The Skull of the World by Kate Forsyth
Nila’s expression sobered and he caught her to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into her messy brown hair. ‘You are right. I should be more careful. Come, let us get back to the pod before they start looking for us and notice we are gone together.’
Fand straightened her belt of seaweed and shells, and combed back her hair with her fingers. ‘I shall walk back and you can swim in from the other direction,’ she said. ‘Nila, please, will you not give the sea back the pearl? I can see only troubled waters ahead for us.’
His lipless mouth set in a straight, hard line and he shook his head determinedly. ‘No, Jor himself led me to the pearl. I shall not scorn his gift.’
‘Nila, you know I sometimes have the curse of future-seeing. I say again I see only storms and tidal waves ahead for us.’
He laughed and swept his webbed hand out towards the sea, lying blue and still under a cloudless sun. ‘Well, I see only calm waters, my love. You know I was born with the caul over my head and they say that means I can never drown. Bring on the storms, I say!’
On the Spine of the World winter comes snapping and snarling like a wolf. The wind shrieks white for days, until snow shrouds the landscape and icicles hang like fangs from the mouth of the cave. In winter the world is reduced to absolutes of black or white, death or life, bitter cold or burning hot.
Inside the cave the bonfire leapt high, casting grotesque shadows over the intent faces and still bodies of the Khan’cohbans. They sat cross-legged in a wide circle, watching two figures who circled each other warily. There was no sound save the wail of the storm and the soft slap of the combatants’ feet on the stone.
Isabeau crouched low, her eyes flickering over the face and stance of the warrior opposite her. He was much taller than she was, with two heavy curling horns on either side of his massive brow. He carried a long wooden stave, its metal ends flashing red as they spun in the firelight.
Faster than thought, the staff drove for Isabeau’s shoulder but she threw herself to the right in a low dive, rolled and was on her feet again, just as the wooden stave cracked against the rock mere inches from where she had landed. Her staff was already swinging upwards in response. The warrior swayed away as fluidly as water. Isabeau almost overbalanced as the wood connected with nothing but air. As she recovered he spun on the ball of one foot and struck her hard with the other, just below the junction of her ribs. She fell heavily, the breath knocked out of her. More painful than the impact was the disappointment. Only a few seconds into the contest and already she had received her first blow. Two more and the competition would end, with Isabeau humiliated before her pride.
She rolled and sprang to her feet, her staff flying up. The warrior’s staff hammered into it, almost knocking her down again. Her fingers stung, but she only gripped her staff tighter, turning and thrusting it up to try and slide under his guard. It was like ramming the wind. He simply twisted away, turning a cartwheel that took him well out of her reach.
He was striking at her again before she had a chance to recover her breath, swift as a snake. She swayed first one way, then another, evading his blows, every sense in her body straining to anticipate his next move. Her teacher had told her, ‘Become one with your enemy. When your heart beats with his and your minds move together, only then can you know what his next move will be.’
Isabeau breathed deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth, endeavouring to control her breath and with it that intangible essence the Khan’cohbans called coh. Like many words in the Khan’cohban language, coh had many subtleties of meaning. God, life-death energy, spirit. What the witches called the One Power, the source of all life, all magic. Eà.
She felt her heart and her veins fill with power as her lungs filled with air. For minutes they fought as if they were partners in an elaborate dance, wooden staves whistling as they spun through the air. Isabeau’s Scarred Warrior teacher smiled in satisfaction. Then Isabeau was knocked flying again, and his mouth compressed grimly.
But then Isabeau brought her staff round in a low sweeping movement that knocked the Scarred Warrior’s feet from under him. Her teacher punched his left hand into his right palm, the gesture of victory.
Isabeau was on her feet in an instant, triumph filling her. The Scarred Warrior attacked again, more fiercely than ever. Isabeau had to twist and sway and feint more nimbly than ever, panting harshly as she tried to control her breath. With an unexpected move, the Scarred Warrior spun and kicked high, and Isabeau fell as if she had been knocked down with a hammer.
