Then the glossies would come back to life, turning into hoxneys with high-stepping tread, just as the song had it.
She determined to concentrate on her astronomy. The stars knew more than the gossies, for all that Shay Tal said, though it was shocking to find that one disagreed with such a majestic person.
She tucked the glossy into a warm corner by her couch, wrapping the pathetic little thing in fur so that only its face showed. Day by day, she willed it to come alive. She whispered to it and encouraged it. She longed to see it grow and skip about her room. But after a few days, the gleam in the glossy’s eyes dimmed and went out; the creature had expired with never a blink.
Despairingly, Vry took it to the crumbling top of the tower and flung the bundle away. It was still wrapped in furs, as if it were a dead baby.
A passion of restlessness seized Shay Tal. More and more, her statements became preachments. Though the other women brought her food, she preferred to starve herself, preparing to go into deep pauk to confer with the illustrious dead. If wisdom was not found there, then she would look farther afield, beyond the farmyard.
First, she determined to test out her own powers of sorcery. A few miles away to the east lay Fish Lake, scene of her “miracle.” While she teased herself as to the true nature of what had happened there, the citizens of Oldorando were in no doubt. Throughout that cold spring, they made pilgrimages to gaze upon the spectacle in the ice, and to tremble with fear not unmixed with pride. The pilgrims encountered numbers of Borlienians who also came to marvel. Once, two phagors were seen, cowbirds perched with folded wings upon their shoulders, standing mute upon the far shore, regarding their crystalline dead.
As warmth returned to the world, the tableau began to slip. What was awesome turned grotesque. One morning, the ice was gone, the statuary became a heap of decomposing flesh. Visitors encountered nothing more impressive than a floating eyeball or a mop of hide. Fish Lake itself drained and disappeared almost as rapidly as it had formed. All that remained to mark the miracle was a pile of bones and curving kaidaw horns. But the memory remained, enlarging through the lenses of reminiscence. And Shay Tal’s doubts remained.
She went down into the square in the afternoon, at an hour when milder weather tempted people to walk out and talk in a way once foreign to them. Women and daughters, men and sons, hunters and corpsmen, young and old, strolled forth to pass the time of day. Almost anyone would put himself or herself at Shay Tal’s beck and call; almost no one wanted to talk to her.
Laintal Ay and Dathka were standing with their friends, laughing. Laintal Ay caught Shay Tal’s glance, and came over to her reluctantly when she beckoned.
“I’m about to conduct an experiment, Laintal Ay. I want you with me as a reliable witness. I won’t get you into further trouble with Aoz Roon.”
“I’m on good terms with him.”
She explained that the experiment was taking place by the Voral; first, she had a mind to explore the old temple. They walked together through the crowd, Laintal Ay saying nothing.
“Are you embarrassed to be with me?”
“I always take pleasure in your company, Shay Tal.”
“You need not be polite. Do you think I am a sorceress?”
“You are an unusual woman. I revere you for that.”
“Do you love me?”
At that, he was embarrassed. Instead of answering directly, he cast his gaze down to the mud, muttering, “You are like a mother to me, since my mother died. Why ask such questions?”
“I wish I were your mother. Then I could be proud. Laintal Ay, you also have an inwardness to your nature. I feel it. That inwardness will distress you, yet it gives you life, it is life. Don’t ignore it, cultivate it. Most of these people jostling us have no inwardness.”
“Is inwardness the same as conflict?”
She gave a sharp laugh, gripping her body with her forearms.