The Castes and the OutCastes: The Complete Trilogy

by Davis Ashura

  Bree was the next to depart, which left Mira and Jaresh alone in an uncomfortable silence. The Cellar had never seemed so dark or confining. Jaresh flicked her a sidelong glance, but Mira had her gaze fixed toward the exit. She appeared to be doing her best to avert her eyes from him.

  Jaresh realized this might be the last time he saw her. A Trial was always dangerous, especially one that had never before been attempted. There was a real chance he might die, either on the way to Stronghold or on the journey back. If so, this could be the last time he would have to speak with Mira. The realization struck him with a bittersweet longing. His feelings for her might have dulled over the past half-year, but they’d never entirely subsided, and he doubted they ever would.

  There was still so much he wanted to say to her, but he wasn’t certain if he should. Their kiss might have been nothing more than a momentary loss of judgment on her part, an action she regretted the instant it had occurred. However, he also found he didn’t entirely care. Some words had to be spoken, some regrets voiced.

  “Jessira once offered to take me with her to Stronghold,” Jaresh began. Mira turned to him, a look of mild interest in her eyes. “She knew how I felt about—”

  “Don’t,” Mira interrupted, her eyes closed as if in pain. “Whatever we had was something that should have never happened. It was a mistake we both made.”

  Her words cut, but Jaresh couldn’t fault her for thinking back on their relationship in any other way, especially since he felt the same way. “Yes it was,” he agreed softly.

  She left off her examination of the exit. “You agree, don’t you? We could never have been anything other than a disaster for both our families.”

  “Jessira offered to take you with us as well.”

  Mira inhaled sharply. A fleeting look of shock stole across her face before her features settled into lines of impassiveness. “You should have told me sooner,” she reproached. “As in before Jessira left.”

  “What would you have done?” Jaresh asked.

  “What you didn’t. I would have told you of Jessira’s offer. We could have chosen our fate together.”

  Jaresh felt his heart wilting. He’d been too cowardly to allow Mira to make her own decision, and his fear had cost them both. “If I had spoken up, would you have gone to Stronghold with me? Even though everyone we love is here?”

  Mira didn’t say anything. She stared at him, and her hand twitched. Indecision clouded her eyes. She wavered but eventually, she reached for Jaresh’s hand. Her touch had once sent a line of fiery longing racing up Jaresh’s arm and into his spine. It still did, but now the fire was tame, a memory of heat rather than the burning itself.

  A sad acceptance entered Mira’s eyes, and she let go of his hand. “We’ll never know,” she said as she stood to leave.

  Furious reason offers no solution for the simplest of truths: Death is an irrational Mistress.

  ~The Warrior and the Servant, (author unknown)

  Jessira went back to the pond and washed off the leaves and twigs she’d collected as a result of her brief tussle with Rukh. She felt bad for him—she knew he was eaten up with remorse for what he had done—but she was also annoyed by his actions. Why wouldn’t he have just waited for her before reading The Book of First Movement? None of this would have happened if he had. They could have gone slowly. He could have slowly read The Book of First Movement and learned about—

  She inhaled sharply as she realized the enormity of what Rukh had accomplished. Rukh had seen the memories and thoughts of the First Father. Linder Val Maharj. Devesh save them. Once again, almost by accident, Rukh had managed an unfathomable feat. How could one man accomplish so much?

  Jessira shook her head in disbelief.

  Of course, none of it changed Rukh’s underlying stupidity. He was still an idiot, but he was an idiot Devesh seemed to have marked either for greatness or an early death.

  The light from the campfire suddenly blinked out.

  Now what? She glanced back at their site.

  Rukh stood at the edge of the pond. “Get out of the water. Hurry!” he urged. He looked terrified. She wondered for a moment what had him so frightened, but his next words answered her unspoken question. “Suwraith. She’s coming.” He pointed to the sky where in the distance a madly swirling wall of clouds flew against the winds. The Queen. She crisscrossed the heavens, almost as though She was searching for something. Nevertheless, She would be here soon.

  “Fragging unholy hells!” Jessira splashed out of the pond, dried herself off as best she could and got into her clothes in a flash. By the time she was finished, Rukh already had their provisions and bags stowed away on the packhorse.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said.

  “You think it has anything to do with The Book?”

  Rukh shrugged. “Who cares? We need to go.”

