Servants and Followers

by Courtney Bowen

  She’d sensed Old Man watching while she folded up the bed linen, but she hadn’t been certain, and Smidge was mucking out the stables not far away. He’d certainly have suspected something was amiss if she’d started looking up at the roof.

  She couldn’t give away Old Man like that, especially to Smidge. Besides, she thought Old Man might be admiring her a little.

  She wasn’t certain about Smidge, especially the way he looked at her, so slyly yet arrogantly that it made her nervous. He’d gotten into some trouble in the past, around the time Habala had broken off her engagement with him and started dating Geda.

  That was a long time ago, just before Nisa was born, and Brigga had still been seeing Old Man then, though they soon broke off their romance. Old Man had told her some of the details of Smidge’s awful behavior, and Habala had told her the rest.

  As far as Brigga could gather from both accounts, there was no way she would’ve ever trusted Smidge again. But had Habala known everything Old Man did? She couldn’t possibly, or else she mightn’t have ever let Smidge anywhere near the inn again. And Geda certainly would’ve hated him, too.

  Yet Brigga didn’t dare say anything that would reveal too much about Old Man’s involvement. So Brigga had remained silent, trusting that Habala knew the best way to run her life, and for the most part, nothing seemed to have gone wrong.

  But now that Basha and Oaka were gone, it seemed that life between Geda, Habala, and Smidge was reverting back to their old youthful dynamic, which wasn’t very healthy, and Habala was caught up in the middle. Brigga worried about her former best friend, even though Brigga hadn’t really spoken to Habala for years now, on friendly terms at least.

  She didn’t want Habala to face Smidge’s wrath, which led her to question what she could do to help Habala, distract Smidge, and possibly find out more about Smidge’s motivations and intentions. That led her to contemplate doing something horrible and disgusting that she couldn’t stand.

  Yet it might be her only choice when she wasn’t like Old Man or their daughter, able to sneak around and spy on others like a cat in the night. She’d very few options and very few abilities when it came to deceit and spying, so she’d make do with what she had, may the gods forgive her.

  * * * *

  Kala’s ghost stared out the window of Old Man’s hut as he entered. “Lilacs.” She murmured, shaking her head. “Those were the last flowers he left at my grave. That’s not what I wanted.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Basha has the Black Sword.”

  “What? You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive. We all felt it on the other side. It was like a breath of fresh air in the land of death. It was brief, but stirring, the tiger of light lives, he has his Sword, and he’s my son. I thought you’d want to know.” She started to fade away.

  “Wait a minute,” The Old Man raised his hand. “What’s it like, dying and being dead?”

  She brightened, lingering. “You haven’t asked that before.”

  “I’ve been afraid to ask, but now I’m wondering.”

  “Dying and being dead…well, speaking from my experience, first the world fades away, bit by bit. Then you start to fade. It’s like falling asleep, except you lose everything in an excruciatingly slow manner. Piece by piece in your body, heart, and mind, all thoughts, feelings, and sensations are ripped away and you’re left with nothing except your final breath. Then even that’s gone. But something yet remains.”

  “What is it?” He sat spellbound, the audience instead of the storyteller.

  “It’s quite literally nothingness. A small spark or flame, barely noticeable or recognizable to any who live. Just a single molecule of…infinity. A soul or an idea of one, perhaps, that cannot be weighed, measured, or judged. Though that has yet to be determined by me.”

  “No judgment?”

  “Perhaps there’s a system in place somewhere in death that does judge or determine what happens to souls. But I’ve yet to find it. Perhaps I don’t want to. I might be judged and found wanting. I’ve done some terrible things, not as bad as some, but not as good as others.”

  “I’m sure there was some necessity or reason to it.”

  “That’s what many people would say if they were in my situation. I may have been forced into doing what I shouldn’t have done at one or two points, but in other times, I could’ve stopped myself. It might have meant my death, or the death of others, but I could’ve stopped. So why didn’t I?

