They were not awkward during the fighting.
Briaali was behind her.
It is you who have made them so.
Why should I make them awkward?
Briaali gave her a shrewd look.
Child, you cannot see yourself.
Magic flows so fierce in you that the ends of your hair, your shadow, the very
prints of your feet are alive with it.
Calwyn remembered Samis’s words:
I can hardly look at you …
There was a stone in her throat as she swallowed. She was alive, more than alive, and Mica was dead. Mica was dead. But those words, too, seemed empty and meaningless.
Briaali took Calwyn’s hand, and spoke to her alone.
In time,
child, you will be stronger yet. The power of the woman is greater than the
power of the maiden. Do you understand? The power of the mother is even
greater, and the power of the Elder is the greatest of all.
She smiled.
When
you are my age, you will be strong indeed.
Calwyn looked across to where Darrow struggled to his feet, waving Halasaa away with a crooked smile. He could still smile. If Darrow could not be healed, she would remain a maiden forever. She could never love anyone else.
Unbidden, the memory of Samis flashed into her mind, the taste of him on her lips, his hands on her body. She closed her eyes. Briaali patted her hand.
Come, child. You and I and your
brother must puzzle out the form of this great Dance together.We have much
work to do.
THE SISTERS GATHERED
in the great hall, murmuring with curiosity and nervous laughter. A handful of villagers had come up to the Dwellings, too: fewer than Calwyn had hoped. Perhaps there would be more tomorrow. The Tree People settled themselves around the walls to watch; most of the young warriors were among them. Keela had offered to be one of the teachers. ‘I don’t know anything about sorcery,’ she said. ‘But I do know how to dance.’
The priestesses of Antaris were not used to dancing. The villagers danced in their own festivals, after harvest, and at the coming of spring. But the priestesses did not join these celebrations of the seasons. All the sisters’ festivals were centred on the Goddess, and the turnings of the moons.
We
have been divided from the breathing of the land
, thought Calwyn, with a sudden flash of insight.
That is how we lost our way.
This great Dance of Becoming would bring together the rhythms of the moons with the turning of the seasons, the longest day, the shortest night. If the ritual worked, it would bring all the rhythms into harmony again.
Take off your shoes!
ordered Briaali.
Grip the ground with your bare
feet.
She threw off the grey burrower-skin cloak and stood before them bare-legged and bare-armed, a tiny, wiry figure with her feet planted on the floor.
I will show you a dance of the
women, the dance for a child’s birth. This will be the middle part of our great
Dance.
She nodded to the two Tree People crouched in the corner; one held a pipe to his lips, the other had his hands poised over a drum.
Begin, my brothers.
The Tree Women danced with their feet rooted to the ground. Their bodies rocked and undulated to the simple music, graceful and sensual.
Sway as the sea sways
, Briaali told the watching priestesses, her body rippling as easily as a candle flame. The sisters looked at one another in confusion; they had never seen the sea. Briaali shook her head.
Bend as the trees
bend in the wind.
None of the sisters had danced since they were little girls prancing by the fire. They knew how to use their voices, but not their bodies, except for work, and their movements were jerky and embarrassed.
‘Briaali said, be like the trees, but she didn’t mean you should be made of wood!’ called Keela, and everyone laughed.
With that laughter, the stiff, awkward bodies began to relax. ‘That’s better!’ Keela seized the hands of two of the village girls, who moved with more grace than the sisters, and shook them vigorously. ‘Shake out your hands, shake your legs, make them loose, loose! Yes, laugh, laugh at each other, laugh at yourselves,
enjoy
it!’
The movement begins in your knees!
called Briaali.
Let it flow up
through your thighs, into your hips and belly.
The dancers jiggled helplessly, laughing as they tried to copy Briaali’s smooth, curving movements. Keela swayed easily back and forth; but she could not remember to keep her feet still.
Then Halasaa showed them the dance that men performed when someone died: the wild, stamping dance of mourning, arms outspread like birds’ wings, flying as the spirit flew. This would be the beginning of their Dance, grieving for the dead year.
Then Halasaa and Briaali danced as men and women danced together at marriage rituals, a complex weaving of the two forms, planted and whirling. This would be the climax of the great Dance, and soon the hall was filled with earnest, thumping dancers trying not to collide with one another.
