The grass-hued eyes seemed to glimmer—like River, like dull copper flecked with hectic verdigris. They slid to take in Tokela’s prone form then dimmed, glossed with uncertainty as they turned back to Madoc. It gave Madoc a sudden, inexplicable shiver—he shook it away.
“We have to do it, Kuli. Now. They’ll be coming, and we have to wash it away before anyone comes.”
As Kuli obeyed, looking for something to use as an impromptu bowl, Madoc reached out and snatched up a hank of grass from near the bank. It was damp from splash; nevertheless he dunked it in the water and leaned over Tokela, used the grass quid to scrub at the strange indigo substance. It had begun to congeal, sticky. It had the taste of metal and moss, like to blood. Yet it couldn’t be blood. Blood was what still oozed upon Tokela’s forehead. That was…
Natural.
Gritting his teeth, Madoc kept scrubbing.
“Here.” A subdued Kuli knelt and handed Madoc a discarded shell filled with water. “What is that stuff?”
Madoc didn’t answer. Surprisingly, Kuli didn’t press. Even River seemed restrained. FishKin kept running, but not so frantic. They had come some ways from the fall, though it still rumbled upstream.
A shout rang into stillness, thin with distance, then several more.
“They’re coming.” Kuli sounded worried.
Madoc answered, firm. “His indigo ran. It’s new laid, and he must’ve mixed it wrong. That’s what it was and nothing more.”
Kuli didn’t question, for once. He stayed so quiet that Madoc slid a glance towards him.
Demanded, “Do you understand me?”
The shouts were drawing nearer.
“I understand.” Kuli’s narrow face was set. “Some things cannot be spoken.”
Wind deserted Madoc, then, making his hands shake. “Here,” he said to cover it, “you’ve missed some on your face.” He used the grass to scour Kuli’s chin.
The uncanny quiet retreated, leaving behind a ahlóssa of eight summerings with new tears spilling over the face Madoc had just cleaned. “Tokela saved Anahli’s life. But…” A huge swallow. “Tokela’s sick, isn’t he?”
“A’io,” Madoc growled. “And no one can ever, ever know.”
22 – Fates & Dreamings
Asleep…
He is asleep, but he is aware. His eyes are closed, but he sees what she does. He dreams, but he knows her. His breathing resounds in the quiet, but it is she who swallows jagged inhalations, moving slowly over to where he lies in his narrow, soft-draped bed. One of flyingKin starts warbling outside, heralding dawn; it is she who quickly lowers the hide over the narrow opening to mute the bird’s call, it is she who steps back to the bedside, picking up a thick woollen blanket that has fallen onto the floor.
She hugs it to her breast, stares at him, and he sees himself through her eyes, her sight. “There will never be a better time.” Her spouse, thinking her asleep as well, has gone to see to the ewes; he’s not left her alone lately, particularly with their son. Talorgan is, somehow, afraid.
But that fear is nothing to hers. She is indeed afraid; not of her son but for him.
He is asleep, but Tokela senses it—senses her—as if within his own heart. He has never known such fear and longing and sorrow. She will not see him come of age, she will lose him before she even comes to know him, and he will lose… he will lose…
Everything.
Asleep. He needs to wake. He tries to wake, but cannot, though he must, if he wants to stop it.
“Be still, my own.” Lakisa’s voice sighs like Sea and Wind in a curved shell. “Soon it will be done, it will be over.”
He doesn’t want that. Something tells him what it could mean.
“We’ll Dance into the Starlight, my son, my Eyes of Stars. You will be where you belong. Where we all belong, before they took Them from us, disallowed our Dreamings…”
This is Dreaming. And therefore real.
Fear and fate, sound and sight, all opened and turned inside out. Sun settling across River, a shining, glittering Hoop. Wind in the darkness, born of Earth and cast in Fire, a mystery graved deep within his being, in what he has been, what he will be.
Lakisa Sees it, whispers to herself, to the golden FireHoop, to the ahlóssa asleep in his cot. “I gave you life, to end in this? It cannot be. I shall not let it be!!”
Yet he cannot know this, cannot remember this. He is hearing voices… he is hearing her voices, the possession that took her… how it is possible?
She steps closer, still holding the blanket, tears streaming down her cheeks, heart hammering in her ears. Lakisa bends over her son, the blanket clutched to her breast and her fingers going to his head, lacing into his hair. The song within her heart, fear and longing and fate.
Put a stop to it. You know what will happen to him. You know what they’ll do to him. Don’t let them hurt him. Stop it. Now.
Now, Tokela pleads, soundless.
Tears and touches laid upon his brow. Warmed yeast and Rainwater, the wool of the blanket whisper-soft in her fingers. Cloth folds over his face, into his mouth and nose; her voice folds about him, and he realises—I… can’t breathe…
Asleep. Dreaming. Stars and Fire, Wind and Water and Earth, singing Truth to the drumming of his heart.
“I have to stop it, my heart.” Lakisa’s whisper chokes with tears, her heart beating as if to burst—as if his own, as if he still lies enwombed beneath it—and she trembles, a-Fire with horror and purpose. Fixed, in
