The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (26 page)

She broke off, her voice thick and broken. “Muck off, Tamio. I hope Vumo
is
your father. That’s the father you deserve. That’s the father you
are
.”

“I’m nobody’s father! I never left a girl pregnant, Gwenika!”

She held herself still and simply looked at him.

“No,” he said.

She held still.

“No,” he said. “I would have known if you’d had a baby.”

She held still.

“No,” he said. “When you fell. When you were bleeding. When Dindi had to help you. That couldn’t have been. That couldn’t have been because of me…. Even if you were pregnant…even if you lost the child… How do I know it was
mine
?”

Gwenika smiled hatefully. “Ask your father.”

She left the lodge.

“Get back here! You can’t leave me here alone after telling me something like that! Get back here, I’m not done with you! GWENIKA!”

The door apron parted. Tamio thought she had returned in response to his screams, but it was Hadi.

“I suppose
you
were outside the door listening the whole time!” Tamio raged at him.

“Uh, yeah,” said Hadi. “In case Gwenika needed help holding you down. I didn’t mean to overhear the other… you were kinda loud, though, so even if I had been across the courtyard…”

“Hadi, shut up.”

“Good idea. I don’t know what to say anyway.” Hadi looked embarrassed.

Over the ensuing silence, Tamio realized he’d pulled one of his stitches.

“Did you know?” he asked Hadi. “About Gwenika.”

“No. I just thought she was sick, as everyone did.”

“Dindi knew.” Tamio was certain of it. He remembered the contempt on her face when she told him,
After what you did to Gwenika
.

“But Dindi came to love you anyway,” Hadi said.

Because I hexed her
. Tamio didn’t have the courage to say it out loud. Hadi was his last friend in this place. Trapped in bed on his back, Tamio felt feeble and dependent and angry. His chest hurt so much, as if something were gnawing around inside, emptying him out, that he wondered if Gwenika had missed a yeech. Maybe he had a heart wound after all.

The warriors manhandled Dindi with such callous ferocity that she expected them to deliver her to some horror. And they did…a lodge full of adolescent girls.

The girls were primping, dressing, and brushing each other’s hair. They sniffed at the latecomer like a pack of she-wolves defending their places in the pack. They seized her up and then dismissed her with contempt that was individual yet cumulative. A few pointed at her clown costume, whispered, and burst into smirks and giggles. For a moment, Dindi felt she had stepped back into the Initiates’ longhouse at Yellow Bear, as gauche and clueless and friendless as she had been at fourteen. As if the last two years of her life had been torn off the loom as a mistake, and someone had started the old pattern back again. She half expected the girls to purse their lips, “quack-quack-quack” as she passed, to remind her that once a Duck, always a Duck.

Yellow Bear was far away, she reminded herself. No one here knew her, much less knew she had been a Duck.

That was when she saw, heading toward her from opposite corners of the room, both Kemla and Gwenika.

“Dindi, is that you?”

Kemla grabbed her and whirled her around. Before Dindi could respond, Kemla shrieked and squeezed Dindi into an embrace that might have either been a hug or an attempt at strangulation.

“K….Kemla…..ca’….can’t breathe…”

“Hadi was convinced you were dead!” Kemla said. “I told him it was more likely you’d been abducted by a dashing but dangerous wolfling lover. Is that what happened?”

“Ah…”

“I’m kidding, Dindi. It’s obvious no dashing, dangerous man would abduct
you
. I imagine you simply wandered into the battle, and, when someone tried to take you out of harm’s way, you wandered off again. You’ve probably been lost this whole time. Though how you ended up here…”

“Dindi! It
is
you!” exclaimed Gwenika, tugging her from the other direction. “I thought it might be you when I saw a clown who kept getting herself into trouble. Um, that came out wrong. What I meant was, I saw Tamio and Hadi, and they didn’t know anything about you being here. But I’ve been instructed to find Kemla….do you remember her from when we were Initiates? Bratty, vain, obnoxious…oh, there you are, Kemla.” Gwenika belatedly painted on a smile. “It’s great to see you again.”

