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New newborn thing ... thing what will what will what will come? Who knows what
it is, misborn or wellborn, mis or well?
The red light shifted across the black of the wood, forming into shapelier
blobs, melting into anonymity, form-ing again. Each time closer to the shape
of something as if something agonized to be born out of the fire. Tuli watched
that struggle with a growing tension and anxiety. Now and again, for relief as
much as anything else, she shifted her gaze to Rane. Who sat silent,
exhaustion regis-tered in the map of faint lines etched across her pale skin,
too tired to move, too comfortable with the warmth on her face to go to the
sleep she needed, too tired to see the thing that was happening before her
eyes. Tuli swung her head and stared at the old woman.
Ajjin was brooding over the fire. Whether she too saw nothing or saw the beast
trotting about the coals, Tuli couldn t tell. Beast. Small and sleek, as long
as the distance between her elbow and the tip of her longest finger,
trans-lucent body with a sort of spun glass fur, red and gold. The beast
leaped from the fire and went trotting about the room, pushing its nose
against things, small black nose that twitched with an amazing energy in spite
of the stuffy chill of the room. The old one sat staring at the coals, silent
now, but Tuli thought she looked inward, not out. Her lips moved, the black
hole of her mouth changed shape like a visual echo of the rhythm of the silent
chant.
Gradually the walls around the room turned to mist, melted away entirely. At
first Tuli was only peripherally aware of this, then suddenly yet at the time
so smoothly she felt no shock or surprise she wasn t in the room at all.
Somehow she floated above the mijloc, could see the whole of it, see it from
many directions at once, moving points of view. It was as if she was in a
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great round dance, fleeting from point to point, round and round the
mijloc and others danced with her, wraiths of folk she knew, wraiths of folk
she d never seen before, dancing the round dance of Primavera. She was
euphoric, then later as the dance went on and on under the dance of the moons,
through moon-shadow and moon glow, across the snow-stifled land, she was
afraid and not afraid, the others lifting her, cradling her, singing soundless
songs to her that she sang back to them; they sang together to the land
slipping away below them, they sang to the life of the land, calling to it,
comforting it, rousing it and the life it bore to slip the chains laid on it,
to burst free of all but the round of life itself, the round dance of birth
and death and rebirth.
The snow boiled and bubbled, white fire spitting out, birthing out animal
shapes, more animals like the fire born in the old woman s hut. The animal
shapes, eyes glowing amber gold, ruby gold, sungold, dance the round dance,
exuberant, elegant, elegiac, mute voices chanting soundless song, the earth
replying with sonorous bell notes to the touches of the dancing feet.
One by one, as the spiral of the dance tightened, the animal shapes dropped
away; the ghost dancers dropped away with them and sank into the land to wait.
Yes, wait. That was the feel. A tension, an explosion of terrible patience.
They were waiting ....
Tuli blinked, dazed, wet her lips, stared at the dying fire, moved her
shoulders, surprised at the ache in them, and looked down to see the fire born
curled like a bit of shaped light in her lap. She moved again, her legs had
gone to sleep and the biting aches and nips of twitching muscles made
themselves known, moved without thinking of the beast lying in the hollow of
her lap. It made no sound when she jarred it, but adjusted quietly to the new
hollows it filled, lifted the pointed head and gazed at her from alert and
eerily knowing gold-amber eyes.
What are you? she said.
What? Rane looked up. She scrubbed her hands hard across her face,
straightened out her legs, drew her knees up again. Time we were for bed.
She got to her feet, moving more laboriously than usual, stumbling as a foot
caught on one of the layered pelts, catching herself with one hand pressed to
the stone wall close beside her.
Tuli reached down to touch the shadow beast. For an instant only she felt a
sort of resistance, then her hand passed through it to rest on her thigh. She
jerked the hand up with a sharp exclamation, startled and rather frightened.
The beast s eyes seemed to twinkle at her, its mouth opened in a cat-grin. She
felt a chuckle bubble in her blood, its laughter injected into her veins. She
scratched delicately behind a glassy ear and laughed again, her own laughter
this time.
Rane blinked at her. You re overtired, Moth, getting silly.
Not me, Tuli said. She started prodding very care-fully at the red-black
outline. Ajjin, what is this? Do you know? It cocked its head, sharp ears
pricking, and grinned that curling grin at her and she grinned back, feeling
giddy and very happy. It was warm and heavy and alive, no matter if her hand
slipped into it like a finger poking through the skin on hot milk.
The old woman stirred. She looked at Tuli s lap and smiled. Soredak, she
said, her husky voice soft and filled with wonder. In your tongue, a
fireborn. A channel of power.
Rane frowned. What are you talking about?
Ajjin chuckled, but she said nothing more, only shook her head.
Rane thrust impatient fingers through her straw thatch. We have to leave
early, she said. With the norit vanish-ing like that, they re like a wasps
nest stirred up. If the weather s right for them, they ll have a dozen traxim
up, the other norits, I mean. Ajjin, Gesda s provisions should hold you till
your son gets back from the hunt. Have you messages we can carry for you? Or
is there aught else we can do for you? Favor for favor, my friend. To keep the
balance.
Tuli enjoyed the feel of the warm softness of the beast on her thighs and
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began to accept that Rane could not see it, would not believe it was there
even if told of it. The ex-meie was excluded from almost all of what had
hap-pened here. She felt a sadness that this was so, and a touch of pity that
the woman she admired so much must for some reason be excluded from this
wonder. She looked down at the beast. Ildas, she whispered to it. I m going
to call you Ildas. She smoothed her hand over the curve of its side and back,
slanted a glance at Ajjin, met her eyes and knew suddenly that there were
going to be very few who could see her new companion and that his presence was
part of the changes to come. Changer s moon. She turned round to Rane and knew
that their time together was coming to an end. She d expected to cling to Rane
long after this probe was finished, she knew that now, and knew also there was
no hope of this, that she and Ildas would move in another direction to other
goals that did not include Rane.
Ajjin rocked gently on her haunches. Ah-huh, ah-huh, she said, not the
guttural double grunt of assent everybody used, but more like the drumbeats
that opened a dance. Oras, she said. Debrahn the midwife. My son s wife s
elda-cousin. The feeling comes that Debrahn has troubles.
We won t be there soon. Rane sounded more than a little dubious. It s a
tenday of hard riding if we were to go straight there from here, and we won t
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