“It was my joy to do that,” he replied.
“We won the battle. Others fought on our side, with us.” I told him of Embry and his soldiers, and the Hena warriors who had joined him four months ago. “The armies are ready to gather,” I said, “though Mudiwar still will not believe in the Eagle’s Time.”
Sheel Chandra said, very softly, “Forces are indeed gathering, Avala, and the time is nearer than you think. But what else is on your heart?”
“A slave,” I said. Briefly, I told him of Chetobuh, finishing, “I must walk in his memories, and heal his mind.” I stopped, unwilling to ask the favor I had come for.
But he knew it anyway, and said, “I will shield you while you do it, my dear. It is wise of you to seek my help, for it is very hard to heal the memories of someone so tortured. When you walk in his memories you will carry a white light, and that will protect your heart and mind, and ease his.”
“But you are already tired, Master.”
“Even as we speak, Taliesin is on his way here, and he will help me. All will be well, dear one. Go in peace. Your hour is come.”
Though I was mystified by his final words, a great peace went through me. I stood, and bent, and kissed his cheek. His pillow smelled of lavender, and his silver hair spread out upon it was silken soft. “Thank you, with sharleema,” I said. “I love you, Grandfather.”
Then I felt myself drawn away, called through utter darkness; I felt the coldness of stone, of mountain air, and heard the wild night winds howling across the plains. Then there was a softness of leather, a warmth, and the scent of my healing tent with its herbs and ointments. Out of the dimness, I saw the white bindings about the slave Chetobuh. He was asleep.
I took a deep breath and said a prayer. Then I bent my forehead to his.
When I raised my head from Chetobuh’s, the birds were singing outside, and it was morning. During the healing, not knowing where he was, he had tried at times to sit up, to flee, and I had held him in my arms and rocked him, as one would rock a distressed child, and that was the way we still were. He was asleep again now, but I was trembling, weary after the long, appalling journey through his mind. I felt I had lived a whole lifetime in one night and seen horrors enough to last for many lifetimes.
Waking, Chetobuh tried to speak, but the sounds were unintelligible, rough and guttural in his throat. “Hush, hush,” I said, kissing his brow. “All is well, now. You are home. I am Avala, healer from the Shinali. Your father is just outside, waiting to see you. Ramakoda is here, and Ishtok, and your sister, Chimaki. They all are well. Chro is here, hurt from a recent battle, but alive. Navoran soldiers sided with us in the fight, and are good people. You are safe.”
He sobbed, and I rocked him, weeping with him, feeling the blood seeping through the bindings on his back. I would have laid him down, but he shook his head and clung to me like a child. A long time I simply held him, healing him, loving him. Never had I seen a human being so broken. In his great anguish he seemed to hold all the pain of every slave ever taken captive. In him, through him, I had seen the worst that the Navoran Empire could do; and it seemed to me that in his brokenness lay the suffering of us all. And so I held him and wept—for him, for every slave in Navora, every slave in Navoran mines, on Navoran roads, in Navoran ships. And as I wept a rage rose in me, white-hot and overwhelming, a rage that could not be ignored, or left unsatisfied; and I laid Chetobuh down, and in that rage I went out and looked for Mudiwar.
The funerals were over, the skies clear of smoke and the ugly birds. The place seemed almost normal. Mudiwar was on a feasting-mat, and his family was with him, with Embry and his officers, and the Hena warriors. Hardly able to breathe for the huge things that were in my soul, I went to them. Seeing my face, they fell silent. Mudiwar put down his knife. There was utter quiet. I remained standing, a little way in front of Mudiwar’s mat.
“He is well?” Mudiwar asked. “My son, all is well with him?”
“He is alive,” I said. “His scars will mend, maybe even his mind. But all is not well with him. All is not well with any of us—not with you, not with the Navorans, not with the Shinali, not with the Hena.” My voice rose, I hardly knew what I was saying. I was crying, overwrought, consumed with rage and an overwhelming desire for justice. Mudiwar tried to stand, began to warn me to keep my voice down, to control myself, but Ramakoda put his hand on his arm. I spoke on, and even the children were quiet, listening.
