Kolinga
“Storm’s almost here . . .”
Natty paused. Her burning match hovered just above the wick of her candle, but her eyes were on her apprentice, Breme. “And?” she asked.
“It should be here within the hour, I think,” Breme said.
Natty lit the candle, then blew out the match and tossed it on a table. “And did you not trust me? Did you not believe me when I said a storm would come?”
Breme did not answer. He knew his mistress well. Her question was part of her pageantry. Part of establishing a mood for what would come later. The effort and its effect were for the benefit of their guest. Most of it, at least. Natty was made up of sharp edges and blunt objects, after all. Rather than responding, Breme pulled the double doors of the small wooden cabin shut. The storm would come soon, but only when Natty wished it. Already the water of the Barren was frenetic, its undulating waves sloshing chaotically onto the dock. The wooden structure swayed in the wind. Gray hemmed in the cabin from sky to sea. Inside was little better, though the candles offered a cheerful light.
“Are we safe?” the girl asked, having arrived just after dawn that morning. She had peculiar questions for Natty. She was a peculiar girl.
Natty huffed. “No one is ever safe,” she said. As she turned to set a kettle near the fire, Breme saw she was smiling. She was enjoying herself, at least.
Breme had been with Natty since just after he was born. Destined for servitude, Breme had been made a eunuch. Perhaps this should make him sad, but Breme wasn’t. His mistress was mother and friend and confidante and protector and superior and lover to him. She was everything he needed or wanted. To anyone outside their little isolated world, the two would seem very odd. That, too, was part of Natty’s pageantry.
Looking through the cabin’s dirty glass window to the water surrounding them, Breme understood the girl’s worry. Natty’s cabin was a square wooden structure built on a deck in the middle of the Barren, one that reached well past the lake’s forsaken shores. Walking the dock to the cabin took no less than a quarter of an hour, and that when rushed. Few people were willing to brave even the shores of the lake, much less trespass so far past the breakers, to visit an old hag’s cabin.
Natty was not a sorceress, as people suspected. She was a seer. And an Edön. As a khamun who specialized in neutralizing dark energy, she was unafraid of the Barren. She might have been, if she had been able to know fear. But her capacity to be afraid had been culled by her cumatu. And her cumatu was why they had a guest just now. The girl wanted Natty to tell her all about the kolinga—the coming-of-age rite specific to Natty’s people, but similar to cumatus from other regions. Specifically, she wanted to know how Natty’s kolinga had changed her when she was young. And how Natty had changed the kolinga in return.
For his part, Breme was appropriately afraid of the Barren. The Lost Lake, as some folken called it, was a desolate salt lake haunted by the ghosts of the souls it had eaten. No one ventured onto its waters save for the Skie-Len, and that barbarous group, like the rest of the Skree, bathed in death.
The girl trembled. Natty sat in a chair and motioned to the floor in front of her. “Have a seat,” she said. The girl appeared reluctant at first, but she did as instructed. “We will be fine,” Natty said. “Do not fret yourself. This cabin is enchanted. The storm is not.”
The girl did not relax, but neither did she complain. Breme brought over a small table and placed it next to Natty’s chair. On it was a bowl filled with salt, a vial of crow’s blood, the skull and dried feet of a bat, and a pungent cloth that glistened with the entrails of a large frog. Set dressings . . . The salt was for cooking. The crow’s blood was left over from their supper two nights earlier, the bat parts all that remained of Natty’s pet, Girta. And the entrails were the scraps of what would be their supper later on: Natty loved fried frog legs. But the girl did not know Breme had set the table with the trappings of Natty’s kitchen. Nor could she guess this was all part of Natty’s show. The pageantry worked. The girl appeared unnerved. Still, she did not complain. For all her fear, she was stoic.
“Now, what exactly would you like to know?” Natty asked.
“Tell me about your kolinga,” the girl said.
“My ko,” Natty mused, scratching her chin. At sixty-three years, she was not a terribly old woman, but she had an ancient soul. This made her seem much older than she was. This, too, Natty used to her advantage. No one expected much from an old hag. “That was a lifetime ago. What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” the girl said.
