"Swallow whenever you wish, but keep them in your mouth," the priest cautioned sternly. Hezhi nodded, unable to speak.
The man joined his brethren in chanting, which seemed to go on forever. She began to wonder if the rite consisted of nothing more than chanting. She had to swallow repeatedly as her mouth filled with acrid saliva. Once again she tried to concentrate on what was happening, to force the facts together so that they made perfect sense. To understand before her fate caught up with her. After all, there might still be something she could do.
That thought struck her as funny, somehow, and the more she thought about it, the funnier it got. Her thoughts began to echo strangely in her head, like beans rattling around and around in a jar.
When the ceiling began to swirl, she realized that something had been done to her. She could feel her heart, thudding away like something not connected to her at all, and suddenly her unnatural amusement faded, replaced by a cold terror the like of which she had never felt before. It was already over, she suddenly understood. Whatever they sought to know about her, they already knew from seeing her naked body. She was poisoned and dying. Soon her heart would explode, and that would be the end of it. She struggled to rise, but two of the priests were suddenly there, forcing her back down. She tried to cry out, but the herbs choked her, seemed to swell and fill her whole head. Why had she sent Tsem away? He could save her, kill the priests, take her away…
The hands of the priests were cold, hard, but soon the impression of being held down vanished, as well. Her body was gone, already a ghost, and all that remained were the frightened, skittering thoughts in her head. Even they refused to come together, to organize themselves.
Let me die, then, she thought, resigned.
Now one of the priests came forward, holding the watering can. Hezhi realized suddenly that the other men had released her, and she tried to struggle again, but her body did not respond at all—her desires were no longer wedded to her muscles. There was nothing there.
But then, in that vacuum of sensation—where her toes had been—she experienced a tingling. She studied them, trying to understand. The priest was sprinkling water on her feet; it seemed to fall very slowly, sink into her nonexistent limbs, and that was where it tingled, inside rather than upon the skin. He moved up her body, sprinkling the water, and where it fell, the sensation persisted.
As the priest moved beyond her legs and pelvis, as the water showered on her belly, something began to arise. It felt the way she imagined a plant might feel, bursting from its seed, reaching up toward the light. It began small, then expanded, carrying her thoughts up with it but also pushing through them, a strange, alien thing that was part of her and not part of her. All of her scattered, panicky thoughts suddenly converged, melded, drew around the rising thing like sycophants about a king.
This is it, she knew. This is what they want to see, this thing ascending. Her helplessness at being naked seemed as nothing now. The fear that she had already been poisoned faded as she understood what she should really fear. This thing was hers. If they saw it, if it grew large enough for them to see… She closed her eyes, searching, searching for some way to push the thing back down. At first it had seemed inexorable, beyond her control, but now she saw that it wasn't. It was pushing, trying to come up out of her so the priests could see it, but in growing it was stretching thin, becoming weaker. If she helped it—and part of her wanted to—it would escape, become a virtual tree, blooming and unmistakable. Now that she knew that, she realized that it drew much of its strength from her wish to release it.
Somewhere, floating in her mind, she found a tendril, pushed down upon it. It was a slight pressure, but she could feel the tendril more clearly as it resisted. She found more such tendrils, knitted them into a string and then a rope, hardened that into a hand and an arm, pressing down. For a moment, the two forces stood in equilibrium, and then slowly, ever so slowly, the expanding force—the thing inside her—began to contract, to dwindle, become denser but smaller, a tree pushed back into its seed. Hidden. After that, her thoughts lost their coherence again, swam away from each other like frightened fish.
"Keep her in bed for the rest of the day," she heard a voice command, and then nothing.
When she awoke, the odor of smoke had been replaced by the perfume of flowers, a great huge bunch of them, blue and red, in a vase near her bed. Tsem was crouched in the corner of the room, head on his knees.