For a moment all her senses reeled. She got to her feet slowly, disappointment clear on her face. That was the third blow. The contest was over.
Isabeau bowed to her opponent, lifting one hand to cover her eyes, the other hand bent outwards in supplication. That was the proper way to greet a Scarred Warrior who had proved his mastery over her. Her opponent brought two fingers sweeping to his brow, then to his heart, then out to the snowy darkness. Then they both turned, heads lowered, and knelt before the old woman in the snow-lion’s cloak. There was a long silence.
‘This is the fourth long darkness that Khan has lived with us on the Spine of the World and so in our eyes she is like a child of only four, as blind and mute as a newborn kitten,’ the Firemaker said, her long-fingered hands sweeping through the air. Beneath the snarling muzzle of the snow-lion cloak, her old face was set in deep lines of pride and determination, the eyes between their hooded lids as blue as Isabeau’s own. Isabeau bent her head lower, unable to help feeling a little prick of humiliation at her great-grandmother’s words.
‘She has lived through twenty-one winters, however, and so in truth is no child. She has been silent and learnt as no child of four can. She has pleased her teachers and now, in the contest of the wooden stave, has struck a blow against one vastly her superior. In the eyes of the Firemaker and the Scarred Warriors, this is proof. Khan is ready to seek out her name and her totem.’
Despite herself, Isabeau’s eyes flew up in excitement. Her great-grandmother made the gesture of assent, and a little shift and murmur ran over the crowd. Isabeau lowered her face again, though her fingers gripped her stave tighter than ever. The naming-quest was one of the most significant events in the life of the Khan’cohbans. Isabeau would never be truly accepted as one of their own until she had undertaken the dark and dangerous journey to the Skull of the World, and returned safely with the knowledge of the White Gods’ intentions for her.
Although Isabeau knew her destiny lay outside the Spine of the World, she still longed to undertake her quest and attain real status within the pride. The storytellers often told the tale of how her famous father Khan’gharad, Dragon-Laird, had won his name. Until Isabeau had survived the journey to the Skull of the World too, she would never truly understand her father and her great-grandmother, or her twin sister, Iseult, whose characters and philosophy had been so moulded by the Khan’cohban way of life.
The queen-dragon had once told her that she would never find her true calling until Isabeau had embraced both her human and faery heritages. Thee must know thyself before thee can know the universe, the queen-dragon had said. Thee must always be searching and asking and answering, thee must listen to the heart of the world, thee must listen to thine own heart. Thee must search out thy ancestors and listen to what they may teach thee, thee must know thy history before thee can know of the future.
So Isabeau had sworn to do as the queen-dragon had commanded, thus accepting a geas that had taken her far away from those that she loved best in the world. She had travelled up to the Spine of the World, spending six months of the year with her newly discovered parents at the Towers of Roses and Thorns, and six months with the Pride of the Fire Dragon in their snowy mountain home. In the summer she studied the lore of the witches in the great library at the Towers, and in winter she studied the art of the Scarred Warrior and the wisdom of the Soul-Sage with her Khan’cohban teachers. Although she was often lonely and unhappy, Isabeau had worked hard, eager
Before Isabeau had a chance to feel more than a flush of pride and self-satisfaction, her Scarred Warrior teacher came to her and dissected her performance critically. She had been too quick to attack, he said. ‘The art of the Scarred Warrior is not to fight, but to be still. Not to act, but to react. When the wind blows, the tree bends. When an enemy strikes, the warrior responds. The warrior is not the wind but the tree. You try too hard to be the wind.’
She bowed her head, accepting his words. She knew them to be true.
‘You shall set out on your naming-quest in the morning,’ her teacher said. ‘You must reach the Skull of the World, listen to the words of the White Gods and return to the haven before the end of the long darkness, or die.’
