His curiosity, his dread, failed to overcome his stubborn silence. He and the Sister had not spoken since their last argument. He had not even slept in camp with her, preferring instead to spend his watch, and the rest of the night, hunting and sleeping with Gratch. Sister Verna's angry silence was, at last, no match for his. He had no intention, this time, of being the one to make amends. They both contented themselves with looking at anything but each other.
Opening into sunlight, the road widened, splitting in the distance around a striated pyramid. Richard frowned, t
rying to see what made it look the way it did—a dotted, pale, tan, with darker bands at evenly spaced intervals up its sides. He judged its height at three times his eye level from where he sat atop Bonnie.
As they approached, he realized the mound was constructed entirely of bones. Human bones. The dotted tan parts were skulls, and the bands were leg and arm bones placed end out in layers. He guessed there must be tens of thousands of skulls in the orderly heap. He stared as they rode past; Sister Verna didn't seem to take notice.
Beyond the bone pile, the wide road led into a plaza of a dark and hazy city in the middle of the thick forest. The flat hilltop had been cleared of every tree, as had the terraced fields they had passed not an hour before.
The fields looked to be in preparation for planting. The ground was freshly turned, and there were stick people to scare away the birds when the seed was planted. It was winter, yet here, in this place, people planted. Richard thought it a wonder.
Rather than feeling open, after riding in on the tunneled road, this vast city, cleared of every bit of green that surrounded it, seemed even more closed and dark. Buildings were square, with flat roofs, and faced with dingy plaster the color of bark. Near the roofs, and at each floor level, the ends of support logs stuck from the plastered walls. Windows were small, with never more than one in a wall. The buildings varied in height, but most were attached into irregular blocks. The tallest must have had four floors. None had the slightest variation in style, other than their height.
Haze and wood smoke obscured the sky, and the buildings in the distance. The plaza seemed simply an open place around a well in the center, and was the only open area of any size. It quickly terminated in narrow, dark streets with smooth walls rising up to each side, creating man-made chasms. Overhead, many of the blocky buildings bridged the streets, making them dark tunnels, and where there were none of the bridging buildings overhead, wash hung on lines between opposing windows. Some streets were cobblestone, but most were mud, running with fetid water.
People in drab, loose fitting clothes filled the narrow streets, walked barefoot through the mud, stood with their arms folded, watching, or sat in groups in doorways. Women carrying clay water jugs on their heads, and balanced with the aid of a single hand, moved tight against the walls to make room for the three horses. They made their way to and from the well in indifferent silence as Richard and Sister Verna passed.
A few older men sat in wide doorways, or leaned against walls. The men wore brimless, straight sided, round, dark flat topped hats, with strange markings in light colors that looked to have been painted on with fingers. Many of the men smoked thin-stemmed pipes. Conversation fell silent as Richard and Sister Verna passed, and all watched the two strangers and three horses moving by. Some idly tugged on a long, dangling earing the men wore in their left ears.
Sister Verna led the way through the narrow streets, taking them deeper into the maze of drab buildings. When they at last reached a wider cobblestone street, she halted, turned to him, and spoke in quiet warning.
"These people are the Majendie. Their land is a vast, crescent shaped swath of forests. We must travel the length of their land, all the way to the point of the horn of their land. They worship spirits. Those skulls we saw back there were sacrifices to their spirits.
"Though they hold foolish beliefs which are reprehensible, we do not have the power to change them. We need to pass through their land. You will do as they ask, or our skulls will end up with all the others on that pile."
Richard refused to give her the satisfaction of an answer or an argument. He sat with his hands folded over the pommel of his saddle and without emotion watched her until she finally turned away and started out once more.
After passing under a low, bridge building, they entered a slightly dished, open square. Perhaps a thousand men milled about or clustered in small groups. Like the other men he had seen, these all wore the one long, dangling earing, though on the right side instead of the left. They also all wore short swords and black sashes. Unlike the other men, none of these wore hats on their shaved heads.
Off in the center, a raised platform held a circle of men sitting cross-legged, facing inward, around a thick pole. Here was the source the eerie melody. A circle of women in black sat in a ring, facing outward, around the men.
Standing with her back against the pole, a big woman in a billowing black outfit slid the back of her hand up the pole and took hold of a knot in the end of a rope hanging from a bell. As she watched Richard and the Sister ride into the square she rang the bell once. The Sister brought them to an abrupt halt as the piercing peal drifted across the square, hushing the men, and urging the flute players into faster strains.
