Children of Chaos

fourteen

FRENA WIGSON

arrived home only to be sucked into another whirlwind of meetings, arguments, and objections, which she suppressed with a dozen or so proclamations. She then demanded a cool tub, a fresh robe, and some refreshments served on her favorite balcony overlooking the harbor. The cut on her shoulder was still seeping blood. Inga tried again to fasten a bandage there, but even Frena was now wondering if she should send for a Sinurist.

She soon forgot it, though. Relaxing on a couch and nibbling candied sweetmeats while Plumna and Lilin played and Ni sang for her, gazing out at the blue Ocean framed in the canyon mouth, Frena shed almost all of her headache. The seer, had she been present, might have seen that as a sign that Frena had made her decision. She had not, of course; she was still weighing her options. She eventually felt strong enough to send for the archivist of the inferior inventories.

That meaningless title belonged to Master Pukar, one of Father's scribes. He came and went a lot, and even his official duties were mysterious. His unofficial duties—according to servants' gossip that Frena had collected over the years, and which the seer's remark this morning tended to confirm—included some very unsavory tasks around the house. That was one reason she disliked him. He was plump, and while some plumpness could suggest cuddliness—the quilted Bjaria's, for instance—his did not. He also seemed to be completely hairless; his mouth was loose and slobbery; he bore a perpetual odor of fish. He made her skin crawl in all directions.

She did not hear him approach over the strumming of Plumna's dulcimer and almost jumped off the coach when she realized he was standing there. A white linen wrap draped him from armpits to ankles. Wet lips smiled, fat hands clutched together on his potbelly, and his eyes did not meet hers.

"How may I serve my lady?"

Frena waved a hand to dismiss the girls, their departure giving her a moment to collect her wits. There was another couch available, but she did not invite him to sit down. He would not expect her to. She reached for a candied grape and a whiff of fish odor dissuaded her.

"I was informed today that you are a Chosen."

Master Pukar was standing just a fraction too close, smiling down at her body. He continued to do so.

"You do not wish to comment?" Frena demanded, rattled.

"Chosen for what, mistress?"

"A Chosen of—" She caught herself before she said the forbidden name. "A chthonian."

"Ah."

"That is a serious charge."

He sighed, scanning her thighs. "It is indeed. Naturally I deny it. I do have some dubious acquaintances, though. Does my mistress require some chthonic ritual performed? How many days since you bled?"

"How dare you! Insolence! I should have you flogged for that!" Her face burned painfully hot.

"I am so sorry," Pukar said, lisping slightly. "A natural misapprehension. Perhaps my lady will inform me how else—"

"I am well aware that you procure miscarriages for misguided servants. Most of them blame their troubles on love potions you sell to unscrupulous male servants. I do not normally discuss such matters with my father, but—"

"That fish will not bite, mistress." Pukar's smile had now settled on her left breast. "Your father refuses to know things he does not wish to know, and he values domestic harmony. I perform many little tasks that he desires but never specifically orders. If you are hoping to blackmail me with kitchen tattle, then you will be disappointed. You would endanger him also."

Frena took a few deep breaths to rein in her temper. He was cleverer than she had expected. "I am also aware of the fees you charge in such instances. Three nights from the pretty ones, briefer but more humiliating services from the older and plainer ones. You can likewise forget about blackmailing me into anything like that."

His bow was little more than a nod at her navel. "Then let us speak plainly, as ..."—he smirked—"... partners. Your mother was a Chosen. True, there is no evidence, but your father hired me soon after she was ... 'returned to the womb,' as they say. One may speculate that I replaced her as provider of some lore or service. Now you are being forced into a dedication to the Twelve, so you must choose between them and the Dark One to whom your mother bound you. You wish to discuss a complete initiation."

"All of that is evil slander!"

The great white slug studied her left breast. "My humblest apologies. I was misled by the wound on my lady's shoulder into assuming that she had tried a sacrifice on her own."

"Wound?" Of course the maids would have chattered.

"Made by a sharp stone, I suspect? A metal blade is anathema. Ah, I see from your flush that I am correct. You even knew enough to use your left hand, obviously. The blood sacrifice is the essential core, but very dangerous without proper procedure and peripheral ritual. Guidance is essential. Shall we discuss terms?"