“Very well,” Natty said, settling back against her chair.
Breme took a seat on the other side of the room. He could see both Natty and the girl from this vantage. In particular, he could watch the girl. This was the task given to him by his mistress. “And what should I look for?” he had asked. “You will know,” she had said. He was told to watch the girl’s eyes. Breme was not a seer, but Natty had initiated a bit of his training with the sight. He had only twenty-five years; there was time yet to gain some skill. He could not say for sure—and Natty would not lay things out so cleanly—but he guessed whatever it was she expected him to find while watching the girl, it would come from the sight. So he watched and listened. He would enjoy the show.
“Every girl’s kolinga began on the day of her first bleeding,” Natty began. “The weeks leading up to it were ordained by a series of ceremonial events. Each girl was sequestered away from the main population. They were prepared for what would come with ceremonial food and garments. It would not be easy, after all.” Natty waited, apparently to see if the girl would ask another question. She did not. Natty went on. “But I think you understand the simple mechanics of the kolinga, don’t you? Hmph,” she grunted, nodding her head. “And I think you know the kolinga is no more. I think you know I burned it to the ground, aye?” Still the girl said nothing. Natty nodded. “Then let me get to the bones of the story.”
Outside the cabin, the wind buffeted the structure. Inside, its joints creaked and popped. The two doors that opened onto the vast expanse of gray water rattled in their frame. A thunderbolt split the sky, its belly bounding over them in thunder moments later. The cabin shook. Breme, despite all he knew, was terrified. The girl must be as well, but she hardly reacted. Again Natty nodded.
“Yes, let me begin . . . ”
❧
Like most girls from Ti-Fleek Lustrẻ, I was aware of the kolinga my entire life. Having been born in the mountain region surrounding Lustrain, I could not help but wonder over the mystique of the ceremony. I could not help but wonder if I would be chosen. I did not know as a child there was no choosing: we had each one been bred for it. We had been made for the kolinga . . . little more than crops to be harvested.
My people were a superstitious bunch. I suppose living in a world within sight and smell of the Barren makes us strange. We were quite safe from the Skree. I was taught this safety came from living in the mountains, that the Skree preferred easier villages to plunder. I believed this then. Of course I did. I was only a child. But even as far back as then, I sensed the truth of things. Or some of it, leastways. But I suppose I’m wasting your time. Let me get to the point.
Some of my earliest memories are of crafting my kolinga gudwat, the ceremonial gown we wore. They’re made of the finest fabrics and adorned with colorful braids, intricate needlework, polished gems, and carved beads. They are things of immense beauty. The better to draw in unsuspecting girls, I see now. For many years, I worked on my gudwat. The gowns were revered as the most sacred garment of our people. The kolinga was the most sacred event in our culture. Every little girl longed to be chosen. Every little girl was lied to.
In the weeks leading up to my kolinga, I wore only simple colorless robes. Each morning I drank special broth reserved for girls awaiting their ko. For each meal, I ate foods blessed by our khan, meats sacrificed to our gods; I drank wine poured from ancient vats that were said to have been crafted by the Monkshood themselves, those dumas who first forged the bonds of allegiance between my people and the earth we lived on. This contract, as it was, led to the kolinga: the act by which the girls of the cluster would join the Mothers. This is what we called the collective khan who raised us, our spiritual superiors. They who held the positions believed to have once been established by the Monkshood. The Mother Khan, our high priestess, served me the sacred foods. My ko was the final step from girlhood into womanhood, and what little girl doesn’t want to become a mother?
When a girl’s ceremonial cleansing began—the week-long period of preparation leading up to her ko—you could almost watch her outgrow her girlhood. I so wanted that for myself, but I was not like the other girls. And you knew that already, aye?
The broth they fed us was laced with poison meant to dull our senses and bring us, slowly, into a mild stupor. To take away any lingering wish to remain autonomous. To begin our molding into Mothers—but not in the sense us girls believed. When finally the day of our bleeding came, and we donned our gudwat, we felt queenly. That was the intention, I believe. To make us feel like queens.
