“As will I,” I told him stubbornly.
Silence fell between us, but he did not try to banish me.
As the thin gray light of winter poked its fingers in through the small cracks round the shuttered windows, he rose. A wakeful feeder started to stir, but he made an impatient gesture at the woman and she lay back on her pallet, obedient as a hound. Soldier’s Boy could walk quietly for such a massive man. He found an immense wrap, large as a blanket, draped it around his shoulders, and went outside to meet the day.
There had been snow and wind in the night, but the storm seemed to have blown itself away and the day was warming. The snow would not last. A light breeze still stirred the higher branches of the trees outside Lisana’s lodge. Drops of water fell in sudden disturbed spatters when the wind gusted. In the distance, a crow cawed and another answered him.
To my gaze, the area outside the lodge had changed. Soldier’s Boy gave it no attention, but I disliked it mightily. The placid dignity of the forest was gone. Winter had visited. A thin crust of icy snow clung to the tops of the low-growing bushes and frosted the moss in the untrodden areas. It lay only where it had drifted down between the higher branches, making an uneven pattern on the forest floor, a negative template of the canopy overhead. But amid that loveliness, paths had been worn through the moss and ferns, and branches broken back to permit easy passage down the trail to the stream. To either side of Lisana’s lodge other less sturdy lodges had been built. The newer shelters looked raw amid the ancient forest. As always happens near human habitation, the litter of occupation was in evidence here. The smell of wood smoke and cooking was in the air. Soldier’s Boy walked a short distance to an offal pit behind the lodges, relieved himself, and then made his way to the stream. Overhead, a squirrel scolded and then another. He paused and looked up to see what was disturbing them.
Something landed in the higher branches of the trees. Something heavy, for it disturbed a lot of raindrops, and as they fell, they disturbed others below them, resulting in a cascade of droplets to the forest floor. Soldier’s Boy stared up, trying to make out what it was. With a sinking heart, I was sure I already knew.
“Orandula. ” I spoke quietly in the back of his mind. “The old death god. The god of balances. ”
He had craned back his neck to peer up into the treetops. I saw a brief flash of black and white plumage through the branches. Another shower of drops fell as whatever it was shifted position. Soldier’s Boy dodged the falling water.
“Why is the god of death also the god of balances?”
“I don’t know why he’s the god of anything,” I replied sourly. “Don’t talk to him. ”
“I don’t intend to. ”
The god dropped abruptly from the trees. Wings wide, he landed heavily near the stream bank. He waddled toward the moving water, only a bird, and dipped his head on his long snaky neck to drink. Soldier’s Boy turned and walked back toward Lisana’s lodge. My heart misgave me.
I was not quite to the door of the lodge when the summoning came. I don’t know what I had expected it to be. I didn’t think it would be what it was, a simple impulse to stand a few moments longer in the early light of a winter day. The wind stirred the trees, a bird called, and the loosened raindrops pattered down. In response, I stepped sideways, hopped, turned, and came back to the path. It felt wonderful.
I heard something else then, something that was and was not a part of the ordinary sounds of the forest. It was a deep, soft rhythm. I could not perceive the source of it, but I found myself stepping easily to its beat. As its tempo increased, so did my pleasure in it. I had forgotten what a joy it was to dance. Or perhaps I had never before felt the joy of dancing. It didn’t matter. Had I thought my body large and ungainly? A foolish notion. None of that mattered. There was a dance inside me, making itself known to me. It was a dance that was made for me, or perhaps I had been made for the dance. It was a dance that I wanted to dance forever, to the end of my life.
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Around me, other dancers were emerging from the lodges. I scarcely noticed them. I was scarcely aware that I shared a body with Soldier’s Boy. Did he move the feet or did I? It did not matter. I was caught up in my dance, and how fine it was to be dancing on such a wonderful morning. I swayed, I turned, and I had taken a dozen steps down the path when I heard an agonized call from behind me.
“No! No! Do not give in to it. Refuse the dance! Do not go to Kinrove’s dance. Refuse. Still your body, plant your feet on the earth. Do not enter the dance!”
