Dhuni, Murderess of Mountains

Finale Doshi-Velez

T he echo of her sons’ footsteps reach her via the bones of the earth, bursting from the steppe grass stubble like sulfur from smelt – and about as welcome.

It’s been eighteen years, and Dhuni does not want them here. She imagines a rockslide that forces them to a more distant pass. The familiar itch grows in her palms, and she quenches the temptation by sinking it into the metal stock in her hand. The grains jump into instant alignment.

Inara, her daughter, her apprentice, brings her hammer down. The clang jars in a forge full of clangs and clatters. The new boy’s shoulders tense, and though Dhuni has smithed for decades, she finds her shoulders are tense too: the echos of her sons’ footfalls approach, as loud as the clangs of the forge, as inexorable as the contractions that bore them.

“That’s strange.” Inara frowns at the stock. Dhuni snaps each of the thousands of grains back to their original angles. If only all mistakes could be undone so easily.

Inara strikes the stock again. “Nevermind. You’re just not holding it steady.”

Her daughter is right. Magically aligning the stock in a moment of flustered desperation is not holding steady. “I owe you a cleaning shift for that.”

Inara rolls her eyes. “It’s okay mother, no one is perfect.”

Dhuni’s eyes dart to russet-veined Mount Kubir beyond. There is a sheer cliff where its lesser peak used to be – her doing, her wrong. The shadow of its cracked summit covers the imperial camp, but it cannot shade footsteps that are heard, not seen, and even then, heard directly in the bone, in the bell-chamber of the belly, in the heart broken, mended, and now, too likely to break again.

I’m sure you hear their footsteps, Kubir. Do you hear my daughter too? She is wiser than both of us.

S he focuses on each of Inara’s strikes. She follows the circle of her stroke, admires not only its sweep but the muscle her daughter seems to collect as easily as adding clay to a doll. She presses the metal against the anvil as flush as a sweat-soaked sleeve on skin. She tells herself that perhaps her sons will simply speak to the captain and then continue on, up until they are standing by the forge.

“Mother?” It is Izeh; he must remember making his own circles, his own hammer strikes.

“Izeh?” She looks beside him. “And Reza? Truly?” Her surprise is feigned, of course, but when they embrace she finds the joy is real.

Their chins graze her temple. Their chests rise and fall against her cheek. Their pepper-breath clings in her hair, and she remembers that fateful morning when she had folded three stuffed flatbreads into a kerchief the color of the dust, two for Izeh and one for little Reza, and bade them search for wild peppers. Izeh’s footsteps were nimble as a jackrabbit’s; Reza’s the toddle of a tumbleweed. She cannot recall if they had worn sandals or scampered off barefoot. She only remembers seeing the dust of imperial horses coming into the valley and shouting for the children to stay in the hills.

“We were seeking the new pass,” explains Izeh, “from when that earthquake flattened Mount Kubir’s lesser peak onto an imperial legion.”

“Some merchants claim ghosts of the soldiers haunt the way,” adds Reza. “But thank the gods that we still came, for it has brought us to you.”

Her gaze goes again to russet-veined Kubir. She knows it is not the gods that brought them, nor the gods who will try to take them.

Tears bud then, in the corners of her eye, and unlike the stone-hard cushion plants budding on Kubir’s mountainside, these budding tears fall.

Ever-stalwart Izeh hands her a kerchief of cloth finer than anything she has worn at a Solstice, much less to dab tears from a face that befriends dust like a crushed passionfruit befriends flies.

They embrace again.

Kubir’s summit hangs over them like a grave marker, but in this moment, they are together and alive. Perhaps, she thinks, I can keep them here. Perhaps, we will be happy.

Inara is fidgeting, and suddenly Dhuni realizes the silence, and not just the lack of footsteps. The apprentices have found quiet tasks, sweeping charred metal from the anvil, adjusting the coals. She takes Inara’s hand, puts Izeh and Reza’s on top. “Your half-brothers, Inara,” she says, and to them, “Your half-sister.”

Reza’s brow goes up, but Izeh picks up Inara and spins her around. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

Reza, the youngest no more, embraces Inara stiffly. His gaze is on the pass left by the fallen peak.

She follows his gaze. Her grown sons may walk as steady as the mules they lead, but she knows that they too are being led. She extends her senses through her toes, into the earth. Kubir, I’m not the person who I once was. Let it go. Let them go.

No answer, never an answer. She turns to her sons. “Please,” she says, “will you stay awhile?”

T hey do not refuse. They are good sons, she thinks, bless the gods who raised them when I could not.

They tie their mules and unload their packs. She does not know how everyone and everything will fit in her two-room house, but they do not complain at the sight of walls that leave gaps against the uneven ground. A roof, a mother, a family – it is enough.

