The Warrior Who Carried Life Read Free

very little faith in their powers, but she would try anything now. A torch fluttered in the wind, in the dark.
    “Now we must wear the hood,” explained Sari, as if to a child. “So that we won’t see the mysteries, and be overwhelmed.”
    “Oh, we wouldn’t want that,” said Cara. She had been told what poor sort of mysteries were to come. Sari’s hands hesitated as they tried to push the hood over Cara’s head. They arched delicately away from Cara’s face. Sari, Cara realised, did not want to touch it. Did she think it was a disease that could be caught? Cara pulled the hood away from her and down over her own head, roughly. Sari wanted the face hidden? Good, so did Cara, and now it was.
    The hood smelled of stale food and other people’s breath. Cara could feel Sari hover over her, cowed now, and uncertain what to do next.
    “It begins soon?” Cara demanded.
    “Yes, yes it will. Our mistress is here.” Cara could hear slight rustlings in the scrub all around her. “Well, almost here. Her name is Burning Light in the Wilderness. She will come in a haze of fire. Then the demons will inspect you, and then there’s the trials, and then we take you to the Sanctum.” She made it sound like knitting. “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed faintly, and moved away.
    Cara sat, waiting coldly and without anticipation. She heard a door slam, somewhere far off down the valley. Someone nearby coughed. Presumably, it was one of the demons.
    Suddenly there was a voice in the darkness, an old woman’s voice. “Child!” it quailed. “I am Burning Light!”
    It was Danlupu. Burning Light in the Wilderness was Old Mother Danlupu. Oh, yes? Cara began to smile. She could see the old woman in her mind, bobbing and quavering, clasping and unclasping her hands, unable to keep them still. Danlupu’s spirit was so unsteady, she never could be still. Cara’s smile went rueful with impatience. This was the head of the cult? She held on to measured hope only by an effort of will.
    “Demons are here,” said Danlupu in a high, strained little croak that was meant to be unsettling. “They are all about us, in the air.” At that moment, from all around Cara, came a hooting sound, like owls, or children playing at ghosts. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” went the Old Women.
    “They will inspect you now. You will feel them tasting you with their little tongues.” Come on, nonsense , thought Cara, come on, feebleness . And it came. The demons’ tongues were pine branches, and the women whisked her with them, making sounds.
    Kasawa, Kasawa, old, feeble. But in the Other Tongue, they had a different name. In the Other Country, across the mountains, they were called the Wensenara. That name meant the Secret Rose. There they ruled whole cities and lived encircled by fine, high walls. It was not impossible, surely, that some of their spells were real? Spells were only words, rhythms that unlocked the powers of the mind. Surely then, they depended on the powers of the people who used them. Cara had great faith in her own strength. She was not Kasawa.
    “Now you must walk across a stone that comes from the Land of the Dead!” Danlupu whispered. Get on with it , thought Cara, and stepped up onto it, promptly. It was ice. Cara, whose family had been rich and knowledgeable, knew of ice. She could feel the sawdust they had stored it in, under her bare feet. She ignored the cold, and walked. Cold and nonsense. Tuh. She could endure both.
    “And now the test of fire,” said Danlupu, and led her. Cara could feel the old woman’s hand quiver, like a frightened animal. She could feel the heat of the coals in front of her. Aunt Liri had warned her beforehand that if she walked straight ahead, she would find that the embers were only warm. Cara walked and it was true, but she wouldn’t have minded if the coals had burned her.
    “She is accepted! She is accepted!” cried Danlupu. Cara felt herself unmoved. The Kasawa would accept anyone, but most especially