Her words were an icy shower down my back. Soldier’s Boy jerked and twitched and then, by a great effort of will, broke free of the dance. He did as she had told him. He planted my feet on the earth and willed my body to stillness. It was more difficult than it sounds. The dance shimmered around me. It told me that I danced even when I did not. My breath was the dance, my beating heart was the dance, the morning wind was the dance, even the stray raindrops that tapped down on my face were the dance. The summoning spoke so sweetly; it was all I needed, it said, all I had ever wanted to do. Had not I longed for a simpler life, a life free of worries and tasks? All I had to do was come, come to the dance.
I do not know how Soldier’s Boy resisted. I could not. I wanted to dance, but he leaned forward, over my belly, his hands on my thighs, and stared at my feet, commanding them to be still. I heard Olikea still shouting. Someone rushed past me, capering in wild joy. Another went less willingly, shouting angrily, but dancing away all the same. Distantly I was aware of the croaker bird cawing. It was an avian laughter, and as the bird flew off, it faded into the distance until it sounded like a man chortling. Or choking.
For most of that morning, the dance tugged at me. I had never guessed that the summoning was so insistent or that it lasted so long. Some who had held firm against it at first gave way to it later in the morning, and went cavorting down the path. Olikea continued to shout her warning at intervals. Soldier’s Boy spared her a glance once, to see that she had actually lashed herself to a tree and clung to it as she shouted.
I had known summer days on the prairie when the chirring of insects was a constant, morn to night, so that after a time one could not hear them. Then, abruptly, they cease, and one remembers what silence truly is.
It was like that when the summoning stopped. For a long moment, not just my ears, but my lungs and belly felt abruptly empty. Soldier’s Boy staggered where he stood, and groaned as my legs tingled and burned from my long inactivity. He straightened up. His head spun for a few long moments, and I feared that he would fall. He took deep steadying breaths and suddenly the world was solid again. I knew that he was completely back to himself when the first hunger pang assailed me. It was nearly noon, and Soldier’s Boy had neither eaten nor drunk since the night before. “Olikea!” he called, desperate for his feeder.
She didn’t answer. Soldier’s Boy looked around me, more cognizant now. Several of his feeders sprawled on the earth where they had fallen. Resisting the summons had taken all their strength. Olikea, still bound to the tree, sagged against her bonds, weeping. She gripped the trunk of the tree as a child would cling to its mother. “No,” she was sobbing. “No, no, no. Not again. Not again!”
Soldier’s Boy went to her as quickly as he could manage. It was startling to me to find out how weak he could feel after a single morning’s fast. Obviously my body had changed in many ways under Soldier’s Boy’s ownership. His hands were gentle as he set them on her shoulders, kinder far than he had been the night before. “It’s all right, Olikea. I’m here. I didn’t give in to the dance. ”
She let go of the tree only to clasp her hands over her mouth. She rocked back and forth in agony. “Likari!” she managed to say at last. “Likari has gone! I tried to catch him but he tore himself free of me and danced away. And I, I could not unfasten the knots. A great bird followed him, squawking and cawing, as if it, too, must answer the summons. Oh, Likari,
Likari, why did not I bind you last night? I did not think the summons would come so soon. Always, I have heard that the feeders were not called. I thought we were safe. Oh, Likari, I thought you were safe! Being a feeder is supposed to make one safe from the summons to dance!”
Soldier’s Boy was struck dumb with horror, as was I. A terrible hollowing began inside us, a dawning of loss that emptied us both and then filled that gap with guilt. Likari, my little feeder, snatched away from me by the very summons Soldier’s Boy had urged. And the bird that had followed him? Orandula, the god of balances, keeping his promise or his threat. Was he taking Likari’s life or his death to pay my debt? The result was the same, whichever he called it. The boy was gone from us. What a fool Soldier’s Boy had been!
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Dasie had warned him. Even without Dasie, Olikea’s story of her mother’s snatching should have been enough to make him see the danger. He had not only permitted Kinrove to send this summoning against his own kin group, he had encouraged, no, demanded it. He looked around at the other feeders who were only now rising from the ground. Soldier’s Boy knew them by name. Four were gone: Eldi, Hurstan, Nofore, and Ebt. How many others had been stolen from our kin-clan? How many others mourned as Olikea mourned now? As he mourned now?
