Meliu

by L. James Rice

  “Right.” He gave the animal a hard look before crawling onto the pony’s back, less familiar with riding than she was, but once settled he looked the part. “And uh, just where the hells are we going?”

  She glanced to the gates, noting they were open, and heeled her gelding. “Didn’t they tell you anything?”

  “When High Priest Woxlin steps to my guard post and tells me there’s two casks of ale on a pony waiting for me… Well, I stopped listening after that.” She laughed, but the man’s love for ale reminded her of another monk; her laughter faded as she pondered on Tokodin’s fate. The odds of surviving a week in the mountains after a Colok attack, well, Tokodin’s dice were never that lucky. Not for him at least.

  They rode beneath the gates and within a flicker after they passed gears ground and iron portcullis lowered behind them. With moonlight, the road ahead was clear enough they wouldn’t skid down its cliffs.

  They rode in silence until Jinbin caught up and reined in beside her. “We’re riding into the night and rumor speaks of the Wakened Dead to the north. Some say it’s how you almost lost your face.” His voice betrayed his nerves with a fidget in its tone.

  She didn’t know how much to say. “Yeah. The Wakened. Worse. But no worries, monk. We’re headed south all the way to the Fost.” She smiled, knowing the way of men enough to know she’d comfort him with this single glance. “And the quicker we get there, the quicker we get to enjoy the ale.”

  “A ride to the Fost. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Would you like a list?”

  His head bobbed. “No, I don’t need the particulars.”

  They laughed and rode, and Meliu learned much of brewing she never knew, nor cared to know, but the monk’s words were a helpful distraction from darker thoughts. Wheat, barley, hops, oats, and honey. Her mind glazed over, paying little attention except to nod now and again.

  They passed through the steepest foothills leading from Istinjoln and into the rolling hills beyond by the middle of the night. It was cold, their breaths puffing in front of their faces, but prayer heated their bodies and spirits. The monk had fallen silent, and the world was at peace except for the clop of hooves and the occasional hoot of an owl, or the rarer bobcat’s scream.

  She swayed in the saddle staring at the bright stars above when it came: A sensation like a puff of air down the back of her neck, straight through her robes, that spread chills to the tips of her toes.

  There was a faint sound as if the world sighed.

  The ponies nickered and skipped in their steps, prancing toward a trot or faster without reins holding them back. “Easy, sweet boy. Easy.” She rubbed the pony’s mane, memories of a similar pulse from the Shrine of Burdenis shredding her every sense of security. The night became darker and it terrified her to look back. But terror didn’t stop her.

  Beyond the horizon, where Istinjoln must sit, a beam of light rose into the sky. She followed its trail to the heavens to find a star that shouldn’t be.

  “When the eye of the Fire Lion burns…”

  Jinbin’s voice was hoarse. “Was that on your list?”

  “No. But it is now.” She turned in the saddle and with the barest nudge her gelding broke into a trot. Her biceps burned as she held the poor beast’s energy at bay, preventing it from breaking into a cantor.

  Jinbin first trailed behind, but the keg pony lurched, bucked, and drug he and his mount ahead. The casks bounced against the animal’s ribs as Jinbin’s left arm stretched to hold on to the rope. With his right, he clung to rein and mane to keep his ass in the saddle. “Shit! What d’you think this’ll do to the ale?”

  And against all reason she laughed.

  3

  Pretty Bird Flying

  Let your enemy know you. Convince your enemy they know you. Reinforce that they know you. Bleed them with their mistaken knowledge of you; the moment the enemy realizes they never knew you at all, take their head in victory.

  —Codex of Sol

  Meliu wasn’t unused to being horseback; a priest who trained ponies had been keen on her since she’d turned sixteen. But the freedom on the road was a sensation she’d never experienced while riding circles in the courtyard. The sun shone, and compared to the foothills, the weather was pleasant. A comfortable breeze rustled the leaves of trees in the midst of shifting to oranges and reds, and there weren’t more than a handful of travelers on the road to worry her. The song of snow buntings and the twitter of pipits escorted them south as she breathed deep and took in the details of the world around her.

