This period marked the true beginning of Shay Tal's reputation as a sorceress. All who had heard her cry out against Aoz Roon sit inside and muttered.
That evening, as first Batalix, then Freyr set in the west, turning the flood waters to blood, the temperature dropped dramatically. The village was filled with thin crackling ice.
•••
Next Freyr-dawn, the town was aroused by Aoz Roon's angry shouting. The women, scuffling into their boots to go to work, listened in dismay, and woke their menfolk. Aoz Roon was taking a leaf from Shay Tal's book.
"Out you come, damn you all! You're going to fight the phagors today, every one of you! I set my resolve against your idleness. Rise, rise, all of you, get up and fight. If phagors are to be found, then phagors you will fight. I fought them single-handed, you scum can fight them together. This will be a great day in history, you hear me, a great day, even if you all die!"
As the dawn clouds scudded bleakly overhead, his great figure in its black furs stood on top of the tower, fist waving. With his other hand, Aoz Roon clutched a struggling Dol Sakil, who fought and yelled to get out of the cold. Eline Tal loomed behind them, grinning feebly.
"Yes, we'll slay the milk-struck phagors according to the women's plan – you hear that, you idle quemes of the academy? – we'll fight according to the women's plan, for good or ill – carry it out to the letter. By the original boulder, we'll see what happens today, we'll see whether or not Shay Tal talks sense, we'll see what her prophecies are worth!"
A few figures were emerging in the lane, clattering through the thin ice, staring up at their lord. Many clutched each other timidly, but old Rol Sakil, mother of Dol, cackled and said, "He must be well developed, yelling like that – that's what our Dol said he was. Bawls like a bull!"
He came to the edge of the parapet and glared down at them, dragging Dol with him, still shouting.
"Yes, we'll see what her words are worth, we'll test her. We'll test Shay Tal in battle, since you all seem to think so much of her. Do you hear me, Shay Tal? We'll make or break today, and blood shall flow, red or yellow."
He spat down at them, then withdrew. The trapdoor slammed after him as he climbed back into his tower.
When they had eaten some black bread, everyone set forth, urged on by the hunters. All were subdued, even Aoz Roon. His storm of words had blown itself out. They proceeded in a southeasterly direction. The weather remained below freezing. The day was still, the suns were lost in cloud. The ground was hard and ice crackled underfoot.
Shay Tal went with them, keeping in with the women, her mouth pursed, her skins swinging about her thin body.
Progress was slow, for the women were unaccustomed to walking distances that meant nothing to the men. They came at length to the broken plain from which Laintal Ay's hunting party had sighted the Borlienians only two days before the Voral flooded. Here lay the series of ridges with shallow flood lakes between, glinting like stranded fish. Here the ambush could be set up. The cold would bring out phagors, if there were any. Batalix had set, unseen.
They went down into the plain, men first, the women following, in confined groups. All were apprehensive under the hard sky.
By the edge of the first flood lake, the women halted, looking at Shay Tal in none too friendly a fashion. They realised the danger of their position, should any phagors arrive – particularly if they came mounted. No amount of anxious glancing about could reassure them on that score, for the ridges restricted their view.
They were exposed to danger and the elements. The temperature remained two or three degrees below freezing. Quiet reigned; the air was hard. The shallow lake lay silent before them. It was some forty metres wide by one hundred metres long, occupying the hollow between two ridges with its unwelcoming expanse. Its waters were motionless but still unfrozen, reflecting the sky without a ripple. Its sullen appearance increased a certain supernatural fear which fell upon the women as they watched the hunters disappear over the ridge. Even the grass at their feet, crisped by frost, seemed under a curse, and no birds cried.
The men were unhappy about having their womenfolk nearby. They stood in a neighbouring depression, by another lake, and complained about their leader.
"We've seen no sign of phagors," Tanth Ein said, blowing on his nails. "Let's turn back. Supposing they destroyed Oldorando while we were away? A fine thing that would be."
