The Stone Women of Hava
The navigator woke me before dawn.
“Ye want to see a sight?”
I wanted to sleep, but the old girl was more animated than I’d seen her in weeks, and curiosity rousted me.
On the cliffside we lay down, our heads just over the side, and she pointed down.
“There!”
Below us, moving off the plains and gathering in the ruins of a long-dead city were women. Many women.
“Look closer, can you see it?”
I did.
They were the Stone Women of Hava.
Dozens of them, maybe a hundred.
Tall and short and gradations in between; like the other races they had giants and dwarves, but unlike most races, there was an equal number of each, and all of them were made from stone; moving about, talking to each other, and carrying their possessions or goods to trade. High, broad shoulders, powerful arms, and all of them with a purposeful, proud gait, like a hundred generals marching together.
Alongside the Stone Women were massive Hell Pigs, larger and more numerous than I’d ever seen in one spot. Some Hell Pigs were beasts of burden, others were mounts, but a great number of them walked alongside the Stone Women like peers, and one Stone Woman even drug a stretcher with a bloated Hell Pig ready to give birth.
What an awesome sight! I pray I never forget it.
“Doesn’t it disgust you?” the Navigator said with a sneer.
I glanced at the Navigator’s face as she leered down at the Stone Women.
It was odd; the Navigator saw the same sight as I, but her face contorted in hatred and loathing, while I could think of nothing else but getting closer to the Stone Women. I was unaware there was such prejudice toward the Women, and in this, the Navigator was as great a disappointment as the rest of the Caravan.
Others were waking, there were grunts and morning moans from some of the tents.
Most of the men in the Caravan were ‘merchants’, meaning they were military deserters and escaped prisoners of war.
I had joined the Caravan looking for stories, but there were none. How could I have known? What group of deserters can possibly lack a good story? Chicken stealers and kidnappers, bastards! Time-wasting troglodytes; within a day I’d considered setting them all on fire.
The Navigator promised me stories aplenty at our destination, and I am such a trusting fool after all!
But there, down the cliff, not even a mile from me, Legends! Walking and talking and laughing woman of stone!
Some spineless toadies behind us saw the Navigator and me, and lacking imagination and wit, decided to make their way to the cliffside, dropping to the earth to mimic our posture and laughing as they crawled towards us.
The Navigator turned back to silence them and then looked at me.
“The Stone Women are on their way to the volcano; I would bet you a purse of gold coins!”
Our caravan had passed a ridge three days before where we saw a volcano bursting over.
“Why the volcano?” I asked.
“Rock people love volcanoes! Always drawn to them, probably where they breed…”
I’d heard of the Stone Women, but never met one or read a first-hand account of them. The idea of stone women breeding was too exciting, and I made to drop down to the ruins.
The Navigator grabbed for my arm, and said, quite loudly, so loudly I would think the people she’d just shushed could well scold her for a hypocrite, “You cannot go down there!”
The others did not scold her; instead, they blanched at me with horror.
I removed the Navigator’s hand.
“I wish to see them, I wish to meet them and talk with them. You may leave me behind if you prefer, I will wait for another caravan…”
“You won’t survive the day! Those Women are monsters! They will either rip you to pieces and sell your parts, or snack on you for days till they get to the volcano and throw you into the lava for sport!”
Gods! That made the Stone Women even more fascinating.
I went back for my cloak and bag and returned to leap off the cliffside.
The Navigator stepped in front of me.
“They’ll never have seen a woman like you!” she growled, pointing at my hair.
“If you want more than a peek of them, at least cover your head and let me take you halfway down, you can see better without chance of harm!”
“I wouldn’t go if there were no chance of harm!” I cried, and threw her some gold pieces, too many, I realized later, but I was impatient.
I bundled around my backside and slid down the cliff side without another word, making almost a straight line to the valley below, alternating my weight on my sandals and then my backside, back and forth until I got to the bottom, bruised terribly, but too excited to care.
The Stone Women nearest the cliffside stopped walking and watched me slide toward them. By the time I reached the bottom, many of them had gathered together to discuss my approach, but other than one of the Giants taking position near the cliff side, I sensed no apprehension or concern, only amusement, which was fine.
I got to my feet and dusted myself off, and then ran to the Women.
The Giant was leaning against one of the ruin pillars, and as I got closer, she lazily pushed off the ruin and stood at attention, somewhat.
She knew I was no threat, or at least, not the kind they were looking for.
This Giant was incredible; in perfect proportion to her smaller sisters, but at least 12 feet tall. She held a spear of solid bronze so massive that if I were a threat, she need not stab at me at all, but merely make me hold it for her, and all my insides would fall out.
I held out my arms.
“Greetings, O Women of Stone!”
The Giant, or I suppose better the Giantess, (If such distinction be needed when speaking of the Women) smiled down at me, and when she spoke, her voice was like the falling gravel I shook loose on my way down the cliff.
