She breathed on the pot, rubbed at the surface with a soft rag. Whoever had you took good care of you. Well why not? You’re a treasure, my pot, ancient though you are. Almost as old as me. A hundred years, more. Doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. The years have flown, oh how they’ve disappeared. She put the rag down and held the pot tilted so she could look down into the black of it, seeing images, the faces of father, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, of her mother suckling long dead Ruan; saw herself, a thin energetic girl with mouse-colored braids leaking wisps of fine hair. A long time ago. So long she had trouble remembering that Brann. She drew a finger across the black mirror, leaving a faint film of oil behind. Is the road to Arth Slya open again? Are the Croaldhine holding the tri-year fair in Grannsha? I’d like to see it again. Jupelang-I think he’s the one-said you can’t step in the same river twice. Even so, I’d like to see the valley again no matter the changes or the hurt. No place for me there, but I’d like to walk the slopes of Tincreal again and remember that young Brann.
She smiled with quiet pleasure at Chandro shipmaster when he rolled over half-awake. More memory. Sammang, my old friend, you gave me a weakness for sailing men I’ve never regretted. Blinking, Chandro laced his fingers behind his head and grinned at her, his teeth gleaming through a tangle of black, the elaborate corkscrews he twisted into his beard at every portcall raveled into a wild bramble bush. He yawned, savoring these last few minutes in the warm sheets smelling of both of them, a musky heated odor that mixed with memory to make a powerful aphrodisiac. She started to put the pot down and go to him, but the mate chose that moment to thump on the door.
Chuckling, Chandro rolled out of bed, stood stretching and groaning with pleasure as he worked sleep out of his big supple body. He patted at his beard, looked at her with sly amusement. “Save it for later, Bramble love, won’t hurt for keeping.”
She snorted, picked up the rag to clean her fingerprints off the pot.
When he was dressed, his beard combed, he came over to her and looked down at the gathered blackness in her hands. “Das’n vuor. I could get you a thousand gold for that.” She snorted again and he laughed. “I know, you wouldn’t part with it for ten thousand.” He brushed her hair aside, kissed the nape of her neck and went out, whistling a saucy tune that brought a reluctant fond grin to her lips.
Quietly content, she burnished the pot.
In the black mirror her woman’s face framed in white silk hair blurs, elongates into a skinny coltish girl with untidy mouse-colored braids and grubby hands that look too big for her arms. She sits in a grassy glade among tall cedars, a sketch pad on her knee, jotting down impressions of a herd of small furry coynos playing in the grass…
ON THE DAY of Arth Slya’s destruction, Tincreal burped.
Brann leaned over and flattened both hands on the grass beside her, feeling the rhythmic jolts of the hard red dirt, relishing the wildness of the mountain. She tossed her drawing pad aside, gabbed for a low-hanging limbtip and pulled herself to her feet, her eyes opening wide as she felt the uneasy trembling of the tree. Around her the cedars were groaning and shuddering as the earth continued to shift beneath them, and birds spiraling into air stiller for once than the earth, a mounting, thickening cloud, red, black, blue, mottled browns, flashes of white, chevinks and dippers, moonfishers, redbirds and mojays, corvins, tarhees, streaks and sparrins, spiraling up and up, filling the air with their fear. She gripped the cedar twigs and needles, starting to be afraid herself as the groaning shift of the earth went on and on, shivering. After an eternity it seemed, the mountain grew quiet again, the rockfalls stopped, the shudderings calmed, and Slya went back to her restless sleep.
She opened her hand, looked at the sharp-smelling sticky resin smeared across her palm and fingers, grimaced, ran across the grass to the creekbank and her sunning rock, a flat boulder jutting into the water. She stood in the middle of it watching the otters peel out of their shaking pile and begin grooming their ruffled fur, watching the birds settle back into the treetops leaving the sky empty except for a few fleecy clouds about the broad snow-covered peak of Tincreal. This was the first time she’d been alone on the mountain during one of the quakes that were coming with increasing frequency these warm spring days. A warning of bother to come, the Yongala said, pack what you’ll need if we have to run from her wrath; and Eldest Uncle Eornis told stories of his great-grandfather’s time when Slya woke before. With an uneasy giggle, she clapped her hands, began the Yongala’s dance on the rock, singing the sleep song to the mountain and the mountain’s heart, Arth Slya, Slya’s Ground, to Slya who protected, who warmed the springs and kept the Valley comfortable in winter, to Slya who made fire for her father’s kilns, to Slya the Sleeping Lady, powerful protector and dangerous companion. “Slya wakes,” she sang…
Slya wakes
Mountain quakes
Air thickens
Stone quickens
Ash breath
Bringing death
Slya, sleep sleep, Slya
Yongala dances dreams for you Slya turns
Stone burns
Red rivers riot around us
Day drops dark around us Beasts fly
Men fear
Forests fry
Sleep, Slya Slya, sleep
Yongala dances dreams for you
At once exhilarated and afraid, singing to celebrate and to propitiate, Brann danced her own fears away, then went hunting soapweed to wash the blackened cedar resin off her hands.
Go back, start again at the day’s beginning, the last morning Arth Slya was whole.
On that last morning that seemed much like any other morning, Brann came into the kitchen after brealcfast and her morning chores were done. Gingy-next-to-baby stood on a stool by the washtub, soapweed lather bubbling up around his arms, scrubbing at pots and plates. He looked round, snapped a glob of lather at her. “You,” he said. “Hunk”
“It’s your turn, mouse, I did ‘em yestereve.” She wiped the lather off her arm, went over to ruffle his short brown curls, giggled as he shuddered all over and whinnyed like a little pony, then went to the food locker. “Shara.”
“Mmm?” Her younger sister sat at the breakfast table tending a smallish plant, nipping off bits of it, stirring the dirt about its roots. She was only nine but her Choice was clear to her and everyone else; she was already, though unofficially, apprenticed to Uncle Sabah the fanner and spent most of her days with him now, working in the fields, silent, sunburned and utterly content. She set the pot down, looked around, her green eyes half hidden by heavy lids that made her look sleepy when she was most alert. “What?”
“Did Mama order more, bread from Uncle Djimis? No?” She held up the hard end of an old loaf “Well, this is all we got left. And I’m taking it.” She put the bread in her satchel; it was stale but Uncle Djimis’s bread had a goodness that stayed with it to the last crumb. She added a chunk of cheese and two apples, slipped the satchel’s straps over her shoulder and danced out, her long braids bouncing on her shoulders. “Be good, younguns,” she warbled and kicked the door shut on their indignant replies, went running through the quiet house to the back porch where her mother sat in her webbing hammock swinging gently back and forth as she nursed baby Ruan, humming a tuneless, wordless song.
“I’m off,” Brann told her mother. “Anything special you want?”
Accyra reached out and closed a hand about Brann’s fingers, squeezed them gently. “Take care, Bramble-allthorns, the Mountain’s uncertain these days.” She closed her eyes, keeping hold of Brann’s hand, hummed some more, smiled and looked up. “Coynos, as many different views as you have time for, some of your other four-foots, I’m thinking of a tapestry celebrating the Mountain.” She lifted a brow. “And be back to help with supper.”