“Nothing is well in this land,” I said. “You think you are free, Mudiwar. You think your people are free. But how can you be free while a man like Chetobuh lives, and suffers what he has suffered? All night I have walked in his memories, seen things I had not imagined human beings could do to one another—things too terrible to think on, to talk of. Things Chetobuh has lived through and survived. Through him, I’ve seen them.
“I’ve seen slaves carrying stones to build a Navoran road, one of them a woman in childbirth. She was whipped, forced to continue working even while the child was coming out of her. Even then she was beaten, forced to abandon her newborn, to see it trampled on the road. I’ve seen children strung up and burned alive, as punishment to their parents for angering the Emperor. I’ve seen how rich Navorans in Jaganath’s palace used little children, and then had their broken bodies thrown on the fire pits outside the city, even before they were dead. I’ve seen women who have been raped, beaten, humiliated, over and over again, as prizes to the soldiers who had gone on raids. I’ve seen slaves punished for the smallest errors, because they could not understand the Navoran commands shouted at them. I’ve seen a man skinned alive because he dropped a knife while serving the Emperor Jaganath. I’ve seen slaves stripped naked and made to crawl through the drains under the city, to clean them out, to break the ice in them in wintertime. I’ve seen slaves chained down, their eyes gouged out, or their tongues dragged out with iron prongs and sliced off, because they saw things they should not have seen, or protested, or spoke up for one another. I’ve seen how any who attempted escape were spiked out on the ground and left alive for the birds and wild dogs to finish. I’ve seen—”
“Stop!” cried Mudiwar, covering his face with his hands. He was leaning over, his head almost to the ground, distraught.
“No, I will not stop!” I cried. “Because I haven’t just seen slaves, strangers unknown to us, whose plight might distress us for a day, and then be forgotten. They are your people, Mudiwar—your people! Your sons, your kinsfolk, your tribe, the ones you are responsible for, to whom you are protector and chieftain and father. They are the kinsfolk of the Hena. They are our dear ones, precious and beloved.
“And you say, Mudiwar, that it doesn’t matter if a few of your people are enslaved—that so long as most of them are free, you consider yourself a good chieftain, a good protector. Yet are you? Are you truly a chieftain to those enslaved? Who else can they call to for rescue, if not to you? What hope have they, if they have no hope in you? If even their own chieftain doesn’t care about them, who else will?
“You say you won’t march on Navora, because your people are already free. I say that while one slave, one Igaal slave, remains suffering and broken in Navora, not one of us is free. And while one slave cries for his chieftain to come and rescue him, and that chieftain does not, then I say that chieftain is not worthy of his place.”
I stopped, breathing hard. There was total quiet in the camp. Mudiwar’s face was gray, and he was staring at me with an expression I could not read. I said, more quietly, my anger spent, “You may come and visit your son when you wish.”
I turned and began walking back to my healing tent.
“Avala!” It was Mudiwar calling me.
I turned back. He was struggling to stand, Ishtok on one side of him, Ramakoda on the other. “Come here, before me!” commanded Mudiwar.
I obeyed. People parted to let me through. We were the only ones standing, the chieftain and his two sons, and I. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Embry sitting nearby, his blu
e sashes blowing in the wind. One of the Hena warriors, who knew a little Navoran, was interpreting my words to him. Suddenly I felt ashamed of my outburst, and more than ashamed, for surely now I had lost all standing with the tribe, and committed a heinous offense.
Mudiwar stood up very straight and signed to Ramakoda and Ishtok to stand aside. Proud, erect, Mudiwar said, “You raised your voice to me, Shinali slave. Worse—you say I am not worthy of my place.”
I opened my mouth to ask for his forgiveness, but he raised his hand, stopping me.
“You say I am not worthy,” he repeated, “while one Igaal slave calls to me for help and I do not go. Yesterday if you had said these words to me, I would have had you punished, for it is a high crime for a woman to insult her chieftain. But today you say those words, and my son Chetobuh says them through every wound he bears, and I must listen.
“A long time ago, Avala, you first spoke to me of the Time of the Eagle. Yesterday our friend Embry also spoke of that time. Our Hena friends speak of it. It is time I, too, listened to the call of your prophecy, to the call for freedom and right.”
He stopped a moment or two, and we all were silent, waiting. My heart hammered, and I could hardly breathe, for suspense and hope.
