Part 3 – A Witch to Live
The bay-trees in our country are all withered,
And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven.
—William Shakespeare
A bell rang full-throated every morning at first light. On hearing it, the scholars of Feather Island folded away their bedding and proceeded to the bathhouse. Once they had washed, they would eat together, and then, before the elders woke, they would have an hour for prayer and reflection. That hour was her favorite time of day.
She knelt before the image of the great Kwiriki. Water trickled down the walls of the underground cavern and dripped into a pool. Only a lantern fended off the dark.
This statue of the Great Elder was not like those she had prayed before in Seiiki. This one showed him with parts of some of the forms he had taken in his lifetime: the antlers of a stag, the talons of a bird, and the tail of a snake.
It was some time before Tané became aware of the clunk of an iron leg on rock. She rose to see the learnèd Elder Vara standing at the entrance to the grotto.
“Scholar Tané.” He inclined his head. “Forgive me for disturbing your reflection.”
She bowed in return.
Elder Vara was thought by most of the residents of Vane Hall to be an eccentric sort. A thin man with weathered brown skin and crow footprints around his eyes, he always had a smile and a kind word for her. His chief duty was to protect and manage the repository, but he also acted as a healer when the need arose.
“I would be honored if you would join me at the repository this morning,” he said. “Someone else will see to your chores. And please,” he added, “take your time.”
Tané hesitated. “I am not permitted in the repository.”
“Well, you are today.”
He was gone before she could answer. Slowly, she knelt again.
This cavern was the only place where she could forget herself. It was one of a honeycomb of grottos behind a waterfall, shared between the Seiikinese scholars on this side of the isle.
She fanned out the incense and bowed to the statue. Its jewel eyes glinted at her.
At the top of the steps, she emerged into daylight. The sky was the yellow of unbleached silk. She picked her way barefoot across the stepping stones.
Feather Island, lonely and rugged, lay far away from anywhere. Its steep cliff faces and ever-present hood of cloud presented an imposing front to any ship that dared come near. Snakes lazed on its stony beaches. It was home to people from all over the East—and to the bones of the great Kwiriki, who was said to have laid himself to rest at the bottom of the ravine that divided the island, which was called the Path of the Elder. It was also said that his bones kept the island wreathed in fog, for a dragon continued to attract water long after its death. It was why Seiiki was so misty.
Seiiki.
Windward Hall stood on Cape Quill to the north, while Vane Hall, the smaller—where Tané had been placed—was set high on a long-dead volcano, surrounded by forest. There were ice caves just behind it, where lava had once flowed. To get between the hermitages, one had to take a rickety bridge across the ravine.
There were no other settlements. The scholars were alone in the vastness of the sea.
The hermitage was a puzzle-box of knowledge. Each new piece of wisdom was earned with understanding of the last. Ensconced in its halls, Tané had learned first about fire and water. Fire, the element of the winged demons, required constant feeding. It was the element of war and greed and vengeance—always hungry, never satisfied.
Water needed no coal or tinder to exist. It could shape itself to any space. It nourished flesh and earth and asked for nothing in return. That was why the dragons of the East, lords of rain and lake and sea, would always triumph over the fire-breathers. When the ocean had swallowed the world and humankind was washed away, still they would abide.
A fish-hawk snatched a bitterling from the river. A chill wind soughed between the trees. The Autumn Dragon would soon return to her slumber, and the Winter Dragon would wake in the twelfth lake.
As she stepped on to the roofed walkway that led back to the hermitage, Tané wrapped her cloth hood over her hair, which she had cut short before she had left Ginura, so it grazed her collarbones. Miduchi Tané had long hair. The ghost she had become did not.
After reflection, she would usually sweep the floors, help gather fruit from the forest, clear the graves of leaves, or feed the chickens. There were no servants on Feather Island, so the scholars shared the menial duties, with the young and strong-bodied taking the most. Strange that Elder Vara had asked her to come to the repository, where the most important documents were kept.
When she had arrived on Feather Island, she had taken to her room and lain there for days. She had not eaten a morsel or spoken a word. They had stripped her of her weapons in Ginura, so she had torn herself apart within. All she had wanted was to mourn her dream until she breathed no more.
It was Elder Vara who had shaken a semblance of life back into her. When she had grown weak with hunger, he had coaxed her into the sunshine. He had shown her flowers she had never seen. The next day, he had prepared a meal for her, and she had not wanted to disappoint him by leaving it untouched.
Now the other scholars called her the Ghost of Vane Hall. She could eat and work and read like the rest of them, but her gaze was always in a world where Susa still lived.
