Brand and Vaeol - Chapter 28

11. Zielae, 24,535 - 6th Day in Candares   Now, at morntide’s full white light, still I do not sleep. I slept not all night, even after coming from the Kaymos. I have seen something, learned something unknown and unforelooked, and now I know not what it forebodes. Did the Kaymos teach me from wish to enlighten one they deemed unmindful, or under some un-Lashunta coldheartedness to see me suffer. Maybe both?   At dusktide I met Her Highness Lady Zhovoraeul, who with her host and mine led me to Lowertown. There we waited until the bells rang Firstwatch. A chosen group - her and me with two wardens, Lady Semuane, Erymi, and Tae - went to the same grove of four trees.   The Kaymos were waiting up above in the bough-deck. I could not see, but could hear the scratch of their hook-claws. Bywardly they climbed down, which was the first time my fellows had seen them. They asked whether I was come to keep my forespoken word, which I answered yes. With a nod, they bade Lady Zhovoraeul alone lead me to the cliffward path. Lady Zhovoraeul headed away, and I followed.   Within a couple hundred strides, we came through the woods and again reached the cliff, though bare of any houses, for this stead lies beyond Lowertown’s dale. While we waited at the foot, again we heard the Kaymos’ hook-clicks above; this time on stone. We beheld them climbing down, though whether these were the same who had dared me in the grove or not I could not tell.   A Kaymos set foot to ground and stood before us, which gave an odd sight, since it must lean against the cliff to stay upright, though its childlike body rose little higher than us on its long limbs. It waved a hook-finger at a cleft within the cliff wall. I asked what waited inside. It answered that I would find a foe within. When I asked what I should do with this foe, it answered nothing. Its long hook still pointed while it and all the others merely waited, leaving me to puzzle on the deed.   Ere I entered the cleft, I quickened a witchlight on my shortbill’s blade. I had only it, my helm and byrnie, armbands and greaves, my axe abelt and shield slung over my shoulder.   The cleft, though narrow, was tall enough I could easily stand. I found that, if I kept the billtip low or high, it did not blind, and I could see further beyond. I followed its deeper until it wound. The floor wettened and deepened into a pool. Soon I was wading through water up to my thighs, and then to my waist, which made my kilt-flaps float outward blossomlike. Then the cleft widened to a hollow.   I incame as a stir tugged at the pool, and at my legs, as if the waters drove against the flow. My antennae twitched. I have heard the elder scouts tell that they can feel things even in the Darkfloor’s blackest steads, merely forwhy they can wit creeping beasts’ minds - their wrath and hunger - nowise however dumb. Though I had never so bewitted, then I knew doubtlessly I was not alone.   Within the pool I halted even while I feared I had no time. The Kaymos had forenamed a foe, and since nothing showed within the hollow, I must guess a water-dweller. If so, it need not rise but strike underneath at my legs. Even with my greaves I could not take the threat. So I lowered my shortbill and set its shining blade within the water.   The pool stirred as if some great body shifted, maybe blinded by the light I had put underwater. Also loomed a writhing shadow as my witchlight now enlightened from underneath, and things ere hidden in the pool had their shapes cast.   A limblike shadow reached toward me, set with an arrowlike head. With my shortbill in my off-hand, I had drawn my axe. When the snoutlight limb reached my knee, I smote downward. Though the water softened the blow, I struck flesh, thick and unyielding.   At once the whole pool thrashed, not merely before but all aring, and stirred waves all over. The thing underwater before me twisted, and then rose from the pool. I mirrored its deed and brought the spearbill’s blade upward while I beheld a nightmarish shape, such as had haunted my childhood dreams and was everywise the worst fear a warrior would dream facing on the rainwood's darkfloor or stonehollow such as here: a ~qutau~ snake with a head as big as a Shota’s; fangs gleaming in my witchlight, ringed scales glistening, and also blood my axe-wound wept down its neck. Its maw hissed wrath at me.   