[Queen of Orcs 02] - Clan Daughter Read online

  “My chest feels mixed,” replied Dar.

  “Do you like washavoki part?” asked Muth-yat.

  “Thwa.”

  “In this, you are also like Velasa-pah. That is why he was reborn.”

  “I don’t understand how rebirth is possible,” said Dar.

  “When you were baby, your body was different, yet you were Dargu. If you lose arm or leg, your body would be different, yet you’d remain Dargu. When you die, your spirit leaves body. Body may look unchanged, but it won’t be Dargu. It’s spirit that defines your being, not body. Velasa-pah used magic to purge washavoki from his mixed spirit so only urkzimmuthi remained. Others have also undergone that rite. I have studied this ancient magic. One can be reborn.”

  Dar’s heart leaped at this unexpected news. “So I could become urkzimmuthi?”

  “Hai,” replied Muth-yat, “if you underwent this magic.”

  “Would I look like urkzimmuthi?”

  “You would remain ugly, but you would receive Yat clan tattoo, so all would know your nature.”

  “Then I desire to be reborn.”

  “I must warn you. This magic is trying. Birth is never easy.”

  “I’m used to hardship.”

  “There is danger, also,” said Muth-yat. “Not all babies live.”

  “If Muth la wanted me to die, I’d be dead already.”

  “Then, if you desire to undergo this magic, I encourage you. So does Zor-yat.”

  “Velasa-pah told me to follow my chest,” said Dar. “I will do so. I will be reborn.”

  “Then this is what you must do,” said Muth-yat. “Tell no one. Eat nothing. Enter this place tonight as moon rises. Wear no clothing. Then it will begin.”

  “Is that all?” asked Dar.

  “That’s all you may know. You should leave now.”

  Muth-yat remained seated as Dar left the building to tell Zna-yat that she had changed her mind about seeing Kovok-mah. Dar didn’t explain why, and he didn’t ask. Afterward, she wandered among the terraced fields in a state approaching ecstasy. The world was full of promise. Dar felt she finally understood the point of all her hardship. For the first time, Muth la’s purposes and her own seemed in perfect harmony.

  Twenty-three

  Dar didn’t return to the hanmuthi. When dusk came, she went back to the overgrown courtyard to wait for night and the moon to rise. It reminded her of Tarathank, for nature was reclaiming it. The flowers of luxuriant weeds perfumed the air. Dar thought she caught a whiff of her atur mingled with their fragrance.

  The sky darkened. Stars appeared. Dar waited. At last, the moon rose over the horizon. Dar made her way to the dome’s doorway, removed her clothes, and descended the stairs. The room was nearly pitch black, but after her eyes adjusted, she could make out changes since her previous visit. The leaves were gone, and the circular flagstone had been moved aside to reveal an opening in the floor. It was wide enough for Dar to fall into and filled to the top with water. In the dim light, she was unable to tell whether it was a shallow basin or a deep well.

  The door slammed shut and the room was plunged into near-total darkness. Dar heard a sound like a bolt siding into place. “Tava!” she called. “Who’s there?” Silence. Dar waited for someone to explain what was happening. She heard a faint sound coming from above and looked upward. A blue-black patch of sky was visible through the hole in the room’s ceiling. As Dar gazed at it, the patch disappeared. The darkness became absolute.

  Dar tried to be calm, but her situation unnerved her. Although she knew rebirth would be trying, she had expected to know what she would face. The mystery of her situation was more frightening than the darkness. It was impossible not to conceive sinister explanations for what had happened. Does anyone know I’m here, besides Muth-yat? For all Dar knew, she had been entombed. “Thwa,” she said aloud. “This is magic, not murder.” Yet doubt remained.

  Dar lay down and tried to rest, but it was impossible to get comfortable. She sat up and thought of Kovok-mah. She imagined his reaction when he learned of her transformation and indulged in pleasant fantasies. Her thoughts wandered. Dar relived her past and envisioned her future. She nodded off and dreamed. She woke and waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

  Dar felt the need to relieve herself, but doing it in a sacred space seemed wrong. “I should wait,” she told herself. For how much longer? Already she had no idea how long she had been in darkness. After a while, her bladder ached. The need for relief became increasingly urgent. Dar began to crawl about the room on her hands and knees, stopping frequently to feel her surroundings. Eventually, she discovered a hole near the wall. It was the width of her outstretched fingers. She investigated it and decided it could serve as a toilet. Afterward, she speculated whether that was its intended function. If it was, it might mean that she would remain in the room a long time.

