The Warrior's Path

  "I hardly remember the woman who gave me birth. And I never disowned the mother you speak of. It was she who disowned me."

  I felt as if I were skirting the edges of a bog, where one false step might tip me into it.

  "She did not," I said.

  Maara looked away from me, but not before I saw the tears shining in her eyes.

  "She's here," I whispered.

  And at that moment, I could feel the Mother all around me, as I had felt her by the river, as I had felt her holding me while I lay in Sparrow's arms. I felt the Mother's love as I had felt the love of my own human mother all my life, but Maara could not feel it. She looked at me with the eyes of an abandoned child.

  Something occurred to me then that frightened me. "Were you here last night too?"

  She nodded.

  I thought I knew the answer, but I asked her anyway, "Was no one with you?"

  She shook her head. "No one."

  In a way I was relieved to hear it. At the back of my mind was still a gnawing fear of Laris and her intentions. Maara's words put that fear to rest for the moment. At the same time I found another reason to fear for her. What must that night have been like for her? On a night meant for lovers, she had been alone. She should have stayed at home, safe with the other warriors in Merin's house. Instead she had been in this powerful place, unshielded in the magical night.

  "Why did you come here?" I asked her.

  "I don't remember," she said. "I don't remember coming here."

  "Perhaps the Mother called you here."

  Anger flashed in Maara's eyes. "She lied to me."

  "What do you mean? Did you see her? Did she speak to you?"

  "She lied," she said again. "I thought this time I could trust her, but she lied to me."

  "What did she say?"

  "Not a word." Maara gripped my arm. "She doesn't love her children. She uses them. Then she devours them."

  How could Maara fail to feel the love that I still felt all around me?

  "Sometimes she uses us," I told her, "and someday she will devour us all and give birth to us again, but not yet. She hasn't taken you yet."

  But as I looked into Maara's eyes, I feared I might be wrong. The woman before me was no longer the woman I knew. Something had been taken from her. Not her life -- not yet -- but it seemed as if a door had opened and some part of her spirit had fled. Fled from what?

  I tried to understand what could have happened to her in the grove. The night of the spring festival is a joyous and a perilous time. It is a time, more than any other, when the Mother makes use of us for her own purposes. That night I had been with someone who loved me, and I had needed Sparrow then. It was she who carried me into the heart of life and laid me in the Mother's arms. It was she who called me back again.

  Perhaps the Mother opened Maara too that night, but no one had been there to meet her spirit, to fill the emptiness within her, to ease that terrible loneliness. No one had been there to call her back. To me, the Mother's arms had felt like home. To Maara, they must have felt like death.

  I reached out to touch her. She stood up so suddenly that I toppled over backwards onto the ground. She strode out of the grove, and I scrambled to my feet and followed her. When I caught up to her, she was standing out on the open hillside, breathing hard.

  She gazed up at the sky. Moonlight fell across her face. Sparrow's words ran through my mind. They wonder if she's not out dancing to the moon. She looked fey enough to do almost anything.

  I took her hand. She turned and looked at me as if she'd forgotten I was there. I led her like a child farther away from the grove. I made her sit down in the grass on the hillside and sat close beside her.

  I had no idea what to do for her. Namet would know what to do, but I was afraid that if I left her to go fetch Namet, she might wander off or fall into the river or find some other place of power that would steal her soul.

  Then I remembered how she had sung to me on the night when I first set foot upon the warrior's path. I began to hum a simple tune from my childhood. Bit by bit the words came back to me, and as they did, I sang them. It was a lullaby.

  Maara lay back in the grass and stared unblinking at the sky. She didn't seem aware of me at all. Still I held her hand in both of mine and sang. After a while, she pulled away from me and turned over. She cradled her head on her arm, as if to sleep, but her spirit was restless, although her body was exhausted.

  I lay down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. She quieted a little. I stroked her back and felt her body yield to sleep. She moved in her sleep, visited by unquiet dreams.

  Even while she slept, I sang to her restless heart.

  I was beginning to doze. Suddenly she sat up and turned to face me.

  "You left me," she said.

  I struggled to sit up. What could she mean?

  "You left me," she said again. "You left me to die."

  "What?"

  "They couldn't have killed everyone. How could they have killed so many? Yet no one came for me."

  Then I understood. She was talking to her mother.

  "I would never have left you," I said. "If I had lived, I would have come back for you. I would have looked for you. I would never have stopped looking for you."

  She stared at me with haunted eyes. Then she covered her face with her hands. I held myself very still. We were not quite in this world and not quite in the other, and I feared to upset such a precarious balance.

  When at last she looked at me again, in her eyes I saw the unmet need of long ago. I knelt beside her and took her into my arms. I rocked her and whispered to her a mother's words of love and comfort.

  "No," she said. She pushed me away. "It's too late for that."

  She stood up and strode away from me down the hill. It was all I could do to keep up with her.

  "Where are you going?" I asked her.

  She didn't stop or answer me. When she reached the path by the river, she turned north to follow the trail we had taken so often together through the snow. We walked for a long time. I began to worry that she might never stop, that we might walk and walk until we trespassed on one of the northern tribes, and what would we do then?

