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  I walked on, following my father’s strong back, shaking off the touch of Kor’s fear. Though I did not wish to think of it, I knew that fear, I felt it too: if somehow the mindbond were taken away from us, we would each be truly helpless and utterly alone.

  Ahead, on a knee of the crags, I saw a lodge like the lodges of the Seal Kindred, thatched with reeds as theirs were, but far too small. The pines that had been used to build it must have been but saplings. The roofpole rose no higher than my head. I saw no one near.

  “Is that Kela’s? She must be within.”

  My father turned his head slightly to answer me. “She? No, she does not stay within. She will be on the far side, watching the course of the sun.”

  Course of the sun? It was only a spot more shimmering green than the rest of the watery roof over us. Better not to think of the sun, in this place. I followed Tyonoc around the corner of the lodge, and there against the far wall sat a woman with eyes the dark color of waves under autumn clouds—yes, I saw Kor in her face, though she was thinner than he, too thin. Her sleek, dark hair was cut short in the manner of matrons of his people, and she wore a handsome woolen tunic such as they sometimes bartered from the Herders. It was shell brown, and her long skirt was seal brown, and in the fullness of it sat a baby. Other babies sat one to each side of her, the look of the Seal people about their features. I stared, for the little ones sat still and made no sound, no more than others of Mahela’s treasures did.

  “You.” Kela rose to her feet, setting down the child she had been holding. It sat lumpishly where she had put it. A tiny girl with sparse, fair hair. Winewa’s baby, and mine—no, I fiercely denied it to myself, Mahela had hold of my mind. It is hard to tell one such mite from another. I had to be mistaken.

  Staring at the baby, I had not noticed the hardness of Kela’s face until she spoke.

  “You witless oaf, you dare to face me! Why in all the names of evil did you bring my son here?”

  I must indeed have seemed witless, for I did not answer her. Tyonoc spoke up stiffly in my behalf. “Is your son such a slackard, Kela, that he must be led wherever he goes? Have you not thought that he might be here of his own will?”

  She glared at him and raged at me. “Ten years he defied her and all her powers,” she stormed, “and then you, cock-proud fool, dolt, ass, you needs must deliver him featly into her hands! Why not kill him more cleanly and have it done with? And you claim youself to be his friend! You—”

  “The babies,” I interrupted, not hearing much of what she was saying.

  “What?”

  “The babies.”

  “Ai, our mighty lady has taken to collecting the little ones now.” Kela’s voice, though softer, was no more gentle. “These three being of the Seal blood, she was given them to me to care for. Though truly, to care for them is only to dress them grandly and carry them where she may see them, each day. They do not eat, they seldom cry, and they will never grow, any more than the other children here.”

  “The curse of all honorable folk be on Mahela,” I muttered. Then I forced my stare away from the baby, straightened, and faced Kela. “We have come, Kor and I, to take you away from the Mountains of Doom,” I told her.

  She looked as if she would spit at me. But much as Mahela had brought her low, Kela was still a ruler, with a ruler’s dignity. She would not spit or dart her nails at me. “Fool!” she railed instead. “No one returns from here. Wanhope, wantwit fool!”

  Accustomed though I was to being called as she had titled me, still it stung somewhat. “You yourself came here as a petitioner on your son’s behalf,” I reminded her sharply.

  “And learned from the mistake,” she retorted. Then her voice grew softer. “There is no parleying with Mahela.”

  “Nor much use, either,” Tyonoc said to me aside, “standing here and talking with this one.”

  The babies had not moved from their places or made a sound. Except that they waved their random hands about in a winsome way, they might as well have been toys, babies of cloth or clay.

  Tyonoc nudged at my elbow. “Come. It will soon be time.”

  I followed him numbly. Soon time for what?

  Birds were flying overhead. Flying, not swimming, in the sea, flocking toward the throne place on the upmost crag. A ferret flashed past me, bound that way also. Bearded men in kingly raiment walked up the steep slopes, and women in splendid gowns with trailing overgowns that floated behind them. I began to understand.

  “Time to go to Mahela? But, every day does she require it?”

  “Every day,” my father answered me over his shoulder, his voice flat. “It does not matter, for there is nothing else for us to do. All of us, her human captives, come before her to do her honor, and most of the creatures as well.”

