to protect myself. As he came toward me, I lifted a hand. “Listen to me,” I said. “If you shared any pleasures with me, you would want to join with me all the more. If that happened, if your urge was too strong to control and your seed ever entered me, a child would be created inside me. I’d be ill at first, and then my belly would begin to swell. I would be much more of a burden to you then, because my body would grow large and clumsy. There would be no physician to guide me through the birth; my pain would be greater than any you have ever felt, and it’s likely that both the child and I would die. Even if we lived, you couldn’t care for us, so we would die anyway. I would give birth in agony, and then I would die, for I would have none of the help a mother has in a city. That’s what joining would be for me. The pleasure you long for would mean my death.”

His face was drawn, his gray eyes wide. “Birana…”

“Think of that, and perhaps restraint will be easier for you—that is, if you want me to live.”

“You know that I do. I’ll try to put these thoughts from my mind.” His voice was strained, his eyes unhappy. He turned away and went back to the fire.

 

 

I waited for Arvil to tell us when we might ride on, but he seemed content to linger by the shrine, the most peaceful place we had yet found. From the deerskin, using a bone needle and strands of gut, he fashioned a coat for me. With the cat’s fur, he made a short cloak for himself. He led me through the forest bordering the shrine as he gathered plants, showing me how to recognize them and where they might be found; he fished in the stream with his spear, and found a berry bush with ripening fruit.

He asked no more questions, and I grew easier with him during the days; but at night, I felt his eyes watching me and wondered what he might be thinking. We had taken to sleeping inside the shrine, one of us resting while the other kept watch by the door. Sometimes I would awaken and sense him standing near me and hear him sigh.

My bleeding stopped at last. I washed out the last bit of cloth I had worn and put it in my pack with the others, then led each of the horses to the stream to drink.

Arvil was walking Star around the shrine when I motioned to him. “This place has been a kind of refuge for me,” I said, “but we must look for another soon. The horses are growing restless.”

“I wonder if we’ll find a place as peaceful.”

“We must try.”

“We shall leave soon. Now I’ll hunt for the last time in this place. I have seen ducks not far from here.” He took up his bow and arrows and vanished into the wood.

I tethered the horses, practiced with my sling, and then went back into the shrine. Ever since our talk of blessings and what they meant, Arvil had been careful not to come too close to me. He no longer smiled or took my hand for a moment, and I realized that I missed those signs of friendship. Why couldn’t he be my friend without longing for more? I knew the answer to that. It was my kind that had awakened such desires in him.

I heard the door whisper open; Arvil could not be back so soon. Perhaps he had decided not to hunt. I turned, intending to smile and say something kind to him, and met a stranger’s eyes.

I caught my breath and drew my deerskin coat around me. The man’s brown hair was plaited in two long braids; his blue eyes narrowed as he watched me. He wore a loincloth with leather leggings that reached above his knees, and a furry hide covered his shoulders. He did not look pleased at finding me there.

I wanted to run from him, useless as that would have been. I waited as he walked toward the altar.

 

 

The stranger set down his small pack and weapons, knelt in front of the image, and bowed his head. I might have run outside, but he could follow, and nothing would prevent him from harming me there.

He finished his prayers and sat back on his heels. I sat down next to the altar, hoping the coat Arvil had made hid my breasts. “A truce while we speak,” I said in my own language.

“There is always peace in Her presence.” He peered at me; I forced myself to gaze at him steadily. “You did not travel here alone.”

“That is so.”

“What are you called, lad?”

I thought of the name Arvil had given me. “Spellweaver,” I replied.

He nudged the spear in front of him with his foot. “I am Narid, and perhaps that is all I should tell you, for I have heard of the horsemen beyond the Ridge in the west who would rid the world of those on foot.”

He did not look like a man who wanted a truce; I could not fight him. If he went outside, he could strike at Arvil when he returned, and if I tried to stop him, I would die as well. He had seen what we possessed and might take it all. I would have to reach a more lasting truce with this man and did not know how I could persuade him to one.

“What you have heard of the horse folk is not true of my band,” I said at last.

“Do you speak truth?”

“Can I lie in the Lady’s presence?”

He frowned as he considered that. “You might shape your words so that you do not utter a lie and yet conceal the truth.”

“I swear this before the Lady.” I pitched my voice as low as it would go. “We do not seek your land. We want only peace with any who live here. I would pledge a truce if you pledge one for yourself and your band, one that would protect us both when we leave this holy place.”

He scowled. “You are only a boy. How can a band be bound by the truce of a boy?”

I had no answer to that.

“Perhaps your horsemen seek new lands, and you are here as scouts. Perhaps I should leave your bodies outside for your band to find, so that they will know this is not their place. You may be willing to pledge peace for now and wait for a battle to come later.”

