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    The Birthgrave
    The Birthgrave
    The Birthgrave
    Ebook603 pages10 hours

    The Birthgrave

    By Tanith Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A mysterious woman awakens in the heart of a dormant volcano. She comes forth into a brutal ancient world transformed by genocidal pestilence, fierce beauty, and cultural devastation. She has no memory of herself, and she could be anyone—mortal woman, demoness lover, last living heir to a long-gone race, or a goddess of destruction. Compelled by the terrifying Karrakaz to search for the mysterious Jade that is the answer to her secret self, she embarks on a journey of timeless wonder.

    Rediscover this realm of brilliant cruel beauty and seductive immortal ruins, of savage war and grand conquest, of falling stars and silver gods.

    This 40th anniversary edition of legendary fantastist Tanith Lee's debut novel includes its original introduction by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDAW
    Release dateJun 2, 2015
    ISBN9780698404533
    The Birthgrave
    Author

    Tanith Lee

    Tanith Lee has won multiple World Fantasy Awards, including the 2013 World Fantasy Award Life Time Achievement Award, and she was the first woman to win the August Derleth Award, which she received for her novel Death's Master. Her books include the Tales from the Flat Earth series and The Birthgrave Trilogy for adults, and The Claidi Journals series of children's fantasy books. She has written more than 250 short stories. She lived in England.

    Read more from Tanith Lee

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    Reviews for The Birthgrave

    3.5/5

    129 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An amazing first full length novel. Beautifully written in that poetic verbose prose I love so much, with world building that hints at complexity without getting bogged in details. A strong heroine, flawed and seeking. 4 stars because to my internet addled brain, it was too long.
    • 4/5
      I read this as part of First Author Contact hosted by Red StarReviews and MillieBot Reads on Instagram. I have read Tanith Lee before, but it was a collection of short stories. This was my first exposure to a novel by her.
      It was good - different than my normal reading - which I appreciated. Her characters were complex and terrifying in their realness, and the twist and turns of the plot kept me hooked. Lee explored gender and relationship issues, but not in an overt way. It was more part of the overarching exploration of the main character, and her search for self.
      The ending was weird and I am still not sure what I think about it. It was incongruous with the rest of the novel, but it also connected.
      I'm thankful for the exposure and the expansion of my reading habits. I will be purchasing, at some point, the sequel.
    • 4/5
      The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee
      S.E. Lindberg rating: 4 of 5 stars

      Haunting Release: The Birthgrave is a coming of age novel of (and by) a female goddess. Tanith Lee’s debut novel is adult oriented, dark fantasy. This one is epic, dosed with poetic horror and battle, and features lots of risky writing (entertaining). The 2015 reprint comes with a haunting introduction written in January, just months before her May death coinciding with the paperback release in the US.

      The female narrator quests to free her body/soul from a curse; although suffering from amnesia as she awakens from an active volcano, she learns that she is a goddess among humans… and she knows her ancestors are all mysteriously gone. She is alone, powerful, and yet ignorant and weak. There is plenty of rough sexual encounters, not gratuitous but written more dispassionately than romantically – and seems to toy with the stereotypes of the genre. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s introduction is short yet insightful and touches on this interplay:
      Most women in science fiction write from a man’s viewpoint. In most human societies, adventures have been structured for men. Women who wish to write of adventure have had to accept, willy-nilly, this limitation. There seems an unspoken assumption in science fiction that science fiction is usually read by men, or, if it is read by women, it is read by those women who are bored with feminine concerns and wish to escape into the world of fantasy where they can change their internal viewpoint and gender and share the adventurous world of men…

      …Here is a woman writer whose protagonist is a woman—yet from the very first she takes her destiny in her own hands, neither slave nor chattel. Her adventures are her own. She is not dragged into them by the men in her life, nor served up to the victor as a sexual reward after the battle. For the first time since C. L. Moore’s warrior-woman, Jirel of Joiry, we see the woman-adventurer in her own right. But this book is not an enormous allegory of women’s liberation, nor an elaborate piece of special pleading. It’s just a big delightful feast of excitement and adventure—Introduction by Marion Zimmer Bradley

      Expect Ambitious, Risky Writing that Works Most of the Time: This is a first-person-perspective for 450pages! The content is full of adult psychology and complex mystery, written by a 22yr old! And it is her debut novel! How is that for pioneering? Most of the time, the risk taking pays off. The perspective works as it should, and it was easy to forget (even 400 pages in) that I still did not know “her” proper name---but by then I knew “her” so well a name was not needed. She unfolds a mystery with perfect pacing with periodic ghostly encounters and déjà vu moments. There is plenty of commentary about gender roles across barbaric and civilized cultures, though it steered away from being political commentary thankfully. Tanith Lee’s gift for poetic language is stunning. The book is saturated with efficient characterizations, like the two below:
      If I broke into a run to escape them, would they too run to keep up? My eyes grew strange, and everywhere I looked, I seemed to see the glitter of the Knife of Easy Dying. Die, and let them follow me to death if they would. But I was still too new to life to let it go.

      …Darak had called them to some council then, on the low hill beyond the houses. Yes, that would be it. A little king on a little throne, lording it because his subjects were smaller than even his smallness.
      Avoiding spoilers, I must still note that there is a sudden encounter very late in the novel that seems to shift the genre out of its dark-fantasy-epic mold. Given the 1975 wording and delivery, it would be easy to over emphasis this section. Diehard genre readers feeling sucker-punched may have to sigh or trust my review that ultimately the milieu is consistent. In short order, the story rights its trajectory in a consistent manner.

      I really enjoyed reading this experiential novel and am saddened to learn of Tanith Lee’s death. Thankfully, she was a prolific writer and wrote a large library of weird, dark fantasy… which I look forward to delving into. The Birthgrave begins a trilogy; the sequel is Vazkor, Son of Vazkor, and the finale is Quest for the White Witch. The releases come with new covers from artist Bastien Lecouffe Deharme.
    • 4/5
      A woman wakes deep beneath a mountain with no clue who, or even what, she is. She discovers a strange being who tells her she's the last descendant of a god-like race and if she chooses to live out her life and leave the mountain she'll be cursed. She decides to leave and begins her new life running from an erupting volcano. Arriving in the remains of a small town, she's hailed as a local goddess and begins her journey through the land. Goddess is just one of the roles she finds herself in- witch, slave, partner and mother being some of the others-while she tries to discover who she is and wants to be.

