The Leopard (Marakand) Read Free Page A

day it could course free again. Could she become water? Without form belonging to the world to anchor her in the world, she would perish. Suddenly she was afraid. True death, true finality, true oblivion held out the arms she had thought she longed to have enfold her, and she fled them. She tried to shape herself to water and could not, but all unexpected the water opened to hold her, to hide her; in pity and mercy it offered sanctuary, embracing her, and the water said, Who are you? What are you? Don’t fear. Rest here, be safe.
    She saw how she could be safe. She could hide within water. Her brother would not see her; he would not know her; he thought he had killed her. So long as he thought her destroyed, she was safe. So long as he did not come to this place or send eyes to this place, she was safe. The water, the old, patient, mild water, all its wild and its wilderness forgotten, held her as a mother holds her child, offering love and comfort.
    But then she realized the truth. She was a small, weak, lost thing, an ember, a guttering light with the great cold darkness reaching to her. So was the water. It was only a reflection of broken light, a whispering echo that had not yet ceased to sound. It was weak ; this goddess was weak. This deity of the water could not offer shelter or mercy or safety. This was a trap. Her brother would hunt her. He would come, he would . . .
    But not if he did not see her. She would make certain he did not see her. He would see water. She could wear water. She could be water, within the water’s shell, within the shape of water, within, within, within, deeper within, burning, where the heart of water lay . . .
    And in the days of the first kings in the north, there were seven devils . . .
    The Voice of the Lady of Marakand, the goddess of the deep well, was serving pottage in the public dining hall when the ladle dropped unheeded from her hands. The old man whose bowl she had been filling backed away, nervous.
    “Revered?” he asked. He knew who she was, of course. Though the priests and priestesses of the Lady of the Deep Well served, in humility, the poor of the city, feeding any who came to their hall for the evening meal, the white veil over her black hair proclaimed her not merely any priestess but the Lady’s chosen, the one who spoke face to face with the shy underground goddess and carried her words from the well. He knew also that she—or the goddess who sometimes spoke through her—was occasionally gifted with prophecy.
    “Lady?” the Voice whispered. Her eyes fixed on the old man, wide and black. He backed farther away, looking around, and the queue shuffling along the serving table, taking bread and pottage and sweet well-water from the hands of saffron-robed priests and priestesses, bunched in confusion behind him. “Where—? Lady? Lady!”
    “Revered one,” he whispered hoarsely to a young priest hurrying up, a sweating pitcher of water in each hand. “Revered one, I think . . . I think the Voice has need of you.”
    “Lilace?” asked another priestess. “What is it? Are you ill?”
    The Voice flung up her arms before her face as if to shield it, shrieking, and then turned her hands, clawing at her own cheeks. “No!” she cried. “No! No! No! Out! Get out! It hurts! It hurts! It burns!”
    “Voice!” cried the young priest, and he dropped the pitchers, spilling the sacred water, to lunge across the table for her wrists.
    “Death! Not like this! No!”
    Priests and priestesses clustered around.
    “Lilace, hush! Not here! And who is dead?”
    “Stand away from her, you people.”
    “Give us room here.”
    “Go to the benches, sit down, out of the way.”
    But the line of charity-seekers did not disperse, of course. They pressed in about the clerics, those at the front staring and silent, those at the back clamouring to know what was happening.
    “The Voice prophesies.”
    “What does she say?”
    “A fit, she’s having a fit.”
    “My brother has