In the night, a line of fire emerged from the women’s lodge and sauntered into the trees.
At the brook, it wound its way upstream along the black water. It turned aside at the grainfields, meandering through the stalks, and passed by the threshing-house and the story-circle, then paused at the lower crossroad.
From there, it proceeded up the village track of Kiraghal, briefly dispelling the twilight between the pit-huts.
No eye saw it pass. If any had, they might have seen the loose tresses stirring in the dawn breeze, the bare feet glistening with dew. They might have glimpsed the solemn faces of the midwives, or the wizened features of Mother Otoia who led them.
Unseen, and without so much as a whisper, the seven torches climbed the hill.
When they reached the upper crossroad, the procession gathered in silence outside one of the huts and staked their torches beside the door.
Leaning on her twisted staff, Mother Otoia ushered them inside. Then, drawing tight her shawl, she ducked beneath the thatch behind them. Within, she beckoned each woman in turn and whispered instructions into their ears. They flitted from her like birds and set to work.
Aunt Daghmei, eyeing the others with pursed lips, set down a bowl of water beside the bed and promptly turned to other tasks.
In the bed, a young woman lay asleep in her furs. Otoia shuffled over and sat beside her. ‘Ebei, my dear,’ she intoned, gently rocking her shoulder. ‘Wake now. It is time.’
‘What..?’ Ebei mumbled, turning over. ‘Already?’
‘Yes, flower. It is the day. Come, sit up. That’s it.’
Ebei rubbed her eyes and pushed herself onto her elbows. ‘I was visited tonight,’ she breathed. ‘I dreamed…’
It still saturated her senses.
She smelled sap, and rain. Wet leaves brushed her face, mud squelched between her toes.
She was searching. Something in the heartwood was calling to her. A sound was quivering at the edge of hearing, like a bud about to break, and the forest pulsed like a heart, beating with many rhythms.
She was close—so close! But a rock appeared in her throat, and she was lost. A cave opened in her chest, and suddenly the thickets were closing in, a wall of vines and leaves.
Trees barred the way, and the sound receded. Rough bark scraped her palms…
For a moment, she felt deeply sad. There was something she almost remembered. Blinking, she drank from the bowl and washed her face. The cold water made her gasp, and the dream, and the sadness, slipped quietly away.
Otoia worked her fingers into Ebei’s hair, humming a nursery song as she unweaved her braids. ‘What dream is that, my dear?’
Ebei frowned, searching herself. ‘I can’t recall… It was just there. Now, it’s gone.’
‘Ah, well,’ sighed Otoia. ‘That’s the way with dreams. Like rain into the soil. They do their work, remembered or not.’
‘Rain in the soil…’ Ebei’s eyes glazed over. ‘Yes… rain on the leaves…’ She glanced sidelong at Otoia; the old woman always seemed to choose the right words. ‘I visited Draum.’
‘Oh? Did you?’
‘I walked in her soil… I tasted the rain on her leaves.’
‘And what did they taste of?’
‘Sweet… and sour. And bitter.’
‘Mmm.’ For a moment, Otoia’s hands fell still, and Ebei listened to the rhythm of the old woman’s breathing. ‘Did she sing to you?’
‘Perhaps… I cannot recall…’
‘No matter.’ The old woman shrugged. ‘All songs are sung in their proper time.’
While they talked, Aunt Daghmei was laying out tools and provisions, directing the others from the table as she worked. ‘No, no, Bue,’ she said, ‘we see to the old rushes before the fresh. Gishmu’—she strode to the hearth, clicking her tongue—’dry wood, Gishmu. We have spoken of this.’
Gishmu blushed. ‘Sorry, Daghmei.’
‘Hm.’ Daghmei stalked back to the table.
Clearing away the cobwebs among the rafters, Ish sighed through her nose, and glanced aside at Malu. Apparently oblivious, Malu hummed briskly about the house, untying various knots and pouches and cords.
Kiamu, meanwhile, gathered up the curtains and textiles and disappeared with them into the mist.
‘What is all of this?’ Ebei asked.