      As usual, Tanith created a character who is complex and emotional. Our main character, known in parts as Uastis, annoyed and entertained me. As she learned of the powers she possessed and struggled through various relationships, I varied from wanting to slap her to wanting to hug her. When she was being a badass, chariot-riding warrior-babe I was rooting for her to dominate the world. There are a lot of classic fantasy elements in this book, enriched by Tanith's writing style and spiced up with surprising sci-fi elements towards the end. It's a somewhat heavy read-not something you can fly through in a day or two-but worthwhile for fantasy fans. I also have to mention the lovely cover art by Ken Kelly, which captures one of my favorite parts of the book and is everything you could want in a vintage fantasy book cover. It's my favorite cover of the three.
    • 4/5
      Vis, the world of Tanith Lee's Storm Lord Trilogy, and the follow-up Anackire series is a good place to visit. It's hard-edged stuff, trying to convey a world of active Gods rather than feel-good sorcerers. She starts in the Birthgrave, with a plausible biography of a Goddess. The books she found there are my favourite works by Lee. I think she's gone downhill since, and hope enough readers can be found for these early works.
    • 5/5
      Sounds paradoxical, that title, doesn't it? It fits though. It's the story of a woman who awakens in an erupting volcano and goes on a quest to discover her identity--for she doesn't even remember her name. Some reviewers complained she's too passive, too victimized, in all that follows--but I think that just goes with her loss of self--she learns about the world around her as we do, something the first person underlines. It's an unputdownable book, that takes you through exotic lands; it has that pulp fiction feel of H Rider Haggard She or Robert Howard's Conan, or perhaps even more akin, Jane Gaskell's Atlan Saga. Lee's style and her world could both be described as lush. Though along with Tanith Lee's poetic prose you're going to get a psychological complexity you're not going to find in Conan the Barbarian. It was Tanith Lee's first book and won the 1975 Nebula Award for best novel.
    • 5/5
      A decadent fantasy tale of personal trials within a grand setting.

      The nameless main character, who emerges from a dreamless sleep fully grown but without memories, makes her dissociated way through a largely barbaric world dotted with the relics of a once-great civilization. She moves from culture to culture, adopts various roles and professions, and plays at interacting with people she really has little interest in. Over the course of her travels patterns begin to emerge and take shape, and she slowly discovers who she is, and what the extent is of her superhuman powers.

      For large parts of the book the process of self-discovery blends into the background, largely forgotten as the main character gets caught up in the events that happen around her, making other people's motivations temporarily her own. She is a passive character throughout, allowing herself to be carried along by the wills of others, usually a domineering male. This is the background against which the few active choices that she does make stand out and form recurring patterns. As a result, much of the book is contemplative in nature, with the main character trying to make sense of the world around her and her position in it -- or perhaps outside it. Fortunately, Lee inserts well-timed bursts of action that alternate pleasantly with the more quiet chapters. Through it all, the main character becomes increasingly aware of how utterly detached she is from the vividly drawn cultures around her: she is believable as a character who is not quite human, but who slowly is learning to fend for herself.

      What I like best about this book is how well this meandering purposeless-yet-goal-oriented storyline blends with Lee's writing style. Both mingle the lush and the decadent with the sparse, reinforcing and echoing each other, and that makes for a wonderfully evocative reading experience. I particularly enjoy the atmosphere of living in the shadow of inimitable sophistication that permeates the sections set in the few remaining pockets of reflected civilization.

      The thing I dislike most is how rushed the ending feels, in that the pacing suddenly shifts a couple of gears: in the span of ten pages a convenient explanation is provided for all the hints and the patterns that the book has slowly been building up to. This is at least partially intentional: the main character has reached a point where she can't progress without an external catalyst; but I can't help but feel that the transformation is unpleasantly jarring -- especially because Lee essentially has to shift genre to accomplish it.
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this book. I read it to the end, hoping the lead character would redeem herself. But she never did. She is a goddess, with superpowers, but she allows herself to repeatedly be a victim of any victimizer within range.

      I heard Tanith Lee was a feminist fantasy author, so I had high hopes for this... and maybe I missed something... but this book sucked.
    • 4/5
      A goddess awakens beneath a mountain and learns of the curse that will follow her if she goes into the outside world. She finds a mixture of love, hatred and exploitation wherever she goes; and disaster is never far behind in her struggle for truth. It's one of Lee's early novels and quite an epic with more than a few of her usual decadent touches, very much dark and gloomy fantasy with not even the glimpse of a comfortable shire.
    • 4/5
      This is Lee's first book, and reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's introduction, I got to share in the excitement of discovering a wonderful new author through a wonderful story. A nameless woman awakes deep in a volcano, is told that she's evil and cursed, and runs as the volcano erupts. She's followed by death, sometimes meting it out herself, as she struggles to find the Jade that will explain everything, wandering the world. The world feels like a post apocalyptic one, with ruins of the Lost dotting the landscape, but magic is lurking under the surface. She works as a healer, is taken for a godess, becomes a warrior, lives and loves and searches. The language is perfect, the world vividly drawn, and my only quibble is that she seems to be a bit passive at times, plus there's a few incidents of rape that were disturbing, though her reactions are explained away. There's a bit of the Mary Sue about the woman, as she's great at whatever she tries, and heals overnight from any injuries, up to death. But the mystery kept me engaged and guessing until the end.

    Book preview

    The Birthgrave - Tanith Lee

    Cover for The Birthgrave

    The masterpiece debut from legendary author Tanith Lee!

    A big, rich, bloody swords-and-sorcery epic with a truly memorable heroine . . . A top bet for genre fans and a treat for feminists tired of wilting Gothic leading ladies.

    —Publishers Weekly

    Quite remarkable . . . an outstanding novel of strange adventure.

    —Analog

    "The Birthgrave is one of the most beautifully written pieces of fantasy I have ever read."

    —The Drexel Triangle

    Thunderously bloody and sensual in a way that would make Robert E. Howard pant. Yet it is also a deeper story of character and identity . . . This combination of gothic dark fantasy and pulp-style adventure proves intoxicating.

    —Coilhouse

    An exciting, feverish, obsession-laden sword and sorcery epic, unlike anything then current—or, arguably, since.

    —LOCUS

    Marvelously paced and beautifully written.

    —British Fantasy Society Bulletin

    "A quality tour de force not to be missed."

    —Science Fiction Review

    It has everything one looks for in a science fiction novel . . . a marvelous and intricate work.