“If you kill us, others will not rest until your band is dead, until any band in this region is dead. Would you bring that upon yourself from horsemen who do not seek your land and do not wish to act against you?”

He stroked his brown beard as he considered this.

“We have horses,” I continued, “and men on foot are no match for those on horseback.” My terror had made my words harsher than I had intended. “You will only bring death to your band.”

Narid lowered his eyes to my hands; I suddenly wanted to hide them from him. “I see your weakness, lad. Your wrists are thin; your hands are not strong. You cannot fight me.” He reached for his belongings and stood up. “I go outside to await your companions. There cannot be more than two, perhaps only one judging by the signs I see. He will not be expecting attack. Do not think you can warn anyone, for if you set one foot outside, you will surely die. I offer you this, since we are in a holy place. Stay here, under Her protection, and you will live until hunger and thirst force you to leave. I can wait. Perhaps when your friends lie dead, and I have eaten of your food, my spirit will grow more merciful. I might take what you have but leave you your life.”

He backed away, keeping his eyes on me until he reached the door; it opened and then closed behind him.

I put my feet under me and rose. I could reveal myself to him; he would spare us both then. But then there would be another man who could betray me in shrines, or who would tell his band of what he had seen here. Unless I dwelled with them, I could not protect myself, but if I did, I might never reach a refuge.

I walked toward the door, knowing what I would have to do, wondering if I could find the courage for it. Arvil might die if I did not act. It was not only fear of my helplessness without him that drove me, but also the thought of his body lying in the dirt, of the loss of my only friend.

The door slid open. Narid was moving toward the trees to the south, preparing to conceal himself. He spun around and lifted his spear, aiming it, ready to hurl the weapon. “You heard me, lad. You will die when you step from holy ground.”

“Your spear might miss me,” I said, unable to keep my voice from quavering. “Then I will have a chance to strike. But I know you are more able than I, and maybe you’ll take my life. I will be certain that, before I die, I stain this wall with my blood to warn my companion of danger. I will cry out with my last breath, and he will hear, for he has not gone far. You won’t surprise him, and he will hunt you for killing me.”

This man, in order to surprise Arvil, would have to drag my body away and hide the corpse. He would strip off what he could steal from me, and then he would know what I was. The shock of that would make him believe he was cursed. His fears would chase all thoughts of lying in wait for Arvil out of his mind. I thought of my mother then, of how she had died outside a shrine, of how one of her murderers had screamed in despair.

“Don’t be a fool,” Narid said.

I took a breath and stepped from the door, ready to dodge his spear however I could. I knew there would be no chance to reach for my sling before he threw.

He stared at me for a long time, then lowered his spear as he strode toward me. I shrank back as he slapped me on the back with such force that I staggered and almost fell. “You show some bravery, lad. I see what your band must be if it has such boys. I have no wish for a battle with such men.”

My legs were weak with relief, but somehow they carried me inside. Perhaps he had only been testing me; maybe his words had been as empty as mine. We walked toward the altar. “Will your companion grant me a truce?” he asked.

“I swear to you that he will, and that you have nothing to fear from him,” I answered.

“Then I shall swear one to you, and, when I return to my band, I will tell them they are not to harm you as you pass through our land.” We swore our oaths in front of Hecate’s image, and then Narid began to move toward a couch; I realized he was about to put on a circlet. He looked back at me, apparently noticing my apprehension.

“What is it, lad?”

“It is nothing.” He knew me only as a boy called Spellweaver; he could not betray me. I moved away from him and sat down by the door to wait.

 

 

Narid said little to me, and I kept my distance from him as I watered the horses and gathered wood. He sat down outside the door, cleaning and sharpening his weapons as he watched. Arvil would, I knew, take care in approaching the shrine, but if he saw me outside, unharmed, he would know I had a truce with the stranger.

He returned in the afternoon with two ducks; he and Narid went inside to pledge their truce. The two were soon talking freely as they plucked the ducks; I carried wood to the fire and breathed on it to set it ablaze.

The evening air was cooler; Narid rubbed his hands as he warmed them by the fire. “I came here from an enclave,” he said. “This is the second time I was called, and yet I have no boy. I pray that there will be one for me before long.”

Narid’s talk, filled with digressions and stories of his band’s exploits, finally revealed that he had traveled for nearly two months to reach an enclave. “So far?” Arvil asked.

“It is not so hard as it may seem. A band with whom we have a truce lies some twenty days to the south, and I hunted with them before going on. It is hardest during the cold season, when food is not so easily found, but I made my journey then.”

“It would be hard to return on such a long journey with a boy,” Arvil said.