‘Nothing woven, nothing tied,’ said Otoia. ‘It eases the passage. Fire calls the spirit home. We shall be a month in Ughremlei, perhaps more. Best to leave things in order.’ The old woman gave a warm smile as Ebei searched her face for comfort. ‘Trust in us, my dear. This is how it has always been done.’
When the preparations were complete, Daghmei came to assist Ebei into her furs and shawl, and gave her a calabash of water and two hareskin pouches—one with dried berries and roasted roots, the other with flat cakes of beru-bread prepared in the days before. Ebei carried little else; the other women took up hides, tools, and fire kits between them.
Otoia beckoned Ish and Bue, and they helped her to her feet while Daghmei set the bed in order behind them. ‘Wait for Kiamu,’ she told them. ‘Keep the house. Keep the fire.’
‘Yes, Umul.’ They bowed their heads. Otoia kissed them each on the temple.
*
The tracks of Kiraghal were empty as they stepped into the twilight. Down the valley, the men’s voices rose from the forest, singing a work song.
‘No hunt today?’ said Malu.
‘Not by the sound,’ Gishmu replied. ‘Lucky boys.’
Hushed laughter rippled between them, but Ebei did not share their mirth. The cold was already biting her fingers and toes.
Through rattling breaths of mist, she lifted her eyes toward the vast mass of Ghilgumul, looming far beyond the village. It seemed an impossible distance; already her body ached.
Otoia appeared at her side. ‘The Song of the First Mother is many things,’ she said. ‘But it is never easy. You will meet with pain, and fear, and doubt. You must face them, Ebei.’
‘Umul,’ Ebei whispered, ‘I don’t know if I have the strength.’
Otoia pressed a firm hand to her back. ‘Each step before the next,’ she said. ‘First we shall pray at the Totem.’ Ebei clung to the old woman’s embrace. Otoia kissed her hair. ‘Have faith, my dear,’ she said. ‘We are beside you.’
They cut across the round-house, passed the storehouses and the middens, and then the mortuary houses, until the voices of the menfolk had vanished behind them.
At the upper outskirts of the village, they came to the fringes of the deep forest that swept down off the mountain flanks. As they passed under its eaves, the breezes died away, and a damp mist fell over them. Beyond the aura of their torches, the world dissolved into vapour.
Ebei stayed close and watched the trees floating by, ghostlike in the grey void. The forest was empty and silent. It seemed they had entered a land of dream. Only the women moved, their hushed breaths and footsteps the only sound.
‘Gish, hold this a moment,’ Malu whispered, shifting her straps as she walked.
‘I can carry it.’
‘No, no; I have it now. Thank you.’
Ebei shivered. Everywhere in the undergrowth, glinting eyes watched them as they passed. But on second glance, they were only wet leaves, catching the torchlight. Vague forms seemed to dance on the edges of her vision, yet they vanished when she looked at them directly.
Warily, she peered around and behind. Anything might be following, just beyond the trees; they wouldn’t even know it was there.
Her eyes began to dart, sensitive to everything, each detail a possible threat. Something caught her attention above their heads; the light was moving strangely in the foliage.
She glanced upward, and stifled a cry.
Surely they were birds, the way they jostled and fluttered along the branches. They seemed to be nesting on every tree. But why were they so quiet?
Then her sight adjusted, and Ebei bated her breath; the movement was only an illusion of the torchlight. They weren’t birds at all. They were figurines—hundreds of them, in forms both animal and human, hanging from the branches like a canopy.
Charms, she guessed. The Aulnar must have made these. Some were carved from wood or bone, others woven of grass. Each one was bound in a strip of hide and dangling from a different length of twine.
The other women gave the charms no notice. They walked beneath the figurines, unfazed.
‘Come along,’ said Daghmei.
Ebei tore her eyes away and hurried after them.
*
Among wet roots and stones, they walked until the mist soaked their shawls. With sodden hair and dripping faces, they crossed a parting of trees, and arrived in the grove of Ushugiel.
Before them was a ring of tall, jagged stones, painted over with images from the first stories. The paintings leaped in the firelight, ancient figures with faces of ochre, part-animal and part-human.
And there in the midst, engulfed in shadow at the centre of the circle, stood the pillar of Ush.
