The Beautiful Ones by Elleth

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Chapter 3

At long, long last, a new chapter; hopefully the next won't be quite as late. Many thanks to Indy for the beta!

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“ - not a useless thing, not as useless as your sticks and string,” said a voice over the animated buzz the visitors had caused. Now that the rain was gone, the others had come from their huts to welcome them, and must already have recited the Tale while Kalrê and Dess had brought the full water-skins to their mothers. Faintly, Târî's voice singing the baking song came from her hut, although Dess wondered how they could divide up the little bread they'd get for all the people who needed food. With everyone so badly hungry, it was her duty to feed the people first, the sole reason what few stores they had left had been preserved. It would be handed out at the gathering, and already Dess could see the bread vanish between the teeth of the hungry, while her own stomach still growled.

Kalrê, who had come from her hut with healing clay sealing the wound on her hand, did not know about her gloomy thoughts and tugged Dess along on her unhurt hand, further into the bustle of people. Many had gathered around the newcomers and jests were flying about; in their center was Belekô, a tall, dark-haired man who bore himself straight-backed and laughed easily at the jokes tossed his way. He was leaning on a bow of dark yew wood, almost as tall as he was. Dess wondered how anybody could shoot it, unless they were very strong, and her thoughts gladly left behind the lack of food.

“Kugnâ, I call it!” said Belekô, not without pride.

“Well, yes, we can all see that it is bent!”

“Such an inventive word!” called someone else, and there were ripples of laughter through the crowd. Of course everyone had recognized the weapon for what it was, but the good-natured teasing was a game they all loved, and the best quips could win someone high acclaim.

Kalrê giggled and slipped her hand into Dess'. “I have a good one,” she whispered to Dess, making her shiver because of the warm breath on her ear, and raised her voice. “What does it do? That would make a poor instrument!”

Dess clapped a hand over her mouth when Belekô looked straight at them, but didn't answer. He grinned with a flash of teeth, and almost too quick for thought he had nocked an arrow. With a hiss of air and a twang of the bow's sinew, the it was gone - and stuck, quivering, in the wooden pillar of the last hut across the common space.

There was stunned silence, and then a woman's voice cried, “Kugnâ-stalgondô!” and a babble of words and laughter followed. The arrow had flown much further than any of the Minjâi arrows did, and everyone would want such a bow for the hunt now, if they could even use it. It would make hunting much safer.

Kalrê huffed and then laughed. Belekô had bested her in this game. “How smug,” she muttered to Dess. “Let them play with his bow,” she said looking at the crowd around Belekô, “and we should fetch your spear from - what did you say his name was, Ekjâro?”

“The new toolmaker, yes,” said Dess. “I want to become used to my own spear before the hunt; maybe then my arm will stop hurting from Ingô's. And I do not want a scar like Ilwê's.”

“The deer?” asked Kalrê. “I remember. This is why you should not go too close to the prey on your very first hunt. I want you to stay in the back. She was lucky that it only caught her leg. It could have cut her elsewhere, and then Ingô would not have a companion now. I do not want to lose mine.”

“You will not.” Dess made to tug her away, but just then someone in the crowd turned, and Dess felt her stomach droop. Sleek, dark hair, high-browed and handsome, and the last person in all the villages Dess would have wanted to see.

“Tatjôn,” said Kalrê. Her voice had cooled, and she was not even trying to hide that she did not like him. Everyone knew.

Dess closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Tatjôn was still there, and Elwego, the silver-haired Lindâ who was his friend, stood scowling beside him, but at least did not meddle any more.

“Kalrê, come. The spear,” she said. If they caused an argument now, she did not want to know Târî's scolding. Strife before a hunt was an evil portent, and those who had caused it would not be allowed to go, so their anger would not drive away the animals and everyone would go hungry instead of just them, or - if the worst happened - they would not turn on one another with their weapons. “Kalrê, please,” Dess said, louder now.

Tatjôn was mustering them both with a sneer, and his eyes were flicking from their linked hands to the hair-wreaths, before he turned to Dess. “I see you are betrothed, lindâ banjê,” he said. “Who is he?”

Cold anger flared up in Dess. She let go of Kalrê's hand.

Kalrê stepped up to Tatâ's son. She was barely shorter, but much slighter than him, and instead of attacking him, she waved her hand at her own head. “Do you have eyes? Can you see this? Its word is bestâ-weî but perhaps you do not know what it means! I know you watch her whenever you are here, but it means Dess and I will be wedded come spring!”

Dess cringed. Kalrê had the truth of what she said, but her raised voice carried, and already heads were turning in their direction. Tatjôn also seemed to notice, because he took a step back, and muttered, “The best of luck to you,” but he neither looked at Kalrê, nor did he sound like he meant it, speaking to Dess.

