Olivia (72 page)

“Sometimes you are,” Beth said, so trustingly that Olivia found it difficult to meet her eyes.  She sat on the bench beside Olivia and closed her eyes, waiting, holding Olivia’s hands to her stomach.

Oh Jeez.  I don’t know what I’m doing
, Olivia thought despairingly.  She didn’t want to simply fake it, not at the expense of Beth’s faith, as misplaced as it may be.  Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to recall just how it had felt to be suffused with power, as she had been when she confronted Mojo Woman, but there was nothing.  Nothing.

Great Spirit
, Olivia thought, afraid to say it out loud, in case nothing happened.  Or in case something did. 
Great Spirit, I know I’m not magic, but if you heard me before, please hear me now.  Please
.

No reply, not even in her head.

After several minutes of silence, Olivia got ready to tell Beth to forget it and go home.  Despite the lanterns set around them, the cavern had become almost brutally cold, and Olivia could feel her skin prickling with gooseflesh.  She started to say something…and couldn’t.  Her breath continued to blow easily in and out of her lungs, and surely her heart continued its steady beat, but the rest of her was locked into place.  She couldn’t move.

“
Behold me
.”

Olivia’s eyes wrenched open and saw the winged woman of moonlight and stars, looking lean and strong despite an obvious pregnancy near to term.  She tried to gasp and couldn’t, tried to flinch back and couldn’t, tried to give trusting Beth some kind of warning and could only sit there silently as the Great Mother of the Moon gazed indifferently down at them.

Not a hallucination.  Not a dream.  This was happening.  This was Urga.

“
My mate sends me
,” Urga said.  “
What do you require?
”

Olivia cut her eyes at Beth, but Beth’s eyes were closed and her features strained with concentration. 
She wants a baby
, Olivia thought, doing her best to make those thoughts clear.

Urga looked at Beth.  She came forward without walking, floating like the moon across the sky.  She reached down, a vaguely finger-like growth protruding from the meaty lump of her hand, and touched Beth’s flat stomach.

Beth jerked, gasping, then cried, “I felt that, Olivia!  You’re doing it!”

“
She is cold inside
,” Urga observed.  “
Jagged as an empty chasm.  There can be no child for this woman.
”

It was wrongly done
, Olivia protested.

Urga smiled at her. It was not a comforting sight.  “
It is the way of things for evil to be done to those who do not deserve it.  If not for wickedness in the world, of what value would virtue be?
”

Without miracles
, Olivia countered,
who would have hope? 
Urga’s smile seemed to slip, and Olivia took advantage of the indecision. 
This woman has faith in me, that I will somehow be able to restore her.  I know I don’t have that power, but I believe that you do.  Please, Urga, all she wants is to be able to follow your example, to be a faithful mate and a devoted mother
.

“
My example
,” Urga echoed, still so cool, so far removed from the things she said.  “
I have no interest in the desires of Bahgree’s children.  Let her strike bargains with you.  Let her fill your wombs
.”

You made her mortal
, Olivia argued. 
She’s long dead now
.

“
Nothing born of power dies forever
,” Urga countered, and threw Beth an expression of extremely mild irritation.  “
But why should I concern myself with this human?  The spawn of my ancient enemy are none of my affair.  When she is cured of her injuries, what is to prevent her from inciting her fellows to beg me for favors?
”

She won’t know that it was you at all
, Olivia replied, and could not quite contain her exasperation with Beth and the whole Olivia-the-Great routine. 
She’ll blame it all on me, and I’ll have to deal with her fellows and their favors.

Urga actually seemed to consider that.  “
So.  It is not this woman’s plea at all, but your own?
”

Yes
, Olivia told her. 
If you can do this, if you can help her, then that’s my plea.  Please help her, Urga
.

Urga’s empty eyes narrowed.  Her lipless mouth curled in an awful, clay-like smile.  It was a terrible expression, terrible because it was cold and loveless and somehow full of scorn.  “
Then I may not refuse.  So be it
.”

The brilliant aura that surrounded Urga began to flow along her body, collecting in her fingertips.  The light grew until Olivia had to close her eyes, and even then, the light penetrated her mind and turned it all to cold, white pain. 