“Greetings, little one. Where did you come from to have hair like that?”
Women my size circled me and touched my hair, some even holding it up to the light.
The Stone Women, like many I first met in my travels, did not have a word for “purple”, and could not describe my hair as anything but ‘dark blue’ or ‘dark red’.
“Far from here!” I told her. “So far that I never heard an accurate description of the Stone Women of Hava, but Gods, you are incredible to look at!”
I reached out to touch them, but the Stone Women, who thought nothing of grabbing hold of me, bent backward to avoid my touch at first, until one of them, laughing merrily, stepped forward and let her stone hair fall around the front of her shoulders for me to take into my hand.
Stone hair.
Can you imagine such a thing?
Separate strands, or blades, but of stone; with the same granular consistency of a river stone or what you could pick up on the beach, smoother than the average rock, but still, undeniably stone.
“Remarkable!”
I introduced myself to the merry Woman.
She held a lock of my hair and shook her head, and then told me, her eyes shining-
-WAIT!
Stop everything; I first must tell you about their eyes!
The Stone Women are molten in their core, I found out later, and their eyes glow with the yellow-orange light, like a rock in a crucible about to fold over itself and melt, or the first radiating light of metal in a forge.
Gods! I must write poetry one day about their eyes!
And so, the merry one with glowing eyes told me her name was Gnasher, which, I admit, does not match the description I’m giving, but can any of us choose what we were named?
Gnasher was a fighter, though she was so round and jolly I first thought she was some kind of royalty.
She introduced some of the other fighters of her company, including the 12-foot Giantess, who patted my head so forcefully that I dropped onto my extremely bruised backside again.
“What makes you welp so loud, you tender one!” she laughed as she picked me up.
“I bruised myself in my haste down the cliff!”
The Women laughed and dusted me off again.
Gnasher held out her arms.
“We’re honored you sacrificed so much to meet us! Could we see your bruises?”
I nodded, and she rushed to explain, “You tender ones are so fragile...”
“No need to explain!” I cried, and undoing the belt of my trousers, which, I’m proud to tell you, are made in the Dirak custom, I bent over to show them my bruises.
The Women burst into such horrified gasps and moans that I thought for a second perhaps I’d been impaled by one of the rocks of the cliffs.
The Giantess picked me to examine me closer.
“Gods! Soon you’ll be the same color on your rump as on your head!”
Gnasher cried out, “Take her to the healer!” and then we were moving, faster than you’d believe a twelve-foot goliath made of stone could move, but those Women have magma running through them!
I was tucked under the Giantess’ arm, with my head and shoulders wedged toward the back, and could see Gnasher and the others running behind us, and then more Women joined them, caught up in the excitement and following after us until half the camp was running alongside, and I thought that I would love to live with these Women a year and write down their stories, and to hell with wherever I was going before.
The Stone Women healers were at the river. Stone Women use water differently than humans, but they still bathe and drink and mix it with healing components, and soon the Giantess was showing my backside to a group of healers, who, from the sound of it, were impressed with my wounds.
“But who is she?” one suspicious voice called out.
The Giantess told the speaker my name.
“But who is she, what does she want?”
The Giantess said she did not know, and that it didn’t matter when I was so badly damaged.
“Turn me round!” I cried to the Giantess.
She did, and the healers were all of them magnificent sights, thigh-deep in glistening water and their eyes glowing with concern.
“Greetings, fair Stone Women out of legend! I collect stories for the Tattered Library, and was on my way-”
A suspicious speaker spoke again, taking a step closer and lifting a finger to my face.
“What does the Library want with us? Do they know where we are?”
I tried to be gracious.
“May I soak my bottom in the river while we speak? I knew nothing about you before a few moments ago, I’ve come across you by happy accident, and besides, the Library means you no harm!”
The Giantess set me down in the water, and the cold shocked my senses while it numbed my battered parts.
Other Women surrounded us, bathing and wringing out the broad canvas’ they use for carting about their things.
I was astonished to recognize that Stone Women wear stone garments, or better, somehow reflect garments in their person.
This struck me at one of my deepest prejudices, which is this: I always believed that all clothing not necessary to survival was rich people’s game, used to distinguish rich from poor. Ungods love clothing, and it made sense that all clothing a being did not need to keep away cold or camouflage oneself from an enemy was an evil affectation, used to divide us from our brothers and sisters and create envy and pride where none need exist.
But seeing the Stone Women bathe, I saw they had stone garments they shed while washing that were replaced in whatever shape the wearer desired, apparently just by thinking it.
This was an uncomfortable revelation. The Women need no clothing for the cold and could be as nude as Nature GØDS all year round, but they choose coverings, and since any Woman can shape her clothing to whatever she wishes with her mind, the clothing’s purpose, whatever it is, was not to establish rank.
