Fire in the Cave (15 page)

The witch-girl rested her head on Black-dog’s shoulder. She
closed her eyes, remembering, whispering. “She saw secrets and
spiderwebs. Trails and pathways. She saw a man breaking flint for a
knife, and she saw the stone it had been and the tool it would be and
the hands that would grip it and the hundred things it would carve
and cut, trailing before and behind his working hands, ghosts of the
future and the past. She felt the cave breathing, the slow breaths
of the living earth. She looked with night-bird eyes, and saw
shining threads tangled around every man and woman, every dog and
child, binding them gently together. She saw a mother stroke a
sleeping child’s hair, and at the touch a new thread trailed
from the mother’s fingertips. And she knew that this was the
tribe. This web of delicate threads, each thread a memory or rivalry
or kindness. This is what she had to protect. It was very
beautiful.” She buried her face in Black-dog’s hair,
smiling at the smell of him. “But she did not see the dark
brother.”

The wind was picking up, muttering and howling around them.
Black-dog had pulled the cloak tighter around them, but still the
chill was slipping through. His voice was low, and she could barely
hear it over the wind.

“He hid from her gaze,” Black-dog said. “He did
not want to be seen with those eyes, did not want her to know what he
kept hidden behind his face. And he had work to do. He took what he
would need from the witch’s hut, took herbs and mushrooms. He
went into the forest, far away from people, to a shadowed place
beneath a great tree. There, alone, he made a fire and brewed the
tea.”

The witch-girl shivered. She wished she could put her arms around
him. He was silent, now, climbing the icy slope, bracing himself
with his staff when the wind howled, trying to tear them off the
mountain into the darkness.

She wondered if they would die here, together. If that was why he
had brought them here. But that kind of surrender was not something
he could choose. She bent her head forward, brushing her lips over
his shoulder. “What did he see?”

“A black dog.”

The wind whirled the snow away from them, and for a moment the
witch-girl had a clear view of the jagged mountain peak above them.
Black-dog marched forward, snow crunching beneath his feet.

“At first he was not sure. He only caught glimpses, black
movement at the edge of his vision, the feeling of being hunted. He
bared his teeth, calmed himself, hid in ambush. And then he saw it.
A hole in the world, hunger on legs, huge as a mammoth, head low,
seeking his scent. It was terrifying.”

“But there was something wrong with him, with the dark brother,
something wrong with him since long before. He could not feel fear
correctly. It never made him want to run away. It made him want to
chase and take and break and bite. Made him want to taste blood in
his mouth, take a stone in his hand and beat his enemy until there
was nothing left but red.”

“Catch the white stag, and gain your wish. Let the black dog
catch you, and it’s your death. But what happens if you catch
the dog?”

“The dark brother howled and rushed forward. The great dog
ran. They chased each other through the nighttime forest, they
hunted each other up the cold hills, flashes of motion and hunger and
rage and fear, breath burning in his lungs. Part of him thinking, I
will catch the dog, and it will not take people in their dreams. I
will protect the tribe. Part of him thinking, kill. Kill. He was
high on the white mountain, in cold and snow, and knew that the cold
would likely take him even if he won the hunt. But he would end that
demon before he died.”

“He was frozen almost to his death when he finally understood.”

They were walking along a stream, now, edged with ice but still
flowing, a thin cloud of steam rising from it. Before them was a
black hole in the mountainside, with the stream flowing out of it. A
cave.

“Fingers stiff, close to dying, he took refuge in a cave. It
was warm, dark.”

They passed into the cave. In the near-darkness, the witch-girl
could just make out that the walls and ceiling were painted. Dark
figures of soot and rust and ochre danced, and fought, and made love.
It was blessedly warm, filled with steam and the smell of sulfur.

“He bent to drink from the pool he found there. Cupped the
water in his hand, raised it to his lips. As he did, the clouds
passed, and the moon showed him his reflection. As the bitter water
touched his tongue, he looked down, and saw what he was.”

