P. Hodgell: Honor's Paradox

The Burning One cocked his head as if testing her thoughts. It doubted her innocence. She almost agreed.

Then a yelp in the square drew its attention. The creature swung about and shambled toward the gatehouse on the knobs of its truncated limbs, followed by the others.

Between their contorted, smoldering bodies, Jame saw that the shaman playing the Burnt Man had appropriated one of the torches that defined sacred space and had set it to the Earth Wife’s flaring skirt. Fire bloomed. The Earth Wife squealed and ran about the square trailing flames until the Falling Man tripped him. As he floundered on the ground, the Eaten One lumbered over on all fours and doused the flames with more watery vomit than seemed humanly possible.

Much more of this and none of them would survive.

Jame rose and backed away. When she was clear, she turned and ran.

Away from the torches, the night was very dark indeed, lit only by such stars as shone through a shifting overcast, and they were further dimmed by a gentle fall of snow. Shadows shifted from ink black to dusky blue, then back again. Faintly glimmering snow crunched and squeaked underfoot. Where was the damn village? Jame had counted on its lights to navigate, but not a candle illuminated the benighted landscape. She slipped and fell. The ground under her was unnaturally flat for hill country. No, not ground at all but rock-hard ice. She had strayed onto the frozen Silver. At least it would lead her upstream, so she followed it, if with some trepidation: the river was treacherous. Those who fell in seldom emerged nor could any boat sail on it for long.

To her left, starlight shone briefly on snow-pillowed heights. Ah. The hill upon which the Merikit village was built.

Jame left the river and nearly fell into the pit that was the ruins of the maidens’ lodge. The previous Winter’s Eve, part of the yackcarn stampede had shattered its low roof and plunged into it, wreaking havoc. Apparently the Merikit were waiting for spring to begin repairs. However, that didn’t explain the sharp tang of pitch rising out of it.

Skirting the gaping cavity, Jame climbed. She knew she had reached the hilltop palisade when she ran into it nose first. Following its curve, she found the gate by touch. Inside, wooden walks echoed under her feet. Like the girls’ dwelling, most of the lodges were half sunken into the ground, marked only by long barrows of snow and smoke holes. Their entrances opened into the passageway under the boardwalk that connected the entire village.

Where was everyone?

Then soft voices reached her, and ahead she saw a large clot of shadows standing, their breath a halo around them. One turned.

“There you are at last,” it said in Merikit. “Hurry. Gran Cyd is waiting for you.”

Hands tugged at her sleeves, guiding her forward. She felt as much as saw that all were women, and here was their queen, recognizable by her regal height and by the faint glimmer of golden torques twisted around her wrists and neck.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said as they descended into Gran Cyd’s lodge. Without even starlight, one might as well have been stricken blind. “We started out before dawn, but I swear the colt lost his way more than once.”

“Huh.”

It could have been one of the Burning Ones passing judgment but softer, forgiving now that she had finally arrived.

“Stay there.”

Jame stopped. She could hear breathing all around her, from great, gusty snores to piping whistles, and she smelled rank fur. All breathed in unison, in and out, in and out. The rhythm of it tugged at her, catching her own breath. She swayed. It was a long time since her few snatched hours of dwar sleep the night before.

In and out, in and out . . .

A spark caught at a candle’s wick. Even such feeble light struck the eyes like a blow. Jame had the dazzled impression of Cyd’s strong, white arm encircling the flame and one of her dark red braids swinging perilously close to it.

They seemed to have descended into a cave, full of hibernating beasts. At her feet lay a pair of hedgehogs curled up together, whistling softly in their sleep. The ceiling was hung with stalactites and the crumpled forms of sleeping bats. To one side, a mountain of fur that, surely, was a cave bear snorted and briefly stirred. It didn’t greatly surprise Jame to see a familiar fireplace at the far side of the rocky chamber nor the untidy figure sprawled on its hearth, her toothless mouth loudly agape. The Earth Wife’s lodge turned up wherever it was needed and so did Mother Ragga, the Earth Wife herself.

Jame started toward the sleeper, picking her way, but Gran Cyd turned and stopped her with a gesture.

“She won’t wake until the dawn. Rouse her now and she might die.”

The earth, die?

“Who makes up these rules?” she had once asked Mother Ragga.

“They just are,” had come the implacable reply.

Something apparently governed even the Four, as haphazard as their actions seemed to be. Jame wondered what.

The candle flame danced. Cyd shielded it as a girl with long, tawny hair slipped down the stairs.

“They said that you had come!”

“Prid, the light.”

“Oh.” Prid shut the door quickly behind her.

“Why is everyone else standing in the dark?” asked Jame.

“Because it isn’t dawn yet, nor may it ever be.”

Jame considered this. It was still the solstice, the year’s longest night. That it fell during the dark of the moon helped her to understand. The Kencyrath went through something similar nine times a year, according to the lunar cycle—five nights with little or no light, made darker by the fear that the moon had been swallowed by the Shadows and would never return, heralding the end of their last sanctuary.

The Merikit girl shivered, hugging herself. “Suppose the sun never rises? Suppose we stay buried in the dark, in winter, forever?”

On this world, faith sometimes shaped reality. What if she was right? Winter forever . . .

Then Jame remembered something that the scrollsman Index had once told her. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to burn a log representing the Burnt Man to prevent that and to help the season turn? Index called it ‘burying winter’ or ‘burning the Burnt Man.’ ”

“We are supposed to, yes. You aren’t the only one who has kept us waiting.”

“Let me guess. The log is Chingetai’s responsibility.”

Once again, it seemed that the Merikit chief had thrown the rituals out of joint. The previous Summer’s Eve he had neglected his own borders in a bid to claim the entire Riverland. Jame had accidentally thwarted that by pocketing a Burnt Man’s bone. Then he had named her the Earth Wife’s Favorite and his own annual heir to try to save face. Despite that, he had attempted to cut her out of every ceremony since, often with calamitous results.

Mother Ragga found the whole situation funny; the Burnt Man, however, was not amused.

Think you can fool me? Not again. Never again.

Not that he was a friend—to anyone, as far as Jame could make out, except perhaps to the blind Arrin-ken known as the Dark Judge. Now there was a link between Rathillien and the Kencyrath that boded well for neither.

Meanwhile, the shamans were working themselves half to death to keep his smoldering attention diverted. How long could they last? Where in Perimal’s name was Chingetai?

Gran Cyd raised the candle, illuminating an expanse of furry sleepers.

“Gently, gently,” she said to her granddaughter, adding, to distract her, “One way or another, life goes on, yes, even into endless winter. Have you thought about what I said earlier? You are almost of an age to choose. Your mother was a master weaver, as the hangings in my lodge show. You loved working on the hand loom as a child. Now her lodge and great loom wait for you to become a woman.”