  “Perhaps I reasoned my way out of it, saying that it was necessary to survive or help others. But ultimately, it was my choice, my actions. I didn’t stop myself because I wanted to act. I wanted to achieve my desires and goals. I had so many of them that I wanted more than anything else. Nothing would stand in my way. Not even being judged.” Kala looked up at Old Man. “What reason or desire, necessity or goal, can survive death and what lies beyond?”

  “Yours did.” Old Man said. “You came back to help Basha.”

  “A form of my desires and goals did survive, fragmented, to say the least.” She nodded. “The most powerful desires or goals might survive death. But they’re elusive and illusionary at the best of times, difficult to express. At the worst, well, they might as well not exist. Everything else slips away, even those most powerful goals and desires might fade. Then I wouldn’t be myself anymore and I would forget about Basha, and anyone else I loved.”

  After a moment of silence, Old Man asked, “So then what happens, on the other side, to the soul?”

  “It moves on into darkness, and then it becomes chaotic and confused, as so many souls collide and crush into one another. They mix and meld before they’re ‘bumped’ out of the chaotic darkness into the light. This happens every so often, with different results.

  “On occasion, a soul will return to the living, either as a ghost or, even more rarely, reborn. Most often, when a soul is bumped out, they float up to what I would call the true Pidamana, or paradise.” She smiled. “This is more serene than the chaos below, less crowded, where one can recall who they were. Here’s where you meet the other souls, including those you once knew in life. That’s a good moment, but fleeting, for eventually you’ll float back down into the chaotic darkness below until you’re bumped again.” She frowned. “Death is unstable, in constant flux, more so than life, really. You can never be truly satisfied in death. What do you think?”

  The Old Man stared at her. “I’m not sure.”

  “Of course, that’s my impression of it,” She turned away. “It might be different for others. Can I go? Not that I want to return, exactly, but I belong down there now.” She closed her eyes. “Too many painful remainders in life that aren’t in death. Yet part of me wishes to live again.”

  “You may return. Good luck, Kala.”

  “Thanks, you, too.” Kala vanished once more, leaving Old Man alone.

  Chapter 6

  Joining

  Cradle and shield me from the storm,

  I don’t think I can go out there again.

  Hear Her whisper sweet lullabies in my ear.

  I believe I could listen to her for a thousand years.

  ~ On A Stormy Day, Kiwata

  Basha woke up groaning, rubbing his forehead as he remembered—why was he on a bed with…lavender satin sheets? He examined the sheets he lay in. Brown bear fur cover…and lavender satin sheets, never had he rested in such a bed fit for a king or nobleman. Certainly not for…he blinked as he remembered what he’d done.

  Oh, Tau, Popo, Loqwa, what had he done? He shook his head, trying to forget, but those bleeding men…he blanched and swayed, but steadied himself as he thought that whatever it had been, there was nothing to be done about it.

  He’d no idea where he was. He got off the bed and stood, a little unsteady, but he needed to find Oaka and go. His hands brushed against pink silk and satin curtains surrounding the bed. He thrust them aside.

  Fine porcelain dolls and plates were mounted on t
op of a mantelpiece. He was in a sitting room, plush rose chairs placed about a carpeted rug. Never had he seen…what was this place? Was he still in Coe Anji?

  Basha went around a table, searching for the door, which he found tucked into the corner by the bookcase. He walked outside onto grass and sand by the ocean. Basha stared at the water, the waves rolling in, and laughed as he remembered thinking of it as a pond.

  Oh, it was so much wider and bigger, the waves alone surged in across the horizon before him, and the water stretched out farther beyond toward the gray sky. Popo and Quela were said to be joined by water, and the water here certainly touched ‘the mountain of magnificence’ that was the sky, cloud cover like ice and snow upon gray stone.

  He’d never dreamed…suddenly, he saw a figure standing alone amidst this nature on the shoreline, close to the trickle of waves sweeping across the sand. He stared at this woman, who wasn’t Monika, standing before an easel and painting on its canvas.