“Marvelous, just like old times!”

“Let’s hope not,” muttered Dindi. “How did you both get here?”

Kemla explained briefly. Gwenika explained, less briefly.

She had decided to travel to the Labyrinth to compete in the Vaedi Vooma, more as an excuse to leave Yellow Bear than from a desire to win.

“After all,” Gwenika rubbed her arms, “The idea of marrying Kavio is frightening…he’s so fierce, I’d expect him to eat me up! Although Amdra insists the Vooma is as much about finding a new War Chief as a new Vaedi, and some other warrior could win the position of War Chief, if he were strong enough.”

“Skip the side streams!” Kemla commanded. “How did you end up
here
?”

“I left Yellow Bear only two moons after your clan went home. Gremo and Svego offered to accompany me, since it’s not safe to travel alone. We were making good time until we had to pass through Orange Canyon. We should never have come so far north, but none of us had ever made the journey, and we misjudged. It didn’t seem to be a problem at first. We hosteled in Drover clanholds, which were happy to exchange hospitality for Healing spells.
No one
dances Yellow here. If you’re injured or sick—too bad! You’re lucky if you don’t get sent to the Deathsworn if you so much as sneeze! But they are happy to have a Healer if they can find one.

“The Drovers are warm, wonderful people. The Weavers are snobby and cantankerous, but tolerable, and they do trade well. Such lovely blankets! The Eagle Lords and Riders—the Tavaedi caste—are horrid. Simply horrid. I blame their upbringing. Everyone in Orange Canyon is obsessed with blood. They think it’s more important than anything. Any child with a drop of magic ‘in their blood’, meaning with any Chroma, is taken from his family at birth and raised in a crèche in one of the all-Tavaedi clanholds. If Imorvae, the children are taught to change their shape, and the poor things are kept as slaves. Of the Morvae children who dance Orange, the girls become Riders, and the boys become Eagle Lords. A few special ones become Sky Watchers. They predicted the eclipse…”

“Gwenika!” snapped Kemla.

“You were going to explain how you got
here
,” Dindi nudged.

“Oh! Yes, sorry, my tongue wanders.”

“We hadn’t noticed,” drawled Kemla.

“So we were staying in a Drover clanhold when a Rider on a Raptor landed and asked for a Midwife. I had delivered a few babies along the journey, and they had heard of me.” She blushed a little. “Um. Anyway. I agreed to go, and they brought us to the tribehold. I delivered Amdra’s baby, and they gave me many rich rewards. (Her Shining name is Toad Woman—do you know how awkward that is for me? It’s what I’m supposed to call her as an honorific, but I always feel like I’m insulting her.) They wouldn’t let the three of us leave. We might as well be slaves here. They treat us well, with nice bedding and as much food as we can eat,” Gwenika squeezed her belly ruefully, “as you may have noticed. Svego and Gremo were allowed to join the Tavaedies as clowns, and I’m Amdra’s personal Healer. But we are still as much captives as any of those pitiful wretches who fill the cages and then disappear.”

Kemla and Dindi exchanged a worried glance.

“What
does
happen to those slaves?”

“Oh, Dindi! It’s
awful
. I thought the Blue Waters tribe was cruel, shunning their Imorvae, but what’s going on here in Orange Canyon is beyond belief. There’s something terrible in the Black Well. They take people to the…the…” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “…the
Blood House
. When they come out…they aren’t the same. The captives who come out of the …” whispered again, “
Blood House
…” she shuddered, “look as though they’ve been trapped in a black pit with no light or food for a year. They are thin as famine victims, pale as cave fish, and madness gleams in their eyes.”

She shuddered again, before she forced a smile. “But the Great One says that will all change after this Paxota.”

“Do you believe that?” asked Dindi.

