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Authors: Jo Clayton
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voice and the terrible exaltation in her face. Shivered even when I knew she was putting it on, making fools out of them all for some purpose I couldnât understand.
ââThat you may know â¦â Shareem separated her hands, the golden light clinging around each of them. She pointed a finger and the inner wall of the patio crumpled with a roar, opening out the majlis like a stepped-on box.
ââAnd that you may know I have the power to bless â¦â She flung that glow from her left hand at the tumbling stones and they lifted, sailing into place till the wall was intact again. Then she walked quietly away.
âAfter that she lived at the Mariâfat. The Raqsidan settled into an uneasy peace and she went into tanha. When her time came she gave birth to a daughter just as she had said. She called the child Aleytys, which meant wanderer she said. Her labor was long and hard, but her strength was too great to be drained. Azdar came in to see her, hoping that in her weakness he could conquer her once more. But she laughed at him, her face shining with the sweat of her travail. He swerved from her and bent over the childâs cradle. When he reached down to touch the baby, Shareem laughed. A deadly weakness spread through his body, sending him crashing to his knees. He left hastily and didnât come near again.
âSummer yellowed into autumn and the harvest brought delight. On the rows of vrisha bushes the pods hung bursting with fiber, their weight so great the branches swept the ground. Most of the gav dropped twins. Zardal, hullyu, and allucheh sagged under the weight of their fruit while the nut trees dropped meter-high piles onto the raked earth. Even the breadgrass doubled the number of seed stalks. As food, meat, and fiber piled in the houses, a wild hilarity streamed through the valley. We labored in the fields by day and danced half the night, wrapping ourselves in straw and drinking rivers of hulluwine.
âAs the months passed, the child Aleytys grew like a little weed. She had the red hair of her mother but her eyes were bluer than green, shining like jewels in her small round face. She was a laughing baby, blessed with charm to call the mice out of the walls. But even then there was a kind of bewilderment in her as all but a few backed away from her friendly advances.
âAt the Mariâfat Shareem spent long hours with the books and records. Because I had to be there much of the time myself since I was learning the songs, we were together hour on hour. After a while we started talking again, but she never said what she was looking for and I never asked. The months slipped away in front of the library fire while the storm winds piled the snow deeper and deeper up the sides of the house, ten ⦠twenty meters until the attic doors were opened and the mardha slid from house to house on the crust. Inside, though, it was warm and comfortable. Small Aleytys lay on her quilts and gurgled and played with her toes while we read and studied.
âUnfortunately the quiet winter months passed. In the turbulence of thaw when the roads were rivers of mud and the Raqsidan a battering ram of broken ice, Shareem found the thing she was looking for. As I fought the damp inside the walls with the other apprentices she came to me and showed me an old leather-bound book. Pages were falling out of it and a green mold was eating a malodorous hole in the first part. She opened it in front of my nose and I winced away from the smell. The ink of the handwritten text was so faded I had to strain to make out the words. Excitement glowed in her brilliant eyes as she shook this shabby remnant under my ignorant nose.
ââKeep this, Vajd-mi,â she told me in a tense whisper, her eyes darting past me at the others ironing the walls dry. Even when it was a tiny thread of sound her marvelous voice thrilled through me. âShow this to Aleytys when you think the time is right.
ââThat you may know â¦â Shareem separated her hands, the golden light clinging around each of them. She pointed a finger and the inner wall of the patio crumpled with a roar, opening out the majlis like a stepped-on box.
ââAnd that you may know I have the power to bless â¦â She flung that glow from her left hand at the tumbling stones and they lifted, sailing into place till the wall was intact again. Then she walked quietly away.
âAfter that she lived at the Mariâfat. The Raqsidan settled into an uneasy peace and she went into tanha. When her time came she gave birth to a daughter just as she had said. She called the child Aleytys, which meant wanderer she said. Her labor was long and hard, but her strength was too great to be drained. Azdar came in to see her, hoping that in her weakness he could conquer her once more. But she laughed at him, her face shining with the sweat of her travail. He swerved from her and bent over the childâs cradle. When he reached down to touch the baby, Shareem laughed. A deadly weakness spread through his body, sending him crashing to his knees. He left hastily and didnât come near again.
âSummer yellowed into autumn and the harvest brought delight. On the rows of vrisha bushes the pods hung bursting with fiber, their weight so great the branches swept the ground. Most of the gav dropped twins. Zardal, hullyu, and allucheh sagged under the weight of their fruit while the nut trees dropped meter-high piles onto the raked earth. Even the breadgrass doubled the number of seed stalks. As food, meat, and fiber piled in the houses, a wild hilarity streamed through the valley. We labored in the fields by day and danced half the night, wrapping ourselves in straw and drinking rivers of hulluwine.
âAs the months passed, the child Aleytys grew like a little weed. She had the red hair of her mother but her eyes were bluer than green, shining like jewels in her small round face. She was a laughing baby, blessed with charm to call the mice out of the walls. But even then there was a kind of bewilderment in her as all but a few backed away from her friendly advances.
âAt the Mariâfat Shareem spent long hours with the books and records. Because I had to be there much of the time myself since I was learning the songs, we were together hour on hour. After a while we started talking again, but she never said what she was looking for and I never asked. The months slipped away in front of the library fire while the storm winds piled the snow deeper and deeper up the sides of the house, ten ⦠twenty meters until the attic doors were opened and the mardha slid from house to house on the crust. Inside, though, it was warm and comfortable. Small Aleytys lay on her quilts and gurgled and played with her toes while we read and studied.
âUnfortunately the quiet winter months passed. In the turbulence of thaw when the roads were rivers of mud and the Raqsidan a battering ram of broken ice, Shareem found the thing she was looking for. As I fought the damp inside the walls with the other apprentices she came to me and showed me an old leather-bound book. Pages were falling out of it and a green mold was eating a malodorous hole in the first part. She opened it in front of my nose and I winced away from the smell. The ink of the handwritten text was so faded I had to strain to make out the words. Excitement glowed in her brilliant eyes as she shook this shabby remnant under my ignorant nose.
ââKeep this, Vajd-mi,â she told me in a tense whisper, her eyes darting past me at the others ironing the walls dry. Even when it was a tiny thread of sound her marvelous voice thrilled through me. âShow this to Aleytys when you think the time is right.
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