Bride Quest

An adventure of the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan.

by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

The copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is the property of the BBC.  This story is a work of fan fiction; it has
been written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or will change hands with respect to the story.

The story and original characters are copyright Clive May 2001.

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Ten

"Wait!  Sarah?  Wait!"

Harry's plaintive cry diffused into the shadows lurking under the trees, and
in the angles of the tumbled walls.  It sounded a very insignificant thing.
Sarah paid it no heed.  She hurried on under the rustling trees, growing
on the decay of the ruined city.

Harry hesitated a long moment, looking with longing back at the camp set up
by the river.  Despite the bevy of young admirers chattering about the fires,
he was tempted, very tempted indeed, to return to the company and the bed
rolls laid out around the fires; but he was far too much the gentleman.  The
Doctor had said: "keep an eye on Sarah, Harry.  There's a good chap!"

He had not expected that to involve chasing after her through the ancient
ruins of Nooplennes, under the uncertain silver light of the two Little
Moons.  Yes, he was too much a gentleman.  His lantern jaw set with
determination and he turned his back on bed and sleep to hurry after the
flitting figure going away down the long avenue of trees marking the great
central way into the heart of the city.

"Sarah?  Hang on old girl?"

When he caught up to her, Sarah was standing on the pinnacle of a tumbled
pile of over grown blocks and metal.  Up there, against the star clotted
heavens, there gathered to her an aspect of ethereal tragedy. "Sarah?" Harry
called softly, unaccountably touched by the emotion stirred by the sight of
the lonely figure against the arc of stars.  His voice was muted by a sense
of trespassing on something with which he did not feel entirely comfortable.

The figure on the skyline ignored his call.  Sarah was struggling with
ambivalence. The vista of ruins, she felt deep in her heart,  ought to have
induced a strong sense of romantic melancholy; but her head told her that
this kind of romance was an alloy of tragedy with retrospect.  Tragedy there
was a-plenty in the tumbled blocks - but what of retrospect?  This great city
had been a ruin for two thousand years, and a thriving community for an age
before that; but from her viewpoint, it would not even exist for a hundred
thousand years.  From where she stood in history, it was peopled with the
ghosts of the multitudes yet unborn.  She found it profoundly unsettling.

Unable to harmonise these elements, Sarah found she could not sustain the
mood.  If only she could have captured that elusive emotion, she might have
had a start on her novel, the great work that gestated in sterile abeyance in
her journalist's soul.

"Sarah?  Come Down!"

Sarah continued to ignore him.  Such was the power of the moment, she would
have liked to talk of her feelings; but she felt that would be impossible
with Harry.  He was a good sort, brave, resourceful and trustworthy,  but if
he had a complex, emotional  inner life, so far he had successfully hidden it
from her.  She felt such emotional matters would be completely lost on good
old down to earth Harry Sullivan.  She sighed and turned her gaze up to the
arc of hub stars, flowing like a river of silver across the heavens.

"SARAH," harry raised his voice.

"Oh.  Do go away, Harry," she whispered then, sighing, she looked down to the
shadows where the pale oval of his concerned face peered up at her from the
dark.  The elusive mood she had been trying to capture grew even more
insubstantial.  She sighed.  She had almost had it.  The novel she would
write would have been...If only she had been able to define...But..Her first
novel would have had a start at last...But now...

"Damn you, Harry!" she said without real malice, and began to scramble down
the untidy pile.  From below, Harry's voice drifted up to her, giving
unnecessary instructions and exhorting her to be careful.  His evident
growing relief as she neared the ground aggravated her; but at the last, a
four foot drop, when he held up his arms, she permitted him to catch her and
ease her to the ground.

She studied his heroic countenance in the silver light.  He really was a
"good sort" - a hero who might have stepped right out of a Georgette Heyer
novel.  The look of him served to focus the remnants of that romantic mood
which still lingered.  Spurred on by the intensity of the moment, on a sudden
impulse, she stretched up and kissed him lightly.

