Call the Rain

Thank you as always to Amanda Berry, Dawn Blackenship , Jeannie Lin, and Shawntelle Madison for the support, the coffee, the encouragement, the sanity-saving lunches, and frank criticism that keeps me writing.  Thank you also to the wonderful members of the MORWA Core, who read multiple versions of this work and who always ask, “What are you writing?”

Most importantly, thank you to my husband. Thank you for eleven years (and counting) of love and support. I would never make it without your help, your patience, your wonderful parenting skills, and your friendship.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Joral staggered to the edge of the lake and knelt down in the soft mud of its banks. His head spun from too much grol and too much meem-smoke and his heart was heavy from too little cheer. Flickering light from the bonfires behind him painted the water with orange and red.
The water itself seemed to burn, but his own shadow turned the closest to tar.

Cool wet sludge soaked into the knees of his suede leggings and would likely ruin the buttery finish of the costly garment.
Some part of him was appalled by his thoughtless actions, his carelessness. That part seemed very far away, and the mud very close. It pulled him down, further into the morass.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and the shadows around him seemed to swirl.
A churlish voice from within laughed at him. Tonight he had been dressed in finely beaded leather clothing and paraded about like a prize pony. As the son of the Chieftess, he was quite the catch. And caught he was. How ridiculous he must have looked, sick with the ceremonial smoke and the feasting. Sick with dread over what the future held.

His head throbbed in time to the celebratory drums, still beating with a wild energy and a new rhythm. His wedding next moon would join the two largest tribes of the Segra people. Already tonight, at the betrothal ceremony, the best musicians of each tribe had collaborated. Melding. Mixing. Unifying their music.

Too bad his betrothed was not here to hear the tributes to her beauty. Not here to dance to the rattle and bass and chanting of their people. Too bad he would not meet his betrothed until the wedding ceremony. He wondered if she were half as beautiful, half as graceful, half as kind as her Father-Chief claimed. He wondered if she would laugh when she found out that her husband to be fell drunk into the mud during the celebration. Or if she would turn a cold shoulder, like his mother had done.

One more
moon
.

He cupped a hand and dipped it into the cool black of the pond’s water, and brought it to his lips to sip. The water was sweet like the cane syrup harvested from the southern plains. Seductive like the finest
grol
. Sacred.

He drank and drank, trying to cool the burning in his throat, and washed his face to clear it of soot from the fires. His vision swam again, and he wondered just how much of the spicy grain alcohol he had drunk. To refuse a sip from anyone who offered would have been an insult.

To refuse the betrothal would have been an invitation to war.

He shook his head. His future wife would be beautiful and graceful, because the daughter of a Chief set the standard for beauty and grace. And they would be well matched. Because the alternative meant hardship, violence and death. For both of their peoples.

Joral ran dripping fingers through his long hair, combing it back from his face. His forehead burned He shivered in the night air, a chill that ran down his spine and took hold of his chest. He had wandered too far from the fires. His stomach clenched, then heaved.

The tongues of red and orange flame flickered again on the water. Calling to him. Sweet. Cool. He leaned forward, reaching for another handful. His fingers breached the surface and slipped into the blackness.

***

The voice of the water sang in Illista’s mind, pulling and teasing at her thoughts until she could barely stand still. More than once during the feast, she had found her feet wandering out of the cooking tent, towards the beckoning song. More than once, she caught herself at the
entrance, the basket or platter in her arms about to spill its contents on the hardened dirt and grass beneath her feet.

She fingered the tiny bloodstone she wore on a simple hemp cord around her neck. The rock pulsed beneath her fingers.
Soon
.

Now, the food had been served. The evening chores complete. Legumes and hard grain soaked for the morrow’s breakfast, and the blazing cookfires had been damped to embers. The youngest of the tribesmen still danced and smoked and drank and caroused around the fire at the shore of the large puddle these people called a lake. The eldest were already snug in their tents, snoring inside their sleeping furs.

She slipped through the shadows of the camp toward the far dark shore, cursing her clumsy feet and the plodding gait of her fat limbs. Soon she would be herself again. If only for a few stolen moments.

Not that anyone would notice her like this. In the false skin of a Waki, she looked much like an overgrown and overly simple child. If one of her Segra
masters were to see her wandering about the camp at night, they would ignore her, or shepherd her back to her own tent like a wayward tot.

The Waki were not simple people. They were warm and loving and far more intelligent than the Segra gave them credit for. Still, whenever she glimpsed her reflection in a pot of water or the stillness of a pond, she shuddered. The face in those reflections with the broad cheeks and the dull eyes was not hers.