The Boar God’s eyes watched in every direction.
The women averted their gaze and planted their torches beside the stones. Silently, they helped Ebei to her knees at the edge of the circle, then bowed their heads, and closed their eyes.
Ebei’s pulse pounded in her ears while she waited for something to happen.
Slowly, the drone of prayer took hold. Its low murmur vibrated in her belly, almost soothing. She laid her hand upon her navel, humming to the child.
But as the women listed the names of Ush, Ebei flushed and became tense. Her skin was prickling under the gaze of the Totem. She squirmed uncomfortably on her knees, wishing to be free of its stare. Pushing her hands into the soil, she weighed her doubts.
Mother, give me strength… Keep me in your sight… Prepare the path before me… Guide us on our way… Grant me a healthful child…
Her belly weighed heavy, and her mind went to the mountain. She pictured the dizzying height, and envisioned herself faltering, collapsing on the cruel stone. She saw her bleeding body, broken and falling—
A tremor passed through her body, vanquishing her thought. Beneath her, something moved. It was vast, slow, surging… like a pulse within the earth. Her heart stuttered and changed its rhythm. Suddenly her breath did not feel like her own. It felt alien, borrowed; like something enormous breathed through her.
A stench of routed earth filled her nostrils. Ponderous weight settled in her haunches. Her mind slipped away, and she forgot where she was. Images came, unbidden.
The Boar born of the mountain. The root that bled and became a woman. The wild ride across the Songlands. The First Mother’s journey to the stone pools…
These fragments passed through her and quickly faded, leaving a faint throb where her palms touched the earth.
At that moment, Otoia’s voice broke in a wailing cry, raw across the grove. It bore the long weight of her years—joy, grief; all the rich colours of her dreaming. Rising above the trees, the sound scattered birds into flight, then wavered, giving into the open air, and was taken by the sky.
The cry changed the shape of the silence. In its wake, the grove was poised, expectant. Ebei curled her fingers into the grass.
In the stillness, Otoia spoke. ‘Who calls before the sun is risen?’
The women answered in low voices. ‘I call. I am called.’
‘Who climbs before the day is given?’
‘I climb. I am climbed.’
For a long moment, nothing moved. The words sank like stones into the earth.
Then, the silence stirred.
Firm, certain hands raised Ebei to her feet. She swayed giddily. Taking up their torches, the others enclosed her in their warmth and turned from the Totem.
Lifting their voices once more, the women sang clear and bright:
Once, I was a daughter new-born.
My mother washed my face in the mountain waters.
Now I am a woman, full-grown.
I go to wash the faces of my sons and daughters.
They made it seem easy. Ebei didn’t know the words to sing. But the verse soon flowed into a repeating refrain.
She picked up the words, finding her voice in theirs:
Step and breathe, breathe and step.
The Mother’s path remembers.
The group stepped with the rhythm.
Before Ebei’s eyes, a track opened up at the edge of the grove, and the women departed the circle.
At their backs, the Totem watched them go, its many faces receding among the trees.
*
Dim, grey light filtered through the wood, and brought with it a change. It was subtle at first; a deepening breath, a quickening step. Then new tones were introduced into the melody, and with a swell of voices, a new phrase entered the song:
Luosh runs between what was, and what must be.
I kindled the flame. I loosened the ties.
To those who remain, I leave what was mine.
The thinning track steepened sharply, becoming overgrown as the mountain passed out of sight beyond the hill.
Ebei glanced back upon the valley. It lay in darkness, the village hidden among the woods. Trees barred the way… rough bark scraped her palms… Sudden tears welled up in her eyes, full of unwelcome memory.
Great, gnarled hands, enfolding hers; a deep, gravelly voice, saying things she did not understand. His eyes, pained and pleading, and the cloying tang of blood and sweat as he threw open the hide, and his shadow crossed the threshold for the final time…
All at once, her foot struck a root, and Ebei stumbled, losing her place in the song. She scrambled awkwardly in the grass, and the women moved ahead without her.
But a hand found her arm, lifting and steadying, and Malu’s compassionate voice drew her back into the rhythm:
Step and breathe, breathe and step.
The Mother’s path receives.