Harry jerked back, surprised and completely undone.  "Oh, I say!  Steady on,
old girl!" he protested.

Sarah laughed out loud.  It was a good sound, and seemed to drive back the
shadows around them.  Harry joined in nervously, aware, vaguely, that Sarah
was not laughing at him, but with him.  Suddenly, she turned and began to
pick her way among the bushes and stones, still going away from the camp.

"Sarah?  The camp's back this way - where are you going now?"

"Exploring.  Come on.  I know the Doctor set you to watch me, so you'd better
come with me."

Harry hurried to catch up.  He fell in beside her.  Sarah steered their steps
towards a massive black shadow dividing the river of silver in the sky. "That
building looks more or less intact," she said.  "Let's go and have a look
round."

"Why?"

"Because," Sarah answered, a slight note of exasperation in her tone.

"Because what?" Harry persisted.

Sarah stopped.  Harry stopped too, turned to look down at her.

"For, for,  well - romance, I suppose."

"I say!  Steady on old girl," Harry exclaimed.  Alarmed, he backed away.

Sarah shook her head in wry amusement, considering Harry's discomfiture.  "Oh
Harry!  NOT THAT kind of romance!" She half turned away and waved a hand to
take in the sprawling ruins crouching amid the trees and vegetation under the
soft silver light.  "The romantic tragedy in all this -" Sarah faltered into
silence.  For once, she was bereft of words to describe her inner heart.
"Can't you feel it?" she got out at last.

Harry was no fool.  He was a doctor, and had a certain empathy;  but this
sort of thing was new ground for him.  Not much exposure to romance as a Navy
Surgeon, he thought wryly.  He gazed around, vaguely  aware that there was a
majestic melancholy about the scene, but it could not really touch his soul.
Now, Sarah, well, she was one of those creative types.  You sort of expected
them to be set on fire by places like this.

"It has a certain something," he conceded at last, not too sure what he ought
to have said.

"A certain something?" Sarah echoed his words with mock dismay.  She put
hands on hips.  "Harry Sullivan?  Have you no romance at all in your soul?
Look around you.  Look.  All these ruins.  Can't you just feel the weight of
sadness?"

"Ruins are always sad," Harry said a little lamely. He was aware that there
was no way he could hold up his end in a conversation that began like
 this.

"Yes." agreed Sarah.  "But there's more than that here.  It has a particular
romance - especially for us."

"Why for us?" Harry asked.  He could hear the thin ice creaking under his
boots.

"Of course, for us!" Sarah exclaimed.  "Think on it Harry!  this place, this
place has been a ruin for two thousand years.  And yet for us it will not
even exist for many many thousands of years.  Can't you feel the wonder and
romance in that?"

"Well?  If you put it like that?"

Sarah remained still, regarding him in dismay for a long moment, then she
turned abruptly and resumed her stroll towards the dark shape of the tower,
leaving Harry to trail in her wake, feeling uncomfortable and not knowing
exactly why.

At the base of the towering edifice, a broad set of steps ran up the outside
of the wall and around out of sight.  Without hesitation, Sarah ran up the
crumbling steps, pushing her way through the smothering luxuriance of the
greenery which had found a secure footing on the masonry.  .  Harry set his
jaw and followed more circumspectly.

About a hundred feet up, he discovered her leaning on a stone parapet gazing
out to the south over the dark expanse of tumbled shadows and trees.  Behind
them, the black bulk of the building blotted out half the stars.  Far away to
the left, Harry could see the fires of the Kharran camp nestling on the strip
of cleared ground by the river.  A bit to the right the fires of Grimlak
Vylian's camp, glowed through the tree tops like dozens of baleful red eyes.
Harry shook his head.  In the morning there was going to be some
unpleasantness that he felt even the Doctor was going to be hard pressed to
do anything about.