After that, it was the turn of theTree People to listen while Lia explained, as simply as she would explain it to the novices, how the breath of the Goddess breathed through the chanters as they sang Her songs. She told how the hand of the Goddess reached down from Her realm between the stars to touch the sacred valley, and intensify the power of magic there. If Calwyn was right, this was the power they would summon with their dance, wreathing the movement, the music and the magic of chantment together. Those who had been warriors listened passively. Briaali’s followers listened, and nodded, as if they were remembering something they had half-forgotten.
The villagers listened in wonder, and Calwyn realised with a jolt that the work of bringing chantment back to Tremaris had to begin here, in Antaris. She had always believed that here, at least, where chantment was revered and protected, there was no more work to be done. But outside the Dwellings, chantment was as mysterious and fearful as anywhere else in Tremaris. Calwyn went away from that first rehearsal with much to think about.
AFTER THE FIRST
day, Calwyn had missed some of the practice sessions. There were many wounded from the battle who still required healing, and Calwyn felt driven to use her gifts to help wherever she could, especially now Halasaa was needed to teach the dances.
But today Ursca had scolded her, and shooed her away. ‘Most of them will recover just as well with good clean bandaging, and herbal potions, and rest. But you’ll be no good to anyone if you’re tired out! Be off with you, go and visit your sweetheart. Day after day he lies there, biting off my head when I poke it around the door, because I’m not you!’
So she had gone to see Darrow. But though he tried to be cheerful, he was weaker than before. Mica’s death had been a terrible blow, and the snow-sickness was progressing rapidly. Calwyn was horrified to see that he could no longer hold a spoon, or comb his own hair, and his voice was very faint.
‘The preparations are going well? For the dance?’ he whispered.
‘Yes. Yes, very well,’ Calwyn replied mechanically.
‘I must be there… I insist…even if Tonno has to carry me into the valley.’
‘We could push you there in Lia’s chair, if you weren’t so heavy!’
He smiled at her feeble joke, and she tried to smile, too, but she felt as if the stone that was her heart was cracking in pieces as she sat there.
After a time, he whispered, ‘You must be careful, Calwyn, in the days to come. This new knowledge will bring great changes to Tremaris.’
‘I hope so,’ said Calwyn in puzzlement.Why else were they holding the Dance of Becoming, if not to bring change?
‘I don’t mean the Dance. I mean the Tenth Power. The Power of Signs will change our whole world, perhaps even more than the Dances of Becoming.’ Darrow broke off into a cough. He motioned to Calwyn to hold the cup of water to his lips, and went on in an urgent whisper. ‘Anyone can learn to master the Power of Signs, just as anyone can learn the Power of Tongue. But with this difference: when I speak to you, what I say flies into your memory, or onto the wind. Once you have forgotten my words, they’re gone forever.’
‘I’ve never forgotten your words,’ said Calwyn with a smile, but Darrow made an impatient gesture.
‘This is important, Calwyn! Listen. If I write a message with the Power of Signs, the message remains for others to read after you. Do you understand? If everyone had known how to read the signs, the message of theWheel would never have been lost.’
‘All Marna’s knowledge – lost when she died – could have been saved,’ said Calwyn slowly. ‘The Power of Signs shouldn’t be secret. Everyone should learn to read and write the Signs, so no more knowledge is lost. The chantments – we must write down the chantments – ’ A thought struck her. ‘Anyone who can read will be able to learn the chantments for themselves.They won’t have to come to Ravamey to be taught! The chantments will spread all over Tremaris, just as we’ve always dreamed.’
‘Not only the chantments.’ Darrow coughed again, and his voice was hoarse as he fought to speak. ‘Songs and stories, histories, messages, instructions…The recipe for Tonno’s honey potion…’
‘Tonno won’t like that,’ said Calwyn wryly. She tried to imagine how the world might be different. ‘You could write a message to Heben and Fenn in Merithuros,’ she said. ‘You could send it with any trader, you wouldn’t have to rely on Tonno or Trout or someone else you trusted to remember what you said.’
‘Yes,’ Darrow whispered. His eyes were almost closed. ‘Yes. I will do that. There are things I must tell them, before … ’
You are not going to die!
Calwyn said fiercely in mind-speech.
Do you hear me?