    —Tangent

    DAW Books presents new and classic works of imaginative fiction by multiple award-winning author TANITH LEE

    THE BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY

    THE BIRTHGRAVE

    SHADOWFIRE

    (originally published as Vazkor, Son of Vazkor)

    HUNTING THE WHITE WITCH

    (originally published as Quest for the White Witch)

    TALES FROM THE FLAT EARTH

    NIGHT’S MASTER

    DEATH’S MASTER

    DELUSION’S MASTER

    DELIRIUM’S MISTRESS

    NIGHT’S SORCERIES

    EARTH’S MASTER

    THE WARS OF VIS

    THE STORM LORD

    ANACKIRE

    THE WHITE SERPENT

    AND MORE:

    COMPANIONS ON THE ROAD

    VOLKHAVAAR

    ELECTRIC FOREST

    SABELLA

    KILL THE DEAD

    DAY BY NIGHT

    LYCANTHIA

    DARK CASTLE, WHITE HORSE

    CYRION

    SUNG IN SHADOW

    TAMASTARA

    THE GORGON AND OTHER BEASTLY TALES

    DAYS OF GRASS

    A HEROINE OF THE WORLD

    REDDER THAN BLOOD

    DAW is proud to be reissuing these classic books in new editions, as well as publishing new works from Tanith Lee, beginning in 2015.

    Copyright © 1975 by Tanith Lee.

    Introduction copyright © 1975 by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

    Author’s Note copyright © 2015 by Tanith Lee.

    All Rights Reserved.

    Cover art by Bastien Lecouffe Deharme.

    Cover design by G-Force Design.

    DAW Book Collectors No. 154.

    DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

    All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

    All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

    The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

    First Printing, June 1975.

    First Anniversary Edition Printing, June 2015.

    ISBN 978-0-698-40453-3

    DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

    btb_ppg_148365465_c0_r1

    CONTENTS

    Praise for Tanith Lee

    Also by Tanith Lee

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Introduction

    Author’s Note

    Book One

    Part I: Under the Volcano

    Part II: The Hill Camps

    Part III: The High-Lord’s Way

    Part IV: Ankurum

    Book Two

    Part I: Across the Ring

    Part II: The Water

    Part III: The Dark City

    Part IV: War March

    Part V: Tower-Eshkorek

    Book Three

    Part I: Snake’s Road

    Part II: The Edge of the Sea

    Part III: Inside the Hollow Star

    INTRODUCTION

    by Marion Zimmer Bradley

    Don Wollhem wrote to tell me he had just bought a long novel by an unknown Englishwoman whose only previous books had been written for children. He asked me to read it and, if I felt it was something I could honestly praise, to write an introduction.

    It arrived on a morning full of annoyances. I was still recuperating after a slipped disk, so that I walked with a sort of careful crouch and winced when I hefted the thick manuscript. Still, I’d promised Wollheim and he is my own publisher, so I surveyed the fat mass of copy paper without enthusiasm, cautiously lowered my aching back into a kitchen chair, and spread out the manuscript on the table.

    So I turned the first page and found myself in the heart of an extinct volcano, in darkness, with a woman who did not know who she was, or where she was, or why. . . .

    And before long I forgot that I was reading this out of duty, or a promise to an editor, or anything else. I even forgot the kitchen chair and the bad back, although after a couple of hours (sleepwalking, still reading with the manuscript box under my arm, unable to set it aside even to hunt a really comfortable place) I did shift myself from kitchen table to living-room sofa. I had forgotten everything except the nameless woman and her mysterious quest.

    I am a remarkably fast reader, but it was almost five hours later when I turned over the last page, read THE END, and surfaced with a start and a shudder. Wow, I thought. Oh, wow!

    All I thought about the task of writing an introduction was that I’d have a chance to share with the other readers something of how I felt about this terrific new discovery.

    It’s a strange and rather disturbing book. It’s filled with adventure and beauty, rich alien names, half-sketched barbarian societies, ruined cities, decadence and wonder. A nameless woman, knowing only that she is under a curse, comes out of the heart of an extinct volcano. Everything is strange to her. Is she healer-woman, witch, goddess, as the various peoples call her? Can she choose to be courtesan, warrior, queen? She goes from tribe to tribe, city to city, with the curse of her past following her wherever she goes. She can suffer pain—but she is deathless, except by her own will; she is drawn endlessly by the quest for her identity, her forgotten name, the mysterious Jade which—she believes—holds the key to her soul; and everywhere she is pursued by the image of the Knife of Easy Dying, which alone can kill her.

    Comparisons are odious, yet as I read this I thought most often of the Dying Earth stories of Jack Vance, under whose spell I had fallen as a girl. THE BIRTHGRAVE has something of the same color and wonder; something, too, of the strange undertone of doom and sadness.

    And there was something else.

    Most women in science fiction write from a man’s viewpoint. In most human societies, adventures have been structured for men. Women who wish to write of adventure have had to accept, willy-nilly, this limitation. There seems an unspoken assumption in science fiction that science fiction is usually read by men, or, if it is read by women, it is read by those women who are bored with feminine concerns and wish to escape into the world of fantasy where they can change their internal viewpoint and gender and share the adventurous world of men. Maybe this was true at one time. The women’s liberationists would say that we women writers, too, had been brainwashed into accepting this pervasive social trend.

    By and large, most of us have accepted the unspoken dictum that this is a man’s world, and if we wish to compete in it, we shall do so as men. All of us, and I include myself, have written mostly of men’s doings and concerns, and all too often from a man’s point of view.

    So maybe this is the book we’ve all been waiting for.

    Here is a woman writer whose protagonist is a woman—yet from the very first she takes her destiny in her own hands, neither slave nor chattel. Her adventures are her own. She is not dragged into them by the men in her life, nor served up to the victor as a sexual reward after the battle. For the first time since C. L. Moore’s warrior-woman, Jirel of Joiry, we see the woman-adventurer in her own right.

    But this book is not an enormous allegory of women’s liberation, nor an elaborate piece of special pleading. It’s just a big delightful feast of excitement and adventure.

    It’s a long book. You get involved, learn to know the people, get fully submerged in the colorful and fascinating world Tanith Lee presents. And I predict that when you, at last, satisfied but regretful, turn over the last page, you too will wish there were more.

    As I found out when I read it through under what must be called acid-test conditions, it’s what Don Wollheim calls a good read. But it’s more than that. It has something to say to every reader, man or woman, about the eternal questions of existence and identity. And, although as I said before, it is not a piece of propaganda from women’s liberation, it may say more for all of us, women and men too, than the whole humorless crowd of Steinems, de Beauvoirs, Friedans, and all their weighty tomes.