A kolinga might last up to several days, perhaps even a week. More in rare cases, I suppose. But most required no more than a day and a half. When a girl emerged from her ko, she was given a new name and a new room. No longer was she a girl of the cluster, now she was a Mother. I never emerged from my kolinga, not in the sense meant by the Mothers, but I did receive a new name. One I chose for myself.
Like many girls, I came to our cluster around the age of six years. I spent the next eleven years perfecting my gudwat, anticipating my ko, and fantasizing about what it must feel like to become a Mother. When it was time for my preparation period, the Mothers sequestered me from the other girls. I drank the bitter broth and ate the blessed food. I wore the plain, undyed garments provided to me by the khan. But I was no good at this process: I was too excited. My Mother wore out her cwen rod on my backside that week. The cwen rod, the Mothers said, was a tool for making queens. I admit: I was never the queenly type, though I did not see that then.
On the morning of my first bleeding, the Mothers stripped me of the plain garments of my preparation. I was older than most of the girls when they had their kolinga. I was late, but my Mother assured me this was no real concern. A girl’s bleeding comes when it comes. The Mothers bathed me with spiced water and oils. They gathered my hair in a tight knot. They dressed me in my gudwat, adding the final touches to its glamour from their own chests of trinkets and treasures. Ribbons festooned with flowers and herbs they wrapped round my neck and waist. Then they prepared the path for me, a path I would walk alone.
Back and back, many a many ago, when the land was still fertile and its temples still stood, the cluster had been built on a sacred patch of ground that literally exhaled its mysteries like hot breath. Heady clouds of smoke and mist puffed out from some ancient and secret oven in the heart of the mountain, the ground riddled with vents. Atop one such vent, the Monkshood built a hut. Around this hut, they built another. And around this hut, they built yet another. A hut within a hut within a hut . . . this was the most sacred ground of our cluster, in all of Ti-Fleek even.
In the time of my ko, the mountain’s breath remained . . . no doubt it still does. I walked the long corridors of the sacred huts, feeling the weight and pull of what was happening—I felt my kolinga in my chest. I felt it in my head. Looking back, I know most of what I felt was the drugs they’d given me and the spells they’d cast to limit my thinking. Do you know the purpose of the kolinga? Its true purpose, I mean. Not the lies force fed us children. Please indulge me a moment to explain. Then I will get to the part of my story you wish to hear. I promise . . . .
The kolinga was a tool for stripping the girls of Ti-Fleek of their essential parts. A way to form them into the collective known as the Motherhood. Of course, motherhood is a cruel allegory here. The kolinga sterilized the girls. As a child, I’d never wondered over this, that none of the Mothers were actual mothers. That none of us girls were born in the cluster. Even now, I cannot say for certain where us girls came from. I have no memory of my earliest years. But I suspect we were harvested from the surrounding villages. Perhaps from Lustrain itself. A girl coming to the cluster, and especially a girl who was chosen for the kolinga, was venerated above all in Ti-Fleek.
The Mothers were a homogenized lot. To us girls, their sameness made them feel superior, but that was our brainwashing. That was us girls believing the lies they fed us. The kolinga was meant to make us each, to the last one, just like the one before her. Just like the one who came after. It was meant to take from us what made us unique. Our individuality. Don’t misunderstand: the Mothers were strong. Very strong. Perhaps stronger than most men or women. They were considered protectors throughout the mountain region, and for good reason. They could be warriors or healers. Skilled in the arts of the elhwith. In magics and potions and seeing . . . all of the things, both of dark and light. But my preparation did not take. For as I have said, I was different.
My Mother, for every girl had a Mother we were conscripted to, brought me to a large wooden door carved with runes and words from ancient lynthian scrip. The letters ornate. She left me there to find the rest of my way on my own. When I opened the door, the handle was warm in my hand. Beyond it was a courtyard surrounded by a high wall, and in the center was a large yet unassuming hut. The path leading to the hut’s entrance was strewn with flower petals, precious metals, and jewels mined from the mountain. I walked this path, my eyes on the ground before me. As I got closer to the hut, I saw the petals were withered. The air was warmer there. The door to the hut had no handle, so I pushed against it with both hands. The door was hot, but not unbearable, and it swung open with little effort.