  She’d never understood tranquility before.

  The beam of light and its terror three nights ago had faded into the back of her mind. Her heart would race now and again when her wits reminded of the evil behind them, but the wonder of this peace made it impossible to hurry.

  She knew she should push her pony hard; she bore a message from the Lord Priest, for Erginle’s sake. Hell’s, he might be King Priest by now. The ponies were her definitive excuse; they were riding a long stretch of rising ground in the river’s bluffs, and the village of Amdan, she guessed, remained horizons away. What good to wear out the ponies so we’re afoot?

  Breathing came without the pressure of people nor the oppression of stone walls, and though they followed a road, they could change direction on a whim. Most folks would take such opportunity for granted, but after eighteen years spent in tunnels and halls, she found the open compass of choices exhilarating. She maybe understood now why the tinker loved his life of traipsing from village, to city, to monastery.

  The real world shook her daydreams from her skull with the cadence of hooves in a hurry. She twisted in her saddle and the lone rider was on them in a flash, bearskin cloak flapping. It wasn’t the first warden they’d seen riding hard the past couple of days, but this was the first to bother with words.

  “Ride for the Fost!”

  Before Meliu could muster her wits, she stared at the warden’s back, the horse’s lathered thighs, and a trail of dust.

  “What! Why?” She feared she knew, but hoped she was wrong.

  Hooves slid in the dirt and the horse spun to face them. Turned out the warden was a young woman. “Demons have swarmed Istinjoln, all I know. Ride! Or yer both deader’n a forgotten song.”

  “Thank you.”

  The girl spun and spurred, tucking her head into the horse’s mane.

  Jinbin eyed her. “I’ve a feeling you know what the hells she was talking about.”

  “No. Kind of. It’s above your rank, monk.”

  “Nothing that might kill me is above my rank, I figure.”

  “You don’t know the Church so well, then.” Meliu smirked, and his face turned red with growing frustration. “They wouldn’t kill you, they’d take your body and soul. And that’s more than you wanted to know.”

  She pushed her mare into a trot and slipped into a canter. By the time they reached Amdan the ponies puffed and hung their heads, and the stables were none too thrilled to saddle new mounts so close to sundown. The scroll with Ulrikt’s seal didn’t deny a stablehand’s right to grumble and cuss, so long as they grumbled and cussed while doing their job, so fresh ponies would be ready to ride in a flare or two.

  Amdan’s stables had stalls for twenty, half the population of this tiny village, she’d wager, but it held four ponies. Logs bigger around than her waist composed the frame, and red clay tiles crowned its roof. Meliu leaned against the frame of the double doors, staring down the single, lantern lit aisle with its stone floor.

  Jinbin slid close and spoke so folks wouldn’t overhear. “What the hells are demons who take men’s souls doing in Istinjoln?”

  “On Erginle’s hand, I swear I don’t know. The Shadows were at the Shrine of Burdenis, too. For a while now.”

  “You served at the Crack? Woxlin served there, rumor speaks, and half the high priests in Istinjoln too. How many scars you got?”

  She groaned, it was a question she hated. “Ten more than One Lash.
” It was her attempt to belittle the accomplishment and shut folks up.

  He whistled. “Eleven scars, honored with a post at the Crack. You were marked for the high priesthood. Don’t even say you weren’t, and you’re telling me you don’t know what’s going on?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  The nature of his silence, the tilt of head and body, the curling lip, spoke to his lack of trust. Hells if she blamed him. His next words were the first to surprise her since they’d departed Istinjoln.

  “Is it real?”

  She flinched, any gambler’s cool she possessed snapped for a flicker, and there wasn’t a way he missed it. “Is what real?”

  “The Codex of Sol.” His stare burned into her eyes.

  “I’m not sure what rumors you—”

  “Punt rumor to the hells. A scholar at the Crack with a message from the Lord Priest, and we’ve all heard whispers of the library. Tales of prophecy have burnt every adherent’s ears for centuries. Ulrikt rising from the dead, the Taken in Istinjoln?”