    Now get on with it. I won’t keep you any longer from the excitement of sharing with me this rich new discovery—THE BIRTHGRAVE by Tanith Lee.

    AUTHOR’S NOTE

    This novel was written by me around the age of 22. I read it aloud to my mother, a great listener, as I went. Later she typed the manuscript—the only human being able to read my writing-a-story handwriting. Then or now.

    But when we sent it to publishers, nobody was interested. Many didn’t even reply.

    It didn’t stop me writing (evidently), but it stopped me hoping.

    However . . .

    * * *

    The arrival for the idea of The Birthgrave was quite strange. The image of the ice-white being, trapped in the red-hot volcano. The dreams I had—as later told in the book—waking and not knowing what I was, let alone who. The dreams of flying—feeling the wing-tendons waking up in the muscles of my back—

    But the other extraordinary thing which occurred is not mystical. It is a curious and perfect coincidence I’ve always treasured.

    * * *

    Earlier, I’d spent a year at art college. This really got me back on the rails as a person, and developed my drawing skills, such as they are.

    Then the year ended. So I took various jobs: waitressing, shop work, etc.

    One evening, I was meeting a friend from the college. We were meant to coincide about 5:30, and it was late April or May. As I stood waiting at the bus stop for her bus to arrive, the sky undid itself and about ten tons of snow descended. (Hey, it’s England!)

    Asking a harried bus inspector, I was told my friend would, probably, arrive, but would be an hour to an hour and a half late.

    By then I was up to my ankles (I don’t lie) in freezing snow.

    I hauled myself out and staggered into W. H. Smith, the large, warm bookstore that lay just back from the bus stop.

    The thing with Smith’s was they had an excellent fantasy/SF section then. And an especially good selection of those smart, unique volumes produced by DAW Books of America. (I still love those early yellow covers, each one with its single bright window.)

    I was so often finding a fascinating read among them. Warmed up, and grabbing a novel for the check-out, I felt better. When the world doesn’t work, one of the best places to go is a book. Read it. Write it.

    And this was the moment, and not remotely mystical, but—

    No, I didn’t hear voices, but it was as if something said to me: This company doesn’t do what anyone else does. Why don’t you . . . try approaching them?

    And I thought: Don’t be daft. Nobody wants my stuff. And look who DAW publishes—Marion Zimmer Bradley! Famous writers.

    Oh, go on, said my silly, wise back-brain. "You admire them. Trust them."

    So I bought my book and met my friend. A few days later I tried the Approach to DAW. Expecting the normal rebuff.

    To my amazement, I got a very nice reply. Sounds interesting, was the gist. Let’s see a synopsis and some text.

    Luckily, since I seldom know how a story of mine is going to end till it’s got there, I’d written The Birthgrave, and so could do a direct synopsis from the established plot.

    Again, quite speedily, I had a reply: Send all. I couldn’t believe it. Then believed it. Sent all, and subsequently the two other novels I’d written, The Storm Lord and Don’t Bite the Sun.

    DAW took everything.

    And from the outer dark beyond the hearth-fire I was liberated into the joy and light of a career as what I truly was, doing the only thing I could do well, and loved to do. A writer.

    Donald Wollheim saved me—and I don’t exaggerate—from wasting everything I had and was. He gave me what I was, fully, and let me run with the torch.

    I’m still running with it.

    My everlasting thanks to him and to his daughter, my friend Elizabeth (Betsy) Wollheim, goes beyond words.

    And for a writer to find they have no words—oh joy!

    Tanith Lee

    January, 2015

    Book One

    Part I: Under the Volcano

    1

    TO WAKE, AND not to know where, or who you are, not even to know what you are—whether a thing with legs and arms, or a beast, or a brain in the hull of a great fish—that is a strange awakening. But after a while, uncurling in the darkness, I began to discover myself, and I was a woman.

    All around was blackness and no-sound. With my hands I felt old crusts of rock. There was an ancient bitter smell without a name pressing into my nostrils. I crawled out of the recess I had been lying in, and found a sort of passage where I could stand upright. Oddly, I did not wonder if I was blind. It was cold and airless as I felt a way along the passage. My foot struck hard on an obstruction. I kneeled and felt it carefully. A step, followed by other steps, hewn out roughly from the inner rock, and not much trodden. I could remember abruptly other staircases, made of smooth veined white stuff, slippery almost as glass, deeply indented at their center from countless feet passing up and down.

    I went cautiously up the steps, feeling always with my hands. I did not think to count them, but there were many, at least a hundred. And then a flat space without steps. Foolishly I had quickened my pace, thankful to be on level ground, but I was punished. Suddenly there was no more stone in front, only an unsensable void. I swayed like a dancer on the brink of the invisible drop, then flung backward and saved myself. A skitter of stones fell down into the blackness. I heard them falling for a long time, bouncing often against the walls.

    I was terrified now. How could I go on without seeing? The next mistake might be fatal, and already, without even knowing who I was, I knew my life was important to me. I sensed, too, something fighting against me in the dark, a malignant, one-sided battle, and I feared it and was angry.

    On hands and knees I went forward very slowly, away to the left of the drop. After a moment, my outstretched hand clawed at emptiness. I turned back, going to the right. A few seconds, and the third corner of the abyss was sucking at my grasp.

    I was filled with fury. I screamed out a curse in the dark, and the sound echoed and echoed until I thought the rock would split in pieces.

    Where now? Perhaps there was nowhere. I lay on the ledge and wept, and then curled again, like an animal or a fetus, and slept. That was the end of my first awakening.

    * * *

    The second time was better. The original sleep had been no normal sleeping; this was, and I woke with a different awareness of things.

    I reasoned in the dark that if the staircase ended in nothing, then I would have to go back down the stairs to the passage, and retrace my steps until I found some other way. It occurred to me then, for the first time, that I was seeking the surface, with an instinctive knowledge of being underground.

    Crawling back across the platform to the stairs, my hands and then my knees encountered a square dip in the rock. I searched it and discovered a seam. This must be a door. Even while I was trying to find some way to open it, it slipped suddenly inward. I found myself, still in absolute blackness, hanging over another unguessable void, my scrabbling fingertips clutching at one smooth edge of the door. There was no hope. My fingers lost their grip and I fell. I thought that was the end of it, but the drop was not very far. I hit the stone floor, and rolled, loose-limbed enough that I did myself no harm.