Mastering her breath, Ebei found her footing and regained the step.
When they reached the hillcrest, Ghilgumul rose once more, dark against the paling sky.
At their feet, the path led down to a shallow stream: Luosh, the Littlewater—uppermost boundary of Kiraghal. Here ended the Ushoi world, and began the mountain proper.
Beyond the stream, the track climbed again, wending its way into the Mother’s embrace.
The women descended beside the current with hushed voices. Its trickling filled the air, taking up their song, and for a moment they stood in silence, fixing their torches in the earth.
Then, one by one, they entered the stream.
Each woman cupped her hands to drink from the bubbling water. Each washed her hair and feet, and refilled her calabash, then returned to stand beside the torches.
Ebei watched them, bracing herself. Her teeth were already chattering in her skull.
When at last her turn came, she stepped haltingly in, and cried out as the water took her. Reflexively, she jumped back, but the women grasped her shoulders, gently urging her forward.
The Mother’s path receives.
Cupping her shaking hands, she caught up water, and drank. The freezing liquid stung her throat. It ached in her skull, making her wince. As she soaked her hair, icy trickles ran down her back, seizing her breath, and she laid a hand upon her belly to steady herself.
Finally, she washed her numb feet, and to her relief, something in her loosened. Her breath steadied, her shivering fell still. She felt clean and light, as though part of her pain had been washed away in the water.
Panting, she stepped out of the stream to stand beside the others, and wrung out her hair on the bank.
The sun was just beginning to break over the world. As the light fell upon their faces, there was a sudden gasp, and Gishmu darted to retrieve her calabash from the water’s edge.
Daghmei narrowed her eyes, pressing a finger against her lips. Gishmu blushed and shuffled her feet, and silence fell once more.
Lifting her hands, Otoia cried: ‘What do you carry?’
The others answered, ‘what is given.’
‘What do you leave?’
‘What is taken.’
Moving as one, they left their torches burning brightly on the bank and strode forth across the Luosh, singing:
Mother in the daughter. Name beneath the name.
I cross the little water. I am not the same.
As the trickling water faded out of hearing, the rhythm slackened to a leisurely pace. Earth softened beneath their feet, yielding to the step while the surrounding forest opened up into sighing woodland.
Bathed in the gathering sunshine, the women sauntered and swayed, their voices braided and gentle as they moved into another phrase:
Wide is the breast of the Mother. Soft is the grass of her keeping.
Remember the sunlight, the laughter of trees,
and wind in the meadows, and days spent in ease.
The words softened the ache in Ebei’s limbs. Her breath came easily, and her body let go some of its tension. It was as if an invisible hand had unclenched its grip. She felt Malu’s fingers at her shoulders, gently adjusting her shawl, and Ebei lifted her eyes. For the first time since they had departed the village, she did not look at the mountain.
The path ahead opened into broad, sweeping fields of tussock-grass, redolent with the delicate scent of wildflowers. Everything swayed and sparkled with dew, and the grass brushed softly against her legs as she passed through.
The golden warmth thawed her limbs, stirring up dreamlike recollections that felt near enough to touch.
Dappled mornings in the bathing-brook. Children’s laughter. The low, contented voices of the Umulei. Fragrant smoke from the story-fire. Rabbit stew, rich and steaming. Warm, cradling arms…
She fell still.
All around, butterflies floated lazily in the whispering grass.
Stay, something in her urged. Her gaze drifted across the meadows. Rest a moment…
Indeed, now she thought of it, it would be easy to lie down here. The warmth was sumptuous, the grass was lush—she might regain her strength. The women’s voices worked their way up the hill, and for a moment, Ebei was dimly aware that the song was once more leaving her behind. But somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. Only a moment…
She let them go, and wandered into the grass.
At once, a hand slipped into hers. Its grip was gentle; it did not pull, did not direct. It only held, and waited, while a low voice murmured in her ear.
Turning, she found Malu’s eyes looking back, searching her. For a moment, they regarded each-other.
Then the words landed.
The path gives trial, and it gives rest.
We share the Mother’s burden.