It hurt me to think that there might be something to the concept of clothing as a healthy expression of self, beyond survival, but the Stone Women were so glorious to look at that I chose not to pursue the concept any further.
Gnasher reached us and explained again why I was so damaged.
Another Giantess, a mere eight feet tall, came up out of the river laughing.
“You need not have hurried, tender one! We’re here for a time, you could have marched half the day and we’d still be here!”
I caught myself staring at her, and raised my voice, “When I see something marvelous, I don’t waste time trying to get all I can!”
The Giantess laughed.
“Well, if our places were reversed, and I saw a head of hair like that, perhaps I would have ridden down the cliff to get a handful.”
I pointed at her, “Be careful I don’t fall in love with you and climb up there and show you all you can handle!”
The Women around us roared, and Gnasher slapped my backside before she remembered my injurious state. I went blind with pain for a moment and fell back into her arms.
The Healers wrapped so many poultices to my backside, that I could only waddle afterward, but though the poultices padded me and made it awkward to walk, they did relieve the pain.
Gnasher introduced me first to the Traders, and they introduced me to their wares. I spent an hour going over the loveliest embossed Lapis Lazuli, and Gnasher read out to me the spells carved into each of them in their fascinating alphabet.
I picked up a dark pendant, wrapped in black metal.
“Which one of these keeps madness at bay?”
“Depends on the madness.”
She showed me pendants for those splintered by sorrow, wealth, and fatigue, as well as necklaces for those suffering from family curses and the loss of loved ones.
“Is there one for madness from the Gods?”
Gnasher picked out a suitably intimidating blue orb. I traded my pipe for it, a lucky trade for me because the style of the pipe was so foreign to the Stone Traders that they were willing to pay a high price for it.
The necklace, I wear to this day.
It doesn’t always help, but it is a comfort.
I also saw packs of Stone Girls, and here I got my heart broken.
The Stone Women of Hava are caring for their children, but stern, much too stern for me, even if I’m only a guest witness in their midst. Watching their severity, I knew I could not live a year with them, in a fortnight I would lose my mind with rage. I decided I would have to get their stories quickly.
Gnasher took me to the water to soak my poultices again. I’d abandoned my trousers altogether and wore my shirt like a dress and had only to raise it to get into the sweet, cold, mercilessly cold and exquisitely cold water.
“Gnasher!” I cried, but Gnasher was gone, and I was there in the water, waist-deep, and shouting to myself.
A Stone Girl watched me in wonder.
“Where are your storytellers?” I asked her, “Where are the Women who keep your tales and legends?”
The Stone Girl kept staring.
“Idill! Answer!” A Stone Woman watching us strode over to the girl with a hand raised, ready to dispense her discipline.
“Forgive me!” I shouted shrilly and started to waddle out of the water. I could not stand to watch a child get hit on my account. I made such a sight that the Woman with the raised hand turned to stare as I duckwalked out of the water, and the Girl ran away.
“I’m so ignorant of your customs!” I took hold of the Woman’s other hand. “Forgive my ignorance! I want to talk with your storytellers, could you tell me where they are?”
The Woman nodded, and taking my hand, started to drag me deeper into camp.
I squatted in place and skidded the entire way on the edge of my sandals. I’m sure this was simply the most convenient way for the Woman to get me where I wanted to go, but I squealed with joy as we cut through crowds of Stone Woman in this manner, whom all turned in surprise and shouted their enthusiastic support.
The Storytellers were an honored bunch, as well they should be, and were congregated in a cave entrance, smoking from pipes and shouting advice to an older Stone Girl, who was trying to ride an uncooperative Hell Pig.
There were many Storytellers, which pleased me; mostly dwarves and human-sized Women, and then one giant who lay along the wall defiantly smoking, just puffing away and glaring at anything that moved, as if defying anyone to say that her height made it impossible for her to enjoy lore, and very right she was.
I came to a stop and rather than wait to be introduced, I slushed forward with open arms.
“Good Stone Women! Storyteller sisters of mine, I am a collector and teller of tales, and I’ve come at the great human cost of my dignity to hear your wisdom! Please, do not mind me, but let me sit at your feet and listen to your lore!”
My guide shrugged at the others and folded her arms.
The Storytellers marveled, perhaps at my hair, perhaps my perspicacity, it is impossible to know what exactly, and one of the dwarves motioned to a spot and I nodded and took a seat and listened, while a pool formed beneath me.
They puffed for a while, and then they resumed their talk.
That is when I heard about “The Marble One”!
Previously, I had heard there was a great Stone Woman Leader who took up residence in an old ruin.
I had also heard there was a Stone Woman gathering up Stone Women refugees and offering them shelter from both the Stone Men and those of the other nations who collaborated with Stone Men.