Sarah was gazing resolutely at the tiny silver sickle of First Little Moon
standing sentinel in the west.  Harry leaned on the stone work beside her.
Suddenly he felt Sarah's hand creep over his, and grip tight.  Startled, he
fought off the urge to snatch his hand free.  She turned her face up to him.
Silver glittered in her eyes; and he realised with shock, that she was
crying.  Drawing in a deep breath to stiffen his resolve, he got on with it.

"Sarah?  What is it, old girl?" he asked  softly, falling back on his learned
bedside manner in place of  a more natural affectionate response. It was all
he had at his disposal to deal with these sort of situations.

Sarah fell against his chest, rocking gently as she cried.  His arm went
about her shoulders.  "There, there old girl.  It'll be alright."

"No it won't," Sarah sniffled.  Harry handed her a large white handkerchief.
She wiped her eyes before going on. "It won't be alright.  He doesn't
stand a chance.  That boy is going to die in the morning.  You know what that
Grimlak is like. He'll cut the boy down.  It'll be murder, plain murder!"

"The Doctor will think of something." Harry assured her with a simple faith
in a fundamental truth.  "He's never let us down yet." He gave her a squeeze
that was bordering on affectionate.

Sarah straightened and dabbed at her eyes again.  "That's true," she
admitted.

She fell silent a moment, considering the handkerchief.  Her mouth drew into
a little mou of self-disgust at her unaccustomed weakness.  Drawing herself
up and straightening her shoulders, she determinedly rallied her fighting
spirit.  grinning suddenly, she went on: "Oh, don't mind me Harry.  I'm just
tired, that's all.  After that ride and no sleep and everything."

"And that Kerd, perhaps." Harry said with an arched eyebrow.

"Perhaps?" She hit him playfully in the chest.  "All this:" she waved a hand
at the ruins.  'The futility that hangs over all this.  It just got to me for
a moment, that's all.  And yes, perhaps the kerd a little too.  But I'm
fine now."

"That's the ticket, Old Girl!" Harry encouraged.  "Right then?  What's the
plan?..."

She grinned up at him, all her old ebullience restored by his boyish
enthusiasm for any mad scheme she might suggest.  Touched by his simple
faith in her, on a sudden impulse, she stretched up and kissed him full on
the lips.

This time, Harry did not pull back.  Instead, his arms, seemingly of their
own accord, tightened about her shoulders.  He drew her in close.  This
kissing game, he thought, was not at all bad.  In fact, it felt very good
 indeed.  For the first time in his life Harry Sullivan gave himself up to
the romance and sensuality of the moment.

A certain indefinable quality of presence warned them both that they were not
alone.  The acute sense of being watched, caused them both to break apart and
stand looking at each other in sheepish embarrassment, like two teenagers
caught in their first kiss by stern parents.  The moment might have grown
awkward, had not a deeper shadow against the wall rippled into the dumpy form
of the Shivan.

The silver light shining on her pale face showed a secret knowing smile, vast
and mischievous.  She trotted over to them, looked into each of their faces,
then sprang up to stand on the crumbling parapet.  For a moment, she stood
over them, looking down upon them with the moons behind her.  Sarah had the
distinct feeling that she was being blessed in some profound way.  A great
wave of love poured out from the small figure, drenching them both in a warm
maternal fondness.  The impact of that aura of unconditional love struck the
pair like a physical blow, stunning them with its depth and penetration.  The
tidal wave drove them back a step, forcing them closer together, leaving them
clutching each other, breathless and amazed.

Sensing her total giving of herself caused the Son and Daughter of Terra
disquiet, the Shivan turned away to gaze out over the gulf of air, permitting
them a moment of privacy and a breathing space to collect themselves.  Like a
cloak of gossamer down settling, a sense of serenity enfolded them.  Judging
the moment to perfection, the Shivan lifted up her arms to the two small
moons, silver light glimmering along her bare arms.  She let out along, low
sound that sent a tingle down the Terrans' spines.  Then she lowered her arms
and settled herself down on the parapet, cross legged, with all the grace of
a cat curling onto a rug.  Reaching up, she drew out her long black hair,
wound it into a rope and drew it over her right shoulder.  Twining it between
her plump fingers, she folded her hands into her lap.  The aura of boundless
patience which enwreathed the woman, lent her an ageless quality, as though
she were a rock settling into a sediment in preparation to out-wait the
countless millennia yet to come.