  The woman appeared older than his mother Habala as he approached. She’d lines across her face, streaks of gray and white in brown hair. Paint was splattered onto her chest, her shirt. She dabbled at her palette with a paint-brush in an attempt to get the right color, mixing blue and green with a bit of black and white.

  She got the mixture right, then started painting in the waves. The ocean would occupy about half of her canvas, with some cloud cover. The house he assumed she lived in, the one he’d just came from, was already on the far left corner. A bit of Coe Anji and the warehouses that made up its port were already behind that.

  The lonely little cottage by the sea, not far from the harsh, brutal town. Basha got a little bit of perspective as he came over, noticing that she was taller than him by a few inches, about as tall as Oaka.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but can you tell me what I’m doing here?” he asked.

  “Hello, Basha, is it?” she asked, still painting. “My name is Jona. I live there, you know, where you came from. You were brought here by some men, a Border Guard patrol, and the major told me to look after you. He’s an old friend. Your brother, Oaka I think, has gone to the inn to bring the horses, supplies, and belongings. I think he’s insistent that you three, the falcon included, should leave here as soon as possible.”

  “Are we in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, the major believes you helped out, so you’re free to go, whatever you’ve done. Your brother just wants to leave. I think he’s worried about the horses and supplies getting stolen.”

  “There was another…”

  “The girl?” Jona smiled. “She left, but she also left behind…” She frowned. “It’s wrapped up in a blanket, I believe, near the corner of my bedroom. I couldn’t touch it. Couldn’t even stand to look at it. I just left it there. You should find it, if you want it. I might throw it out into the ocean if you don’t take it with you when you leave.”

  Basha hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I’ll take it. There was something else, those people we helped to rescue, had they been smuggled in?”

  Jona stopped painting. “You mean…so that’s what it was all about. I know smugglers sometimes take to human trafficking when it’s a profitable business. Sometimes people want to come to Arria when they believe it’s a better place than where they came from. But when they cannot by conventional means for any amount of reasons, including money, sometimes they sell themselves into slavery to afford the trip. But others are forced into it, kidnapped, by the smugglers to fulfill their quota.”

  “That’s horrible,” Basha barely managed to say.

  “There were some girls I knew who were kidnapped, and they still had nightmares. It’s a long, arduous voyage, across sea and ocean much rougher than this. They’d spent the whole voyage down below, in the bilge water seeping in through the cracks. Often, they were scared half out of their wits, sick, and too quiet. Afraid to speak or cry out, in case one of their kidnappers came down and had their way with them.”

  Basha shuddered. “So what did…what’ll happen to those people we rescued?”

  “Most likely they will be sent back to their homes. Some will stay if they’ve proof that they can work a trade, or have family here.”

  “After everything they went through?” he stuttered, then sighed, shaking his head at the indignity of it all.

  He didn’t know if he could say or do anything here that would change such a horrible situation. It’d been going on for so long, and he knew that Oaka wouldn’t want to stay and get involved in solving a long-term problem.

  But Basha felt like something had to be done, to stop the smuggling and help those in need who’d already been affected. Perhaps the Border Guards might be able to handle part of the problem, if they could get themselves better organized and trained to arrest the smugglers and cease their activities. But the situation might also require less force and more care when it came to the people who’d already been transported.

  “What about the smugglers? Are they...dead?”

  “I don’t know, probably one or two, why? Did you fight them?”

  “I did. A few…fell, I didn’t know whether or not I’d…killed them.”

  Jona sighed. “You were defending yourself and your friends, I assume. Just think on that, and the people you saved. Not just those now, but those that could’ve been taken away from their homes if the smugglers had lived. Perhaps the smugglers deserved to die, guilty of worse crimes. Think on that, and perhaps that will ease your mind.”

  “Perhaps.” Basha looked out at the ocean.