Olikea had collapsed against her bonds. She had used a long wrap to tie herself, something that she had snatched up as she left the lodge that morning. It was woven of very soft yarn, and she had pulled and strained against it until the knot had become a single solid ball of fiber. Soldier’s Boy could not get it undone any more than she could.
“Someone bring a knife!” he shouted over my shoulder, unreasonably angered that no one had already done so. He tried to care that the other feeders were probably as disoriented and perhaps devastated as we were. He couldn’t. Likari was gone and it was his own fault. “I’ll follow him. I’ll bring him back,” Soldier’s Boy promised her limp form. Olikea had sagged down as far as the ties permitted her to, and now was staring off into the distance, her face slack. “Olikea. Listen to me. I’ll go after him, I’ll bring him back. It will be all right. By tonight, he’ll be back at the hearth with us. ”
Sempayli came and with a bronze blade sawed through the stubborn fabric. Soldier’s Boy was glad to see this feeder remained to him. When the fabric parted, Olikea’s weight carried her down to sprawl on the ground. She didn’t move. “Carry her back into the lodge,” he commanded Sempayli, and the man scooped her up as if she weighed nothing. Soldier’s Boy followed them in and watched as Sempayli put her on my bed. “Sempayli, food and water,” he commanded his man tersely and then sat down beside Olikea’s still form.
“Olikea. Did you hear what I said?”
Only her mouth moved. It was as if the rest of her face were dead. “You can’t bring him back. He went to the dance. He ran to it, he wanted to go. You can’t get him back. He’ll dance himself to death before the winter is out. Didn’t you see his face, didn’t you see the magic burning inside him like a torch? It will consume him from within. Likari. Likari. ”
Soldier’s Boy said the stupid words, the same ones I would have said in his place. “But I didn’t think you even cared for him that much. ”
She suddenly became even more still. I thought for a moment that his words had killed her. Then her face hardened. She pushed against the bed, sitting up. “What good is it to love anything?” she asked me harshly. “It just goes away. ”
He stared at her. Soldier’s Boy was as thunderstruck as I was. Always, I had thought her cold toward her son. We had shared the knowledge that her fondness was only an attraction to the power of a Great Man. She’d seemed a heartless woman, one Soldier’s Boy could deal with only by being as detached as she was. Now she was revealed as broken; she had been broken for a long time. The brokenness was what had made her prickly and harsh.
Soldier’s Boy stood up and spoke sharply to his other feeders. “Bring me food to eat now. And warm clothes and sturdy boots. I’m going after Likari. ”
None of them moved. Their eyes shifted, each to another, but no one spoke or sprang to their tasks. “What is it?” Soldier’s Boy demanded sharply.
Sempayli was stirring a pot over the fire. Even he did not turn at Soldier’s Boy’s command.
“They know it is useless. Just as I do. You say you are one of us, you have even marked yourself as one of us, but on these deep things you still think like a Jhernian. You still talk like a Jhernian. ”
It was the last thing Soldier’s Boy wanted to hear right now. I felt the rage rise in him that Olikea could insult him so. Then, with admirable control, he forced the rage down and in a controlled voice asked, “Then tell me clearly what it is that I don’t understand. ”
“He won’t want to come back. ”
“I’ll talk to him. ”
“He won’t hear you. You were there, when Dasie came to Kinrove’s encampment. Why do you think she came with warriors and cold iron? Don’t you understand that until she broke Kinrove’s dance, none of the dancers would have wanted to leave? Even after she had broken it and the dancers had come to their senses, even then some preferred to stay. Didn’t you feel the entrancement of the dance? If I had not shouted to you, if you had given in to it, you would still feel the dance running through you. ”
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“But I did hear you shout. And when you shouted, I knew that in my heart, I didn’t want to go. ”
“And that means that the magic was not summoning you to the dance, but only inviting you. And so you could say no. But Likari was summoned. He went because he had to, and so he wanted to go, because once the dance had touched him, he could think of nothing else. Don’t you think that others have tried to keep those they loved from the dance? They have run after them, and carried them back and tied them. It did no good. Still they danced, and they heard nothing from their lovers or their children, and they saw nothing and they would not eat and they would not sleep until they were released to go to the dance. ”
Tears had started fresh down her cheeks before she was halfway through her speech. They continued to run as she spoke, and her voice hoarsened. On her last words, her throat choked her to stillness. She stood, silent and empty. Even the tears slowed and then ceased, as if nothing were left inside her.
