I am
so angry. I can’t
express myself. I try to let it go, I try
to be at peace, not
just for myself but for everyone who is going to need me. But right
now, I feel
like breaking something. I feel like
breaking
everything, but that makes no sense, since now everything is
broken
already.
My father is dead.
My father,
the king is dead. Thantic Joric-Nerana, my
father the King is
dead. With him he took my brother Dolin
and my sister Tera. They were my earth
and sky, my love and my hope. In two
days’ time we will burn their bodies and scatter their ashes on the
Land, in
the Water and in the Air. I wasn’t
this
angry when mother died, because it was the wasting sickness that took
her, and
not even magick can heal
everything. I’m at peace with that. It
was simply what was.
But this.
This.
“Ipola?” Karna
walks out of the
great hall where many of the tribe’s warriors, unlike me,
are
peacefully
sleeping at this hour of the night. Her
voice is as it always is, controlled, low, professionally sympathetic.
"Yes.”
“You’ll need to speak
tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you’ll be
able to?”
“Yes.”
“What will you say?”
“'Yes.'”
“Can we get beyond single
syllables, child?”
“What is to say? My father succeeded
in getting himself and
our whole family killed and starting another idiotic blood feud with
the Bear Tribe.”
“Yes, well, naturally
there’s a little more to it than that.”
“No – no, there really
isn’t. He was the king, he was popular,
people loved him. Do you know why they
loved him?”
“Why don’t you tell me
why
you think they loved him?”
“They loved him because he
was tall, brave and honest. They loved
him because he was a great warrior and had killed many enemies, and all
in fair
fight. They loved him because he never
submitted to insults, was loyal and strong and … and everything an
Erogenian
king is supposed to be. What a good
Erogenian king has
always been supposed to be. And when a
fight
got out of hand, and steel was drawn he was always the winner. Always, isn’t
that right? Don’t the people always love a winner?”
“Except this time, he
lost.”
“And
when he dies, what is
a son to do but challenge his killer?
And when a warrior sees her brother and father cut down? What is she to do? What
are Erogenians supposed to do?!”
“What
would you have them
do?”
“I’d
have them fight their
enemies!! Not each other! The Bull Tribe
fought off an Urtt raid just last week, did you know about that?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Fifteen
people killed, ten
taken alive. They lose dozens every
year, and the ones killed in battle are the lucky ones.
And what does Thantic do? What does
he care about? He cares about a blood debt
that he says Tor
owes him from five years ago, and he
won’t go to help!
People are dying, made
worse than cattle, and what
does he care
about? And what does he do?! Gets
into some stupid brawl and loses
himself. When his people need him – he
loses himself to me … to .. . us.”
Karna slips a hand on my
shoulder. The tears come, but they
fall
down my cheeks by themselves, without my even noticing. In my heart I’m
still
angry. But now, even as the tears trace
warm, shiny lines of reflected sky light down my face, I know I have to
plan.
“The people want you to be
queen.”
“Not all of them,” I say,
wiping my face at last. I look up. The
sky is overcast, glowing dully, bright silver showing at the cracks
from the
full moon
hidden behind the grey curtain of clouds.
“Enough of them. You’ll be
queen.”
“‘Enough’ isn’t good
enough. Just being queen isn't good
enough, not for what needs to
be done.”
“Well, we have only what we
have.”
I
can't help it. My eyes fly wide with fury and fire. I round
on my old friend and teacher with a gathering intensity that I've never
expressed aloud, before.
“It won't do. It just won't! I need them all behind me, to believe in me, as they believe in
the gods themselves, don't you see?! Tomorrow
… tomorrow I will speak. I"ll tell them things that many won’t want
to hear. But they need to hear it.
We need to change,
Karna. We have too many enemies, and if we
don’t
unite we’ll lose everything we’ve
spent a thousand years to
gain. The Sandaks and the Urtts grow
stronger every year, the
Kivalians don’t trust us and I don’t blame them because our warriors
would
rather fight with Kivalians than trade with them or fight against the
Urtts as one. There has to be one
Erogenia, one people to
face the
Urtts and drive them back across the river.
They have to be beaten so badly they won’t be able to return. We have
to teach them the price of human blood is a price they can't afford to
pay anymore. To do that, we need to be allies with the
Kivalians because we can’t have enemies at our own front door, and we
need to
move quickly all across the land."
"And their swords are just as sharp as ours," she nodded.
"Yes! Karna, I
have to get all of our people behind me or it can’t work.
I have to be able to speak for them, lead
them into a new time, a better way of life.
I can’t do that if I have
to keep playing the politics of
everyone's personal cha and ... and gods-damned vanity and answering
challenges at home. I can’t do it with a
tribe full of people like my father, Karna – they have to accept the
idea of
change.”
The clouds hang motionless
far above us, even as a chill breeze lifts my hair and the fabric of
our gowns. In the silence of the
conversation’s lull the
night song of the coneheads and katydids rises softly all around,
punctuated
time and again by a mockingbird’s call.
I can feel her studying my face, weighing my words.
“And what,” she says at
last, “are you going to do to make this happen between now and
tomorrow?”
I’ve
never said it aloud before now, but what had been
little more than a childish fantasy a day ago is now my only hope.
“I’m going to enter the Tower Of The Moon,
Karna. I am going to be the Mother Of Change that's been foretold
for ten times ten times three centuries.”
"Your father tried that."
"I know."
"And your great-uncle Forthic, and a thousand other Erogenian kings and
queens. The gates didn't open for them."
"They'll ... they'll open for me."
"And if they don't?"
"Then ... then things stay as they are. And eventually ...
we die. We just ... we just die, Karna. "
She looks at me, long and sharply. The mockingbirds calls
echo from the valley walls again and again as our thoughts and feelings
race, each toward the inevitable conclusion. At last, she
says simply,
"All right, then. Let's get the horses and go,"
