During the four days of preparation I was left to myself in a new tent set a little apart. Perhaps the tribe expected me to make some magic beneficial to their purpose, for they did not urge me to help with the labors for Utta, for which I was thankful.
On the second day two of the traveling cases were brought by women and left just within my tent. When I explored these I found that one contained bundles and bags of herbs, most of which I identified as those used for healing, or to induce hallucinatory dreams. In the other was Utta’s crystal, her brazier, a wand of polished white bone, and two book rolls encased in tubes of metal, pitted and eroded by time.
The latter I seized upon eagerly, but at first I could not master their opening. They were carved with symbols, some of which I knew, though they had slight differences from the ones I had seen many times before. On the ends of each were deeply set a single design or pattern. The markings seemed to have been less affected by time than the cases. There were fine twists of rune lettering—but I could not read it—surrounding as a border a small but very distinct picture of a sword crossed by a rod of power. Hitherto I had never seen two such symbols in close combination, for among the Wise Women the rod was the sign of the sorceress, the sword that of the warrior, and such were considered unseemly in contact, one female, the other male.
By very close study I finally found the faint cleavage mark which was the opening of the cases, and by much labor sprung their very stiff catches. But my disappointment was great to discover, though the rolls inside were intact, that I could read neither. Their runes might be the personal jotting of some adept who had devised a code for the better keeping of secrets.
At the beginning and end of each roll the crossed sword and rod were clearly drawn in colors: the sword red, the rod green touched with gold. This at least reassured me that what I held was not of the Shadow, for green and gold were of the light, not the dark.
The drawing surprised me, for here, as was not so apparent in the pattern on the cases, the sword was laid over the rod, as if suggesting that action was the first interest of the user, to be backed, not led, by the Power. And printed with a broad pen beneath it were letters which did make sense—or at least they formed themselves into a readable name, though whether of a people, a place, or a person, I did not know. I repeated it aloud several times to see if by such sounding I could awake a spark of memory.
“Hilarion.”
It meant nothing, and I had never heard Utta mention it. But then she had told me very little of her past; she had concentrated instead on my learning what she had to teach. Baffled, I rewound the rolls, slipped them once more into the cases.
For a space I sat with my two hands pressed to the surface of the crystal, hoping against hope that I would feel it warm beneath my palms, glow, become a mirror to show me what I would know. But it did not, and that, too, I returned to the chest with the wand which I knew better than to touch, since such rods of power answer only she who fashioned it for service.
On the fifth day two women came to my tent; not waiting for permission, they boldly entered. Between them they bore a heavy jug of steaming water, together with a bathing basin. A third followed them, garments laid across her arm, a tray with several small pots and boxes on it in her hands.
While the two who carried the basin and jug were commoners, she with the robes and tray of cosmetics was Ifeng’s newest wife, Ayllia. She was very young, hardly more than out of childhood, but she carried herself with stiff arrogance, thrusting forward her small breasts thickly coated with paint. She had chosen so to depict two scarlet blooms, her nipples at their centers glistening as if tiny shards of gemstone were mixed with the pigment. It was a very garish display, more barbaric than those worn by the others.
Her glance at me was sharp, surely more unfriendly than any I had met since Utta had taken me as her pupil and companion. Ayllia’s lips pushed forward in what was close to a pout as she swept me with a long, measuring stare which was wholly hostile.
“It is time.” She broke the silence first and I think she liked me even the less that she must do that and that I had asked no questions. “We take the old one to her time house; we do her honor—”
Since I did not know their customs, I judged it best to follow their lead. So I allowed them to bathe me in the water, to which they added a handful of moss which expanded in the moisture to be used as a sponge. It gave off a faint odor, not unpleasant but strange.
For the first time I was not given the breeches of hide and fur which were the common wear, but the garments Ayllia brought, a long and wide skirt of a material very old, I thought, but preserved by metal threads woven into it in a pattern of fronds or lacy leaves. These threads were tarnished so that the design was now a very faint shadow, to be seen only by looking carefully. In color it was dark blue, which and it had a border of the same metal thread, a palm’s width deep, which weighed it down, swinging about my ankles.
Under Ayllia’s orders they painted my breasts, not with flowers, but with radiations of glitter pigment. They did not add to my clothing any of the necklaces which she and the other women wore; instead a veil was draped from the crown of my head, a netting of the tarnished metal thread. Once I was so clad Ayllia waved me out of the hut, taking her place behind me.
The tribe was drawn up in a procession headed by a sled. This was not drawn by dogs—the four which had served Utta walked on leashes held by tribesmen—but carried shoulder high. And in that lay, covered with choice skin robes, the body of their seeress. Directly behind that was a gap into which Ifeng’s gestures urged me. Once I had obeyed, Visma and Atorthi fell in, one to my right, one to my left. They were newly clad and painted, but when I looked from one to the other, thinking to say some small word, not of comfort, perhaps—who could comfort their loss?—but of fellowship, they did not answer my glances, for each had her eyes fixed upon the sled and its burden. And each carried in her two hands, held high against her breast, a stone cup which I had not seen before. Dark liquid frothed and bubbled in the cups as if troubled by internal fire.
Behind us came Ifeng and the more important hunters and warriors. Then the women and children, so that we moved out and toward the grave in a line of the whole tribe. Once beyond the steaming pools and river of the valley it was cold and there was snow underfoot. I shivered within my ancient robe, but those walking beside me, half naked as in their tents, gave no sign of discomfort.
We came at last to the side of the excavation. And those bearing the sled went down a side ramp of earth to the tent set up below, coming from that empty-handed. Once they had returned Visma and Atorthi raised their bubbling cups and drank as women who thirsted for a long tune and were now given the sweetest of water. Still carrying the now empty cups they went hand in hand down to the tent and we saw them no more.
I did not realize the significance of what they had done at once, not until I saw those who held the sled dogs use their knives to kill quickly and painlessly. Then those furred servants were taken to join the human ones below. I started forward—perhaps it was still not too late . . . Visma, Atorthi—they must not—
Ifeng caught my shoulder and his strength was such that he held me helpless as the warriors laid the dogs outside the tent in the pit and fastened their leashes to stakes, as if they slept and did not darken the earth with seeping blood. And, though I wanted to run into that hole and bring out those two who had been Utta’s women, I knew there was no use trying. They had already followed their mistress beyond that last curtain from which there is no return.