“I will go to Kinrove and tell him he must release Likari to me. ”
“I thought you might feel that way. ”
Soldier’s Boy knew who was there before he turned. He had felt the unpleasant tingle of iron against my senses. I knew an iron bearer must be somewhere close, perhaps just outside Lisana’s lodge. Dasie stood in the doorway, a dour look on her face. Yet just for an instant, I thought I glimpsed a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Rage rose in Soldier’s Boy, and again he forced it down. He tried for a reasonable tone. “I did not expect that Kinrove would call my feeders with his summoning. ”
She raised her eyebrows. “I, too, am surprised at that. But perhaps we should not be. You have not given him many reasons to love you. Perhaps he considered it a sort of justice, to take from you what you had not expected to lose in this gamble. ”
“Gamble?”
“Our war against the intruders. ” She came into the lodge and advanced to my chair by the hearth. With a grunt of satisfaction, she ensconced herself, uninvited. Her feeders remained standing at the door. Outside, her iron bearer waited. Had she expected Soldier’s Boy to be angry enough that she needed a guard?
“I want the boy back. ” Soldier’s Boy spoke bluntly.
Dasie laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh; rather, it was the laugh of someone who sees a child finally realize the consequences of his own foolishness. “Don’t you think we all wanted those we loved back? Well, at least you have the power to get him back. ”
“You mean, if I go to Kinrove, he’ll give him up?”
“Oh, I very much doubt that. ” She motioned irritably at my feeders,
and, with the exception of Olikea, it was as if they wakened from a spell. They sprang into motion, adding wood to the fire and beginning the preparation of food. She settled more comfortably in my chair. “As I said, you’ve given him no reason to love you. Perhaps taking something you cared about from you brought him a special satisfaction. I think perhaps you know that he has no children. Seeing you enjoy that young boy as if he were your own—well. Perhaps he thought you deserved to feel the same lack that he does. ”
“You knew he would call Likari. ”
She cocked her head at me. “I suspected he would try. I had no idea if the boy would be vulnerable or not. ”
“You chose not to warn me. ” Soldier’s Boy stated it flatly and waited for her response.
“That is correct. ” My feeders brought her a platter of food. She looked it over consideringly and picked up a slice of smoked fish. A similar platter was conveyed to me. Soldier’s Boy ignored it, awaiting her response. It finally came, after she had licked her fingers.
“I thought perhaps you should have a higher stake in stopping the dance. And in driving the intruders from our territory. ”
“You don’t trust me,” Soldier’s Boy said bluntly. “Likari is a hostage. If I don’t do as you say, you’ll see that he dies. ”
She ate another slice of the fish with evident relish. “Now there’s a Jhernian concept. A hostage. Yes, you could see it that way. But it isn’t that you must do what I say. Only that you must succeed in doing what you said you’d do. What you have always been meant to do. If you succeed in driving the intruders away, Kinrove’s dance will no longer be needed. The boy will come back to you. But if you do not—” She picked at the fish, and then took a handful of nuts instead. She seemed to feel no need to finish her sentence.
It had been a hard morning. Soldier’s Boy was hungry and the food at my elbow smelled wonderful. He hated that he could even think of eating at a moment like this, and yet my body clamored at him relentlessly. He refused to look at the platter but could not stop smelling the tempting aromas. The magic nagged to be fed. Soldier’s Boy saw Dasie’s gaze move from my face to the platter and back again. She knew. She knew how he resisted the food and it amused her.