The blood that had been draining from Dess' face during the argument came flooding back in a warm rush when another voice said, “That was uncalled-for. You of all people should know games from earnest matters, Phinwegô.” Belekô was shouldering toward them from in between the onlookers. His bow he had left behind for the moment.

Dess wanted to say, we do not need you to speak for us, but no word came out; instead she tugged Kalrê's hand again when Tatjôn - Phinwegô - and Belekô began to speak, low and swift and angry. Some of Phinwegô's words she did not know, undoubtedly new ones by the Tatjâi, who always made new things first and did not always keep with their shared and simple speech, and in Belekô's voice she heard a strain like tiredness.

“Their choice is made,” Belekô insisted. “As mine was. You know not all plans go as they are meant, not even those of the High Ones. Yours you made yourself, and it was much more likely to go awry. We told you to stop skulking after her like a heklô instead of speaking with her. She is not the one to blame.”

The silver-haired Lindâ laid a hand on Phinwegô's arm, but he opened his mouth to speak again, and Dess heart twisted at the plea that came out instead of the rude words she had expected.

“Dess... if you do not love me in return, at least be wise,” said Phinwegô, shrugging off his friend's arm. “We are the children of our leaders, we should --” but then he paused, seeing all the eyes upon them, and his words stopped before he had finished the thought. He turned and marched off.

Kalrê's anger at Phinwegô, it seemed, had turned to mirth seeing him humbled and defeated. With a bright grin on her face she watched him go. Using the lack of resistance, Dess pulled Kalrê out of the assembly and into a spot out of view in the dark between two huts, where Kalrê began to laugh in bright, chirping giggles that were impossible to resist, and Dess felt the tension bubble away in laughter between her own lips as well.

Pressed against the daub of the two walls, they both doubled over with laughter, wheezing until the tears ran freely down Kalrê's face, and Dess was clutching her shoulder to steady herself.

“Did you - did you - his face!”

“A fish!”

“A lamprey!”

“Dess!”

Dess pressed her face into Kalrê's shoulder and tried to stifle her mirth, without luck, instead squeezing her eyes shut while answering ripples of laughter went through her, slowly calming to burbling water-noises, and then quieted.

“Maelâ mikwinê,” Dess murmured once she trusted her voice again, her cheeks still flush with laughter and her heart beating high in her throat. She fitted her body closer against Kalrê's warm one, and tipped her head up to speak against her lips. “Why did you defend us?” she asked. “We are sure of one another; why should we care what he said?”

Kalrê's voice still was a little breathless from the laughter, but growing serious again. “We are. But only because Tatjôn did not speak kindly does not mean he did not speak truly. The daughter of Idrê-Târî, the son of Tatjê… and he could give you daughters. We are not truly Êlî and Kêmî, and no teasing will ever make it so, and we cannot endow what we make from the earth with life and language. Who will carry on the memory of Iminjê?”

Dess thought the Rider's great hands had seized her, suddenly, squeezing the breath and joy out of her, to hear Kalrê, always so sure of herself, speak that way. “Ilwê will have many daughters and they will learn Iminjê's tale, and Idrê's tale, if she goes into the forest - and if we should follow her long hence, ours. I need nothing of Tatjôn - not his sweet talk, even when it makes me flutter, not his power, not his wegê, not his children.”

The stiffness passed from Kalrê, who pulled Dess into another, deeper kiss, reassuring and decisive both. “That is enough for me.”

Dess' shift was hanging askew by the time someone called Kalrê's name. “That was your mother,” Dess muttered. Kandê passed by, never looking at the darkness between the huts, and did not spot them. She called Kalrê's name again, this time more insistent and followed by a stern reprimand, and Dess muffled a laugh against Kalrê's lips. “You did not yet pack for the hunt? Go on, when do you want us to leave?” Her stomach growled, as if reminded that it had gone on poor fare for too long.

Kalrê re-braided the strap of her own shift, tugged her own garments back into place with a lopsided grin, and slid out into the open. “I shall now. And you - fetch your spear!”

“I shall now,” Dess echoed, grinning at the way Kalrê rolled her eyes.

When she had gone, Dess stood for a moment, wondering what she might offer in exchange for the spear - Pherenê had been glad about anything from a helpful hand or a report about her tools in any given situation to a share of firewood or a meal, but Ekjarô was a stranger, and being provided by Annê's family while he lived with them, so that nothing seemed very useful. The basket she had woven during the rain her mother had claimed for the bread; Annassê, if she intended to return his attention, would prove herself capable as a huntress and bring him a gift of meat…

… but she had Phinwegô's shell necklace, justly hers to pass along. It would be good to be rid of it, and she had learned from Pherenê that some shells, if flaked right, made for good scrapers. Maybe Ekjarô would like it.