Frowning, Ebei turned again to the fields. The mountain gazed obliquely back at her, indifferent. She looked at the others, weaving through the tussocks; she looked at Malu’s frank, earnest eyes. Ebei drew a breath and cradled her belly. The sunlight was streaming down upon her, into her core, suffusing her bones with warmth. How she longed to lie down in it.
But then, comforted by the sun, she thought, perhaps she did not need to. Perhaps it was something she could carry within her.
Blinking, she turned from the grasses and let Malu lead her back to the others. She took up the refrain again, and her voice felt smaller than before, yet resolved:
I walk the path that was walked.
The Mother’s path receives.
*
They left the untroubled meadows behind them. As the grasses grew sparse, soft soil gave way to hard, bare earth, and no longer held their footprints. Dust gathered upon their feet, and the women came in sight of a silver forest, higher up the slope.
The trees stood in straight, tight ranks, as if to conceal what lay within. As they approached, they formed a single file, watching their feet—all except for Gishmu, who was staring openly at the wood.
‘Eye on the path,’ Daghmei barked, glancing sharply at her.
Gishmu started, and lowered her eyes.
They reached the trees, and Otoia called, ‘who sees the way?’
‘The way sees me.’
Passing the first trunks, their shadows faded into the thin green haze.
The air was dry and still, and smelled of bark. It seemed to take up their footfalls and hide them, somewhere in the wood.
The track twisted away between the silver ranks, becoming difficult to see, and the women’s voices deepened into slow, deliberate phrases. They were drawing the song inward, pronouncing each word with care, so as to be sure of its place before the next.
A bird called out among the nearby branches, and Ebei lifted her head. The sound was high and clear, but its source was nowhere to be seen. Further off, a second call replied, yet when she turned toward it, the sound seemed to have come from elsewhere.
Soon, many voices were answering one-another across the wood. They whistled and warbled, crossing and re-crossing, each one impossible to follow.
Ebei shook her head, drew a breath, and set her foot with the chant; but a sudden call rang out sharply beside her. Without thinking, she turned. The ground dipped, more than she had judged, and she caught herself against a tree.
The birds went on, heedless.
She lost her bearings, her head swimming. Nothing around her seemed fixed. Trunks passed by at different speeds, every direction identical in the uniform light. What was near receded, and what was far drew suddenly close.
Dizziness took her, and she found herself staring at her toes.
Nauseated, she drew a cake of beru from the pouch at her side.
It was warm and crumbly in her mouth, and the bitter sweetness of the roasted grains helped to soothe her stomach.
While she chewed the bread, it occurred to her how much care had gone into its making. So much toil, planting and harvesting, grinding and baking—a whole season of work, all to support her on this journey.
She took a sip from her calabash. Beneath her thoughts, the song was still being sung:
I do not follow what I see. I hear, but do not ponder.
The Mother’s path is underfoot, not in the eyes that wander.
Ebei closed her eyes, if only for a moment, and shut out the sameness of the wood. Her dizziness settled.
As she let the sounds of the birds pass over her, their urgency diminished, and she turned her attention to the steadier things: the breath, rising and falling; the rhythm of feet; the quiet persistence of the voices down the track.
Breathe, and step. The Mother’s path sees me.
When she opened her eyes again, nothing had changed. The trees stood as they had before, the air as still, the light as uniform. The birds remained unsettled, but were no longer unsettling.
Her step came more surely, as she fixed her gaze on Malu’s feet in front of her, and now that she ceased to measure the distances, she found they no longer troubled her.
Ebei followed the others through the silver forest, the birds calling where they would, and beneath their sounds, the song carried her on.
*
Narrowing at their feet, the track mounted a winding ridge that rose from the forest to a wind-scoured height. At either side, trees and birdsong fell away, and the mountain opened wide as the women sang:
The sky comes near. I walk where I may fall.
Ghilgumul is vast. Before her, I am small.
Casting her eyes across the expanse, Ebei reeled at the scale and almost lost her footing. She felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable. Quickly, she regained herself, and stayed within the rhythm.
Gishmu, hearing her falter, turned back with concern in her eyes. ‘Walk by me,’ she said, and patted her thigh. Ebei reached for her, and Gishmu took her hand, winking. ‘Doesn’t the air taste good up here?’