She shows them to the back room, and Izeh suddenly kneels by the traditional altar she has in the corner, a few medallions on burlap smudged with incense and stained by offerings of berries. “Did you make these, mother?’’

She nods. There is one for the ancestors, of course, passed down for generations. And three etched with their names – Izeh, Reza, Inara – in flowing imperial calligraphy but which secretly form the ancient logos for love and safety, their people’s glyph for home.

“And this last one?” Izeh is frowning at the final medallion. His lips attempt to knead out the meaning behind the tangle of glyphs that spell the name of Kubir’s flattened child. “Haa-rish-it?”

Hrishita, she thinks. Bringer of joy, except no more.

“I just wanted to make something pretty,” she says weakly, because some truths are too hard to tell.

“It is pretty,” says Izeh. He is looking from the medallions to her and back again. “They’re… I’ve been many places… this is exquisite. You made these for us!’’

“Who else but you?’’ she says, and they embrace all over again. For years she has taken comfort in the sound of their distant footsteps, knowing they were still alive. Now she hears the beating, the aliveness, of Izeh’s heart. And sees, out of the corner of her eyes, Reza’s restlessness.

He hovers over his account books, over their bolts of cloth that are too fine for the soldiers here. He interleaves the cloth with fresh cedar, covers the bolts more tightly. Cities breed moths and silverfish of all kinds, and military camps breed more than most.

“Open it just once?’’ asks Inara. “All the way?’’

She has spied the delicate neck of an embroidered peacock, shimmering resplendent blues and bejeweled greens never seen under Kubir’s russet dust. Reza scowls, but Izeh gives her a scrap of silk. The girl has worked iron and bronze and even silver, but she has never touched anything so fine. She brushes it over her cheek, her forearm, her ankles as if needing to experience this novelty with her whole body.

In the end, she cannot settle on where to keep it and gives it back. Izeh laughs. “Maybe one day you will come to the capital with us. And then you will see wonders that will put this scrap to shame.’’

Dhuni follows Inara’s gaze to the jagged pass.

“Not now,” she says sharply, too sharply. “Our family has been separated too long.”

S o long, she is not quite sure how to be with these grown sons. She knows how children grow from the breast to the lap to curled under an arm with their heads back over the breast where they began, but after that, it is a void. All she knows is that she cannot bear the thought of losing them again. “I’ll request extra rations,’’ she says. “I will make you pan-fried sweets.’’

“Like you did for guests?’’ laughs Izeh. “We are your children.’’ He puts his arm around her, because he is the taller one now, and places his other palm next to hers. Reza sits on the ground at their feet, shelling peas while his shoulder grazes her knee.

“You still deserve a feast,’’ she says.

“You deserve the feast,’’ says Izeh. “Trade has been good to us, mother. It is time for us to treat you.’’

“And me?’’ asks Inara.

“Of course,’’ says Izeh. His smile spans the whole of his face, from his dimples to the creases around his eyes to his wide brow, like the constellations span the sky. He nods to the wrapped bolts. “You’ll have the finest tunic in town for the Solstice. Kerchiefs for your hair too.’’

Dhuni notices then that Izeh has been idly fingering the hem of her tunic. Counting threads, marking the uneven stitches. But he could become a blacksmith again, she thinks.

“We’ll come back for the Solstice,’’ says Reza.

No, she thinks, you won’t. “Settle here. The garrison needs more smiths.’’ Her gaze catches on Reza’s smooth hands; he was the one she hoped would go to school, and it seems somehow he did. “Scribes too. We can be together.’’

“We have our goods,’’ says Izeh, “and the mules. There is something enchanting about the open road.’’

Someone enchanting, she thinks. And they will kill you. Because of my foolishness.

A week passes. The captain visits. Her sons are hard workers, they insist on assisting the garrison in addition to paying the captain. So he does not begrudge the extra mouths, nor the mouths of their mules. Reza has taken to the captain’s scribe-work like copper takes to tin, and Izeh is humble enough to work the bellows for apprentices half his age.

“I wish they were mine,’’ the captain says, with a sideways glance at Inara. Dhuni raises an eyebrow, and he brings his gaze back to her. “The Tarfa pass. There was an earthquake there.’’

She knows. “How much damage?”

“We don’t think there were any caravans in the pass,” he says, “but it will take weeks to clear.”

He comes closer. He thinks he is being subtle, he thinks it appears that he is inspecting the work as he lets his fingers graze hers. She opens her palm to him; cups her thumb just enough to touch his knuckle. She knows that everyone sees, but it is a small price for the safety and comfort of her children. Hardly a price, she amends, to be a favorite of any captain, and this captain has no fleas and loves to hear her point out her people’s constellations. He has a lady wife in the capital, and she respects him all the more for telling her so. Other officers have husbands and wives in every village.

