Findel's Embrace

Upon the Departure of one of their wards, the Voiceless Sisters completed a few simple tasks. They cleaned the body. If possible, they dressed the Departed in fresh clothes. And lastly, they arranged for the final rites according to the practice of the Departed or their family. In Nosh, that meant either the old rites or the Erthrusian, with few exceptions. Yet Coir kept to neither order. He believed in Vah'tane.

It was only her old training, the sense that her task was not yet done, that kept Jareen from collapse. She cleaned him, and in doing so was shocked by his emaciated frame. Apart from his distended abdomen, his bones jutted out, even his pelvis. She had seen this dysfunction before in humans. How had she not noticed? He'd been wearing layers of tattered robes. She'd hardly been able to see his frame. She had ensured he was taking a fair portion of the food, had even tried to give him more, despite his complaints.

How many times had she told Noshian families: "He was old. It was his time."

The quthli had wailed over his body until the sun rose. They watched in confusion as she bathed him. The Canaen and Findelvien had come to find out what was amiss, and they had withdrawn in discomfort. The vien had little custom to help them in moments like these. Jareen only asked Liethnie to bring her a clean robe. She dressed Coir in it, combing his beard and laying it atop his chest. The quthli appeared to understand this, for after she had finished, they came one after another to stroke his beard.

Jareen left him with the quthli for a time, and found Selu in the camp.

The vien bowed, but said nothing at her approach.

"Have a litter built for him," Jareen said.

"As you say. Where. . ." He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Where do you intend to have him born?"

"To Vah'tane."

"Will the quthli lead us still?"

Jareen frowned. She had not thought of that. How could she ask without Coir to translate? She must make them understand, somehow.

"They will. Prepare to go. We make no delay. We leave from the quthli camp as soon as the litter is ready."

"As you say." Selu bowed. Nearby, the rest of the council avoided her gaze. Jareen preferred it.

She had just turned to return to Coir and the quthli when a jolt knocked her from her feet. There were screams and sounds like distant thunder. Nearer, roots and trunks split with sharp cracks and pops. She rolled onto her back. The ground heaved like waves on the sea. The trees were moving. Nausea and dizziness rolled over her, so that her head lolled. Was the world ending? The shaking continued, and she waited for the world to break apart and put an end to the nightmare. At last, the shaking stilled, though rumbles continued in the distance.

The screams had stopped, but now she heard weeping. She managed to gain all fours and looked around. Trees had broken, but she did not see anyone hurt within the camp, just faces locked in terror, and families crawling toward each other.

"Daughter of Vah!" Oreann shouted, crawling to her.

"What was that?" she asked.

"An earthquake, but not like any I have felt before."

"What does it mean?"

"I do not. . ." Oreann paused, looking toward the sky.

"What has happened?" Selu asked, standing to his feet and helping Liethnie up as well.

"I am not sure," Oreann said.

"I thought you said it was an earthquake," Jareen said.

"It was. But it's not that, it's. . ." he trailed off again and looked at Selu and Liethnie.

"There was a great surge of Current as well," Liethnie said.

"I must check on Coir," Jareen said.

"I will accompany you." Oreann followed as she hurried south to the quthli camp.

Another brief shake occurred before they reached the quthli camp, but it lasted mere seconds. The quthli were in a tense state of alert. The hair on their backs, arms, and necks stood on end, and the males had taken up arms, ringing the camp around as if there might be a physical foe to fight. They watched Jareen and Oreann's arrival with narrowed eyes, but they did not prevent them going to Coir's side. They passed two of the females who had been severely injured when the limb of a dead tree had snapped and fallen on them. They were under the care of others of their sex.

Another brief tremble occurred before the vien arrived with the litter. Everyone was on edge. The Findelvien looked especially fearful as they followed the litter through the quthli camp. Jareen hoped that no foolishness would erupt.

The quthli appeared to understand what was happening, but they would not allow the vien litter-bearers to approach the body. Instead, a few of their younger males that Jareen recognized took the litter from the vien, while others laid Coir's body upon the weather-stained blanket suspended between two stout branches. No doubt, it was one of the best blankets the Vien possessed. The quthli were brutes in form, yet they moved Coir with gentleness, like one of their babes. No Voiceless Sister could have surpassed them. Soon, a whole group of Vireel's quthli huddled around the litter, standing erect and armed.

She wasn't sure what would happen, now, or whether the quthli would still lead them, but the same large quthli who had spoken with Coir about Vah'tane the day before drew near. He spoke something to her that she did not understand. Jareen pointed to herself, to her face and hair, and then to the east. She pointed to Coir, then to her face and hair, and to the east again. The quthli said something, turned, and headed along the northward trail, for the woods to the east were still dense. Jareen did not question whether she should follow. She could not speak to them, but she felt they understood. Though the quthli had few words, they survived and moved in the world better than she.