I even heard there was a Stone Woman in the Wilds who every night fought off assassins, the new day dawning on her chipped weapons, dull from use and stained with gore.
But I never considered this could all be the same Woman!
And, when I heard she was marble, I grew ecstatic, for what else could that mean but ascendancy?
As I listened to one dwarf tell a story she knew, I saw the Marble One.
I saw her, clear as day, so good was the storyteller; her words, the rhythm of her voice, all of it! Gods, I was lost in it! The fateful vision of it, and I tell you! Nothing but a GØD-sent story could so rewrite my brain, and nothing that wasn’t divine could tear my attention from the beauty of the Stone Woman, which I confess was, until that point, filling my eyes and making me dizzy.
At one point, she said:
“Stone Women had gone to Ahid-Napishnat for sanctuary, thinking Qatath, the so-called “God of Women” would harbor them, and when they gathered below her gates, Qatath sent up lightnings to the alert the Women’s pursuers of their whereabouts and then she sent down oil to mark the Women and slow their escape. Some God of Women! Faithless demon of counterfeits, a fake woman, who wears breasts like a scarecrow’s clothes, whose heart is male, faithless, and weak!
“On the Women went, staying close to the sea, along the coastline, the violence of the waves always in their ears, on and on, pursued like foxes by hounds, by collaborators and traitors and by their own kin, as Stone Men now took up the hunt, sensing an easy victory; more Stone Children to slay, more Stone Women to punish, the madness of evil enflaming the cities and the countryside, and the Stone Women lamented into the night; wherever would their shelter be?!!
“On the seventh day of their betrayal at Ahid-Napishnat, the Stone Women were trapped against the rocks and the sea, and their enemies drew down upon them; Stone Men, human hunters, chittering slave soldiers of Ahid-Napishnat, and dogs, barking and slavering, incited by the scent of the prey and the whips that drive them on, on, on! They line up around the Stone Women like a fence of rotten oaks. The Women fighters go out to make their stand, the Women mothers hold their children, ready to break their necks or cast them into the city to escape the reaching hands of the Stone Men mere feet away.
“The Pursuers hear the screams first; it starts at their rear, a wild unintelligible multitudinous shriek. They hear, but they do not understand, they cannot fathom it, for they believe only they are the pursuers, they cannot believe that they were also the pursued. Precious moments are lost, wasted seconds when escape was possible, raging in their minds, ‘It is impossible’, they say to themselves, ‘It is unnatural, and it is unfair!’ They listen to their comrade's screams and prayers and begging, and the whimper of dogs is cut off in sudden stabbing silences on the beach, as the sun goes down, ashamed to witness the disgrace.
“She is among them, the Marble One, alerted by Qatath’s lightning, she sent out to find the quarry. Her arms are black and white and blue, her shoulders appear soft and her face appears young and careless, as if no worries had ever beset her, and the hunters are dismayed to see her glow soft in dying sunlight or glowing in the face of the eager moon, as she plunges her spear into their hearts and throats, into the brains, their minds are blank, like clean slates.
“As she goes among them, she is chanting, and the wind picks up her chant, and the Women on the beach hear her voice, and they are mad with curiosity for the words and for she who speaks them, beyond the reach of their fear, and they go forward to slay Stone Men and humans and dogs, striving to hear the words above the oaths and screams and the rage of the Stone Men, who are denied their victory…
“And on and on they slay, to find her, the Marble One, the Speaker, until the day there are no longer pursuers, and they can hear her chant without distraction nor interruption…”
My pain was irritating me.
My Gift of Regeneration occurs only when I lose my life. When I am merely wounded, I remain wounded, and I heal very slowly.
The pain I feel when I die is elation because it signals that I will soon Regenerate, but wounded pain makes it hard for me to think, so I hate it. It serves only to alert me to a problem, but keeps blaring away long after I’ve noticed the problem; overall an inefficient system.
I considered excusing myself to go make water and then cutting my throat in the bushes, but before I knew it, I was whisked away to another part of the Women’s camp.
There was a ruin floor of what used to be an amphitheater. The Women knew it well and were gathered around it for a spectacle.
The healer who’d taken charge of me, Lira, made a pillow for me and then sat down beside me to explain.
“This is not just a fight,” she waved to some of the Women moving around the amphitheater floor, “and it’s not just for gambling.”
Lira grabbed a purse and held it out for me to see.
“We bet on the Women, not the fights.”
She pointed to one of the Women, apparently a participant.
“That Woman has fought ten fights. She’s lost most of them. If you considered only her size and her win/loss record, you would bet against her.”
Lira’s eyes glowed.
“However! If you know that Woman’s story, you’d know how she’s trained, and who she’s trained with, and what mettle she has. You have to know the Woman’s story to place an educated bet. And you have to know her opponent…” Lira scanned the floor and then pointed to a slightly larger Woman, “Her! There she is…and you’d know how she’s won her last fights, and against what opponents she fought…and all the rest of it.”
