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Three claws pierce the sand, engulfing the stone, and then the thick shaft of a tail thrusts through, whipping back and forth, seeking. The creature’s skin is so clear, like ice, that Fifth Son sees the venom curdling beneath. It strikes. The spiked tail recoils faster than the eye can see. Three times it strikes, for First Son is nimble and desperate enough that his luck holds twice as he dodges; but on the third it stings. And vanishes beneath the sand.
First Son howls in pain, in fury. In fear.
In his convulsions, he drops all the stones he has gathered for the return trip. They rain down around him like so much fist-sized hail. Tiny claws seek, find, and gather them into their grave, where they will lie for aeons in the clutches of the ice-wyrms. What use do the ice wyrms have for stones?
Who can know?
As First Son shakes and jerks, as spittle and frothy copperish blood foam from his mouth and nostrils and ears and eyes, Fifth Son cautiously slides off the hummock and circles it. First Son’s thrashing and spasms certainly will disorder the filaments that carry sound and motion to the burrowing ice-wyrms. But he still has to get the braids off First Son before he vanishes beneath the sands and thus those two trophies become lost to him. This is the most dangerous part, because it must be timed just right so that he reaches First Son after he can no longer struggle but before the ice wyrms drag him beneath.
Slowly Fifth Son circles. Slowly his rival stiffens or really, more precisely, solidifies.
His convulsions slow, stall, and the tiny claw stalks, the tendrils of the ice-wyrms, twine like vines up his legs and begin to haul him down, an ungainly process with something this large. First Son’s eyes are frantic with fear, the only fear one of the RockChildren is ever allowed to express without losing all honor and position. Fifth Son tosses a stone to the opposite side of the nesting ground and as the movement ripples out, attracting attention over there, he slides in toward his rival, who can see him but no longer resist.
He cuts off his brother’s braid. He takes for himself the braid of Seventh Son, gained only yesterday. The day grows dim, as dim as it will get at this time of year. Only the brightest stars in the fjall of the heavens can pierce midsummer’s cloak.
He tosses a stone and slide-steps away, far enough to watch safely, and then he waits, still and silent with his feet on the venomous sands.
He watches as First Son is swallowed under the sands. He is helpless, and will remain so for a very, very long time. The priests say that the ice-wyrms digest that which they drag down into their nest, or that the thing which incubates there and which they protect digests it.
Who can know? Who has ever returned to speak of such a thing?
The WiseMothers do not answer that particular question.
According to the priest, who may or may not know the truth of these matters, for it is in their interest to claim knowledge that they might not actually possess, it can take up to a thousand years for the living rock—that which First Son has now become—to be digested in the belly of the nesting ground. A thousand years is the life span of twenty-five RockChildren, each one measured from the ending of the last. That is a long time to take to die, and every moment of it—so the priests say—awake, aware, and in agony.
But a thousand years is nothing to the sea. A thousand years is nothing to the wind. And to the bones of the earth laid bare at the surface as rock, a thousand years might encompass the merest shifting of one finger of a WiseMother’s hand. To the stars that lie above in the fjall of the heavens, a thousand years does not even encompass a thought.
One stone at a time he moves out of the hollow, and he reaches safe ground as dawn brightens the short summer’s gloom that passes as night.
From far below he dreams he hears the singing of SwiftDaughters and the stamp and scrape of their feet on the dancing ground. He counts his braids: one, two, three, four, five. And the sixth his own, still attached to his head.
Triumphant, he descends from the fjall to proclaim his victory.
When Alain woke, finding himself tangled in the bedclothes and alone in the bed, he heard Tallia praying. She spoke the words in a rush, as if she feared she would not have time to say them all. It was near dawn. She knelt by the unshuttered window, modestly clothed in a shift, with her head bent and her slight shoulders curled as under a great weight.
Even this sight stirred him. He flushed and rolled onto his stomach, but it was no good. Sorrow stirred and rose to follow him as he heaved himself off the bed, stumbled against the sleeping Rage, and hurried outside. Tallia paid him no mind, or perhaps she truly did not notice him because she was too caught up in her prayers. Because she insisted on such modesty, he, too, slept in a shift. Now, in the gray dawn rising, he was glad of the covering. A stream ran by the monastery guesthouse where they had sheltered for the night. The shock of it on his legs calmed him. He splashed his face, shuddering, and then climbed out to the opposite side to relieve himself in the bushes. Sorrow growled softly, sniffing through the bracken, nosing up forest litter. The hound had a fondness for beetles, and he snapped one up now. Wind sighed through leaves. A drizzle began to fall. With his feet muddy and his hands chilled, Alain staggered back inside. He had recovered his equanimity enough to sit on the bed, although he dared not kneel beside her. She could go on for hours like this.
As soon as it was light, the servants came, washed his feet, took away the chamber pot and brought out his clothing. Tallia had to cease praying so that they could make ready to leave. Count Lavastine, riding home triumphant, did not intend to waste time on a leisurely journey.
Outside, Lavastine greeted him with that brief smile which in him signaled his deepest approval. He greeted Alain in this fashion every morning, and occasionally in a most uncharacteristic manner made labored and mercifully brief jests about becoming a grandfather. It made Alain sick at heart to hear him speak so. Surely the servants, who slept on pallets or on the floor beside the bed of their master and mistress, suspected that the marriage went unconsummated. Yet Tallia had twice now rebuked him for tossing and turning so on the bed when he was deep in sleep, dreaming, no doubt, of Fifth Son. Servants might assume anything from such small noises. Why should they believe anything else? God in Unity had made female and male in Their image, to live in harmony together, and had conferred immortality upon them in this way: that through their congress they could make children, and their children make children in their turn. In this way humankind had prospered, as had all the creatures of earth, air, and water.
In this way the county of Lavas would prosper.
He tried not to think about it too much. When he was near Tallia, his body had an unfortunate tendency to react in ways that embarrassed him. Was she so much holier than he was? Was it a sign of her worthiness in God’s eyes that she could pray half the night to God’s glory while he slept soundly? That she cleansed herself with fasting while he wolfed down his meals as eagerly as his hounds? That she begged him for a marriage of two pure souls unsullied by earthly lust while he knew in his heart—and elsewhere—that his soul was already stained by desiring her so fiercely?
“You are quiet, Son,” said Lavastine. “This is a fine morning. The rain is a blessing from God, for the crops will grow greener because of it.”
“And all our fortunes prosper,” said Lord Geoffrey, who rode at the count’s left hand. Alain glanced at him. Was his tone sour, or was that only Alain’s imagination? Geoffrey was usually scrupulously polite. “You would have been better served, cousin,” continued Geoffrey, “to tend the gardens at court more assiduously. There are many factions to be watered.”
“I see no point in gardening where I have no skills. The king supports me. That is all I need to know.”
“The king, God’s blessing on him, will not live forever. There was a rumor at court that the king means to name his bastard son as heir after him. But Princess Sapientia has her own adherents, and they will not stand by and do nothing if that comes to pass.”
“The king has favored me with the reward I most wished for. Now I will toil in those fields that God cherishes most: to make sure my fields and my folk prosper.”
“Is that what God most cherishes?” asked Tallia. “God wishes us to cleanse ourselves of the stain of darkness that has corrupted all earthly creatures, all save the blessed Daisan.”
“Even the blessed Daisan labored in the fields of earth, my lady Tallia. Is He not also known as the shepherd who brought us all into the fold? What if there were no women spinning and weaving, no men smithing or toiling to grow crops, and no lady and lord watching over them as God have ordained each to her own station? Then what would become of those good churchfolk who pray for our souls and for their prayers are given wax and wheat and cloth as their tithe?”
