Sword and Sorceress XXVII (2 page)

For a time, Moon would not listen.
Twilight, pale and shimmering, washed the western horizon. The earth smelled
cool and moist. She felt as if she could track the bull by the scent of his
tread, the brush of his body through the grasses, and the lingering taint of
animal musk.

At last, however, she relented and took
heed of her sister’s pleas. The ground turned rocky, rising sharply and making
footing difficult. They entered a country of dense thorny brush reaching above
their heads.

They found an open space and set about
with their axes cutting dead branches for firewood, and living branches, thin
and springy, for a shelter. They stripped off the bark to tie the branches
together, and gathered moss and soft leaves for a bed. They had only a little
water left, but Dew, ever resourceful, found a patch of juicy wild onions to
roast.

After they had performed their evening
prayers and banked the fire, the sisters retired to their shelter. Within
minutes, Dew’s soft breathing indicated that she was asleep. Moon lay on her
back, gazing up through the opening between the roof branches. The tips seemed
to be reaching past the roiling clouds, toward the stars perhaps, or the faint
goddess-veil. She wondered if the bull were looking up with his single
remaining golden eye. If he suffered. If he hated.

Forgive me
, she thought,
but she did not believe he could.

#

All the next morning, they climbed. The
brush here grew sparse and twisted, so dark it looked black. They scaled a
pass, traversed a valley surrounded by snow-topped peaks, and climbed again.
Dew said no more about turning back. They needed all their breath for climbing.
Wind blew constantly, at times threatening to peel them off the rock face. Moon’s
leg muscles burned. Her moccasins were meant for the softer terrain of the
plains, and the stones bruised her feet.

Moon wondered how the bull could have
come this far, what had driven him into such barren country, and how a beast
his size, with such a wound, could navigate the narrow trails. Yet every doubt
was answered by fresh evidence of his passing, the print of a massive cloven
hoof, or a sprinkling of blood.

The mountains rose and rose, row after
distant row, ghostly white. They rested more frequently now, and drank from
rushing streams. The water tasted of rock and wildness, so cold that their lips
turned blue. Days passed, and in between, they slept huddled in whatever shelter
they could find in the shallow, wind-sculpted caves. The storm clouds covering
the Blue Beyond darkened, so that noon took on the aspect of night.

Now that they had come so far, leaving
behind everything they knew, Moon still refused to give up, for fear that all
their suffering would have been for nothing.

#

Moon awoke to iridescent light. She
crept out from beneath the overhanging rock where she and Dew had slept,
blinking in the color-drenched brightness that swept across the horizon. Her
belly cramped with hunger and every joint in her body throbbed, yet she stood,
for a moment oblivious to all pain, caught up in the glory above her. Red and
gold, blue and green and orange rippled like curtains waving in a celestial
breeze. They beckoned her onward.

The trail led her upwards a short
distance, then widened. For a moment, Moon thought she had reached the crest,
for the lights now glimmered all around her. She breathed them in. A strange
energy flowed through her.

A sound, a clink of one pebble on another,
alerted her. She whirled, reaching for the knife that was not there, and
realized too late that she had left her weapons behind in the shelter.

Ahead she could make out only shades of
gray and shifting silver. Something moved in the brilliance. She forced herself
to stand still. Whatever it was, bow or axe could not harm it. Nor, she
realized, would she wish to destroy a thing of such beauty.

Do not be afraid.
The
words shimmered in her mind.

The next instant, the brightness faded.
A man stood there, tall and well-formed. Despite the cold, his chest was bare,
and as he held out one hand to her, muscles moved easily beneath his smooth
skin. By his features and fringed leggings, the cut of his moccasins and the
slant of his eyes, he must be one of her own people, yet she did not know him.
His braids were tied with feathers of deepest blue.

Moon had never seen such a color, except
in the Blue Beyond on a cloudless day. Surely, this must be a god. Trembling,
she dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

His touch was warm and strong as he
lifted her, but she would not look directly at him. She stammered, “How shall I
address you, O god of the mountains?”

“I am no god,” he said. His voice was
deep and as beautiful as himself. “You shall call me Bluejay. What is your
name?”

Moon looked up in astonishment. Truly, a
god would already know her name and her quest, and all her hidden sins. As
strange and beautiful as this stranger appeared, he must be as mortal as she
herself. Emboldened, she answered his questions. Who she was, her people, what
she was doing so far from her home territory.

“And now I cannot go back,” she
concluded. “I failed to find the bull and put an end to his pain. I have shamed
my people.”

“The bull you sought does not suffer.”

“You may not be a god, but even if you
were, I would not believe you,” Moon said with spirit. “I must make certain for
myself.”

At that, Bluejay laughed. “Since you
refuse to go home, will you come with me on an even greater adventure? I have
come here seeking such a hunter as yourself, one with heart as well as courage.
I promise that if we succeed, and you still wish to return home, you will do so
with honor.”

Moon thought for a long moment. If
Bluejay were not a god, perhaps he was a malicious spirit sent to entrap her.
She had heard tales of such beings, songs sung around campfires in the Time of
the Ice Raven. When she consulted her heart, however, she felt nothing but a
surge of irrational joy.

“I will go with you, but first I must
bid farewell to my sister.”

Together, they went back down the trail
to the overhang. Dew had made a fire, from what fuel Moon could not tell, and
on that fire, a small bird roasted on a spit. Dew got to her feet and greeted
the stranger, inviting him to share their meal. Politely he declined, for there
was scarcely enough for one person, let alone three. He explained that he had
come into this country to bring Moon back with him.

“You wish to marry her?” Dew said, eyes
narrowing.