Olivia heard Beth let out an ear-splitting scream and she opened her eyes in fear.  Urga’s hands were inside Beth, and the light was flooding off her body, filling Beth from within.  Beth’s skin began to glow faintly, pulsing with the beating of her heart.  Her head was flung back and her nails dug little moons in Olivia’s hands.  On her face was an look of purest rapture.             

“
What damage was done here?
” Urga wondered to herself.  “
I feel ended life.  I feel the terror of a child and the pain of the child she carried.
”

Can she be healed
? Olivia asked uneasily.  Urga’s words had been spoken with absent-minded interest, not with any real depth of emotion, and even now she seemed only to be standing idly by to watch Beth teem with living light.

“
All things are within my power that come of woman’s creation
.”  Urga removed her hands from Beth’s body, and the blonde slumped over with her head in Olivia’s lap.  “
Such cruelty
,” she said absently.  “
Not unexpected from one of your treacherous kind.
”  Urga paused, and then touched her hand to Olivia’s brow.  “
Daughter of Bahgree
,
my mate and master desires you to be happy, and as it pleases me to see him pleased, I have done as you requested.  This woman is healed and shall conceive
.”

Olivia sent her thanks, but Urga only dropped her hand to her side, unaffected.

“
You are mortal
,” the apparition said simply.  “
Your time upon this world is swift and forgettable.  You are not worth my jealousy for all that my eternal mate yearns to have you clasped in passion.  Yet his will is great and I must obey.  Therefore, know this: He has commanded me bear his son through you, and so it shall be.  My hand shall be upon you the night you bring forth
.”  And with that, Urga stepped back and slowly faded away.

Olivia felt the curious block that had prevented her from speech and movement break, and she realized that Beth was hugging her and crying with happiness.  She patted the woman awkwardly as Beth alternately praised and thanked her.

“Go home, Beth,” she said at last, trying to peel the small blonde off her.  “Go home and be with Wurlgunn.”

Beth stumbled up, took a lantern, started to thank her again, and then fairly flew from the room.

Olivia gathered the other lights and went back to her birthing chamber, exhausted and depressed.  Again, the threat of destiny, of forces beyond her control loomed over her like a sword suspended by a thread.  By this time tomorrow, the whole tribe would think that she had healed Beth’s barrenness.

Just what she needed, more worship to take up her time while she worried about the Great Spirit and his clasp of passion. 

8

The females of the tribe took turns staying with Olivia during the last few days of pregnancy.  No males were to be allowed near until after the baby had been born, and then, only Vorgullum would be permitted to see him.  The tribe as a whole would not be able to view either mother or child until three nights had passed, a tradition born of too many years when three days meant the difference between knowing a child might live and giving it time to die.

Olivia was bored, hurt, and so tired she sometimes fell asleep while eating.  She rarely moved out of bed except when her bladder demanded it, and even then she only moved just as far as the washroom canal.  She began to have what Tina too-callously dismissed as Braxton Hicks contractions (“Nothing to worry about,” she kept saying, just like Olivia’s uterus tying itself in a pretzel knot every ten minutes all damn day for three days running was on her list of medical complaints just under stubbing a toe), and then to leak embarrassingly from her breasts.  Any flicker of joy she had ever managed to feel for her impending motherhood collapsed under the combined weight of leg cramps, backaches, varicose veins and bone-leaden exhaustion, until all she wanted in the wide world was for this to be over.

The gullan staying with her offered some relief.  They would rub her back and legs, wipe her down with damp cloths, and try to keep her engaged with light-hearted stories of what was going on elsewhere in the mountain, but Olivia found it increasingly difficult to respond to them.  She floated in a sea of numbing weariness, with nothing to do but wait to go into labor, and yet, when it finally happened, it still managed to come as a surprise.