The cloud of breath about their heads united them as they leaned on their spears and looked accusingly at Aoz Roon. The latter paced about, keeping himself separate from them, his expression black.
"Turn back? You talk like women. We came to fight, and fight we will, even if we throw our lives to Wutra while we do so. If there are phagors near, I'll summon them. Stand where you are."
He went at a run to the top of the ridge behind him, so that the women were again within his view, intending to shout at the top of his voice and awaken all the echoes in the wilderness.
But the enemy was already in view. Now, too late, he understood why they had seen no more wandering Borlienians; they had been driven off. Like old Molas Ferd before the flood, he stood paralysed before the sight of humanity's ancient enemy.
The women straggled at one end of the fish-shaped lake, the ancipitals grouped at the other. The women made frightened and uncertain movements; the ancipitals were motionless. Even in their surprise, the women responded individually; the phagors could be seen only as a group.
It was impossible to make out the number of the enemy. They merged together with the late afternoon mists filling the hollow, and with the scarred greys and blues of the scene. One of them gave a thick protracted cough; otherwise they might have been lifeless.
Their white birds had settled on a ridge behind them, at first with some jostling, now spaced out regularly, with heads submissively on one side, like the souls of those departed.
From their frosty outline, it could be determined that three of the phagors – presumably the leaders – were mounted on kaidaws. They sat, as was their habit, leaning forward with their heads close to their mounts' heads, as if communion was in progress. The foot phagors clustered against the flanks of the kaidaws, shoulders hunched. Nearby boulders were not more still.
The cougher coughed again. Aoz Roon threw off his spell and called to his men.
They climbed along the crest of the ridge, to stare at the enemy in dismay.
In response, the phagors made a sudden move. Their strangely jointed limbs geared themselves from immobility to action with no intermediate stage. The shallow lake had checked their advance. They had a well-known aversion to water, but times were changing; their harneys said "Forward." The sight of thirty human gillots at their mercy decided them. They charged.
One of the three mounted brutes swung a sword above his head. With a churring cry, he kicked his kaidaw, and mount and rider burst forward. The other brutes followed as one, whether mounted or running. Forward they dashed – into the waters of the shallow lake.
Panic scattered the women. Now that their adversary was almost on them, they ran hither and thither between the ridges. Some climbed one side, some the other, making small sharp noises of despair, like birds in distress.
Only Shay Tal remained where she was, facing the charge, and Vry and Amin Lim clung to her in terror, hiding their faces.
"Run, you fool woman!" bellowed Aoz Roon, coming down the ridge at a run.
Shay Tal did not hear his voice above the shrieks and the furious splashing. She stood firm at the end of the fish lake and flung out her arms, as if gesturing to the phagor horde to halt.
Then the transformation. Then the moment that ever after in the annals of Oldorando would be referred to as the miracle of Fish Lake.
Some claimed later that a shrilling note rang through the frosty air, some said a high voice spoke, some vowed Wutra struck.
The whole group of marauders, sixteen in number, had entered the lake, led by the three mounted stalluns. Their rage drove them into the alie
n element, they were thigh deep in it, churning it up with the fury of their charge, when the entire lake froze.
One moment it was an absolutely still liquid, lying, because undisturbed, unfrozen at three degrees below freezing point. The next moment disturbed, it became solid. Kaidaws and phagors all were locked in its embrace. One kaidaw fell, never to rise again, The others froze where they were, and their riders froze with them, hemmed in ice. The stalluns behind, brandishing their arms – all were trapped, held in the grip of the element they had invaded. None took as much as one further step. None could fight free to gain the safety of the shore. Soon, their veins froze within their bodies, despite the ancient biochemistries that coloured their bloodstream and protected it from the cold. Their coarse white coats became further sheathed in rime, their glaring eyes frosted over.
What was organic became one with the great inorganic world that ruled.
The tableau of furious death was absolute, carved from ice.
