Hearthfire, page 34
“We should try and break it if that’s still your plan,” Sart said.
Carin jerked her fingers away from the stone as if they had encountered something sharp.
“I need to think,” said Carin.
“Forget what Culy said.” Sart bent to touch the stone herself, dark eyes shining with hope. She straightened a moment later, digging some green moss from beneath her fingernail. “If you think this will help restore whatever has been lost, it is a chance worth taking.”
Carin thought she agreed, but after moons upon moons of trekking across the world, weariness wore her like a cloak. She considered what Sart had said as they rode away from Lahglys on Tahin’s back. That there were colors here, that people found a way to survive. Carin could do the same, could adapt. Her body had changed in the past nearly twelve moons. Whatever comfort had clung to her bones before the Journeying had long since gone. Her stomach was flat and rippled with muscle, her breasts smaller but tighter. She had already reshaped herself to fit this new land; surely she could continue to do the same.
For the first time since crossing the mountains, Carin wasn’t sure what she had in her to risk.
THE NIGHT of Reflection came to Haveranth.
One cycle past, Lyari had been preparing for the feast with Ryd and Carin and Jenin. Laughing and pelting one another with bits of yam, they had nearly dropped an entire pot of conu and cave chili soup on the village hearth-fire, which would have doused the flames they were sworn for the cycle to tend.
After a moment of silent terror and shame, they had righted the pot, restoked the fire, and clapped one another on the backs before realizing half the village had seen them.
Now Lyari was alone.
Sort of. Jenin stood not far away, seeming to watch as villagers brought their bronze bowls to the hearth-home, arranging them around the fire’s ledge. They also brought with them a torch from their own hearths, waiting until Clar built up long sticks of wood in the smoldering pit and until all the village roundhomes were represented. Lyari walked past Jenin with her own torch, lit from her own fire. She could scarcely remember getting there; the preparation of the day had gone by in a blur and left Lyari feeling as though the day had gone through her instead of the other way round.
How many Nights of Reflection had she seen? Eighteen? None had been quite like this one.
The darkest night had fallen like snow from a tree branch, and Lyari nodded at villagers as they approached the hearth-home with their torches, each of them standing in front of their small pool.
Lyari looked into hers, almost able to sense Jenin’s censure. The bronze bowls of still water were supposed to be a mirror into the cycle’s past. Families placed into them small objects that would reflect the time they had seen. Last winter, Jenin had sneaked a tiny soapstone fish into Lyari’s family bowl, and she had slipped a tiger tooth into hys.
This cycle, Lyari’s held lies. A stone with a feather etched on it, for Merin. Two interlocked rings of brass to symbolize her soothsayer cuffs. And the fish for Jenin, to remember hyr.
The latter was the only truth in her pool, and as she gazed down into it, the flickering fire from her torch illuminating her reflection, Lyari felt a flash of anger that she could have nothing in the bowl for Carin or Ryd. A stout wind blew through the village hearth-home, bringing with it the sharp mist of snow. Torches guttered in the wind but did not blow out.
As soothsayer, it was Lyari’s duty to signal to the villagers when to lower their torches into the hearth-home’s pit to light the fire that would burn all through the cycle. She opened her mouth to do so, but a voice cut through the brittle air.
“May the warmth of our village hearth be carried into our homes,” Old Wend intoned from across the circle.
Lyari’s mouth fell open. A wash of confusion went through the villagers, those who held torches and those who encircled them alike. Slowly they began to lower their torches into the pit.
Body moving jerkily, Lyari let her torch dip downward, trying to keep her breathing steady and her hand from trembling. Shame filled her, and Tamat and Antin on either side of her would not meet her gaze. Across the circle, Dyava did. Lyari met his indignant eyes for one long moment before looking away.
She made herself stare into the hearth of her village, watched the fire from the torches light the sticks Clar had so carefully arranged. When the flames roared high, they dropped their torches into the fire.
Lyari didn’t give Wend a chance to cut her off this time. “For all in need of warmth,” she said, and to her surprise, her voice boomed out through the circle of villagers.
“For all in need of warmth!” The village cried out in return, and Lyari felt a flash of triumph, as much for the chagrin on Wend’s face as for their response to her. She heard Dyava’s voice raised even higher than those around him, and out of the corner of her eye, Lyari saw that his eyes narrowed at Old Wend as he said it.
With that, the villagers began to disperse, all staying under the roof of the pavilion. For the day, they had covered the outside walls with large sheets of canvas to keep in the warmth of the fire and shelter themselves from the wind.
Lyari moved with the rest of the villagers, making a circuit of the hearth itself and peering into the pools left by others. She saw everything and nothing, and halfway around the hearth, Jenin fell into step beside her.
“You will need to do something about him,” Jenin said.
Lyari’s head snapped to the side, and she pretended to be looking for someone to cover the sudden movement. She covered her mouth with her arm, feigning a yawn. “Dyava? Or Wend. Do you think I should—”
“No!” Jenin stopped her before she could finish the thought, and Lyari paused by a villager’s pool—Malcam’s by the look of the tiny redstone apple that lay at its bottom. Malcam was Ryd’s mother. Anger began to lick at her again, but Jenin went on. “They do not trust that you can lead the village, and they know, perhaps better than you, that it is not just this village you are to lead.”
