Jo Clayton - Moongather

The door jerked open. The guard beckoned. “Come on, boy,” he growled.

She followed him inside. There was a small dark foyer that smelled strongly of wax and polish, than a hallway lit by oil lamps, scented oil, a sweet fragrance that reminded her of spring on a mountainside. The guard stumped ahead of her. His attitude began to bother her. He didn’t seem to give a damn where he was, seemed deaf to the tranquility he shattered with each heavy step.

“In here, boy.” He pulled back a curtain and motioned her through an archway, then clumped off as she stepped into the bare room where peace touched her fear like a benediction.

The room was a little longer than it was wide. Tapestries on the walls were dark blue with scattered white dots and line figures. After a moment she saw that these represented star groupings; the dots were stars, the white figures the legend images. At the far end of the room two chairs were pulled up facing each other. As she hesitated the tapestry by the chairs split, and a veiled figure stepped inside the room. The slender graceful figure wore a long grey robe and over it a translucent grey veil so fine it seemed to float on the still air. The woman sat, beckoned to Serroi.

Heart pounding again, she crossed the room and stopped beside the empty chair. A graceful hand came under the veil; with a fluid gesture it invited her to sit and speak.

Serroi edged around the chair and sat, her toes dangling a handspan from the floor, feeling uneasy and becoming a bit angry at this treatment. The woman in the veil folded her hands in her lap and waited. Serroi bit her lip, then lifted her head to stare a challenge at the veil. “You are the Daughter?”

The hidden head inclined in a graceful assent.

Serroi waited, saying nothing.

“The Maiden’s eyes are like mountain tarns, green and brown at once and filled with a wisdom beyond man’s comprehension.” The veiled woman’s voice was warm, almost as deep as a man’s.

Serroi relaxed; she knew that voice. She pulled off her gloves, held out her hands.

“The little meie!” The Daughter’s veiled head turned from hands to face. “You said you have a message?”

Relief like euphoria swept through Serroi; she could lay her burden in this woman’s hands, rid herself of the awful responsibility she carried; she leaned forward, spoke eagerly. “I beg you, doman Anas. Believe what I tell you now.”

“Speak, meie. I will hear you.” The coolness in the deep voice warned Serroi she’d better be convincing. The words tumbling from her lips, she recounted the events preceding her flight from Oras, finishing, “Please, doman Anas. Believe me and get me to the Domnor so I can warn him.”

The Daughter lifted her hands, clapped twice, “Oh I do believe you, little meie.” A low rippling laugh. “I do indeed.” She stood.

Serroi heard a rattle behind her. She whipped up and around.

A Sleykyn came through the arch at the far end of the audience chamber.

She wheeled.

A second Sleykyn stood just behind the veiled figure.

“Why, Daughter?” There was anguish in Serroi’s voice. “Why?”

“Don’t fight, little meie.” The Daughter’s voice had taken on a hard edge. “The Sleykyn will have the meat off your bones. And you don’t have much to lose, do you.”

The tapestry parted again and a Norit walked through. Serroi’s eyes widened as she recognized the Minarka she’d seen on the Highroad. His russet hair was pulled back from his face and tied behind his head with a narrow black ribbon whose ends he’d pulled forward to hang fluttering on his chest. His eyes were copper mirrors, cool and measuring, giving nothing away. He let his hand drop on the woman’s shoulder and stood staring intently at Serroi. After a moment of this, he frowned. “Something is protecting her.”

The Daughter lifted a slim white hand and rested it on his; her casually possessive air sickened Serroi. “She hasn’t been searched. You heard what she said?”

“Of course. One wonders how many have heard her little tale.” His eyes ran over Serroi again. “Still, she makes little difference. The thing is almost done. When this business is finished, I’d like to explore her anomalies. Tuck her away in the Plaz dungeons and forget her till then.” His hand closed on her shoulder with bruising force. She leaned her veiled head back against him, breathing hard enough so that the puffs of air from her lips blew the grey veil about. “You can play with her then, my sicamar.” His words held a hint of amusement, but his face was without expression. He squeezed the woman’s shoulder again, then stepped back behind the tapestries.

Serroi swallowed, swallowed again, finding what she’d just seen almost impossible to believe. The Daughter-she who should be closest to the Maiden, strongest, wisest, sanest. “Why?”

“Why not?” The Daughter’s voice was filled with contempt. She would neither justify her actions nor bother to debate one who had no power to threaten her. Serroi began to shiver. A Nor’s toy. Again. Maiden bless, again. The Daughter watched in a hot silence, her breathing fast and hard, as the Sleykyn took Serroi’s arm and led her away.

Not again. Not again. Not again. No more betraying. Not another Tayyan. No more animals done to death with my help. Hold out. Say nothing. Don’t betray Dinafar or Coperic. Say nothing. Not a sound. If I can. Make them kill me.

Say nothing. Over and over the words pounded through her head in time to the sound of her feet as the Sleykynin marched her through the arch and along the back way from the Temple to the Plaz, one on each side of her, holding her arms delicately in their gloved hands, hands that could rip the skin from her if they closed hard, A few ragged urchins saw them, faded away before them. She hoped Coperic would learn she’d been taken and be warned. Be ready to leave at the slightest hint of trouble. Hear and be warned, my friend. I’ve sworn to say nothing, but such swearings have been betrayed before.

They took her in through the small door in the Plaz wall that had admitted the Norid and his escort that other night. One Sleykyn opened the secret door, the other shoved her inside and followed close behind. He took her arm again, delicately again, and took her along the dark musty corridor whose blackness rapidly became complete as they left the entrance behind. Then light flared behind them. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that the second Sleykyn followed with a small torch.

They marched past the meeting room, then began winding downward through the rat-hole in the walls, emerging finally into a vast sub-basement, torch-lit and well furnished with the tools of torment, rack and screw, whipping posts and burning irons and all the other aids to reaming what truth the torturer wanted to hear from the reluctant bodies of his victims.

The Child: 11

The creature staggered around, head swaying at the end of a long skinny neck, honking unhappily. It stumbled toward her, wincing, as cracked pads came down on bits of rock. Giggling, dizzy with relief, Serroi raced down the slope and stopped in front of the beast, gazing up into its mild silly face. “Jamat,” she said. It ducked its head and nudged at her shoulder. She scratched between small round ears and slipped her fingers under the worn patched halter it was wearing. Fluttering from the tether ring under its chin, a bit of frayed rope slapped at her stomach.

She caught the rope and turned the beast. Walking along beside it she thought, it must have been scared by something, broke away, then ran off in a panic and got itself lost. She put her hand on its side, feeling the trembling, the labored breathing. Poor thing, it’s weak with hunger and thirst. She glanced at the sun, then started leading the jamat forward. No choice now, got to find water.