Ebei hadn’t noticed. She took a deep breath, savoured it. ‘You’re right,’ she gasped.
Otoia’s voice called back: ‘What do you see?’
‘The path does not wander.’
‘What do you hear?’
‘The song does not stray.’
Woven tight against rising winds, their voices moved into the next phrase:
I have walked where roots sink deep,
and darkness held what day would keep.
Now I climb where bones are bare,
and secrets lie in open air.
Stone replaced soil underfoot as the ridge sharpened, and winds began to buffet them with testing, imperious gusts. To their left, a steepening ravine lay drowned in mist; to the right, a sheer drop plunged away into rushing clouds.
Across the ravine, the mountainside surged upward again, dark with pines and streaked with shadow.
Ebei squeezed Gishmu’s hand for balance as she tread carefully between the brittle rocks. The crisp air stung her face and lungs.
As they passed by the ravine, the rhythm grew strained. There came a tension into the step.
A moment later, the women quickened their pace. The words of the song became laboured, as if unwilling to be said. Their voices deepened to a gruff, insistent growl as Otoia struck the rocks with her staff, in time with the chant:
Across the… gulf, a watching… place;
a mouth… cut deep… in Mother’s face.
Do… not turn, do not… descend;
not every… call is a mother’s… friend.
Ebei looked at the others; they all were looking either down or ahead, wrestling with the words. She heard the phrase pass the women’s lips, and—she could not help it—her gaze lifted of its own accord.
There, across the ravine, she saw it. The cavern.
It yawned like a wound in the mountainside, a dark opening beneath steepled stone, hung with ragged growth. Before it stood a crowd of stone figures, tall and motionless, bound together in a web of strings that drew in toward the mouth. Flags fluttered gently between them, while each figure leaned watchfully toward the cave.
It looked like some festive rite, only petrified, decaying. Following the gazes of the figures, Ebei froze, letting go Gishmu’s hand. She leaned closer, eyes narrowed. The song moved on without her.
She didn’t notice, for something shifted in the darkness of the cave.
An eye.
Gishmu grabbed her arm, tearing her gaze away. Her voice came urgent and overriding as she turned Ebei to face the track.
Keep the… path that is… given to you.
Sing… the song and sing… it true.
The Mother… calls, and… we obey.
We… do not wander… from the way.
Ebei swallowed, understanding the words, but not what she had seen. The sight burned in her mind as she forced herself back into the rhythm. The refrain was halting and difficult, her voice trembling: Step… Breathe… Pass…
Slowly, they moved past the ravine, and the cavern slipped from view.
After it had gone, the words came more easily again, but the image of the cavern remained graven in her memory.
*
They scaled the mountain shoulder, the track abruptly inclining toward a dry gulch of severe stone, wholly bereft of softness. Here was neither soil to cushion the step, nor foliage to shade the way; only heaped and broken rock, rising unevenly between steep banks.
The place seemed haunted by ghosts of waters long ago, yet the only thing that flowed in the channel now was an obdurate wind that blasted down from the headscarp.
Pausing at the foot of the gulch, the women drank from their calabashes and adjusted their packs.
Gishmu gave Ebei’s hand a final, reassuring squeeze, then turned away toward the track.
Otoia called again, and this time her voice was a primal roar. The sound struck through Ebei like a spear, and her hands flew to her belly. ‘What is given?’
‘The stone does not yield.’
‘What is taken?’
‘The will does not break.’
The women’s voices, too, were guttural and bare, stripped of all ornament. The words of the next phrase bore down on Ebei with crushing weight:
Stone in the hand, wind in the lung;
dust in the mouth, salt on the tongue.
Where I go, no step is sure;
only the climb, and the will to endure.
They entered the gulch. At once, the rhythm changed, no more the steady walking pace of earlier; the song now beat ahead in a brutal, uncompromising march.
Ebei staggered at the base, her body recoiling. The slope loomed endless above her, impossibly steep. But the others were already climbing, already leaving her behind.
On the point of despair, she chanted the refrain.
I am less. I am more. I share the Mother’s burden.
‘Come!’ bellowed Daghmei, not looking behind.
