Part One: Vehk
Her skirts were caught on a dry scrub brush, the damned clumsy things. Winter was such a bad time for sneaking and climbing, at least for womer; skirts weren't normally so cumbersome, but when it was cold out you wore layers, to stay warm, and that got bulky. Maela tugged herself free with a frustrated snarl and scrambled the last few steps up the steep slope to where the grey backs of her tribe's yurts huddled around the rocky crest of the hill above Vos. She brushed the gravel from the front of her skirts quietly, crouched and hidden behind her mother's wood-ribbed tent. Then, composing herself, she straightened up, strolling nonchalantly out from behind the oiled guar-hide, as though returning from a trip to the latrine. With luck, no one had noticed her absence or thought to check with the settled folk if they had, and the old fat-smith would be the one to reveal the favorable bargain she had made; it would be more effective that way. Her mother and the Ashkhan would have to listen to her, then, and she could finally establish a yurt of her own. And not with the Ashkhan; he and his gulakhans were all arrogant fools too fixated on the past and using the old ways to restore the glory of the Zainab to see that the only way they could be restored was through change. Besides, she was not going to be the one to bear the children of Shabael Rotten-Tooth, no matter how skilled he was with his lizard-kisses. If –
"Maela!"
The girl froze in mid step. It had been too much to hope. Folding her hands behind her, she turned slowly, a calm veneer over the sinking in her stomach.
"Yes, mother?"
Harah, Wise Woman of the Zainab, stood in the open entry to her unlit yurt, bony fists on her hips and a fearsome scowl on her face. She was a handsome womer, normally, with high cheekbones, fine lips, captivating almond eyes and few wrinkles for her age, but when she was angry her whole visage scrunched up into knots of fury that made her look like one of Azura's cold twilight hags. So it was then; a narrow eyed bird of prey with muscles twitching along its jawline, peering out from the sheltered eyrie-cowl wrapped around her mother's head.
"Ooooooh, do not give me your tricksome innocence, girl!" her mother howled down at her.
"Tricksome?" replied the girl, frowning in affront. "But mother, I have just been about gathering some herbs to season tonight's stew. These settled folk do not make good use of their-"
"Oh, but you are an impertinent girl!" hissed Harah. "To try to feed me this unlikely tail when I know your headstrong deceptive ways inside and outside, when I have just endured the jeers and humiliating insinuations of the settled folk! I go down to their houses, wait politely outside as I have always done, for the fat-smith to come, and what am I told? I am told that the settled folk have had enough of the Zainab, that what business we may have had has been concluded! And what do they tell me, when I ask who has done this? 'One of your youths,' they say, and issue a prettily perfect description of my own man-fat daughter! What have you done, girl?"
Innocence oozed off Maela's face like a wax mask, replaced with a sullen pouting frown. "I am not fat like a human, you caustic old hag," she muttered under her breath. "You simply envy me my curves."
Her mother's eyes popped, like blood blisters, and for a moment it seemed she would choke on her own indignation. A brief second to compose herself; when she went on, it was in a more even tone, and her features were smooth.
"That would be strange indeed, for a mother to envy her child," she said coolly, "especially when it is a strong, hardy womer that any respectable mer desires. But you are attempting to divert me, Maela; do not think your intentions opaque. You will now tell me what it was you did in the village today."
Her daughter scowled, and stared resentfully at the rocky ground, but answered without hesitation.
"I negotiated our trade with their fat-smith," she said.
Harah's eyebrows rose. "And what were the terms of your agreement?"
Maela told her.
Her mother's eyes shot to the sky as she pressed a palm to her forehead. "Oh, my fathers," she whispered tiredly, "why have you laid this headstrong daughter upon me? You have been taken in, Maela," she said, looking down at her reprovingly. "The fat from all the beasts we butcher? I would have asked for three times as much, for rights so extensive, and the Zainab would have had soaps to trade to the noisome Erabenimsun, and enough extra from the rest to make a journey west to the Urshilaku profitable as well. You have let the fat-smith steal our livelihood as surely as the Salt-Mouth Velothi would do."
