Batu managed to extricate himself from her grasp somewhat, his expression clearly showing his discomfort, when there was a squeal from the other direction, and Sube came for him at a full run, her arms flung wide. Batu had time to throw a single, pleading look his friends’ way before she got to him. She nearly knocked him down in her enthusiasm.
Hulagu looked at Karliss. “I think we should keep moving.”
“I agree.” They started to ride on, ignoring Batu’s protestations not to leave him. Karliss looked back over his shoulder. Sube and Batu’s mother were scowling at each other. They each had hold of one of his arms, and it looked like they were trying to drag him in different directions.
The next to appear were Hulagu’s parents. But they didn’t run to their son, only walked toward him calmly. Hulagu climbed down off his horse. His mother took his hand and pressed it to her cheek briefly, then dropped it. His father turned to Karliss and touched his forehead in respect.
“Tlacti,” he said.
Karliss made a gesture of respect in return. Hulagu’s parents flanked him. As they walked away, Hulagu’s father put his hand briefly on Hulagu’s shoulder. His mother leaned in close and said something in a low voice that Karliss couldn’t hear.
For a moment Karliss sat there on his horse, looking after them, wondering why he suddenly felt so alone. It seemed like months that it had been only the three of them. They’d gotten sick of each other many times, and there were days when they hardly spoke to each other. But he’d grown used to having the two of them always there, knowing he could always count on them. It wouldn’t be the same without them.
Karliss didn’t make it much further before Narantse, his little sister, came tearing around a yurt, yelling at the top of her lungs. His mother, Munkhe, wasn’t far behind, though she conducted herself a little more calmly. Karliss could see on her face that it was a struggle though. She was walking fast, just a hair from breaking into a run, and her lips kept twitching as if she might break into a laugh.
He climbed down off his horse, and Munkhe embraced him tightly. He thought he heard a suppressed sob from her. Narantse howled at being excluded and wormed her way between them, wrapping her arms around Karliss’ waist.
“It’s so good to have you back!” the little girl exclaimed excitedly. “So much happened while you were gone. I got my first horse. You have to come see him.”
“Easy, little sparrow,” Munkhe said. “Why don’t we give Karliss a chance to eat first? He looks hungry to me.” She looked him up and down, taking note of how much thinner his journey had made him.
“Looks like I don’t have to come rescue you after all.”
Karliss turned to see Ganbold, his brother, walking up. Karliss put out his hand, but Ganbold pulled him in and hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he whispered in Karliss’ ear. “Ana has been beside herself with worry,” he said, referring to their mother. “Maybe now she’ll stop pecking at me all the time.”
Ganzorig, Karliss’ father, walked up then. At first, he gripped Karliss’ forearm formally, and his expression was impassive. Then he gave it up. His weathered face crinkled in a broad smile, and he pulled Karliss in and hugged him briefly. “Thank the gods of the four winds,” he said softly. He leaned in closer and in a voice only Karliss could hear, he added, “And thank you for letting your mother know you were okay. I don’t think she slept a single night through before that.”
“I’m sorry,” Karliss said to his mother. “I didn’t mean to…I didn’t think how hard it would be for you. I thought it was the best thing to do,” he finished lamely.
“Now that you’re back, I forgive you,” his mother said, “but if anything had happened to you…” She looked fierce as she said it.
“It’s not going to be so easy with Terl Dashin,” Ganzorig said. “I hope you found something that makes what you’re in for worth it.”
Karliss straightened his shoulders. He’d been expecting this. “I think so. I hope so.”
“Can’t he eat something first?” Munkhe asked Ganzorig. Ganzorig gave her a look, and she sighed. “Okay. But as soon as you’re done, you come find me. Promise me.”
Karliss promised her, and he and his father walked toward the terl’s yurt. “I know it was risky, but I didn’t want anyone else to—”
Ganzorig silenced him with a gesture. “It’s not me you need to convince. I know why you did it.”
“You do?”
“Ganbold told me.”
“Did he get in much trouble?”
“He’ll be on night herding for some time still.”
“I’m surprised he’s not mad at me.”
“I’m not,” Ganzorig said. “He understands why you did what you did.” He looked Karliss up and down. “You’ve changed.”
Karliss rubbed his stomach. “I haven’t been getting much to eat. We didn’t want to waste time hunting. We wanted to get back as soon as we could.”
“It’s not that. You look…older. This journey changed you.”
Karliss thought about this. “It did.”
“You’re a man now.” Ganzorig held up his hand to forestall Karliss’ protest. “It doesn’t matter whether you have completed the ceremony or not.” He spoke of the ceremony that all boys passed through to become men, after their trials. Karliss was right at the age where most boys went through it, though as tlacti he wasn’t expected to. “What you did proved that. I’m proud of you.” He put his arm across Karliss’ shoulders and squeezed him briefly.
The terl was sitting outside his yurt, sharpening his knife. Karliss’ father patted him on the shoulder and walked away, leaving Karliss to continue forward alone. Karliss crouched down before the terl.
