Colors in the Dreamweaver's Loom

  Meanwhile Zan studied her surroundings. The loom stood between two windows glazed with heavy, bubble-pocked glass that distorted the view of the vegetable plot beyond but admitted adequate light for working. Beyond the loom was a spinning wheel, two heavy wooden chests piled high with skeins of dyed yarn, and several bales of wool carefully stacked against the wall. The far wall of the cottage, opposite the two windows, was taken up by the hearth, where a sullen fire glowered under an iron kettle set on a metal tripod. There was neither table nor chairs, except the hard wooden bench in front of the loom. As Zan's tired brain registered the lack of chairs, she saw that Iobeh was gathering cushions and small rugs into four piles. Karivet had taken an earthenware pitcher and four cups from the shelves beside the hearth and was setting them on the floor among Iobeh's piles. That done, he went back to the shelves for more dishes. Above the kitchen half of the main room was a loft, reached by ladder-like stairs. Hung from the beams were ropes of onions, bundles of dried herbs, and something that looked as though it might be dried meat. A number of implements were arranged with care near the hearth. Two massive wooden bins flanked the open back door, through which Zan could see the curved rim of a well.

  As the weaver bent down to examine the worn corduroy of Zan's trousers, the unreality of the situation suddenly made itself felt. Zan shook her head. "This is stupid. It can't he happening. I must be completely crazy. Or it's a dream—a weird dream." She hunched her shoulders and hugged herself. She looked at Eikoheh, who was watching Zan warily. "You are delusions—all of you! And I want to wake up."

  Eikoheh studied her for a moment; then, as Karivet called out to her, she led Zan to a pile of cushions. Before she let her sit, Eikoheh patted the top of the pile.

  "Rekas," she said. "E barenda ho rekas." Language lessons had begun.

  The delusions didn't go away; the food smelled good. With a mental shrug at the absurdity of it all, Zan ate what they served. Throughout the meal, Eikoheh continued the language lesson; she insisted that Zan ask for the things she wanted to eat by name. The main part of the meal consisted of the contents of the kettle, a concoction of grains, vegetables, and fish rather like a cross between porridge and stew; Eikoheh called it kemess. They ate from wooden bowls. Zan mimicked the way they balanced the bowls on their knees and held their heavy-handled, wide-bowled spoons. With the stew there was a white, crumbly, strongsmelling cheese Zan suspected had come from a goat, and a sweet, nutty flat bread. To drink, there was a pitcher of ifenn, a sharp-flavored, pale golden liquid that left a sweet aftertaste.

  The food restored Zan; she began to feel less dizzy, less remote, more able to fall in with whatever it was her delusions wanted. Throughout the meal, Eikoheh insisted Zan ask for things, prompting her and correcting her pronunciation. Though she felt like a parrot, by the time they were finished Zan was requesting food with (she supposed) the equivalents of pleases and thank-yous. Eikoheh beamed. Even Karivet began to look a little less doubtful, while Iobeh all but purred.

  After the meal there was another muttered council between the old woman and the boy. Zan did what they bade, as well as she could make out, though her sense of unreality did not lessen. Eikoheh showed her guest to a pallet—a rush mat covered by thick, soft furs—in the sleeping loft, and Zan lay down. Perhaps if she went back to sleep, she would wake up in the real world.

  It didn't work. She woke late in the afternoon in the loft of the weaver's cottage, feeling much better. She was full of questions, but had no way to ask them. So what if this was a dream or a delusion? It seemed real enough. Besides, without the language, it was impossible for her to get any more information than what she could gather with her senses. She climbed down the ladder, resolved to learn to communicate as quickly as possible. The others greeted her warmly; they seemed aware of the shift in her attitude and welcomed it.

  Eventually it was agreed that Zan would stay with the weaver rather than with Iobeh and Karivet. Zan was a little surprised to discover the children did not live in the cottage. With a wry inward smile, she guessed they must have brought her to the village expert on weird strangers. The weaver's first project was to make clothing for Zan. By dint of many gestures and facial expressions, she indicated that it would be unwise, even unsafe, for Zan to go into the village until she was able to talk with the people. Zan doubted it could be that dangerous, but she couldn't exactly discuss it.