"Gold."

"What a sweet voice you have." His stare wandered down to the vicinity of her hips. "How much gold?"

"What exactly am I buying?"

"Guidance. Instruction. Merely spilling a few drops of blood on the earth will not suffice. You must offer sacrifice in a place sacred to the Mother of All and swear the correct oaths. There are rituals, as I said, but it is a brief service, light compared to the years of toil and humiliation some cults require. I should be happy to provide a knowledgeable mentor to lead you to the place and guide you through your vows to the Ancient One."

No question that the promised mentor would be fat, hairless, and slippery-eyed. Blood and dark? No, that wasn't right. Cold earth was part of it, though.

"What powers does She grant and what corban must I swear?"

Pukar beamed at Frena's thighs, so enthusiastically that she wondered if he could see through the cloth. "She rewards according to your offering. You swear only to endure. She is also Death, but when She gathers in the night, She knows and spares Her own. If I told you my true age, you would not believe me."

"Yesterday I saw a mob burying a Chosen alive."

"How do you know he was a Chosen, mistress? How did they?"

"You mean, if he dies, he is innocent; if not, he is guilty?"

"I never said She granted immortality. We all die in time."

Frena shivered. "I will have to think about it."

"But not too long, mistress. Your appointment with the Twelve is only two days away and it will bind you with knots you will find hard to dismiss as mere insincerity if you later wish to acknowledge Mother Xaran. My! I spoke Her holy name and am not struck down. The mentor I mentioned will naturally require payment in advance. Five measures of gold."

"Never. Two might just be possible."

"Five. May the ground below your feet be bountiful, mistress." Master Pukar bowed to her crotch and departed as silently as he had come.

♦

Every day must end eventually.

Frena sat up, trembling. Darkness?... noise...

Rain at last! It spattered on the floor under the windows—not a full monsoon, but a heavy downpour even so. The air seemed just as hot, but would cool soon. She rose from her rumpled sheet and stumbled over to close the shutters by the trivial gleam of her night lamp. Then she flopped back down on the edge of the platform, head in hands, and thought it over yet again.

Pukar was impossible. Supposing she could meet his price, which she couldn't, she could never trust him to deliver what he promised. Even the seer had not been certain that he was what he would not deny being.

Common sense said she should take her problem to Father ... to Horth—she could not think "foster mother" or "foster father"!—but he had lied to her all her life and she still did not know how much he knew. Had he been aware that his wife was a Chosen, or was that one of the things he refused to know, as Pukar put it? She could not ask Horth for help.

Perhaps there was a clue there. If the Chosen were the cult of Xaran, then it was a cult like no other—no great temples, no priests or teachers, just solitary devotees, hunted and hated. Saltaja needed a puppet to run that Celebre place, and a Chosen would never be a puppet. A Chosen might even have the power to avenge Paola's murder!

Frena-Fabia had to solve this alone. Her shoulder was bleeding again. Offer blood in a sacred place, odious Pukar had said. There might be one such place close at hand.

♦

Not daring to bring the lamp, she fumbled along the corridor. This wing of the mansion mostly held public rooms. Only Father and she slept in it; the dozen guest rooms were never used. The swordsmen patrolling the grounds were not supposed to come in, but might if they saw a light moving around. Her toes found the top step. She began to descend, being very careful because she remembered the black carvings and did not want to send any thundering down ahead of her. Her sandals made tiny hushing sounds on the marble.

That awful night of three years ago haunted her still. Then, as now, the house had been dark and seemingly deserted. Then, as now, she had seen a light under the door of her father's counting room, for he rarely stopped work to eat or sleep. Then, as now, she had gone in the opposite direction and on down the stairs. Since then the staircase had been made wider and more imposing; her mother's old quarters had been ripped out to extend the inner court, which was now surrounded by a covered walk. She floated along this cloister until she stood at the archway nearest the place where Paola had gone to die. If anywhere nearby was sacred to the Old One it must be there. It was certainly sacred to Frena.