  Later, Dar became thirsty. She groped about until she found the pool in the room’s center. She hunched down until her lips touched liquid, then drank. The tepid water had an earthy aftertaste. She drank only a little, then crawled away. She was frightened of the pool. It was invisible. Perhaps it was also deep. Dar envisioned blundering into it and drowning. “How could that possibly happen?” she asked. Her mind readily conjured up the answer. I’ll lose my wits and stagger about in the dark. It didn’t seem far-fetched. Dar crawled in the dark until she touched a wall. Then she pressed against it for dear life.

  Time passed. Dar slept and woke, drank from the pool and used the hole. Dar grew hungry, than ravenous. For a long while—perhaps days, she had no way of telling—she thought of little else but food. Then hunger deserted her and Dar began to forget her empty body. It was already invisible.

  In the perfect darkness time lost meaning. Dreams and waking thoughts became indistinguishable. Dar believed she was on the Dark Path, a spirit returning to Karm or Muth la, she couldn’t remember which. Later, she alternately shivered with cold and burned with fever. Finally, Dar collapsed and became one with the unthinking dark.

  The flame was tiny, yet to Dar it seemed extremely bright. She stared at it without emotion or comprehension. It simply was. Voices spoke. They were unintelligible. Hands lifted her, so she was upright on her knees. Someone held a bowl to her lips and tilted it so sweet white liquid entered her mouth. Dar swallowed some. The rest dribbled down her chin and chest. Dar drank some more. Her head cleared slightly, though she would have fallen if the hands had let go.

  The tiny flame moved, and as it did, more flames appeared. The darkness fell back further. Dar saw the room was filled with mothers. They were chanting, but Dar was too groggy to catch the words. One mother stepped forward to straddle the opening in the floor. She pulled her neva up to her waist, then squatted. A second mother drew a blade across the squatting mother’s thighs. Bloody lines appeared, looking black in the dim light. Blood flowed into the water.

  Dar was lifted up. Her feet touched the bloody water. Then she was slowly lowered into it. Dar remained still and silent, watching passively as the water overflowed and spread over the stone floor. When the water reached Dar’s waist, she was eye-to-eye with the squatting mother. Her face was familiar. Then the hands let go, and Dar slipped beneath the water.

  It was blood-warm. Too weak to struggle, Dar sank. The sinking seemed endless. She looked upward. Small flames danced far away. The water colored them red. Dar’s lungs began to ache. She breathed in. Water filled and dissolved her.

  Dar became aware that someone was holding her. She opened her eyes and beheld Zor-yat. Torches had replaced the tiny flames, and the room was brightly lit. Mothers circled around the pair, wiping the pinkish liquid from Dar’s body while Zor-yat cradled her.

  “Her eyes are open,” said Zor-yat to the assembled mothers. “Dargu-yat,” she cooed, “I’m your muthuri.”

  A white cloth was brought, and Zor-yat wrapped Dar in it. Then she rose, lifting Dar effortlessly. “This is my child,” said Zor-yat in a loud voice. “Tell clan that new
mother has been born. Her name is Dargu-yat.” Then Zor-yat carried Dar through the hall as the mothers followed, singing thanks to Muth la. Dar wept like a baby, but she wept for joy.

  Dar spent three days in Zor-yat’s sleeping chamber recovering her strength. Her muthuri fed her milk and dressed her in new clothes. During those first days, only immediate family visited. They greeted her as if she were a newborn, giving their familiar names and calling her “little sister.” Later, the entire clan paid their respects. Each visitor precisely described his or her relationship, often using terms Dar had never heard before. After they left, Zor-yat explained what the terms meant, though Dar doubted she would ever get them straight.

  The magic hadn’t altered Dar’s body. She looked no different. Her vision and her sense of smell were no keener. Yet she was certain she had become urkzimmuthi, for that was the way she was treated. In this respect, the magic’s power changed everything. When Dar moved back to her room, Nir-yat and Thir-yat were her older sisters. They spoke to her with less respect but more affection, and no topic was too personal.

