I did not want to weep but could not stop. But I shed no tears for my own sad fate. I cried for those people who had followed behind. They only wanted safety for their families, just as I wanted safety for Fairbird. They wanted to know that the Beast would be satisfied.
The sun was high above us, filling the valleys below with brilliance. I gazed out across the expanse of the Land. I could not begin to imagine how many villages dwelt below me within the shelter of the Circle of Faces. Tonight, I would save them.
But what about tomorrow? No matter what befell me at my journey’s end, I knew the dread under which they lived would not be lifted. It will never lift so long as the Beast is god.
See the truth, Starflower.
The words came to my mind like a memory. But a memory of what? I did not know the voice that spoke them. It was not the voice of any man in the village.
See the truth and speak.
The sound was clearer than any I have heard before or since. When I heard it, I for a moment saw everything around me as a fragile dream. The dead mountain, the priests, the maidens, even Wolf Tongue himself . . . they were nothing but phantoms. What was real was the voice, and it rang down from the heavens as though sung by the sun himself.
Speak, Starflower!
What was it my mother had said all those years ago, before Fairbird’s birth? “You must learn to search out the names of things,” she had signed to me. “And one day, you will speak those names aloud, and in speaking, you will be stronger than death or life-in-death!”
I remembered what she had said then as I marched to my death. But I shook my head and drove the memories away. The phantoms around me became solid once more. The sun was silent as it burned through the sky.
I would never speak. I had no voice.
Looking ahead, I saw the Teeth: great jagged stones that stood upright like the lower jaw of a wild animal. Among them stood Wolf Tongue, his arms upraised as though to catch our procession in a strangling embrace. Still he did not look at me, but his eyes burned bright.
I realized in that moment that I feared Wolf Tongue far more than I feared the Beast. The Beast was an idea. I had never seen him. I had heard his voice in the night, inhuman sounds that echoed through the village. His shadow had held my people captive for generations, his thirst for blood sated only through subservience and sacrifice. I had witnessed the carnage of the wars in which he reveled, the ongoing enslavement of the women who lost their voices to his demands.
Still, he was distant. Intangible, like fear itself.
Wolf Tongue, however, walked among us. And Wolf Tongue bore me a grudge.
Our party neared the summit of Bald Mountain. I saw the bloodstains on the jagged Teeth, dark against stone. There were five stones, four at the corners of a great slab, the largest jutting from the center. I watched as four torchbearers, their torches as yet unlit, took their places around the central Tooth.
Wolf Tongue, robed as ever in his skins, stood with the scarlet-robed priests on his left and the elders of the villages on his right.
See the truth, Starflower.
The Eldest approached, and the hooded maidens parted to let him pass. He stood before me and wrapped his large hands around mine as they held the bowl of blood. He led me from among the maidens and up to the slab. I could feel the eyes of everyone upon me. Only my father would not look at me, even as my eyes silently pled with him. It was no use. So I stared down at the blood and at the Panther Master’s hands.
The slab was smooth and cold, though the day was hot. My bare feet walked on the bloodstains of many generations. Animal’s blood. And man’s.
“You will be stronger than death. . . .”
Wolf Tongue took the bowl of blood. The Eldest backed away from him. I wanted so much to cry out for mercy, to beg him, if he loved me, to stay! But he was gone already, lost amid the crowd.
“. . . or life-in-death.”
“The hour is nigh, Starflower,” Wolf Tongue whispered. “Kneel.”
I knelt. He tied my wrists with biting cords and secured me to the central stone. There was no need for this, however. The moment he placed his hands upon my shoulders, I could not move. Darkness overwhelmed me, filling my heart and mind, so powerful that I almost forgot my fear. I was helpless as I knelt in the shadow cast by the stone. I bowed over so that my hair covered my face and brushed the slab beneath me.
Wolf Tongue danced. It was a strange, animal dance, without music, without beauty. He poured the blood from the wooden bowl onto my neck. The stain flowed through my hair and down my mother’s white dress.
“She is marked with blood,” declared the High Priest. “She is marked for the Beast.” His voice was like echoing thunder. He raised his arms above his head, shouting out to the mountains themselves: “We offer you our purest, our best, Lord of the Mountain!”
We waited.