Still, she could not help a little regret when she headed into the hut and pulled the necklace from her treasure box, and her mother looked strangely at her even as she pulled another sad, leaf-thin wafer of flatbread from its hot stone. The bread would dissolve into nothing in any mouth, and certainly help no one's hunger, but at least Târî was making an effort to help the people until the hunters returned.

Dess hurried from the hut with the rattling, clattering shells in her hand before her mother could remark on the choice. It was beautiful, she thought as she sped over the common area between the huts, trampled even more muddy than before, and she couldn't help slipping the necklace over her head a last time. The insides of the shells had been rubbed clean with care until they shone with mother-of-pearl and Tatjon had strung it together with care - but Kalrê especially would be pleased to find it gone, and that made it easier to part with.

Ekjarô had spread a leather under the overhanging roof of Annê's hut, and was seated there with Belekô, and the space had become cluttered with tools and implements while the two men worked. She called out in greeting, “Elî and Kêmî made us!”

“Elî and Kêmî!” replied Ekjarô with a smile. He had been shaping a stone-blade with astonishing surety and speed, but seeing her approach he rested his busy hands for a moment, putting down the flint nodule and blunt antler piece that served him as a knapper on the spread of leather over his crossed legs. “You are Dess and have come for your spear, am I right? Careful, watch your feet. There are stone chips all over.”

“I am - and I did,” Dess said, and stretched out the necklace to him. Ekjarô studied it attentively. “My thanks,” she said, and remembering that he was a stranger to the village, added, “Our toolmaker always asked for a boon, and I thought you might do the same.”

“Ñalatô already read the stars for me when I came. There is no need, but I thank you for your kindness,” Ekjarô replied. He folded Dess' open fingers over the necklace in her palm. “That is Phinwegô's work, I think? He has become a craftsman of some renown and skill; I am surprised that you are giving it away.”

“Is that the reason for his name?” asked Dess. “I was wondering why Tatjôn was trying to seek fame for his hair. It is not so strange for his own people.”

Belekô laughed, not unkindly, although it came out sounding a little hoarse. He made room for Dess by the small fire they had burning, and replied, turning back to chipping an arrowhead into sharpness, “No, it is for his craft. He is proud of that, and this will be another blow to his spirit.”

“Ah, there is a personal history behind this,” Ekjarô said. It seemed he had missed the argument before, and Belekô had not told him, so Dess merely bobbed her head, touching her hair, and tucked the necklace into her girdle. It still seemed wrong to hold onto it, but perhaps something else could be done with it.

“Ah,” said Ekjarô again, with a look at her hair. “I understand - spurned love. Now -” he pulled closer a long, leather-wrapped bundle leaning against the hut, and twisted open the strings that held it together with nimble fingers. “ - these are the spears I have to offer.”

Dess' breath caught. The spears Ekjarô had made were not only weapons, they were works of art like Kalrê's paintings on the rocks. The shafts, all of cool blonde ashwood, had been sanded down until they shone, and into their surface Ekjarô had carved designs - there a herd of racing horses, a red deer with his wary head raised, a shoal of flitting fish on a very narrow, slender spear with a many-pronged antler as tip that Dess thought was for fishing, and there - Kêmî's Ladder stretching along the shaft, above the lake and the mountains, toward a tip of flint much smaller and more compact than those Pherenê had made, in the rare blue-grey of the starry sky.

“This one,” Dess said, even as she thought, with its depiction of the stars, that it should be Ilwê's, not her own. “What gave you the idea to carve them? Our spears bear no marks of that kind.”

“Strife,” said Ekjarô shortly. It seemed he wasn't a man of many words, but this time he elaborated. “Two of our hunters nearly came to blows over a boar, each claiming her spear had dealt the death-blow and she deserved the main part of the meat. I made them alike before to prevent that, but our provisions were beginning to run low then already, and those stiff-necked… well.” He shrugged. “I bowed to our Wise, and began marking our spears.”

“They are beautiful. My betrothed, Kalrê, she is the one who painted our stone-fence. She would like to speak with you, I am sure.”

“Thank you. I will remember that,” Ekjarô said, and handed the spear over. It lay in her hand like a reed as she weighed it, and flexed her arm to test it; her fingers closed around the shaft for a firmer grip as the spear slipped smoothly over her palm.

“It is eager for the hunt!” Dess cried. “And it is beautiful; I shall not even have to sing over it! Did you already tell it its purpose?”

Ekjarô smiled and nodded without stopping his work, accepting an arrowhead that Belekô passed him. “I sang a hunting song when I made it, but I am no maker of songs. Most of all, tell it of yourself.” If his voice sounded absent because he was holding up the arrowhead against the firelight, so thin that the glow of the flames shone through the thin, jagged edges, Dess could hardly blame him. With the upcoming hunt, he surely was glad of any help he could have.