  “Look…” She licked her teeth then lips, exasperated. No need for a spat with bigger battles on the horizon. “Yes. It’s real. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it. I’ve never opened its pages.” Not that I didn’t try. Hooves clopped down the stone-paved aisle of the stable, granting a moment’s reprieve. “It’s a dead subject, and not because we have company.”

  “I can paint the portrait.”

  She snarled, her voice low. “The hells you can. I’ve seen ugly pieces of it and I still don’t have a shittin’ idea what’s going on. So we shut our mouths and ride, hear me?”

  He raised his hands in defeat as she took a pony’s reins. Leather creaked as she mounted.

  Jinbin said, “We should warn these people.”

  Meliu grimaced but turned to the stablehand, a gray-haired monk she suspected hadn’t seen Istinjoln in thirty years, except in his dreams. “You’ve heard there’s trouble to the north?”

  The man nodded with a cough, but his mouth cut a determined line across his face. “We won’t be abandoning our posts without word from Istinjoln.”

  She understood his devotion, and without proof of what she feared in the north, she didn’t push. “Be prepared for flight, you hear? I’ve no idea if trouble will make it this far south, but if it does you gotta be ready.”

  “Aye, priestess.” The monk turned and strolled back into the lantern-lit hall. She heard him grumble: “Too damned old to be running anywhere.”

  She turned her attention back to Jinbin. “Best I can do.”

  Jinbin squinted at the saddle as his pony eyeballed him, groaned as he lifted a foot into the stirrup. “Gods, my ass aches and my thighs are rubbed raw.”

  With fresh horses and rations they moved on, walking the first couple horizons to warm the ponies into a long ride. The silence between the two lasted only a few hundred paces.

  “Why you?”

  “You can’t clamp that hole, can you?” The sound of the monk’s voice and its disrespectful tone grated her nerves, but the question was valid. “Because Lord Priest Ulrikt trusts me.” She’d accepted Ulrikt’s explanation, drowsy, just awakened, but the question of it being a satisfactory answer hadn’t risen in her head until now.

  Her words seemed to satisfy her companion, but the next question sunk a deeper chill of suspicion into her heart. “Why me? I’m a nobody.”

  She should’ve questioned this long before now; Woxlin handing him the mission should’ve clued her in right quick. Her brain had been on skids since the Crack. “Because you’re a chunk of mud who’d do anything stupid for a couple casks of ale.” Jinbin laughed, but it wasn’t an answer she liked. The lord priest didn’t do much by chance; hells, he acted as if he’d known all along he’d die. Did he know? That pinched her nerves more than any motivation surrounding the monk’s presence. She squeezed her knees, and the pony broke into a trot. “We should be able to trade out ponies more often as we get closer to the Fost, we should ride hard.”

  “Drinking a bit of ale’d lighten the third pony’s load.”

  More like they’d have to leave the keg pony to hurry their journey. “I’ve a feeling we’ll need all the ale we got once we reach the Fost. We fly fast as we can. Sober.”

  4

  Crown and Moons

  Listen, petition, sedition, what motivation?

  How often your mouth moves does not make fact,

  nor prove your eyes open to reality.

  Telling truth is not speaking fact.

  Truth is in the eye of the believer;

  Fact is outside the eye of the father.

  Not of my birth, but of my creation.

  Not so grandiose.

  Not Creator, but creator, silly bird, assured, most lured, seeing seeking truth from a single eye of dark, the lark, the bark, embark to find the stark of my creation.

  Stark. Fact.

  Sedition in creation’s vision.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Meliu didn’t know what to make of the lord priest’s instructions: Meet High Priestess Adelin at the burning Rock at dawn. She did know time ran short.

  They cut cross-country for the last couple days, not to save horizons, but to avoid the rising streams of people moving for the Fost. It was sunset, and the ponies nickered as they stood astride a hill overlooking a road leading straight to the Fost’s gates. Two dozen or more people walked with beleaguered strides, several pulling carts, and they didn’t look near stopping for the night.