Dashin didn’t look up right away. He continued sharpening the knife with smooth, even strokes. Karliss squirmed. Dashin tested the blade’s edge on his thumb, then scowled as he found something he didn’t like. He sharpened some more and tested the blade again. Only then did he look up at Karliss.
“Tlacti or no, you do not run off like that.” His expression was grim, and he bit off each word as he said it.
“My apologies, terl,” Karliss said, lowering his head, “but—”
“No. Not yet. I’m not done.” Dashin waved his knife to take in the whole camp. “What do you see here?”
Confused, Karliss looked around. “A camp?”
Dashin shook his head. “I see a responsibility. I see scores of people who look to me to make the decisions that will keep us safe. You don’t see that because you aren’t the terl. Which means you don’t make the decisions. I do. When you leave without telling anyone, against my orders, you endanger all of us. You make us all weaker. Without our tlacti, we might all die. Do you understand?”
Karliss lowered his head still further. “Yes, terl.”
“It would be within my rights to have the three of you whipped.”
“Yes, terl.”
“I still might.” The terl regarded him for a minute. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Karliss raised his eyes and looked at his chief. “I did.”
Dashin’s gaze was piercing. He wasn’t the biggest man in the clan. He wasn’t the strongest. But there was about him a perceptiveness, an awareness that made it clear even to his potential challengers that he was the man to lead the clan. He paid attention. He saw things others did not. “But…?”
“I know how to speak the words, but most of them I don’t think I can use. They might kill me. The power might get away from me, and I don’t know what it would do then.”
“New weapons are dangerous until a warrior learns how to use them.”
“I’m not sure I will ever be able to learn how to use these. Not all of them anyway.”
The terl stood up and beckoned Karliss to follow him. They walked to the council yurt. They entered, and Karliss saw that the other members of the council were already there, waiting. His father and Chusin, the two warriors. Both men’s expressions were impassive. He
nta, the elderly woman who’d never liked him, staring at him with barely concealed disgust. Next to her was Shria, nearly as old, her lips pursed in disapproval. Finally, Yeke, older than anyone in the clan. They all stared at Karliss as he took his seat. Barely had he done so before Henta started in on him.
“Of all the irresponsible, dangerous things you could have done, of all the stupid, reckless decisions you could have made, this is it. Will you never grow up and accept your—”
Dashin cut her off with a sharp gesture. “You will have your chance. Now is the time for our tlacti to speak.” He looked at Karliss. “Tell us what happened.”
“We found it. We found the cave where Unegen discovered the first word of power.” Karliss described the doorway they’d found, set into the glossy black stone wall, and the rooms they’d found on the other side. When he told them how the light came on by itself when he entered, Henta’s lips drew down in a thin line.
“You should not have done that,” she said. “Clearly that was the dwelling of Tung-alk, who dwells in the north. It might even have been the home of Erlik Khan, the mistress of the west winds.”
At her words Shria made the sign against evil—both index fingers pointing at the ground—and Chusin shifted uneasily in his seat.
“I said all along this journey was a bad idea, and now you prove that it was. What were you thinking, entering the home of a god?” she said.
“Let him continue,” the terl said.
Karliss shifted in his seat. It felt close, constricting, inside the yurt. He glanced around and took comfort from Yeke’s approving nod. “Inside, on a table, I found three tablets. On one was the word of power that Unegen brought back. There were other words as well, but I couldn’t read them. We began searching the place—”
“You searched the god’s home?” Henta said, her eyes widening. Shria hissed under her breath.
“What choice did I have?”
“To leave.”
“Empty-handed?”
“Better than the alternative.”
“Continue,” Dashin said, giving Henta a hard look.
“In another room we found a body.” Now they were all staring at him wide-eyed. Henta looked like she wanted to say something but got no words out. “It did not look like us.” He described it briefly, how it had four arms and different, inhuman features.
When he was done, the yurt was absolutely silent, except for Shria murmuring prayers under her breath.
Then, Henta said, “Desecration.”
The terl cut in before she could say more. “You told me you know how to say the words. How did you learn this?”
Karliss swallowed. This was not going to go well. “In one of the corpse’s hands was a blue gem. When I touched it—”
Henta went rigid. “You touched the body of a god? Are you mad?”
And finally, Karliss had had enough. He’d been through so much to bring the words back to his clan. He’d thought only of protecting them. He’d expected resistance, even anger, but not this. When he spoke next, he did so without thinking.
“It was not a god. It was one of the masters.”
Henta froze. “What did you say?”
Karliss knew right away he’d made a mistake, but it was too late to take the words back. They couldn’t be unsaid. “The body we found wasn’t a god. No god lives in the place we found or has ever lived there.”
“You find a cave unlike anything you’ve ever seen, a cave with the words of power in it—words that are used to control the spirits, servants of the gods—and still you say it does not belong to a god?” she said.
Karliss wanted to run and hide. Inwardly he cursed himself for his stupidity. He looked to his father but saw no help there. He couldn’t bear to look at the terl. He took a deep breath. There was nothing for it but to throw the tiles and accept what came next.