    I turned around slowly, and now, unmistakably, there was the merest glimmer of light, far off, at the end of what seemed another long passageway. Drawn by that light, I set off quickly, almost running.

    Now I could see the dim outline of the rock sides, and the little veins of glitter in them. The passage wound and wound, and the glow deepened and bloodied. Then abruptly I had turned a corner and threw up my hands to shield my eyes.

    The light was as blinding as the darkness, but soon I could rub away the tears and look around me.

    I was in a vast cavern, lit only at its center where a great, rough-hewn bowl, at least six feet in diameter, poured out a ceaseless storm of red and golden flame. Beyond the fire a flight of steps ran up to a narrow door high in the wall. Otherwise the cavern seemed featureless and empty.

    Somehow the narrow door was important to me, and I knew I must reach it.

    I started out across the floor, suddenly aware of how the cavern, stretching up endlessly into darkness, dwarfed me like an ant. I passed the flame-bowl, had my foot on the first stair. There was a groaning thunder behind me. I swung around and looked in astonishment. Countless little fires had cracked open the cavern floor, and were blazing there. At the next step, fresh flames burst through. Not stopping to see any more, I ran to the top of the stairs, as if speed could outwit the mechanism below. With my hand on the narrow door, I glanced back. The floor where I had walked was now a sea of savage gold, and the scarlet smoke clouded up and turned to purple in the high roof. I pushed the door and ran through when it opened, thrusting it shut behind me.

    The room was full of light, though it seemed to have no source. In front of me was a long hanging curtain, and when I pulled it aside, a stone altar and another stone bowl, where something stirred and brooded at my presence. I could not see this thing, only sense it, and when it spoke, I did not hear the words except with the ears inside my head.

    And so you could not sleep forever. I knew that you must wake one day, for all the sleep I gave you. Wake, and come to me. Even the abyss could not take you, as I hoped. Well, then. I will tell you things. I am Karrakaz, the Soulless One, who sprang from the evil of your race, a world of years before your birth, and finally destroyed that race, and everyone of it, except yourself. And you escaped destruction because you were a little child, and had not yet properly learned the ways of evil. But now you have grown to womanhood in your sleep, and you will learn. Evil will come and you will welcome it. Remember, wherever you go, I will be near you. There is no escape from Karrakaz now. Look.

    On the altar something flickered and glittered and took on substance. A knife, with a sharp bright blade.

    See how easy it would be to be rid of me. Pick up the knife. You have only to tell it where to strike, and it will obey you. Then you can sleep forever, without fear.

    But I stood quite still and did not take it. A million pictures and memories were blazing through my mind, and my hands were icy with terror.

    You wish to go out, then? Easy. There is the way. The steps beyond the altar lead upward and out into the world. But if you go, you are cursed, and carry a curse with you; there will be no happiness. The civilization which bred you is dead uncountable years. Your palaces are in ruins. The lizards sun themselves in the dried-up fountains and the fallen courts. And you—I will show you to yourself. Recollect, you should have been powerful, a magician who ruled the elements, the stars, the seas, the deep fires of the earth. All things might have done your bidding. The power of flight was yours, the chameleon art, the art of invisibility—and beauty. Let me show you what you are.

    The new thing in the air shone coldly clear, and in it I saw my reflection begin to form. A woman-shape, slender, small; long hair, very pale, and then the face—the hands of the reflection covered its face, and kept a little of its hideousness from me. But only a little. I knew. The face of a devil, a monster, a mindless thing, unbearable to look on.

    I was crouching low against the floor, one arm over my head, my chin pressed down against my breasts, and, in the other hand, the knife from Karrakaz’ altar.

    But before I could speak the death words to the blade, a soft lamp filled my brain, cool and green, and very old.

    Yes, said the no-voice in my skull, there is always that. If you can find it. Your soul-kin of green jade.

    I jumped up and flung the knife through the image of the mirror so that it shattered. Beyond the door a massive explosion rocked the cavern, and the floor juddered under my feet. I started for the steps.

    Wait, it said, the he-she thing without a soul. Remember you are cursed, and carry a curse with you. You have been asleep in the depths of a dead volcano. Leave it, and it will wake as you have woken. The red-hot lava will pour out through every passage and pursue you down the mountain. It will cover villages and towns, ruin crops, and burn to death everything living in its path.

    But I scarcely heard. My instinct for freedom was too strong, too terrible. I rushed up the steps, up and up, away from the glowing room and the possession there, into cold darkness that soon lightened. As I paused a moment to rest, leaning against the mountain’s gut, I looked up and saw stars and moonlight pouring in my eyes. Behind me the dark was reddening, and rocked with endless paroxysms of anger or pain. The stench of sulfur filled my belly and head and lungs and made me sick, but I toiled on, my hands like limpets on the stone. At last a ledge, and beyond the ledge the outer slopes of the volcano, running downward into dark valleys. Above, wide now from horizon to horizon, the brilliant sky.

    I jumped from the ledge, and, as my feet touched soil, a demon belled in the earth. Sky and earth came toppling together and turned scarlet, and I fell, and continued to fall, down into the night.

    2

    I fell faster than I could have run, too stunned to be frightened yet. Then I was in a pit, and was stopped like a heart in death. I crawled out, gazed back. The clouds above the grumbling mountain were russet, and the first bright snakes of lava were sliding forth after me. A shower of boiling coals exploded outward, and fell all around me. Black-ash rain filled my eyes and mouth. I wrapped a corner of the dirty garment I wore over my mouth and nose, and fled again.

    Down to the valleys. No longer dark. Lights were flying here and there and everywhere, and I could hear them screaming and shouting even over the noise the mountain made. There was no hope for them, for myself. Where would any of us hide from this burning demented hatred?

    I was on a road, and scarcely noticed it. I bore away from the first village, ran across an orchard, where already the sparks of the volcano had started a fire. Vines were popping as they blazed. A flock of bleating, terrified sheep came plunging past and were gone.

    I ran on. Where was my instinct taking me?

    Something snapped with a clang; I stumbled and fell. A wicked little trap had bitten shut on the hem of my tunic, by some miracle missing my bare foot. I wrenched the tunic free, tearing it, and saw ahead the low glitter of water.

    A palace pool, clotted with a cream of lilies and swans, dazzled behind my eyes, but the night was crimson now, and the mountain thundered. I got up and ran toward the water. The vines whipped around me. Through a gate, across a furrowed field, smoking in places. All the while, the coals burst over me. A million little blisters were forming on my body, but I scarcely noticed them. Suddenly through a thicket, against the ghastly sky, a long lake stretching wide, its glass changing to red, steaming where the hot things fell in it and went out.

