PROLOGUE (143 page)

She had other names for the stars.

"Heed me, that which opens in the east.

Heed me, that which closes in the west.”

Did he hear other voices, an echo of her own, singing along the gleaming spell, tangled in the threads of light woven through the stone loom?

"Let the shaman's beacon rise as our weaving rises.

Answer our call, Fat One.”

As she wove, she wept. He saw it, then, the cluster of seven stars he knew as the Crown of Stars but which she called the Shaman's Headdress. As it rose in the east, she caught its light in her mirror. That light tangled around him, and he grew so dizzy that he would have fallen over if the hounds had not shouldered under him to hold him up. Above, stars wheeled slowly, ascending out of the east, climbing, climbing, until he realized that the spell had woven around him as well, that they were caught inside it as time passed, as the night wheeled forward from dusk to midnight. The Shaman's Headdress crept up the sky. The battle raged on, torches blazing along the walls, the cries of the wounded muffled

by the throbbing ache in his temple where a bruise swelled. A child screamed, sobbing frantically.

"Let what we have woven come loose. •

Let each on our place hold the pattern.”

She sang their names, her voice unbearably beautiful as it echoed along the glittering threads of the spell.” Spits-last. Falling-down. Adica. Hehoyanah. Brightness-Hears-Me. Two Fingers. Shuashaana!"

It was midnight. The Dragon rose in the east, and in its wings rose Jedu, the Angel of War, near to the pale rose star of the ancient one, the Red Sage, known as Aturna. The Lady of Plenty, brilliant Mok, set in the west as the Penitent laid down his heavy burden, touching the horizon.

The Crown of Stars reached the zenith, high overhead, crowning the heavens. Below the earth, unseen, the sun reached nadir.

"Let the weaving be complete!" she cried, her voice joined to six others, resounding, triumphant.

Light flashed in her antlers and ripped through her like lightning.

"Adica!" he screamed, leaping forward, but the hounds knocked him flat or maybe it was the ground beneath his feet shaking and shuddering that threw him down before he could reach her. Light exploded before his eyes. A howl of fear rose from the throats of the Cursed Ones. Their attack faltered and they broke, running.

But it was too late.

Magic tore the world asunder.

Earthquakes ripple across the land, but what is seen on the surface is nothing compared to the devastation left in their wake underground. Caverns collapse into rubble. Tunnels slam shut like bellows snapped tight. The magnificent cities of the goblinkin, hidden from human sight and therefore unknown and disregarded, vanish in cave-ins so massive that the land above is irrevocably altered. Rivers of molten fire pour in to burn away what survives.

Fire boils up under the sea, washing a wave of destruction over the vast whorled city beneath the waves, home of the merfolk. Where once they danced and sang to rhythms born out of the tides, corpses bob on the swells and sharks feed. Survivors flee in terror, leaving everything behind, until the earth heaves again like a fish thrashing in its death throes. The sea floor rises. Water pours away into cracks riven in the earth, down and down and down, meeting molten fire and spilling steam hissing and spitting into every crevice until the backwash disgorges steam and sizzling water back into the sea.

The caves in which Horn's people have sheltered flood with steaming water. A storm of earth and debris buries Shu-Sha 's palace. Massive waves obliterate a string of peaceful villages along the shores of Falling-down's island. Children scream helplessly for their parents as they flail in the surging water.

White fire spears up into the dragons which, launching into the sky in alarm, have barely gotten into the air above the fjall where Spits-last and his kinsfolk stand in the midst of their stone loom, one old wisewoman by each stone and the crippled sorcerer in the middle. Screaming rage and pain, the dragons plunge, but before they can reach the safety of the earth their hearts burst. Blood and viscera rain down on the humans desperately and uselessly taking shelter against the stones. The hail of scalding blood burns flesh into stone, melding them into one being.

A tsunami of sand buries the oasis where the desert people have camped, trees simply flattened under the blast of the wind. The lion women race ahead of the storm wave but, in the end, they, too, are buried beneath a mountain of sand. Gales scatter the tents of the. Horse people, Winds so strong that what is not flattened outright is flung heavenward and tossed roughly back to earth, so much fragile chaff. All the trees for leagues around Queens' Grave erupt into flame, and White Deer villagers fall, dying, where arrows and war had spared them.

"Adica!" he cried hoarsely, straggling against the jaws of Rage and Sorrow as he fought forward to throw himself down beside her crumpled body.

She was already dead.

White fire exploded from the crest of the hill, slicing open the stone loom, and swallowed him.

SHE moved fast, grabbing the haft of Cat Mask's spear below the point. Just as he jerked back, startled, she found the memory of fire within the wood and called flame. With a shout of pain and surprise, he dropped the spear and jumped backward as she rose, holding the burning spear in her hand, thrust out to challenge them. It hissed and sparked, as bright as though she held lightning.

"I am not your enemy!" The warriors facing her backed away nervously as the haft of the spear burned into nothing yet left her skin unscathed. She caught the obsidian spear point as it fell and pricked her middle finger. Blood welled up.

"Child! Do nothing rash!" Eldest Uncle's shout came from the pine grove behind her.

She dared not turn to see him, not with fifty armed warriors staring her down. Masks closed their expressions to her; she saw proud hawks, fierce panthers, snarling bears, and biting lizards. Cloaks covered their shoulders, and while most of these short cloaks were woven of linen, a few had the look of skin, cured and cut. Some of the warriors displayed bare torsos but most wore short, heavily-quilted tunics marked by sigils: a feather, a reed, a knife, a skull. All wore tattoos along their arms or on their chins, ranging from simple lines to more complicated hatching, diamonds or dots faded to blue.