Above it white birds wheeled and dipped, crying with gaping beaks, finally making off to the east in desolate flight.
•••
Next morning, three people rose up early from a skin bivouac. Powdery snow had fallen during the night, giving the wilderness a peppery appearance. Freyr ascended from the horizon, casting watery purple shadows over the plain. Several minutes later, the second faithful sentinel also struggled free into Wutra's realm.
By then, Aoz Roon, Laintal Ay, and Oyre were on their feet, beating and stamping circulation into their limbs. They coughed, but were otherwise silent. After looking at each other without speaking they moved forward. Aoz Roon stepped out onto the lake of ice, which rang beneath his tread.
The three of them walked across to the frozen tableau.
They stared at it almost in disbelief. Before them was a monumental piece of statuary, fine in detail, wild in imagining. One kaidaw lay almost under the hoofs of the other two, the greater part of its bulk submerged by brittle waves, its head rearing up in fear, its nostrils distended. Its rider struggled for control half fallen from its back, terrible in immobility.
All the figures were caught in mid-action, many with weapons raised, eyes staring ahead to the shore they would never reach. All were encased in rime. They formed a monument to brutality.
Finally, Aoz Roon nodded and spoke. His voice was subdued.
"It did happen. Now I believe. Let's get back."
The miracle of Year 24 was confirmed.
He had sent the rest of the party back to Oldorando the previous evening, under Dathka's leadership. Only after he had slept could he believe he did not dream the incident.
Nobody else said anything. They had been saved by a miracle; the thought dazed their minds, silenced their tongues. They trudged away from the alarming sculpture without another word.
Once they were back in Oldorando, Aoz Roon ordered one of his slaves to be taken by two hunters to Fish Lake, to the site of the miracle. When the slave had seen the tableau with his own eyes, his hands were lashed behind his back, he was faced towards the south, and booted on his way. Back in Borlien, he would tell his fellows that a powerful sorceress watched over Oldorando.
VIII - In Obsidian
* * *
The room in which Shay Tal stood erect was ancient beyond her computation. She had furnished it with what she could: an old tapestry, once Loil Bry's, once Loilanun's – that illustrious line of dead women; her humble bed in the corner, built of woven bracken imported from Borlien (bracken kept out rats); her writing materials set on a small stone table; some skins on the floor, on which thirteen women sat or squatted. The academy was in session.
The walls of the room were leprous with yellow and white lichen which, starting from the single narrow window, had, over uncounted years, colonised all the adjacent stonework. In the corners were spiders' webs; most of their incumbents had starved to death long ago.
Behind the thirteen women sat Laintal Ay, legs folded under him, resting his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. He looked down at the floor. Most of the women gazed vacantly at Shay Tal. Vry, Amin Lim, were listening; of the others, she could not be sure.
"The effects in our world are complex. We can pretend they are all a product of the mind of Wutra in that eternal war in Heaven, but that is too easy. We would do better to work things out for ourselves. We need some other key to understanding. Does Wutra care? Perhaps we have sole charge of our own actions…."
She ceased to listen to what she was saying. She had posed the eternal question. Surely every human being who had ever lived had had to face up to that question, and answer it in her own way: have we sole charge of our own actions? She could not tell the answer in her own case. In consequence, she felt herself totally unfit to teach.
Yet they listened. She knew why they listened, even if they listened without understanding. They listened because she was accepted as a great sorceress. Since the miracle at Fish Lake, she was isolated by their reverence. Aoz Roon himself was more distant than before.
She looked out through the ruinous window at the ecrhythmous world, now freeing itself from the recent cold, its slimes and snows spatchcocked with green, its river streaked with muds from remote places she would never visit. There were miracles. The miraculous lay beyond her window. Yet – had she performed a miracle, as everyone assumed?
Shay Tal broke off her talk in mid-sentence. She perceived that there was a way of testing her own holiness.