    Stumbling to the edge, I found several moored boats, little fishing canoes. Why hadn’t the fools in the villages run to these and saved themselves? I felt helpless anger at them, as I expertly pushed my boat out from the shore, using the long rough pole. I bore the guilt for every one of them to die. And here was the means for them to live, ignored. Damn them, then, let them perish.

    Deep on the heart of the lake, I watched through the night, the imperceptible dawn, while the fury of the mountain expended itself. Around me the water heaved and bubbled, the air was black, hot, and stifled with falling ashes. The sounds were of a great beast vomiting. I thought of the stone Karrakaz had used as its altar, consumed with all the rest, but I knew that that thing at least had survived. It would be always with me, an emblem of the waiting evil in my soul, a reminder of my hideousness, the curse upon me, and the easiness of death.

    At last, a sort of twilight, green and lavender, with one last pulsing cloud above the volcano. I strained the boat across the water to the farthest shore, but even there the land was cinder-fields. In places the ground had cracked open, erupting stones.

    I would have kept away from the cots and huts, but it was so difficult to tell now. Everything was down, trees smoldering in the path. A dead child lay on its face; dead birds had fallen from the air. I began to weep, running frantically in all directions to escape this evidence, but always seeing it. Had my sin come already? Even in my unconquerable desire to be free, had I begun to unlock darkness?

    And now I seemed to be moving down a narrow alleyway between the ruined walls of little houses.

    A corner, swerving sharply, and now an open place. There were about fifty or sixty people huddled together here, their backs to me, ragged and grimy as I was. The sight shocked me. I stopped. A little hot wind hissed through my hair.

    And then they began to turn, singly, in groups, sensing me as a wild animal senses danger or food. Their cold reddened eyes fixed on my body, halted, and turned from my face. I wanted to put up my hands to hide my face, but they were wooden and nailed against my sides. A child began to cry somewhere in the throng. Men shouted and women muttered. Their hands were moving as mine could not, in some ancient ritual; against evil, I thought. Suddenly a new voice rang out, clear, but with a little crack in it.

    The Goddess! The She-One from the Mountain!

    And all about me, as if at a signal, they were falling on their knees, entreating me for mercy, and pity, and succor, and all the things I could not give. Mixed in with their wailing was a cry about their sins, and the word Evess. It came to me abruptly that they were speaking in some language I had never heard, and yet I knew every syllable. Evess meant face, but not in the human sense. This was the face of holiness which to them could be both beautiful and ugly, equally terrible, and must never be looked on. Glancing behind them, I saw what they had been grouped around at the end of the open place: a rough-hewn stone, resembling a woman in a red robe with white clay hair. It held a mask against the Evess, which could not be seen, but the hair and stature of it were unmistakable. These people were big and large-boned, dark-skinned and black-haired. The image was not of them, but they and I knew it at once. It was myself.

    So I stood facing myself across the humped hills of their bodies. I, who had brought the scarlet death of the mountain, worshiped in fear as the ancient goddess some legend had implanted in their minds.

    * * *

    I ended the paralysis of my bewilderment by turning to walk away.

    Softly, whispering their invocations, they followed me. What now? If I broke into a run to escape them, would they too run to keep up? My eyes grew strange, and everywhere I looked, I seemed to see the glitter of the Knife of Easy Dying. Die, and let them follow me into death if they would. But I was still too new to life to let it go. Finally, sick and weary and in pain, I sat down on the rubble of some wall. I sighed, and countless eyes lifted, hovered, and fell away.

    A woman came crawling to my foot.

    Spare us who have seen, unwilling, the Evess of the Goddess.

    Let me alone, I said, but too faint for her to hear the words.

    She took it as some kind of malediction; perhaps I had not even spoken in their tongue, but in my own, consciously forgotten, yet learned in my first years as a child, before the ending of my race. She began to wail, and beat her breasts, and rend her hair.

    Stop, I said.

    She gazed at me blankly, her hands suspended in midair.

    A callous hysteria overcame me, and I laughed weakly at her, at all of them, as I sat on the rubble.

    They thought me a goddess. I was quite incomprehensible to them. No need then to explain, only do as I wanted. There would be no hindrance.

    I got up, and every joint seemed ready to crack open.

    An old long low building, upright, with several shallow steps, and an oblong doorway leading into cool dark. There was a smell there—cold yet close, not unpleasant, but alien. The smell of Human Life, and of something else too. I guessed soon enough when I saw the repeated image of the She-One. This was their temple, and the smell was holiness, fear and incense blended together by generations of unquiet belief.

    They were hesitating below the steps, dark against the bronze and lilac sky. I held up my hand, my palm facing out toward them.

    No farther, I said. Mine.

    They seemed to understand. I went into the gloom alone. Beyond the altar, a screened door: the ultimate sanctuary. It was only a little cold stone room. Ash had collected on the floor, as it seemed to have collected everywhere. A priest’s pallet lay in a corner. I stumbled to it and lay down.

    Would they come now, dare the abuse of a deity, realizing I was not a legend, but something much worse? Would they creep through as I slept, slide by the carved screen, bury a knife or a fire-sharpened pole in my left breast, and so through into my heart? If I slept . . . would they come then . . . ? I slept.

    * * *

    A vast palace, with golden rooms and crystal rooms and rooms of fire, and great staircases leading up and down. Like a mirage in a desert, surrounded by its fantasy of gardens. Half recalled, my home no longer standing now but hammered flat by time, by decay. What I had missed. The staircases wound up and up, and changed. Narrower, black now instead of white, black pillars and an oval doorway. Beyond it a miasmic beauty, something flickering on a block of stone, out of a stone basin. The power of my race, the fount of knowledge and evil. Karrakaz, grown like a rare plant from the stagnant badness of generations of wicked and unthinking men and women. A flower created by poison, that had poisoned, in its turn, what had created it.

    This was memory more than dream, but because it came as dream everything was nebulous, yet strangely intense, with an intensity only unreality could possess. An ornament, a flick of flame, sprang into blazing relief, and a man’s face—father, brother, what kin I did not know—haunted the winds and turnings of the palace. Waking, I could not recall it—only narrow, high-set eyes, like chips of his dark soul, looking coldly at me.

    An instant before I woke, I saw the Jade.