  Zan worked diligently at the language. Almost the first thing she worked out to say was "Please take me home." Eikoheh tried gently to explain, but Zan was beyond listening. She just repeated her phrase, over and over, while her tears streamed unchecked. Finally, one day Karivet and Iobeh took her back into the forest, back to the place where they had found her, to show her that there was nothing there. Zan insisted they search a long way in the dense forest before she finally collapsed, from weariness and despair, and wept bitterly. She probably would have cried herself to sleep, but Iobeh and Karivet made her get up after a while, and took her back to the weaver's cottage. Zan managed an outward calm, but inside she kept telling herself, with an insistence born of fear, that this was a dream, that she would have to wake up soon.

  As time passed and her command of the language grew, her denial began to fade gently into a kind of aching acceptance. The days weren't the hardest thing she faced, for then she was kept busy. Karivet helped her with the language, and Eikoheh found an endless round of tasks and chores for her. But the nights were a different story. As soon as the lamps were blown out, Zan was overwhelmed with loneliness, and with loss. Her father's face intruded in her dreams or in that mindless span between wakefulness and sleep, and she would find herself stifling sobs. She was acutely conscious of the closeness of the weaver's cottage, but she lacked the words to explain, or to seek comfort. Instead she grimly endured the nights, waiting for daylight—and the presence of the children—to distract her.

  As the days passed, Zan became aware of the fact that Iobeh sat silently by while Karivet helped her with the language. Iobeh never spoke. At first Zan thought she was just shy, then she began to wonder whether there was something wrong with her. When she finally managed to ask Eikoheh about it, the old woman looked at her sharply.

  "Iobeh speaks with the heart. Can you not hear her?"

  Zan struggled to make sense of the answer. "Speaks with the what?" she asked. The word Eikoheh had used was unfamiliar.

  "The heart," the old woman repeated, laying an open hand on her own breastbone. "Do you not hear her?"

  Zan frowned. "Not—words," she said at last.

  "The heart does not need words."

  Zan chewed her lip as she tried to frame her next question. "Then how does she tell her ... her ... story?"

  The old woman's serious expression lightened. "For that you must learn the speech of her hands."

  "Speech of her"—Zan pointed at her own palm—"hands?" Then she remembered Iobeh's rapid, graceful hand gestures. "Oh! I see."

  Eikoheh nodded and went back to her weaving.

  Over the course of the next few weeks, Eikoheh taught Zan many things. By the end of the third week, Zan had picked up enough of the language—the Senathii, "the speech of the peoples"—to understand simple conversations, as long as people spoke slowly. She learned that her name, as Karivet pronounced it, meant something like "stranger." Utsan, not-common, strange: 'Tsan. It must have seemed an appropriate name to her hosts, she thought wryly.

  Besides the Senathii, Zan learned useful household things. She learned how to drop the wooden bucket down the well so that it filled with water and sank instead of bobbing frustratingly on the surface. She learned how to make kemess and the sweet flat bread they ate. She learned how to milk the goats—and how hard they were to catch when they got loose in the vegetable garden. The weaver taught her how to card and spin wool. Even though she got quite adept at spinning fine, even thread, Eikoheh adamantly refused to permit Zan to try her hand at the loom.

  "To weave is to lay your life in the pattern," Eikoheh t
old her. "You are not ready for that."

  "How? I don't understand," Zan replied.

  "No, you don't. But it is so."

  Zan fought back a sigh. There was much that Eikoheh dismissed by saying simply "It is so."

  One afternoon Iobeh came alone. She signed to Eikoheh, who explained that Karivet had gone honey-gathering, something he liked to do by himself. Iobeh looked a little wistful.

  Zan suddenly felt sorry for her; it must be lonely to be unable to talk to others.

  "Iobeh," she said suddenly, "will you teach me the speech of your hands?"

  A smile made Iobeh's face radiant. She nodded.

  "How many people understand your hand-speech?"

  Iobeh held up two fingers.

  "You can talk only to Eikoheh and Karivet?" Zan demanded, then frowned, puzzled. "But what about your—" She paused; she couldn't remember the word for parents, so had to settle for something less precise. "What about your kin?"