I stepped inside. The door closed. Incense assaulted my nostrils and burned my eyes. Something in the substance must have quickened my menstruation, for then I felt my bleeding intensify. The pain had been dulled by their drugs, but not eradicated. And now it, too, quickened. I gasped as a pang rippled through me. I did not know it, but this was perhaps the first hint that my kolinga was not working. That I was not susceptible. The air inside the first hut was hazy with incense, and I was eager to pass from it into the next. Upon reaching the door to the second hut, I placed my hands on the wood and pushed. It, too, opened easily. It, too, was hot against my palms. Hotter than the first. I stepped through, and the door closed behind me. Candlelight illuminated the third and last hat. The light danced along its walls, wreathing it—the sacred of the sacred, the naval, the womb—in a soft amber glow.
This womb—the innermost hut, if you prefer—was not large, no bigger than a carriage, but it was taller. Around its base was a trap filled with fragrant oils that bubbled and hissed from the heat. I felt my gudwat sticking to my skin, my hair coming loose in wet clumps and falling around my shoulders and down my back. I swayed on my feet, as much from the heat as from the drugs and spells. I did not want to touch the inner hut’s door. I feared how it might burn. But that was why I was there, to go through that door, so I touched it. Tentative at first. Then, as before, I placed my palms flat against it. It was hotter than the previous doors, but it did not scald my skin. Instead, it vibrated, and my palms tingled with the kinetic energy of what was beyond the door. I pressed. It opened. I stepped inside. It closed behind me.
The sacred of the sacred was filled with steam, but rather than being fabricated by the Mothers, as in the first hut, with their tinctures and incense, this steam was from the earth. Before me was a pool of mud glistening with a colorful sheen as it boiled and exhaled steam. The steam rose and lifted through an opening in the ceiling. I suppose that alone made this holy place bearable for me to stand. The air was thick and sulfuric. It stank and burned my eyes and throat.
I walked to the pool’s edge. What should happen next? I wondered. There was no adornment in the sacred of the sacred. No carved walls. No tapestries as in the other huts. No runes. No lynthian scrips. No tables for incense or traps for oils. Only the mountain and the plain walls of the hut and the sky above. So I sat on the stone of the mountain, on a smooth round that made sitting more comfortable.
Then I waited.
I do not know what would have happened next had I been a normal girl of the cluster. I believe the Mother Khan would have come. I believe she would have administered certain rites. But with me, no one came right away. By the open sky above, I counted the passing of time. I cannot say for certain, but I believe time ebbed and flowed inside the sacred of the sacred. Mayhap it did not only move forward, but also side to side. Perhaps even back. How could I know this? Because I changed. I grew hungry, then full. I grew tired, then restless. My hair went from wet to damp to wet to dry. My clothing, too. My gudwat glistened with perspiration, then crackled from dry heat . . . but the air was far from dry. By the time someone arrived to tend to me, I counted seven rotations of the sun. A week had passed, or so it seemed. But who can say when time is squirrelly? And when someone finally came, it was not our Mother Khan.
The dumas did not come through the door as I had. Rather it came from the mist. And I call it an it because it was sexless. Unlike the golden skin of my people and the other girls of the cluster, its skin was pale but inflamed around the eyes and ears. Its every opening seeped fluid. And I did see every opening, for it was naked. As plain as the sacred of the sacred was, this body was ornamented, covered with runes and lynthian words—I felt the spell of these without needing to understand them—and scars that I swear looked for all my world like the agonized expressions of lost girls. The eyes in the dumas’s skull were black pits, though not bereft of life and movement.
I stood. The dumas approached. Neither of us spoke. Then it touched me. That is when I poisoned the kolinga.