  "Where are we going?" I asked her again.

  "We're going to find her."

  "Who?"

  "The child."

  "What child?"

  "She's alone," she said. "Her mother let her go."

  "Her mother died."

  "No!" She whirled around and raised her hand as if to strike me. When I lifted my arm to shield myself, she grasped hold of my wrist so hard I thought the bone would break.

  "Please," I said. "Don't hurt me."

  The pain in my arm was so great that I fell to my knees, and she let go.

  She looked around, confused. "We've come too far. It couldn't be as far as this."

  "We should go home," I said. "It's late. They'll be worried."

  "Home," she said. Then she turned and walked away.

  I don't know how long I stumbled along after her. I was afraid to keep going and afraid to turn back. Every choice I made would be wrong but one. I would not leave her.

  She turned onto a footpath that followed the river. A swirling mist lay over the water and in places encroached upon the riverbank. Whenever we passed through a patch of it, I had to pay careful attention to my footing, so that I didn't slip on the muddy ground.

  Then I did slip. I fell to one knee and was soon up again, but when I looked for Maara, I saw only the mist, closing in around me.

  I listened for a footfall or the rustle of her clothing. All I heard was the sound of the river, and even that was muffled by the fog. I took a few steps, then stopped again to listen. I took another step and went up to my knee in water. It might have been a bit of boggy ground or the river itself. I couldn't see well enough to know which it was, but I dared not take another step.

  I called out once to Maara. Then I began to cry.

  Strong arms lifted me. A v
oice whispered in my ear words of comfort I didn't understand. I put my arms around her neck and laid my head down on her shoulder. She carried me to higher ground and set me on my feet. I was afraid that if I let go of her she would disappear again into the fog, so I held tight to the sleeve of her shirt.

  The ground was uneven. I couldn't see a thing. I took a step and lost my balance. As I fell, I reached for her to steady myself and pulled her down with me. All around us the fog lay thick over the ground. It hid the starry sky. It hid the earth we sat upon. It hid us from each other.

  I still clutched her shirtsleeve, now torn to tatters, the most frail of ties binding us together. My body sought her out, and when I touched her, she took me into her arms. We clung together in the dark. She rocked me and soothed me with her strange, incomprehensible words.

  I have never known a deeper darkness. Neither moonlight nor starlight could penetrate the murk. I didn't understand the meaning of her words, so I listened to the music of her voice. I settled myself against her and laid my head down on her shoulder.

  I was tired. Fear had worn me out. I slept.

  I dreamed of home, of my mother putting me to bed on a summer's evening when I was very small. I lay awake through the long twilight, listening to the muffled voices of the grown-ups and the chirping of crickets outside my door. All the world had loved me then, and as I drifted into sleep, life whispered her sweet promises in my ear.

  "Tamras."

  I was so tired. I didn't want to wake. I felt myself lifted and carried in someone's arms. I snuggled against her. "Mama," I said.

  She set me down and sat down beside me.

  "No," she said. "It's me."

  Reluctantly I opened my eyes. The stars twinkled overhead. The moon shone down on us. I sat up and looked around me.

  "Where are we?" I asked her.

  "I don't know."

  She looked exhausted. She was watching me, a guarded expression on her face, as if she expected me to tell her something she feared to hear. I wondered how much she remembered of what had happened that night and if she was herself again.

  "Are you all right?" I asked her.

  "I don't know."

  "Are you unwell?"

  She shook her head. "Why are we here?"

  I heard a tremor in her voice. She was afraid.

  "Don't you remember?"

  "No."

  "You were looking for someone," I told her. "A child."

  "A child? What child?"

  "The child you were."

  "Oh." She looked away from me. "I thought it was a dream."

  I studied the sky. It would be a few hours yet before the sun came up. Our hair and clothing were damp with mist, but the air was warm. Her body sagged with weariness.

  "Lie down," I said. "Sleep a little. We'll go home in the morning."

  She lay down, and I lay down beside her. When I put my arm around her, she shrugged it off and turned away from me.

  "Please," I said. "Don't push me away."

  She kept still for a moment. Then she turned to face me and let me put my arms around her. I kissed her lightly on the brow and rubbed her back, and before long I felt her slipping into sleep. She murmured something I couldn't hear.

  "What is it?" I asked her.

  "You left me."

  You left me too once.

  "Never again," I told her. "Never again."

  27. Mothers

  As I held Maara through the rest of that long night, I thought and thought about what to do. She was exhausted, and those few hours of sleep wouldn't help her much. I had to get her home. Then what? How long had it been since she'd eaten anything? And after food and rest, what else could be done for her? Although she seemed to be herself again, how could we go on as if this had never happened?

  I feared for Maara more that night than I had ever feared for her before. In the short time I'd known her, there had been much to fear on her behalf, but this wounding of her spirit terrified me.