Cat Mask drew a flint knife and lunged toward her. She squeezed her finger and let blood fall. Where it struck the ground, ten serpents boiled up out of the earth, hissing and coiling. Cat Mask leaped back. Another drop of blood spattered, and a third and a fourth. Flowers swayed alarmingly as serpents slithered through them. Warriors shouted in fear and backed away. One bright-banded snake slid right over her foot, and she sprang up in dismay. Snakes seethed everywhere, coming to life among the flowers.

She unfurled her wings of flame and rose above the meadow, fire streaming off her.

That was enough for Cat Mask's war band. To a man, they broke and ran for the river.

She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked away the blood as she settled down at the edge of the pine wood, beside Eldest Uncle and a young-looking woman. The two Ashioi threw up hands to protect their faces from the hot wash of her wings, so she furled them, pulling them down inside, bound tight into her soul where they had, after all, resided all along.

"So," said Eldest Uncle, looking her up and down with a charming grin. He hadn't forgotten the pleasure of admiring a young woman's body.” You walked the spheres. You have found your answers, and your power."

"I have discovered the truth," she admitted, blushing as she remembered modesty. She didn't know where to place her hands. A glance toward the meadow showed the brilliant flowers still dancing drunkenly as the tangle of serpents raised by her blood worked their way outward through the dense growth. All her clothing lay out there, surrounded by snakes.

"So," said the woman standing beside Eldest Uncle as she, too, measured Liath, "I am not surprised at the attraction."

"Who is this?" asked Liath, looking her over, although truly it was difficult to stand confidently when she wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. The other woman, however, wore only a pale, skin skirt cut off raggedly at knee length. She had a powerful torso, with broad shoulders and full breasts. A double stripe of red paint ran from the back of either hand all the way up her arms to her shoulder, covered in one spot by a garment draped over her left forearm. A green feather stuck jauntily out of the topknot she had made of her hair, a match to her jade-green eyes. Her eyes, the cast of her face, seemed familiar.

"This one is my younger daughter, the child of my old age," said Eldest Uncle with a glint of anger in his expression as he glanced at his companion. He did not seem pleased to introduce her.” The-One-Who-Is-Impatient. Who has caused enough trouble!"

Old angers boiled below the surface as father and daughter looked at each other and, as with one thought, away. The woman shifted and the folded garment hanging over her arm spilled open.

"That's my tunic," cried Liath, "the one I left in the saddlebags, on Resuelto. Ai, God! It was you, standing at the river's edge and wearing my tunic, when I first walked the flower trail." She grabbed the cloth, shook it open and, without asking permission, slid into it. Properly clothed, she could speak without embarrassment.” Where did you get it?" "From my son."

The resemblance, once noted, became obvious.” Sanglant!" Was that the ground, shaking, or only emotion flooding her? "You're Sanglant's mother! Ai, God." The one who abandoned him when he was only an infant. She could not say those words; to face a woman who had done nothing different than she had herself left her speechless, and confused. She turned to the old sorcerer.” And you are my daughter's great grandfather, then?" "Ssa!" Eldest Uncle leaped forward and whacked his staff hard against the ground, crushing a serpent's head. Its body writhed, shuddered, and stilled.” I hate those things! Women never think before they take action! Blood! Sex! What do they care about consequences? Their wombs protect them. Their magic gives them power!" With a hiss, he smacked another serpent, hopped to one foot to avoid a third as more churned out of the meadow.” Quick! Climb a tree."

They scrambled up branches, hanging awkwardly as a score of snakes slithered off through the ground litter, vanishing into the pine woods. The old sorcerer's white cloak brushed the ground, but because of his precarious position he dared not pull it up. Each time a snake passed under it the white shell trim clacked softly, and the serpent would hiss and strike at the fluttering cloth before snaking hurriedly on.

Liath finally began to laugh at their ridiculous situation.” Are all the snakes poisonous?"

"Serpents are the creatures of women," the old man muttered, thoroughly cross by now if only because he was hanging by knees and hands from the branches, "so of course they are poisonous, just as women are poisonous to men. That is why women rule."

"That's not so! Both women and men can rule in the lands I grew up in, although it's true that inheritance is more reliable through the mother's line."

"Tss!" He hissed at a slender brown snake passing under his cloak. It reared up, hissing, then sank down and vanished into the undergrowth.” I will not be having this argument with you as well, Bright One. I have been arguing with my daughter for three days. What use for her to risk the dangerous journey to the land below a second time, only to return here to tell me that the men of the human tribes will not listen even to a woman's counsel!" "You have been to Earth? What of my husband?" "Sanglant is as stubborn as his father!" The Impatient One swung down from her perch and prodded the ground around her with a stick. Satisfied that the last of the serpents had escaped from the meadow, she relaxed, if in truth a woman of her temperament knew how to relax.” Henri—" She said the name as a Salian would.” —refused to believe my tale, nor would he believe his son. He will walk blindly into the trap laid for him by the human sorcerers." She spat on the ground.” I say, let him and his people suffer at the hands of the wicked ones. You claimed all along that there could be accommodation, my father, and I listened to you and acted to build a bridge—"

"Without anyone's permission! Without thinking it through! Rash actions lead to broken bridges!"

The way her lips tightened, pressed hard together, betrayed her anger, but she went on as though he hadn't spoken.” But now I no longer believe we can make peace if they will not listen in their turn. The old stories are true. Instead of wearing the masks of animals to borrow their power, humankind acts like animals in their hearts."

"Nay! Not that argument again! The gold feather of peace was given to me by a stranger. He was no animal. I gave it to this one in my turn, because she came to me for aid. Now she has returned, and even you must admit that she has come back to me in peace." "Perhaps you would rather that she be your daughter, than that I am!"