“And then he showed up again today. He fought Kemp…for me.”
“What a good soul.”
Kalea sniffed. The room fell silent for a long time. “Indeed.”
“Lucky he didn’t leave the area, huh?”
Kalea lowered her chin to her folded arms on the edge of the tub. “Do you think…he rescued me today because I rescued him two days ago?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But the whole reason for the incident today was because I rescued him earlier.”
“Kalea, listen. You did a good thing two days ago. You rescued him because the Creator wanted you to.”
Kalea tilted her head over her arms. “I’d hoped for that very thing.”
“You don’t need to hope. The Creator wanted him to get free, and you obliged to do His work. You took your punishment. The first act brought on another punishment in the form of an attack, but the elf was available to help you because you freed him first. And all of this was laid into the Creator’s plan.”
Kalea lifted her head again. “You think so?”
Joy’s voice rose sharply. “Kalea!” She whirled around, creating a small wave in the quickly cooling water. “I’m surprised at you. How in the world could that have been hard? It was my first and easiest supposition. What would worry you so much about an elf who not only appreciated your help, but possessed enough kindness to return the favor?”
Kalea’s mouth opened and closed before she could push anything out. “I am being silly, aren’t I?”
Joy smiled and patted her shoulder. “You’re overthinking it, and it’s unnecessarily causing you bother.”
“I’m shaken up after today. I don’t want to go out anymore.”
Joy stroked her hair. “I wouldn’t either. It should take a while to heal from such an experience. I shouldn’t have to tell you to pray. You’ll be relieved when you do, though.”
Kalea immersed her arms in the hot water; they needed it. Relaxing would be easier if she could lean back against the tub, but her wounds prevented it.
Joy put the rag and ointment bottle down, then fetched the regular soaps so Kalea could wash herself. Halfway across the room, she bent over and expelled a few rattling coughs.
“Are you all right, Joy?” Joy kept her back turned, wiping her mouth on her handkerchief. “Joy?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” She grabbed a cube of soap, made fresh with the convent’s grown and dried herbs, and placed it on the table beside the bathtub.
“You should go to see the apothecary at the hospital.”
“I have. He’s low on a lot of supplies. He’s waiting on foragers who’ve gone miles away to find his most valuable plants. I don’t know how long it will take.”
Kalea reached her wet arms out, and Joy leaned into her embrace. “Poor Joy. Forget about me. I’ll be praying for your health instead.”
“I’m not worried,” Joy said. “I trust in the Creator’s plan for me.”
Chapter 6
An Honor for a Saehgahn
Gaije jolted awake with a strong hand grasping his shoulder. “Wake up, saeghar.”
“Grandfather? What are you…?” Gaije rubbed his eyes.
“Shh. Don’t disturb your sister. Come on.” His grandfather yanked him out of bed, shushing him again, and hauled him through the curving corridor toward the foyer and out the door.
“What about my shoes and shirt?”
“No questions.”
A chill air hit him on the other side of the door. Summer wouldn’t return for a few months, so the night wind still left frost behind when it came and went.
“Is it trouble? Humans?”
Grandfather didn’t answer. The village remained sleepy; all the little doorstep lanterns glowed, but the sun would break the horizon soon. They bypassed the village center and the Desteer hall, locked up until sunrise. A glow or two appeared in its windows, winking as bodies passed by them.
Trees replaced the buildings, and what little light Gaije could see by waited behind him. Not much could be seen besides his grandfather’s pale hand grasping his wrist. Gaije’s bare feet moved from the beaten dirt to moist leaves and then into tall grass. The practice yards were located at the opposite side of the village, so they were moving into the wild forest.
“Am I in trouble?” Gaije asked.
“Depends on how you look at it, lad.” He led Gaije around tall bramble, through tight thickets, and across ancient, caved-in crevasses bridged with logs. These crevasses and various sink holes found in Norr were created long ago during troll attacks.
Without his shirt, Gaije shivered in the night air. His discomfort didn’t hamper his ability to cross the logs—he’d been doing it since he could walk. After crossing the deepest chasm close to the village, Grandfather waved a hand for Gaije to take the lead. He pointed into a small tunnel formed under a thicket with limbs and roots bowing overhead.