  “You remind me of…” She shook her head.

  “What? Whom?”

  “My son Jobe.”

  “Jobe?” A thought or memory stirred, but he couldn’t recall it then.

  “He’s all grown up now, possibly a few years older than you. I don’t know where he is, travels with his father. Hopefully he’s safe.”

  Basha and Jona stood there, Jona adding an outline of Basha looking out at the ocean to her painting, before Oaka returned with the horses and supplies. Fato, perched on the pommel of a saddle, clamored about the fight and its aftermath.

  Basha had thought the falcon might’ve left them with the way he’d acted during the fight. Apparently, he couldn’t be repelled that easily, but at least Oaka wasn’t complaining about him. Oaka didn’t say a word then, perhaps afraid to speak after what they’d both done during the fight.

  “Goodbye, Jona.” Basha turned away.

  “Don’t forget your…whatever it is, and do be careful. I saw that girl before she left. She looked hard and scared. I’ve seen many girls like that after…they’d been down in the hold.”

  He shuddered, guessing what she meant, and wondered what sort of life Monika had led. He waved goodbye to the painter he knew little about, and went inside her home one last time to search for the blanket-wrapped burden.

  There was the sword he’d picked up earlier today, inside its sheath once more and wrapped up tightly like someone had wanted to hide it. What could’ve possessed him to claim this sword, bind it to him, or whatever he’d said?

  He didn’t know what he was doing, half-lost in the blur of battle. What had made Monika give this sword back to him? Did she know something of what he’d done to make it belong to him; did she want him to have it?

  And why couldn’t she have brought it here without wrapping it up so tightly? Did she feel something like he’d felt? Maybe there was something to hiding it, not wanting to touch or see it. Perhaps no one else could bear it besides him.

  He shuddered at that frightening thought. But he took it with him, just in case. If it’d saved him and his friends before…perhaps he needed it.

  Oaka didn’t look at him when he put the blanket-wrapped sheathed sword inside his bag, layers of protection against the sharp blade. They left Coe Anji, and the cottage by the ocean, going into the forest once more.

  * * * *

  Oaka shook his head. “It’s impossible we went through all of that in just two days.”


  It was midnight, officially the 12th day of Markee, and they’d stopped to rest. Oaka had wanted to keep going, put as many miles between them and Coe Anji. Basha thought he wanted to forget about fire and the brawls.

  “I say we handled ourselves nicely,” Fato remarked.

  “Basha, why’d you bring that new sword with you?” Oaka asked.

  “Must we talk about this?” Fato said.

  “I didn’t want to leave it behind. It did its job.” Basha said.

  “That thing…” Oaka shuddered. “Never mind. Perhaps—”

  “You want me to forget about it? I can’t.”

  “All right, don’t bring it up.” Oaka was still disappointed he hadn’t been able to summon fire, again, back at the warehouse. What was the point of having magic if you couldn’t use it?

  “You’re the one who brought it up,” Fato remarked.

  “Never mind! What’s that?”

  The horses were agitated, something was moving in the forest beyond their firelight.

  “Steady, I don’t think it’s a Black Wolf.” Fato peered into the darkness.

  “Is that much of a comfort?” Basha unsheathed his old sword when his new sword was in his pack, too far away.

  “Stop!” A voice called.

  “Monika?”

  The young woman approached, leading her horse. “I suppose we’re even. I followed you all here after you followed me.”

  “Hey, Oaka, it’s the girl—”

  “No need to remind me, Fato—”

  “Has she come back to beat you up some more?” Fato snickered.

  “Have you—”

  “No, Basha. I’m sorry I got so worked up at the warehouse. I didn’t expect you two to burst in like that. A couple of those smugglers were killed, some seriously injured. I don’t think you’d anything to do with the deaths, Basha,” She saw the look on his face. “I did. Those still alive had to be questioned, but I had to leave before it got complicated. Paperwork isn’t really my forte.”