Lira shook my shoulders.
“This should light up the mind of a storyteller!” she squealed. “It’s all the back story, and all the imagination it takes to keep track of it all, and the vision to imagine the future. For example…”
Lira smiled mischievously and rose with her purse to lay down gold pieces with a Woman squatting just beside the amphitheater floor, and then returned with a triumphant stride and a parchment in her fist.
“Behold! I have bet, not about the winner, but about the fighter of my choice, about what I see happening! I’ve put down gold on the Woman herself…”
“I don’t understand!” I whisper-hissed. “Every gaming place has odds based on history, just like what you describe.” I held up my hands. “I believe you that there’s something more going on, I just want to understand!”
Lira handed me her parchment.
“Let’s watch the fight, and then we’ll see…”
The fight was hard to stomach.
None of the Women watching were affected in the same way as I was; they were accustomed to what they saw.
But the crunching sound one hears when Stone Women hit each other is beyond disturbing. I had no frame of reference to compare to, I had no way of registering how much damage the fighters did to each other. From the sound, I thought each could fall down dead at any moment.
I did not look at Lira’s parchment, I could only sit perfectly still and try to hide my horror.
Such beautiful living beings, knocking each other around with heart-stopping reports that sent waves through the air; all of us could feel them. You’d see the impact of a strike and feel the shockwave through your hair.
Here also was a reason I could not live with them. I could not watch this happen every evening, or at least I could not without numbing my response to it as a witness. I fear numbing; it feels like paralysis, and I worry my sensitivity to others will be impacted. As dark and malevolent as I can be on occasion, I do not force paralysis on myself.
I was more than relieved when the fight was over.
“Your woman won…” I said weakly, handing Lira her parchment, which I took for a betting stub.
“But, as I wrote down,” she took the parchment and laid it out on my hand, “She did not shrink from frontal assault, she did not fall for any feint, and she did not taunt her adversary.”
Lira beamed.
“I understood the mind and heart of the Woman I bet on…do you see?”
I nodded like a sick and timid woman on her deathbed nods when asked if she was ready to die.
Indeed, for me, dying would have been easier.
“Now this next fight,” Lira hooked her arm around mine as she frowned down at the floor, “this next fight has me stumped!”
Two Giants entered the floor.
“O, Gods…” I shuddered.
Lira nodded.
“Both strong, both capable…But I don’t know them well enough to understand their minds. That one there, the powerful one,”
A ridiculous description, both of the Stone Women looked like Titans to me.
“…she leads a troop of fighters. She’s a leader, she builds Women up and inspires their potential. But she’s insisted on this fight with the other one, a younger Woman, not as experienced, and the troop leader insisted on the fight like she’s got a grudge. Her taunts are childish…I just can’t understand it at all.”
I tried to find some physical descriptions to tell the Women apart, but my racial blindness was impairing me until I saw that the younger Stone Woman’s eye burned with a redder hue, and that was enough for me.
The Troop Leader played up the crowd, she paced back and forth, and she glared like a predator, but the Younger Woman looked at the Troop Leader as if she were dinner. Her eyes glowed darker and darker red, and I saw an expression flash across her stone features; even with tender flesh instead of stone, I would know that expression anywhere.
I handed Lira a gold piece.
“I bet you Redeyes refuses to submit during the fight, even if it means a broken limb.’
I handed Lira another gold piece.
“I bet you that whatever beef they have doesn’t get squashed, no matter the result.”
And then another laid down with finality on Lira’s palm.
“And I bet you Redeyes, one day, becomes an Ascendant!”
Redeyes circled the Troop Leader, who expected her inexperienced opponent to wear herself out in a show of bravado. But Redeyes was not so foolish and meant only to close in on her opponent early and establish her dominance early.
The dull thuds went on as they struck each other; here I am an exceedingly untrustworthy narrator, as I closed my eyes most of the time.
But there came a thud like no other and the Stone Women gasped, I opened my eyes in time to see a severed limb fall to the ruin floor like, well…
Look, it dropped like a rock, all right?
The Troop Leader took her advantage and swooped into Redeyes injured side, only to swing at the air as Redeyes ducked and struck the Troop Leader in the groin.
Each fighter assumed an attacking stance and swung. Their fists collided, and Redeyes’ arm was shorn at the shoulder and flung some distance away.
There was surprise in the group; don’t mistake my meaning to suggest there was not. But the surprise was registered against a greater backdrop of fight-weary acceptance among the Stone Women.
I, however, spotted.
Redeyes stood watching the arm roll, molten lava bleeding from her stump.
The limb rolled one way and then the other coming to rest. I wondered if they would bury it.