Tané stepped off the walkway and made for the repository. Only the elders were usually permitted to enter it. As she approached its steps, Feather Island rumbled. She dropped to the ground and covered her head. As the earthshake rattled the hermitage, she hissed through her teeth in sudden pain.
The knot in her side was a knifepoint. Cold pain—the bite of ice against bare skin, freezeburn in her innards. Tears jolted into her eyes as waves of agony pitched through her.
She must have dipped out of consciousness. A gentle voice called her back. “Tané.” Paper-dry hands took her arms. “Scholar Tané, can you speak?”
Yes, she tried to say, but nothing came out.
The earthshake had stopped. The pain had not. Elder Vara scooped her into his bony arms. It chagrined her to be lifted like a child, but the pain was more than she could stand.
He took her into the courtyard behind the repository and set her on a stone bench beside the fishpond. A kettle waited at its edge.
“I was going to take you for a walk on the cliffs today,” he said, “but I see now that you need to rest. Another time.” He poured tea for them both. “Are you in pain?”
Her rib cage felt packed with ice. “An old injury. It is nothing, Elder Vara.” Her voice was husky. “These earthshakes come so often now.”
“Yes. It is as if the world wants to change its shape, like the dragons of old.”
She thought of her conversations with the great Nayimathun. As she tried to steady her breathing, Elder Vara took a seat beside her.
“I am afraid of earthshakes,” he confessed. “When I still lived in Seiiki, my mother and I would huddle in our little house in Basai when the ground trembled, and we would tell each other stories to keep our minds off it.”
Tané tried to smile. “I do not remember if my mother did the same.”
As she spoke, the ground shook again.
“Well,” Elder Vara said, “perhaps I could tell you one instead. In keeping with tradition.”
“Of course.”
He handed her a steaming cup. Tané accepted it in silence.
“In the time before the Great Sorrow, a fire-breather flew to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes and ripped the pearl from the throat of the Spring Dragon, she who brings flowers and soft rains. The winged demons like nothing more than to greedily amass treasure, and no treasure is worth more than a dragon pearl. Though she was badly wounded, the Spring Dragon forbade anyone from pursuing the thief for fear they might also be hurt—but a girl decided she would go. She was twelve years old, small and quick, and so light on her feet that her brothers called her Little Shadow-girl.
“As the Spring Dragon mourned for her pearl, a most unnatural winter fell over the land. Though the cold burned her skin and she had no shoes, the Little Shadow-girl walked to the mountain where the fire-breather had buried its hoard. While the beast was away hunting, she stole into its cave and took back the pearl of the Spring Dragon.”
It would have been a heavy treasure to bear. The smallest dragon pearl was as big as a human skull.
“The fire-breather returned just as she had laid hands upon the pearl. Enraged, it snapped its jaws at the thief who had dared enter its lair and tore a piece of flesh from her thigh. The girl dived into the river, and the current whisked her away from the cave. She escaped with the pearl—but when she pulled herself out of the water, she could find nobody who would stitch her wound, for the blood made people fear that she had the red sickness.”
Tané watched Elder Vara through tendrils of steam. “What happened to her?”
“She died at the feet of the Spring Dragon. And as the flowers bloomed once more, and the sun thawed the snow, the Spring Dragon declared that the river the Little Shadow-girl had swum in would be named in her honor, for the child had reunited her with the pearl that was her heart. It is said that her ghost wanders its banks, protecting travelers.”
Never had Tané heard a tale of such bravery from an ordinary person.
“There are some who find the story sad. Others who find it to be a beautiful example of self-sacrifice,” Elder Vara said.
Another shock went through the ground, and inside Tané something called out in answer. She tried to keep the pain from her face, but Elder Vara was too sharp of eye.
“Tané,” he said, “may I see this old injury?”
Tané lifted her tunic just enough for him to see the scar. In the daylight, it looked more prominent than usual.
“May I?” Elder Vara asked. When she nodded, he touched it with one finger and frowned. “There is a swelling underneath.”
It was hard as a pebble. “My teacher said it happened when I was a child,” Tané said. “Before I came to the Houses of Learning.”
“You never saw a doctor, then, to see if something could be done?”
She shook her head and covered the scar.
“I think we should open your side, Tané,” Elder Vara said decisively. “Let me send for the Seiikinese doctor who attends us. Most growths of this sort are harmless, but occasionally they can eat away at the body from within. We would not want you to die needlessly, child, like the Little Shadow-girl.”
“She did not die needlessly,” Tané said, her gaze blank. “With her dying breath, she restored the joy of a dragon and, in doing so, restored the world. Is there a more honorable thing to do with a life?”