The real Illista begged to be set free. Free of the disguise that forced her to stay inland, serving the tall Segra people with the bland smile of an even-tempered Waki. Free of the need to hide.

She hesitated at the edge of the brush fence that had been erected to keep their horses from wandering afield.
It was a luxury to find so much wood at this campsite. The tiny lake, fed by two converging springs, was generous with her waters and supported a tiny copse of trees. Still, the superstitious Segra only gathered fallen limbs and would keep every stick when they broke camp. Some larger branches would replace aging tent poles and spears, and tender saplings could be bent to bows.

In that at least, Illista, mused, the Segra were to be commended. They did not squander the wealth of life or soil their waters like
Southern lords’ people did.

Two horses nearby whinnied, and she walked as far away from the fence as she could while staying in its shadow. Horses did not much like Waki, in general and few could abide Illista. It seemed that they could
sense what people could not. Her otherness.

Finally, when there was no more fence and no more tents to drape the night in heavy shadows, she slowed her pace. To run, with these legs, would be to attract attention. Slowly, quietly, she walked as though out for a stroll on a fine spring afternoon instead of in the pitch black of the pre-dawn fall.

The bloodstone charm that maintained her shape could not dim all of her senses, and of late the call of the water had grown louder. Louder than the seas of her girlhood used to. Louder than any stream she had passed. And with each breath, the sound seemed to grow.

Through the toughened leather of her bare Waki feet, she could feel the drips and sprinkles of moisture in the ground. She could sense the water flowing towards the trees on the far side of the pool, could feel the roots as they drank greedily from the ground. The bloodstone could not hide the scent of the water, sweet and pure with the bite of minerals from the rocks of the northern mountains from which it flowed.

Then, at last, her toes could feel the welcoming cool of the lake. It lapped around her ankles and she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out in joy.

The
necklace throbbed again against her chest, hot now. Angry. Its energy had to fight to maintain control of her disguise. Illista's true self threatened to escape it’s tightly wound bonds.

She
inhaled deeply and then exhaled, trying to control the pounding in her chest. She lifted the hem of her plain woven dress and waded a little deeper. The water curled around her knees, welcoming, cradling her legs. It could, too, could sense her true self.

It was then that she heard it. The water whispered to her. It whispered of sadness and fear. Of wrongness.
It pleaded with her for help. It was a call she dared not ignore.

She pulled the bloodstone necklace off first, and gasped as her limbs flashed hot. The sturdy work dress, now too wide and far too short on her lithe frame, followed, and she piled them on the bank. With a silent prayer to the lake to protect them for her, she dove.

Joral felt a whack like a sack of rocks pounding him in the chest, and he coughed. Water spewed from his mouth and he turned his head, gagging. His chest was pounded a second time.

“Curse you, horseman. Breathe.” A voice hissed.

He coughed again and vomited. More water. And mud. And
foulness.

The pressure on his chest eased and he blinked in the deep gray light. Nearly dawn. What had happened?

“You shouldn't drink grol and swim.”

He rolled himself fully to his stomach and pushed up to his hands and knees. His vision blurred again. The celebration. The grol. Drinking from the lake.
He fought another wave of nausea as he tried to form words. “I don't swim.”

“Clearly.”

He saw a flicker of movement and turned his head, looking for the source of the voice. It was a woman, draped in the long shadows of night.

“Who are you?”

The form backed away. “A ghost.”

Ghosts don't have silvery black hair or eyes that gleam in the moonlight.
Joral tried to speak and his midsection cramped. His questions turned to a groan as he lowered himself back down to lie in the mud.

He made out the gentle curve of a woman's backside as his silver ghost dove soundlessly back into the lake and disappeared.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the empty shore.

***

Illista frowned into the pot of stew that she stirred. The rumble of the boiling water echoed in her mind with an excitement loud enough to drown out a camp full of children galloping through pasture after the spring foals.

“What is wrong with your eyebrows? It looks as though they are twitching.” Quarie set a basket of crumbs on the ground at Illista's feet.

“Can't you hear it, sister?” Illista sprinkled a handful of dried barley on top of the water. The sound didn't stop. But it changed.

Quarie bustled past Illista and her singing stewpot to the large roasting fire. “Haven't you turned the spit since I left? The meat is nearly burnt on this side. Chieftess will be unhappy with us.”

Illista hung her spoon on a hook along the side of the pot and hefted the heavy lid to cover the vegetables-and-grain while it simmered. “Quarie,” she whispered through her fat Waki lips. “The stew.”

Quarie glanced up from the large metal rack where she heaved the handle up and over her head. Her smooth, hairless arms were strong but still she struggled beneath the weight of the wild boar.
“What is wrong with the stew? Help, please.”