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“I think in your tongue you call them ‘angels.’”
All at once, the path cut sharply to the right. They passed under a corbeled archway topped by two massive stones carved to look like lionesses, fierce and protective. His ears rang to the sound of three deep thunderous notes, and blood trickled from his nose. She let go of his arm, and he staggered in her wake out into an oval plaza paved entirely with marble and ringed with hip-high marble walls cut so perfectly that when he knelt and ran his finger along the thin crack that joined two, he found no mortar within, only the perfect fit of two blocks of masterfully-dressed stone.
The wind cut unmercifully up on this height, and he was glad to have the cloak to swing over his shoulders as he regained his balance and stood. It was a cloudless, cool night made stinging by the wind’s roar. Sea ringed the island, shushing rhythmically at the base of the rock. No clouds concealed the heavens. The Queen’s Sword, Staff, and Cup glimmered in the east; the light of the bloated moon, now setting, had washed away the western stars, all but the brightest ones. He knew the boldest of the stars and constellations. Any child did who stared at night up at the heavens, hoping to see an angel.
Had he seen the shadow of an angel, there at the seventh gate?
“Zacharias.”
She hobbled the horse by the gateway and strode to the wall to lean out. Her body shone with an uncanny glamour, like polished bronze. The skin skirt swayed around her hips and thighs, and the fold of her arms concealed her chest. A gold chain curled loosely over her wrist. She inhaled deeply.
“Can you smell it?” she said. “Day and night are in balance again. Spring has come. The world between is rich with growth. How long it has been since I have smelled such richness!”
He stared at her, bewildered. How could it be spring? They had reached the sea a few weeks after the winter solstice, no more. It had only taken them one night to cross the sands and climb the island fort. Hadn’t it?
The gleam of dawn twilight edged the eastern land on the far horizon as the moon sank below the western waves. She pushed away from the wall and raised her spear, shook it once, twice, three times. “Come. Follow in my steps.”
From the archway she walked in a straight line toward the center of the plaza. He followed her, but the closer he moved toward the center, the more he felt that the ground began to melt beneath him, that he was walking first on stone, then on mud, then through sludge that dragged at his feet as it soaked away his strength. A shallow pit lay at the center of the oval, and here Kansi-a-lari knelt. He had to crawl to get there, pressing through air that seemed more like water pouring against him, a channel opening out of the pit. At its edge, he felt forward and suddenly he was falling, sliding, spinning, until he fetched up with a bump against Kansi-a-lari, who stood at the center of the shallow incline with her feet braced on either side of a depression just large enough to hold a human heart. His forehead ached from the impact. Her closeness made him dizzy, something overwhelming in her scent, or her power, or the air. He looked up.
“Pale Hunter,” he breathed, but he could no longer see the sky, only a kind of pure hazy light that emanated from all places and no place. Beyond that light, as through bubbled glass, he saw a golden ladder striking up from the center of the shallow pit right through Kansi-a-lari herself and beyond her, reaching into the sky. It receded into the heavens far, and farther yet, until it became a thread. He thought he saw figures ascending and descending through a rainbow of colors, rose, silver, azure, amber, amethyst, malachite, and blue-white fire, but they were of such various pale forms and they moved with such slippery grace that he thought maybe he was just hallucinating. He passed a hand over his eyes, and looked down.
Far below, down through the rock itself, so far beneath that it seemed impossibly far, as far as it might take a man to fall in a day or ten days or a year, he saw the restless, surging waters, as black as tar, topped with white foam.
But when he touched the shallow curve of the pit, he only felt cool marble under his fingers.
“What is this place?” he whispered. He hardly had any voice left. Maybe she meant him to die of thirst. Maybe it was a kind of sacrifice to her gods.
“This is churendo,” she repeated, somewhat impatiently. “The palace of coils. Here meet the three worlds, the world above, the world between, and the world below.”
“Ai!” he whispered fearfully. “What lies below us? Is it the Abyss?”