The girl's pretty little chin dropped. "He tricked me?" she gasped. "But – but – I bargained him down! I had him caught! That old – old wick-waxer!" she spat.
Her mother laid a comforting arm around her stiff and unresponsive shoulders. "Well, it is the way of things, and no shame in the mer's actions; we do the same, and have great glee in it, when a new trader is chosen by the Urshilaku or Erabenimsun." The cutely flared nose of her daughter issued no pardons. "The fat-smith is more cut-throat than the rest of his kind; I have always found it so. A sharp head is needed to deal with that one. Had you asked me of these things before running off to impoverish the Zainab, you may have been savvier to the mer's wiles." The two exchanged glances, sullen and admonitory respectively. "Now, I cannot say what will happen. The Zainab cannot let such a disgrace stand, but it would also be shameful to reveal your ill-advised presumption; we must uphold your deal, to our cost."
"And you must go before the Ashkhan!" she went on, suddenly vehement as she released her daughter. "Stay in here," she said, pushing her by her scarfed shoulders into the dark interior of the yurt. "I must converse with the Ashkhan and his gulakhans before he can see you. Do not leave!" she hissed suspiciously through the gap, to the sullen nod of her foiled merchant daughter, and she let loose the roll of hide tied above the entrance, then staked it firmly into the ground.
And so Maela was left in the stuffy yurt, with its rib cage of wooden struts beneath and through the stretched hides, its layered kresh rug floor, its ancestral homespun tapestries hanging above the bedrolls; left to stew in her own shame and anger, a dumpling ascending to sumptuousness by simmering in a seasoned sauce. Harah gathered the ink encircled gulakhans from where they crouched in oversight of the grazing guar herd in the valley to the west; led them to their leader, Ashkhan Shabael Al-Kaushad, a dragon in skirts captaining a flight of cliffracers, descending upon a moon sugared king. They closeted themselves in the smoky gloom of the Ashkhan's yurt, to chew the fat-smith quandary. So did Maela chew her plump underlip in her stewpot capped confines, in turn steaming and boiling the chandler in her over pressurized skull. And it went on that way, chewing and stewing, boiling and steaming in the dark yurts, and also in the camp outside as the voices of the closeted council bubbled over into the tribe's communal ears, until the sun tiptoed away behind Red Mountain and the rocky hilltop was in general a great effervescing froth.
At last the council broke; the yurt strings untied, the broad shouldered, weak-minded scions of Zainab emerged into the dusk with ancestor-honored Shabael and his Wise Woman. Their faces were unreadable as they seated themselves in a semicircle outside the Ashkhan's yurt, beneath the khanumbra, the hide overshield stretched on ash wood frames over the circular gathering of khan-yurts. The questions of the tribe were answered, as the Zainab assembled before their leaders beneath its obscuring shelter, at the northernmost edge of the hilltop, the highest point. The people were satiated, at least from the pangs of curiousity, and when their pangs of hunger had likewise been satiated upon steamed ash yams and nix flesh stew, broiling Maela was brought to face trial beneath the khanumbra.
The fire had died low, a glowing ember bed, crackling and glowing, ringed by blackened flat-faced stones. The tribe was gathered, watching silently from the shadows between the yurts. The tribe's council watched her across the fire, seated cross legged on the layered rugs around the fire. There was Derch, the right horn of the crescent, in baggy netch leather trousers and his kagouti hide vest, a mushroom gourd bowl of stew in his hands as he watched her impassively. Kanly headed the other horn, weak chinned Kanly with his chitin bow still lashed across his back, and to the left Naib, intimidating in his bonemold cuirass. Grizzled old El-Sayal sat to Derch's right, Harah and Ashkhan Shabael Kaushad in the center. They made an opposing sight, those emaciated mer with their dark, greenish, glass-dust tattoos encircling their biceps, splotching their chests and blanketing their cheeks in ritual symbols and lines of ancestor text.