"That is a warning," Sister Verna said. "A warning to the spirits of their enemies. The bell is also a call to the warriors present. Those are these men here in the square. The spirits have been warned, and the warriors called. If she rings that bell again, we die." Sister Verna glanced to his even expression. "This is a sacrifice ritual, to appease spirits."
She watched men come and take hold of the reins to their horses. The circle of women in black stood and began to dance and twirl to the haunting music. When Sister Verna glanced at him again, Richard, with deliberate care, checked that his sword was loose in its scabbard. She sighed and then dismounted. When she cleared her throat in annoyance, he finally dismounted, too.
Sister Verna drew her light cloak tight around herself as she spoke to him while watching the women in black dance and spin around the pole and the woman in the center.
"The Majendie live in a crescent around a land of swampy forest in which live their enemy. The people who live in the heart of that forbidding land are a wild, savage lot, and will not allow any of us through their land, much less guide us. Even if we could avoid them, we would become lost within an hour, and never find our way out. The only way for us to reach the Palace of the Prophets, which lies beyond these savages, is to go around them, along the crescent of land belonging to the Majendie. Our destination lies between the cusps of the crescent belonging to the Majendie, and beyond the savages in the center."
She glanced over, to make sure he was at least listening, before she went on. "The Majendie are at constant war with the savages who live in that swampy forest. In order to be permitted through Majendie land, we must prove we are allied with them and their spirits, and not their enemy.
"Those skulls we saw are the skulls of this enemy, who were sacrificed to the Majendie spirits. In order for us to be permitted to pass, we must help them in this sacrifice. The Majendie believe that men with the gift, like all men, carry the seed of life and soul, endowed by the spirits. More, they believe that one with the gift has a special, direct link with the spirits. A sacrifice made with the aid of a young man with the gift confers the sanctifying grace of their spirits upon all their people. They believe it breathes life, divine life, on their people.
"The Majendie require this participation when we bring young boys through for the first time, believing it links their spirits to those of the Majendie. This ceremony also insures that the people with whom they are at war will hate wizards, because they help the Majendie, and will never cooperate with them. This, the Majendie believe, denies their enemy a divine channel to the spirit world."
The men in the square all drew their short swords. Laying the swords on the ground with their points toward the woman in the center, they knelt with shiny heads bowed.
"The woman who rang the bell, the one in the center, is the leader of these people. The Queen Mother. She is the one who is bound to the female spirits. She represents the spirits of fertility in this world. She is the embodiment of the receptacle of the divine seed from the spirit world."
The dancing women in black formed into a line and started off the platform in the direction of Richard and the Sister.
"The Queen Mother is sending her representatives to take you to the sacrificial offering." Sister Verna glanced up at him, then fussed with
the corner of her cloak. "We are fortunate. This means they have one to be sacrificed. If we came here and they didn't, we would have to wait until one of their enemy was captured. Sometimes that can take weeks, even months."
Richard said nothing.
She turned her back to the approaching women in black and faced him. "You will be taken to a place where the prisoner is held. There you will be offered the chance to give your blessing. Not giving your blessing means you wish to precede the prisoner in sacrifice. If you don't give your blessing, it will only ensure that you die, too.
"You give your blessing by kissing the sacred knife they will offer you. You don't have to kill the person with your own hand. You have only to kiss the knife to give your blessing, to give the spirits' blessings, and they will do the killing. But you must watch them do it, so the spirits will see the sacrifice through your eyes." She glanced over her shoulder at the approaching women in black. "The beliefs of these people are obscene."
She sighed in resignation and turned to face him again. Richard folded his arms and glared at her.
"I know you don't like this, Richard, but it has kept peace for three thousand years between us and the Majendie. Though it sounds a paradox, it saves lives, more lives than it costs. The savages who are their enemy make war not only on them, but also on us. The Palace, and the civilized people of the Old World, are sporadically subjected to their raids and fierce attacks."
Small wonder, Richard thought, but he said nothing.
Sister Verna stepped aside to stand at his shoulder as the women in black formed into a dark knot before the two of them. All were older, perhaps the age of grandmothers. They were all portly, and their black outfits covered their hair and everything else except their wrinkled hands and faces.
With gnarled fingers, one drew the coarse, black fabric tight at her chin. She bowed her head to Sister Verna. "Welcome, wise woman. Our sentries have told us of your approach for nearly a day now. We are pleased to have you among us, for it is the time of the planting sacrifice. Though we had not expected your presence, it will be a great homage to the spirits to have the blessing in the sacrifice."