“Oh, we have to believe it. Anyone who believes anything else is fed to the Black Well.”

“Vessia believes it, too,” said Dindi. “But I don’t.”

“Dindi!” Gwenika peeked around the crowded lodge and held her finger in front of her lips. “Please, please. Careful!”

“I’ve no time to be careful. I’ve only two days left to convince the Aelfae to follow
me
instead of the Bone…the ‘Great One.’”

“Really, Dindi?” scoffed Kemla. “
You
.”

“Not to be insulting,” Gwenika added quickly, “but…aren’t you a
clown
? I saw your dance, you know.”

“You saw my clown dance? What did you think?”

“I didn’t know it was
you
—I wasn’t that close. It
was
funny!”

Surprisingly, that cheered Dindi a great deal.

“So let me see if I understand,” Kemla said acidly. “You are trying to impress some outtribber Zavaedies who claim to be Aelfae…which I doubt is even true, by the way… and you’ve decided the best way to do it is to dress like an idiot and behave like a clown?”

Gwenika put her hands on her hips. “Kemla, she’s doing the best she can!”

“I’m sure she is.” Kemla patted Dindi on the back. “You have to dance the role life gives you, Dindi. ‘Clown’ sounds perfect.”

“If I were the type to be content to dance the role
other
people gave me, I wouldn’t be dancing at all. I made up my mind during our Initiation year that I’m going to dance
my
way. If the price is that I have to dance the part of a clown before I can play the hero, that’s just what I’ll have to do.”

“You can’t play both. Clowns aren’t heroes, Dindi. Chuckle-peckers only dance a supporting role in the
tama
.” Kemla put her hand on Gwenika’s shoulder. “Like Healers.”

“Nice to see you’ve grown so much as a person since last we met, Kemla,” Gwenika said.

“You too, Gwenika. Why, Dindi, you forgot to tell Gwenika about your betrothal to Tamio.”

All the blood drained from Gwenika’s face. “
SYLFINS…what?”

“Yes, well, that’s over now.” Dindi fidgeted. “We have more important matters to worry about, like what are we and all these other girls doing here?”

Gwenika made a face. “One good thing about your, uhm, thing with Tamio, at least this isn’t going to be a problem.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Yeah.” Gwenika chewed her lower lip. Always a bad sign. “I got stuck with this job because I’m the Healer
and
a Midwife, two roles in the same basket, and they think it fits this magic.”

“What magic?”

Gwenika turned pink. “I have to test all the maidens before the ceremony today. All those who prove virgins must participate in the parade of Offering. Believe me, you
don’t
want to be in that parade. I’ve never seen the ritual, but I know most of the slave women in the tribehold were chosen during a Paxota of years past. Good thing you’re not... you have nothing to worry about. And the test won’t take a blink.”

“Wait!” exclaimed Kemla. “There’s no way you’re examining
me
. What happens if a maiden is falsely identified?”

“Nothing happens to
her
, but
I
would be in big trouble.”

“In that case, carry on.”

Gwenika stood up and danced briefly. The other girls stilled to watch her solemn gyrations. Gwenika fanned the air with gentle motions, then reached toward Dindi and tested a coil of Yellow light in Dindi’s aura.

Immediately, Gwenika flung away the thread of light as if it stung.

“Something’s wrong… I thought… Kemla said…”

“I’ve never been with anyone like that, Gwenika,” Dindi said.

Gwenika glared at Kemla. “You told me she was betrothed to Tamio.”

“I was just as disappointed in Tamio’s poor performance as you,” said Kemla. “You have no idea.”

“Really!” said Dindi, blushing furiously. “After what he did to you, Gwenika, what girl would be foolish enough to warm his mat?”

Gwenika reached toward Kemla and pulled out a coil of Yellow light in her aura. Again, she looked surprised and upset.

“Does that really tell you anything?” demanded Kemla. “I see nothing but a wisp of light.”