His face turns grave as he nods to the new boy, the one whose shoulders are always tense. “He got into a scrape with one of my soldiers last night. It doesn’t seem like her eye will heal.’’

If they take the boy’s eye as punishment, he will not advance beyond bellows-work. “Surely a mistake can be forgiven,’’ she says, and suddenly she is not just speaking of him. “Surely his future service is worth more than his eye.”

The captain smiles. “You were always soft.’’

Stupid, she thinks, foolish. She flounders for words. “Maybe it is right for him to offer his eye for the soldier’s. But you do not have to take it. You can be merciful. You can realize that taking his sight will not bring back hers.”

“The logics of your people are always fascinating,” he says. There is a tone in his voice that gives her hope, for the new boy. If only hope for her children could come so easily.

He slides a hand down her back. “Shall we inspect the armory?’’

She returns with suppers from the officer’s mess. Reza compares an imperial star chart to his own, his lips working through the calculations as he aligns their predictions. For once, he does not seem to miss his accounts.

Izeh sits with Inara. She has looped string between her fingers, rolls the string under and over with thumbs that have smithing burns just like her brother’s. Izeh picks out the net, she picks it back. The next round, he drops a finger and the tangle of knots fall out into one, simple loop. Inara laughs, and he does too. “Our cloth can wait,’’ he says, “We’re staying.’’

Two simple words. It is the unwinding of the knots in Dhuni’s heart.

"A pair of threes,’’ says Reza, knowing he has lost.

Dhuni slaps down her cards. “A string of four, starting at seven!’’ She starts gathering the pebbles to keep score.

“Not so fast,’’ says Inara. “An ace, no one defeats the emperor!’’

Izeh laughs as Dhuni groans playfully and pushes over the pile. She is tempted to keep one of the pebbles cupped under her hand, like when she performed magic tricks as a girl. But Izeh sweeps the pile across too fast.

Inara deals the next round. Reza brings out a bottle of wine hidden among the carefully wrapped bolts, and even Inara gets as much as she wants. Dhuni lets her hand fall casually on Reza’s, and he gives it a squeeze.

Inara wins again, because Izeh sneaks her aces; Reza rolls his eyes but smiles. Smiles wider when Dhuni sneaks him her own aces with a giggle. How long has it been since she has laughed? Dhuni does not know and does not care, she is too busy pilfering another ace from the discard pile to give away. Inara sees, and then everyone laughs once more.

“And now,’’ says Izeh, pulling out a parcel he has kept wrapped behind him all evening. “For you, mother.’’

“Me?’’

Izeh nods to the sky lit with two full moons. “Did you think we would forget your birthday?’’

Dhuni opens the parcel and draws out a silk purse, embroidered with emerald phoenixes so alive that one might think they would fly away in the flicker of the lamplight. “It’s beautiful,’’ she breathes, “but where will I use something as fancy as this?’’

“No more beautiful than the prayer medallions you cast and etch,’’ says Izeh.

Dhuni fetches the medallions. She clears the ground, then spreads the medallions atop the purse. Silver lines and emerald thread catch the light. They sit close, all admiring the most beautiful thing they have ever seen, being the most beautiful thing they have ever been.

The past might be written in stone, thinks Dhuni, but the present is light as air.

T he forge is at full clamor when Reza arrives. Even the new boy is hammering, though his back is stiff from the whipping and his eyes – both of them – heavy from nights tending the now one-eyed soldier’s wound. “The captain said there has been another earthquake. Not far from Polchi. The messenger pigeon came while I was scribing.’’ He squats over a borrowed map, tracing the line from Tarfa to Polchi. “Two earthquakes off the main shake-lines within six weeks. What a coincidence.’’

It is not a coincidence.

Those who claim stone is patient do not know stone.

“And?’’ asks Dhuni, a catch in her throat. “Injuries?’’

“Only a few,’’ says Reza, “but many of the farming terraces were destroyed.”

Reza is sucking his finger while he stares at the map; Inara and Izeh are busy smithing. Quietly, she presses her palm to the ground. Flattening an army did not bring my husband and neighbors back, she says. I did wrong. I hurt you and yours. But these quakes, my children’s deaths, will not make you whole.

"P lay again?’’ Inara holds out her string to Izeh. As they trade the string back and forth, Inara tells him how to improve his arrowheads.

Izeh’s eyes twinkle. “You are a smart one. Maybe I should be your apprentice.’’

“And I can be yours. You and Reza can teach me about cloth and mules and maps,’’ says Inara. “I’ve never left the camp walls.’’

This time Izeh’s glance is sharper. He is counting the idle hours with tops and cards and string, never wandering in the foothills among the camp’s sheep and goats. “Not even to gather wild peppers?’’

