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Hollow Hills
Joy K. Hoffman
That evening a hard salt wind blew up off
the ocean, making the heather whistle and
murmur. It blew the fresh blood stiff on war-
rior faces, blew the smell of death from the
bodies of the slain. The sky shone a luminous,
transparent purple, like the skin of a fresh
~ine grape. Dragon-crested shields glinted
m the dying light; the mottled colors of the
other tribes rested in shadows.
He had won, against all odds, he had won.
T~e Pendragon banner snapped with the
wind, untouched. His soldiers slept the
dreamless sleep of heroes, sprawled in their
armor .on the harsh grass of the northern plain.
The .wmd tangled sandy hair across his vision
~s h~ eyes thirstily drank in the twilight, soak-
mg in the meadow and the ocean. Weariness
and victory tugged at his limbs; the ocean and
~ky ~anced giddily in his eyes. When the fad-
mg light was at last absorbed into the upward
curve of the dusk, he staggered back to his
tent.
S~e watched his coming with a fierce pro-
tectiveness, relighting the candles that had
burned low. He parted the canvas lips of the
tent, coming closer into the thin circle of flick-
ering candle flame. She saw the blood by his
eyes and his mouth, and her heart twisted.
Like crimson runes were his wounds,
scrawled on his magnificent face, inscrutable,
that would dim into thin white scars with the
passage of years. But she would not give him
that time. .
S.heseemed to him ancient and mysterious,
hair black like ravens or a moonless night. He
he.ld her dark eyes with his own, felt some-
thmg beat in the air between them.
Unexpectedly, he straightened before her, as
he had stood before the vast indigo darkness
of th.e coming night. He stood so young and
free in front of her that her blood sang in her
veins like the sea. Other men, on other nights,
would never be to her what he was: her
brother, her only match in splendor. Draw-
ing near to one another felt like coming home,
like a terrible awesome joy. Two wicks on the
same candle, their eyes blazed, consuming
twice as quickly all the other had to give. How
long could they both remain whole? Pulled
to her by something stronger than his own
will, he felt himself go to his knees before her.
When he dropped his sword into the carpets
at her feet, he felt as if his arm were cut in two
and he had forgotten how to use his fingers.
She laughed, lilting and tragic like the calls of
sea birds. "Ever a warrior," she whispered to
him, taking his hand and reteaching his fin-
gers how to move.
His voice stuck in his throat. With the battle-
strength he had just learned, he held her to
his shoulder, smelled the fern-sweetness of her
hair. If he had knows his sister as she lay be-
side him, he would not have moved as he did.
He would not put on that knowledge, though,
no matter how deeply he searched.
They moved together like birds in flight. In
the midst of her tempest, it anchored, the tiny
grain of ache that would grate and grate until
she pushed it from herself and held her boy-
child to the world. That boy-child who would
carry her brother's doom in his hands.
The candle burned to a molten lump, then
flickered out. Sliding into darkness in the
wake of another flood of passion, he whis-
pered her name, as he would never whisper
anot her ''s'.M orgam. e ... /I
Watching his mouth curve around the shape
of her name, she blinked to stop salt tears from
forming. Everyone must die, some time, death
inexorable like the pull of the tide. The sides
of the tent strained against the night wind and
they slept to the rough music of the ocean.
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