  We toiled up the steeps with the rest. I kept silence, my eyes on the back cinders under my bare feet.

  “But the blue deer of Sakeema,” Tyonoc added, “she does not compel.”

  I looked up at him. There had been a spark, a hint of pride or defiance in him, half-hidden. But as quickly as I looked at him it was gone.

  A crowd was forming around the rounded base of Mahela’s platform. “Let us get up on one of the crags,” I said to Tyonoc, “so we can see.”

  “It does not matter whether we see Mahela, so long as she sees us and knows we are here.”

  “A pox on Mahela. I want to see Kor!” I made my way up to a vantage point, pushing to the fore of the people there. Tyonoc hung back.

  “There is peril in the fore,” he called to me.

  “A pox on that as well,” I muttered, staying where I was. Curse him, he had never been one to cry danger. One to reckon the risk, yes, but bold for the sake of his people, their gain. Ai, what had this mighty one done to him?

  The birds perched silently on the bare trees. All of us had gathered, all stood quiet, waiting. For some time we waited—that would be Mahela’s way, to take pleasure in how quietly, how tamely all her prisoners waited for her. Finally a loud music sounded from horns like the bison horns my people blow at the new moon, but made of a stuff like my sword, I saw. The horns blared, retainers bowed, and Mahela came.

  With her, Kor.

  My heart startled like a deer, seeing him so regal. Mahela had arrayed him to suit her dreams. Tunic of pearl gray, of some shimmering cloth, and over that a baldric of deep sea-storm-purple, and over it a cape of cormorant, the glossy green-black feathers sheening down his shoulders and back. Cap of purple velvet and cormorant feathers on his head, soft boots up to his thighs—laden with finery as he was, he should have looked foppish, but he bore it so as to seem truly a king. No, more than a king, more even than a goddess’s consort.

  Dan?

  He did not feel godlike.

  Here, Kor.

  His glance searched the throng until he found me. The lines of his face were taut, his gaze troubled, he did not smile.

  The horns blasted again. Mahela was taking her throne. All her subjects bowed until she had settled herself, all except Kor and, I suppose, me, for I was not thinking and in no mood for caution. Even the deer and horses bowed, curving their necks as did the swans, and the birds on their perches ducked their heads and spread their wings with a downward sweep.

  Kor stood at Mahela’s feet. No wildcat lay there, for he was her pet of choice that day, and for a moment I thought that she would make him get down on all fours and crouch there like a dog. Instead she sat tall and still in her fair womanly form, her pale hands folded in her lap. Her gown was dark, and a mantle of moonlike hue flowed over her shoulders but parted above her breasts so that the white flesh of them peeped out between mantle and gown, much like a single eye. At least so I perceived her.

  “Dannoc.”

  Mahela! She had spoken my name! Even at the distance I saw Kor’s eyes widen in consternation.

  “Dannoc, son of Tyonoc, come here before me.”

  Kor, what does she want?

  I don’t know!

  I c
lambered down from my vantage on the crags, made my way to the platform, strode up to her with dignity, I hoped, befitting the son of a Red Hart king, and stood facing her, knowing I was expected to bow—the murmur of the crowd told me that. The look on Mahela’s face told me nothing. For some time she kept silence, and, defiant, I kept my head up and my gaze steady. I was careful not to look at Kor.

  “I have heard,” she said at last, “that you think of leaving my haven.”

  I sensed that I was not expected to make reply, but I did so nevertheless. “You have spies, my lady, who hear thoughts?”

  Careful, Dan!

  “I have spies who hear what is spoken.” Mahela did not seem to be annoyed, but neither was she amused. “You, Korridun. You have such thoughts as well?”

  Of him she expected an answer, and he gave it in a low voice. “I would be a fool if I did not, my lady.”

  At him, she smiled. “You are a fool if you do,” she chided him, not unkindly. “As Dannoc has been told more than once, no one leaves Tincherel. And I will show you both why.”

  Her gaze, on me again, grew hard. She stared me up and down in a way I did not like, as if I were a thing to be used and she were deciding on the usage. I grew afraid, or more afraid, but tried not to show it. Then I grew angry, but, Sakeema be praised, enough wisdom was in me that I tried not to show my anger either.