Sarah and Harry leaned on the stone  to be close to the Witch, to
better enjoy that aura of timelessness that enfolded the little woman.  No
one spoke for an age. At the last, Harry broke the spell.

He pointed down to the right.  "what's that?"

Sarah followed his pointing finger.  Something shimmered and glistened
through the branches of a grove of trees that were no more than shadows on
shadows.  She squinted at the tiny glimmering jumping lights, like moonlight
 on water.

"I don't know," she confessed after a long moment.  "Perhaps it's ghosts?"

The Shivan spoke suddenly, her tone full of musical laughter.  "There are no
ghosts here Sarah Jane.  Not now.  This place has been too long dead, even
the ghosts have grown weary of the loneliness.   Even the spirits need hope
to sustain them.  No,  Sarah Jane, there are no ghosts here.  Those that have
not drowned in melancholy, have fled long since to seek more congenial
hauntings."

"you almost seem like a ghost yourself," Sarah observed considering the
form of the little woman.

Shiv chuckled, a beautiful sound.  "Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings," she proclaimed.  "To borrow a saying of the Sons and Daughters of
Terra." She was silent a long moment, in a deep musing.  Then she lifted her
hand and pointed out over the benighted world.  "I remember...It was over
there...That the Sons and Daughters of Terra first came to ground on our
world.  They came from the south, I recall, flying along in their metal birds
with such a roaring and commotion." She broke off and peered around, seeking
some elusive and distant memory.  She pointed again, this time to the range
of low hills to the north west.  "I watched them from over there.  Noisy and
laughing all the while, they were.  We had never known such a people who took
such a joy in simply being in life.  They so touched our hearts with their
innocence of sin and their children's play that they filled us up with their
joy and lifted us from the slumber of ages.  They gave us new purpose and new
life in the long afternoon of our time here. With hearts full of the old joy
that we thought fled forever into time's oblivion, we came down from the
hills and took them to our hearts, these happy children.  It was the finest
time to be in life. They made our hearts sing once more the old, old song;
the song of life-renewed, the oldest song there is."

The Shivan's voice faded slowly into a silence laden with a vast and sad
happiness.  Sarah clutched Harry fiercely as new tears welled into her eyes
at that small little voice.

The Shivan Witch suddenly shrugged her shoulder s and stood up with firm
resolution.  "A sad yet happy thing it is to tread the path that is gone
before.  I have been so busy in these latter ages that I had forgotten the
wonder and the wildness, the sadness and the beauty of remembering the things
that are gone down into the dark."

She peered around, seeing a scene that Sarah and Harry were a hundred
thousand years too late to appreciate.  "I remember this place when it was a
mere collection of prefab huts by the old river.  I was here, watching still
when it was grown to a vast and mechanical city of the Sons of Terra.  We
could not walk here then, for it was grown a hard an sterile place.  But then
there was birthed an enlightened one who planted the trees and the flowers
and ceded the land once more to the grass and the good green trees.  So, once
more, the Shivan could walk among the Sons and Daughters of Terra, and know
again the joy of the care of our foster children.  Once more it was a good
time to be in life.  Uncounted, and carefree, have the happy years fled
before the rising of the sun since that day."

She fell suddenly silent, and looked down at Sarah and Harry from an
incomprehensible alien perspective, considering them with regret, out of a
vast gulf of past time.  "But it could not last;" she sighed at last.  Shiv
shook her head sadly.  "Oh.  No, such a fine joyous thing could not last."