“A boy must show what he is made of early. One with a boy can stay with that other band for a time and allow him to learn a few things before traveling on. In this season, my band begins to move south, through these lands, so it is good you have a truce with us. The other band will move north to join us. We hunt together in summer until it is time to return to our camps and prepare for the cold time. There is enough for us, for few men dwell here. It is why we choose to live here, even so far from the enclave. But I have spoken enough of myself. Let me hear of why you have traveled to this place, for few come here from beyond the Ridge.”

“We have heard,” Arvil said slowly, “that there are bands east of here, near a great lake, who have seen a holy vision. Because our Headman seeks holiness, he has asked us to learn the truth of this tale.”

Narid turned his head toward Arvil; rage flickered in his eyes. “You will find no holiness in the east,” he muttered.

“I was told that those by the lake knew of such a vision, and that they cannot be far from here. Did the man who told me this speak falsely?”

Narid stood up. “I wish now I had not sworn a truce with you, Arvil and Spellweaver. It would have been better for you to die here than to go to a land where you’ll only stray from the Goddess’s path.”

He stomped around the fire, scowling and moving his arms; I was afraid to look at him. Arvil motioned to the man. “Please tell us what you know, Narid. What you tell us might help us shield ourselves from unholiness. I was told that the men who dwell by the lake won’t harm a stranger who comes to them in peace, and that a holy vision of the Lady was seen there. That is all I know. I would hear what you know now.”

Narid sat down and gazed at the roasting fowl, as though his hunger was battling with his desire to be away from us. “You will not turn back?” he asked.

“I cannot turn back,” Arvil said. “Whatever is there, I must see it with my own eyes before I return.”

“You may never return. Should you wish to go on this foolish journey, you must travel south for one rising and setting of the sun, and you will come to land where the trees are not so thick. From there, go east to where the oaks jostle the pines. I cannot tell you how much farther you must go from there, for that is as far as I’ve traveled.”

Arvil nodded. “I am grateful for this knowledge, Narid. I’ll happily share our meal with you in return and will give you some of our dried meat so that you can return to your camp more quickly, without the need to hunt.” Narid glanced at him suspiciously. “I swear to you that I’ll think on your words and will not be deceived by unholiness. I would know why talk of this lake stirs your anger.”

“It is this way,” Narid said as he began his story. Long ago, before Narid had been taken from an enclave, his band had traveled east. They had come to a land of felled trees and stumps, a land scarred by unholiness, where his band was set upon by a great horde. Many had died; the rest had fled back to their own lands, and their anger against those in the east had grown, for they had no way to take revenge against the horde for the lives that had been lost. Much of his tale was mingled with curses, but I understood that his band had been attacked by those Ilf had said would meet strangers in peace.

“My band heard from a traveler of this vision you seek,” Narid went on, “and yet he could say little of it, only that by the lake there is a camp that few men see and none who enter leave again. It is said that the vision appeared there, but he could not tell us anything about it. I think it’s a lie used by the lake bands to make others fear them.”

What could this tale mean? I did not know whether I could hope or should feel fear. “Did your band go to this lake in peace?” Arvil asked.

“It is said unholiness marked their land, that they did not live as men should. We could have no peace with such men, and without peace, a band should take what it can from those who are weaker. There were few of them, and then suddenly there were many, more than my band could count, and my guardian’s guardian was among those who fell.” Narid spat on the ground. “You see now why my anger is kindled against you. I made a truce with you, and you travel toward those who took lives of my band.” He smiled grimly. “But I’ll cool my anger with this thought—they may take your lives as well.”

“They may not harm two travelers who seek only word of their vision.” Arvil sounded uncertain.

“I have pledged you a truce, much as I curse myself for it, for I could have slain you both, but we are bound by our oath. It is said some go east. It is said that almost no one returns. It is said that even the Goddess turns Her eyes from what lies beyond the lake.” He gestured with one hand and made a sign. “You should pray hard before you leave this shrine, for you will need the shield of the Lady.”

Narid sulked in silence until Arvil handed him some food; he stared at it sullenly before taking it. “It may be,” Arvil said, “that we will not go to the lake. I shall ponder your warning, for I am thinking of turning back.” I looked away, wondering if Arvil was only trying to soothe Narid or if the story had made him more fearful.

Narid relaxed a bit, and soon he was telling us tales of the spirits in the woods who sang when the wind moved the pines, of the joy the Goddess took in their song, of how the first tree had appeared at the beginning of time. I barely listened, hardly noticing what he was saying, as I worried about what Arvil might be planning.

We slept in the shrine that night; Narid had said there was no need to keep watch. He was gone when we awoke, and we found he had taken nothing from us, not even the dried meat Arvil had promised him.