“We’ve been content,’’ says Dhuni, firmly, before Inara can say more. She brings out their unit’s dried moong and a few trays. “Time to sift out the sand.’’

“And the weevils,’’ adds Inara, dropping one on Reza’s arm. He jerks up from yet another map.

They have just gotten settled when the captain arrives, eyes red. At the sight of Inara, his eyes bud fresh tears. “A landslide by the provincial capital. It wasn’t that bad, only a few houses destroyed, but—” he chokes. “My daughter. She’s dead.’’

Her chest is metal tightening when quenched too quickly. “Captain.’’

“I saw her four years ago, when she was seven.’’ He looks again at Inara, and then covers his face.

She guides him to his quarters. Helps him light a lamp and burns incense for his daughter’s soul. He weeps, and she weeps with him.

For unlike Kubir, her heart is not stone.

T he din of thousands of footsteps climbing Kubir’s lesser peak startle her awake, but she knows she’s waking into a dream. She’s in her bunk, long before the new captain, before Inara.

She rushes to a friend on the night watch. “What’s happening?” In her dream the words echo across the valley, deafening, though back then her voice was strangled, desperate for evidence to deny the truth she feels in her bones as her friend—yes, a friend, because he does not ask how she knows—replies that the rebels in Polci will be routed by morning. His word: rebel; this friend, he’s forgotten they are her people.

She trembles, and barely keeps the earth from trembling with her. She held back when the imperials conscripted her husband. She held back when they razed her village.

She does not hold back now.

She finds a spot where the double peaks are clearly haloed by a hidden moon. Hands on the earth, she is the earth. The veins of ore become her veins. She flexes her biceps, and boulders bulge. She creases her palms, and crevasses erupt under the soldiers’ feet. Their panicked scramble feels like ants scurrying on her skin. She sheds a layer of strata, sending half the legion tumbling. She’s too far to hear the screams, but she feels a surge of satisfaction as distress flares wink in the distance. How many of her people have these imperials killed? An eye for an eye, she will crush them all.

And then she feels a resistance.

No. She raises a hand up from the ground and brings it around in a powerful circle that strikes the tender connection between the two peaks. More resistance, distraught, but she is both stone and smith. She shakes off the soldiers’ frantic fingers; their desperate limbs find no purchase as she tears down the lesser peak crag by crag. After a lifetime of bowing to others, she is unstoppable. She is—

A fool, interjects her dream self. But it is too late: the moon shines bright through the fresh gap of the flattened peak.

She wakes, heart pounding, as dawn slices through the pass.

None of the imperials suspected a gift could be so strong, but Kubir knew who had gloried in killing their child. Her past alloys her present; her blood-debt is written in russet veins of stone.

S he no longer laughs when Izeh sneaks her cards. When Inara’s fingers brush against hers as they sort dried beans, she barely holds back tears. Is this dullness supposed to make the parting easier? As Reza checks the loaded mules, she cannot claim that it does. All she knows is that, just like the new boy, she must offer what justice supposedly requires.

Yet, as the new boy holds her stock steady, studying the circle of her stroke with two healthy eyes, she wonders: Is vengeance in kind truly all she knows? All there is?

Local customs are discouraged at imperial shrines, but still heavy in his grief the captain does not balk when she attempts to placate the vengeful mountain spirit by placing the medallion with their child Hrishita’s name on the central altar, nor when she asks Izeh and Inara to make more medallions to leave at shrines along the way. Ever-precise Reza copies down the calligraphy to commission onto silks.

“If you must go,” she says, “stay true to our roots. Respect and honor the mountain spirits, both standing and fallen, and teach others to do the same.”

They head to the pass then, her sons, chattering about how they will be back once they make their trades, about the sun and the wind, about the sweets they will bring back for the Solstice and the shrines they will build. Inara runs around both of them, fingering the straps, petting the mules, sometimes just jumping in place with excitement: Does the market town have one gate or two or four? Are there smiths there? And what are all these fruits you keep mentioning?

Dhuni watches until she can no longer see the dust kicked up by their mules, until she can no longer see the sparkle of the silver-threaded scarf that Izeh has given to Inara. She listens to the sound of their eager footsteps, rising up beneath her again. Her palms itch. Even now, she could block the pass. She could force them back. But there is a thoughtfulness in Kubir’s silence that gives her hope. She presses her hands to the earth.

Let my children walk where your child once stood.

Let them, let us, heal you with our service.

It’s you who can be merciful.

Thanks for reading - but we’d love feedback! Let us know what you think of Dhuni, Murderess of Mountains at Bluesky.

Mythaxis is forever free to read, but if you'd like to support us you can do so here (but only if you really want to!)