Sarah shivered with foreboding.  "What...What happened?"

"THEY came seeking our foster children."

"Who?" asked Harry.  He too shivered, infected by that creeping mood of evil
which pervaded the Shivan's voice.

The dumpy woman gazed down at them with a profound sadness dulling the
sparkle in her shining eyes.  "The Heartless Haters of Life.  The Souls'
Destroyers.  The Dalek Kind.  Oh!  How we pity them their cruel and unnatural
existence; but they will not hear the song of life renewed, and so have
passed beyond the healing hand of the Shivan.  They are beyond hope.  they
are the lost ones - never to return to the love of life.  For this we pity
them."

"Pity for the Daleks!" Sarah exclaimed, incredulous. "How can you feel pity
for those monstrous things?"

"We pity all the children of the dark.  We feel sorrow that they may never be
brought into the loving light.  And we have tried.  How we have tried.  But
the Dalek consciousness can no longer hear the song of life renewed.  For
this, we pity them!"

The Shivan Witch fell silent again.  She put her head on one side, as though
listening to the voice of the wind.  Abruptly, she jumped down from the stone
rail.  "And now, I must go." she announced.  "There is business that needs my
attention." She looked out over the dark ruins to the lights of Grimlak's
camp.  "And it is business that cannot wait." In a flutter of robes, she
scampered away down the steps and out of sight.

Sarah turned a questioning gaze upon the distant lights.  "I wonder what's
she up to now?" she mused.

Harry laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Whatever it is, I wish her well
of it...Sarah?..."

"Ummm?"

"Eh?..Sarah?..You don't suppose we could?..Well?...You know?.."

Sarah gazed up into his face, again touched, this time by his vulnerability.
Suddenly, she grinned.  "Oh.  Yes.  Let's," she breathed, and moved easily
into his encircling arms.

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In the gloom of the pavilion housing the shrine to the Goddess, Marleen knelt
before the symbol of her Goddess.  The smoothly rounded piece of white apple
wood, carved into a heart shape, lay on a little table covered with an indigo
cloth.  Tears were glimmering in her eyes.

Reaching out with her left hand, she traced a finger down the deep groove
incised in the wood.  More tears started from her eyes, and ran down her
cheeks. She cried in silence, clutching a small tatter of rag in her right
hand.  There was a terrible message scrawled over that piece of rag
written in spots of her own blood.  It was a tale of misery, of despair, and
utter failure.

Behind the kneeling girl, the flap of the leaf opening was lifted. Olgen
stooped inside.  She paused, peering around with a bemused expression on her
homely face, as though searching for the reason why she had come into the
shrine.

Seeing Marleen on her knees before the symbol of the Goddess, Olgen's
expression cleared, then creased with concern.  She hurried over, stooped
beside the young woman, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Marleen?  All this praying is not healthy.  The Goddess is a good mother,
she does not demand all this.  I'm sure that you will take this time."

Marleen let out a tiny sob.  She tried to speak but her words withered into
an attenuated squeak.  She gasped, swallowed, tried again, gave up and held
out the little tatter of rag to the older woman.

With a questioning fingertip, Olgen touched the red stains.  Her mouth
pulled into a tight line.  She studied the profile of the distraught girl a
long, thoughtful moment before speaking. "Are these the Tears of the
Goddess?" she asked gently.

Marleen nodded, still unable to speak.

"Your monthly blood?"

Even the attempt at a nod failed this time.  Choking on her
misery, Marleen sought comfort in the older woman's arms.  As Olgen hugged
her tight, Marleen began to sob wildly.

For a long time Olgen just crouched there holding the child tight and rocking
her gently back and forth, crooning little soothing baby sounds to the girl.
Slowly, Marleen grew quiet.

Still huddled into Olgen's comforting bosom, Marleen found her voice at last.
"He, he, he'll declare me Ba, Bar, Barren!" Marleen managed to stutter out at
last.  the horror of it and the effort of spitting the foul thing out into
the world, making her tremble like a leaf in a gale.