But Maela knew better. None of them were as dangerous as they made themselves out. Derch's vest had come from a crippled old sow, found half dead already after an attack of blighted racers, not from the hide of the juvenile scourge pack male he claimed it to be in front of the other tribes. Naib's breastplate was genuine bonemold, but it was not a genuine bonemold breastplate; Naib had found the thing shattered on the corpse of a Redoran warrior. The thing was a façade, the pieces fixed with resin across the front of his normal chitin cuirass. The bow Kanly carried was mostly an affectation; if his arrow made the mark, the tides of chance were high. As for El-Sayal, the mer was only a gulakhan because he was still alive and fit to hold a spear after two hundred and fifty years of harsh living… and he was only alive because he was a conniving coward.
And the Ashkhan, Shabael Kaushad? The tribe said he had the blessings of the ancestors; he must, for the number of times he had returned safely from the Zainab burial grounds with a token of the ancestors' favor; but Maela said he only happened to visit their forefathers when another of his teeth fell out. His was not such a sorry case as those of his gulakhans, it is true; he was a just mer, not even too stupid as those things were reckoned for males, but he was not the ferociously indomitable warrior his grandfather, Kaushad Uroshnor, had been, back when the Zainab were still strong. More respectable and honorable than any of the settled folk, of course, as were all of his gulakhans arranged under the khanumbra, in the star pricked winter night. Their faces were orange and black, craggy in the light of the fire and of the paper lanterns hanging above. The wind gusted, the flames guttered, marshmerrow reeds rattled above, and the Ashkhan began.
"You have managed to cause the Zainab a great deal of trouble once more, Maela," came the mer's deep, grating voice. His face was masked in shadow, only the red glowing gleam of his eyes visible. He folded his muscular arms over his chest, the light glinting dully from the green tattoos ringing his wrists and biceps. He wore a thin tan shirt without sleeves, with no vest or scarf - to show his hardiness in the cold air - and thick hide trousers hung with racer plumes and bone rattles. "What have you to say for yourself? Why have you put the Zainab in this situation?"
Maela lowered her eyes coyly, hanging her head and running a hand up her other arm, as though ashamed and bashful under the Ashkhan's eyes… and the rest of the tribe's as well, of course.
"It was never my intention to embarrass the Zainab in this way, Ashkhan Shabael," she answered quietly, looking up through her long lashes to the dark gleam of the mer's eyes. "My intent was merely to gain experience and knowledge for my betterment and the betterment of the tribe."
Harah stirred restlessly, adjusting her skirts over her knees at the Ashkhan's side, but remained silent. A bark of laughter came from the veil of shadow over the Ashkhan's face.
"The betterment of the Zainab, was it? Not the satiation of your own curiousity?"
The girl's dimpled cheeks flushed violet, but her chin rose and she faced the mer with her shoulders squared and her pretty features stubborn in the nest of her scarf.
"And what right do you – or my mother – have to prevent me from learning of the rest of Morrowind?" she demanded hotly; the tactic had shifted from coquetry to fierceness of spirit.
"The right of kin and clan, daughter," put in her mother dryly, "but that is not why we are here. We are here to discuss the damage you have caused to the tribe's livelihood, and how we intend to mitigate those damages… your punishment notwithstanding."
"Indeed," said the Ashkhan gravely. "We have pondered these things long in counsel, and now I will pass judgment. Have you anything else you wish to say in your defense?"
Maela met his hidden eyes unblinkingly. "Only that it should be remembered that boldness is key to strength. I have boldness, but sometimes I think that my people do not."
"Watch your words, girl," growled Derch, leaning forward in the crackling firelight, elbows on his knees. "You belittle true warriors."
"Be quiet," snapped the Ashkhan, suddenly terse. His black profile glared toward his gulakhan. "Your speech was not requested." The kagouti vested warrior flushed in embarrassment as he bent from the waist in a bow, muttering apologies, and Maela had to suppress a small grin. That was one thing she liked in Shabael; he kept his warriors tightly under his thumb. He also tended to get pugnacious and territorial when any other mer even spoke to her; that was one thing she most certainly did not like, insomuch as it limited her freedoms.