Grandfather whispered, “In there. You go first.”
Gaije swallowed and obeyed, bending over to move through. A pale violet light glowed at the end of the tunnel, accompanied by a humming sound. Gaije desisted from trying to stay on his feet and planted his hands on the ground for a full crawl as the tunnel tightened around him.
“Grandfather, is this—?” Grandfather wasn’t there when he glanced over his shoulder. Now alone, his teeth chattered for a different reason. He blew out a breath through puffed cheeks and continued forward, emerging from the tunnel into a clearing.
Glowing violet lanterns hung from tree branches in a perfect circle. At the center of the clearing, four Desteer maidens stood around a wooly ox pelt on the ground, humming the ominous tone, their expressions somber and distant. Each one wore a glowing stone on a necklace which cast a blue light across their faces, adding eerie shadows to their painted skin. The Desteer always strove to look like the same person, all wearing their hair hanging long and straight. Each one’s face wore the same painted purple line running across the eyes, and the rest of their faces were doused with powdery white, even over their lips.
“Who comes into the Bright One’s sacred place?” one Desteer maiden asked in a strong, commanding voice easily recognizable as that of Alhannah, the head Desteer maiden.
“Gaije Lockheirhen comes to the Bright One’s sacred place,” the other three maidens answered together.
“How dare he trespass upon the Bright One’s sacred ground!” Her rhythmic voice rolled over tones like hills and valleys, similar to the way sermons were given, but a world more frightening tonight. “Shall he live tonight or die tonight?”
“He was called, he was called!” the other three answered. “And arrived on time to answer the Bright One’s call. That’s why he should live, he should live!”
The head maiden raised a hand in his direction. “Gaije Lockheirhen, you are called to service. Enter the grove and kneel.”
Shivering more violently than ever, Gaije obeyed and took his place on the white ox skin. The Desteer maidens closed in around him, bringing a scent like lavender and charcoal. The leader confronted him head-on, arms crossed with her thick silken robes draping to the ground. Her hair must’ve been about knee length, almost as long as his grandfather’s hair.
She frowned with her eyes squinting and continued her rhythmic speech, practically singing, though her volume reached ear-piercing levels. “A pathetic excuse for a candidate!”
“No, sister! He is fair—you’ll see, you’ll see. Look inside, please, and judge him as is just. His soul deserves as much!”
“If you insist, little sisters.”
She reached out and slid her long fingers around his head and into his hair. Her eyes closed, and a cold tingle spread across his entire head from his eyes to the back of his skull. She shuddered, and he did the same when she took her hands away. He had never experienced milhanrajea, mind-viewing, before, but had seen it happen to others. Her hands left cold imprints of themselves along the sides of his scalp. He bowed over to catch his breath for a moment and shud
dered upon rising again.
Every village owned a unit of Desteer, and each one required at least one maiden with the ability to evaluate someone’s thoughts. If a village couldn’t produce one, it was common practice to trade maidens with other villages, as in Alhannah’s case. Who could say what or how much of one’s mind milhanrajea might reveal to her? That was why all saehgahn were trained to practice meditation and discipline. This evaluation could lead to any kind of punishment if the Desteer maiden found something she didn’t like—even if the elf in question acted fine on a regular basis.
“I saw his mind,” Alhannah proclaimed. “This one is fair! I have glimpsed his soul; he is fair!”
The other maidens threw their hands up and howled before yelling, “I knew it, I knew it! We’ll have another saehgahn! Praise to the Bright One!”
“Praise to the Bright One!” the head maiden echoed, and held a confident smile when she looked down at Gaije again, who gawked.
“Gaije Lockheirhen,” she said. The muscles in her face relaxed and the slight hint of a smile graced her lips, but her eyes continued their efforts to bore into his as if her judgment of him still needed time. “Today you were called to service and you answered. And you are pure. And you are fair. And you are strong. And you are obedient. Do you agree to serve? You have a choice.”