But a Woman picked it up and then reattached it; jamming it against Redeyes’ shoulder, allowing the molten circulation to resume inside the arm until Redeyes could move the fingers, slick black obsidian lines glimmering in spiderweb sutures at the severance points.
Damn, what a people.
It was here that I fell victim to that curse that’s followed me around my whole life; the desire to be seen.
I never know when it will strike, but when it does, there is no temptation I want to indulge more.
Over the years, I have learned that revealing too much of myself can ruin a meeting, and so I am more moderate than I used to be.
Nevertheless, at that moment I rose to my feet and waddled along to the ruin floor, panting as I stood in the center, and examined all the Stone Women who were staring at me. There was nervous laughter from some of the good Women who’d come to look favorably on me, it was uncomfortable for them to watch me make a fool out of myself.
But another Woman caught my eye.
She was not looking at me, but at her daughter, and from behind, this Woman looked like a Nundrazakir Salt Lick Post, the kind you find where the Akir Chariot horses are kept, and I knew as I watched her scolding her daughter that I wanted to fight her.
She was perfect.
The Salt Lick’s daughter wanted to fight, and the Salt Lick was telling her no. She verbally cuffed the Girl, who was almost as tall as the Salt Lick, and as I listened, I could tell from the desperation in the mother’s voice that she was demonstrating an excess of authority to maintain her position in her relationship, and this petty display made me want to hit the Salt Lick even more.
“You there!” I pointed at the Salt Lick.
She did not hear me.
“You, I say, you!” I screamed.
The Salt Lick’s daughter noticed me, and started to point me out, but her mother slapped her across the face.
“You look at me when I’m talking to you! Gods, you would think I raised a mannerless pig and not a Girl!”
I lost a little control here, my eyes went black and I sweated black smoke.
Some of the Salt Lick’s closest sisters called her name and pointed me out, and as soon as the Salt Lick turned to look at me, I roared my challenge, my voice taking on the unpleasant timbre it sometimes does when I give myself over to darkness.
“That’s it, you squealing swine, that’s it, keep hitting your daughter, show her how tough you are! Within the week she’ll be bigger than you; you’d better damage her now, cut into her brain, and implant there the fear of you you need to keep control, you sow, you pig-faced block of granite!”
I had no idea if my insults were effective, or if the Women would consider them some kind of slur.
The Salt Lick just stood there, staring like all the rest.
“What a mother you are!” I went on, the black smoke now billowing around me.
“What a nurturing soul; your daughter’s so lucky to have you, a dense rock, a stubborn and stupid sun-bleached stone, so foolish, all she can do is teach her daughter to obey whoever hurts her! ‘Obey!’ you teach her with every strike, ‘when someone hurts you, obey them! Be a coward, and remain a coward all your life!’ but tell me this, you basalt bastard, how would you like to go a round with someone who can hit back?”
Some words were starting to sink in because the Salt Lick scoffed as she looked at the Women around her, and moseyed over to the edge of the ruin floor. There were gasps and yells and laughter from all around, and I believe Lira was calling me to come back beside her, but I stared at Salt Lick as if she was the only Woman in the world.
“Do you speak?” I asked her.
“I speak, you tender little tramp!”
“Good!” I applauded her. “Your own mother didn’t beat all the brains out of you, you must have enough sense to form simple sentences!”
I pointed at her, and then at the place on the ruin floor in front of me.
“Now…” I said loud and very slow, “I…want you…to come over here…and fight!”
“I’m not simple, you Library dog!” She shouted, still with an infuriating superior grin on her face. “I just can’t understand how plushy little worm thinks she can take a hit from a Stone Woman!”
I took out my purse of gold pieces and threw it to the Woman sitting cross-legged taking bets.
“I bet on this Woman, if her people are generous enough to call her that, I bet that just as she tries to make her daughter a coward with her ignorant cruelty, she is herself just such a coward, having let someone break her a long time ago!”
More shouting, of all kinds.
“I bet,” I went on, enjoying myself immensely, “that if she steps on the ruin floor, she plods along like the dimwit she allowed herself to become, and hits like a human because she only knows how to hit children!”
Salt Lick now had an interesting dilemma.
She was surrounded by friends; all the Women were bewildered by my critique, and none of them would philosophically support me. On the other hand, this was the floor where fights went on, and I was calling her out.
Later, I came to believe she was trying to figure out how to make money fighting a woman no one knew. But in the moment I thought she was too good-hearted to fight a woman so weak, and so I started toward her, fighting against my wet soaked poultice wraps, which were little more than a diaper at that point, and trying to march with some dignity.
Salt Lick laughed along with the others, and the closer I got the more I saw that though she was no Giant, she was still taller and bulkier than me. There was no fear in her eyes, only genuine amusement, and that made what happened next so much easier.
I spoke my spells and turned my fists into burning bronze and then swung low and knocked the bottom half of her right leg off.