  “You are fair,” Mahela said softly, still staring, “in that yellow breechclout, and I would have enjoyed taming you. So fair in your blundering way that I sent my winged servants to take you once or twice. But that is not sufficient reason why I should spare you now. Is there reason? Speak.”

  I daresay I showed fear, then, for of course I could not think of what to say to her. There had never been cause, before, for me to defend my own being, my worthiness, in speech! But Kor spoke. “Dannoc is a peerless storyteller, my lady.”

  “Indeed.” Her cold gaze on me never wavered, but for some time she did not speak, and I stood motionless as she considered, afraid to so much as shift my glance or stir a finger least it anger her. She had me as she wanted me, Mahela.

  “Very well,” she said finally, in flat tones. “It would be a shame to cast away a toy so fresh and new. I shall have to dispose of something else. Someone. All the creatures are precious to me.”

  Her gaze moved away from me at last, searching the crowd—I saw those in the fore shrink back. And I took a deep breath—or draft—feeling dazed and weak, and glad she was not looking at me to see it. Nor would I meet Kor’s eyes. Something shameful was about to happen.

  She pointed. “You. I cannot remember your name. That is reason enough.”

  A man somewhat plainer of dress than the other men, plain of face, plainly terrified. He made as if to run, but those who stood on either side of him grasped him by the arms, looking as shaken as I felt—perhaps they had feared that they themselves might be chosen, and they were only too glad to deliver up this other. They dragged him forward.

  “No, my lady!” he pleaded. “You remember me now! I am—”

  “A very minor noble,” she interrupted frostily. “Go. Show our new comrades what happens when someone tries to return to the mortal world, where folk breathe air.”

  Instead he fell at her feet, sobbing horribly. Mahela changed—she was the cormorant woman, darting her heavy beak at him, hurling him back. He shrieked.

  “Go!”

  He would have obeyed, I think, but he had lost his strength. Mahela raised her right hand, fluttered the fingers.

  “My dolphins, help him.”

  The two of them came out from somewhere behind her dwelling and nosed the man upward.

  Upward through the green seawater, toward where a bright shimmer showed the distant presence of the sun. Upward, toward that shifting surface I remembered so well from my seal days. Up to where the air was … The dolphins tossed him the last small distance, themselves staying below the surface. I saw the splash, he had broken through—

  With a sound like great hands clapping, the man fell to bits.

  He spread like a cloud. Tiny pieces of him floated in the water, drifting downward. Clamoring in excitement, the birds flew from their perch, fighting and jostling each other for the fragments of flesh. Some larger shreds fell slowly toward the platform. Mahela darted out her long neck and gulped them down.

  My face, I hope, did not move. But my mind cried to Kor. She is horrible, beyond all measure horrible!

  He did not answer. I forced myself to find him with my eyes. His face, pale under the tan skin, looked as drawn as if he had been put to torture. His gaze, stark.

  Kor! What has she been doing to you?

  Nothing but knowing me for what I am.

  I did not understand him. I touched him with my thought, urging him to go on. He seemed very weary.

  She knows—she knows that I am merciful. She knows—I feel. When I am with her, I cannot help but feel the passions in her. She is cruel, but—there is love in her. Bent awry. Love for beauty, longing for—something that can never leave her.… She hopes—I can love her.

  Kor, no!

  She had taken on her womanly form again, smiling, a not unpleasant smile, and she reached out to stroke Kor’s hair.

  Kor, beware! She is the great glutton. It is in her to destroy you utterly, to swallow you up.

  He did not answer. Mahela was speaking to us.

  “You have seen, Korridun and Dannoc?” She sounded almost motherly, almost gentle. “Go away, and you are nothing but orts in the stomachs of birds. Stay, and you live forever. We are immortal here.”

  It was scarcely to be considered living, to my way of thinking. But I said nothing, for I had seen a doom in Kor’s eyes, and I was afraid.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mahela sent a retainer, one of the dark-bearded nobles in all his splendid array, to summon me before the day was old. The man looked at me with blank eyes as he delivered his message, that I was wanted to amuse the goddess with the storyteller’s art. Then he led me off rapidly, taking no pause for my limping footsteps as my unshod feet were cut against the vicious stones of that place.