“Yes,” he said, projecting his voice as much as he could, although he could only manage an average volume.
“Good. A ‘no’ could be arranged, but would’ve meant a dishonorable banishment or death after a deeper evaluation. Bow your head.”
He did, and she raised her arms for a prayer. “Our Leader, the Bright One. This is Gaije, one of your saeghar. Tonight, You’ve called him and he has come to be Your servant, and a servant of the faerhain, and a servant of his clan. We are pleased with what we see and hope he will continue to please You. He is ready to begin his life. When he leaves here, he will take You with him, and there will be times when You are his sole companion. He will need Your guidance. Please don’t abandon him when he is alone and when he faces temptation. For elves are born knowing You, but sometimes they fall, and when saehgahn fall, they fall hard. They need Your strength.”
She turned her attention to Gaije again. “Do you swear to keep the saehgahn code of honor, and to protect the females and the children and the weak, and to speak with honesty, and to kill the wicked, and to restrain your selfish desires, and to snatch up and bring stray faerhain back to Norr where they belong, and to kill any and all non-saehgahn who lay claim over them?”
Gaije’s nod preceded a, “Yes.”
“The world is cold, Gaije Lockheirhen.” A rush of icy cold water splashed over his head, bouncing off his shoulders and running down his bare chest, stealing away his breath for a moment. A maiden behind him held the empty bucket. He gasped.
“You’ll be alone. And the world is also cruel.” She raised a hand, reared back, and laid an explosive slap across his face laced with an electric shock. A flash came before the sound—crack! Gaije fell backward and found himself a distance away. The bright flash imprinted on his vision, and for a while the negative residual image of her maniacal smile blinded him. He lay on his back.
“You’ll feel pain, Gaije Lockheirhen,” she said as he dragged himself upward. Her voice had gone flat and somber and now croaked after her yelling speech. “You came here a saeghar; you’ll go home saehgahn. Bright One, be kind to Gaije on his saehgahn’s journey… You are dismissed.”
Wasting not a second, Gaije collected himself, shivering. His head ached. His spinning, dim vision hardly mattered when he found the little thicket tunnel opening and scrambled through it. From there, he stumbled home through the tall grass and bramble. His stomach churned and he paused a few times to bend over; however, he didn’t manage to throw up.
He reentered the Lockheirhen clan village and stumbled all the way back to his house, where Grandfather lounged under the kitchen pavilion by the oven’s embers, as he usually did. His long, black hair trailed like a satiny onyx river beside him. He held his lit pipe in one hand, watching the smoke wander into the air like incense illuminated by the kitchen’s lantern.
“How was it?” Grandfather asked.
Gaije’s mouth opened several seconds before he answered. Grandfather didn’t bother to look at him. “Awful! Is that how it always is?”
“I hear it’s different for everyone. But always painful, yes.”
Gaije hugged himself, shivering.
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Then sit by the fire. Even if you are ill, it’s not a good idea to go home crying for yer aahmei to serve you tea and tuck you into bed.”
Gaije plopped down beside him, welcoming the caress of the oven’s heat on his exposed skin. “So,” he said after a deep breath. “I’m an adult now.”
Grandfather finally smiled wide and slid his cat-like blue eyes toward Gaije. “Yep.”
“Are you going to stop calling me ‘lad’ now?”
Grandfather laughed. “No, lad. But from now on, you can sit with me by the oven.”
“Like an old, retired shi-hehen, lucky me.”
“Shut up.”
Gaije gazed at the stars twinkling in the sky as it grew pale, and Grandfather appeared to be doing the same now. “It’s gonna be tough.”
He sighed. “I know.”
Grandfather’s cheeks bunched into a smile in Gaije’s peripheral vision. “Well, maybe not so much. Things have been pretty peaceful, haven’t they?”
“Besides the raging boar incident years ago? I was little when that maddened creature rampaged through the village.”
Grandfather laughed.
“You taught it a lesson. I was amazed.”
“A good example of a slow day in the life of a saehgahn.”
