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.Kevla stared at the flat expanse of solid water.Most of it was covered with snow, and that part was indistinguishable from the land.But there were some places where the wind had cleared the surface, and there Kevla saw a deep, rich green.So beautiful, she thought.If only he could be seeing these marvels with me.“Here we are,” Mylikki said.Kevla dragged her gaze away from the green ice and saw what seemed to her to be a smaller version of one of the houses in the clearing.Mylikki tugged open the door and Kevla peered inside.There were no windows, indeed, the little building seemed to be well sealed.The interior was entirely black, and for a moment, Kevla thought that the place had been burned.She looked back at Mylikki and shook her head, trying to communicate her lack of understanding.“This is the stonesteaming hut,” Mylikki said, as if that explained everything.Kevla shook her head, still not understanding.“Hmm,” Mylikki said, chewing on her lower lip.“I thought when you heated the stone, you knew about it.How to explain…long ago, our ancestors designed the stonesteaming huts.They’re made of wood and we seal them up well.We light a fire to heat up several stones, just like you did earlier.When they’re hot, we bring them inside and pour water on them to create steam.It feels good—very warming, very cleansing, and very relaxing.”She pointed.Kevla could now see a cluster of rocks sitting in the fire pit.“It takes a long time, almost all day, to get the stones hot.And with so few people left, we don’t stonesteam as often as we would like.But this place means more than just comfort to us.”Mylikki spoke of a sacred place of birth and death, a place of community, where the seasonal changes were celebrated by ritual both practical and meaningful.Kevla nodded as the other girl spoke.She felt the power of the place as she stepped gingerly inside.“Careful,” said Mylikki.“The benches are safe to sit on, but don’t touch the walls or ceilings, or you’ll get all sooty.”Kevla, who had been just about to do precisely that, nodded and kept her hands in close.To her surprise, the wooden benches, as Mylikki had promised, yielded no soot to the touch.Their surface was a rich, shiny black, as if somehow the soot had been sealed and baked into the wood.She looked at the stones in the center of the hut.Gathering up her rhia so she didn’t accidentally brush any soot with it, Kevla squatted beside the stones and extended a hand.Pleasure was warm inside her.In her effort to connect with these people without speech, she had inadvertently stumbled upon something they cherished: the ability to heat stone.Heat, she mentally instructed.The stone obeyed.Kevla touched another, and another, until all the stones were putting out a great deal of heat.Mylikki stood in the doorway, her hands to her mouth.Her blue eyes were wide with shock.“It is hard to believe,” she whispered.“Even when I see you do this with my own eyes.” She suddenly grinned.“Maybe we should have tried to befriend your people long ago.”Kevla again wondered just what they thought she was.She got to her feet, dusted off her hands, and smiled.“Thank you, Kevla.You don’t know what this means to us.It’s been so long….” She blinked hard, and Kevla saw tears in the blue eyes.Quick tears of sympathy sprang to Kevla’s own brown ones.Well did she know how it was to live a harsh existence with few luxuries.She recalled a girl who loved to swim in the cool caverns of the House of Four Waters, and how that simple indulgence restored her.If the stonesteaming made Mylikki and the others happy, then it was as good a use of her Dancer’s abilities as any she could think of.And despite Gelsan’s dismissal of Mylikki’s request, the place clearly represented far more than simply a place to relax.Mylikki cleared her throat.“Let’s go get the others.”Within the next few minutes, several of the women who had not so long ago been eyeing Kevla with suspicion now clustered around the stonesteaming hut.Mylikki filled a bucket with snow, which she placed inside near the hot stones.Kevla’s eyes went wide with shock as the women quickly divested themselves and stepped, quite naked, into the building.They handed their clothes to one of the younger girls, who carefully wrapped them into small bundles and put them into a large sack.Mylikki, whose pale skin and rosy breasts looked to Kevla like something out of a storyteller’s tale, noticed her discomfiture.“If you don’t want to participate, it’s all right, but I think you’ll enjoy it.It’s thanks to you that we have this at all.It would mean much to us if you shared this with us.”Kevla looked at the dozen or so women, all fair-haired, all pale-fleshed, sitting on the benches and talking quietly.They were thin…so very thin.She could clearly see the outlines of ribs underneath their pale breasts.Kevla swallowed, knowing that it would be a good gesture to join them, her own cheeks hot at the thought of being naked in front of so many strangers.When she had been a handmaiden to the khashima, she had slept in a room with the other women.And she had often enjoyed a bath in the caverns that made the Clan of Four Waters the envy of all other clans.But she had worn a sleeping rhia at night, and timed her visits to the caverns when she could be alone.To disrobe in front of so many—She forced a smile and tugged off the rhia.The women fell silent and Kevla’s blush deepened as she realized they were scrutinizing her body, with its bronze skin and dark-tipped breasts, as she had earlier scrutinized theirs.I suppose I ought to be grateful there isn’t mixed stonesteaming, she thought.I could be sitting naked with everyone in the village.Mylikki moved over so Kevla had a place to sit.Gingerly, Kevla perched on the bench.Gelsan pulled the door closed, and suddenly the only light came from the glowing stones [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]