The litter-bearers followed the quthli leader, and Jareen followed the litter bearers. A score or so of quthli walked with them, but most stayed behind. The work of survival must continue, and the smell of smoking vaela hung like a pall in the woods. Behind the quth followed the Canaen and Findelvien. The procession strung out along the narrow trails for over a mile, through the woods of a Mingling quiet and cool.

Jareen paid little heed to their path. The quthli led down trails so narrow that the shoulders of the litter-bearers snagged on thorns, but quthli suffered the scrapes without jostling Coir. They loved him, and she loved them for loving him.

About midday, they turned down a trail that could hardly be called a trail at all. Jareen was not sure if it was more than an illusion of an animal-trail. The dense undergrowth was hard and dry and dead. Some of the quthli pushed ahead with long thick-spined knives, hacking at branches and clearing passage for the litter. Dead leafless trees allowed pale sunlight to stream down.

The ground grew rockier, and they climbed and descended low, moss-covered tirs with barely enough soil to sustain spindly conifers. The evergreens looked especially green in the half-dead woods. A few more times the ground shook, but only for brief moments. Between the boulders and hills, the quthli kept to their way with little difficulty, hunching over so that their arms hung down in front of them, ever concerned over the litter and clearing brambles from its path. They proceed thus for hours, and the day wore away. In the late afternoon, they crossed a fresh landslide at the side of a tir. Entire trees had been uprooted and tossed among the soil and boulders. The quthli picked their way across and found the scanty trail again.

It was no wonder that Vah'tane had not been found before—if Vah'tane it was. The Mingling was criss-crossed with paths, but who ever ventured far between them, among thorns and thickets? There was a little path to begin with, but even a single vien would have needed to crouch at times, or stop and consider. Before the freezing of the Mingling, when deadly beasts held sway and threatened even the quthli, such a trek would have felt like lunacy.

"Daughter of Vah," Selu said, drawing up beside her.

"Yes?"

"There is something else." He looked around, as if he spoke a secret. "About the Current."

She arched an eyebrow and waited.

"It is weakening," he said.

"What do you mean, weakening?"

"We don't know. I have never felt the like, but we do not feel the flow of it from the Wellspring."

Jareen didn't know what to think of such news. It meant nothing to her, but when she turned to look back, she clearly saw fear and concern on the faces of those following. Liethnie clutched her son's hand. The little vien looked alarmed as well, though the Insensitive Mleni walked behind looking more excited than anything.

"Is there something you wish to do?" she asked.

Selu looked perplexed by that question, but at length he shook his head.

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"We don't know."

"Neither do I," Jareen answered. Whatever was happening with the Current, it was not her concern. It was unlikely that anything would suddenly change after thousands of years. Probably, the earthquake had merely disturbed it for a time. Regardless, she did not expect it would bring about anything good. She had her own course, now, and she would follow no matter the foolishness of those cursed pools.

She noticed that Selu was looking up at the sky, his brow furrowed. She had been watching her feet on the treacherous path, and she hadn't looked up in some time. Now she did. Huge towering billows of cloud were swirling overhead. At first, she thought they were heading west, but then she saw some that moved eastward. A fitful breeze blew, clattering bare branches in the woods, but the clouds raced so that she was sure mighty winds must be blowing in the upper air. The sight unsettled her. She looked back to the ground.

It was evening when the procession halted at the side of a hill. Jareen tried to see why, and slipped past the litter, reaching out to touch Coir's arm without hardly knowing it. Ahead, the lead quthli stood at a wall of withered vines that hung from a protruding shelf of rock above.

The lead quthli saw her and motioned her forward. One of the quthli hacked the growth away with a knife, letting the light into the sheltered hollow beneath the overhang.

That's when she saw it: a pictograph of a vien on the upper back wall of the cave. The skin and hair were painted with a white pigment. Fine blue lines were drawn on his face and arms, and she knew they were meant to be veins. It was clear why the quthli called him the dead vien, and her for that matter. The vien wore a strange sleeveless garment that hung straight, unlike the robes she was familiar with. His arms were outstretched, and beneath his white feet was an opening in the rock, a tall cleft only a couple feet wide.

Around the cleft, the rock was carved with symbols she did not recognize, geometric patterns and devices that might have had meaning, but she could not tell. The carving was deft and flawless, deep into the dark stone, with no mark of tool. There were other carvings, too, and thanks to her mother, these Jareen recognized. Near the top of the cleft, beneath the feet of the vien, were newer symbols clumsily cut into the rock. They were shallow, and not as old as the other carvings, for at one point a letter overlapped, clearly cutting into the strange device beneath it. She saw roots growing in the rocks around the opening. Roots, in solid rock, as if they too were drawn.