She shook her head to clear it, found that it wouldn't clear entirely; the herbs had not completely run their course. She was able to feel her body again, however, and swung her legs around experimentally. Her mouth was dry and tasted bad, but at least the herbs were gone. Outside, the courtyard was dark, the crickets chirping. A few fireflies rose sparking, so she knew it had been dark for only a short while. She tried to stand up.
Tsem came alert at her motion.
"Stay in bed, Princess," Tsem cautioned. "I can bring you whatever you need."
"I need to pee, Tsem," she replied, reaching beneath her bed for the bucket there. Tsem blushed and looked away. Hezhi realized she was still naked.
"You can get me a gown," she conceded, and Tsem hurried off to find one.
"They didn't take me," she said, when he got back.
"No," Tsem replied.
"Why?"
"I don't know. They usu—" Tsem's head jerked violently and he convulsed for a long moment. Tears started in Hezhi's eyes as she watched, helpless again.
"Never mind," she got out. "Forget it. Forget I asked."
Qey entered the room, glanced at Tsem, who was just regaining his composure.
"Hello, Qey."
"Are you hungry, little one?" Qey asked.
"Not at all," she replied. "But some water would be nice."
Qey nodded and went to get it.
They hadn't taken her, so their test had not turned up any results. But it should have, one way or the other, decided her fate, should it not? If the "thing" in her had shown itself or if it hadn't, one result should have led to her disappearance and the other to her graduation to the royal wing.
"Qey," she asked when the woman returned. "Qey, will I be moving down the Hall of Moments now?"
Qey shook her head. "No, little one. According to the priests it is not yet time. You will stay here a bit longer."
So the test wasn't a yes-or-no test, she realized. The priests had wanted to see the force in her. It was somehow the nature—not the mere presence—of that thing that decided her fate. A negative result—which the priests must have gotten—that only allowed her to remain where she was—remain a child, in essence.
That meant, as the priest had implied, that more "rites" would follow. She knew, knew very deeply, that she would never be able to suppress the force in her again. Next time it would show itself, and she would be either saved or damned.
She dozed again after a time and awoke to the morning sun, feeling much better. There still seemed to be a sort of shroud about her, muffling sight and sound, but it was shredding away now, like the dead skin from a snake. The sausages Qey fried for breakfast were good, the huzh with cream and pomegranate sauce better. It was, in fact, Hezhi's favorite breakfast, and she loved Qey for fixing it.
"I'll be fine," she told the worried-looking woman. "I feel much better."
"I was afraid…" Qey's words stumbled over her tongue and she stopped, tried unsuccessfully to smile. "I'm glad you feel better," she said at last.
"You lied about my bleeding, Qey. You mustn't do that again."
"Hezhi, there are things you don't understand…"
"I understand more than you think," she responded. "And I know that you can't tell me the rest, so you mustn't feel bad."
"Oh. You were always a very bright child, Hezhi. Even when you were very young, in your cradle, you used to look at me in this way, this strange way…" She trailed off.
"Anyway," Hezhi went on, after an embarrassed pause. "I don't want you to lie that way again. Next time they test me, I think that they will discover I have begun bleeding. Do you see? I don't want you to get in trouble for lying."
Qey nodded numbly.
"Qey…" Hezhi took another mouthful of bread, sopped up some cream and jelly with it. "Qey, if you are forbidden to speak of this, don't. But will I be able to see you, after I move over to the royal wing?"
"Well, I… Well, Hezhi, it's not forbidden. You can come see me anytime you like, and of course Tsem will go with you. But I don't think you will want to come back here. There will be so much for you to do, you will have so many new friends…" Qey patted her leg indulgently. "You would just be bored, coming to see an old woman."
"What will you do, Qey? After I am gone?"
"Oh… I don't know. Probably raise another little girl—or a boy. It's what I like to do."
"Really? Did you raise any before me?"
Qey ceased eating, stared down at her plate. She seemed intent on something, something halfway between the plate and her eyes. Hezhi wondered what it might be. A face, perhaps?
"Why, yes," she said, again failing to smile. "Yes, I… raised a little boy."