The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee

fast.
    â€œNo,” I said. “Do you expect your goddesses to be made as other women?”
    A sort of shudder went through him, and a kind of laugh.
    â€œYou have what’s necessary for this at least,” he said.
    And there was no more talk.
    * * *
    The insects continued their noises in the dark as if they had never stopped, though we had stopped them for a while, and all things but ourselves.
    â€œWhat are you?” he said suddenly.
    He lay over me, his face against my hair.
    â€œI have no more reason to know than you, Darak.”
    But when his voice went on, he had only heard me with his ears, not in his thoughts.
    â€œWoman but not woman. Yet more woman than any other breed. And yet a different woman from women. Goddess—yes, perhaps I believed it. And then, riding from Makkatt, I saw the red cloud on the mountain by night, and I came to ask you in the tent if you knew—and I saw Krill spitting the snake poison out, while you sat there so prim and stiff. And you were no goddess. And then Makkatt burst open again, and finished them. But you—” He stopped. It was so dark now, I felt him lift and lean over me but did not see. He touched my thighs, my belly, my breasts. “You’ve never done this before, and how I know it’s a mystery for there was nothing a man had to break. Virgin, and yet knowing. What are you?” His hand slid across my throat, my hair to the rolled back folds of the mask.
    â€œNo,” I said. “Darak, you took all else, but you said you would leave me that.”
    His hands left me, and his body left me. He stood a little way up in the low tent, and dressed.
    â€œDarak,” I said, but he did not answer me.
    He went out into the dark, and it might never have been, that first time.
    5
    I sensed Karrakaz near me in my sleep, and strove to wake, and could not. Through the oval door I looked at the flickering color in the stone basin of the altar, and it drew me, sucked me in—only the green coolness could save me—and I did not know where it was. My hands went to the bandit jade around my neck, but in this place it was black and dull and useless as iron.
    A great hand took my shoulder, and shook me out of the nightmare.
    â€œMaggur,” I whispered.
    â€œNearly dawn,” he said. “Darak’s men will be riding soon, to the River Road.”
    He didn’t seem perturbed by my nakedness. He held out a piece of shimmery stuff—green and purple and red.
    â€œI came earlier,” he said, “after he went away.” He grinned at the torn shirt. “I got a new one—off a woman, an Imma like you.”
    Darak had not come for me. Had he expected me to recall on my own, or had he wanted to leave me behind at last? I dressed, and Maggur dismantled the tent. Outside, a little way off, Giltt and Kel were waiting with ponies and my little black horse, all saddlebags packed and ready. They had arranged I should go to Darak with my own state it seemed.
    I rode ahead, Maggur a pace behind me, the other two paired behind him.
    I heard other harness jinking soon. A clearing, faintly greening in the first hint of day, spangled with dew. A few heads turned around to look at us.
    â€œDarak’s woman and her men,” they said.
    Maggur grinned.
    Darak looked up from what he was doing, and nodded to me. That was all. A man came and handed me a long-knife, which I stuck through my belt. The other horses were being stripped of their bells and jingling medallions. Kel saw to ours, and Maggur put them away in one of the saddle pouches.
    I could smell the dawn.
    Darak was on his pony. He held up one arm, and the silence deepened.
    â€œNow listen. We’ll reach the ford at noon. The caravan will go by anything from an hour to three hours later, depending on the time they’re making. The signal to take them is a wolf’s howl. Don’t move before it; when it comes, move fast. Remember the others across the