Shadow Gate

21

One never knows what gifts a stranger brings,

'There's nothing of interest in our lineage or possessions or grazing lands to cause a man of his tribe to wish to marry into ours,' said Kirya to her cousin, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she was sorry she had said it that way.

Mariya dabbed at teary eyes with her free hand. Three tiny beautiful beaded nets were cupped in her other palm.

'Nothing besides you, I mean,' added Kirya hastily. She looked away, toward the eastern horizon, measuring the curve of the sun's back as it rose.

'He didn't have to give me this gift,' said Mariya. 'He told me his aunt would speak with my mother at the confluence.'

'Mari, be practical. In our entire tribe we have nine hands of sheep, four hands of goats, and five horses. Three proper tents. He's born to a daughter tribe of the Vidrini lineage. Who are we to even think of bringing a son of that lineage into our tents? We can't possibly pay the marriage price. We've no son of our own tribe old enough to make a marriage across the lines in exchange, if they would even take one.'

'You don't know anything about his tribe, or his mother and aunts. Or what they want.'

Kirya took the beaded nets out of her cousin's hand and twisted them onto the tails of Mariya's three dark braids, a seal binding the loose ends. 'There, you look very pretty.'

Mariya unhooked her polished bronze mirror from her belt and regarded her blurry reflection with a frown, a piece of vanity that made Kirya sit back on her heels. 'Mother will scold me,' she said, heedless of the impiety of admiring her looks in the holy mirror.

'She scolds everyone. We'd best get moving, or we'll miss our chance.' She took the mirror out of Mari's hand and hooked it back on the belt.

Mariya rolled up the blankets they had shared while Kirya saddled the gelding and the piebald mare. The tribe lay a day's ride

behind them, and she wasn't surprised it had taken Mariya this long to reveal even to her beloved cousin the gift a Vidrini boy had given her, since as a stranger and a male he ought not to be giving her gifts at all. It had been at. least six nights back that the two tribes had happened to share temporary grazing lands by a watering hole on their way to the summer's confluence on the Targit River.

Kirya scanned the landscape: The long slopes, never quite hills, were scantly covered with yellowing grass or brown scrub growing low to the ground. A hawk circled above. More crucially, a pair of vultures glided over the land toward the southeast, where Kirya guessed the two hunters would find the herd of fleet-footed gar-deer she had spotted yesterday. Such deer didn't venture into the dry eastern grasslands often, and these had looked plump and juicy.

'At least demons didn't eat us last night.' Mariya tossed a rolled-up blanket to Kirya, then tied her own gear onto the back of the mare's saddle. 'I thought they would. Did you hear them howling?-'

The gelding was surly this morning, as always. He gave a halfhearted nip at Kirya, who shoved him with her shoulder to remind him who was boss. 'That was the wind.'

'You can't be sure! I don't know how you can be so brave!'

Although their mothers were sisters, they looked nothing alike: Mariya had thick black hair, a pretty face, and the darker complexion that was rare among the tribes, while Kirya had the bland white-blond hair and round face common especially in the northern-roaming tribes of their people. Their looks were not the only way in which they differed.

'Mari, I will never understand you,' she said finally with loving exasperation. 'You're the best archer in our tents. Even at night, you would pierce any demon that tried to get close.'

'Demons can't be killed,' said Mariya ominously. 'Arrows would just go right through it. Then it would devour us.'

'That's why we have the two arrows the Singer blessed. Those are proof against demons. Or we can capture their hearts in our mirrors. Then they would flee.'

Lips pressed tight, Mari surveyed the land. Despite being a child of the plains, she felt most at ease among the tents.

'I don't want to miss that herd,' Kirya added. 'I want something

to bring to the confluence so we won't be shamed in front of the other tribes.'

'Do you think he'll be there?' Mari asked. 'He said his aunt would talk to my mother.'

'Maybe. Don't you want a good haunch of meat to offer when folk come to call?'

