It was shelter. It was safe from the storm that was
now muffled as the snow built up on the half dome. But it kept getting smellier all the time
with the deer and the horses and the elephants and the people, though there was
a stone lined trench for a latrine that lead outside under the hoop wall. The problem was the sheer quantity that both
Didar and Jagunjagun produced, even if it was herbivore dung and there was only
so much liquid water to help the feces flow away especially once the weight of snow
pinned the flap down and blocked anything from flowing anywhere.
Ologbon and the Cylak spent some time shoveling from
inside and then threw ashes over the worst of it.
“If we had enough meltwater we could just spray it
away,” Jagunjagun said. His trunk was
curled tight into his muff where he had a dried apple studded with cloves to
smell.
Didara, ears folded back tight with her flaps tied
firmly under her chin, rocked back and forth the mirrors on her hat and the
gems in her tusks glittering in the lanternlight as she moved, eyes closed,
distracted. “Hmm? What?
Jagunjagun please leave me alone, I’m right in the middle of the precis
and I’m trying to express it correctly!”
She thrummed crossly and all across the shelter a dozen people turned to
look at her.
Ologbon gazed around at them. “Look at that!” he said. “So many foreign iti-igi can hear you when
you speak properly! Women and men both!”
The Cylak captain pulled a blanket up over her
shoulders and edged between two of her riding deer and past the knot of
warriors. “You sing?” she asked Ologbon.
“Sing? No… it
is speaking for my partners.”
“Perhaps we should sing for you.” She turned to her group and with much laughter
they arranged themselves in a semi-circle in front of the two elephants. “We call this throat-sing. Pass some more time before we sleep.”
**
The black haired girl
child is sitting next to the young priest and I. But her hair isn’t black any longer. It is the colour of icicles in the night and
her eyes are white and her skin. There
are shards of ice in her hair and her eyelashes, clinging to the hair on her
skin so she has razor chips glittering at the corners of her mouth and on the
tips of her ears. Her bare hands are
bone white and her long, long nails are black and colder than the ice and snow
that make her flesh. I can feel the
radiant freeze and when she smiles at me the inside of her mouth is black and
her sharp teeth glitter like new fallen snow against that darkness.
I fear her. I love her. I
know Her.
“So you can only welcome
me as Lover when I am Destruction? How
cold!” She laughs and her laughter falls
from the sky whipped by the howling wind and runs before us.
“Lady…” I try to swallow
and it feels as though the saliva in my throat is freezing as it goes
down. “I know You.”
“Not really. You know the Fire of Destruction. My Husband is the One who can engulf worlds
in his Fires of Rage. He breaks all of
Creation down and when all the fire is leached out it comes to me. I am the Darkness between Stars and Aeono
sheets his Flames through me and yet does not touch the heart of my coldness.”
“I have seen you in my
mother’s eyes.”
“Rutaçyen in your world,
not Wenhiffar. She will die of Me, soon
and welcome her death. Her life in your
world has been torture.”
“Can’t the other one save
her?”
“He will. He will let her die, as you could not. And I will cool and sooth the burns your
father scorched into her soul.”
I can feel the tears
freezing on my cheeks and the water that flowed from my hands become thick
slush and then columns of ice flowing from my fingers over the
floorboards. I cannot let Her freeze us
all. “Liryen, Destroyer, thank you.”
“What, for letting
another part of Me help you? Because you
asked properly?”
“Yes.”
She stares at me, then
flings her deadly laughter in my face and I can feel it sting as my tears
crack. “Good. You needn’t fear my husband’s heat any
longer, child. See?”
She draws a clear mirror
in front of me and in it I can see the young priest’s fires dancing, glittering
and frozen. My scars don’t ache, seeing
them, even the brand on my chest. Her
cheeks flush a faint pink and suddenly I’m hard. I want Her.
“If my sex offends I’m sorry,” I say, terrified. “But You are beautiful.”
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