  Iobeh's smile vanished, but Eikoheh answered for her. "She and Karivet have no kin. When they were very small, there was fever in the village. Many people died—including their parents."

  "Then where do they live, Eikoheh? Who takes care of them?"

  The old woman shrugged. "They live in what was their parents' house. People in the village give them food, and Karivet hunts. It's not an easy life, but they do not complain."

  Zan shook her head. The arrangement seemed terribly loose, but it appeared to work; the children were well fed and clothed. She returned to her original question. "Iobeh, you can talk only to Eikoheh and Karivet?" she asked, and at the girl's nod added, "But that's awful!"

  Iobeh shrugged, then, with a little smile, pointed to Zan and held up three fingers.

  "Yes, I will make a third—but it will take time."

  Iobeh nodded.

  "Iobeh, how many summers have you?"

  She held up ten fingers, then two.

  "And Karivet?"

  She repeated the gesture.

  "You're, you're—" Zan stopped when she realized she didn't know the word for twins. "You are brother and sister, yes?"

  Iobeh nodded.

  ''Is it common among your people to have two children with the same number of summers?"

  Iobeh smiled and shook her head.

  Eikoheh looked up from her weaving and chuckled. "You are getting cleverer, 'Tsan. The word is imadi, and they are very rare. Often one or both of the twins have yskar-ekabi. They are called gifts, but are rather burdens. People fear yskar-ekabi, and fear makes them cruel."

  Ekabi—Zan knew that; it meant "gifts." "Eikoheh, what is yskar?"

  The old woman shrugged. "That's a hard one. Your yskar is what leaps at beauty; it is the flame that burns within the lamp of your body; it is that which makes you yourself. Surely your people have a word for it?"

  Zan puzzled over it. Mind? Personality? Virtue? None of them seemed quite right. "Is it that which weaves words together before I put them on my lips?" she asked.

  "No. It is deeper than that. Anyone who is whole and well can think, but it is the yskar that makes them your thoughts."

  "Spirit," Zan said aloud, finally. Eikoheh looked up questioningly. "I understand—at least, I hope so. I haven't any more words to guess with. Can you explain spirit-gifts to me? Do Iobeh and Karivet have them?"

  "Explain them? No. They are; that is enough. Iobeh might show you hers one day, and Karivet must speak for himself, he if he chooses. I told you this so that you will understand the other villagers. They are wary of the twins, and sometimes unkind. That is all." She picked up the shuttle and sent it flying through the warp.

  For a moment Zan merely listened to the rhythmic sounds of Eikoheh's handiwork. Suddenly she looked up and caught Iobeh's anxious expression. With a smile, Zan touched her hand. ''I'm not afraid of you, Iobeh, if that is what makes you frown. You are kind and good, and I—" She shrugged. "I am utsan; I don't know enough to be afraid."

  Without pausing in her weaving, Eikoheh said, "Utsaneh. Utsan is a thing."

  Zan smiled wryly at Iobeh. "Utsaneh, then. But in any case, I am not afraid."

  Iobeh gave Zan an impulsive hug. Then she took Zan's hand and tugged. Zan got up and went with her. Eikoheh watched them go but said nothing.

  It was a glorious afternoon, full of warm green smells and the lazy drone of bees. Iobeh took Zan into the orchard and sat down beneath an apple tree. Zan joined her, but when she would have spoken, Iobeh touched her fingers to Zan's lips and shook her head. Then she folded her hands in her lap, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. She sat that way for several minutes, then slowly she raised her head and held out one hand. To Zan's utter amazement, a song sparrow lighted on Iobeh's outstretched finger. Iobeh cupped the bird in her hand and whistled to it. It trilled. Iobeh whistled encouragingly. The little bird tilted back its head and poured out its song. Zan watched and listened, delighted. After a time Iobeh tossed the bird back into the air and watched it dwindle in the distance.

  "Iobeh," Zan said, her voice full of wonder, "what a precious Gift you have. Do you speak with your heart to the birds?"

  Iobeh looked up, surprised, then nodded. Suddenly her eyes brimmed with tears. Zan put her arms around the girl, felt her confusion, her sadness. She struggled to put into words what she thought was bothering Iobeh.