I had not meant to. I wanted my ko. I wanted to become a Mother. To live on in the cluster. Like any girl, I dreamt of one day becoming the Mother Khan. No part of me had entertained anything besides. I had no aspirations of being ousted or of complicating the cluster’s venerated ceremonies or of rending the very fabric by which the cluster existed. Of breaking its foundations. Even so, something happened when the dumas touched me. Something issued from me into it. I felt it bolt from me into the flat palm of the pale white creature. I felt it snap the dumas’s thread of life in two. I could only watch as the creature stumbled backward, one step, then two . . . I could only watch as it toppled into the pool, the look of shock on its face so evident, it stole away my breath.
Then the mountain trembled. I heard cries coming from without, followed quickly by hastened footsteps and battering. I could just make out some of what the voices were saying. The Mothers were trying to get in to stop whatever was happening. They were too late, of course. I did not know this. Mayhap they knew but refused belief. Mayhap they yet hoped. Either way, I tried to assist them. I pushed against the door to open it, but it was solidly fastened to the walls. It would not budge. I tried to pull, but there was no handle. I dug my fingertips into its seam, ripping my nails from my effort, but the door would not move. A glut of steam issued from behind me, and I turned to see the pool vomiting its hot breath into the sky. The trembling mountain began to shake. The ground beneath my feet cracked. The mountain yawned as if waking. I fell to my knees and clung to a bit of jagged stone. I could not escape, nor could I avoid the chasm if it opened further.
And open further it did. I did not fall into it, not at first. But everything else did. No, that isn’t true. Nothing fell . . . .
The walls making up the sacred of the sacred splintered. Piece by piece, they were sucked into the mountain’s maw. Then the candles and their sconces from the second hut. The oils and floor tiles. The ceiling. All of this was sucked in. Then the outer hut, its door first. Then the walls. Then the Mothers. Then the cluster girls. Then the cluster itself. I watched in horror as every scrap of the cluster, from kitchen to wash room to altars to holy artifacts, was eaten by the mountain. And only after, and I say this true, did it come for me. Mud wrapped itself round my legs, then my waist. My gudwat burned away in the acidic flow. My skin blistered red but did not break. The mud was hot, but not harmful. It seared away the hair from my scalp, however. All hair from my body, in fact. When at last the maw took me into itself, I was naked as a newborn rat.
I did not fall into the mountain. I fell into the elhwith. I spiraled end over end. All the while, I felt my kindling . . . This is what I came to call it after. The secret birthright hidden inside me. Hidden from me, leastways. My life’s blood dripped from between my legs. It was not a heavy flow, but it felt pulled from me. And I felt a tremendous beast awake within me. It stood up and began walking around inside me. It was fantastic and frightening and fevered. The beast was me—I was the beast. It was silver, with a simple curved horn that grew from its skull, right at the base. This curved up and over its head. Nostrils flaring wide, the beast panted wild with wonder and hunger. It was built like a bull, only it wasn’t quite like a bull. Its hooves beat against the . . . the what? There was no floor, but there was resistance. This, too, was me. I was resisting the beast. I was resisting myself. In my mind’s eye, I saw the beast turn toward me. It stared at me with its eyeless face. Then it kicked, and I broke open.
Light flooded in. The sound of bird song and wind dance. Of wild forest things and creatures from the depths of the sea. Of gods and devils. My skin glittered with the dust of stars and the milk of moons. My eyes burned with the salt of suns. My belly stirred with the nectar of worlds unknown to me. My lips tasted flesh. My tongue tasted sweat. My throat swallowed bitter fluid. And I stood in a vaporous tent of silver. I walked forward. The beast walked forward as well, its horn teasing the way.
“Ada-handura,” it said. I did not understand. I could not. “Ada-handura, doesah.”
I turned my eyes to look above. Had it told me to? Yes, I believe so. I had told myself, but in a tongue I did not know. Above me, I saw a dark sky. Through a thick scrim of rain-heavy clouds, I saw starlight twinkle. Then I saw a great white light burn away all other light and all other darkness. This light—a comet, I realized—fell from the sky, a dark, serpentine shape riding its tail. It crashed into the mountains. The earth exploded. Silt and salt filled the air. A crater opened. I fell backward.