“Slow?” Gaije turned toward him. “When the boar refused to die with ten of your arrows sticking out of it, you jumped on its back with your little knife.”
“Only four arrows. And I used an exceptionally large hunting knife.”
“Tch. You wrestled it to the ground until you got all muddy. It spanned the length of a horse, and you rode it like one.”
“You have a colorful memory, lad.”
“I watched you gut it. All the blood. You smeared war paint on my face with it.” Gaije couldn’t contain his own smile at the memory. “And you hoisted it over your shoulders and allowed me to go with you when you dropped it off at the orphanage in Theddir.”
“You have a clear memory too. Impressive.”
“How could I forget? It’s my favorite memory. I felt strong walking beside you. You were my hero.” Gaije returned his gaze to the stars.
Grandfather remained silent for a while. He tapped his pipe empty and stuck it in his pocket. “I enjoyed having you with me that day.”
“I always hoped you’d host my caunsaehgahn expedition. Do you think you could?”
“Well.” He breathed a long sigh. “Would ha’ been nice, but I can’t leave these days. Someone has to take care of Anonhet. First lesson in being a saehgahn: we don’t get what we want, and we shouldn’t ask.”
“Sorry I asked. Are you going to stay over tonight? You have a few hours left to get some more sleep.”
Grandfather leaned forward. “Nope. You’re saehgahn now. You guard your own household.” He stood up, and his long mane pooled on the ground behind him. “I’ll come over in the morning to get Anonhet, and to get my hair braided by your sister. And your father should be back by then too.”
“You’re right.” Gaije also stood. “He’ll be proud to hear I had my ceremony.”
“He will indeed, lad.” Grandfather reached out and slapped Gaije’s arm. “I’m proud too. You’ll be a fine saehgahn. I know it as surely as my name is Lehomis Lockheirhen.”
After trudging in and collapsing on his bed, Gaije awoke a few hours later under the warm sun through the window and the beaming purple eyes of Mhina, his young sister.
“Gr
andfather told us what happened last night. Happy day, saehgahn.”
Gaije yawned and turned his back to her. “Thanks.”
Her tiny hands slapped his shoulder and shook him. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” He groaned and pulled the cover over his shoulder. “Mother wants to see you. She’s excited about today, about you. And also, Father is coming—did you know?”
“Yeah.” Gaije dragged himself upright.
“Good. Now hurry and come out, don’t go back to sleep. Mother’s calling for you.” She raced out of the room with her strawberry-gold hair waving behind her.
When he went outside, Grandfather Lehomis had already arrived and planted himself by the oven. Mhina was tying off his braid. When braided tightly, his hair reached down to his ankles. Gaije’s mother, Tirnah, was setting places on the skin rug for the family to eat breakfast, fussing at Grandfather as normal.
“I wanted a night of peace, lass, peace and quiet and solitude. All you faerhain were fine with the new saehgahn in the house.” Lehomis lowered his voice. “So show him some appreciation when he gets here, all right?”
“You had a job to do, Grandfather, and you left us. Right there in the wee hours of the morning. A few more hours was all we needed, and you failed, you lazy, pathetic excuse for—”
“Hey, lad, g’morning! There he is now, the new saehgahn.” Lehomis approached and grasped Gaije’s forearm with his strong hand in the proper greeting amongst males. He leaned in to grunt into his ear, “Help me out, will ya?”
“Gaije,” his mother said, throwing her graceful arms out. “Amonimori, I’m so proud of you. Welcome, my son, to your new saehgahn life.”
Her arms latched around his neck. She’d already let out some tears to dampen his cheek. Over her shoulder, Lehomis blew out a sigh, not noticing Mhina adding flowers to his new braid.
Tirnah pulled away and squeezed Gaije’s face between her hands. “Let me see you.”
“I’m the same as I was yesterday,” he said. That wasn’t true. Something different had become of him, and it wasn’t a mere lack of sleep. There must’ve been something to that ritual. At the very least, a heaviness thickened the air around him and press down on his shoulders. It was slight, but enough to catch his attention. He really was saehgahn now. Finally.
Sufferborn Page 11