Colors in the Dreamweaver's Loom Read online

  Colors in the Dreamweaver's Loom

  Copyright 2015 Beth Hilgartner

  Published by Beth Hilgartner at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Marjorie

  Table of Contents

  Author's Note

  A Note on Language

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  About the Author

  Other Books by this Author

  Connect with Beth Hilgartner

  Author's Note

  Colors in the Dreamweaver's Loom was originally published in a hardcover edition in 1989. It is the first volume of a two-part work, which concludes in its sequel, The Feast of the Trickster, first published in 1991. Colors and Feast have been out of print for many years. It is my hope that these e-book editions will make it possible not only for those who enjoyed these books when they were first released to revisit them, but also for these books to find another generation of readers. Though marketed as YA fantasy by the original publisher, the themes this story explores are timeless; it is my hope that those of any age who read fantasy will find something to enjoy in the adventures of Zan and her friends.

  Beth Hilgartner, May 2015

  A Note on Language

  In the Senathii, references to a specific member of one of the peoples (that is, Orathi, Vemathi, etc.) use a form of the name which indicates the gender of the person in question. For example, a desert woman is called a Khedatheh (-eh being the feminine ending); a man is called a Khedathen (-en being the masculine form). If the gender of the individual is unknown, the neuter form, Khedath, is used. The -i ending is plural.

  ONE

  The car flew down the interstate, the open window in back setting up a deafening throb of air. Zan tried to retreat into mindlessness, into the automatic precision that kept the car on the road. The noise from the window was supposed to help. It didn't. She could still picture Rolly's raised eyebrows hear his urbane tone: "Now Alexandra, won't it wait until after the Press has your statement?" Rolly always said "Press" with a capital P. "They promised they wouldn't be long if we'd cooperate."

  "Cooperate?" The shell around her emotions had cracked, freeing a scalding rush of fury. "Your journalistic jackals can paw over Dad's body, but they can't have me!" She had stormed out, slamming the door on his protests: one simply doesn't treat the Press in such a cavalier manner—not when a good (or bad) review can make such a difference. But Zan had been past caring. Her anger had lasted long enough to get her into the elderly Volvo, and she had roared out of the driveway before her temper could cool. Carried by her rage, she had made her way to the interstate and headed south.

  As the cool green Vermont countryside streamed by, Zan had let go of the anger. She drove on, dry-eyed. After while she clicked the radio on: some jazz; then, a little later, the news. She wasn't really listening, but suddenly the announcers voice intruded. "Pulitzer prize-winning author Alister Scarsdale is dead at the age of 41. The English-born author of Meeker Street and The Obdurate Season was vacationing in Vermont when he suffered a fatal heart attack—"

  Zan killed the radio. She didn't want to hear it. She knew he was dead; she had known from the moment his inert form was wheeled into the hospital. But no child is ever ready for the death of a parent. Her father had been part of her life from before she could remember. She couldn't accept that he was dead. It was too much like a dream—like many dreams. Only this time she wouldn't waken to his sarcastic call: "I suppose you're planning to sleep all day?"

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. He was dead. Dead, dammit! She ought to be sad. Why did this fury keep surging out of her core? "A temperamental, arrogant, selfish bastard!" she said aloud. The road blurred before her; she pulled over and stopped. She rested her head against one arm while her thin frame shook with her racking grief.

  It was the first time she'd been able to cry for him at all. Even now she wasn't sure whether she was crying for him or for herself, couldn't tell whether her tears were from grief for life snuffed out untimely or from anger at herself for all the things unsaid. There were a thousand things she hadn't said; a thousand times she'd bitten back reproaches to keep peace. With an upwelling of bitter tears, she remembered the time he had told Rolly that the best thing about Zan was that she knew how not to be a nuisance. That was pretty thin praise; but it was praise, and because she had so desperately wanted his approval, she had stifled her complaints. She had never told him how much she resented him for dragging her all over Europe and the States in the wake of his elusive muse, for preventing her from having a home and friends her own age. She had never told him how much she resented him for stealing her childhood. She had kept silent, afraid that if she began with reproaches, he would retaliate by telling her things she couldn't bear to hear: that he had never expected to be saddled with a toddler when his wife of three years was killed in an accident; that in fact he wished Zan had never been born.

  She had never told him any of this—coward!—and now it was too late. She had been afraid; she had hoped, like a child, that things would improve, that Dad would change, that he would somehow—suddenly, miraculously—understand what she needed without being told. She was planning to enter Harvard in the fall. She had believed that with four years in the same place she would be able, finally, to come to terms with him. Now… Now she would have to come to terms without him.

  Zan drew a shuddering deep breath. The slow exhalation was pocked by a couple of hiccupping gulps, but control was slowly returning. After a while she dug about in the glove compartment in search of the tissue. She blew her nose and mopped her eyes. If she stayed here too long, a trooper might stop, and she dreaded having to explain. She reached for the ignition key.

