Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

‘My men would not do that, if that is what you are suggesting, Samuel. Why would we kill our own? She was just a girl. I’m sure it was the Paatin who found her in her room.’

‘She told me your god has fearsome powers. She told me to kill her before something terrible could happen.’ Canyon did not respond immediately and was quiet and brooding in the rain. ‘Well?’ Samuel prompted him.

‘I cannot argue or support what I do not know. Perhaps Stone had discovered her treachery. I would not have guessed, for she was just a tiny slip of a girl. Even in our culture, there are those with their own crooked ambitions.’ Now it was Samuel’s turn to think silently in the rain, before Canyon interrupted his dark thoughts. ‘So? Why did you not believe her?’

‘Who said I didn’t? I have just not yet made up my mind what to do about it.’

The rain did not cease for several days, but one mid-morning it simply stopped,leaving their coats dripping and glistening. Soon, they were unlacing them and peeling them off to throw on the sled, for they were all sweating under the heavy bulk of the things. While they were resting on a flat plateau strewn with pale rocks, Balten took it upon himself to finally reveal the stash of tobacco that he had been keeping up his sleeve and Ambassador Canyon, Horse and Sir Ferse all hurried over to sample it. They each took puffs and the men were soon happily chatting and taking turns to blow smoke into the chill air. The Order magicians avoided such things if they could, while the god-woman wandered carefully atop the misshapen stones, peering up at the crags above them.

‘I notice Sir Ferse has developed a cunning grip of the Old Tongue, Master Celios,’ Samuel mentioned and the old man looked at him with surprise.

‘Eh?’ he said, and he crooked his neck to have his ear towards the men. ‘Why, so he does. Incredible.’

‘He never mentioned it before. How would he learn such a thing?’

Master Celios assessed Samuel suspiciously and then cast his eye to Eric. ‘I couldn’t say. Even I don’t know everything about the man.’

‘Are commoners even allowed to learn the Old Tongue?’ Eric asked.

‘I don’t see why not,’ the twitchy magician replied. ‘Won’t do them any good if they can’t use magic. Personally,I don’t like commoners learning the Old Tongue because we can talk about them freely if they don’t. And it gives us another reason to be better than them.’

Daneelwent ahead,scouting their path,and came galloping down from the next rise when he saw the smoke rings rising. He whooped with joy and pulled the pipe from Balten’s hands to havea puffat it; the surly magician furrowed his brow with annoyance.

‘Samuel,’ Master Celios said. ‘Go and see what that foolish girl is doing, before she hurts herself or falls off a precipice.’

Samuel did as he was told and went to approach the Koian girl. It was difficult to tell, but she had seemed sullen since Lady Wind had been left behind.

‘What are you doing there?’ he asked her, but the girl ignored him and squatted down on her haunches to rest. Samuel walked around her and tried to observe her face, but she kept her nose down and turned away from him. ‘What a stubborn creature you are. Is it so difficult being a god?’

She would not be bullied into a conversation and so Samuel squatted downbeside her. It was actually good to squat for a momentandhe could feel the stiffness of climbing easing out of his legs. He caught a glimpse of Ambassador Canyon looking their way, but the man seemed unconcerned, or perhaps he was more focussed on his tobacco.

‘I am guessing it would be lonely having everyone treat you like that and wearing those strange clothes. We magicians are also outcasts in many ways.’

‘You know nothing about it, Magician,’ she said, looking at him,revealing a hint of her angled eyes in the shadows beneath her hood. ‘I am not lonely. I am a god. I am not taunted or teased like an outcast. We have nothing in common. Magicians in our land are thrown from the cliffs at birth.’

‘So Ihaveheard,’ Samuel replied. He took a moment to think of another tactic, for he was intent on making her speak to see if he could find any cracks in her hard exterior, or any traces of humanity. ‘Do you feel strange without your costumes?’

‘Do you?’ she asked him curtly.

Samuel looked at his robes. ‘We choose to wear these clothes, as a symbol of our abilities and responsibilities. I’m as used to them now as my own skin.’

‘Then how would youfeel without your skin?’ she said, pointedly. ‘My rituals are based on traditions older than these mountains. Your Order is just a pebble rolling down a hill. Tomorrow it will be gone and forgotten.’ And she flicked a stone with her nail, sending it clacking awaydown the mountain, as if to demonstrate.

‘But you must feel liberated to be out of those strange clothes? I used to enjoy putting on common clothes and sneaking out into the streets of Cintar as someone unknown. I must admit, it’s been a long time since I did that, but I still remember the joy of such freedom.’

The girl tilted her head at this, but he still could not see into her hood. She stood up and stretched her arms wide and Samuel tookthis ashis cue to stand also. She turned towards him, and then the sun shone in the perfect position to illuminate her face. She was looking up to the clouds and Samuel took the opportunity to observe her features before she noticed him.

‘I did that,too, Magician-a long time ago when I was a girl. I sneaked from my temple and ran through the streets. It was interesting to watch the people doing their things and hear them talking together.’

‘So you were not born a god?’ he asked her.

‘I have always been a god!’ she said and she glowered at him before turning away once more. It seemed she had two states of being: neutral and annoyed. He had to admit he was intrigued by the woman, for her strange life, preciously guarded away from the world and constantly engaged in bizarre customs and rituals,had left her ignorant of many simple things in the world and devoid of social engagement. He felt pity for her in a way and he wondered if he could find ameansto open her up to human contact.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I meant you were a little girl then. Not always…like this.’

‘I am born and reborn through an endless cycle. The body I inhabit grows from child to woman, of course, but I am a woman in appearances alone. I do not succumb to common sickness or injury, and I am not cursed with the womanly blight of bearing children. Eventually, I will leave this casing of flesh and begin a new life, as does a butterfly.’

He was about to correct her on her mistaken biology, but stopped himself,deciding it was not worth complicating the discussion. ‘Do you remember these lives?’ he asked her.

‘My memories live in the ninety-nine blessed texts and the forty-nine most holy scriptures. My past lives are recorded in these and my glories will be appended to them at my death.’

‘But you say you are a god, so how can you die?’

‘Open your ears, Magician. This body will die as all things must-the birds and the flowers and the water oxen and the cats and the other such things. I will live on-eternally and forever.’

‘And what do you do, as a god? You must be kept busy, doing all kinds of godly things.’ He was not actually trying to be facetious, but the subject matter allowed him such little leeway.

‘Men have been carved into tiny strips for even speaking to me, Magician, yet you continue to insult me with your idiocy. I am not the question-answerer of a cursed magician,’ and she spat by her feet. ‘My powers are boundless. I keep the heavens from falling and the earth from turning to salt. I keep the children from crying and the elderly from stumbling. I gather the woes and the worries of my people and,in turn,I give them my love. You think I am so terrible, yet you cannot understand my misery. Far from my people, in this forsaken land, I am empty and without purpose. The voices are silent and I cannot hear my people.’