“What would you have me do?” Lyari spoke as softly as she could to avoid notice, but still a child of twelve harvests looked at her sideways. Lyari waved hyr off.
“Prove yourself to them. Take charge. Do not let Wend continue to undermine you.”
Lyari passed Tamat, who touched two fingers to her lips. Lyari returned the gesture, nodding her head.
Once Tamat moved on, Lyari spared Jenin a questioning look. Sy returned it with an encouraging smile.
“Call the cycle,” Jenin said.
Calling the cycle was the soothsayer’s duty, as was signaling the lowering of torches and the declaration of the village hearth-home. Lyari looked into the next pool she came to, and seeing a serpent at its bottom, stopped and raised the bronze bowl above her head.
“Cycle of Serpentine!” She called across the pavilion.
She happened to have Varsu in her gaze as she said it, and Lyari caught a nod of approval from him.
“Today is the Third Bud of Reflection, Cycle of Serpentine!” Lyari’s voice rang above the rustle of villagers. The previous cycle had been named for the climber fish. “Today we leave the Cycle of Climber and enter the Cycle of Serpentine. May we learn from the serpent that dwells under cool rocks and guards its home against intruders.”
Lyari caught Wend’s gaze as she said it, and he looked at her as if he had bitten into an unripe iceberry.
The villagers murmured their approval, and for a time, Lyari wove in and out among them. Jenin vanished between two children, there one moment and gone the next, and Lyari allowed herself to be caught up by her people. The older children, who had reached fifteen harvests and declared their appellation at Harvest Harmonix, laid out the feast in the pavilion.
Lyari imagined what it would look like from the outside, the pavilion’s canvas glowing with the warmth of the hearth fire within, scents of curried goat and halka and saiga and fish stewed in conu broth filling the air. She filled a wooden platter with potted persimmon and dates, cajit candied with sugar-tree syrup and tender pieces of mutton and venison. For as much as the night was meant to be one of gaiety and fellowship, the air beneath the pavilion’s roof remained uneven and threaded with sadness. Four more should have been there to celebrate with their village, and the return to earth for Falyr and Reylu still felt fresh in the minds of the village.
It was unfair that Falyr and Reylu earned this place of solemnity when Carin and Ryd were no longer remembered.
It had chilled Lyari when she had stumbled again across the spell that erased the Nameless. Such a thing could only be done with the participation of those whose memories were to be altered, and it was a clever thing, using the naming ritual at High Lights to complete it. As Merin had spurred the town to repeat the word Nameless over and over, so had the villagers given up their memories of the exiled. They would remember eventually that there had been Nameless one cycle, but if pressed, could not tell anyone which cycle it had been. Only that knowledge that someone had become Nameless, with no memory of who the Nameless had been.
Which left Merin free to have the Nameless killed.
Lyari no longer felt hungry. She tried to swallow a last bite of persimmon and failed.
She instead positioned herself near the hearth, where anyone could come and speak to her. For a long while, no one did, though once her parents walked by her and smiled proudly at her before moving away. She missed them. She knew why they kept their distance—they would for some time to show that she stood on her own feet—but in that moment she wanted nothing more than to be in the comfort of their arms.
For a time, Lyari thought she would be left to sit alone, and she wished Jenin would return so at least she could have some company. Instead, she sat in solitude, surrounded by the folk she had grown up with.
Tilim surprised her by approaching, his plate full of all meat and no fruit or vegetables to be seen. At his side was Lyris, a man Lyari did not know well as he kept mostly to himself and tended a beautiful garden of citrus. Lyari wondered how his crops would do this cycle with the heavy snow. Lyris took Tilim’s hand, then beckoned at someone behind him. Anam, a hunter, stepped forward, shyness writ across her face if not in her stature. She stood taller than Lyris and nearly as tall as Tilim.
“Soothsayer,” Tilim said. “We wish to bring a child into the village.”
Lyari had almost forgotten this ritual, and she felt her face grow warm. She thought of the strand of pearls that she now kept on her side table next to her bed, and of the white pearl at the end. The Night of Reflection marked the return of the sun and the light that would reveal the new cycle. It also marked the early turns of the sowing season for those who wished to have children.
Tilim held Lyris’s hand high, and villagers around the pavilion took note. In previous cycles, the men may have drawn little attention, but this one had brought more pain and hardship than the village had expected, and at the sight of their hands raised together to declare to all of Haveranth their desire to have a child, a low murmur of excitement buzzed into being.
“Anam has agreed to bear our child,” Lyris said, reaching out to take Anam’s hand and drawing her to stand beside him and his bond-mate.
Lyari remembered what she had read. “Anam, do you give your body over to the bearing of a new life for this pair?”
Anam ducked her head and smiled. “I want no children of my own, but I desire to help my friends.”
“Haveranth, witness. Tilim and Lyris declare to you that they wish to grow our village with Anam’s help.” Lyari walked toward them, uncertain of what she was to do next. She took Anam’s hand and led her to stand between Tilim and Lyris, then rejoined their hands. “For the coming moons, you will be one until a child is conceived.”
