The Shore of Women (5 page)
She was silent.
“Tell me what to do. I am alone, without a band. You have called my old guardian Tal to You, but I cannot follow him to Your side. What shall I do? Speak to me, please.”
I kept praying in that way until I grew so weary I could not rise from the couch. Curling up on my side, I clung to the soft red cloth, still pleading.
An invisible hand reached out and touched my face. A form took shape, and I saw that an aspect would appear to me. I was on the couch, but no longer in the shrine. The Lady had taken my soul, through Her magic, to a smaller, darker room.
She moved closer to me and touched my face once more, then drew back. “What is it you want?” Her hair was blond and Her tunic white; Her eyes were the wintry gray of Tal’s eyes. “Why do you call Me?”
I told my story again, and She was silent. Then She said, “Wait,” and stepped back. I could see Her more clearly; the body under Her clothing was slight and unformed. She lifted Her hands to the circlet on Her head and faded from sight.
I stared into blackness until another voice spoke, a lower voice, but still soft and musical. Somehow, I felt that I had heard this voice before.
“You seek My guidance,” this voice said. Another manifestation of the Lady appeared; Her hair was auburn, Her voice kind. “You say that you are alone. I can help you. Your guardian Tal is with Us, and I have decided to call you to Me as well. Go to the southernmost side of our enclave’s wall, to where Tal entered, and wait there before the door you will see. You will be allowed to enter and will find your guardian again. Spend the day before you approach My city purifying yourself in a shrine. You are a strong boy, and I believe you will overcome the dangers of your journey. If I do not behold you within fourteen nights, I shall send your guardian from Me.”
My joy unbalanced me. I should have abased myself and offered thanks. Instead, my mind cried out, “Why did You punish those on the plateau? They were not all evil—the man called Bint prayed often and was Your true servant. The boys could not have been evil—they were only children. Could You not have punished the evil ones while sparing the good?”
She drew back and Her eyes narrowed; She seemed almost to be sorrowing for the condemned men. Then She said, “Men are tainted. When their sin grows larger than their virtue, and they must be punished, there can be no mercy. The Lady, Who gives life to men, may take it. Those who live with evil will be struck down as surely as the evildoers themselves. It is ordained that you shall wander the world in bands, but those men sought to unite themselves against the Lady’s aspects. That cannot be allowed. Remember that.”
She turned Her face from me and covered Her eyes, then looked up. “I send you a visitation,” She said, “so that you will know you are blessed. The Goddess be with you.”
She disappeared and another took Her place. This aspect was naked, Her hair was black, and Her brown eyes were rimmed with gold. Her hands drew away my clothing as Her fingers caressed me.
“Come to Me,” She said, and I held Her. She guided my hands to Her body, and this was part of the magic of Her blessing—that She seemed to take pleasure from my touch as well as giving pleasure to me. My member swelled, and I felt Her breath on my ear as I entered Her, and was one with Her as I felt release.
She disappeared, and slowly I came to myself. My muscles ached, and my groin felt sticky and wet. I had been called, and the Lady had blessed me. I opened my eyes; I was in the shrine again.
A man and a boy were kneeling at the altar. As they stood up, they turned to look at me. I struggled to sit up. Their furry hoods were thrown back, showing their black, frizzy hair. Their broad faces were much alike and their skin was as dark as Arrow’s. I felt sorrow again as I remembered that Arrow and Stel were dead.
These worshippers could not harm me there. I said, “I have been called.”
The boy snickered; the man shot him a look. “I saw,” the man said. “You were thrashing about possessed, as your soul traveled to Her realm. I thought you had only Her blessing until I saw the joyous smile on your face. Are you older than you look?”
“This is my twelfth winter outside the enclave.”
“I do not know why the Goddess would call one so young, but Her purposes are unknown to us.”
He led the boy toward the couches near me, and both lay down, closing their eyes and donning the circlets. It was soon clear that the Lady would not speak to them. At last, the man sat up.
“Where is your band?” He spoke each word slowly, as if unused to my language. I, in turn, was surprised that he knew it; we had spoken in the holy speech before. “Are these not your words?” he continued. “You have the look of men who speak in this way.”
“It is my tongue,” I admitted.
“Where is your band?” he asked again.
I was suddenly cautious. I could not lie to him in a shrine, where the Lady would take offense at false words. “They are elsewhere,” I replied; the Lady could not consider that a falsehood.