Moon began to protest, but Dew waved her
to hush. If their mother had still been alive, she would have arranged the
marriage contract. Dew was clearly determined to act in her stead.

Bluejay said that in his own country,
the man presented the bride’s family with a gift. Moon saw no possessions at
hand, except possibly the feathers of startling blue tied in his hair. Yet the
next moment, he was offering Dew a bison robe. It was expertly tanned, supple
and sweet-smelling. As he handed it to Dew, his gaze met Moon’s and she
understood his words about the bull.

“This is a treasure!” Clearly, Dew was
of the opinion that any man who owned such a thing must be wealthy indeed. She
kissed Moon, bidding her to send word of her new life.

Moon took her bow and arrow case, her
knife and hand axe. Following Bluejay, she continued back up the trail. For a
long time, she was so beset with strangeness, she could not speak.

A storm came up suddenly, swirls of
white and gray that grew thicker with each passing heartbeat. Moon’s skin went
numb with cold. Ice congealed in the pit of her belly. Still Bluejay kept on.
The blizzard did not seem to affect him. Moon struggled to keep up, although
she could barely make out his figure.

Suddenly Bluejay came to a halt.
Although the blowing snow obscured the terrain, Moon sensed that before them
lay a sharp precipice. She could feel the shape of the mountains and the
solidity of rock on three sides, but in front of them lay nothing but wailing
emptiness. If she stepped off that cliff, she might fall forever.

“What is this place?” she asked through
chattering teeth. “It seems to me the very edge of the world.”

He held out his hand. “You are right.”

Moon remembered thinking that whatever
happened on the search, she would never return home. She had thought she would
die on the mountain face of exposure or starvation. She had not the slightest
idea then of journeying past the edge of the world. In spite of this, or
perhaps because of it, she took Bluejay’s hand.

The moment their fingers touched, a
change swept through Moon. She no longer shook with cold and fright. Something
immeasurably powerful, yet gentle as feathers, caught her, held her. The
whiteness of the storm fell away and in its place, across illimitable spaces,
she beheld colors such as she had never dreamed. Drawn by Bluejay’s sure grasp,
she soared like a frost falcon.

How long the journey lasted, Moon could
not say. It seemed to go on forever, and yet when she stood once more on her
own feet, only the span of a single breath had passed. Too amazed to speak, she
gazed at an ancient forest.

She had seen plains trees, with their
misshapen, wind-scoured branches and dusty leaves. Few of them grew taller than
a man’s height. Now she craned her neck, straining to see the tops of the
giants that rose around her. Their trunks were straight and smooth-barked,
thicker than a man’s outstretched arms.

Moon and Bluejay stood in a little pool
of sunlight surrounded by dappled, blue-tinted shade. A jumble of lacy plants
covered the forest floor. She inhaled, tasting scents that were pungent,
unfamiliar, and deeply stirring.

Bluejay slipped his fingers from her
grasp. “We’re here.”

“What is this place?”

“My home.”

She stared at him for the first time.
Far above, branches swayed in a wind, so that motes of light danced across his
bare skin.

His eyes darkened. “You know there are
many worlds, each with its own people, its own magic?”

“So our songs teach us.” Her voice came
in a whisper. “But I never guessed...” turning now, struggling to encompass the
enormity and brightness of the forest, “...it would be like this.”

“And in all these worlds,” he went on,
as if he had not heard, “what is the greatest danger? The most dire threat?”

“The Ice Raven, who brings dark and
cold, the sleep of the soul,” she answered as she had been taught. “It cannot
be seen, or captured or—”

He cut her off with an impatient
gesture. “The Ice Raven is a part of the natural cycle. The fallow times give
the land its rest, and we take no harm from the long sleep. My people offer
prayers at such times, blessing the Ice Raven.”

For an instant, Moon was angry. Surely
he was making fun of her, treating the beliefs of her own clan as ignorant
superstitions. Then she realized he was in earnest.

“What, then?” she asked. “If you do not
fear the Ice Raven, what
do
you fear?”

“Something against which my people have
no defense, no power.” Bluejay paused, an unreadable expression passing over
his features. “But you do.”

Moon wanted to laugh. What could she do
and what beast could she hunt, that this strong warrior could not? He could walk
between worlds! Now he truly was teasing her.

Still, his expression remained grave,
and she decided that no matter how far-fetched, he took his own words
seriously. “What do you want from me?”

“Do you have the courage to face that
which threatens all our worlds? Do you have the will to defeat it?”

Moon lifted her chin and took her bow in
hand. “I am no magician. All I have are these, my arrows. They are yours to
command.”

“Then come with me.”

Once more, Bluejay held out his hand.
This time, as she slipped her fingers through his, Moon felt a faint quivering,
but she did not know if it were her own or his.

#

No blizzard rose up to blind her, no
wall of whiteness, no whirl of space and light. Instead, they rose gently,
following the arrow-straight trees. The air grew fresher, warmer, yet wilder.
Birds passed them, not the olive-drab sparrows of the plains, but creatures
adorned with extravagant rainbow plumage. They swooped through the air, their
songs rising and falling. Moon cried out in delight, and Bluejay grinned.

They left the birds behind and passed
the tops of the trees. The branches were so far below that Moon imagined them
as a soft carpet. Clouds wafted by until only the Blue Beyond lay above them.
Such a blue it was, more intense than she had ever seen.

Moon kept expecting that the next moment
would bring them up against a hard blue surface, as if the Blue Beyond were the
inside of a bird’s egg.

We are hatchlings struggling to be born
,
came his voice in her mind.

The end of their upward journey came
suddenly. It was not at all what she expected. One instant, they soared gently
through unchanging blue. The next, a strange uneasiness hovered at the edges of
her senses, like a storm front poised to break.