Crown of Stars

Page 105

The Pale Sun Dog sat cross-legged on a blanket on the ground just behind and to one side of the weaving ground. An open book was laid over his thighs, and his astrolabe dangled from his left hand, but he did not look at it. Secha knew he watched her as she sprinkled the weaving ground with a dusting of chalk. Her apprentices—she had three—crouched a body’s length from her, studying her movements. Four mask warriors stood farther back holding ceramic bowls filled with oil, their wicks as yet unlit. Lined up on the road in ranks of four, the army waited with growling cat masks—panthers, ocelots, lynx—in the lead and, ten ranks back, Feather Cloak’s bright wheel. There was no wind. Each feather in the wheel glimmered as if sunlight caught there, but that was only a quality of light inherent in the feathers themselves, an ancient magic that lingered in the holy wheel, the symbol of turning, of fortune, of change as the world shifted onward.
“What is alive will become dead,
and what is dead will become alive.”
We are come home at last.
Secha paused to breathe in the dusty air not quite settled from the tramping of so many feet. It was good air, a little coarse in her throat because it was dry and gritty, but she smelled on that air the breadth of the wide world which, so the blood knives claimed, ran in a circle until it came back to itself.
“The world has no end,
although it, too, has a birth and a death,
ever turning into the dawn of a new sun.”
Thus runs the song of She-Who-Creates.
She smiled.
“This night you weave a new gate,” said the Pale Sun Dog.
He sounded weary. He looked away from her and sighed as he examined the book. Its pages were filled with a script she could not read. In truth, none among the Ashioi could make sense of the human script, not even Feather Cloak. Not even the girl, Blessing, who could recognize a few letters but could not string them into a necklace of meaning. Not even the servingwoman, Anna, had knowledge of script; it had become clear to Secha that the humans built no house of youth in every village in order to teach the rudiments of learning to every child. They kept this knowledge a secret, reserved for the few. As if the blood knives did not reserve enough power for themselves!
So be it. Naturally, the Pale Sun Dog refused to teach his apprentices to read the script for fear of losing his secret. Instead, he had learned to speak the language of the Ashioi, thereby hoarding his treasure to himself in the hope it would buy him what he wanted or feared to lose.
In his situation, Secha thought, I might do the same. He must suspect Kansi meant to kill him when she was done with him.
“It lies west and this much north. I am thinking many days how it is possible to hold open the gate for long enough to march a large army through the gate. It must happen in stages.” He toyed with the astrolabe as he spoke. For the first time she heard real passion in his voice. The puzzle fired him. “We begin with the Houses of Night. Early in the evening they set in the west-northwest. At dusk we hook the bright hair of the Sisters. The threads hold only a short time. Then we close them and we hook the Lion’s Claw. Because it sets this much more westerly, we add a thread to pull north off the Ladle. It keeps our passage west-northwest. After this, the Houses of Night shift to set at a point in the west-southwest. So we hook the Scout’s Torch and then later the Queen’s Bow and then later the Queen. This way we open and close the gate at intervals, so we can march a hundred men—or more men—through the arch each time it is open. If we hold our threads tight, we deliver each group at an equal interval to the crown at Novomo. I predict a week in passage, perhaps less. Hold you the correct climate on the astrolabe?”
“The same one we always use.” Surely he should know that she was not such a fool! But he only looked at her, noting the pitch of her voice, then back at the book.
“See!” cried one of the apprentices, pointing overhead.
Sharp Edge, called Looks Good by the young men who courted her favor, was a lithe young woman with a gift for noticing things. She had left the priests in order to become Secha’s apprentice, and had never quite lost the habit of superiority that every blood knife wore like a second skin.
The haze had thinned, and again—this was the eighth night running—they saw the deepening cast of the true sky as twilight overtook them. A vivid orange star blazed near zenith. Humankind called it the Scout’s Torch; the Ashioi named it the Shepherd’s Satchel. Secha had never seen it at all until two nights before. All this was new to her, who had grown up without sun and moon. Its incandescent beauty transfixed her.
“No delay!” said the Pale Sun Dog impatiently.