“And, Dess?” asked Belekô, already selecting the next sliver of flint to work on. “Are you excited for your first hunt?” Whether he was trying to be kind because she was sitting, unsure of what to do, in between the two craftsmen, or wanted to know her opinion, she could not say, cleared her throat, and answered, “Kalrê told me about the andambundâi - I wouldn't like to meet one.”

“We mean to seek them out,” Belekô replied, and Dess felt dread settle on her. “My wife... Belekê, and the other Walkers, returned before we came here. The andambundâi are often very far north on the plains near the ice, farther than we can easily make it, but the Rider will send us a fell winter that has already driven them south. Some people among the Walkers have already hunted them before; I think they will take the lead - we will discuss the best way at the gathering.”

Dess began turning the spear over in her fingers, running them over the lovely carving Ekjarô had crafted. “It is good to know that there are people who have hunted creatures that are as high as Kêmî's trees.”

Belekô laughed. “Not quite so large, I think, though enough that a small herd may last us all through the winter.”

“We will be very tired of andambundâi by the end of it!” Dess laughed, making both Ekjarô and Belekô chuckle. “But I wonder - if I may ask, if you are Unbegotten,” she said to Belekô, “how is it that your wife is wandering and you are here?”

Belekô's hands stilled, and Dess wondered if she had offended him. When he spoke again, there was a curt note to his voice, and although it remained friendly, Dess decided not to press the matter beyond what he was ready to speak about. “We Awoke together, but we are friends, not truly spouses, and did not stay together. I cannot say much more,” he said. “Some among the Lindâi think that the Dark came between those like us from the beginning. Ragnâi, they call people such as us. There are not many, but is a thing to be feared and pitied, and not much spoken about.”

A bitter line, deepened by the flickering fire, appeared around his mouth.

“Elî and Kêmî forgive,” Dess said softly. “I did not know - “

“ - no, and how could you?”

Belekô was holding her eyes, perhaps testing her. His were not unkind, and Dess, not knowing what to reply, felt her face heat up. “There is much I need to learn before I become one of the Wise, as my father wants me to be,” she said quickly. “But I do not think there is as much Dark on you as there is on some others. Elî and Kêmî must have meant a different purpose for you. I think that is what the Minjâi would say - we welcomed you because we know that Elî and Kêmî do not fail or err.”

Ekjarô looked at her and nodded.

“Perhaps,” said Belekô. Silence fell again, leaving Dess to wonder whether she had the truth of it. That there was more behind the stories her people told she knew already, and they had been building up and up like a knot in her mind. Finally it came apart. The conifer's tale and Mailikô's greed trying always to spoil the works of Elî and Kêmî… and sometimes spoiling them indeed. Pherenê and all the other people taken, Mîrigseldê with the lightless eyes, the storms and the dearth of animals driving the Kwendî toward starvation, the heklô-creature by the refuse-pit, the strange skeleton bearing proof, perhaps, of his hold on the world before them, and now how Belekê and Belekô and how their not-union – strange as it seemed – was spoken about…

It almost felt as though the Rider was growing stronger.

She would have to speak to her mother and Ilwê, who knew best how to fight. They would know if there were stronger ways than fences and songs to drive back the Rider, but even that - the idea that they might need to confront Mailikô - made Dess wish to push the thought from her mind entirely.

The tock-tock-tock of Ekjarô's antler on flint at least was a soothing, regular sound against the turmoil of her thoughts - and the rising noises of the village as more and more people came from their huts laden with their packs. Kalrê had come from her mother's hut finally bearing her own, and looking around, before she spotted Dess and waved an arm at her.

Dess climbed to her feet and stooped to reach for her spear. “I think we are leaving soon,” she said to Ekjarô and Belekô, glad to have a way to leave them without seeming very rude. “And Kalrê wants me. I should go.”

She was clutching the spear tightly to herself as she wove between the people towards Kalrê, and hoped dearly that she was wrong in her thoughts, that Elî and Kêmî would keep them safe.

They would need it.

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Chapter End Notes

Glossary:

kugnâ: “bent, bowed”, but also “bow-shaped”

Kugnâ-stalgondô: A hypothetical Primitive Elvish form of Cúthalion, “Strongbow”, also translatable as “Bow-Hero”.

bestâ-weî: “bridal-weave” referring to the hairdo signifying Dess and Kalrê's betrothal.

Maelâ mikwinê: A term of endearment, “dear/beloved kiss-giver”, though mikwinê should strictly go asterisked since it's a Primitive Elvish form reconstructed from Qenya rather than Quenya and clashes with the existing stem MIK, “pierce”.

wegê: Manhood.

Ragnâi: from ragnâ, “crooked”, hence “Crooked Ones”.