“I know not this ‘abyss’ you speak of,” she answers. “Below us lie the waters of chaos. Above us lies the sea above, which you call in your tongue, ‘heaven.’ That is where our ship sails, and we must bring it home to its harbor. But all is not yet ready for our return, and yet we cannot delay, because in the world between the days pass regardless. They do not wait for us. Ai, Sharatanga protect me! I cannot find him looking through the world of earth, but in the palace of coils, nothing is concealed to our sight. Where has he gone?”
She turned to the north and lifted her spear, shaking it four times. She spoke first in her own language and then, as if respecting his presence, in Wendish. “Jade Skirt, here is my blood.” She drew a fine needle out of her hair and carefully pierced her tongue. Blood dripped onto the marble and slid away into the fist-shaped depression. “Ask your sister to hear my words.” She turned to the east and lifted the spear, shaking it three times. “Flower Skirt, here is my blood.” It dropped, still, from her tongue, beads of it scattering, sliding, into the bowl carved out of the marble paving. “Ask your sister to hear my words.” She turned to the south and lifted the spear, shaking it two times. “Serpent Skirt, here is my blood. Ask your sister to hear my words.” She turned to the west and lifted the spear, shook it once. “Lightning Skirt, here is my blood. Ask your sister to hear my words.”
Last, she looked heavenward, raising the spear without shaking it, so that the bells only rustled but didn’t ring. “Kerawaperi, here is my blood. Hear my words. Show me what is concealed to my eye.” She squatted over the fist-shaped pit. She did something under her skirt with the needle; blood dripped down, swirling and melding in the small depression.
Still squatting, she untied the five-fingered pouch and took out an acorn. She twisted the tiny cap free and tipped the acorn over. A black, viscous liquid like tar oozed from it, elongated, then fell, sizzling when it hit her blood.
“The waters of chaos,” she said. “Take these as an offering.”
She cast away the acorn and searched in the bulgy teats of the pouch, brought out another. This one, uncapped, produced a liquid more gold than water, so light it seemed to drift upward slightly on the air before it floated down to meld with the others in the depression. “Five drops from the sea above. Take these as an offering.”
She clucked her tongue once, twice, and twice again quickly, and beckoned to Zacharias. Fear gripped his belly. But he crawled forward. Now she wanted him. This was to be the sacrifice, his own heart puddling beneath her feet.
“It is better from the male part,” she said, “but you have none left. Stick out your tongue.” She held the needle lightly in her hand.
Ai, it hurt. He squeezed shut his eyes and prayed to the Hanged One for courage. When his blood flowed and she began to speak, he opened his eyes to look.
“Take this, the blood of a creature who will live and die on the world between. Let the three worlds be joined here.” Finally, she stood, uncapping one of the leather bottles. He gasped. Thirst had congealed his throat. Now, suddenly, his heart pounded as fiercely as with any desire he had ever felt for her body. He could smell the water, sweet clear, and strong.
o;Pale Hunter,” he breathed, but he could no longer see the sky, only a kind of pure hazy light that emanated from all places and no place. Beyond that light, as through bubbled glass, he saw a golden ladder striking up from the center of the shallow pit right through Kansi-a-lari herself and beyond her, reaching into the sky. It receded into the heavens far, and farther yet, until it became a thread. He thought he saw figures ascending and descending through a rainbow of colors, rose, silver, azure, amber, amethyst, malachite, and blue-white fire, but they were of such various pale forms and they moved with such slippery grace that he thought maybe he was just hallucinating. He passed a hand over his eyes, and looked down.
Far below, down through the rock itself, so far beneath that it seemed impossibly far, as far as it might take a man to fall in a day or ten days or a year, he saw the restless, surging waters, as black as tar, topped with white foam.
But when he touched the shallow curve of the pit, he only felt cool marble under his fingers.
“What is this place?” he whispered. He hardly had any voice left. Maybe she meant him to die of thirst. Maybe it was a kind of sacrifice to her gods.