Olgen was a practical woman, all women on the Kulak had to be.  She knew
there was little point, and no kindness, in saying words of false hope.  The
statutory period of Marleen's Right of Toleration was up, now that the
Goddess had wept three times.  Grimlak would formally renounce the girl's
claims on the protection of his Clan by breaking her father's lance and
returning the pieces to her father the lance was the symbol passed to him at
their Briding to affirm that he would take on the duties of keeping her safe
from harm.  By this action, he would exercise his Right of Abandonment and
put Marleen beyond any claim on the Vylian Clan.

Gently easing the distraught girl out at arms' length, and holding her there
with a firm grip, she said: "Yes, my child.  I'm afraid he will renounce you
publicly.  It is his way.  And, certain as sheep give wool, he'll turn you
out.  We must make plans.  I think it best if you are gone before he drives
you out.  He has a vile temper, and there's that new young thing he's got
chained up in one of the cellars.  He'll be in?..in?.."

Olgen faltered into silence.  Her face screwed up into an expression of
excruciating effort.  She shook her head, trying to dislodge the tormenting
memory which was hovering on the very edge of conscious realisation; but
strain as she might, it would not quite gell.

Shaking off the feeling that she should be doing something else, something
very important, Olgen advised the girl: "You must return to your Mother's
Clan and claim Right of Sanctuary by Blood Line, to put yourself under her
protection.  Then you must break Grimlak's Briding Crook and entreat a
Clansman to deliver the Broken staff to his Clan Matriarch to formally
declare your intention to renounce all your obligations to tend the
Vylian flocks and forfeit all Bridal Rights due to your Clan.  That way,
he'll have no excuse to make trouble."

The girl trembled in her grasp.  "I can't do that!" she cried in a small
desperate voice.  "I cannot return to father's Clan and have him suffer the
disgrace of having his lance broken. I can't do that.  I can't!" I couldn't
bring such disgrace upon him and mother."

Olgen's face darkened in consternation.  She knew very well that there would
be no point in arguing with the girl; such matters as these lay at the heart
of the Kulak culture; and there was not the time to try and convince the girl
to put aside two thousand years of tradition in a few moments.

Instead, she said: "If you'll not go to your Mother's people, then you must
at the very least put yourself under the protection of a Matriarch of one of
the Western Drift.  Goddess knows, girl, but there's enough of your Drylander
Clans camped about the place just now."

"I can't go to them!" Marleen stated flatly.

"Why ever not?  You are Western Drift.  Your own Clan Confederacy cannot
refuse you Sanctuary."

Marleen dropped her gaze to stare guiltily at the bare earth floor of the
shrine.  "I don't want to go," she whined thinly.

Olgen gave the girl a suspicious look.  There was something in her tone that
warned Olgen that there were more lice to be rooted out of this particular
fleece than the carding comb had yet dislodged.  "Don't want to go?  Why ever
not, child?  I'd have thought the sooner the better.  What with the way he's
treated you.  And..." Olgen stopped speaking, struck by a sudden awful
suspicion.  "Marleen?  Marleen - is there any truth in those tales that
Meloven is spreading around camp, about that Drylander boy, Bryllaan?"

Marleen's failure to meet the older woman's searching gaze was answer enough.

Olgen threw up her arms in dismay.  "Holy Mother!  Marleen!  What in the name
of the Goddess possessed you?  You're the Peace Gift of the Western Drift,
for Heaven's sake!  Meant to appease Grimlak's ire - not brazenly flout his
Bride Rights.  What were you thinking of?  Dear Goddess!  If that tale goes
back to Grimlak!  That's all it'd take!  There'll be war for sure!  Holy
Mother's tits..." She trailed off into a disbelieving silence, unable to find
an oath worthy to underscore such crass stupidity.  She put hands on hips and
rolled her eyes heavenwards.