He looked at the sack beside my couch, then raised his eyes to me. “And you have been called. Your band will be pleased when you run to them with the news.” He rose. “Peace be with you.” He led the boy from the shrine.
I slept in that holy place, hoping that the Lady would again visit me. I had been given Her blessing before, and yet I had never felt such pleasure at other times. I had been near death, and She had restored me to life. She had called me to Her enclave, and that meant that She had forgiven me for falling under the spell of Truthspeaker’s band. I had learned why men obeyed Her call, why some even forsook taking such pleasure with other men when they were blessed often enough in shrines. But She did not return to me that night.
I ate some of my meat and left the shrine at dawn. The weather had grown warmer. The snow was beginning to melt and the ground was muddier. I warmed snow in my hands and drank of it.
I had been called. I would be a man when I came out of the enclave. I said it to myself again and again, exulting in the words. Even Tal had not been called so young. For the first time in my life, I wished that Cor were with me so that I could glory in the triumph, and that thought gave me pain. I wanted to tell everyone of that summons, and there was no one to tell.
As I walked north, I recalled the landmarks Bint had shown me. I wondered if I could have controlled a horse by myself and was sorry I had not tried to bring one with me from the plateau. I would have to move quickly, and my body was still stiff and sore from the days of riding. Soon, I came to a small hill, topped by a few thin trees, where we had stopped during our journey. As I climbed, I began to feel that I was not alone.
Eyes were watching me. Tal had taught me to trust such feelings. When I reached the top of the hill, I knelt as if to examine the ground, then peered quickly through my legs.
Below, someone disappeared behind a rock. I caught only a glimpse of my tracker’s furry brown cloak, but I knew who he was. The dark man I had seen at Hecate’s shrine was trailing me, and if he discovered I was alone, I would be in danger.
LAISSA
Inside my tower, a few small girls were playing near the entrance. I crossed the lobby and entered the lift; the platform carried me up through its transparent cylinder and stopped at my floor. Women leaned over the railings on other floors and called to the girls below; I hurried along the walkway to my door.
Button was sitting on the couch playing with a pocket puzzle. I felt a twinge as I compared his lot to that of the girls in the lobby. “Where’s Mother?” I asked. “It’s nearly suppertime.”
“She had to go to the wall.” He lifted his head and glared at me. I went to the screen in the corner; Shayl had left a message saying that she had to study that evening but would visit next day to hear all about my tests.
Button said, “You’re sending me away, you and Mother.”
“You should be in your exerciser, not sitting here with a puzzle. You have to get strong.”
“You’re sending me away. You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Button.”
“You do, and so does Mother. You’re sending me away.” I went over to him and sat at one end of the couch; he recoiled from me. “I’m going away, too. I’m going to live with my friend Shayl, and I’ll have to work hard at my studies. All of us have to go and live somewhere else someday.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“You have to, Button. You’re a big boy now. A man will come for you, and he’ll take care of you. You’ll go outside, and meet other boys, and learn lots of new things from them. You’ll be with your own kind. You’ll like it a lot more than here.”
“No, I won’t. I want to stay here.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a boy, and boys have to go outside.”
“Why don’t girls have to go?”
“Because this is our home.” I tapped my knee impatiently. “And sometimes girls have to go, too, if they’re very bad.”
“I have to go away because I’m bad.”
“No,” I said. “You go because you’re a boy, and you wouldn’t like it here later on—really, you wouldn’t. You see, girls who are very bad go outside, but boys who are good go outside so they can be with other boys, you know that. And girls have to stay here and look after the city. That’s hard work. You can go outside and see new places, and you don’t have to worry about the problems we have.”
“You’re lying, Laissa.”
I wanted to hit him. What good would his questions do? “I’m not lying. And you’ll forget all about us anyway, wait and see. They put a mindwasher on your head before you go, and you forget us, so there.”
Button screamed. I had said the wrong thing.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I shouted. He dived at me and pounded me with his fists; I slapped him. “If you’re going to act like that, go to your room.”
“No!”
“Yes!” I got to my feet and pushed him toward his door. He walked away stiffly, his head up.
I picked up his puzzle and peered at the maze. I could not have solved that puzzle at his age, and yet Button had. I threw the puzzle onto the couch, then went to the study; I didn’t want to sit in my disorderly room, where I was still sorting out what I would take to Shayl’s.
The door slid open. A light on the wall had lit up; someone was calling from outside the city. Our mindspeaker could pick up transmissions from any of the shrines outside, but Mother had long ago set it so that it would signal to her only when the brain pattern registered was that of my progenitor or my twin. My father had, according to Mother, already entered the wall, so my twin had to be calling.