Of course, she’d been having pains all morning—horrible, watery ones that seemed to wrap around her entire abdomen—but she hadn’t thought of them as contractions, because they didn’t last very long and they were awfully irregular. And Somurg had dropped heavily into her pelvic girdle a week ago (“That’ll make it easier for you to catch your breath, huh?” said Tina, as Olivia’s bladder was flattened under Somurg’s enormous head), so she knew she was coming to the end of it.  All the same, her first thought when she felt the warm gush of waters flood out between her thighs was that she’d gone and wet the bed for the first time since she’d turned six.

“Crugunn!” she groaned, trying to heave herself up and out of the pit.  “I hate to do this to you, but I’ve made a mess.”

Crugunn, heating water at the hearth for yet another massage and sponge-bath, came at once to help her stand, then bent and scooped up the soiled bedding, taking a deep and astoundingly cheerful sniff prior to taking it away.

And then she stopped.

Sniffed again.

Crugunn gave the bedding an unaimed toss towards the wall and took Olivia firmly by the arm before she could finish staggering over to the nearest bench.  “Lie down,” she said, still cheerfully.  “Your time has come.  Thurga, find Tina!”

“It has?” Olivia said, feeling stupid as yet another cramp took her in its fist and squeezed.  She let Crugunn put her back to bed, her own hands pressed over the bulge at her belly, unable to believe it was really happening.  She didn’t feel any different.  “But…I thought there would be some sort of warning…”

“Like your water breaking?” Tina asked, striding into the room with a polka-dotted backpack full of her medical things in one hand and a flashlight in the other.  Horumn followed her.  “This is how it’s going to be,” Tina began as the ancient gulla lowered herself with an arthritic grunt to her knees in Olivia’s pit.  “Horumn’s going to handle the actual delivery while I try to keep things clean and organized and learn something.  Crugunn, your job is to stand right there and make sure no one comes in or out unless I ask for something.  Thurga, you get to do my running around if I need something, got it?”

“Yes, healer!”

“Yes, healer!”

“Yes, Tina,” Horumn grumbled.  Her hands on Olivia’s body were strong and gentle, guiding cushions and furs into place behind her to help her sit up, supporting her hips as brand new sheets—fresh from their plastic packaging—were slid underneath her, and moving with confidence and unerring skill to massage the worst of the pain away when the contraction finally eased.  “Are you well, Urgarna?”

“Well?” Olivia echoed, suddenly on the verge of panic and tears.  “I’ve never done this before, how would I know if I’m well?  I’m not ready for this.”

“Bah, you whining humans,” Horumn sneered, and shone Tina’s flashlight between her open thighs.  “Twelve times I’ve gone to the birthing bench and I think you are well, eh?  So.  Try to rest.  You have all day yet.”

Rumm stuck her head in the cavern and said, “Vorgullum is at the entry.  He says he will come to see his mate.”

“No,” Horumn said.  “He will not.”

Rumm went away.  Horumn helped Olivia roll onto her side and began to rub her back and legs as Tina pinched Olivia’s wrist between her fingers and studied her watch.  Rumm returned.

“Vorgullum is at the entry,” she said again, sounding amused.  “He says there is no iron door in this mountain and he will see his mate.”

“He will not,” Horumn said, still calm.  “Take a double handful of women and block the tunnel.”

“He is a large male,” Rumm said, looking dubious.

“Then arm yourselves,” said Tina, still watching her wrist.  “Find Tobi. 
That
should hold him off.”

Rumm nodded reluctantly and withdrew.

Horumn hushed Olivia as she began moaning Vorgullum’s name miserably.  “We must do this thing, Good Mother, we must.  If, Great Spirit let it not be so, you or the baby were to die this night, would you wish your mate to remember you screaming and bleeding in his arms?”

Olivia shuddered and tried to twist away from the awful image.

Horumn patted her and wiped her face.  “It is because you care for him that you must not allow him to come near.  Now put it from your mind, Olivia Urgarna.  Focus your thoughts on your child.  Send him thoughts of welcome to this world.”

Olivia looked at her watch whenever one of the early, watery contractions ebbed through her.  For the next two hours, they came closer together, but still at irregular intervals.  Then they started coming five minutes apart, and getting stronger.  At seven in the evening, Olivia was crying out with pain every three minutes, and Horumn was rubbing her belly and shoulders constantly.