  "The birds understand. They know enough not to fear you, but people don't. Is that it?"

  Against her shoulder, Iobeh nodded vigorously.

  Well, I'm not afraid of your Gift. Maybe we can teach others not to be."

  For a long moment they sat together, content in the silence. Then, at last, Iobeh got to her feet, gesturing toward Eikoheh's house.

  Zan sighed. "You're right," she conceded, getting up. "It must be nearly time for supper."

  THREE

  The crescent moon swelled to full; the time drifted by as softly as apple blossoms. Zan's misery eased a little. Her nights were less often troubled by loneliness and weeping, though thinking of her father still brought tears to her eyes. It wasn't that she missed him, exactly, for he had been difficult and demanding, but there was so much left unsaid—by her, and she suspected by him—which would never now be resolved. It made her ache inside, but she was growing used to that pain, and there was a great deal to distract her. Karivet and Iobeh worked hard to teach Zan both their sign language and the Senathii. She progressed steadily, though not as quickly as she would have liked.

  They taught her other things as well, sharing with her bits of the history of their people, the Orathi: the people of the forest. Karivet explained that they had not always lived in villages. Once, not so long ago, all the Orathi had dwelt in trees, on platforms sealed from the wind by animal skins. It sounded uncomfortable to Zan, and she said so. Iobeh smiled and nodded, but Karivet went to some trouble to make her understand that not all the Orathi had abandoned the old ways, that in fact many, if not most, still lived deep within the forest, scorning the keeping of flocks and building of stone shelters. It all sounded peculiar to Zan, but Karivet's lessons helped to pass the time.

  Despite the distractions provided by the twins, time often seemed like the oil level in one of Eikoheh's lamps; it never changed while one watched, despite the clear, steady flame. Since Zan only went outside with the twins, and never into the village, she began to feel confined. Eikoheh understood her frustration, but counseled caution.

  "'Tsan," she said, shaking her head, "the villagers are very shy, wary of strangers. You must be patient with them."

  "Yes, yes," Zan retorted, wiping the dinner dishes with unnecessary energy. "But how can they grow used to me if they never even see me? I haven't seen anyone but you and the twins since the first day I came. I will seem as strange to them a season from now, unless—" She broke off, tangled in the language. "If you do not send the shuttle through the warp, the weaving does not grow, no matter how long you sit at the loom."

  "True," the old woman conceded. "But if the shuttle carries no thread, the
work is pointless. You must be able to speak with them, 'Tsan."

  Zan recognized Eikoheh's expression; she took the hint and let the subject drop. She finished the dishes and did a little spinning, hoping the work would help her find patience.

  Zan did not sleep well that night. Her dreams left her feeling as though she had been handed a truth she was too dense to interpret. In the one she remembered best, she was desperately searching the crowded, anonymous reaches of some vast airport. Despair lurked like a predator. As her search became more frantic, she found she could not even remember what she sought. Finally she woke, weeping with desolation. Grimly conscious of the cottage's close quarters, Zan stifled her noise in the sleeping furs. When at last she stopped crying, it still took her a long time to fall asleep again; mercifully, the rest of the night was dreamless.

  The next morning she woke later than usual. To her surprise, it was Karivet who sat beside the hearth stirring the breakfast porridge. Neither his twin nor the weaver was there.

  "Are you hungry?" he asked, filling her bowl.

  "Yes, thank you. Where is Eikoheh—and Iobeh?"

  He gave her the bowl and a small jar of wild honey. "They've gone to market. I said I'd wait for you. You slept a long time."

  "I didn't sleep well. I had bad—" She stopped. She didn't know the word for dreams. "My sleep was troubled."

  He filled his own dish, moved away from the hearth, and sat down facing her. "Bad what?" he asked after a moment.

  Zan ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know the word. The—the stories your thoughts tell while you sleep."

  "The word is simi, but what do you mean, bad ones? Dreams are patterns of the truth, neither good nor bad." He sounded stiff, and Zan wondered whether she had offended him. She struggled to clarify. "Among my people, it is not uncommon for dreams to be a . . . a sign of an . . . inward trouble. There may be truth in them, but when they draw the trouble to the surface, we call them 'bad' dreams."