The spirit manifested in her palms as a tiny vortex. Then she saw it rising from the body, slippery and white. It quested to the four corners but could not break free, bound by the spell of lavender. As it spun like a whirlwind, its plaintive voice first growled then mewled then whined, and suddenly the cloud of the spirit, like a swarm of indistinct gnats, sprang heavenward, running up the tunnel made by the four directional wards. She jumped forward to sprinkle lavender dust on the corpse’s eyes and dab lavender into the corpse’s ears and nostrils and over its lips. Pulling up the skirt, she wiped paste of lavender over its man part, then rolled the corpse over so she could seal it completely.

Far above, she heard a howl of despair. She clapped her hands three times, stamped her feet, and the sensation of a vortex swirling in her palms vanished. The spirit had fled to the higher world, up the world axis made by the wards.

Yet it had left a treasure behind: under the corpse lay a bronze sword.

Cautiously, she ran her hands over the metal blade. It, too, had a spirit, fierce and implacable. This blade had bitten many lives in half, and sent many spirits screaming from their bodies. Yet who should carry such a dangerous and powerful being? No one in the White Deer tribe, not in all the nine villages that made up the people, had a sword like this.

She found vervain in her basket, rolling it between her hands and letting it fall onto the sword, to placate that vengeful spirit and to temporarily mute its lust for blood.

In addition to the bronze breastplate, the helmet, the sword, the belt, and the loose linen tunic, the dead one had carried a knife, and also a pouch containing four common river pebbles, a sachet of herbs, a conch shell, and a small wooden cube engraved with magical symbols.

After stripping the corpse, she dragged it into the burned house and covered it with firewood. She marked the ruined threshold with hexes and threw the dead man’s sacred pouch and his warrior’s mask in after. As she shoveled hot coals onto the fallen thatch, the pyre began to burn.

Seeing smoke, Ulfrega led the others out of the wood. “No one will settle here again,” observed Ulfrega before she hurried after Beor to examine the treasure.

“Do not touch it,” said Adica quickly. Smoke boiled up from the funeral pyre. “The Cursed One’s magic lives in those things.”

“But I use this halberd, and it was taken from the Cursed Ones.” Beor eyed the bronze sword with naked hunger.

The vision hit her so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

Beor runs with the sword in his hand, leading a crowd of wild-eyed young people, running east to fight their own kind, humankind, burning their homes and stealing their cattle and goats.

This was the madness that the Cursed Ones had brought into their hearts!

Gasping, she found herself braced on her hands and knees. Everyone had stepped away from her. She was sweating, although a cloud covered the sun.

Unbidden, she wept, torn by grief. What would the White Deer people become, after she was gone? Were none of them strong enough to resist the implacable spirit that lived in the sword? Was this what the vision promised her, that her people would be consumed by its anger and lust? Were they fated to be poisoned by this legacy of the Cursed Ones, called war?

The rank smell of burning flesh washed over her, and she floated on that smoke into a more complicated vision, one without beginning or end.

There would be peace and war, kindness and cruelty. There would be honor, and shame.

All this would come to humankind.

It was already here.

Perhaps it was even true that the grandmothers had lived in a peace and loving-kindness unknown to the White Deer tribe now. Or perhaps the ancestors had fought their own battles, as simple as anger between friends or as complex as old enmities between tribes.

What would come, would come. She could only do her duty, here and now. So had the Holy One spoken. So had she agreed, knowing that it was the only way she had to protect her people.

The vision faded. Trembling, she got to her feet to find that the others had retreated to hunker down by the intact roundhouse and chew on stalks of dried meat, waiting for her to come out of her trance. She never had to explain herself. She went down to the nearby stream and cut reeds with her stone knife, then braided them into rope strong enough to bind and carry the dead one’s treasure. With this bundle hoisted over her shoulders and her basket tapping at her hip, she walked back to Four Houses. The others followed at a safe distance, keeping their voices low.

They feared her, because she had magic and they had none, because she saw what they could not see. That was how the gods chose, giving sight to some and leaving the rest blind.

Sometimes, she knew, it was more merciful to be blind.

3

THEY sheltered that night at Four Houses. The people hustled out of her way when she approached. Fathers pulled their children in through the gates that barred off the family compounds, where her glance could not scar or cripple any of these most precious young ones. No one invited her inside, and Beor was wise enough or fearful enough of what she might do if she were angered that he and his party sat outside, too, taking the meal that the Four Houses adults shared with them.

They ate well: fresh venison and swan; a malty beer almost thick enough to scoop up with her fingers; cheese; and late season greens, rather toothy and fibrous. The Four Houses people kept their dogs tied up so that they could eat in peace without the constant begging menace.

That night she slept outside, alone, in the shadow of one of the hayricks. Yet she could not help stroking the smooth cloth once worn by the dead Cursed One. She could not help crushing its soft weave against her cheek. It didn’t comfort her.

In the morning, they walked back to their village. Everyone wanted to see the bronze sword, but she kept it hidden. Its spirit still wept for its former master; it was still angry. She carried the treasure up the hill and wove a warding out of herbs and charms into an old cowhide. In this hide she wrapped sword and armor. A shallow hole just outside the stone loom made a convenient temporary grave.

She knelt by that hole for a long time, but no visions came. Finally, she walked down to the river and washed the linen shirt until no taint of the Cursed One lingered in it. Returning up the hill, she found a platter of food left by her shelter, a pottage now cold and congealed, a mug of ale dusted with a scattering of vegetal matter blown in by the wind. After she hung the linen cloth over the shelter to dry, she ate. No one ever turned down food. No one else ever had to eat alone.

Tags: Kate Elliott Crown of Stars Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net