He knelt. The witch-girl looked down at the steaming pool. The
light was dim. The steam blurred and twisted the reflection.
Mirrored in the pool was a hunched, dark shape, looking up from the
pool with shining eyes.

It looked like a huge, black dog.

You will never be a witch,
the witch-girl realized.
You
are strong, Black-dog, terribly strong, but you will never call a
spirit into yourself, never walk in dreams, never see through
another’s eyes. You cannot surrender, release, become
something else. Your name and nature are too strong, too savage.
They will not let you go. You can only and ever be what you are.

Black-dog stretched and sighed. “I kill as easily as most men
drink water. I take women the way most men kill. I do as I will,
and nothing can stop me but death. I am a monster.” His voice
was calm, confident. He spread the cloak over the soft sand, then
loosened the straps that tied the witch-girl to his back and gently
laid her down. “Some day, my brother and I will taste each
other’s blood. I hope one of us survives. I hope it is him.
You are hurt, witch-girl. I will heal you.”

She lay on the soft fur, hands and ankles still bound. She watched
Black-dog moving in the darkness, his back to her, his words still
buzzing in her head. He stirred the ashes of an old fire, added new
wood to the red coals hidden there. Flickering light bloomed in the
cave, making the figures on the walls shift and dance.

Perhaps I cannot save myself,
the witch-girl thought.
Perhaps
I cannot save the tribe. I have not found the path that leads us all
to happiness, and the more I try to gather my world together, the
more it slips apart. But this one man, my enemy and lover, I will
take his pain away. If I have any power, any skill, I will save you,
Black-dog.

Black-dog turned. With the fire behind him, he was a man veiled in
shadows, outlined in fiery red. He came close, bent over her,
reached around her to undo the knots.

Her arms and legs came loose, and she gasped. She felt as if her
whole body had been tied in a tight, warm knot, and she was coming
free, every muscle relaxing, a wave of tingling relief and pleasure
rushing through her. Her shoulders wriggled, her arms and legs
stretching and turning. Stretching, simple stretching, had never
felt so intensely good. She let out a shuddering sigh, and then fell
back, lying loose and limp on the fur.

Black-dog leaned close. He ran his hands down her, checking,
exploring. His hands were callused, smooth and cool as they slid
over her skin. He paused at her face, two fingers gently touching
her cheek. She winced; there was a bruise there, where Ten-hands had
struck her.

Black-dog looked at her for a long moment. She stared back into the
dark wells of his eyes, and knew, sure as she knew her own name, that
Ten-hands would soon be dead. She would need to act soon if she
wanted to kill him before Black-dog did.

And then Black-dog’s arms were beneath her, and he was lowering
her into the warm, steaming water of the pool.

Heaven. It was heaven, it was lover’s kisses on every inch of
her skin, muscles un-knotting, warmth soaking into her aching bones,
warm water-fingers stroking her scalp.

She opened her eyes. She could see Black-dog’s chest and head
leaning over her, watching her. She could feel his hands beneath
her, supporting her gently, so that she floated in the steaming
warmth with just her face above water. Like floating in a dream.
Soft currents tickled her fingertips, tongues of warmer and cooler
water moved down her body, down her legs. Black-dog was leaning
closer. She could feel the surface of the water tickling her cheeks,
framing her face. She did not pull away, to sink into the depths.
She did not rise out of the water toward him. She floated, perfectly
still. His mouth was less than an inch above her, she could feel the
warmth of him on her lips. He hung there, motionless. She breathed
in his breath, and he breathed in hers. Her eyes closed. Her tears
welled up, and ran down to mix and fade in the warm water.

Do not die, Black-dog, hungering-heart,
she thought.
You
will do as you will, you will do as you must, but do not rush to your
death before I can heal you.

