Fields of Night

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By the time he had talked them to their feet, it was midnight. They all went down to the Lir and threw in tokens of old hatreds discarded and offenses forgiven. Pebbles dappled the water. Rivals embraced. Akiva saw the strangers watching, and wondered whether they longed to jump in and return home. He hurled the Itscriye stone into the dark. It struck a rock on the riverbank and broke apart to reveal a nest of crystals that glittered in the moonlight like stars.

They all fell silent. "A Feaswomb," someone whispered.

Akiva forced a wan smile. The stone would not leave them. Finally he said, "Take it back to the fire and break it into shards so every one of us may keep one in sign of our birth." Instead, they demolished it with their hands, there on the riverbank, and passed the fragments round. He watched them for a while, thinking about the omen. The possibilities depressed him. He and Neshar wandered away downstream.

Tiyar came after him to show him a piece of metal that Akiva thought at first was some kind of jewelry.

"This is a fire-caller. We found it near the city."

Akiva looked at the giant's face, but discovered no hint of what he might be thinking. Throughout their time together, Akiva never learned to relax his mind in Tiyar's presence. Instead of fear and pity or admiration, the giant inspired only dislike.

"Is it calling fire now?" he asked.

"Yes, but...they have already answered it, so no one is listening. Still, it can lead us to them, to the enemies who put it among us--"

Akiva pointed to the river. "Throw it in. There are always enemies."

Tiyar smiled, revealing the edges of his teeth. It would be a charming smile, had Akiva liked him. He must think I'm afraid, Akiva thought.

"No, we must find them," Tiyar cajoled.

Akiva looked past him. Another of the strangers, an enormous man, gazed sadly back. "It calls them?"

"Yes. They will come here, to prevent anyone else from finding this thing, and to be sure you are dead."

"Then..." Akiva turned again toward the river. Near as they were now to the sea, he felt close to the weeping moon. Clustered flowers dropped from the da'sheth trees down to the water, black against the moonlight, to make little rings on landing. So had the uko done in springtime beside his house, long ago.

Tiyar said, "We can use this to direct them and trap them safely. Wouldn't you like to ask them why they sent the fire?"

"They don't know."

The sad one interrupted in another language, and it happened while they were talking. A group of shadows dissociated themselves from the night behind them and a voice commanded, "Halt."

"Who are you?" Akiva sked.

"Quiet. I can kill you from here."

A tuft of grass right at Akiva's feet burst into flame to prove those words. Neshar gripped Akiva's leg tight but made no sound. By the fire's light Akiva saw a tall man, balding, with a sharp nose and chin each tipped by a drop of sweat despite the chill river breeze. The man looked at the horizon as he spoke. "Listen to me. I warn you. Those two giants are evil. They brought the fire." The flame went out.

"You are lying. You need never lie. The gods know everything," Akiva said.

"All right, I brought the fire," the man said. He lunged suddenly to grab Neshar's ankle and pluck him away.

Akiva's throat went dry. He had erred, either because he was distracted by Tiyar or because of his own foolishness. And what was his prejudice against Tiyar but presumption? "Hath," he gasped.

"I'm going to drop him down the bank. Think he'll die? I can kill one at a time. Not everyone can do that. It's easy to kill a hundred people--right, Kituman?"

Akiva dropped to his knees.

"Down," Neshar said.

The stranger went on talking in a different language. Tiyar whispered, "He says: If you kill one at a time you're a nuisance and they get rid of you. If you kill by the dozens they call you a maniac, they laugh. If you kill by the hundreds of thousands they make you a king, by the millions, a god. You're going to do it the hard way now, Kituman. One. You're making me talk and my hand will get tired--'"

A woman's voice interrupted.

"She says she is hungry. He bids her be silent."

"Hath, god of fathers--" Akiva began.

"Shut up," the sweating man said. Others spoke.

"They argue. He abuses them. They would kiss the ass of a cockroach rather than step on it. Do they not remember the ones who laughed as they crawled in the mud...pelted them with rotten fruit from their storerooms...did they not say they would avenge...do they think that even taking Tiyar Kituman and Fuego Ariela will redeem them in the sight of their keepers...there can be no going back...she asks whether he can smell the cookfire. He bids her shut up. She says...fish soup and flatbread."

Someone attacked. The man who held Neshar leapt in the air, back arched, and fell. Akiva drew his knife, but before he could select an opponent Tiyar had knocked down all the rest. His friends were binding their wrists. Ignoring the dead one, they trooped off with the captives almost before Akiva could see in the shadows who they were. The blond-haired one remained behind. "My name is Clark," he said.

Neshar lay curled up near the dead man.

"You're safe now," Akiva told him.

The boy kept still. "Are they coming?"

"I hear them coming. There's a--a nation. They're coming to get him."

"Maybe that's the dead, coming to get their own."

"Akiva! Maybe they'll take us away too."

"Why? We're not dead."

"But they'll think we are!" the boy wailed. His teeth gleamed in the moonlight. Calm yourself, Akiva thought, and Neshar did calm himself, as though for the moment they were thinking together. Neshar pointed to the corpse. "Is that him?"

Him? It was him, the reasonless other of childhood. Akiva said, "What do you mean?" although he knew.

"Was he holding me?"

Akiva squatted by the head. He pricked the skin with his knife.

Clark said, "At home, they take the...unwanted dead for study. And if anyone fears the dead, he writes his name. As you are. To hide the fear."

Akiva sheathed his knife. He remembered Shurat lying on a riverbank and the frightened looks of his pursuers.

"Akiva, when he was holding me like this--" Neshar raised one foot in the air and leaned sideways. "How did I get there?"

"He took you from me."

Neshar turned away. "Did he want a boy?"

"No, I didn't give you to him. He took you by force."

Neshar began shivering.

"Are you cold?"

Akiva knelt. He put his hands on Neshar's face. The eyes did not blink. "Are you cold? Look at me. You weren't afraid then. Don't be afraid now. Look, he's dead. He's dead! Look at me!" His hands were shaking. Neshar's teeth rattled in his grip. He began again, whispering, "I dwell ever in the heart of earth--remember? There is no beauty so perfect nor love so constant as my soul's immortal mother--your mother is here and I am here, so no one is going to hurt you.

Neshar stared ahead.

Akiva heard a noise from the dead man. He whirled around. Clark slit its gown, cut a piece from the skirt and draped it over the boy's shoulders. An ordinary tear slid along Neshar's eyelashes to his cheek. Akiva kissed the tear. In a few minutes the boy was asleep, still weeping.

When they passed the ruins, where carrion birds still circled in the early light and a foul mist was beginning to rise out of the cellars, Akiva left Neshar at the margin. He walked along a heap of rubble to the center until he could barely see the two standing figures through the fog.

"Come out!" he called.

The grey-eyed boy who had kicked him earlier came out and followed them back to the camp without speaking. Once there, he let no one but Akiva come near him until the end of his life, a few weeks later.

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NEXT BATTLE......... THE PRISONERS........... NESHAR'S MOTHER......... CONTINUE...........

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INDEX