She realized that the pictograph itself was not just painted but also carved into the stone. The pigments were cracked, but the color had faded only slightly. It was clearly old, perhaps ancient, sheltered out of the weather where no wind or rain could find it. The air beneath the overhang felt strangely dry.

"Daughter of Vah," Liethnie said. Jareen turned to see the wide-eyed expressions of the council. Others of both the Canaen and Findelvien had pressed forward behind them. They were staring at the cave as if something threatened to bite them. "What power is this that flows?"

"What do you mean?" Jareen asked.

"There is Current flowing into that gap," she said, pointing below the painting.

"Like a Wellspring?" Jareen asked.

"No. It flows into it, not from it."

"Both the Current of Isecan and Findel are drawn to it," Selu said. "I have never felt the like before."

"Is it Vah'tane?" Liethnie asked, her words carried notes of confusion.

Jareen turned back to the cave. Was it? Whatever the others felt, she could not. The quthli drew back in silence. Jareen had heard of caves, but she had never seen one before. The thought of all that rock above made her uneasy, but she took a step through the tattered vines. She wanted to see the painting and writing from closer.

"Be careful," Liethnie said.

Just as she could not feel whatever they felt, she did not fear whatever they feared from the Current. She wished she had a lamp or a candle. Even beneath the overhang, it was dim. The sun had dipped below the trees in the west. The cleft beneath the painting was darker still. No light illumined what lay within. She felt air flowing across the back of her neck and head. Air was flowing into the opening, not just the Current.

"Can you use the Current to give light?" Jareen called back.

Sticks were collected, and Oreann cautiously advanced. He held out the bundle of sticks and squinted. Flames leapt, and light flickered on the rough stone walls of the cave. Veins of rock shone around the cleft with a luster she had seen before. It was the same as the spear that Faro had carried.

"What is the writing?" Oreann asked.

"It is proto-Vienwé," Jareen replied. "The earliest script of our people." She was trying to make out each letter. Her mother had loved calligraphy, its practice as well as its history. Every character of Vienwé originated in a proto-Vienwé, the basic ideas of the characters without the later flourishes, connections, and tonal shifts that marked emotion. These marks were at the heart of the Vienwé that Jareen's mother had so strictly taught her. It had been a long time since her mother had drilled her, but thankfully, the inscription was neither long nor complicated.

"Can you read it?"

"Alouna'Tanel," Jareen said. "I think."

"The Gate of Rest?"

Jareen shrugged.

"I doubt Vah called it Vah's Gate."

She looked up at the pictograph.

Was that Vah? Did someone who knew him paint that? It was primitive, done without any real skill. The painters and carvers of Findeluvié would scoff, but Jareen shivered. Oreann leaned forward, holding the burning end of the sticks toward the gap below the painting. The flames flickered toward the opening in the inward flow of air, but they could not see within.

"Toss one," Jareen said. He flung one of the sticks into the dark, and it was gone without trace or glow of ember. It had illumined nothing, not even a hint of stone.

Why a cave?

Oreann shook his head.

Liethni braved a step past the remains of the vines.

"What could draw the Current like this?" she asked.

"Well," Jareen said. She turned to Oreann and held out her hand for a burning stick. "Give me one, and I will hold it inside."

"No, Daughter of Vah," he said. "I fear danger. Let me."

"I brought you—"

Oreann ignored her. For a moment, he covered the opening with his body, then turned sideways. Leading with his free hand, he slid inside, the burning sticks following last. The light vanished. They could see nothing.

"Oreann?" Jareen called.

Liethni stepped to the opening and leaned forward.

"Oreann?" she shouted

"Be careful!" Jareen grabbed Liethni's shoulder.

Liethnie straightened but called again. There was no reply, not even an echo, as if her voice was swallowed up. Jareen ventured another call, but the result was the same. Liethni looked at her, fear plain on her face, her mouth open, and her body tense.

"Come," Jareen said, turning Liethni by the shoulder.

They passed from beneath the overhang, into the brighter but fading light of the day. Many of the Vien had crowded in as close as they could behind the council. The quthli had cut away a swath of brush and thorns and watched from behind. Coir rested among them on his litter.

"Is it Vah'tane?" someone asked.

"I don't know," Jareen said, and sighed. "I do not know what lies beyond."

There was murmuring.

"It is Vah'tane," someone said. Jareen recognized one of the vien who had long been with them, Folen of Elnwé, who had served as a one of their sentinels. "I feel its power."

"It swallowed Oreann," Liethnie said, her voice shaking. "He is gone."

"He has passed through Vah'tane," Folen said. There was more murmuring. Folen looked around at the crowd. "I will follow him." The vien stepped forward.