The rain had grown heavier, although still nothing compared with what would come when the wet season arrived in earnest. No wind penetrated the confines of the building, but rain fell down into the court with its persistent hiss and the staccato plop of drips from eaves and branches. It magnified the heavy leafy and earthy scents of the garden. It was life, the life-giving gift of the gods. Shivering, but not from cold, Frena stood in the cloister and remembered that persistent dream. The door. Her mother. Beckoning. She could not re call any dream so vivid. Blood and cold earth... No, not that. Blood and birth... And something else. A saying? A proverb? A poem? Words she associated with her mother—Paola Apicella, not some mythical aristocrat far away on another Face.

She was going to be drenched. Water would do her no harm and a wet towel or two in her room would raise no unspoken questions in the morning, but a sopping-wet robe must provoke speculation. She slid the fine linen off her shoulders and let it fall. Yes, that felt right. Mother-naked, she stepped through the arch, out onto wet paving. The rain was warm and heavy enough that in moments she was as wet as she could be, wet as the moment of her birth. She hurried along the path, splashing in puddles, feeling her hair settle into clammy ropes on her back, feeling the caress of leaves as somehow friendly, as if plants were happy in the deluge.

Across the grass. Here. Here was where she had found her mother. This far Paola had crawled, shedding bandages and splints. She had not managed to remove them all, but when she reached this point she had been almost as naked as her daughter was now. And here she had died, on the bare earth. Bare earth? No, cold earth!

Frena crouched down and peered into the shrubbery. The bushes were grown larger, like small trees, and now the site was marked by the five stones that traditionally outlined a grave. Leaves dancing in the rain tapped her shoulders as she wriggled in under the branches.

Yes! That was it: Blood and birth; death and the cold earth.

She rubbed fingers on the cut-made-by-stone, then laid her blood-smeared hand on the black loam. It felt soft, strangely comforting. Comfort swelled into joy. There was love there, and warmth, and a presence. She sensed a murmur of welcome that was not heard, an embrace that was not felt, a familiar scent not smelled.

"Mother?" she whispered.

The answer was still just love. Endure! it whispered.

She grew cold. Eventually she tired of waiting and retreated to the cloister. She was playing a dangerous game, how. Solitary rituals in the dead of night were enough to condemn anyone. Even wet footmarks in the cloisters might be deadly evidence. She made a grotesquely long step through the arch to put herself on her discarded robe, then dried her feet and legs before replacing her sandals. She hurried through the darkness to her room.

There she stretched out on the platform and said a final prayer. The Ancient One was the Lady of Dreams. Send me a dream, Frena prayed. Not that one about the flood and the door. I got that. Something new! Show me something helpful!

♦

The Woman was taking her turn in the front rank around the fire, eight anonymous people huddled up tight for warmth, cowering down in vain effort to stay inside the windbreak of the next row out. The wind was sharp bronze, cutting through all her wrappings of wool and fur, and the cold of the ground seeped upward into her flesh. Her neighbor coughed; other coughs replied. There was not enough air, and what there was burned throats and lungs, cracked lips and nostrils. The men's beards were caked with ice.

Camp had been pitched in a hollow that offered no shelter from the killer wind, and even the hulking Werists lacked energy to pitch tents. That sputtering fire would die out long before dawn. The caravan had not passed even a twiggy shrub in days, but tonight they had found a mummy, some ancient traveler who had died there and just dried up, lying by the wayside. The Heroes had broken the husk in pieces and tipped the last of the oil on it. Thanks to the wind, it burned.

Against the black velvet of the heavens, the stars were beyond belief, webs and gauze of diamond dust. Very far to the west, a conical peak showed over the horizon, gleaming like a ghost. That was Varakats, the ice devils said, the sign that they had crossed over the Edge. But the long descent still lay ahead; everyone understood now that some of them were not going to make it. Perhaps none would, and future travelers would use them as tinder.

The wind was a razor up close; farther away it was a carnivore whining amid the rocks. The worst burden of all was lack of sleep. To lie down was to suffocate in the thin air. From now on, without fuel to melt snow, there would be no drinking water, making thirst a greater torment than hunger or fatigue.

Massive hands grabbed her and dragged her bodily over the people behind her, who ducked and raised arms to defend themselves. She was dumped outside the outer circle, sprawling backward, trying to defend the precious burden inside her parka. The Werist who had done this stepped over the sitters to take her place next the fire.