  The entry to Mahela’s dwelling was from above, between the bare trees where the banners hung. The servant in splendid array led me up a wooden walkway, past the throne and the tree with blue fruit standing captive in its pot, then down a broad and sturdy ladder. The downward entry reminded me of the pit prison where I had first met Kor. A dark prison, that. This place, not quite as dark but a prison nevertheless.… In an oddly shaped chamber full of greenish, rippling shadowlight, Mahela awaited me. It was not, praise be, the bedchamber Kor had described, but a room that was mostly open space. The walls sloped inward toward the floor—I noticed that only dimly at the time, for the mighty froth of sunstuff on them dazzled me, and the bench of sunstuff and blood-red velvet, softer than the velvet of a hart’s antlers in springtime, on which Mahela sat, and the swirl of servants around her. She dismissed them with a flick of her hand as I approached, and they backed away from her, bowing, as I came before her.

  I stood facing her, awkward, knowing I should bow, not yet able to manage it but ducking my head in a salute of sorts. She motioned at me impatiently.

  “Proceed,” she commanded.

  I stood dumbstruck. Never had I felt less inspired. “What tale would you like to hear, my lady?” I asked after too long a pause.

  “How am I to know?” Her voice darted as sharp as her beak had she been in bird form, and she stirred like a hawk rousing. “You are the storyteller. Tell a tale that will please me.” Or bear my wrath, her voice said.

  “But my lady, how am I to choose?” I swallowed and tried to explain. “I have never done so before. When I tell tales to my people, we sit around the fire at night, campfire or cooking fire, and the old true stories seem to spring out of the flames.”

  “I see,” she said slowly, and if her wrath was averted it was because I had given her a new thought, a diversion. “Sit, then.”

  Ther
e was nowhere for me to sit except on the floor, which was covered with a thick red cloth furred like moss, and I did so. Mahela closed her eyes, and the room went dark as night. In another breathspan a fire sprang up out of the floor at my feet, a smokeless, shadowy, yellow-green fire that gave no warmth, though the flames leaped and flickered as if they fed on fatwood—and no logs lay there. My skin prickled at the eeriness of it. Still, the carved sunstuff on the walls cast off dim, shifting shards of light, almost like aspen leaves stirring beneath starlight, and the washing of water sounded nearly like wind through trees.… Longing filled me, and the thought of another such night by firelight, Tassida yet a boy, face very fair in the firelight, singing.

  “Shall I tell you the tale of Chal and Vallart?” I asked Mahela.

  “How droll.” She seemed pleased, or amused. “Yes, do.”

  So I began. “Chal and Vallart were heroes of the time before Sakeema, as long before Sakeema as his time is before ours, a time of wonders, when people and peoples were as many as the stars of the sky, and lived in great dwellings of hewed stone and wore clothing woven of bright fibers. They had many powers, these folk. They wrought great, sharp knives out of a stuff strange to us, and fought with them.” (These were swords, such as the ones Kor and Tassida and I bore. But I said nothing more of swords.) “They wrought headbands called crowns out of another strange stuff that shone like the sun, and they strove for the crowns. In peacetime they made themselves walls of air to grow strange fruits within, even in the wintertime, and they made great harps to play music such as folk have never heard since. They built boats great enough to carry the folk of a village in, and they called them ships, and sailed out on the ocean in them, beyond the ocean’s edge, and returned.”

  “I thought your folk would have forgotten about those times by now,” Mahela said.

  “Most of us have,” I admitted. I, for one, had never heard of those times, or of Chal and Vallart, until Tassida had told us of them.

  I related the tale.

  “Chal was a prince, a ruler greater than a king, for the princes of that time ruled ten times more folk than the kings of this day. Vallart was his comrade and a king in his own right. They had many adventures together, they fought in many battles side by side, and they were steadfast companions. Then in a dream Chal conceived a quest to the dark mountains that lay beyond the sea, the Mountains of Doom. He could not expect Vallart to follow him there. For that journey, it was said, each mortal had to take alone. But Vallart vowed that he would follow his prince even to the shore of death’s realm. That he would follow him if he walked into the sea.