"I will go with him," another said. It was his brother. Jareen watched in silence as they approached. Folen paused as he reached her.

"Daughter of Vah, fear not," he said. "If by any means I can give you sign, I will." With that, the two brothers stepped beneath the overhang of rock. Jareen watched them hesitate at the cleft. Folen bent down and stared within, and without another word he plunged through. His brother followed. She waited. Neither returned.

"It is Vah'tane," someone said aloud.

"It is death and madness," another replied.

A Findelvien stepped forward. Without word or hesitation, she entered the cave and plunged into the darkness. All those gathered close could see her go.

"Don't!" someone yelled. A vienu grasped the arm of a vien, but he tore free.

"I'm sorry, mother," the vien answered.

"Stop!"

But he did not heed her. He passed within the cleft. Another of the Findelvien followed.

"Do not be foolish!" someone said. "This cannot be Vah'tane!"

"Why not?"

"Vah'tane is supposed to be a gate to a city of our people, not a hole in the ground."

Arguments were breaking out all around, but some ignored all else, walking forward. Some came in silence, some with tears, some with their loved ones clinging and begging them not to go, trying to pull them back. The quthli watched in silence, and for once, Jareen felt like they were the rational ones.

Telu and Mleni walked forward, hand in hand. Liethni stepped in front of them and dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around Telu.

"Stay with me," she said.

"Are we going in?" Telu asked. Mleni, the Son of Vah, squinted up at the painting. He looked at Jareen, and then stepped forward. Liethni reached for him with one hand, but he was beyond her.

"Mleni," Jareen said.

The lad smiled.

"Look," he said, pointing at the painting. "This is where we're supposed to go."

The crowd hushed as the Son of Vah passed through and was gone. He didn't even need to duck. Jareen stared after him, half expecting him to step back out, as if whatever power the place had over the others would have no effect on him, like the Current. But he did not return.

Now the shouts and pleas and tears of the crowd grew louder. Some begged, some tried to wrestle others to the ground. Jareen looked over at Coir's face where he rested among the silent quthli, his beard still neatly groomed upon his chest. In all the chaos, he looked peaceful, though his jaw hung slack. Some of the Noshians tied scarves around the heads of the dead to hold the jaw closed, but she had always found it a strange custom.

He should have been there to advise her. He would have said something to give her clarity—or confused her more, like as not. They had come so far together.

Was this really Vah'tane? It didn't feel like she thought it would, but then, she wasn't sure what she thought it would feel like.

"Daughter of Vah," Liethni cried, still clutching Telu. "What do we do?"

"Listen!" Jareen shouted, but her voice was lost in the uproar. She raised both hands into the air. "Listen!"

A few near the front saw her and quietened. As she continued to call, the hush spread.

"I do not blame you if you choose to go home. Each of you must decide for yourselves."

"Daughter of Vah," Selu said. "I cannot. I must know what is amiss with the Current. It is weakening even more. I fear that the Wellspring no longer flows."

"Surely that cannot be," Liethnie said.

Selu did not reply, but his expression belied his fear. Jareen had learned enough from Coir to imagine what might happen without the Current.

"Go, and tell others where the gate can be found," she said. "The knowledge may be needed now more than ever."

"You led us here," someone called, accusation in the tone. "Are you going to enter?"

Jareen ignored it, walking toward the bunch of quthli. Vien and vienu pressed out of her way. The quthli watched as she approached the litter. They did not intervene as she slid her arms below Coir's empty form. He was so light. She raised him, straightening her back with care. There was pain in her joints after a day's walk, but she could suffer it. As she carried him back to the shelter of the overhang, the silence only deepened.

The unsettling cave mouth lay before her. She could not see what lay within, but she was acutely aware of what lay behind—many eyes, many souls. Despite their number, she felt alone. She had not felt so alone in a long time. She had often thought herself alone, but she'd had Coir, and for a time, Faro.

A pang of anger rose in her. How could they both leave her? She feared that Faro had chosen war, chosen Vireel's way. She released a deep breath. There was no use for anger now. Maybe he had found his own purpose. Maybe he would be safe. She loved him, but love did not make slaves. She could not control him, and to cling to him would only make him watch her die.

There was no one left to make decisions for her, or to make decisions for. She only held a body.

"Don't go for me, Jareen," he'd said.

Was this Vah'tane?

Did she believe?

The darkness of that maw filled her vision. She read the inscription once more. She was not sure if she had faith. But she hoped.

"Don't worry," she whispered, even as her body trembled. "I go for me."

That was odd. Now that she looked at it again, the dark inside the cleft looked strangely like the night sky. The night sky and a warm sea.

With Coir's form cradled in her arms, she slid sideways into the cleft.