Marleen, white faced and trembling now, seemed to shrivel.  "Nothing
happened!" she wailed.

"That's of no import, girl.  I think you MUST go tonight, right now?
straight away - before you think of doing anything stupid.  Like trying to
see that young fool before you go.  Come child.  I'll help you make up a
travelling pack.  If Grimlak catches you, he'll have you flayed alive."

"I don't care what that bastard does to me!" Marleen cried in a sudden burst
of vehemence born out of her despair.  "What difference can it make now." In
a fit of passion, the girl scrunched up the rag, with its tell-tale spots of
blood, and hurled it at the symbol of the Goddess, the Goddess she had served
so diligently in these last three months, and who had betrayed her so
thoroughly.  "I don't care any more.  I'm a barren woman.  I'm worthless."
She was building her self into quite a frenzy of self-pity, her voice rising
with every word.  "I've half a mind to go to that bastard now and tell him.
Nothing he could do to me can be worse than this." She stamped her foot on
the offending rag, grinding it into the bare earth floor.  "Yes!  Yes!  I'll
go and tel him now." She started for the entrance.

Olgen grabbed her roughly, dragging the crazed girl to a stumbling halt.
Marleen opened her mouth, intending to scream.  In terror, Olgen pressed a
palm over the girl's mouth while the fingers of her other hand bit deeply
into the flesh of Marleen's arm.  In fearful desperation,   she shook the
girl violently.

"For Goddess's sake girl!" she hissed.  "Stop thinking of yourself for a
minute!  You know what Grimlak will do to that young fool if he gets wind of
this?  And you know how your Western Drift will see it!  You'll have the
Clans at each others throats again!"

For several long seconds, Marleen stood rigid in Olgen's grasp, refusing to
hear the good sense in the older woman's words.  In the end though, even
through the fog of her turbulent, tumbling emotions, the ingrained Kulak
practicality broke through.  Marleen whimpered and relaxed.  She half nodded.
Something like a Miscegenation challenge would be like a dry lightning stroke
on the summer parched prairie.

Of course, Olgen was right.  Many dozens of the Western Drift Clans, her own
Pewit People among them, were camped within a day's fast ride of the
Nooplennes ruins. The Western Drift, being on Southland territory en masse
for the grand occasion of the ten-yearly Festival, was already a cause for
much nervous fondling of weapons, without having Grimlak cite a Drylander for
Miscegenation.  Especially as her marriage to Grimlak had been arranged
expressly to try and diffuse some of the bad blood spilt over the last range
dispute.

Olgen released the quiescent girl.  "Come along, Marleen?  Quick now?  I'll
help you put up a pack." She turned, and holding aside the heavy wool curtain
dividing off the personal shrine from the rest of the pavilion, pushed
Marleen through.

"Gather up anything of yours that you want to take along," she directed, and
hurried into another inner section.  The sound of rummaging came from the
dimness beyond the curtain.  A moment later, Olgen re-appeared, wrapping some
loaves in a cloth.  She paused a moment, considering the girl, who had not
moved.  Clucking in irritation, she set the loaves down on a divan.  Lifting
the lid of a wooden chest she drew out a woven back pack and began stuffing
it with the loaves.  Some clothing followed, along with some of Marleen's
personal jewellery.  Olgen reached for her skinning knife, intending to add
it to the pack.  She paused a long, puzzled moment when it did not come
immediately to hand, before shrugging and grabbing up another from the chest.
Within a very few moments, she was leading the cowed girl from the pavilion.

Quickly, she guided Marleen among the tents to the northern edge of the
cleared area where Grimlak Vylian had pitched his camp.  In the shadows
beyond the fire-light, Olgen pressed the travelling pack into Marleen's lax
fingers.  She unfolded a warm cloak from her arm and draped it about the
girl's shoulders.