  She had told me dreadful things about her life before she came to Merin's house, but I hadn't understood how deeply those things had hurt her, and it was clear that some of those hurts had failed to heal. Perhaps what I thought of as her strange ways were not instead something I might have recognized if she had been one of us, if she had not been a stranger in Merin's house.

  From time to time she whimpered in her sleep. I soothed her with my voice and with my hands, not enough to wake her, just enough to chase away her bad dreams. The year before, I had held her like this, to keep her still, to keep her warm, to help her body heal. Now I wished I knew half as much about the healing of the spirit as I knew about the healing of the body.

  I watched the light grow in the east, then closed my eyes against the first rays of the sun as it rose above the horizon. I didn't feel her wake, but suddenly she pulled away from me and sat up.

  "I'm hungry," she said.

  "That's good. You must be feeling better."

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

  "Better?" she said. "I've seldom felt worse."

  "We need to get you home," I said.

  I took a long look at her. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty. Her shirtsleeve was in tatters. Her tangled hair and dirt-streaked face made her look like the wild woman so many still believed her to be. Even if her face were clean, her haggard look would attract attention. I didn't like to take her home the way she was, but I had no choice. She needed to be cared for.

  "What's the matter?" she said.

  "I can't take you home looking like that."

  "Like what?"

  "You need a bath."

  I stood up and held out my hand to help her up. Then I led her down to the river. We left our clothing on the riverbank and waded into the water. She bathed herself while I tried to comb the tangles out of her wet hair with my fingers. I made sure her face was clean.

  While she sat patiently on the riverbank, I shook the worst of the dirt and wrinkles out of our clothes. By the time I finished, we were dry enough to put them on.

  When we were both as presentable as I could make us, we started home. We left the meandering footpath beside the river and walked cross-country until we reached the main road. Even with having to make our way through thickets and over some rough ground, it was the quickest way.

  Every step was an effort for her, but she made no complaint. We didn't talk. She was too tired to do more than put one foot before the other, and I was puzzling over how to get her safely into the house. When we were almost home, I led her off the main path and took her up to the oak grove. I wasn't sure it was the best idea to take her back there, but I couldn't think of what else to do with her. I didn't want anyone to see her the way she was.

  When we reached the grove, she stopped.

  "What are we doing here?" she asked me.

  "You're going to stay here while I bring you something to eat and some clean clothes."

  "I want to go home."

  "I don't think that's a good idea," I told her. "People are bound to notice us, and there are a few in Merin's house who would be eager to believe the worst and give everyone else the benefit of their opinion."

  Still she looked doubtful.

  "Are you afraid of the oak grove?"

  It was a clumsy attempt to get her to do what I wanted her to do, but I was too tired just then to argue with her.

  "No," she said.

  She entered the grove and settled herself beside the same tree where I had found her the night before.

  As usual no one paid much attention to me. I slipped into Merin's house through the back door and went to Maara's room without anyone asking me where I'd been. I rolled a clean shirt and a pair of trousers into a bundle. Then I went down to the pantry, where I found some bread and meat and a jar of fresh milk.

  On my way out the back door I stopped. Maara needed food, but there was something else she needed more. I set everything down in an inconspicuous place and went upstairs to Namet's room.

&n
bsp; "I need your help, Mother," I said.

  "Come in," she said. "Sit down."

  "I can't. Maara is waiting for me in the oak grove."

  I didn't know how to tell Namet what I needed, but she seemed to understand.

  "Then I'll come with you," she said, and followed me downstairs.

  As we walked down the hill, I told her what had happened the night before. I told her about finding Maara in the oak grove, about our journey north along the river, and as much as I could remember of the things she'd said to me. I also told her the little that Maara had told me about her childhood.

  "Why did she go down to the oak grove?" Namet asked me.

  "She says she doesn't remember going there. I think she was ghostwalking."

  "Ghostwalking?"

  I nodded.

  "Does she do that often?"

  "I've seen her do it only twice before," I said. "I spoke to Gnith about it, and she gave me a binding spell to hold her."

  "A binding spell to hold Maara?" Namet gave me an odd look. "What did this spell consist of?"

  I told her about the braided thong that had bound Maara and me together.

  "That's not a binding spell," said Namet.

  "It's not?"

  "No," she said. "A binding spell is meant to bind the spirits of the dead. I've never heard of binding a living person, although I suppose it could be done. Even so, you would bind someone only to keep her away, not to keep her by you." She chuckled. "Gnith is a wise woman when she has her wits about her, but her binding spell sounds more like a love spell to me."

  "Oh," I said. I blushed with embarrassment.

  "Well," said Namet. "You do love her, don't you?"

  She smiled at me and nudged my arm to let me know that she was teasing, but the truth in her words touched my heart, and tears came into my eyes.

  "I care for her very much," I said, "and I'm very much afraid for her."

  Namet put her arm around my shoulders.

  "I know," she said. "Don't worry. There's a healing for everything."

  Maara was asleep. I hesitated to wake her, even to give her the food she needed, but when I approached her, she opened her eyes. Her gaze rested on me for a moment. Then she saw Namet. When she started to get up, Namet made a gesture to her to stay where she was and sat down beside her.