I spiraled end over end once again. I smelled death and felt both hope and hopelessness. When my feet found solid ground—or leastways, imagined solid ground—I was walking a path paved with glittering jewels. Every color was present, many I had never before seen. Many I have never seen since. I sensed many of these would kill me outside of this place. These made up a circular path of gleaming light, and in the center was my silver beast. It danced with others like it, only these came in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Gold and silver and topaz and lapis lazuli and crimson and violet and more and more and more. Above this was a sky made of forests. Below, a sea made of stone. To my left were mountains made of hooves and horns. To my right, fields made of feathers and scales. In front of me was a vast storm. It churned as if to destroy the planets, but from within its cyclone emerged more beasts. Behind me, I heard singing. I turned to look. A star field glittered there. Each star winked at me. Each sang my unknown name.
I kept walking. As I did, my feet sank into the light path. Up to my ankles, then my shins. I kept walking. By the time I sank to my waist, I knew what would happen next but not what would happen after. I kept walking. Up to my naval. Then to my breasts. Then my shoulders. My chin. My eyes . . .
I went through. This time I did not spiral. This time I did not fall. I simply was. All around me was velvet darkness. All that I had seen before was now in my throat. Then in my chest. Then in my belly. My silver beast—myself—pawed at the darkness. This was a comfortable place, but I knew I could not stay. Or rather, I should not. But the choice was mine. I tried to walk. There was no ground. I tried to swim. There was no water. I tried to fly. There was no air. Instead, I thought. That is when the darkness swirled. My thoughts were the catalyst that sent it scampering. That is when the voices collated. I had not noticed them before, but I heard them now: the many voices of stars. Utwah, they said. Kola, they said. Lightfoot, they said. Arant, they said. Aric, they said. Then they pushed me forward. Then they laughed. Krea, they said. Natty, they said. Oro, they said. And of these last three, I knew I must choose.
“Natty,” I said without understanding.
“Natty,” the voices said in return. The name given to me at my birth fell away from me then.
Then I fell. Not end over end. Straight down. I was twisted like a dish rag. I felt my body contort as I fell, as all the poison of the cluster was rung out of me. I cried out in pain and alarm. I was coming undone. I do not speak in hyperbole: I mean I came undone. I mean I was refashioned after. I had been reduced to parts, and those parts put back together again.
The hot wind grew warm. The warm wind grew cool. The cool wind grew cold. The cold wind became water. The water lapped at my skin. Its salt dried my lips. I slid as if a throat of darkness swallowed me. After a time, slivers of nearly green light speckled the walls and ceiling. Then darkness took me again. Not evil: sleep.
I did not dream. Or rather, I had no further dreams. For mayhap all I had experienced so far had been nothing more than the delusions of a drugged girl. I think you know the truth of this. I think this is why you came. I had not dreamt. I had had no visions. I had slipped between this world and the next. I had found myself in the elhwith during my own awakening. I had fallen through a slip and witnessed what had happened within me, and more besides. Only now, when I woke from slumber, I was not in the elhwith. I was not in myself. I was in a vast underground lake. The vaulted sky-rock above pulsated with pale green light. The dark water around me glittered with glowing white fish. They buoyed me. They kept me afloat. They kissed me with their tiny mouths. I tasted the lake on my lips: it was salty. It stretched so far in every direction, the horizon glowed in a steady, perpetual ring.
How was I meant to escape this place? This subterranean vaultine? I did not know. I cannot say how long I floated. But in time, sleep took me again. When I next woke, months had passed. I was no longer on the mountain. I was no longer below it. I was on the shore of the Lost Lake. Its waves crashed around me. My gudwat was tattered, but there. Months had passed, aye. But inside me, it had been years. Not years forward, years back. And not years only: ages. I saw the Coming. I witnessed the Fall. I experienced the quickening of my birthright. And do you know what I learned?