    The evil one had told me, in the mountain, of this green smooth thing that held some link with my innermost being. I did not understand, only trembled to repossess it, stretching out my hands to it, entreating. But my fingers closed on nothing, and with a great wrenching, I was flung back out of sleep into the world of the broken village, the temple, and despair.

    * * *

    It was dawn, and very quiet. Night had come and gone without a knife or sharpened pole. I went to the screen and looked beyond it. The main body of the temple was quite empty of anything except its own blue dusts. But in the doorway, on the floor just inside the threshold—I went to it and found a glazed clay bowl of milk, fruit and cheese in a dish. A piece of cloth lay folded beside them, dark red as old blood.

    I did not want to touch this garment, though I was not sure why, but I bent and lifted it, and found a long loose tunic in my hands, and under that, left behind on the floor, a painted and enameled mask. The white face stared up at me. The eye-holes were painted around thickly with black stuff, the mouth was scarlet. The curved open nostrils were rimmed with gold, and little golden drops hung in clusters at each side where ears might have been if the mask were a face.

    So, their goddess must cover her deadly visage, the Evess so terrible to look on.

    I took all the things into the priest’s room, and began to eat. I had not been aware of hunger until this moment. I think perhaps I could have lived indefinitely without food, sustained by the same weird process which had kept me alive inside the mountain. Now this first meal was oddly unpleasant, and afterward several demons rose up in my abdomen and chest, and lashed at me with their red-hot irons.

    I lay down in agony, and, as I lay there, I heard a chant begin outside. On and on it went. They called for their goddess as she writhed in the priest’s room, and then was quiet in the lazy aftermath of pain. Eventually, I got up. Without thinking if it were right, I slipped off my garments, and put on the tunic they had left me, and then the mask, which was fixed by hooks behind the ears.

    I went out slowly and looked at them.

    A sea of people, crouching as before. On the lowest step a bowl of incense smoked over a brazier. Their terrible, almost unhuman faces lifted and fastened on mine, now free to their gaze.

    Goddess!

    Goddess! Goddess!

    I felt their demand before they made it. I felt their grasping fingers on my soul.

    Then a woman was coming up the steps, slowly, holding out the bundle in her arms.

    Take him. Oh, Great One, be merciful—save him—

    Over her head I saw the shadow of the volcano, the reddish cloud still throbbing there like a wound of fire in the sky.

    The baby was almost dead, blue-faced, making little sick retching noises and trying to cry. All around the ruined village stretched and yawned. There was a distant smoke pall near the lake. They must be burning bodies there.

    She thrust at me with her child, weeping.

    I felt nothing.

    Save him, she whispered. My son—

    In anger my hand went out to push her away. My palm slapped against the child, and at once it vomited, black vomit, ashes from the volcano, and its face turned pink, its eyes blazed open, and it began to scream and wail, not the feeble voice of the dying, but the healthy fury and terror of new life.

    The woman gasped and almost fell down. Her eyes exploded tears. A man came running up, flung his arms around both of them. Their mouths chanted prayers to me, but every sense in them was fastened on their child, to see, to touch, to feel it live.

    Like a tide they broke against me then, begging to be cured of their ills, their pains. Hundreds of men and women it seemed, pressing close. Their smell was of the earth, of the smoke, of sweat, of fear. I touched them, feeling nothing, no power go out of me, no ecstasy of giving, no joy in what I did that brought so much joy. They brought a blind man, who pulled my fingers to his eyes, and saw. They brought a girl, shrieking in agony with a pain in her side, and when my hand was laid against the pain, she was still and beautiful again with peace.

    It ebbed at last. I showed them my palm, outward, my own demand for privacy, and they shrank away, their voices singing. Into the priest’s room I went, and threw the screen close against the door, and here I screamed and beat my hands against the stone walls until they bled and every nail was broken. How like a prison the room seemed to me, and, even then, I did not realize why.

    3

    Three days I lay in the room, not eating what they left for me at the temple door, often sleeping, dreaming sometimes, my eyes wide white jewels behind the mask which I must never take from my face until the Jade lay cool between my fingers.

    On the fourth day, there was a hum outside like bees. I went out then, and found a vast crowd of strangers eddying in the street. As I came there, there came also a concentration and congealing. Soon it was no longer many, but one single thing which waited there for me. For miles around, from every ruined village, farm, town, and steading, they had flocked to me, bringing their sores and burns, entreating my blessing. I, the Goddess of Death, who had justly sent the wrath of the volcano against them for their wickedness, would help them now to make better their lives, that they might serve my shrine.

    I touched them and they healed. And then there were more, new faces and sores, and these I healed too.

    When the streets were empty, and the steps empty of all but their gifts, I went in and lay down to sleep again, until eventually the noise would call me up once more. It was like a poisonous wound, from which the pus must be eased, but in which the pus reformed, gradually, after each easing, until at last it must be eased again.

    Then came a long time, five dawns, five twilights, when there was no sound. I lay still, listening, my eyes wide. I lay, like an insect in chrysalis, awaiting some wrenching calamity to break my cocoon, and turn me out, half-formed. I was still not a living creature. I was a sleeping silent thing, without substance or true life.

    Then life came, but wrongly, not as I would have wanted, if ever I had been allowed to plan.

    There was a great crash of sound: something thrown aside at the temple door, the gifts of untouched food, perhaps. There were steps, brutal, tearing the quiet of the place. I heard and smelled unfear. No terror in this one who sought me, only a raw, uneasy anger.

    Come out, you she-beast! a man’s voice shouted.

    It seemed to burst the temple walls, and break inside my head in brass pieces, that voice which had no fear, the first human voice that had no fear of me.

    I got up, summoned irresistibly. I stood by the screen, and already my heart was moving, pounding as it had when I fled from the volcano, although now I ran toward the fire, and not away.

    Then the great hand of the voice was on the screen, and the screen was thrown aside, little bits of the lattice snapping against the floor. He was ready to seize me next, fling me aside, my little bones snapping like the ivory. But he was still. No fear perhaps, but ingrained superstition. They had worshiped the She-One, each from birth, and now he seemed to see her here—red robe, white hair, like the red-hot, white-hot spew of the mountain, and the mask, so terrible because it said nothing but "I am here."

    Under the deep tan of endless sun, his face paled slightly. His lips drew back from tiger-teeth, wolf-teeth, snarling white. He was so much larger than I, taller, great bones, a big spare frame, beautiful and alien in its masculinity. Yet our looks seemed level. Long curling black hair ran down from his head to his shoulders like the black wool of a ram. He wore no mask but his face shook me through and through in a way I could hardly bear, for this face, this seen face, was the face in my dream—long, male, with high-set, narrow, black-chip eyes.

