Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Dorren waited on the bench in the council house, sipping at beer. How eagerly he greeted her!

“Hallowed One!” He could not touch her. Standing beside the table, he contented himself with turning his mug around, and around again, with his good hand. “I bring a message from Falling-down, but I feared I came too late when I arrived here and heard the news of the attack.” He glanced past her and flushed, eyes widening with surprise, as Alain entered the council house. “This is the foreigner. Just as Falling-down predicted. He saw this one in a dream.”

“Did he?” A knot curled in her gut. Falling-down had the gift of prophetic dreaming, and if he spoke against Alain’s presence, then even Mother Orla might go back on her agreement.

“He saw a foreign man stumble weeping through a gateway of blue fire, with two hounds at his side. There was a creature beside him, with flaming wings, one of the gods’ servants.”

“He came here through the loom. The Holy One brought him.”

“Truly, Falling-down did not know whether he had had a vision of the past, or of the future. He said I must journey here to look at this foreign man myself, and to bring you a message.”

Adica did not look again at Alain. She did not need to. She knew exactly where he stood in relation to her; she felt him take the mug of beer offered to him by Mother Orla’s granddaughter, Getsi, and thought perhaps she could taste the bite of it on his lips as he drank. “What message?”

Dorren composed himself, going still as he brought the words to his tongue. She saw, in his face, the qualities that had attracted her to him, gentleness, intelligence, and wit, but somehow he seemed, not diminished, but set in shadow, now that she had seen Alain. When Dorren spoke, he did so in the singsong voice used by most Walking Ones to deliver their memorized messages. His good hand wove little pantomimes as he spoke, each one helping him to recall.

“Falling-down of the Fen tribe speaks these words to Adica of the White Deer people. Shu-Sha of the Copper people sends this warning to her sisters and brothers.” His hand fluttered like a crane, which flies easily and which because of its alert disposition cannot easily be surprised. “The Cursed Ones have discovered that we are leagued against them. They may strike at any time, from any direction. Be vigilant.” He made the sign for a hawk, striking unexpectedly. “Horn believes the Cursed Ones know the secret of the loom and hoard it until they will strike all at once against each one of us, but Brightness-Hears-Me speaks these words in disagreement: a man may see holy blood come forth from a woman, but that does not mean he can make it come forth from his own body. Two Fingers has seen disturbances in the deep places. Beware above ground and below, for the Cursed Ones have the power to strike from any place. Fortify your dwelling places, and make fast your houses. Retire to the wilderness, or ring your encampment with charms. Do not walk the looms except in dire need. If the Cursed Ones have unraveled the secret of the looms, then no person who walks the looms will be safe from them. Send the Walking Ones if there is need for a message. Be like the griffins, who watch their eggs carefully against the lion: Guard yourself well until the day that is coming, when we will act.”

She gave him peace to drink after he finished speaking, but she could not stop from shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, waiting for him to down the mug of beer. When he had recovered, she spoke. “Yet the Cursed Ones struck here. If they had wanted slaves, they would have carried off many, yet they only took me.”

“Then what Shu-Sha fears is already coming to pass,” said Dorren. “We had heard no report of any disturbances when I left the fens, but by the moon I would say that three days passed while I stepped through the looms.”

“You must return quickly to see if anything has befallen Falling-down. Tell him what happened here, and let the Walking Ones take this story to my sisters and brothers, so they can know the danger that awaits us.”

“Those words I will carry back to Falling-down. What of our allies, the Horse people?”

“The Holy One sometimes visits this place at the full moon. I wait for her then.” Dorren nodded. She looked back, wondering at the silence behind her, to see Alain listening intently. His expression burned with frustration as he shook his head and, with a grimace, set down his cup.

“Let me sit with him until it’s time for me to leave,” said Dorren. “I can teach him some of our language. The Walking Ones who taught me gave me certain secrets to help me learn the languages of our allies more quickly.”

“Truly, do so, and I will be grateful.”

He glanced at her oddly. “Is it true that the Holy One sent him to be your husband?”

She had to look away. Dried fish and herbs hung from the beams; smoke had gathered in the rafters. “I bow to the Holy One’s will.” Would they think it unseemly if they knew how quickly she had fallen under Alain’s spell? Would they suspect that the Holy One had used magic to bind her to the stranger? Not everyone trusted the Horse people and their powerful shaman, but she did. No magic had influenced her. Sometimes passion took people so: like a hawk, striking unexpectedly.

Dorren examined the council house thoughtfully before addressing Mother Orla with respect. “Where is my apprentice, Dagfa? She does not attend the Hallowed One as she should.”

“Her mother stopped breathing just as the barley harvest came in. She had to go back to Muddy Walk to help lay the path that will lead her mother’s spirit to the Other Side. Your old teacher is too crippled to walk all the way from Old Fort, and his other apprentice has gone to learn the language of the Black Deer people.”

“A strange time to do so when one is needed here with the Hallowed One at all times,” said Dorren with a frown. “Send a Swift to fetch Dagfa back. Her sister can draw the final spiral herself. When I am gone, Dagfa can teach the foreigner, so he can learn to speak. Falling-down would not have dreamed of him if he were not important. What if he brings a message from the Other Side? What if the gods have chosen to speak through him, but we cannot understand him?”

“So be it,” said Mother Orla, acknowledging the truth of his argument.

Yet Alain could communicate, even if not always in words. That evening when Adica led Dorren up to the loom Alain came with her, although no common villager dared witness sorcery for fear of the winds and eddies of fate called up by magic.

She had spent the afternoon with Pur the stone knapper, repairing her mirror. He promised to make her a new one, but meanwhile he had glue stewed from the hooves of aurochs by which he could make the mirror whole again, good enough to weave the loom this night.

When she met Dorren and Alain again before sunset, Alain greeted her very prettily, although it was clearly easier for him to parrot the words Dorren had taught him than to understand her reply. They left the village and walked up through the embankments to the tumulus.

“I remember my father toiling on these embankments,” said Dorren. “He believed that such fortifications would protect all the White Deer people from the incursions of the Cursed Ones, yet how can they if the Cursed Ones have learned how to walk the looms?”

They paused to look back at the village below, the houses with their long sides facing south to get the most warmth from the winter sun, the garden plots denuded except for the last leafy turnips going to seed, a restless mob of sheep huddled together for the night. Adults swarmed around the outer palisade, raising logs. “Each village must protect itself,” said Adica softly, “until that day we are rid of the Cursed Ones.”

Dorren looked away from her quickly, remembering the fate laid on her.

Beside her, Alain knelt to dig a hand into the soil. “This is called ‘earth,’” he said, sounding each word meticulously, although he couldn’t reproduce the sounds precisely. He gestured toward the nearest curve of the embankment. “This is called ‘wall of earth.’”

Dorren chuckled. “You will learn quickly with a good teacher.”