  Jinbin said, “The Black Bell’s been rung.”

  The saying was an old one, dating to a fable from the Age of God Wars. In the High Temple of Koldesfin, it was said, hung a massive steel bell blackened by the fires of Sol. In times of invasion the bell swung, chimed, sang to the people summoning them to their capital and King Priest to defend the Holy Land. It surprised her to hear the monk speaking of such an obscure legend. “Come on.”

  The group of people stopped at the sound of hooves, turning to face them with pitchforks, clubs, and other make do weapons.

  Meliu brandished her finest smile. “Peace, children of Sol. From where do you hail?”

  The men relaxed, weapons dipping toward dirt. A man tall enough to look her in the eye as she sat astride the pony strode from the main group, in his hand a crude iron pike, a weapon often gifted to common folk who fought in some battle. Behind him, a young child broke into sobs and intermittent screams. “The village of Ledin, priestess. From where do you ride?”

  It was unusual they’d question her; they were leery, and she wasn’t keen on telling the truth. “Peluks. Mind if we accompany you good folk?”

  “No offense to yer holiness, but we ain’t looking for no strangers. Word is the troubles come from you holies, in Istinjoln.”

  “I was born in Veleen, not so far from Ledin. You might know my father’s piss-poor cooking, if you been through there.”

  “The Raging Dragon?” She nodded, and his lips squirreled into a smirk. “Never knew the man’s name, nor naught of any child, but his stew has a way with sticking in a man’s gullet.”

  “Sticking and growling its way back up. You should be raised on the stuff.”

  “You’ve my sympathies fer that, still…”

  “Darkness falls, and I can be useful on the road.” She bowed her head in prayer. A connection to Erginle warmed the base of her skull, and she felt the soothing calm of Light spread through her bones and into every muscle. It was an unnatural peace, tranquility so powerful that the weak became addicted. Thank you, Erginle, for this Light you give me. She released the energy, willing it to form above the heads of the people.

  A field of Light spread a hundred paces long and wide. Lesser prayers would create simple balls of Light; a girl with only eleven scars didn’t bother with lesser. This Light didn’t promise a mere clear view on a moonless night. The creases of their brows faded, the intensity around their lips relaxed, and their grips on weapons eased. The perfection of the Light sharpened their
every cue of serenity, and Meliu sensed Erginle’s will seeping into their souls. Even the sobbing child went silent.

  Meliu smiled and squeezed her pony’s ribs. “I understand if you don’t want us with you, but you’re most welcome to join us.”

  They rode to the lead of the villagers with a sauntering gait, and the people fell in behind.

  Jinbin glanced her way several times before he broke his silence. “You’re good.”

  Meliu smiled, letting herself enjoy the moment. “Better than most, so I’ve been told. If luck is our friend, the Fost won’t question our arrival with these folks in tow.”

  The monk chortled. “Better indeed.”

  “Don’t be too impressed, it don’t do shit against Shadows or Taken.”

  “That’s… unfortunate.”

  She grunted. The memory of Angin lifting her from the floor, the razor edge of a stalagmite damned near scalping her, then watching what used to be a peaceful giant of a man have his head split open by a blow to save her life, screamed through her mind’s eye. She raised her arms, closed her eyes, and sucked a deep breath, letting the peace of Light wash the horrors away.

  When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t the terrified child from those caves any longer; she was back in control.

  “It’s dumber’n the hells, but I have to ask: Do Shadows cast shadows?”

  Meliu rocked in her saddle, stifling a dark giggle. “No. No, they don’t, now you mention it.”

  They traveled slow and steady with the Light soothing more than the people’s spirits; it numbed the aches and pains of their bodies. They toiled without complaint as they plodded over rising hills, pulling carts as if wooden poles and planks had become part of their being.

  They laid eyes on the Fost some time past midnight; the massive walls stood dotted with torches and lanterns placed so close if you squinted they blurred into a chain of fire. The Choerkin knew something was coming, but there was no way in the hells they were prepared for such evil if Shadows reached this far.