Cherriese's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

Cherriese sat at the base of the pillar and watched the light go thin. The four guardians had been gone since midday. No runner had come back. No flare had lit the ridge. Her husband was tied to the stone behind her, his head down, his breath even. She had set the two wands across her knees. The shield above the valley held its slow pulse, pink at the seams, clear at the centers. She counted the pulses to keep from counting the hours. When the sun touched the western ridge she stood and walked to the crystal-veined stone that rose beside the pillar. She had not noticed, in the rush of the binding, how the dusk light fed it. The pink and blue veins inside the rock brightened as the sky darkened, drinking the last of the day. She set her hand on it. It was warm. She had built the shield, named the rules, sent the four out. There was nothing left to do that would bring them back faster. She made herself say it plainly. He had given the names. He had given the hour. He had given the gully. Every word he spoke had matched the road. She turned to her husband. His wrists were raw under the rope. She cut the rope with the needle wand. He did not move at first. She put her shoulder under his arm and lifted him to his feet. "Walk," she said. He walked. She brought him across the clearing to the small pavilion at the inner edge, the one with the wooden roof and the living branches grown into its posts. Glowing moss lit the floor in soft patches. She sat him on the bench inside and gave him water. "You are not tied here," she said. "You are not on trial here. You told the truth and the truth saved seven lives, if they live." He drank. He did not speak. She left him on the bench and went back out to the clearing. The valley people had come to the lodge door again. She raised the striped wand and drove the butt of it into the soft ground a few paces from the pillar. She spoke three words her mother had taught her for naming. A tall wooden post pushed up under her hand, grain warm in the dusk, and a crystal bloomed at its peak in pink and gold and blue. The light from it reached the lodge door and the watch post and the arch at the valley mouth. "His name is clean," she said to the sixteen faces. "Anyone who lifts a hand against him answers to me." Then she heard the first whistle from the ridge. Two short, one long. The signal for children on the path. She ran for the arch.