Isabeau nodded. Fear touched her like an icy finger, but she repressed it sternly. He said then, in an unusually gentle voice, ‘You fought well, Khan. I thank you, for now I am released from my geas and can once more hunt with my comrades. I had thought it would be many years before I could once again skim in the chase.’
‘I thank you,’ Isabeau replied. ‘It is not the art of the student but that of the teacher which struck that blow today.’
Although his fierce dark face did not relax, she knew she had pleased him. He said gruffly, ‘Make your preparations. I shall see you in the morning,’ then dismissed her with a gesture.
Isabeau went then to the fire of the Soul-Sage. The shaman of the pride was sitting in meditation, her legs crossed, her eyes closed. In one hand she held a stone of iridescent blue, flecked with gold. A falcon’s talon hung on her breast from a long leather cord around her neck. It rose and fell gently with her breathing.
Isabeau sat opposite her, closing her own eyes. She felt the soft brush of feathers on her hand as the little elf-owl Buba crept out of the blankets and into her palm. She cupped her fingers around the fluffy white bird, not much bigger than a sparrow, and let herself sink into nothingness. Against her sensitive palm she felt the flutter of the owl’s heart and it was like a drumbeat leading her down into a profound meditation. For a long time she floated in this exquisite nonbeing, her heart and the owl’s heart and the pulse of the universe in perfect rhythm.
So you go in search of your name and your totem, the Soul-Sage said without words.
Isabeau felt another little stir of fear and excitement. Yes, she responded. The Firemaker thinks I am ready.
I shall cast the bones for you, the shaman said after a long silence.
Thank you, teacher, Isabeau responded, her excitement quickening. She opened her eyes. Across the dancing flames the Khan’cohban’s face was inscrutable. She passed the skystone in her hand through the smoke and dropped it back into the little pouch of skin she carried always at her waist. Taking a smouldering stick from the fire, she drew a large circle and quartered it with two swift motions. Then she poured the contents of the pouch out into her hand and brooded over them. Suddenly she threw the bones and stones into the circle without opening her eyes.
Isabeau gazed anxiously at the pattern the thirteen bones had made in the circle. She then looked at the Soul-Sage, who was regarding the pattern intently. After a while the shaman pointed one long, four-jointed finger at the bird’s claw.
‘Sign of the Soul-Sage, a good omen for your quest, so high to the roof of heaven,’ she said. ‘A sign of death as well as wisdom, though, and shadowed by the closeness of the nightstone and the skystone. Change ahead for you, like the change wrought on a landscape by an avalanche. Much danger and struggle.’ Her hand swept down to the fang and the knucklebone and the fiery garnet, and then across to the fish fossil. ‘Dangerous pattern indeed. There are things in your past and in your unknown which shall seize you in their jaws and seek to drag you under.’
The Soul-Sage had said ‘unza’, another word with many different meanings. With a gesture out into the distance it meant ‘the unknown place’, anywhere beyond the pride’s boundaries. With a circling gesture over the head it meant ‘the place of nightmares’, the dreaming unconscious mind. With a sweep of the hand towards the heart and then between the brows, it meant secret thoughts, secret desires. The Soul-Sage had used all of these gestures, and Isabeau struggled to understand her meaning. ‘My unknown,’ she repeated with the same gestures and the Soul-Sage nodded impatiently.
The shaman’s hand then darted to touch the finger bone. ‘Forces in balance, past, future, known, unknown. Puzzling. Quest could fail, quest could triumph.’ She touched the purple and white lumps of quartz, and then the skystone again. ‘I think triumph, though many pitfalls in your path. Beware too much pride, too much impetuosity.’ Her finger circled the fool’s gold. ‘Deception, or perhaps a disguise. Hard to tell. A strange conjunction. Troubling.’
She was silent for a long time, her hands folded again in her lap, then slowly she reached out and stroked the smooth green of the moss agate, tracing the shape of the fossilised leaf at its centre. ‘Harmony, contentment, healing. Calm after the storm. You must be at peace with yourself, whatever you discover yourself to be. A good place for this stone. I think all will be well.’