  She froze the motion before she turned the key. Instead, she got out of the car. Around her the mountains brooded, hunching their green shoulders. The air smelled of forest, of peace. She could see the thin trail of a train track, then a muddy twist of the Winooski, but across the highway the woods looked like another world. They were untouched, impossibly distant, utterly inaccessible: heaven. She contrasted the mountains with the thought of the press, gathered even now with her father's agent, Rolly Castleman, collecting scraps of Alister Scarsdale's life for their faceless readers. If the thought of explaining herself to a single trooper was daunting, acting normal for a pack of reporters was terrifying.

  Zan walked to the guardrail and sat down on it. The afternoon was quiet except for the chirrup of insects in the grass. There were no traffic noises, no human sounds at all. Acting on impulse she did not stop to analyze, Zan return to the car, took her Windbreaker out of the back seat, and closed the door slowly. She walked around the car to the driver's side, then, looking back down the empty track of highway, she crossed it. On the far side there wa
s a short, steep slope leading down to a shaded dell. The woods began beyond a little brook and stretched away forever. For a moment Zan hesitated, as if some saner part of herself were trying to reconsider. Then, with the defiant lift of her chin, she stepped over the railing. She went down the embankment without looking back.

  It was steeper than it looked. She slid the last ten feet, squelched through marshy spot, and hopped over the brook. As she moved onto drier ground, into the shadow of the trees, the silence of the woods swallowed her.

  TWO

  Zan walked. It took some effort to stay upright; ferny undergrowth hid downed limbs and the unevenness of the ground. The going was rough, and soon, even in the cool green shade of the forest, she was too warm. She was plagued by mosquitoes. Her steps slowed, finally stopping like a run-down clock. Reason tried to reassert itself. She looked over her shoulder at the trampled ferns in her wake. She was being stupid. She would go back, back to her car, the cottage, Rolly—and the reporters. Vividly, her mind presented an image of ants swarming around spilled ice cream on the sidewalk. No; she thrust the thought away with disgust. No reporters. Ignoring the cool, reasonable thought that told her to go back before she got lost, she went on.

  Gradually the woods changed. The trees grew larger, the shade deeper, the ferns sparser. The land rose under her feet; Zan climbed, heedless. After a particularly steep stretch, she sat down to rest. Her father's face rose in her mind. Her emotions uncoiled suddenly and grief surged up. Zan flung herself flat on the ground and gave herself up to tears. She cried herself to sleep.

  The cold woke her. The sun had slipped behind the shoulder of the hill and the forest was in murky shadow. Zan sat up. She huddled into her Windbreaker. Abruptly she realized she had only the vaguest notion of the way she had come. The memory of the woods, stretching limitlessly out along the interstate, filled her mind's eye. She imagined herself wandering in futile spirals until she dropped. Panic leered at her, made her breathless. She told herself that already people would be searching for her, but reason was a feeble defense against fear. The feelings she had kept in such tight control rebelled. She leapt to her feet and began to run headlong down the hill. She clipped a tree with one shoulder; it threw her off balance and her knee buckled. She fell, jouncing and rolling down the steep slope. She struck another tree and her world exploded into stars.

  Hearing returned first, hearing and pain. Her whole body ached. Zan lay still, listening to the faint twitter of birds. Slowly she realized there was light on the other side of her eyelids. She tried opening them and shut them hurriedly. The world lurched, and the drummer in her skull beat a thundering rhythm. But it was light—not dawn, morning. After a few minutes she tried again. This time she had better success. With care she could even focus on the ground before her, on the delicate moss forests beneath her nose, on her own scratched hand, six inches away; then, greatly daring, she moved her gaze to the pair of beaded leather shoes beyond her hand. There were feet in the shoes. She started up in surprise, only to drop back to the moss with a groan as dizziness flooded her skull. She must be imagining things—or dreaming. That was it. She would just lie here, quite still, until she really woke up.

  Then she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. A face was leaning over her, a thin, sharp-chinned face with wide brown eyes and a frown of concern. As the face began to move in sickening circles, Zan shut her eyes again.

  "Go away," she muttered. "You're a dream."

  But the hand didn't leave her shoulder, so after a while, gingerly, Zan rolled over and sat up. It took several moments, with her eyes shut and her head resting on her knees, before the world stopped whirling. Finally she opened her eyes and studied the dream that wouldn't go away. It was a girl, fine-boned and delicate, with an untidy tangle of curly brown hair. She was dressed very oddly, in a short tunic of rough-looking material over a pair of suede trousers. The girl studied Zan with her head cocked to one side like a sparrow, smiling tentatively. Zan smiled back.

  "Well, I guess you aren't a dream," Zan said at last. "I don't suppose you could show me how to get back to the highway?"

  A puzzled frown clouded the bright eyes.

  "Interstate 89," Zan added, struggling to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  The girl's puzzlement deepened.

  Zan suppressed a sigh. Though the girl looked eleven or twelve, she must be younger than that to be so perplexed.

  Zan tried a reassuring tone. "It's okay. I'm Zan and I'm lost. Maybe your parents can help me."