"I will begin with the statement of sins," continued Shabael. The fists resting clenched on his knees brooked no more interruptions; he had not been insensible himself to Maela's barb. "Firstly; you have transgressed against the strictures of the Zainab through unsanctioned association with the settled folk. Secondly; you have brought yourself into personal degradation through this same association. Thirdly; you have brought disgrace to the ancestors by willfully disobeying your mother's explicit command. And fourthly; you have brought disgrace to the Zainab by allowing one of the tricksome house dwellers to finagle you into a most unsatisfying bargain. So stand your transgressions as the council has seen them."
With each statement a low rumble ran through the Ashlander onlookers as heads swiveled disapprovingly and harsh mer mouths turned firmly downward. Ashlanders were not forgiving folk. But Maela stood undisturbed at the focus of their displeasure, a figure of dignity in her bulky skirts and scarf, too stubborn and arrogant to be anything less.
"These are not light transgressions," said Shabael, stern red eyes glowing. "They cannot go unpunished. But before your judgment is passed, let those things in your favor be stated as well. The first is perhaps the most significant: your youth." He paused hesitatingly, perhaps anticipating some response; and indeed Maela's features were fast storming over. As her mother became a twilight hag in fury, so did Maela don her Mask Perilous. Her large red eyes had shot wide open like the heart of the storms over Dagoth Ur, her nostrils flared and pressed in ashy white ridges. Her full lips were pursed tightly together as though for a kiss, but it would be a bravehearted mer who dared capture the lips of Maela's Mask Perilous. Shabael continued hurriedly, eager to mitigate the insult.
"This is less of an excuse in our council's mind than it might be found by an uninformed gathering. Though the settled folk would consider you too young even to truly make informed decisions volitionally, the Zainab are made from stronger stock than the house dwellers; we are well aware that Harah's daughter has never been anything less than fully sentient and has only ever gone against her will under forceful coercion." The Mask was unrelenting. "This well in mind, the council still finds your youth and inexperience to lessen the severity of your crime. Somewhat."
"Less influential is your ambition and purported care to your people's welfare. Still, these things are desirable traits in our youth, and must be rewarded. They stand to your credit."
"So my judgment stands thusly; you have acted in foolishness, and so brought much shame and trouble to us, but your intent was good, and you are young and headstrong by nature. You shall be punished, but the matter will be left between you and your mother. Knowing, as I do," he went on dryly as the Mask Perilous drained from Maela's face with her suddenly chilled blood, "that my Wise Woman can be trusted to enact a punishment that sees justice fulfilled."
That got chuckles from the gulakhans and the watching Zainab, a tight smile from Harah and an outright cackle from old hag-faced Muri. Maela's mother was not normally harsh, in her punishments or in her words despite the frequency of her clashes with her strong willed daughter, but she took more seriously the punishments she meted out in the name of her clan, and that made it another matter entirely; she had been a child in the last year of the Wise Woman Khala's sadomasochistic reign, and took inspiration for her punishments from personal experience.
"Judgment has been passed," finished the Ashkhan, sounding infuriatingly self-satisfied. "Let us pass on; the council discussed else besides your crimes. Of more import is how the Zainab can avoid most of the shame of your bargain, and perhaps inflict some back upon the fat-smith. We believe we have found a way, nested in the wording of your bargain."
And Maela was given yams and stew and allowed to depart from the communal focus in smarting acceptance of her fate, while the tattooed warriors spoke beneath the khanumbra and the clouded black sky, illuminating to the people the plan Harah had slipped into their minds. The cold wind gusted, rattling the dried marshmerrow reeds hanging amidst the yurts, stirring the paper lanterns, the embers of the dozing fire and the tiny translucent hairs across Dunmer skins. It wafted the sulfurous stench from above the cleft-well at the center of the heights, and the smell was of shame and revenge.