“They aren’t spirits. They’re aranti.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What is that? Aranti?”
“It’s what they call themselves. And they don’t serve any gods. In all the years I’ve been listening to them they have never once spoken of any gods.”
The silence hung there. Its weight bore down on Karliss. Somehow he found the strength to continue, now only wanting to finish it, like squeezing the rot from a septic wound.
“They’re not gods. They’re Shapers. The masters put them here to protect the key from the Devourers. That’s what the words of power are for, so that the masters can control the Shapers and use them to fight the Devourers. The body I found was a master. The master was killed long ago, and there’s no one to protect the key now because the Shapers don’t remember who they are.”
The silence was even heavier this time. It was broken by a shrill, high-pitched sound, almost a wail, that came from Henta. She rose to her feet, one shaking finger pointed at Karliss.
“Blasphemer!” she howled. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I’ve spoken the truth,” Karliss said. His hands were shaking, but he held Henta’s enraged gaze. “If we’re going to fight Kasai, we have to know what it is we’re fighting.”
“You’ve brought the wrath of the gods down on us, that’s what you’ve done,” she hissed.
Karliss pulled the rolled parchment from inside his shirt and held it up. “I’ve brought us the weapons we can use to fight Kasai.”
“You little fool,” she spat. “Are you so arrogant in your power that you think to challenge the gods themselves?”
“Kasai isn’t a god,” Karliss said, but there was no strength in his words.
Henta looked them all over. “Don’t you see? This is why Kasai has attacked us over and over. It’s because of him.” She pointed at Karliss. “Kasai is here to punish us for his arrogance. He meddled in power that belongs to the gods, and we will all pay the price.”
Karliss was stunned into silence. This was something he’d never expected. He looked around the circle. There was sadness on his father’s face. Chusin wouldn’t meet his eyes. The terl’s face might have been made of stone. There was nothing there but hardness. Shria was looking at him like he ate babies. Yeke’s expression was sympathetic.
It was Yeke who spoke next.
“You don’t know that, Henta,” he said calmly. “There are other explanations. Kasai destroyed Long-striding Antelope Clan before we ever encountered him. Surely that had nothing to do with our tlacti.”
“I don’t care about Antelope Clan. I care about Spotted Elk Clan. I care what happens to us. And I say our future is dark because of this boy’s foolish actions.”
“Hold on,” the terl intervened. “It was the council’s decision to send him searching for the words of power. It was my decision.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she countered. “Ever since Ihbarha died, ever since Karliss killed him, you’ve let this young pup run wild. The blame for this also lies on you.”
Karliss felt sick. Did she blame him for Ihbarha’s death? What else could he have done? For a moment he flashed back to that awful moment when he sank the knife in Ihbarha’s chest. It was something he would never be free of.
But now Ganzorig had had enough. He stood up and faced Henta. “You go too far when you accuse my son of Ihbarha’s death.”
“Of course, you back him. After failing to rein him in as a child, what else would you do now?” She looked around at the rest of the council. “Mark my words. Kasai will not stop until we are all dead, until this affront against the gods is answered.”
“What would you have us do?” Yeke asked. He alone of all of them appeared calm. His gnarled hands were folded in his lap, and there was a distant sadness in his eyes as if he saw something coming that none of the rest of them did.
“Our only hope is to appease Kasai and turn his wrath. We must do whatever it takes, fires, sacrifice, blood.” She gave Karliss a dark look. “Whatever it takes.”
“You’re not suggesting what I think you are,” the terl said, standing and crossing his arms.
/> “I’m saying we do whatever it takes,” she said defiantly. “One person is not more important than the whole clan.”
“If you seek to turn our people against my son, you will—” Ganzorig began, but the terl cut him off.
“Enough,” the terl said. “I will not allow this to tear us apart.” He looked around the circle. “What Karliss has told us today is not to leave here. Is that understood?”
“You would hide this from our people?” Henta shrilled.
“I would keep them from panic. Karliss has told us what he believes. That makes it neither true nor untrue. But it will do our people no good to become frightened and turn on each other.”
Henta grumbled but did not openly defy him. Dashin looked at Karliss. “Tell your friends to say nothing.” Karliss nodded. “This meeting is over.”
The council members made their way out of the yurt until only Karliss, Ganzorig and Yeke remained. To Ganzorig, Yeke said, “I would like a moment.” Ganzorig nodded and left.
The old man leaned heavily on his staff. His back was bent so that he had to turn his head sideways to look up at Karliss. “That was foolish.”
“What else was I supposed to do? We need those words.”
“That’s not what I speak of.”
Karliss lowered his head. “I should have kept my mouth shut about the gods and the spirits.”
“She is frightened. We are all frightened. Those who are frightened are prone to do foolish things.”
“I was only telling the truth.”
“No, your interest was in defending yourself against someone who does not like you. There is truth, and there is sharing only what those who look to you for guidance can manage. Do you understand the difference? The tlacti is the one who intercedes for us with the gods. For you to tell us there are no gods, can you see how that frightens people? How it can make them do crazy things?”
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