The Black Chalice by Marie Jakober Page A

no talisman, no stone, no magic thing at all, only flesh and blood and bones, no different from the animals he killed for food. And then he was more bitter still, bitter because he’d loved a creature of so little worth, and bitter too because she was gone, for now he had no wife to comfort him, and no one to care for his children.
    He went back to his house, and told the children their mother no longer wanted them, and had gone away. They were not easily convinced, but having told one lie against her he found it easy to tell others, and in time they all lost faith in her, all except the youngest daughter.
    This girl, who was called Maris, went every day to the forest searching for her mother. For years she searched, gathering up the pieces of her mother’s body, which had been scattered by wild beasts and by time. When she had found them all, she placed them in a splendid urn made of clay, and took them to the bottom of the valley, and hid them in a cave. And from this urn grew an apple tree, and barley, and every kind of flower; in the spring lambs would leap over its dark edges, and in the fall it would be spread about with nuts. When the girl was not there to tend it, the veelas took up her task, making certain the urn was never harmed and never found. And so the girl brought home to her father and her kindred all manner of good things, more than they could eat, and what they could not eat she gave to strangers and to the gods.
    Then her eldest brothers took counsel among themselves, and asked themselves how she could find all these things, even when it was winter. They resolved to follow her. With great skill and stealth they eluded even the veelas, and went back and told their father what they had seen.
    Our sister has a magic urn hidden in a cave, they said. Consider, father, what paltry use she makes of it, and what we could do if this urn were ours! For if it makes grain and milk and every other common thing, then surely it would make gold, and everything it makes we could sell. With such wealth and power we would soon be kings.
    Only the youngest brother argued with them, for he loved his sister dearly. She had found the urn herself, he said, so surely it was hers. And she shared everything with them— was that not good enough? But he was very young, scarcely more than a boy, and no one listened to him. The old man told his sons: Yes, go and take the urn, for we are men, and wiser, and we will use it better.
    And so they armed themselves with spears, and made the long journey deep into the valley. The veelas went to Maris then, and warned her: You must come now, your kinsmen are coming to steal away the urn. And Maris wept, for she knew she could never go home again, or see her little brother any more. I cannot go, she said, leaving nothing good behind me. She tore out a single branch from the sacred urn, and left it on the ground, so life would come again to the vale of Dorn. So there would always be a memory of the winter tree.
    They fled then, Maris and the golden veelas, deep into the forests of Helmardin, weaving behind themselves such magic that no one, even to this day, can find their hiding place. Behind them as they fled, all the land turned to winter, and the winds came down like death. The brothers found themselves walking in snow, in their summer garments and with no food, and they never returned again to their father.
    * * *
    When the tale was finished and I looked up, the nine bearers of the Chalice, the old women in silver samite, had placed it again on its bier and were bearing it towards us. It was shimmering as with marsh lights, and utterly terrible— ugly and beautiful at once, both living and full of death. Everyone at the table stood up then, as if in the presence of a god — myself just like the others — and bowed their heads.
    The lady of Helmardin spoke into absolute silence.
    “This is what your poets seek, men of the Reinmark: the Grail of Life, which is the loins of woman, the seed