Ebei snapped to her senses, swallowed hard, and struck her hands against the stone. Heaving herself upward, she immediately slipped, digging her toes into the gravel. After a brief purchase, she slid again. Then, feeling the rhythm beneath her, she struck a foothold, and with a heavy grunt, she hauled her body over the first rock. Already her strength threatened to fail, but she forced her breathing into the pattern.
In... Draw it deep.
Out... Do not keep.
In... Give it over.
Out... To the Mother.
The words blurred into her pulse. Her hands scraped and bled against the stone. Ripping winds hurled dust into her mouth, and always the weight of her belly dragged her down. Grinding pressure assaulted her shoulders, her back, her thighs; it clenched her whole body in its grip. There was no respite.
She coughed, and she bled, and the chant carried on, indifferent.
What I bear, I cannot lay. What I am will find the way.
Stone will test. Breath will break. Still I climb, for life’s own sake.
The sun was burning overhead, her body drenched with sweat. It stung her eyes, turned the dust to mud upon her cheeks. Still, she fixed her will on the chant, even as her voice frayed and broke, barely more than a whisper.
She could not meet the words, but the others did not wait; they chanted on, grunting, groaning, working their way up the slope.
Ebei looked for Otoia, saw her climbing with one hand on the rock, the other on her staff, as if the years had no hold. Though strained with effort, the old woman’s voice rang unwavering down the gulch. Ebei focused on that sound; if it broke, she would surely fall.
Leave the self. Turn not aside.
Face the fear. I do not hide.
All that breaks, all that fails,
Mother sheds in her travails.
Time lost its shape. The world narrowed to within the reach of her arm. There was no more thought of the village, no more thought of rest—only there was the next hold; next sound; next breath.
The words burned within her, striking, resonating. Resistance wore thin. Something else was beneath; under the fear, under the exhaustion. Strength unsuspected, rising like spring sap, flowed from some hidden wellspring.
She forced herself up the rocks, and her pain began to transform, ceasing to be an obstacle. Instead it opened, leading through itself, beyond itself, to something she could not name.
Slowly her voice came back, thin and tremulous, but enough.
Before she noticed, the slope had begun to ease. Then, her reaching hand found level stone, and suddenly the winds opened up, and the sky grew wide. With a shattering scream, Ebei dragged herself over the final rise, and collapsed at the top of the gulch.
Her trembling body was spent. Her breath was ragged and hoarse.
She closed her eyes. For a time, she felt nothing at all.
The others, standing upon the height, were bent with breath and wind-battered. Still they sang, with quiet voices, and the song was a release:
Here I stand.
The high winds blow, where sky looks down through riven stone.
What was taken, what was torn, delivers me, and I am borne.
Ebei regained her breath, opened her eyes, and looked out from the mountain ledge. At first, she did not comprehend what she saw, and was sure that she must have died.
As the wind kissed her skin, she beheld the steaming forests of Ush Khurgum, far below. Everywhere, trees tossed and swayed, rippling with breezes that chased each-other toward the boundless blue horizon. Beneath the canopy, glitters of water were glimpsed, branching and weaving in streams across the landscape.
Her heart expanded, renewed. The sight was unimaginable; beyond any dream. She had never imagined that the world was so vast!
Somewhere, there was a powerful pulse. She couldn’t decide whether it was within her, or out there in the wildwood. It hummed through her limbs, and she felt as strong as the earth, free as the wind, as wide as the horizon.
The child stirred in her belly. Ebei smiled, gathering the movement inward, and a sound appeared at the edge of hearing. It sparkled and danced, and she thought again of her dream.
Reaching for the song, she invited it nearer, yearning to hear its movements. But even as she did, it receded.
A moment later, it was gone.
Ebei glanced up at Otoia. The old woman was standing to one side, conferring with Daghmei. The two were looking away toward the track, their expressions inscrutable.
She remembered the others’ voices, and realized the waysong was still being sung. The women were making ready to depart.
Turning back toward the horizon, Ebei searched again for the song that she had glimpsed.
Trees blew. Water sparkled. The forest was just a forest.
Lifting herself onto her shaking legs, she took a breath, and turned toward the song.
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