Mudiwar said, speaking quiet but clear: “And so I will join with the Shinali and with the Hena and with Embry and his men. I will fight in this mad Time of the Eagle. But I will not fight so that the Navorans will be rid of a tyrant. I will not fight so that the Shinali get back their bit of land. I will not fight even for the Hena, though a tribe of them I honor. I will fight because I am chieftain, and my people are wronged. I will fight to free my people who are slaves.”
25
For a heartbeat there was silence. Then everyone was jumping up, cheering, laughing, dancing, hooting wild war cries, jubilant. People hugged one another, trampling the remains of the feast, Igaal and Hena warriors and Navoran soldiers all embracing like old comrades. Mudiwar’s sons were hugging him, almost knocking him over, and Ramakoda was kissing the old man’s balding head, fierce and smiling and triumphant. Then Ishtok was hugging me, laughing, crying, saying something I could not hear for the clamor. And all the time amid that mighty tumult I thought, with astonishment, almost with disbelief, It is come! The Time of the Eagle is come! Then joy-wildness swept over me, overwhelming and glorious, and I thought of my mother, of Yeshi, of old Zalidas and all my people, their time come at last. I thought of the ones I loved at Ravinath, and lifted the amulet from Sheel Chandra and pressed it to my brow, and knew that he would know.
Then quietness fell, and I realized that old Mudiwar was standing with his arms raised and that he wished to speak. Pushing aside the trampled baskets and dishes, we sat down again. Mudiwar too sat, very erect and dignified.
He said to me, “Avala, tell my words to the man Embry and his soldiers, for this is talk of war, and must be clear to all.”
So I interpreted, and the words he said rang like a summons.
“I say we need to march soon,” Mudiwar said. “Before the Emperor in the stone city gathers his army together against us and Embry’s army, we need to move. While our hearts burn, and while my son Chetobuh’s wounds are still fresh to goad us to act, we must move. Before the next full moon, we must move.”
A cheer went up, but Embry lifted his hand, wishing to speak. “I honor your words, chieftain,” he said. “But it will take time to gather up the tribes. It will take maybe until the middle of summer. There is much to be prepared for. And the Shinali, too, must be called to arms.”
“Within three days,” said Mudiwar, “I can have all the Igaal tribes gathered together. My pledge-son, Ishtok, can ride to the marshlands with these Hena kin of his, and they can gather up their tribes. In four days we can be ready with an army of twenty times a thousand warriors, ready for battle. Is that soon enough for you?”
“How can you call all the Igaal tribes together so soon?” asked Embry. “They are scattered over hundreds of miles.”
“There is a plain in the middle of all the Igaal lands,” said Mudiwar. “It is where we meet for the Gathering of all our people, at the beginning of every other spring. On that plain where we meet is a dead forest, many trees very tall and tinder dry. Long have we had a plan, that if ever the need arose for all the tribes to gather urgently, that forest would be set on fire, and make a great beacon-light that can be seen from all our lands, and that will draw every tribe swiftly to it. That dead forest is but a morning’s ride from here.”
“That is well and fine,” said Embry, “but even the Lord Jaganath, with all his powers, cannot find the Shinali. Even if I sent out fifty scouts, it may take all summer to find them.”
“I can find them by day’s end,” I said, and could not help smiling at the look on Embry’s face. His soldiers talked quietly among themselves, and there were a few chuckles.
“I will vouch for her powers,” said Mudiwar, “for she found us, after being away from us for more than a year, and only the gods could have told her where we were.”
Embry said something to one of the Navoran soldiers, a big red-haired man with a wild beard and a nose like a hawk, and for a few moments they talked quietly together. Then Embry said, “It seems that you are right, Mudiwar, and we can indeed march within the next few days. But we must work out a battle plan, and choose a leader whom all—Shinali, Hena, Igaal, and Navoran—will follow. There must be total unity among us. But first we need to know where the Shinali are. Even leaving tonight, it may take many days to bring them to us, and to tell them the plan. I hope they will be ready.”