"You are supposed to protect us, pig!" she cried hoarsely.

He ignored her, either not understanding her tongue or just knowing she lacked strength to cause trouble. The ice devils made no aggressive display of brawny bare limbs up hen as they did on the plains; they wore cocoons of wool and fur like everyone else and then wrapped their palls around on the outside, but they still saw violence as the solution to all problems.

The tiny bundle inside her furs was torpid and cold. She had known since the hostleader called for camp to be pitched that the time had come, but lethargy had stayed her hand. If she did not do the thing now, it would be too late. She crept away from the camp unseen, or if she was seen, no one now cared enough to call her back. No one cared if she lived or died, or if her charge lived or died. Soon they would stop caring if they died themselves, and that would be the end. Then they would all die together from lack of will.

Beyond the first high boulders she located a patch of rock blown clear of dust. What she was to do must be done very quickly. There was no light other than starlight, but darkness was her friend. She could see quite well enough for her purposes, the Mother's purposes.

She threw down her mitts. Her fingers were icy inside them already and would swiftly freeze without them. The cold earth here had been frozen solid for untold ages. She laid a hand on a polished rocky surface and opened her mind to the deep tide of the world, the comforting presence of the Mother. It came instantly, an exigent upwelling of power that startled her, dazzled her, and almost made her pull away. She realized that she had never communicated through raw bedrock before. Always she had known the power as a nourishing force filtered through gentle, living loam. Here the underlying elemental strength was undiluted, undisguised, and all its darker facets shone with terrifying brilliance, as if in this immemorial frozen waste the life force had been frustrated and sought release through her flesh.

Was what she planned even possible? What would such intensity do to the babe? The child might easily be consumed and die, but it could certainly not last another pot-boiling without a blessing, so the risk must be taken.

She selected an angular flake of rock, dragged up a sleeve, and made a cut on the back of her wrist. She let blood dribble on the rock, laid her hand on the stain. Then came recognition, acknowledgment of sacrifice. And love, of course. But ruthless love, love in its most adamantine aspect, the sort of love that will count no costs. Again she hesitated, fearing... But it must be done, for better or worse.

"Mother," she whispered, "hear me, help me. Grant me strength, Mother, to succor this little one I bring You. Grant her the strength to live, so that she does not die in this horrid place."

Now she must move fast. She tugged with laces and buttons, clumsy in her haste. There could be little in her teats to suck, and the babe at her breast had not cried for ages. She pulled it out, foul in its soiled wrapping because there had been no usable moss around for days. It whimpered faintly as the cold bit. She wondered if she had waited too long. The suppliant should be stripped for first contact, but there was no time; a body so minute would not survive more than a few heartbeats in this temperature.

She turned the babe over, and made a cut on the underside of the tiny thigh. For a moment she thought there was not enough blood in it to bleed, but then a drop or two fell on the rock.

"Mother, I pray You choose this child to be one of Your own. Take her living body, or take her spirit, as You please. But I beseech You to give her life that she may serve You in future days."

She pressed the tiny hand to the tinier bloodstains, already frozen. The child uttered a sudden lusty cry, as of outrage at such treatment. Then another, even stronger.

With a shout of joy the woman snatched it up and plunged it back into the warmth of her bosom. It was like embracing a fish, but the tiny lips found her nipple at once and began to suck. She sighed with rapture as she felt the milk surge. A tide of warmth flowed out from her teat, through the babe and through her also. Even the love of a man, even the ecstasies Stavan had been able to inspire in her, could hardly compare with the sucking of a babe.

She closed her garments over her charge, warm already.

"There, there!" she muttered. "Now you are Hers, as I am. But you will live. It is better so."

♦

When her heart stopped hammering so crazily, Frena rose and found her bronze hand mirror. She examined the back of her thigh by the jerky light of a lamp almost out of oil. She found no scar there, but that was hardly surprising after so long and so much growth. She sprawled back down on the platform, knowing she would sleep no more that night. How could she possibly find five measures of gold, trust Master Pukar if she did, get away with him unobserved to wherever the sacred place was, or even trust him not to deal foul with her then? She had only one more night left.

No headache now—she had made her decision. She knew what she wanted to do. For Paola's sake. But she would need help from the Old One.