Kirya set a brisk pace in the direction of the circling vultures. The hawk moved away toward the north, but the vultures hung steady. The wind was hot and dry, blowing out of the eastern deadlands, but posed no threat to their hunting, as it would blow their scent and the noise of their approach into the west. The skin of the earth had a sandy color, bleached like the cloudless sky, and the summer heat had turned the green of spring grass to a brittle gold-brown. They'd had decent rains this spring, enough to keep their usual watering holes usable all summer. Twin lambs, both female, offered hope that they might begin to increase the tribe's paltry herd. Now she had in her sights this unforeseen herd of deer, strayed out of their usual territories like a portent of prosperity glimpsed and pursued.

'But who ever feels that way after just two days?' Mariya could not stop chattering. 'I know that Mother has already spoken with the headwoman of the Oliski tribe about a match with Laoshko Oliski, but – oh, Kiri! – he's so old, with two wives dead already.'

'Young enough to father children and keep the herds, especially if it's true he has some special knowledge of husbandry, as they claim.'

'You marry him, then!'

Kirya laughed. 'If this Vidrini boy convinces his aunt to make the match, despite all the reasons for his tribe to speak against it, that's probably what will happen. You'll get the young one, and I'll get the old one.'

'You won't be angry at me afterward? You haven't even had your Flower Night yet.'

'How could I be mad at you, Mari? The men who look interesting to me are always following after you. Like Orphan.'

'Mother would beat us if she heard you talk about Orphan that way.'

'Never mind, it isn't your fault. You're just so much prettier and livelier than I am.'

'I'm being stupid,' Mari muttered. 'I'm sorry. I'll stop going on and on. Look. No, over there. Just past that notch in the slope. There's a deer.'

'Where?'

'It's gone below the horizon.' Mariya slid her strung bow out of its quiver and rested it across her thighs, four arrows bunched in her left hand. Out on a hunting trip, they kept their gear ready at all times. Her aspect had shifted, as swiftly as lightning struck. She was foolish and silly and all too often scared of the ripple of her own shadow, but she also had keen sight and the gods' kiss on every arrow she loosed.

They pushed along the slope, Mariya leading them sidewise as they approached the distant rise.

'Men fall in love faster,' said Kirya in a low voice. 'Everyone knows that. Women are more practical. Like in the story of the daughter of the Sun. The war leader fell in love with her the moment he saw her, but she didn't like him at all. Not until she thought he would die.'

Mariya was no longer listening. 'Tss! There.'

She gave the signal for Kirya to swing wide to the left before pulling her own horse toward the right. They separated, moving in a wide circle. The gelding flicked his ears and picked up his pace; like Kirya, he loved being out in the grass. Coming up the rise, she shifted her path to make sure the wind would not carry any hint of her presence to the deer. At length she dismounted and, leaving the gelding with reins loose to the ground, crept through the grass until she could look into the hollow beyond where the beasts had spread out around a sink. The swale was moist enough to nurture a coat of grass and scrub ash. Tails flicking against flies, the deer foraged.

Mariya eased down one of the western slopes to take a position where low ground offered an escape route for startled deer. Kirya scooted back to the gelding, mounted, and made her approach, coming over the rise. A few deer raised their heads, but she kept the horse to a steady walk as she nocked an arrow to the string. On the far slope, Mariya signaled.

With a shout, Kirya whipped the gelding forward into the swale. She took aim as the deer scattered. Her first arrow struck the flank

of a springing deer; her second vanished into the bolting herd. They raced along the low ground, seeking the easy route.

With two clean shots, Mariya brought down two deer, but her third arrow missed and a gust of wind caught her fourth and sent it spinning. The gar-deer were already through the gap, the injured buck staggering at the back of the group.

Kirya waved at Mariya as she rode in pursuit.

It was a strong beast, young and healthy, and had the fierce will to preserve itself that animals must have to survive. At first it managed to keep up with the tail end of the herd, but step by halting step it slipped behind. Kirya closed the gap as they raced up one long slope and descended another on the trail of the fleeing herd.

The pair of vultures, which she had thought marked the position of the herd, were now almost above her, circling. A third glided into view from the east and joined the vigil.

The buck stumbled and collapsed. Kirya brought the gelding up beside it and dismounted, flipping the reins over the horse's head. She drew her knife, unhooked her leather bowl from her belt, and knelt by the young deer's head. It struggled briefly, but she caught its head in her arm, holding it down. She sang the brief prayer to Uncle Grass, thanking him for this offering, and cut its throat. Most of the blood poured into the bowl; the rest blessed the soil. The deer jerked a few times in its death throes. She unhooked her mirror and studied the reflection of the animal in the polished surface, seeing no mark of demon corruption.

