Lynn Abbey - Cinnabar Shadows

Mahtra had guessed where they were headed and what Ruari's part in the "convergence" would be when the passage through which they were dragging Ruari began to slope upward to the surface. The thought that he would hang from the black tree until he died and rotted disturbed her, although she saw no alternatives. She'd seen people slay other people—the nightmare image of Father's crushed skull was never out of memory's reach—but she didn't know how to kill, didn't want to learn, not even to end Ruari's suffering.

She was strong enough to carry him in her arms, and she picked him up once they stood outside without asking per-mission or waiting to be told. The cinnabar she'd swallowed quickened as soon as the sunset light struck her face. She could make a boom, as Zvain called her protection. She and the boy might be able to run far enough and fast enough to escape the halflings, but not if she were carrying Ruari. They'd have to leave the half-elf behind, the dwarf, too—and then there'd be a chance that Zvain wouldn't come with her.

Mahtra didn't need Zvain or anyone else since Father had died. She could escape on her own—and would, she decided, before she let the halflings drive her underground again or hang her in the tree. But those things weren't happening right now and something altogether different might happen before they did, so she decided to wait before making her own escape.

A horde of halflings stood waiting beneath the black tree's branches. They chanted phrases Mahtra didn't understand when she appeared with Ruari draped across her arms, and repeated them as she followed Kakzim to a long, flat stone set in the ground like a bed or table.

"Put him down," Kakzim said, and she obeyed, then retreated, also obediently.

Kakzim shouted something in Halfling, and the chanting stopped. Everything was quiet while the blood-colored sun shot rays of blood-colored sunset through the leaves of the black tree. Kakzim used the metal-bladed knife to make a pair of shallow gashes along the inside of Ruari's shins, just above his ankles. There was a groove in the flat stone, unnoticeable in the shallow light until it began to fill with Ruari's blood and channel it to the moss-covered ground. When the first red drops struck the moss, the chanting resumed and somewhere someone began beating a deep-voiced drum.

The drum beat slowly at first, while halflings wound more rope around Ruari's chest, beneath his armpits. It began to beat faster when one of the halflings climbed into the tree with the rope's free end tied loosely around his waist. After weaving carefully through the main limbs, the halfling shinnied out along one of the thickest branches, then looped his end of the rope over the branch and dropped it to the ground.

"Grab it and pull," Kakzim ordered, his voice almost lost in the shrill chanting of the other halflings. "Both of you! Now!"

The halflings guarding them had exchanged their sharpened prods for stone-tipped spears once they were above ground, and Zvain's arms bloodied fast, batting the tips away as he tried to stand his ground. Though most of the halflings aimed at his flanks and thighs, trying to make him walk, one thrust high, putting a gouge just above the boy's left eye.

Between Zvain's shriek and the blood that flowed thick and fast down his face, it was impossible to measure his injury, except that it wasn't what Kakzim wanted. The onetime slave screamed at his halflings, disciples—and one of them, perhaps the one who'd thrust high, threw his spear aside and dropped to one knee with his hands pressed over his eyes and ears. As he swayed from side to side, oblivious to the world, blood began to trickle from his nostrils. And all the while, Kakzim stood, tense, with his fists clenched, his eyes closed and the scars on his face throbbing in rhythm with the solitary drum.

"Mahtra," Zvain pleaded, staring at her with his un-bloodied eye while he kept both hands pressed over the other.

Blood no longer trickled from the halfling's nostrils; it poured out of him in a steady stream. He'd fallen on his side, already unconscious.

"Yes, Mahtra," Kakzim purred. He turned from the dead halfling. "Take up the rope and pull."

Mahtra was angry and frightened by the blood and dying. She was hot inside and could feel her arms starting to stiffen. The cloudy membranes in the corners of her eyes fluttered as she considered if this was the right moment to loose her protection.

"Do something!" both Zvain and Kakzim shouted at the same time.

The drum beat faster and so did Mahtra's heart, yet her thoughts whirled faster still. She had a lifetime to look from Zvain to Ruari and finally to Kakzim. There was nothing she could do for the half-elf or the human, but she would not leave this place while the scarred halfling lived. Her protection was not a fatal magic: she'd have to kill him with her hands.

Her hands were strong enough to lift Ruari. They were surely strong enough to snap a halfling's neck. Mahtra could imagine flesh, sinew, and bone giving way beneath her hands as she took her first stride toward Kakzim.

You will die, she thought, her eyes fixed on his. I will kill you.

Mahtra struck a wall midway through her second stride, an invisible wall, an Unseen wall of determination that was stronger and more focused than her own. It had no words, only images—images of a white-skinned woman taking the rope and pulling it, hand over hand, until Ruari was high in the black tree. The image was irresistible. Mahtra turned away from Kakzim. She took the rope and gave it a powerful yank; Ruari's shoulders rose from stone slab. His head fell back with a moan. His long coppery hair shone like fire in the sun's last light.

They would all die. They would all be sacrificed to the black tree: the sacred BlackTree, the stronghold of halfling knowledge. Their blood would seep down to the deepest roots where it would erase the stigma of failure and disgrace. Paddock—

Her hands faltered. The rope slipped. She could see the familiar face with its jagged scar from eye to lip. His name was not Paddock; his name was Pavek. Pavek! And he would not approve of what she was doing—

A fist of Unseen wind struck Mahtra's thoughts, shattering them and leaving her empty-minded until other thoughts filled the void: It was not fitting that BlackTree refused to hear Kakzim's prayers, refused to acknowledge his domination. He'd committed no crimes, made no errors. He'd been undone by the very mongrels and misfits he'd sworn to eliminate, which was surely proof of the honor and validity of his intentions.

Pavek would have been the perfect sacrifice, but Pavek had escaped. Kakzim would offer three sacrifices in Pavek's place—Ruari first, then Zvain, then Mahtra herself—all three offered while the two moons shone with one light. Their blood would nurture the BlackTree's roots, and all of Kakzim's minor errors would be forgiven, forgotten. The BlackTree would accept him as the rightful heir of halfling knowledge.

She tied the rope off with the others already knotted at the base of the BlackTree's huge trunk, then she looked at Zvain. His turn would come next, when the overlapping moons were visible above the treetops. Her turn would come at midnight, when Ral was centered within Guthay's orb. She would walk freely to the stone, made by halflings and unmade the same way.

Made by halflings?

Mahtra recaptured her thoughts, broke the wall, and beat back the Unseen fist. Made by halflings—the voices in the darkness at the beginning of her memory were halfling voices. The makers who had made a mistake and cast her out of their lives with no more than red beads and a mask, those makers were halflings. Now another halfling, the same halfling who had slaughtered Father, had cast her out of her own thoughts, and...

Mahtra couldn't cry, but she could scream. She turned her head toward Kakzim when she screamed and nailed him with a look as venomous and mad as he'd ever given the world. Thunder brewed inside her as all the cinnabar she'd swallowed in the darkness quickened. The last thing she saw before the cloudy membrane slid over her eyes was Kakzim running toward her with his arm raised and the metal knife in his hand.