Suddenly the children on the edge of the camp began to shout, and people started running. There were calls for Embry, and some of the Igaal men came running from the tents with their bows. We had visitors. Looking along the riverbank toward the gorge, I saw one of Jaganath’s soldiers riding in, slowly, with a small group of Igaal captives walking beside him. The Igaal people walked free, and before long they were running, and the soldier did not prevent them. People ran out toward them, and there were hugs and glad cries.
Embry went out to meet the soldier, and they talked on the edge of the camp. We saw the man draw his sword, and several Igaal arrows were aimed at him. But he placed the sword on the ground and knelt down, with his hands folded on his brow. When he stood, he and Embry shook hands in the Navoran way, and embraced, and Embry gave him back his sword. The man got on his horse and rode away through the gorge again, and Embry came back to us. He was smiling broadly, and there was a lightness in his step. He came back to the council mat and said to Mudiwar, while I translated, “Those soldiers who fought us yesterday, they wish to come back and join us. Every one of them.”
Mudiwar gnawed on his lower lip, and looked suspicious. “How can we trust them?” he asked.
“Their commander—the man I just spoke to—was my friend when I was still in Jaganath’s army,” Embry said. “His name is Oren. He would have joined me then, but his wife was very ill and he did not want to leave the city. She died in the winter. He’s a fine soldier and a great leader, and his men are loyal to him—more loyal to him than to Jaganath. They are ready to surrender to me and my army, and to fight beside us all in the Time of the Eagle.”
“You trust him, this Oren friend of yours?” asked Mudiwar.
“I’d trust him with my life,” replied Embry.
“Would you trust him with the lives of my tribe, my children?” asked Mudiwar, still unsure.
Embry smiled. “Oren was obeying orders yesterday. Now he returns the Igaal captives he took, unharmed. If we accept him and his men, we have on our side almost six hundred more Navoran fighters. There are other advantages. Oren and his battalion were not sent to this valley; they were on their way north to seek out tribes for slaves, when they saw the entrance to the gorge. On a chance, one of the soldiers was sent to investigate. He spied your people, and so the slaves were taken from this tribe. Jaganath does not know that we are here. So far as he knows, his raiding party
is still riding north. If you accept the surrender of these soldiers, your camp here remains secret. I trust my friend, Mudiwar. There is no treachery in him. But your caution is understood, and if you wish, your warriors may search the soldiers and keep all their weapons, while they are in your camp.”
“They may join us, on that condition,” said Mudiwar.
For the rest of the day our camp was in chaos, but in a good way. Although the soldiers surrendered all their weapons, even their small eating knives, old Mudiwar was still deeply suspicious. However, I talked with Embry’s friend, Oren, and saw the colors of his soul about him, strong and true, full of courage and a hunger for justice. I saw the same colors in his men, and sensed the liberty they felt, to be out from under the yoke of Jaganath. I recalled things told to me in Ravinath, how many Navorans would welcome the Time of the Eagle and the new life it would bring, and saw the evidence of that hope in these soldiers. From my talks with them, I discovered that not one of them had volunteered for the army, and many had been told that, if they refused to fight in Jaganath’s name, family members would disappear, or homes would be confiscated, or sons imprisoned on false charges. “Life was always hard under Jaganath’s rule,” one old soldier told me, “but after the bulai fever hit the city last summer, killing thousands, it’s worse than ever. Over the winter there were food and fuel shortages, and the city’s water system was contaminated. People starved and died of disease, while at night the palace lights burned and there was music, and Jaganath and his lords feasted. People are at the breaking point. There have always been rumors of the Time of the Eagle, and people whispered of it with dread; but now they are in the temple every day, praying for it.”
That afternoon I went to Mudiwar’s tent, got the map I had made at Ravinath, and walked along the lake shore toward the gorge, where, undisturbed, I could seek out my people. At times I walked on ground stained by blood, and every now and again passed a garment torn off in battle, or a bloodstained shoe, or a broken arrow. Strange feelings went through me—a huge, immeasurable joy, that the Time of the Eagle had come, and that all the nations were so ready for it; but I also felt a deep apprehension over the looming battle that would end all battles. I had tasted war now—had seen it and smelled it and heard it and been in the midst of it—and was more certain than ever that I did not want to fight, but only to heal afterward. Yet how could my people go to war this last momentous time, and I not be with them?