She looked up at Isabeau and her fierce face with its seven arrow-shaped scars was even grimmer than usual. ‘Not a good casting. Much remains dark to me. I do not know if you will return from your quest at all, let alone with a good name and totem. I am surprised to find your pattern so incoherent.’ Her finger reached out and touched the triangular scar between Isabeau’s brows. ‘I had thought you already chosen by the White Gods.’
Her hand dropped and she brooded over the pattern of the bones for a while longer before sweeping them up and purifying them one by one in the smoke of her fire. Isabeau longed to question her, but knew the Soul-Sage had said all she would say. The little frisson of fear passed through her again, raising the hairs on her arms and causing her stomach muscles to clench. Buba gave a little hoot of reassurance and Isabeau hooted back.
The Soul-Sage looked up from her task and gave an odd little smile. ‘But I forget,’ she said. ‘The owl chooses to fly with you. The owl is the messenger of the White Gods, the queen of the night and death and darkness, the Soul-Sage of birds. That is an omen that should not be forgotten.’
Wondering if the shaman meant her words to be a comfort, Isabeau gathered together her shaggy furs and followed the Soul-Sage to the Rock of Contemplation, a small rock ledge that faced east towards the rising sun. She had to meditate here from sunset to sunrise, without food or water or fire, a harsh tribulation in the bitter cold.
The snowstorm passed some time during the evening and the clouds cleared away so she could see the stars, huge and luminous in the overarching sky. Although she sat still, she moved her fingers and toes constantly in their fur-lined gloves and boots, and concentrated on her breathing so that the blood in her veins ran hot and strong.
A while before dawn Isabeau saw, far away, a strange greenish glow that hung across the horizon like a slowly rippling curtain, edged with crimson and occasionally crackling with gold fire. Her own people called that fiery curtain the Merry-Dancers. She stared at it in awe and wonder until at last it sank away into embers. It too was an omen of some kind, though what it fore-ordained she did not know.
Then dawn came, the stars fading. Colour slowly swept over the vast panorama of billowing cloud and peaked mountains. The clefts of shadowed valleys darkened to indigo, and the little owl blinked her round eyes and crawled within Isabeau’s sleeve to sleep. Isabeau stood and stretched, chilly and stiff but filled with serenity.
The Soul-Sage came up the uneven steps and crouched at the back of the cave, not speaking but scanning Isabeau’s face with eyes so heavily hooded that the colour could not be seen. What she saw seemed to satisfy her, for she nodded curtly and indicated her pupil follow her back down into the cave.
The central bonfire had been built high and the members of the pride crowded about it. The first meal
Once she had eaten, the Soul-Sage and her Scarred Warrior teacher came and led her to the fire of her great-grandmother, built on a platform of rock at the back of the great cavern. The old woman sat ramrod straight, her snow-lion cloak gathered close around her thin shoulders. Isabeau was carefully washed with melted snow and rubbed all over with fats scented with the sharp aroma of native hemlock and silver fir. Isabeau endured the ministrations, although the touch of animal fat on her body made her feel rather nauseous. She repressed her revulsion firmly, though, knowing the ceremonial anointing would help protect her against the cold and wet and that any protest would be misunderstood by the pride.
Carefully Isabeau was dressed again, in warm clothes brought by the First of the Weavers. The First of the Woodworkers brought her a new staff hung with red feathers and tassels, and a new skimmer, freshly painted with the ferocious shape of a fire-breathing dragon. Isabeau seized this last gift excitedly, for she had been taught to skim on an old battered sleigh that did not have the same sharp edges or sleek polish as this one, and was therefore much slower and less manoeuvrable.
A small satchel of supplies was given to her next, containing wild grains, dried fruit and several flaps of unleavened bread. There was only enough food to last a few weeks, if rationed carefully, and Isabeau clenched her teeth together, knowing they expected her to hunt for herself.