Salt Lick didn’t fall; she just shifted her weight and took hold of the shoulders of the Woman next to her, and together, they both stared as Salt Lick’s daughter retrieved the amputated limb and brought it back to her.
I took the opportunity to remove my poultice wrap diaper and fling it into Salt Lick’s face.
Salt Lick did not move.
Her Daughter gently grabbed hold of the wrappings, and slowly pulled them down, peeling them off her mother’s astonished face.
Salt Lick looked at her daughter with mad bewilderment, like she’d never seen her before.
She then took her limb in her right hand, and turned it round slowly, examining it from every new angle.
I walked back to the center of the ruin floor, turning my back on Salt Lick and soaking in the astonishment of the crowd, which, may the true GØDS forgive, I drank in like aged wine and was drunk with it all.
The healers reattached Salt Lick’s limb as easily as they had done with the previous fighter’s, and soon she was standing behind me on the ruin floor, accepting my challenge and breathing down my neck.
“All right!” she said and then sighed. She sounded tired, at her core. “I’m here, you mouthy little worm, you got me out here, for what reason I don’t know. You are obviously a witch or a demon, but in either case, I’m going to fight you now. I don’t know if I can make you eat your words, there were so many of them, but I will do what I can to humble you and teach you to respect the Stone Women of Hava.”
“Yes…” I hissed, still facing away from her, “That is what I want, the mother who humbles by beatings, let you humble me, mother, beat me into respecting you, mother, thrash me until I fear you, o mother of mine…”
Salt Lick turned me around and slammed her fist into my gut.
Stars. Stars and explosions.
Oh, I had them! I had them right where I wanted; all crowded around me and angry (and so, invested) and I was ready, so I made as if I was going to swing a bronze fist again, but then stood still, and Saltlick couldn’t stop herself, and knocked my head off.
Oh, if only I could see their faces as my head flew through the hair, my purple locks flowing a basket of flowers fallen off a runaway cart…I wonder if they were smug, or sorry, or too surprised to move, ah! I love to imagine it; all of them with mouths agape as my head rolled out of the ruins…
The Stone Women were very impressive, and (making everything about me, which is my gift) I wanted to be memorable to them, so my first Regeneration had to be just as impressive.
First, I regenerated as two children, a boy and a girl, both with my plum hair, and both wearing the grin I’m known for. I’ve seen the same grin depicted in paintings of me, and I confess that it is accurate—kind of a drunken, slovenly grin, and very unwholesome looking.
“Bulk up, big sister!” I cried as the little boy, as I threw rocks at the Woman.
“Have this as your dinner!” I laughed as the little girl, throwing stones and running in the opposite direction.
Complete astonishment all around. The Women had no idea how to respond to me, I caught everyone off-guard.
Except for the Hell Pigs, who didn’t care for my nonsense and chased me down and ripped me to pieces, both me as a boy and as a girl and so indiscriminate and efficient. I laughed all the while.
Next, I came back as Giantess, and I chased down the Women and made an ass of myself.
Yes, yes, I make everything about me somehow, but I did not forget myself so much that I humiliated anyone. I did not, for example, pick any of the Stone Women up without consent or touch them or tickle them or grab their hair; I merely chased them around a bit and stomped and shook the earth in my regenerated form, for I had never chosen a form so large, and it is intoxicating to have that kind of advantage over others, most especially Stone Women, whose storytellers, I’m absolutely convinced, recount my adventure in perfect detail, and what could be better than that?
But I was stopped in my tracks by one Stone Woman.
Desolate Wind.
Gods, I must compose myself before describing this Woman.
I pride myself on my use of words, but at the memory of this Woman, words fail me. I am a blubbering idiot!
Imagine a block of granite with a dark sense of humor, or a monolith of Quarried rock turning to you with grim intent.
I replay the memories and see her clearly, laughing along with the others as I had my fun.
But then, there was a moment, less than a second when her intention changed, and she was on me before I could gasp.
You see, by this time, the children were calling out, “Avora! Avora!” which is the word for sudden warning and immediate danger.
All the Stone Women of Hava know the word, and every child is taught its correct usage.
When the camp is in danger, and you need a Stone Fighter to come with alacrity and murderous intent, only then do you utter the word, “Avora” and then, may the GØDS pity whoever threatens the camp.
The word unleashes them, do you understand? The word frees them; it freed Desolate Wind, I saw it on her face! I saw it in her eyes as she plunged her blade deep into my heart. Purpose!
She was laughing one moment, and then she was taking my life a single breath later as if there was no transformative intermediary state. You will find no causal mechanism to trigger an event anywhere more absolute than that word. No poetess who claims to love words could be blamed for reacting with awe to such a word.
Gods, what a people!
I could never forget it; of all the people who’ve killed me, Desolate Wind was my favorite for a long time.
