Initiate by Tara Maya

Author:Tara Maya [Maya, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Usenet, C429, Kat, Exratorrents
ISBN: 9780983107316
Publisher: Misque
Published: 2010-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

Kavio

The woman led Kavio to an isolated dome-shaped hut in a clearing in the woods. He did not dare leave his canoe unattended, so strapped it onto his already heavy rucksack.

Her home was not far from the river. Someone had erected sticks and slim tree trunks in a fence around the clearing, but it was a shoddy defense at best. Inside the fence, a shallow ditch formed a circle around the hut, but it was not deep enough to constitute an obstacle.

She invited him to sit, but though he removed his rucksack and his canoe, and stretched the pains from his back, he remained standing.

“Have you no clan?” he asked.

“I do,” she said. “I am Ruga, daughter of the Lark Creek Clan. But they won’t let my son in the clanhold, and I won’t leave him alone. So we live here, we two. My sister and her husband help me, though they won’t spend the night here. I’m no beggar. If you heal my son, I can give you your price.”

“What sickness hexes him?” asked Kavio.

Ruga figeted with her rope necklaces.

“I’ll let you judge,” she said, then cupped her hands over her mouth, calling, “Gremo! Hey ho, Gremo!”

Kavio expected to see a small child, but a full-grown man shambled into view, from round the backside of the hut, walking in the ditch. He was skinny enough his ribs showed, but otherwise seemed healthy, and obviously strong, for behind him he dragged a boulder almost waist tall. It was the immense stone, Kavio saw, which slowed Gremo’s pace to a crawl. Hundreds of ropes had been wrapped around the boulder, and thrown around Gremo’s body, so it looked as if a nest of mad spiders had spun a web to glue him to the rock.

Gremo would not meet his eyes, or acknowledge his greeting. Instead, the man muttered to himself and shambled forward, ropes streaming behind him, dragging the great stone across the yard, following the curve of the ditch. The stone would never fit through the door of the hut, but Gremo did not remove the ropes, or make any attempt to enter. He kept going round the yard, in the same rut, which indeed, he must have created.

“The ropes are knotted too tightly to remove,” said Ruga. “That is his curse.”

Kavio walked closer, and Gremo flinched away, ashamed. He kept slogging forward, the rock grinding behind him. Kavio sliced at the ropes with his obsidian blade, but the stone edge only dulled against the cords without cutting them.

Ruga was right. The ropes glowed in his Vision with many Chromas, Blue and Yellow especially, entwined like a nest of snake. The bindings between Gremo and the rock were magical as much as physical. The magic web would have to be destroyed before any blade could hew the ropes.

Gremo cringed and whimpered during the inspection in a way that made Kavio want to slap him and tell him to stand like a warrior. I am not my father, Kavio reminded himself, and I should pity weakness, not punish it.

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