The Judgment of the Ice Mother

Judgment of the Ice Mother...Jean Buckhalter, June 2001
From The Herrien Series by Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog. If you copy, please give us credit and don't change anything, use it in your own writing or otherwise steal.

N'enyara looked within the girl child sleeping on the furs, tear stains still showing on the pale cheeks, the frost white hair kissed by winter sun with the dried blood matting it against her head. She controlled the sudden, hot flash of rage against the one who did this to the child, breathing deeply to regain her center and not let her anger contaminate the child. Down, down, down she slid deeply into G'zelda, slipping easily past the surface girl, past the usual thoughts a person thinks shameful and wants to hide even from self, deeper and deeper into her, looking within on a cellular level.

"Gifted, strongly yes…"She murmured, knowing every word would be heard by the other Wise of the Tribe who had gathered.”Her body will heal in time, but the channels carrying the majority of her Gift are blocked." N'enyara pressed gently against the channels with ghostly psi fingers, withdrawing as she saw that it was not possible to open them at that time. Again she controlled her anger at the animal that had raped the child, beating her to unconsciousness. "The skull is not fractured, but there is bruising of the brain below. It will need to be monitored closely for the next two eight days." Gently she probed with her mind past the torn open womanhood of the eight turnings child, seeking the holiest spot, where life is held, and sighed, finding no permanent damage, for children were the life and soul of the Tribe.

N'enyara came from trance after setting sleep more deeply upon the child, letting her sleep past the initial pain of her attack and turned to the other Wise and the Council of Elders present observing. "Her Gift shines brightly but is blocked. We do not have the skill here to heal her mind and open her Gift." Still partially in trance, N'enyara placed her hand on the girl's forehead gently, assuring herself that she still slept deeply. "You have the animal who did this?"

D'aan, the Chief of the Eldest grunted, pointing with his head to the other room. "The brother of her father. We have him. Her brother will also need to be monitored." N'enyara's nostrils flared and she breathed deeply commanding her body to silence, not noticing how her hand had crept to the sharpened bone knife around her neck.

She forced herself to speak calmly, "The boy as well?" D'aan nodded silently, noting her hand on the bone knife and considering permitting the Guide to take the animal's life.

"The parents did not know. The Tribe did not know. He had threatened to take B'ren's sister's life and his parent's lives if the boy spoke." D'aan shrugged. "B'ren heard her scream in his mind while fishing with his father and they ran to her to find the animal using her and beating her head with a stone."

N'enyara contained the sudden flash of nausea through her body, speaking but two words, "Tribal law?"

D'aan nodded once.

"I will monitor the boy, he is how old? Then when G'zelda is well enough I will take them back to Herrien with me where the Mind Healer will work with them both and perhaps, in time, their Gifts will manifest fully."

The Council Elders and Wise nodded as one. D'aan spoke again, "B'ren is twelve turnings. The animal has used him for three. The tribe will send them with honor, furs and goods. They will not go as beggars to the School."

"When do you take him to the ice?" N'enyara planned to keep both children deeply under while the animal was given the sentence of the Tribe to spare them this pain as well.

"On the sun's setting."

Hannan spoke, the Eldest of the Wise. "I will do the castration myself, cleanly and without letting the animal bleed to death." Her face was lined with the wrinkles of age, hair like frost in twin braids with their decorations of carved wood and bone braided in falling over her shoulders.

N'enyara thought of the words within Hannan's words and nodded once in approval. The animal would be carefully and skillfully castrated and not allowed to bleed to death and lead to the ice, where he would be abandoned without furs, food, or water, without knife or flint, alone with his crime, the ice broken free from the rest and pushed out into the Great Salt Sea. The Wise would send into his mind all the children's terror and pain and horror. If he were fortunate, he would die of this. If not, there was always the cold and pitiless judgment of Ice Mother.