With a sigh of relief, she drank the hot blood, emptying the bowl. They hadn't eaten since yesterday. Mariya would be enjoying the same feast from her own kills. It was a good kill, a strong spirit, fat and prosperous. A portent, she hoped, for the coming prosperity to be hoped for by their tribe. Maybe her aunt would negotiate a marriage settlement with the mother of that Vidrini boy. Sometimes prosperous tribes had such an excess of boys that they were willing to marry some into lesser tribes. The youth would have a chance to prove himself as something more than the least man in a large war-band. It might work out.

One of the vultures dropped out of sight. She wiped her blade dry on the grass, tied a blue string on the dead buck's ear to mark her kill, then rose. The gelding grazed, ignoring the smell of freshly

spilled blood. He'd seen worse than a slain deer. She walked up the slope with an arrow loose against the string, cautious as she edged to the crest. Beyond, the land flattened as it stretched into the eastern drylands. Grass had dried to a golden pallor under the summer's heat. The sky whitened at the zenith.

A vulture perched on the ground, staring at a stubborn knot of mist pooled within another of the sinks where spring's rains had collected and slowly were drying out. A second landed a short distance from the first. Both fixed their gaze on that insubstantial clot.

At first she thought it might be an animal, shifting as it struggled. But it was not. The misty silver substance was cloth so fine it appeared as light as air, and rippled in the wind that blew out of the east. She crept closer, pausing at intervals to scan the horizon and the heavens for threat. The vultures, seeing her, kept their distance. She kept her bow held ready, arrow taut against the string. Grass crackled under her steps, but as she moved into the sink the crackling faded to a softer sound where the grass had enough moisture to bend without breaking. At a stone's throw out, she halted.

It was cloth of a fine silken weave, precious fabric trapped by a weight wrapped within it. A body, but whether living or dead Kirya was not sure. By the behavior of the vultures, they were unsure as well, and she trusted them to know better than she the presence of the breath of life in any creature left lying on earth. Demons haunted the shadows that bridged the gap between the living and the dead; it was dangerous to pass too close to the edge.

But such fabric, shimmering and rich, was worth the risk. Anyone must fear demons; it was only prudent, especially here so close to the eastern drylands where demons haunted the night, and where their more human enemies, the dreaded Qin, hunted in summer and autumn. But the daughter of a poor tribe must brave dangers that would chase away the less desperate daughter of a more prosperous tribe.

She slipped the arrow into the quiver and unhooked her mirror. The reflection showed her nothing different than what she saw with her eyes. She drew her knife. With her bow in her bracing hand and the knife in her strong hand, she approached. She hesitated a body's length from the body, seeing coarse black hair fluttering at one end and the fabric twisted so tightly around the

rest that only a single bare foot could be seen. Brown-skinned. This was no tribal woman, but a stranger.

The vultures watched as she knelt beside the body. The unstained heavens cast no cloud shadow. Perhaps this was a demon pretending to be a dead woman, hoping to snare her. Perhaps the vultures were its cousins, in bird form, luring her in.

Her iron knife, blessed by a Singer, would protect her.

She studied the wrapped body, the layers of finely woven cloth. Its color was magnificently subtle, more silver than gray, shot through with the delicate light that is mist rising off the earth at dawn. She touched the cloth with the blade.

Death can overtake life between one breath and the next. A man may blink, and find a sword in his gut. The deer may leap, and be dead before it falls.

The wind on the plains is a constant. A violent gust tore the cloth free. It billowed into her, choking her as it wrapped her body, pressing into her face until she could not breathe.

Theirs is not just a poor tribe but a dying tribe. No one will say so out loud, but the end will come soon. Estifio and Yara will ride off on their own with their boy; the Tomanyi cousins will eat their oath-bound words and seek the shelter once offered them by distant cousins in the west, hoping to make marriages for their young daughters. That will leave the cripple, the old uncle, and the orphan boy as their war band, the four young children, and three adult women, one of them gravely ill and one slow of mind…

The Vidrini boy will never be allowed to marry Mariya. Never. Their tribe is already dead, just twitching as animals sometimes do after the spirit has fled.