At its open maw I thrust my shortbill. Awkward as the off-hand stroke was, I dared not wait for this bane-thing to strike me in its own lair. By luck, I hit and drove forward, trying to drive my tip into its skull. When it twisted and dragged my weapon downward, I let it go. Instead, I fled backward to the hollow’s mouth and unslung my shield. Soon as it wrestled the blade free of its jaw, it turned and glared at me. Happily the weapon’s witchlight still cast a half-glow through the hollow, even underwater, letting me see the beshadowed snake.   If ever I had ere thought so rough a beast could not feel, the hateful look on its scaled face proved me wrong. It wished my death, and so tried by rearing upward and striking. Yet I had kept my axe and shield low. When it struck, I raised my shield and let its snout slam full into the wrought steel. When boldly it tried to bite my rim and wrest it from me, I swung the axehead and split its skull between the eyes.   Next happened no wontful struggle, for with any other foe, Lashunta, Formian, or else, such a wound would mean death at once. Yet this scaly-thing was driven by a wilder ghost and yielded not so easily. It offsloughed my axe and came again. Even against the narrowness, its coils seethed through the cleft, and all I could do was hack away while its snaky length writhed aring me. I fought to keep my axe-arm free while again and again it wound itself around my legs and waist, and even my shoulders.   Against my struggles it dragged me back into the pool’s hollow, where I strove to keep head over water, free my axe, and strike over and over until all strength ebbed. At some time I witted the pool had darkened and glowed more red than clear from my shortbill’s witchlight. Then the ~qutau~ snake’s coils loosened, letting me offshrug. The ramlike head floated before; skull and neck split open from my axe’s blows. At last its small brain had recked the blood-loss and let go of life. I stood drenched more in my own sweat than water, gasped for air, and shuddered.   And still I felt by my antenna’s twitches that I was not alone. I reslung my shield and with shaking hand uptook my swordbill, whose light I shone about the pool and sought whatever else was worrying me.   ~O’di eimi tollonathi:~ “You need fear no more,” came a throat haunting my thought. “I have no power to harm you:” ~Di ahya tham shullassya.~ I looked about in awe so much as fear, for the throat rang not aloft but within my mind.   I witted a shelf right above the pool that I had not seen, and now wonder whether it had been dither-hidden from my mind. On the shelf sat an odd wight, whose eyes under my witchlight showed blindly white. Sightlessly it stared, though whereby I doubted not it understood my stead and all I did. Its body glowed with a glassy sheen.   Slowly, axe sheathed but both hands ready on the shortbill, I neared.   ~Halaedis ivilazura:~ “You have slain my warden,” again spoke the haunting throat, which now I understood as from the blind shape upon the shelf. ~Vearama shi ahi-si, o seva halaeassa, oyi illayelis:~ “I stand under your power, yours to slay as you wish.” Then it added: “Maybe it is better as such:” ~O’ahi-yei ollayi.~   While I looked on its shape, I could not tell whether it was wifely or manly, nor for that thought, whether it was Lashunta, Elven, or even something else. Starkly not Kaymos, for its limbs were too fairly shapen matched against the spidery folk who had sent me herein. Yet something odd struck me of this wantsome blind thing. Then I full beheld its skin’s glassiness was scaly. Though white and bleached as if it had not seen daylight in time untold, its hide was more like the giant snake’s I had right ere slain. Then I understood.   It was a Moqeva.   The thought’s whole weight struck, and my heart trampled in my breast. Thirty thousand years ago, these things had ruled all Asana. Told the legends, they had hunted our folk like sportbeasts, bled us for unspeakable rites, and ground the world under their coils until Mahaere Herself groaned in gainsaith. Our oldest yore-tales speak of Tess the First Queen, who tamed Shotaviras and together led the brunt that drove these Scalykind southward, even until Lost Hosiasha that Elder Son burned. This Moqeva, this elder fiend, had somehow outlived down through time.   “I have no power to harm you,” repeated the Snakefolk’s mind-word, “nor have I for long years.” I looked on the shelf and beheld its legs, curled witheredly under its body. “My body has wasted from long ages, even if my mind has stayed,” it outlaid.   I breathed deeply and set aside fear, against all I had been taught. I asked what it was doing here.   