  “Some newborn,” said Nir-yat with a smile. “With tits like those, you’ll be blooded before next moon.”

  “Lucky you,” said Thir-yat. “It was fourteen winters before I received Muth la’s Gift.”

  Dar, who had never considered her period a “gift,” was puzzled. “Why am I lucky?”

  “You’ll be grown-up,” said Nir-yat.

  “And get your tattoo,” added Thir-yat.

  “Will it hurt?” asked Dar.

  “Muthuri says it’s no worse than childbirth,” said Nir-yat.

  “Neither is it better,” said Thir-yat. “Ayee! How my face swelled up!”

  Nir-yat hissed. “She looked like berry.”

  “Now I’m sweet and juicy,” said Thir-yat.

  “In your dreams,” retorted Nir-yat. “No son has given you love.”

  “That’s what you think,” replied Thir-yat. “Remember this spring, when we visited Muthuri’s brother?”

  “Hai,” said Nir-yat, “and I saw you leave with that son. But I smelled no atur afterward.”

  “He wasn’t pleasing,” replied Thir-yat.

  “Then it wasn’t love-giving,” replied Nir-yat. She turned to Dar. “Don’t worry, Dargu. Son wasn’t Kovok-mah.”

  “What about our cousin?” asked Thir-yat.

  “Tell me more about tattoos,” said Dar quickly. She reached out and touched the design on Nir-yat’s chin. The black markings were slightly raised. Each clan had a distinctive tattoo that its sons and mothers received when they reached adulthood.

  “Muthuri will take you to latath after you receive Gift,” said Nir-yat. “Latath will make clan mark. It takes whole day. You must show strength to prove your fitness. Lie still and don’t cry out.”

  “Jvar-yat is latath here,” said Thir-yat. “She’s very skilled.”

  Dar looked at her sisters’ chins and appreciated Jvar-yat’s handiwork. The tattoos were a pattern of swirls falling from a line that marked the edge of the lower lip. They reminded Dar of waterfalls. Despite the intricacy of their pattern, both tattoos were perfectly identical.

  Dar received her clan tattoo a week after she was reborn. The procedure was part ceremony, with Muth-yat, Zor-yat, and her family chanting prayers for a long and happy life. Dar lay outdoors on a wooden bench, as Jvar-yat bestowed the mark of the Yat clan using thorns dipped in a black paste. Dar’s lip and chin were pricked over a thousand times, and each time stung. By sunset, her lower face felt on fire.

  That night, Dar sucked a liquid meal through a hollow tube, for her face was too swollen to take nourishment otherwise. While she lay awake in the dark, Nir-yat tried to comfort her. “You’ll be glad you’re marked,” she whispered, “when you see your velazul.”

  “Wnnph,” replied Dar.

  “I know your feelings. We’ll visit him.”

  “Kumm?”

  “We’ll talk soon.”

  Twenty-four

  When Dar’s face was no longer swollen, she wanted to see it. Orcs disdained mirrors, so Dar sought out a pool to view her tattoo. She found one in a sunny courtyard. The pool was in a basin carved from black basalt, which made it more reflective. Dar leaned over the basin’s edge and was shocked by what she saw.

  The face peering back was ugly. All its proportions seemed off—the brow was too delicate, the bridge of the nose wasn’t sharp, and the chin was rounded. Worst were the brown eyes; they resembled those of rats. Dar touched her cheek to confirm that the grotesque thing reflected in the water was truly her. It was. Only her black teeth looked right. They were enhanced by her beautiful tattoo. Dar traced its lines with her fingers, imagining Kovok-mah doing the same. He loves me despite my looks. Still, she was glad for her pretty new feature.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice.

  Dar turned and saw Nir-yat. “After I was tattooed, I came here often,” said Nir-yat. She sniffed the air and smiled “Are you thinking of your velazul?”

  Dar’s first impulse was to deny that she had a lover, but she checked herself. Instead, she asked, “How did you know?”

  “I have nose. Besides, you told me.”

  “I did?”

  “Falfhissi loosens tongues,” said Nir-yat.

  “So Muthuri knows, too?”