He laid her down in the water, with her head at the edge of the pool,
her body coming to rest on soft sand. His hands worked their way up
her body, pressing and massaging her feet, her legs, her neck and
shoulders, gentle around bruises, firm where the muscles were sore.
He cupped warm water in his hands and poured it through her hair,
then ran his fingers through it carefully, undoing tangles, tugging
sweetly on her scalp. He massaged down her arms, stroking and
rubbing, all the way down to pressing and rolling her individual
fingertips. Then he reached for her feet and began again. She did
nothing but float, she did nothing but breathe, as he touched,
pressed, touched, unbinding and unlocking and releasing every part of
her with sweet, strong hands.

An hour or a lifetime passed. He lifted her out of the water. He
dried her, patting her softly with the fur cloak. He seated her by
the warm fire, and sat down across the flames from her, his long,
tanned legs folding under him.

In his hand, now, was the leash. The binding she had set between
them. A long cord of oiled, braided leather.

“Fika and Rika found where you had hidden it,” he said.
“The followed your scent into the forest, where you had hidden
your secret under a stone.”

His face was calm, framed by the fall of his long, dark hair. The
fire danced in his eyes.

“The River-witch told me how to break it,” he said.
“Manala. She will take her vengeance soon. But not before I
am free.”

I did this,
the witch-girl thought.
Half him, half me. I
bound, when I should have healed, or killed. I desired, when I could
have loved.

“The way she taught me is very simple.” He stretched the
cord between his hands, regarding it. “Woven in with the
leather are two locks of hair. Yours, and mine. Woven in with the
binding are two kinds of strength. Yours. Mine. We each hold one
end of the leash, with the length of it in the fire. The hairs burn
away, as we will the binding to release. And then I am free.”
His face darkened with anger. “Free of the madness you put in
me. Free of the love and hate twisting and clawing at each other,
fighting like two brothers too equal to win. Nothing but my true
feelings left.”

“Yes,” she said. Her throat was too tight to say any
more. It had been a mistake to bind him. But the thought of losing
him, of going back to that silent mask, was too painful to bear.
There were many in the tribe whom she loved, but none of them knew
the things she knew, none of them walked in the dark when she walked.
None of them made her heart twist in her chest, none of them filled
the empty night with heat and hunger. Except him.

He tossed one end of the leash across the fire. She caught it. He
pulled it taut.

Between them, the braided leather was bathed in flames, the brown
darkening to black. A harsh, scorching smell rose with the smoke.

“Do it,” he said. His voice was a savage growl.

She could feel the power in the binding, in the leather tugging
against her hand, tight and strained. She could feel his heartbeat,
thrumming down the cord between them. She felt rage and loneliness,
felt pain as the edges of the cord began to burn and fray, the
binding pulling on her harder, more desperately, as the fire ate into
it. She could feel what would happen if she held on, how they would
both be pulled in, pulled by their own strength, and their hearts
would burn in the fire together. Die together. It pulled harder,
hauling her towards the flame, and she strained against the pull.

She looked across the fire to where Black-dog sat, legs crossed. His
hand was raised, with the leash wrapped around it, pulling,
straining. His head was bowed forward, dark hair hiding his eyes.
She saw something fall, shining in the firelight. A tear.

In her heart, she let him go.

The leash burned through with a snap. She fell backwards. Her back
hit the sand, knocking the breath out of her.

She lay on her back, gasping. The paintings on the ceiling swam
before her eyes, joining and parting, dancing and bowing. She
blinked; her eyes were filled with tears. There was a hollow place
inside her. She felt alone in a way she hadn’t felt since
Grandmother died.

A dark shape loomed over her. Black-dog. His shoulders rose and
fell as he breathed.

“Liar,” he growled.

She stared up at him, uncomprehending. He looked down at her, hate
burning in his eyes.

“You said you would release me.” His fists were
clenching and unclenching. His teeth were bared, grinding, his eyes
burning like coals.

“I did! The binding is broken!” She felt a cold stroke
of fear, like ice down her back. He was angry. More than angry,
furious. She had seen him wild before, seen him savage, but she had
never seen him so close to losing control.

With a roar of frustration, he grabbed her shoulders, lifted her like
she weighed nothing, his hands gripping her like talons. He slammed
her back against the wall, pinned her there, glared into her eyes
from a hand’s breadth away.