I regenerated as my humble self and immediately knelt to ask forgiveness for my foolishness.
Some of the Women claimed that as I had seen them wounded, I was a threat to them as a nation or species, a charge which wounded me deeply, much more than having a limb or two knocked off.
But Desolate Wind spoke out against this, “She is insane, and probably a demon, but she is no threat to us!”
Ah! The exquisite narcotic feeling of being seen! More lovely than fine jewels, more comforting than warm wine, it is what I forever seek and so rarely find, and I was overjoyed, in rapture, to the exclusion of all else.
The distance between us was necessary for each of us to be seen accurately by the other.
Her conception of me was false in that it was incomplete or exaggerated, but it functioned better than accuracy to see me in my essence, and that is extraordinary. I swore never to forget it.
Someone, I don’t know who, told me I was banished for life from the company of the Stone Women, and someone else I don’t remember escorted me out of camp.
I marched with dejection and exhaustion.
I made my way back to the hillside where I had woken that morning in order to spy on the Women, but when I got there, I was shocked to see that the caravan had not left without me.
In fact, the Navigator and the rest eagerly welcomed me to share their fire and bombard me with questions.
I did not answer them.
These human wretches were so disappointing compared to the Stone Women, I didn’t even want to look at them.
I wanted to be back in the Stone Women camp.
I stared at the fire, wondering if I could ever be molten burning violence in my core.
I only blinked and looked around me when there was a sudden slapping sickening silence.
The barrage of questions was over, it seemed, and the Navigator looked at me with expectation.
“Did you, did someone…” I stammered, all the while begrudging the caravan even my exhaled air, which had so recently been breathed among living women made of stone.
I looked down.
The Navigator had my Blue Stone necklace in her rat-like claws.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you notice…” the Navigator drew out her words for the enjoyment of the crowd, “there were no Stone Men in camp?”
I shrugged, impatient.
“Davinn there,” the Navigator pointed at a leering man over my shoulder, “saw you fighting those abominations down there. Said you knocked a limb clean off! When we heard that, we knew what had to be done…”
I glared at Davinn, who grinned a sickening smirk at me as if I were his fellow conspirator.
“We broke off into groups, already have our best boys with mallets and hammers and even some clubs! Spent all evening carving them up from the strongest wood we could find, but we got ready, believe that!”
“Your best boys are where?” I asked, with a rather stupid look on my face.
I’ve played the experience over and over, from several different perspectives, and it’s not a subjective description; in each of them, my expression is very stupid.
“We got them pinched up in those ruins!” the Navigator squealed.
“And reinforcements! Magistrates’ corps showed up just after you fell down that cliff on your ass!” she laughed. “Just as concerned about those Stone whores as we, and so we thought up a plan. Got the entire corps down there! Good thing for you you came back before nightfall, I don’t think anything would survive-”
Now, slaying anyone was a waste of time, I knew that then just as much as I do now, but the Navigator had taken my stone. I know that won’t mean much to you, but it represented a violation to me, and after all, the Navigator was on the way, so to speak. For, with the roadways blocked with assailants, there was only one way down to the Women in town, and that was the very cliffside I had braved that morning.
And so, I leaped over the fire and grabbed the Navigator’s heart out of her chest, as one does, while at the same time ripping the stone out of her hand, and then I threw myself over the cliff with the anguished cries of the caravan rising like embers behind me.
That morning, in the bright sun, I had made the trip sliding on my rump.
This time, in the dark, I rolled over a few times and slewed along on my back, and my front, but overall, I believe most of the skidding was along my face, for when I finally tumbled into the Stone Women camp, they could only recognize me by my hair.
Someone was carrying me, and there were many voices; I was overjoyed to hear Desolate Wind, and Lira, as well as the dwarves I’d talked to, but in the midst of it all, I threw my arms in both directions of the camp entrances, and shrieked as loud as I could, “Avora!” over and over again.
I screamed until I was hoarse.
I went on until I was set down near a charcoal mound and left alone, and still I shouted “Avora!”
The mound where I rested was a giant one that burned firewood down into charcoal.
To do so, you light the fire at the top, and then when the time is right, you stop up the dug-up air vents at the bottom of the mound, and an incredible process takes place to turn the wood to charcoal, which is the primary element of the Stone Women diet.
The Mound was not yet stopped up, and I could feel its warmth.
My eyes did not work, I believe they exploded out of my skull in the fall.
Crawling atop the mound, I made my way to the mouth of the mound where the fire was first lit, and I knelt beside it.
The sound of battle rang out all around me.
The heat of the fire mound was regenerative.
For a moment, I thought of the inferno below as a mortal woman would, burning to death is a terrible way to die after all, but the pain that takes me to Regeneration is Exquisite, and so I prayed out my thanks as I threw myself in.