But Darrow had drifted into sleep. Calwyn stayed by his bed, breathing with the rise and fall of his breath. From the window she could see the stone walls of the vegetable gardens. Gilly and Mica had worked tirelessly, Lia said, to keep them clear from snow, coaxing new growth from the frozen ground. Mica had never given up. ‘A little longer,’ Lia said. ‘And they might have succeeded.’ But now the snow had drifted back again, nipping the fragile shoots as soon as they uncurled from the soil.
Calwyn stood there, staring, then she wandered away, past the rooms where the others with snow-sickness lay, hardly aware of where her feet were taking her.
After a time, she found herself in the gallery of the great hall, watching the dancing practice below. The sisters rocked back and forth, eyes closed, their hands dangling forgotten by their sides, or jerking awkwardly in the air. Someone twirled on the spot and almost knocked over her neighbour, and both of them collapsed in giggles.
Calwyn sank back in despair. It was hopeless.The chanters could not dance, the dancers could not sing. She herself was among the better dancers, but she knew that even she was clumsy, compared with Briaali and the Tree People.
She caught sight of Gilly, spinning wildly below. Her round face was flushed, and her yellow tunic billowed round her knees. Calwyn had seen her, sobbing and sniffling for Mica, with her apron over her head. Calwyn felt a surge of sudden rage. What right did Gilly have to mourn for Mica? She’d only known her two turns of the moons. That should have been Mica down there, not clumsy Gilly: Mica could have done this! Calwyn remembered how she had pirouetted on the ice in her fur cap.Why couldn’t it have been Gilly who stood in the way of that spear? Mica could sing and dance, she was beautiful and brave and loyal …
Calwyn covered her eyes with her hands, but even now she could not weep.
Down below, the dancing petered out. Briaali called for attention; everyone stood fidgeting while she demonstrated a rapid, shimmying movement of the legs. Calwyn watched dully as the sisters tried to copy her. No one, not even Keela, could do it properly. It was three days before the moons became full; she should have been excited, thrilling with hope. But instead she felt nothing but dreary despair.
On her way downstairs she ran into Trout. His eyes were red. ‘Why aren’t you in there, dancing?’ he asked.
‘Why aren’t you?’ Calwyn felt a kind of envy for his tears.
Trout shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. I’d only make a fool of myself. I never was much of a dancer. If Mica were here – ’
‘If Mica were here, she’d want you to help.’ She spoke more sharply than she’d intended; Trout winced as if she’d slapped him. Calwyn felt that everything she did was coming out wrong.
‘All right, all right,’ mumbled Trout. ‘I’ll go in.’ He turned away.
‘Trout, wait. Please.’ Calwyn held out her hand and, after a moment, Trout grasped it, crushing her fingers.
‘I’m sorry, Calwyn. I can’t – ’
‘Don’t. Don’t speak.Words are no good.’
Trout grimaced, trying not to weep, then abruptly he threw his arms around her in a fierce embrace. For a long time he clung to her, while Calwyn held him tight and pressed her face into his shoulder. But still she couldn’t cry.
CALWYN’S
NUMB HOPELESSNESS
persisted until the very evening of the great Dance. As Ursca had predicted, the long days among the wounded had left her very tired. ‘It’s lucky that Halasaa healed your broken back when he first came here,’ she said to Lia. ‘We might not have had a chance to help you, this time.’
‘I could have waited,’ said Lia. ‘I was in no pain.’ She smiled, and touched Calwyn’s hand. ‘But I am glad indeed that I will be able to dance in the ritual that heals the world.’
As Calwyn’s doubts deepened, everyone else had become more confident. In the last day or two, the Dwellings had buzzed with excitement. Calwyn wished she could share Lia’s certainty, but to her the Dance seemed nothing but folly. She had tried to sleep that afternoon, but without success, and her feet dragged as she walked the path to the sacred valley. If this didn’t work, what would they do?
The sisters, the Tree People and the villagers filed down into the valley, exchanging smiles and nods, touching one another on the shoulder. One of the novices earnestly twisted her hands in the air, showing a movement to a village woman. As was their custom when preparing for a ceremony, the priestesses did not speak; the only noise was the shuffle of feet and the crack of twigs underfoot.They carried no torches. All the moons were full, and the valley overflowed with light like a silver bowl. The frozen pool and the column of the waterfall were like black glass, and the blazetree, stripped of leaves, thrust its bare branches into the sky.