Gasping, she clawed herself free from the horrible thoughts. Her hands stung. Her lips smarted, and when she licked them, motes of skin flaked loose to dust her tongue. She slapped the cloth down with the knife, got it fixed under her knees. The wind died as suddenly as it had come up. With the mantle torn loose, the body lay uncovered.

The woman wore foreign clothing, spun from flimsy cloth that could not withstand winter's piercing winds. One sleeve had torn and been mended with a darker thread. Her face was brown and her hair was black. Her hands, lying lifeless on her belly, were scarred with many tiny white lines as though repeatedly cut by a

stone scraper. She looked as if she were sleeping, not dead, but her chest did not rise or fall, and when Kirya held her mirror in front of those lips, no breath misted the mirror's surface.

Those without breath are without life. Yet she smelled no decay, nothing putrid. No bugs crawled. No vermin had begun to feast. And the vultures had vanished.

Air pulled in her lungs as she sucked in, then exhaled. Her own breath made mist smear the mirror's surface. She was still living, then. She had not been devoured.

She scanned the heavens, but saw no birds, no messengers of any kind from the gods. The sun had shifted higher. Somehow it had become midmorning.

The cloth rippled under her knees as wind pressed through the grass. Both her hands hurt: blisters bubbled on her skin. This was demon cloth, dangerous to mortal kind, and thus doubly valuable. They could actually hope to trade it for what they needed most: life for their tribe. Husbands. A tribe without women cannot be called a tribe: it loses its name and its heart and must be cast to the winds in the manner of a lost spirit. But likewise, in different manner, a tribe without brothers and uncles and sons and husbands cannot hang together; it will unravel, fabric that cannot keep its binding.

'Kiri!' Mariya stood at the crest of a hill, holding the reins of both horses.

Kirya gave the hand signal for her cousin to keep back.

The mantle clasped just below the hollow of the throat. The brooch had a complicated design, a set of interlocking circles molded of silver, and it radiated heat. She dared not touch it with her bare skin. She cut away the sleeves of the dead woman's tunic and wrapped her hands in the cloth. When she touched the clasp with wrapped hands, it did not burn her. Simple cloth, it seemed, was proof against demonic sorcery. She unhooked the clasp and pushed the halved parts to either side, revealing a throat deeply bruised at the hollow.

A drop of blood beaded on the skin. The body shifted. She started back, but it was only the movement of limbs slipping as the lifeless hands that had been resting on the belly of the corpse fell to either side. It was only a stray drop of blood that had been confined by the pressure of the broach.

Her hands still wrapped, she tugged the cloth free, then folded it

in lengths and rolled it up, tying it with a strip of cloth. The blisters on her skin rubbed painfully, and her hands, lips, and face stung with the pressure one might feel when she steps too close to fire. Sweat ran cold and hot in waves. But she had captured the demon in the cloth. She had taken a treasure so precious that it could alter the destiny of her tribe.

There was nothing else worth taking. The dead woman wore a belt of mere hempen rope, a poor woman's garment and in any case very worn, and no rings, no necklace or armband, no anklet. She didn't even carry a mirror, as all proper women did.

Kirya paced a spiral around the corpse, opening the path out sunwise until she found a spot where grass had been trampled. A horse had stood here, hooves leaving their print, grass torn where the animal had grazed. But the hoofprints vanished as abruptly as the vultures had, as though it had taken flight. There was no trail she could follow to pursue so valuable a prize as a stray horse. No doubt the woman's other belongings had been slung on the horse as well. Somehow, she had fallen, and the horse had run away. Perhaps she'd been overtaken by a demon and her breath devoured out of her while she struggled. It was too bad they'd lost the horse.

'Kiri!' Mariya was not patient. Daughter of the tribe's leader, she expected to sit in authority over the tribe in time. This knowledge had made her impulsive and anxious rather than persevering and pragmatic.

Kirya bound the mantle with strips of plain cloth until no part of it could touch skin. She fashioned a loop out of the ends. She whistled – wheet wheet whoo – and Mariya released the gelding. He trotted up and nuzzled her. Hands still smarting, she grabbed the saddle and swung on. With the bundle slung from her quiver, she rode back to her waiting cousin.