"There now." she fussed, standing back to consider the girl half hidden in
darkness.  "You'll do.  Now get on with you.  The Franklins are camped at
Seven Tree Hill - not five miles distant.  Go to them.  Vetoven is Matriarch
She is my sister.  Say I have sent you and she will take care of the
formal requirements of the return of the broken Crook." She paused to
consider the girl's unresponsive demeanor.  Her lips drew into a tight line.
"And make sure you go straight there," she warned.  "Set your mind on it,
child.  And don't dare look back."

Then in a sudden excess of concern, she grabbed the young woman, hugged her
tight a moment before pushing her gently into the deeper dark.  'Go child."

Marleen stumbled a few steps.  Her basic Kulak practicality could find no
fault with Olgen's wisdom; but in her deeply female heart of hearts, she did
not hear the older woman's words for the roaring of the tide of despair which
ad swept her up at her own naming of herself Barren.

Barren!

There was no worse thing that could be said of a woman of the Kulak.

She could not take such a terrible curse back to her Clan to taint them with
her disgrace. She should not take it anywhere - save into the dark.  There
was a saying among the Clans of the Kulak...

"Better dead!  Than Barren!"

And suddenly, Marleen knew the road she must walk.  it was a hard and bitter
road for one so strong in life.  Yet it WOULD be best for everyone.  Yes.
she would walk The grey road.  And she knew a good place to set out on her
last journey.

She was certain of only one thing now - she did not want her life at all any
more if she could not have Bryllaan to share it with her.

And that could not be.

With a little groan of anguish, she set the pack carefully down.  She would
not need it.  She would have no need of travelling provisions.  The place was
not far.  In happier times she had spent most of her spare time there,
sitting on the edge of the tank, watching the shapes of fish gliding beneath
the surface of the clear still water.  Many happy hours of solitude she had
spent there, hiding from Grimlak's male violence, in the last three months.
It was the right place for what she intended.

Her mind set, Marleen drew the knife from the pack and walked away into the
ruins.

The water, when she reached the place, though it shone with a beautiful
misting silver sheen of moonlight, did not stir Marleen's soul from its
black pit of despair. The world held its breath.  Second Little Moon passed
behind a small cloud.  Its silver radiance faded, leaving only a greyer dim.
To Marleen, it seemed somehow a sign.

Willfully, She withheld a prayer to the Goddess, who had betrayed her to this
destiny.  She would NOT do homage to such a cruel one.

She moved right to the edge of the tank, out onto the crumbling marble
surround, fumbling in her blouse for the tiny talisman Bryllaan had offered
her by the river on that glorious morning she had discovered him chopping
wood.  Against all the exhortation of her good sense, she had kept it close.
It had seemed a dangerous and romantic thing to do.  Now, at the last, it was
exposed for a foolhardy conceit.  She made to un-loop it, to throw the token
into the dark water, but discovered that she could not abandon it so easily.
She could not be parted from it, even now.  Platting the leather thong
through the fingers of her left hand, she brought it to her lips and kissed
the little shapeless lump of wood.

Marleen sank slowly to her knees, and remained kneeling a long time, peering
down into the dark reflection of the sky in the waters.  Shapes moved there;
but whether they were fish in the depth or the reflections of the trees on
the gently rocking surface, she cared not.  This was her time - the beginning
of the long midnight of the soul to which she had thought to come willingly,
and might have, but for the remembrance of Bryllaan twined in her fingers.

It seemed that more was needed.

Sitting back on her heels, Marleen lifted up the knife.  She held it before
her a long moment, then with detached deliberation, she drew the keen blade
across the palm of her left hand.  She watched in remote fascination as her
life blood pooled darkly in the cupped palm.  She held the hand out over the
water,  allowing her life to drip into the dark water.

"I am barren!" she said out loud to the uncaring night. "Barren.  Worthless."

And those three words were enough to submerge her once more in the cold tide
of despair.  It rose up to close over her head.  In a trance of
desolation, she raised the blade to her throat and pressed its keen edge
firmly into her flesh.


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