I had practiced on a mindspeaker often enough and knew some of the ritual for men, but had never spoken to one directly. I thought of the boy I barely remembered, wondering if he had been like Button. I went to the table, picked up the circlet, and put it on my head.
A voice screamed at me; I felt an overwhelming fear. Somehow I found the modulator and pressed it. The voice softened.
I closed my eyes and saw a tall young man stretched out on a couch. I tried to concentrate on what the mindspeaker was showing me, on the lifelike image it had created with the aid of the lenses and sensors in the shrine. Only the couch was visible to me. The young man’s shoulder-length, blond hair was matted and his even-featured face was dirty; his hands were covered by filthy leather gloves. He wore brown leather leggings and a coat of hide; the opened coat revealed a worn leather shirt.
I reached out with one hand and felt his face, then drew back, telling myself that I was not actually touching this creature, that this was only an illusion. A memory came to me of a little boy who had sat at Mother’s feet with me, who had shoved me when Mother wasn’t looking, but who had also repaired one of my broken toys. I touched his cheek again, imagining how rough his skin must be, then pulled away.
“What is it you want?” I asked, forgetting the ritual. “Why do you call Me?”
“You must help me, Lady,” the young man said. His lips moved only a little as I picked up his subvocalized surface thoughts. He was saying that he was alone, that his guardian had left him to travel to a city, that his band had then traveled south with other men only to die under the beams of a city’s ships. “I am alone,” he finished. “Please help me, please tell me how I can find my guardian, Tal, again.”
“Wait,” I said, then removed the circlet as I recalled what Eilaan had said about Devva. That city, it seemed, had acted, and this young man had been with the men Devva had attacked. I clasped my hands together. Mother had been accused of disobedience; I had been told by Bren that I doubted, and now my twin was telling me that he had narrowly escaped Devva’s action.
The door behind me slid open. I spun around, startled. Mother waved at the light on the wall. “Laissa, what are you doing?”
“My twin is calling you,” I said. “Devva’s destroyed that settlement of men they were so worried about.”
“What does that have to do with him?”
“He was there. He escaped.”
Mother covered her mouth. “But his band roams the lands beyond our southern wall. He shouldn’t be so far south.”
“He says that they traveled to that other place. He’s alone now. He says he wants to find his guardian.”
“He means his father. The boy can’t live out there for long if he’s alone—men live in groups.” She went to the console and played back what the boy had told me, then scowled. “This isn’t good. I must think of what to do.”
“I know I probably shouldn’t have talked to him, but I was careful. I. . .”
“It’s all right, Laissa. Leave me alone now. I’ll speak to him.”
I paced the outer chamber as I worried about what Mother might do now. At last she joined me, but she did not speak until she had taken a bottle of wine from the dispenser in our wall. Her hands shook as she poured wine into a glass.
“I’ve called the boy here,” she said in a low voice. “If he’s strong enough to make the trip, he’ll be with his father again, and Button will have two males to look after him. They might find another tribe.”
I folded my arms. “But he’s only seventeen. He’s young to be called, and he was with those men Devva attacked as well. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I had no choice!” she said harshly. “The boy is alone. His father has no tribe now. Even with two males, Button’s chances won’t be good. With only his father, they’ll be much worse.” She gulped her wine and poured more. “I just hope the boy can get here. I’ll have to wait for him. It means I’ll have to keep Button a little longer.”
“But Eilaan told you…”
“I had to do it!” she shouted. “As it is, I may only be sending Button out to die. If only he could stay even a year or so longer. I know it’s wrong to think it, but I do.” She downed the wine and set the glass on a table.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said as calmly as I could. “You might have given Button to a man who has a group to return to.” I paused. “We’ll be disgraced.”
She came to me and grabbed my shoulder; her fingers dug into me painfully. “This isn’t disobedience. This will test their strength. I haven’t violated my duty.” She seemed to be saying the words more to herself than to me. “If your twin can make such a journey alone, it will only show that he and those with his traits are strong and should survive to pass on those traits to future generations of women.”
“That isn’t why you’re doing this, Mother. You could still send Button out with someone else.”
“I’ve already promised his father a young one.” Her mouth twisted. “The Lady cannot break Her promise.”
“You just want to hang on to him. You’ve gone mad. You’re still hoping some miracle will save him.”
She turned away. Once again, she had endangered us both.