  The girl took Zan's hand and tugged gently.

  "You want me to come with you? Well, okay, I'll try. I don't feel too good, though." Zan struggled to her feet and look a step or two. "God, I'm all bruises," she muttered. But her legs worked. She limped along beside the strange girl. Suddenly the girl stopped, her face breaking into a smile. She pursed her lips and trilled a birdcall. There was an answering birdcall and a boy stepped into view. He was dressed like the girl, but he held a bow and, on his back, a quiver of arrows. Playing Indians, Zan thought with a twinge of envy over the care someone had taken with their costumes. The boy came over to her, staring especially at her red hair, then said something she didn't understand.

  "I beg your pardon," she said, before the truth dawned on her. He wasn't speaking a language she recognized, and she'd learned a number of them trailing through Europe after her father.

  The boy said something else. "I don't understand you," she said, her voice rising. "Don't you speak English?"

  He turned to the girl and spoke sharply. She shrugged and gestured rapidly. He shook his head, returning her shrug. Then he turned back to Zan and laid his right hand on his chest. "Karivet." Then he pointed to the girl. "Iobeh."

  Zan pointed to herself, playing along. "Zan."

  His eyebrows rose and he made a small motion as though to step back. "'Tsan," he repeated, then gestured with his head. Iobeh tugged on Zan's hand and they started walking again in the direction Karivet had indicated.

  "If you two are playing a joke on me," Zan said, "I hope your parents flay you."

  Iobeh turned to her, but Zan just shrugged. "Never mind." They walked for a long while. Zan had to stop to rest several times. Each time, Iobeh smiled and patted Zan's shoulder. Zan found the contact oddly comforting. As she struggled over the rough terrain, she alternated between a detached sort of lightheadedness and an insistent, thudding headache. She did not have much attention to spare for her surroundings. The whole situation seemed an elaborate practical joke.

  When they came out of the trees into sunlight, Zan halted, blinking in the brightness. They were on the side of a gentle hill that sloped down to a quiet valley with a river running through it. There were goats and sheep in the meadow, and farther away, between the river and the forest, an orderly cluster of small stone houses with thatched roofs. Beyond the houses, on the far side of the river, the forest began again.

  "Dear God," Zan whispered, her eyes wide as panic swooped up again. She spun around, desperately looking for escape, for anything that offered a hope of normality. The sudden movement was too much for her. There was a fierce roaring in her ears and her sight began to dim at the edges. She sat down, putting her head between her knees.

  The dizziness took a long time to subside. Zan felt Iobeh's hand on her shoulder; at first she wanted to shake it off, but the very idea of movement made her stomach heave. After several minutes she began to feel oddly calm, as though there were some external soothing influence. Part of her resisted it, but gradually she grew calmer. When the world had ceased spinning, she raised her head and got stiffly to her feet. Iobeh took her hand, and Karivet came to Zan's other side and took hold of her elbow. With both of them steadying her, they made their way into the village.

  The main thoroughfare led past small courtyards, each with a well at its center and bordered on three sides by houses. Orderly garden plots, only beginning to show signs of the vegetables they would bear, separated the houses. People, all dressed like Iob
eh and Karivet, worked in the gardens or wandered about the squares. Most of them stopped their work to gawk at Zan, and a few stood in their doorways, but no one spoke.

  The track ran through the village toward the river, then turned parallel to the river. Karivet and Iobeh guided Zan along it, through an orchard, until they reached a house set apart from the rest of the village. Karivet left them by the gate, went up the flagged path to the door, and knocked loudly. After several moments the door opened. Zan saw a tiny old woman framed by the doorway. She and Karivet spoke together softly and hurriedly. Finally she motioned them all inside.

  The main room of the cottage was dominated by a large loom. Zan stared at the work on the loom; it seemed so out of character for these homespun keepers of goats and sheep. The cloth was beautiful, with clear, bright blues, soft grays, and a fine texture. The pattern was subtle, drawing the eye into it. Zan kept trying comparisons in her mind without finding any to fit. Suddenly she realized the others were all looking at her.

  "I'm sorry." Gesturing to the loom, she added, "It's very beautiful."

  The old woman cocked her head curiously, then smiled at Zan. She waved at the loom, then pointed to Zan with a lift to her eyebrows.

  "Do I weave?" Zan asked, surprised. "No—but I wish I could." She remembered to shake her head "no" when the others looked at her blankly.

  The old woman shrugged. "'Tsan," she said with a sidelong glance at Karivet.

  Zan nodded.

  "Eikoheh Simirandeh," she said, indicating herself.

  Zan repeated the name hesitantly; the woman smiled.

  Then she turned to the others, spoke, and made rapid shooing motions. While Iobeh and Karivet moved into the far end of the room, Eikoheh took Zan by the arm, steered her to the window, and began examining the nylon fabric of her Windbreaker. Zan took it off and gave it to her, watching the old woman's surprise and excitement at the elasticized wrists and the zipper. Eikoheh then scrutinized the striped oxford cloth of Zan's shirt.