    He cleared his throat. His tongue darted on his lips to moisten them, and we stood, each one half in the other’s power, and my sex stirred in me, and woman stirred in me, and an ancient humanity I had not known was mine.

    And then he made himself move. His hand closed on my shoulder, hurting and immediate. In the other hand came a dull, sharp hunting knife.

    Well, bitch, and who are you?

    I said nothing. I looked at him, drinking him to quench the surge of life burning up in me, which was not quenched but only burned the brighter.

    You don’t make me quake, bitch. Some healer-witch from a cave in the mountain, eh? Come to live off their charity because they’re fools and afraid? His hand reached into my hair and pulled it hard. Hair of an old woman, but not the body of one. And your face, behind this mask—what?

    His dislike washed over me, his contempt curdled in the pit of my belly, and if this was all I was to have of him, then I made it welcome. But his fingers touched the hook of the mask, and I recalled my face—the face Karrakaz had given me. I pulled back. I put up my hand, palm flat against his chest.

    To see my face is death to you, I said.

    His skin burned against my palm; I felt the heartbeat start up under my touch. He ripped my hand away from him, took a step back.

    Very well, healer-woman, hide your plain little looks. And stay here if you want. But no more food, and no more worship. If you want bread, you can work for it. Help us build their homes again, help us salvage what we can in the fields. Help their women give birth to replace what the mountain took from them. Otherwise, starve.

    He turned to go.

    I said: You who were not here when the fire came, where were you then? On the far road, bandit, killing for gold and food. That then was your work. Out of the place that birthed you, without a care for it until the light of the red lava brought you back, hard with your guilt, and cruel with your shame.

    I did not know how the words came, or why, till I had spoken, but he looked around at me again, and his face was white now, the rims of his eyes red, and his nostrils flared on anger and pain, and I knew I had read him accurately and to the last letter.

    So someone whispered to you of Darak, the Gold-Fisher. Don’t mouth it at me and think you can scare me with it. I’ve told you what’s for you, and there’s the end of it.

    He went from the temple with great strides, his hands clenched, and now I knew my prison very well.

    * * *

    Now I could go.

    I was free. No more gifts to me of food, and no more entreaties. He had stopped all that. There was activity and work outside. Once there was screaming, and the noise of things falling just beyond the temple door—some women daring to go against his order.

    I had not eaten now for nine days, and felt no hunger, or any particular weakness.

    I could steal out by night, to be sure no one would see me; I could run across the endless country to the sea, and let them forget their goddess, and let Darak forget her too.

    But now that I could go, I would not go at all. I was chained by the roots of my senses like a bitch-dog to a post.

    How well Karrakaz had trapped me here, and kept me from all knowledge of where I must walk, and what must be done to free myself. First by the need of these people, now by my need. And if all my powers were dead in me as Karrakaz had said, how had I healed? How? Or had they healed themselves by their own belief in me? It was their hands which had snatched mine. And I seemed to remember a book with an open page:

    Master, cried the woman, heal me, for I am sick as you see. And he said: Do you believe that I can do this thing? And the woman wept and said: Yes, if you will. Then, as you believe, so be it, he said, and went away, not even touching her. And she was healed at once.

    The tenth day. Outside: noise, hammering, shouting, sound of moving logs of wood, a work-gang singing. At midday a bell beating to summon who would to a communal meal. Darak and his men had organized things very well it seemed.

    Then a great crunching of feet, laughter, voices. After that, quiet. A vast, warm noonday quiet, and a slow, still yellow heat.

    I crossed the floor to the doorway of the temple, and stood there. The village was a different thing, caged in places by scaffolding, here and there rebuilt and half-patched with tiles. Far up the street a rough wooden shelter, a brass bell—pulled from some temple roof presumably—swinging a little on a pole outside. A cow wandered lazily in the sunshine. Otherwise, the place was empty. Darak had called them to some council then, on the low hill beyond the houses. Yes, that would be it. A little king on a little throne, lording it because his subjects were smaller even than his smallness.

    My eyes slid to the volcano. Dark pinnacle, without a cloud. Asleep again, sated, terrible for all that. A black two-edged sword waiting in the sky, to let fall its red blows on the back of the land, whenever its passion moved it. There then, is the king, Darak.

    A darting movement, snake’s-tongue flicker over rock.

    A woman hurried across the open space before the temple, casting an indigo shadow. A man stirred uneasily in a doorway, holding a stave, looking up the road to where the people had followed Darak.

    Help us! cried this woman. Our three children are sick, and the doctor from Sirrain has said they’ll die. I couldn’t bring them—they screamed when I tried to move them.

    I looked at her closely. She was no more than twenty years. Perhaps I was her age. But she looked old, her young face creased into lines, her hair faded by the sun.

    Quickly, Mara, the man hissed from across the street.

    Please, she said.

    Do you believe the goddess can cure your children without seeing them?

    Yes—oh, yes—

    Then believe I can, and they will be cured.

    Her face changed, the lines smoothed out, ripples running from a pool.

    There was noise from the hill.

    Mara! the man cried.

    She turned to run with him.

    Wait, I said. They stopped, nervous, anxious not to offend either Darak or myself. Tell whom you wish, I said, whoever invokes my name, believing in it, can cure or be cured of any sickness. There is no longer any need to come to me.

    They made obeisance to me, blessing me, then ran like frightened mice.

    Dust billowed down the street. The crowd was coming back, noisier than ever. There had been wine up on the hill. A small shrine there, perhaps, some old sacred meeting place Darak had thought would impress them.

    There was a stone bench set at the top of the temple steps. I sat on it, waiting.

    The cow ran down the street first in fright, lowing indignantly. Then came men, talking, impatient, grasping wineskins, followed by groups of women. Darak’s people were easily spotted. They were better dressed than the villagers, and more gaudy. Leather boots with tattered silk tassels, silk shirts, scarlet and purple. Belts with iron studs, gold rings, fringes on the jackets—torn like the tassels, not so much from wear as from hard fighting. Mostly they were men, but five or six girls slithered by with them, dressed like them for the most part, but with several ounces more gold around their necks, fantastic earrings, and jet-black hair, roped through with ribbons and flowers. This seemed enough. I wanted to go in, almost drunk from the sight of them, but I waited for him as I had known I would. When he came he was thoughtful, discontented, sullen. Whatever

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