“But, but,” she had planned to say, “but Great Bear told me . . .” Great Bear, though he was afraid of nothing, had taught Xulai that fear was appropriate, that she should be afraid of many things: the rear ends of horses; dogs one had never met before; armored men with their visors closed, all in a great rush to get somewhere without looking down. Even as she remembered these warnings, she knew she would rather face an army of murderous horses, furious men, and ravening dogs than spend one more moment among these rippling, crouching, slithering shapes that stopped her breath and froze her legs into immobility.
Except for that voice! Always before, always, it had been calm, gentle, loving, without harshness, without threat. Tonight it had spoken with tortured despair. It had panted, begged, almost screamed in her mind, inexpressibly agonized, at the very end of its strength. It had said that this was the last, the only time left, or she was lost. Again the word rang, reverberating. Lost . . . lost . . . lost. . .
“Think!” the wagon man had said. Why else had he come if Ushiloma had not sent him? She must have sent him, so Xulai had to pay attention. Think! No one speaking as the Woman had spoken could be that tired and go on living. Not the bravest or the finest. No one could ask for help from that agony and not be answered. No one. It would be better to die than to fail! She said it over and over in her mind, Not this time, no, no, not this time, I will not, I will not fail . . . , the words like a drumbeat, moving her feet in time, repeating, over and over again, until she looked up in surprise to find herself already at the second stone, the place she had been last night when she had heard something huge crunching toward her through the trees. She had run, then, for the second time, weeping at her cowardice. The Woman Upstairs asked for so little, so very little, and she had failed . . .
She fed her anger with shame. Very well! Let the monster come if it would. Let it squash her if it would. She bit her tongue until the blood came, tasted it, focused every nerve on the taste of it, praying to Ushiloma, protector of the motherless, to carry her onward, to that place she had her eyes fixed upon, that faint gloss of light upon stone, that pale patch among the ferns where the moon struck a glint from the third and last pillar. Tonight the first and second stones had not spoken at all. Perhaps they were holding their tongues, trying to help her, listening to her prayers.
Ushiloma, dandeoras eg bashlos, bunjimar. Aixum! Great Mother who watches over the motherless, you have sent help. I hear! She repeated it silently, focusing on that vagrant moon-gleam, that evanescent glimmer that came and went behind the screen of branches: there it was, within reach, the third pillar, the last one. The distance from the second stone to the third could be no more frightening than the way from the castle wall to the first pillar. Think! She had done that twice and survived it! She had gone to the second stone and survived it! Tonight she had to finish it or declare her love, her sworn duty, her very reason to have been a specious, trivial thing.
Tasting blood once more, she heaved several short, gasping breaths, stiffened her legs, and stepped purposefully along the path, refusing to creep, keeping her eyes fixed on the moon-glossed reflection, no matter how often she lost it behind a frond of fern, behind a needle spray of pine, in momentary darkness when a shred of cloud covered the light. She might lose it a hundred times, but she would find it again, she would go on walking, there it was again, and she would . . .
And without knowing how she had managed it, she was at the edge of the clearing where the temple stood, its bulk elaborated with carved shapes that were barely discernible beneath centuries of moss. A lump had formed in her throat and she tried to swallow it, but it would not go down. What came next? She was actually here! What came next?
“Make your obeisance to the third stone and ask permission to go on.” That’s what the Woman had said, days ago.
More falling than kneeling, she laid her forehead on the ground, feeling the impress of dried needles, old leaves, something soft and unpleasantly squishy on her forehead that stuck there when she lifted her head. “I, Xulai, come at the order of my kinswoman, Xu-i-lok, the Woman Upstairs. I beg you let me pass to the shrine.”
“Speak up, child,” said the stone. “Can’t hear a word you say!”
She had been prepared for it to