  “I doubt it, little sister.”

  “I should speak to her,” said Dar. “I wish to become blessed.”

  “You’re rushing matters. Is Kovok-mah your first velazul?”

  Dar recalled her suitors in the highlands. None would qualify as a lover. The only man she had ever kissed had been Sevren, and that had been just once. “Hai,” she said. “Kovok-mah is first.”

  “Did he give you love?”

  “Hai.”

  “That’s no reason to think of blessing,” said Nir-yat. “Don’t talk to Muthuri yet. See Kovok-mah, instead. I visit his hall often. I’ll take you with me.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you like.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Nir-yat hissed softly. “My, you are eager.”

  The following day, Dar and Nir-yat left to visit the Mah clan hall. Such visits were common and no one seemed surprised when Nir-yat announced that she was bringing her new sister along. After packing some extra clothes and a few provisions, the two departed in the morning.

  Once on the road, Nir-yat plied Dar with all manner of gossip. Dar heard about the queen’s mysterious illness that only the washavoki mage could treat and how her long absence cast a pall over the entire clan. She learned why the queen backed her elder sister in the contentious election for Yat clan matriarch. Dar was told who chewed too much washuthahi; who was happy with their spouse and who wasn’t; which sons went off to kill for the queen and which sons died for her; who was giving love to whom; and who was honored and who was in disrepute. Dar learned the story of Harz-yat, a mother who became thwada and lived alone for fifty winters. Dar found out that Jvar-yat honed her skills by tattooing piglets sedated with falfhissi. She also learned that when Gar-yat refused to bless her son’s velazul, he joined the orc regiment and died in battle.

  Nir-yat did more than gossip. At times, she spoke to Dar as an older sister. “Kovok-mah’s your first velazul,” she said. “It’s too early to think about getting blessed.”

  “Only Kovok-mah will ever care for me,” said Dar. “Without him, I’ll spend my life alone.”

  “You don’t know future.”

  “I know my chest is empty without him.”

  “So enjoy his company, and keep his muthuri out of it.”

  “But…”

  “That way, you can see him. Once Kath-mah’s involved, she’ll decide that.”

  “Why would she forbid it? I’m urkzimmuthi now.”

  “Muthuris want granddaughters,” replied Nir-yat.

  Dar’s face fell. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Perhaps it’s no problem,” said Nir-yat. “I kn
ow nothing about magic. Maybe if you’re reborn, you can have children.”

  Dar doubted it. In fact, the idea that she could get pregnant unsettled her.

  “Don’t be glum, Dargu. Muthuris look other way until things get serious. While flowers bloom, think not of winter.”

  Dar resolved to follow her sister’s advice, and found it easy on a journey where anticipation heightened the pleasure of hiking. Their way wound between green mountains with peaks colored by the reds and golds of autumn. The brisk air was perfect for walking, and the pair traveled far before stopping for the night. They stayed in a hall of a distant relative. She had heard of Dar’s rebirth and was pleased to meet her. That evening, Dar told her tale, holding everyone spellbound. Once again, she was encouraged by her unquestioning acceptance.

  Dar and Nir-yat reached Mah clan territory the next afternoon. It covered the southern side of a mountain furrowed by a network of ridges. The ridgetops were covered with terraced fields, and the hollows were used to pasture sheep and goats.

  “Listen,” said Nir-yat when they neared the mountainside. “Hear different tones of bells?”

  Dar cocked her ear. “I think so.”

  “Each tone marks different flock.” Nir-yat listened intently. “That’s cousin Kovok’s bell.” She pointed toward a hollow to the left. “He’s grazing his goats there today.”

  Dar rushed in its direction. “Let’s go!”

  Nir-yat hurried to keep up, grinning as she went. The ground grew steep, forcing Dar to slow down. Soon, she was panting. “Only goats belong here.”

  “And sons who herd them,” said Nir-yat. She gazed up the grassy hollow and spotted something. “Hide, Dargu! Quick!” After Dar scurried behind a bush, Nir-yat called out. “Tava, Cousin Kovok!”

  From her hiding place, Dar heard footsteps. Then Kovok-mah answered. “Tava, father’s sister’s daughter. Why have you journeyed here?”

  “Muthuri has new daughter.”