'Is that allowed-? I wouldn't want to-'
'Not all the way into the cave. If you will, Marshal, come and see. It's a puzzle. I thought you might have an answer.'
She carried the lamp and he the bowl, warm against his hands. The path led through a tangle of growth unexpected after the dry tableland of the Barrens: candleflowers, plum, falls of sweet-scented heaven-kiss, moist ripe sunfruit, lush stands of uncultivated jabi. This burgeoning orchard of wild fruit was tended solely by the gods' blessing. He bumped his head on a ripe sunfruit dangling over the path.
Miyara balanced in the lamp in one hand and plucked it with the other. 'This way.'
No insects chattered, nor did night-waking animals rustle within the growth. The lack of animal noises was unnerving, but at least a stream babbled in the distance and wind caught among the surrounding crags. They reached the pool, deep and round, rimmed by the remains of an ancient building. A waterfall thundered into the pool from the height. They walked alongside walls no more than knee height, worn down by time and wind and rain. Who had built here? Lived here in such isolation? How had they found their way in, when truly it must be impossible to reach the valley by climbing?
Halfway around, as they neared the curtain of water, Miyara halted. The pool rippled with a constant churning. The waterfall glinted with filaments of light, and at first he thought the lamplight was reflecting within the falls and then he realized she had snuffed the wick. A glow emanated from tendrils of writhing light spilling out of the falling water and drifting, as if pushed by the action of wind and water, into a cave carved out of the rock that extended behind the falls.
In that protected cave, the reeves from Naya Hall had kitted out a shelter with a chest, flown in, in which they stored a lamp, oil, bedding, bowls and utensils, and a pot for cooking.
In that cave, Mai labored, and he was cursed sure that if anything bad happened to her, he'd be called – quite rightly – to account for their coming here instead of crossing the Olo'o Sea to deposit her into the capable hands of the Ri Amarah women.
'Were those – things – there before?' he asked nervously, as the glittering strands swirled in an eddy of wind and mist.
'I'm not sure. They'd be easy to miss in daylight. They're like finest quality silk thread, neh?'
'Miya! Are you there?' Priya called from behind the curtain of water, and because of the noise he could not tell if she was frantic or just searching with her voice.
The reeve set down the lamp and took the bowl of tea out of Joss's hands. 'Keep the water hot.'
'There's nothing else I can do?'
She shrugged. 'This isn't men's business, eh?'
Walking on a narrow rim that hugged the rock wall, she vanished behind the spray.
A splash disturbed the pool. A dark shape shouldered out of the roil and so quickly slipped beneath that it might have been only a trick of the light, or a reminder from the gods that he was intruding. He started back around the pool, but before he reached the path he heard his name called and turned back.
Miyara waved wildly at him, both hands aloft.
He ran back. Wisps slithered in the air around him, and when one brushed his cheek he got such a jolt, like a stinging burn, that he yelped.
She called, 'Marshal, we don't know what to do. You have to come.'
He followed her along the narrow path, steadying himself with a hand along the rock wall on his right while water poured past to his left. The mist pelted him, an oddly iron taste on his tongue. They passed out of the spray and into the cave. She halted. A step behind, he stared into the cave, which extended deep into the rock, a haven lit so brightly that he blinked before he saw Mai.
'What do we do?' cried Miyara.
With a plank wedged across and between rocks, they had set up a birthing stool halfway back in the cave, over a hollow smoothed into the cave's dirt floor. Mai leaned into a cushion made by her
folded clothing, but she was herself limned by filaments clustering around and over her as if to smother her. And yet she breathed; she grunted, and Priya said,
'I told your breath as I say the prayer of opening. Now.' She spoke words in a steady voice, while Mai gripped the edge of the plank and strained.
Priya was her own self, unencumbered, but the filaments traced Mai's form as if a translucent second skin wrapped her, so that she blazed.
'Here it comes, plum blossom. Look down. Do you see it? This is the head of your child.'
Panting, seemingly oblivious of the threads of light, Mai bent her head to stare down between her legs. Her sweaty face changed expression. 'I can't look!' she cried. And then, 'I have to push again!'
'Take in a breath. Hold it.' Priya spilled words Joss did not understand, as Mai pressed her mouth shut and bore down.
Miyara grabbed his elbow. 'Quickly! We must weave a blessing. She has no clan to surround her. The child will be cursed if no blessing greets it!'
The hells!
She stamped to begin, and though he had no particular skill, he was like anyone who had heard the chants and songs all his life. He could stumble along in her company.
May the Earth Mother greet you, little flower. May the Air Mother greet you, little breeze. May the Fire Mother greet you, little flame. May the Water Mother greet you, little wave.
From this angle, he could not see beyond Mai's gleaming body, but as Priya extended her hands to catch the baby as it was born, the threads poured off Mai to fill the hollow until it seemed to burn, drowning the newborn child.
Mai sagged back, reclining against the cloth-draped rock with a gasped sigh.
'Marshal!' cried Priya. 'What are these things? Are they living creatures? Or something else? What do we do?'
The baby wailed, and the tendrils spun as though on the strength of that tiny voice and whirled into the air and blinked out. The child ceased crying.
Miyara faltered, voice breaking, but within the darkness she stamped and kept singing.
Be woven into the land with this song.
Be strong. We cherish you.
Joss stumbled out along the path and groped along the ruined wall until he found the lamp. It took him three tries to light the wick with his flint, and by the time he got back into the cave the infant had been placed on Mai's chest, still attached by a cord pulsing with faint flashes of blue as though the last tendrils had actually slipped into its umbilical. Above, a weave of light bridged the cave's high ceiling, glimmering faintly.
'One more!' exclaimed Mai, and she sucked in a breath and pushed again.
Priya caught a red mass in a bowl.
Miyara hurried forward to offer tea to the new mother. 'You have to name the child before you cut the cord,' she said to Mai.
Mai's eyes were closed, and at length she opened them to stare at the baby, who opened its tiny eyes as if in answer. 'The father names a child,' she said, in a remarkably ordinary voice. 'I must wait for Anji.'
Miyara glanced at Joss as if for support. 'That's not our way,' she said. 'It's-'
'Never mind it,' said Joss hastily. 'She'll name the child, or he will, as they please.'
'I guess we're uncle and aunt now,' said Miyara. Then, as an afterthought, she added, 'That's how we do things here, Mai.'
Mai smiled wearily, too exhausted to move as Priya washed her and bound a pad of linen torn from Miyara's shirt to absorb her bleeding. 'And I am glad of it, for I thank you, both of you. What is it, Priya? A girl, or a boy?'
'A boy, mistress.'
'Just as Grandmother said. Aiyi! I thought it would never come out!' Her skin gleamed from sweat, and all at once Joss saw how naked she was.
'Marshal,' said Priya, 'please fetch water so I can wash child and
mother. It must be cooled enough so as not to burn, but still generously warm.'