The phagors charging at Fish Lake had turned to ice. Because of something in her – or something in them? She recalled tales about phagors dreading water; perhaps the reason was that they turned to ice in it. That could be tested: there were one or two old phagor slaves in Oldorando. She would try one out in the Voral and see what happened. One way or the other, she would know.
The thirteen were staring at her, waiting for her to go on. Laintal Ay looked puzzled. She had no idea what she had been saying. She perceived that she had to conduct an experiment for her own peace of mind.
"We have to do what we're told…" one of the women said from the floor, in a slow puzzled voice, as if repeating a lesson.
Shay Tal stood listening to someone tramping up the steps from the floor below. There was no way in which she could answer politely a statement she had been contradicting since the Hour-Whistler last blew; any interruption was welcome at this point. Some of the women were irredeemably stupid.
The hatch was flung open. Aoz Roon appeared, looking rather like a great black bear, followed by his dog. Behind him came Dathka, to stand poker-faced in the rear, not even casting a glance at Laintal Ay. The latter stood rather awkwardly, and waited with his back to the cold wall. The women gaped at the intruders, some giggling nervously.
Aoz Roon's stature seemed to fill the low room. Though the women craned their necks at him uneasily, he ignored them and addressed Shay Tal. She had moved back to the window, but stood facing him, framed against a background of muddy village, fumaroles, and the parti-coloured landscape stretching to the horizon.
"What do you want here?" she asked. Her heart beat as she beheld him. For this above all she cursed her new reputation, that he no longer bullied her, or held her arms, or even pursued her. His whole manner suggested this was a formal and unfriendly visit.
"I wish you to come back into the protection of the barricades, ma'am," he said. "You are not safe, living in this ruin. I cannot protect you here in the event of a raid."
"Vry and I prefer living here."
"You're under my control, for all your reputation, you and Vry, and I must do my best to protect you. All you other women – you should not be here. It is too dangerous outside the barricades. If there was a sudden attack – well, you can guess what would happen to you. Shay Tal, as our powerful sorceress, must please herself. The rest of you must please me. I forbid you to come here. It's too dangerous. You understand?"
All evaded his gaze except the old midwife, Rol Sakil. "That's all nonsense, Aoz Roon. This tower is saf
e enough. Shay Tal's scared off the fuggies, we all know that. Besides, even you have been here on occasions, haven't you now?"
This last was said with a leer. Aoz Roon dismissed it.
"I'm talking about the present. Nothing's safe now the weather's changing. None of you enter here again or there will be trouble."
He turned, raising a beckoning finger to Laintal Ay.
"You come with me." He marched down the steps without a farewell, and Laintal Ay and Dathka followed.
Outside, he paused, pulling at his beard. He looked up at her window.
"I'm still Lord of Embruddock, and you had better not forget it."
She heard his shout from within, but would not go to the window. Instead, she stood where she was – alone despite the company – and said in a voice loud enough for him to hear, "Lord of a rotten little farmyard."
Only when she heard the squelch of three pairs of boots retreating did she deign to glance out the window. She watched his broad back as he trudged with his young lieutenants towards the north gate, Curd trotting at his heel. She understood his loneliness. None better.
As his woman, she would surely not have lost stature, or whatever it was she valued so highly. Too late to think of that now. The rift was between them, and an empty-headed doll kept his bed warm.
"You'd better all go home," she said, afraid to look directly at the women.
When they got back to the muddy main square, Aoz Roon ordered Laintal Ay to stay away from the academy.
Lainfal Ay flushed. "Isn't it time that you and the council gave up your prejudice against the academy? I hoped you'd think better of it since the miracle of Fish Lake. Why upset the women? They'll hate you for it. The worst the academy can do is keep the women content."
"It makes the women idle. It causes division."
Laintal Ay looked at Dathka for support, but Dathka was gazing at his boots. "It's more likely to be your attitude that causes division, Aoz Roon. Knowledge never hurt anyone; we need knowledge."