Mercedes Lackey - Wintermoon

But by then he was a mess, and losing blood, his face pale and congested, ugly, frantic. He was bellowing at her, oaths and blasphemies for which the priests would be setting him a penance. He told her, also, and told the crowd, why he had lost his sexual interest in her. She was too cold, he said. Cold as Moon Isle with its heartless crags. She was too masculine. She had no feminine gifts to match her male ones.

Clirando knew these things were lies, and saw that possibly, in desperation, he was trying to unnerve her that way, and so catch her off guard. She felt nothing by then, only the desire to end the fight. As he lunged she brought up her blade under his and sent it spinning—to be fair, his sword had grown slippery from his blood—then she punched him clean and square on the point of the jaw. He keeled over and fell with a crash, his already unconscious eyes staring at her all the way down.

The priest and priestess of the court approached and asked if Clirando was satisfied.

“Yes. But one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“Let him be sent away.”

“You know, Clirando, that he must be. You have disgraced him before the town. He will never fight for Amnos again.”

They offered her an interval to rest, then.

Clirando said she would meet Araitha at once.

She believed this would be harder, but in fact when her sister-friend came out, pale and angry and lovely in the broadening rays of the sun, Clirando felt nothing still.

They fought well and without tricks for ten minutes, during which each cut the other.

Clirando thought, This is too much like play. This is too much like times when we have done this for exercise, and to learn from each other.

Something came to Clirando then. The terrible rage she had not wanted to feel and, so far, had avoided feeling.

When she loses her self-control, he had said.

Clirando lost it.

Some part of her stood in the air, watching in astonishment as she slashed and hacked at Araitha, who was now falling back before her.

Words tried to boil from Clirando’s mouth. She held them in, but they radiated from her eyes she believed, judging by Araitha’s face.

Finally Clirando sprang. She went through the swirl of Araitha’s blade—which afterward Clirando found had sliced her left arm from shoulder to elbow. As they tumbled over, she drove her knee into Araitha’s midriff, exploding all breath from her body.

Clirando knelt over her vanquished opponent, plucked the sword from Araitha’s loose grip and slung it clattering across the court.

“You’re done,” she hissed.

Araitha had no breath. She sprawled away and curled up on the paving, crowing for air, in the same posture Thestus had adopted when first attacking.

“Clirando, are you satisfied?”

“Yes.”

“She too is disgraced. She too will never fight for Amnos again.”

A victor might be applauded by the crowd.

The stands were applauding loudly. In the tumult Clirando could hear the battle shouts of her own band.

She did not look, did not acknowledge. She went below to one of the fighters’ rooms, was bandaged, drank a pitcher of ale, and fell into a deadly sleep.

Araitha visited Clirando’s house three nights later. It was the hour before Araitha’s ship was to sail, taking her away to the distant city of Crentis, where she had relatives. Thestus by then was long gone.

Araitha wore a woman’s dress and heavy cloak, and her hair was braided with golden ornaments.

She stood staring at Clirando.

Clirando said, “Who let you in?”

“Old Eshti. She doesn’t know. She thinks we are still friends.”

Above, the dusk was already full of stars over the little courtyard. A tiny fountain tickled the night with silvery sounds, and leaves rustled in the trees as the house doves settled. Through a lighted door, Eshti the servant woman was already bringing cups of fruit juice and wine.

“Thank you, Eshti,” said Clirando. “Put them there.”

“Something to warm you. The nights turn colder,” said Eshti. “And she, our poor lady-girl, this long journey.” Then Eshti went to Araitha and pressed her young hand in two old ones. “Don’t fret, dear. You’ll be home in Amnos before too long. I’ll see the mistress doesn’t forget you.”

Clirando had not been startled by her servant Eshti’s ignorance of what had happened—only glad Eshti, who would have been upset, had not been bothered with it. The market no doubt would have carried the gossip, but Eshti was a little deaf, and besides well known and liked. It seemed lips were tactfully sealed when she approached.

When the old woman had gone, Clirando found she had dug her sharp nails into her palms. She relaxed her fists.

“Best she doesn’t know then,” she said. “But tell me, before you go, what you could possibly want from me?”

“To give you something, Clirando.”

“I want nothing of yours. How could you think I would?”

“This gift you must take.”

“No.”

“ Yes. I’ve had it especially worked for you. The ancient women who live in the caves on the mountainside—they helped me fashion it.”

Clirando’s heart turned to stone.

Witches lived up there, and other mad and dangerous sorts.

She readied herself for one more trick—some poison or assault.

Araitha spoke softly.

“I curse you, Clirando. It’s nothing much. Your life will be hollow as an emptied jar. Nothing in it but dust. Love may come and go, adventures may come and go. But they will echo in the hollow of you, and they too will become dust. And never again will you sleep. Oh, no. That respite from your thoughts will never be yours—unless some drug gives it to you. All your life, be it short or long, sleepless and empty you shall go.”

Clirando shrugged. “You’re a fool, Araitha.”

Araitha said nothing.

Her face was like a statue’s, expressionless and blind.

She slipped away out of the courtyard, vanishing from dark to light to darkness in the subtle way of a ghost.

Clirando poured the juice and wine on the ground. They had been poisoned, by Araitha’s words, her childish, horrible little bane.

Clirando was not afraid.

She spent the evening as she had planned, reading books and scrolls from her father’s library. He had been both scholar and soldier, and traveled to many lands.

At the usual hour Clirando went to bed. Coolly she mused a moment on Araitha’s words, but paid them no proper heed. Just as she always normally did, she fell asleep swiftly, and slumbered until morning. She had suspected it was a feeble curse.

The trading ship, the Lion, which was to carry Araitha to Crentis, sank in a gale off the unfriendly coasts of Sippini.

All on board were drowned, and the ship herself dragged to the bottom. Only remnants of cargo washing in to the port evidenced what had happened.

When news reached Amnos two months after, it was Tuyamel and Vlis who came in person to tell Clirando.

She heard the tidings quietly. When her girls were gone, Clirando threw a pinch of incense into the watch fire of her private shrine.

“Forgive her, Parna. Let her live well in the lands beyond death. Forgive me too for I don’t know what I must feel.”

That night Clirando dreamed of Araitha, not drowning, nor as she had been in life, but veiled and hidden, passing through a shadow to a light—to a shadow.

When Clirando woke with a start it was still deep night. She lay awake through the rest of it, until dawn showed in the window.

The following night, though tired from exercise, she did not sleep at all.

Her life was active and under her command. She did not think this insomnia could last. But it lasted. Night followed night, sleepless. She grew accustomed to the changing patterns of moon and cloud reflected on the ceiling. Even when, exhausted as she came to be, she lay down to rest at noon, sleep would not come. It fluttered over the room before the cinders of her eyes, brushed her with its wing, and flew far, far off.