Someone pressed a glass of iceberry wine into Lyari’s hand, and she took a step backward to hold it to her lips with both hands.
“For your child I wish life,” she said simply.
The village cheered, but Lyari heard them only faintly, wondering whether these three would prove Harag wrong or if it would bring only more signs of death.
SART COULDN’T stop thinking of the spring.
Seeing the rune avarn on the stone only strengthened her resolve. Culy might have been willing to take a studious and cautious view on Carin’s desire to break the stones, but Culy had earned hys place in the world and was a walking memorial of the Tuanye, one of the few people born hyrsin in body as well as mind. As such, Sart knew Culy walked in their world but also through it. Man and woman and both and neither. Sun and moons. Life and death. Whatever hys people needed hyr to be, so Culy became and was willing to do so. Sart had known hyr long enough to know that sy would continue in that way, whatever came hys way. No one had made hyr into what sy was; Culy had done that hyrself.
Sart saw things a bit more prosaically.
She had to depend on her wits and her muscles and her magic. While Culy had all of those things, sy had the added reverence of hys nature, and that was something Sart would never have.
Carin set up their camp not far from the stone, working quietly with a grey cast to her face. Every so often, she stole a glance at the stone or at Sart as if trying to puzzle out how the two fit together.
The wind that blew over the land from the north felt dry to Sart’s skin. Everything felt dry; in her life the one constant was that there was never enough water. Even in Crevasses in winter, though the snow allowed for waterfeasts and the people were able to relax a bit after the hard toil of the rest of the cycle, there was never truly enough. Perhaps the stone could change that.
It didn’t take someone very schooled in magic to sense the power of the thing, and Sart was far from ignorant. She had watched Carin’s fingers dance across it and felt the magic swirl into the other woman like she was calling it home. What would happen when that power broke?
Sart thought of the spring she had found and wondered what it might be like if such wealth were to be found everywhere from Crevasses to Taigers. What if breaking the stone made springs appear across the land? The memory of the lush blue grasses and fiery orange sugar-tree leaves intruded into her mind. For all she had told Carin that there were colors to be found here, Sart admitted in the recesses of her own mind that she had never seen colors such as those.
They ate a brief meal of dried fyajir and some carrots that had long since gone limp.
“We’ll break it,” Carin said suddenly.
“What?” Sart hadn’t expected Carin to make up her mind as they ate, and she admired that the other woman had managed to surprise her.
“Break it.” Carin’s voice sounded hoarse, and she bit off a length of carrot, chewed, and swallowed.
They waited until first light, sleeping fitfully in the humid night.
Sart woke feeling clammy and nervous, but excitement threaded through both of the less pleasant feelings.
When they were finally standing in front of the stone, Carin reached out to touch it once more. “I don’t know how to do it.”
Sart laid her own hand on the stone next to Carin’s. “I think I do, but if you would rather be the one to start this, I think you’ve earned it.”
Her proclamation had a queer effect on Carin, who frowned and slowly removed her hand from the face of the stone. “If it’s all the same to you, you do it.”
Sart felt a rush of buoyant giddiness. Carin took two steps back from the stone, looking over her shoulder at Tahin. The ihstal paid little attention to either women or the stone, grazing on coarse grass and slurping stagnant water from a puddle not far away.
Putting both hands on the stone, Sart closed her eyes.
The hum of magic surrounded her before she’d drawn a single breath. Everything else seemed to dim, even the morning light through her closed eyelids seemed to disappear into the folds of darkness. After a moment, Sart could feel neither the ground beneath her feet nor the breeze against her hair. She felt only the touch of the stone on her hands and mind, heard the whispers of its magic swirl through and around her. For a moment, she marveled at it, at the expanse of it. It seemed to her that she could sense the other stones through this one, far away and latent, but waking as the hum of magic rose around her and the stone before her.
Sart felt as though the stone had accepted her, taken her into itself. She floated in that quiet darkness, listening to its song. Though it was one tone that buzzed through her, a song was what it was. Its melody was the patter of rain and the soft kiss of falling snow. Its rhythm was the thunder and strikes of lightning that cast themselves down from the sky. It rose and fell around her, and yet somehow it stayed constant. Hungry.
Sart almost hated that she had to bring it to an end.
The stone was water, and wasn’t. Its rune meant revive, and that was the nature of water, to do exactly that. But water was also powerful and destructive. Sart had sat on the cliffs of East Sands and watched the waves batter their feet. She had seen the swells rise up and overtake the gulls and black emerald birds that made their homes near the sea. And of the canyons and folds of Crevasses, Culy had told her that they were carved out long ago with nothing but the force of water flowing through them, wearing them down.
Sart pulled that force through her, drawing on the stone itself to provide the power for its own destruction. She felt it rise within her like a tide, spilling out in ripples over the ground she could not feel beneath her feet and the stone in front of her she communed with through her hands. She drew upon that water and pictured it rupturing the stone from the center, snapping the stone in two with a screech and a rush of movement.
