Robert Silverberg: At Winter's End

“What is it?” Hresh said. “What’s wrong?”

“Koshmar—”

“Yes, I know. She’s very ill.”

“She’s going to die. If she hasn’t died already. Torlyri is with her. She wants you in there too.”

“Are you all right, Taniane?”

“This frightens me. It’ll pass. Are you all right?”

“I’ve had no sleep. I’ve been to the Bengs to ask them to give us vermilions. Trei Husathirn will be bringing them in a little while.”

“Who?”

“Torlyri’s man. Let me go in.”

She held him a moment, her hands to the insides of his arms where they bent at the elbow. The embrace, glancing though it was, sent a hot current of energy flowing between them. He felt the strength of her love and it sustained him in his weariness. Then Taniane stepped aside and Hresh entered the chieftain’s little cottage.

Torlyri sat beside Koshmar. The offering-woman’s head was bowed, and she did not look up as Hresh came up behind her. Koshmar’s eyes were closed; her arms were crossed over her breasts; she still held Thaggoran’s amulet gripped tightly in her clenched fingers. She appeared to be breathing. Hresh let his hand rest on Torlyri’s shoulder.

The offering-woman said, “It is all my fault. I never knew she was this ill.”

“I think the disease came upon her very swiftly.”

“No. She must have had it a long while. It was eating her from within. And I knew nothing of it until today. How could I have failed to see it, even when we twined? How could I have been so negligent of her?”

“Torlyri, these are not useful questions now.”

“In just this past hour she has begun to slip away. She was still conscious this morning.”

“I know,” Hresh said. “I was here to speak with her, early this morning. She seemed ill then, but nothing like this.”

“You should have found me and told me!”

“She said no one was to know, Torlyri. In particular you were not to know.”

Torlyri looked up at that, her eyes wild, frenzied, in a way that was almost impossible for Hresh to associate with the calm gentle Torlyri he had known all his life. Angrily she said, “And you did as she ordered you!”

“Should I not obey my chieftain? Especially when it’s her dying wish?”

“She is not going to die,” Torlyri said firmly. “We’ll heal her, you and I. You know the arts. You will add your skill to mine. Go: get the Barak Dayir. There must be some way it can be used too to help us save her.”

“She’s beyond our help,” said Hresh as gently as he could.

“No! Get the Wonderstone!”

“Torlyri—”

She glared fiercely at him. The hardness and determination went suddenly from her then, and she began to sob. Hresh crouched down by her side, putting one arm across her shoulders. Koshmar made a far-off sighing sound. Perhaps it is the last murmur of her life, Hresh thought. He found himself hoping that it was. Koshmar had suffered enough.

Torlyri said, not looking at him, “I came to her this morning and I saw she was ill, and I said that I would do a healing with her, and she denied that anything was troubling her. Too weak to stand, and she said it was nothing, that I should go elsewhere and see if anyone needed my services! I reasoned with her. I argued with her. I told her that this was not her time to die, that she had many years yet to live. But no, no, she would have none of it. She ordered me away. There was no way I could sway her. She is Koshmar, after all: she is an unstoppable force, she will have whatever she must have. Even if what she must have is death.” Lifting her head, Torlyri turned tormented eyes on Hresh and said, “Why does she want to die?”

“Perhaps she is very tired,” Hresh suggested.

“I could do no healing on her against her will, not while she was conscious. But now she can’t resist, and you and I, working together — get the Wonderstone, Hresh, get the Wonderstone!”

Koshmar’s clenched hand opened and the amulet of Thaggoran fell from it to the floor.

Hresh shook his head. “You want a miracle, Torlyri.”

“She can still be saved!”

“Look at her,” he said. “Is she breathing?”

“Very faintly, but yes, yes—”

“No, Torlyri. Look more closely. Or use your second sight.”

Torlyri stared. She rested her hand a moment on Koshmar’s chest. Then she seized Koshmar by both her shoulders and pressed her cheek where her hand had been, calling the dead chieftain’s name over and over. Hresh stepped back, wondering if he should leave but fearing the extent of Torlyri’s grief. After a while he came forward again and delicately lifted Torlyri from Koshmar’s body, and stood holding her, letting her sob.

The offering-woman grew calm sooner than Hresh expected. Her sobs ceased, her breathing became regular again. She lifted her head and nodded at Hresh, and smiled.

“Is Taniane outside?” she asked.

“She was. I think she’s still there.”

“Get her,” Torlyri said.

Hresh found her waiting on the porch, still standing in that odd huddled way. “It’s over,” he said.

“Gods!”

“Come in. Torlyri wants you.”

They entered the house together. Torlyri stood by the wall where the masks of the chieftains were hung. She had taken down Koshmar’s own mask, made of a shining gray wood with the eye-slits painted dark red, and held it in her left hand. In her right was Koshmar’s wand of office.

“We have much to do today,” Torlyri said. “We must devise a new rite, for this is the first time in memory that a chieftain has died other than by coming to her limit-age, and we will need words to send her on to the next world. I will attend to that. And also we must invest a new chieftain. Taniane, this wand is yours. Take it, girl! Take it!”

Taniane looked dazed. “Shouldn’t there be — an election?”

“You have already been chosen. Koshmar herself accepted you as her successor, and made that known to us. This is your crowning-day. Take Koshmar’s mask and put it on. Here, take it! And the wand. And now we must go forth, all three of us, so that everyone will know what has happened, and what will happen next. Come. Now.”

Torlyri looked back quickly at Koshmar. Then she slipped one hand into the crook of Taniane’s arm and the other into Hresh’s, and drew them both from the death-chamber. She moved briskly, with an assurance and a firmness that Hresh had not seen in her for a long while. They stepped outside into the brilliant midday sunlight, and instantly all work stopped, all eyes turned toward them. There was an eerie silence in the plaza.

And then the tribesfolk came running, Threyne and Shatalgit and Orbin, Haniman and Staip, Kreun and Bonlai, Tramassilu, Praheurt, Thhrouk, Threyne and Thaggoran, Delim, Kalide, Cheysz, Hignord, Moarn, Jalmud, Sinistine, Boldirinthe — everyone, the oldest and the youngest, some with tools in their hands, some carrying babes, some clutching their midday meals, and threw themselves down before Taniane, calling her name as she held her wand of office high. Torlyri did not relinquish her hold on Taniane and Hresh. She clung with all her strength, and her grip was a painful one. Hresh wondered if she held this tightly to keep from falling.

But after a little while she released them and pushed Taniane forward to move among the tribe.

Taniane was glowing.

“There will be a ceremony this evening,” Torlyri said in a strong, clear voice. “Meanwhile your new chieftain accepts your loyalty, and thanks you for your love. She will speak with you, one by one.” To Hresh she said more quietly, “Let us go inside again,” and drew him toward her. They reentered the cottage. Koshmar seemed merely asleep. Torlyri bent to scoop up Thaggoran’s fallen amulet, and put it in Hresh’s hands. It had not been gone from his possession more than a few hours.