Instead of the old Moqeva’s voice, its mind opened straight to mine...   I was drawn into an odd rainwood whose trees and brambles I knew not, which smelled strongly of uptilled earth. Then through the trees and brush I beheld baleful shapes and warlike yells: Lashunta! Bow-wielding Damaya with outlandish feather-crests on bareback Shotalashu, Korasha running, wielding flint-tipped spears and bronze axes. Doubtlessly they were the first clans who had overcome this land, and like our foremothers further west had hunted our elder foe. I felt as if running through the rainwood, breathlessly, hopelessly, and then crept underground through darkness and shadowy hollows, by things even this Moqeva feared, until I came among the Kaymos, who hid it even in this same hollow. There through long years that became first hundreds and then thousands, it stayed hidden. After the Kaymos came Elves; some who fled in fright, some who stayed and spoke. Then even came Lashunta, many who died fighting the great snakes who crawled through hidden hollows to ward and keep fellowship with this eldest Moqeva, but also a few who stayed and spoke secretly. Until at last through the Moqeva’s eyes I saw myself come into the pool’s hollow; shortbill blazing and girded for warfare.   ...My sight came back to my body and now, staring at the Moqeva in its weakness and great years. Against myself, I wept.   Blindly the old Moqeva shook its head. ~Assa sheazim o aeasi danyeli:~ “My kindred would tell that ruth is weakness,” it chided. ~O’mi-illi vara halaeis. Ziari, zi kami-mi, simili-vya zhilam. Stiadeni theia hishazya, o rimmaema adenya heiennasti sholzyelf:~ “You should slay me now. Yet after all this time I doubt my own rede. How would this world be elsewise if our forebears had found a way to truce?”   ~O’zhiani:~ “Forgive us,” I beseeched, and then spoke that, i it was the last, then its whole folk would die alongwith. From that sin even Mahaere would offshun.”   ~Le oyere Mahaerye realis e lare qussode oyi eiesis:~ “That whom you name Green-Mother is a harsher mistress than you think,” warned the Moqeva. “Be not so sure what she would forgive or forsake. You will be mispleased."   Then I understood the trial the Kaymos had set me. They had shown me our kind’s eldest foe even while they held bound the Aslanta, who had rightly wronged them. How I treated this Moqeva would doubtlessly be reckoned toward their thrall. ~Hoeshiadeni, di sere halaeam.~ - “Nevertheless, I will not slay you,” I outwilled.   ~O'ziari, vi danyelyelma, o’dei hisaea?~“And yet, weak and withered as I am, would it not be a kindliness?” it asked. I answered that, kindly or no, it was not mine to slay. Then I knelt in the pool below its shelf: ~O’sevaea-ruaeli, a Tolloda, yio ve di tollayelme o di-ahi zhiathim shi shami, o’zimi di avyryelme o di-ahi seholi-nazime.~ - “Bless me, Eldest One, for I am not so old that I cannot learn from your tale, and not so wise that I cannot be taught."   Though I quailed, I felt the Moqeva’s shaking hand upon my brow. “Go, Vaeol-Zheieveil u’Zhasael Zolaema be’Son Lashunte,” it blessed, and then added: ~Reali mi loe o’illi roae-nazis, o’eshi-mi shima.~ - “Your name and worth will be known, even among your foes."   Then its hand withdrew, and my witchlight faded. I backed and nearly tripped thrice over the giant snake’s strewn coils.   At last I regained the cleft and left the pool. Within the cleft I straightened and soothed myself. Then I went out, where waited the Kaymos and Lady Zhovoraeul.   All watched me forelookingly. I told I had slain the warden-snake but had left the old one alive. A Kaymos asked me why. I answered I had not enough anger in my heart to slay it. The Kaymos stilled, and then nodded.   Then they led forth the four Aslanta thieves they had bound. They bade me take them back with their goodwill. A last thing they gave me: a bag heavy with a load within. I dared not look inside until this morn when I gave it to Brand. Back at the four trees, Erymi, Tae, and Semuane hugged me. Between them they upheld me back to Upper Town on their shoulders.   Lady Zhovoraeul and I did not speak until we againcame to her palace. When we arrived, she led me to her sunderroom, where she poured me myrrh-brandy. She sat beside, drank some herself, and waited wordlessly. I asked whether she knew what the Kaymos kept hidden in the cleft. She answered she had heard whispers. I said nothing more. Yet ever sinceward, I have struggled with this secret I now carry.