  “Blend as hard as you can,” Jessira said. “Like you’ve never done before.” She took the lead, leading them into the forest, taking a deer trail they’d used to find the pond.

  “That hill,” Rukh said, pointing to a nearby tor, about a half-mile away. “I want something big to hide behind when the Queen arrives.”

  Jessira nodded and led them toward the rise as fast as she dared. She had to be careful, though. Footing could be treacherous in the forest’s inky blackness. Rukh ran silently on her heels, while the packhorse rumbled along, whoofing with each stride. Its hooves sounded like thunderclaps. Too loud. They needed silence. Jessira reached for Rukh and Linked her Blend with his. For a moment, the world seemed to stretch outward, as if viewed through a concave mirror before snapping back into focus.

  Jessira stumbled. She’d never experienced that before while Linking. She risked a look back, but Rukh seemed just as confused as she. He shook his head in answer to her unspoken question.

  She grimaced. Whatever had just happened, they’d have to figure it out later, once they were safe.

  Rolling toward them from high up in the skies was a rumble of thunder echoing amongst the shallow valleys and rises. It became a hurricane scream of tortured wind with lightning flashing. The ground shook. The Sorrow Bringer was coming.

  Jessira picked up speed. The deer track led up the face of the hill. Jessira took a deep breath and sprinted for the top. Rukh was right behind her. He crested the rise just in time. They huddled behind a nearby shelf of rock, hidden by the mass of the low rise. The horse neighed in fear. He had sense enough to understand when mortal danger approached.

  Jessira looked up and swallowed back a lump of fear.

  Descending from the sky like an avalanche was a wall of cloud, thunder, and coruscating lightning. It was going to be just like on the Hunters Flats when Suwraith had flattened Li-Dirge and his entire command.

  “Get down!” Jessira shouted, pressing Rukh against the ground. “Keep your eyes closed!”

  They missed what happened next, but a booming quake almost knocked them off their perch. The horse screamed in terror, but maintained his footing. The roaring rumble ground on and on and on.

  Jessira opened her eyes.

  The Queen had hit the ground with the force of a falling mountain. Roaring upward like an inverted tornado, a spume of water and dirt launched into the air, rising high and forming the shape of a mushroom. It hung suspended for endless minutes before collapsing down on itself, captured in the mad swirl of the Queen’s winds and clouds. Mud splattered in all directions, and flattened trees lay like matchsticks for hundreds of yards around. Suwraith hovered over the area before hurling Herself down once more. Jessira ducked her head low. The Sorrow Bringer hammered the land once again, and when She struck, it was with the sound of a thousand anvils ringing. Over and over again, She rose and crashed, rose and crashed, like an unending tide.

  Finally, there came a lull when the hellish din of Her hurricane wind and rage was gone.

  The Sorrow Bringer had left, or at least Jessira hoped so. She couldn’t tell for sure. The world was a soupy fog of
dust and debris. The stars themselves were blacked out and the moon lay hidden behind a cloud of dirt. Jessira could hardly see her hand in front of her face. A torrential, muddy rain fell upon them.

  Jessira wrapped a protective cloth over her nose and mouth. She was happy to see Rukh do the same for both himself and the packhorse.

  “We have to get clear of this dirt-cloud,” Rukh said with a cough.

  “In a moment,” Jessira said, trying to get her emotions under control. She held in a retch as she trembled, a mix of adrenaline and fear as her heart raced as if she’d run ten miles with a full rucksack. Jessira reached for Rukh’s hand, clutching it. She needed the warmth of Human contact after what they had just witnessed. Rukh held her hand, gripping it firmly and seeming to need to feel another person’s touch as much as she. After a few moments, her breathing steadied, and she nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Rukh gave her hand a final, reassuring squeeze before he climbed to his feet, helping her rise as well. “Let’s go.”

  They trudged through a mile wide fog of dust, eventually reaching a point where the air grew clean enough to breathe without the filter of a rag over their mouths and noses. By then, the rumbling sound of a mountain of mud raining to the ground had grown distant, but it wasn’t forgotten.

  With the coming of dawn, Rukh levered himself to his feet and yawned. Jessira threw off the blanket she’d wrapped around herself and stood as well. She looked as tired as Rukh felt. After the Sorrow Bringer’s wrath, neither of them had been able to get much rest. They had stayed up all night, holding to a hard, tight Blend in case the Queen returned.

  Rukh looked back the way they’d come where a plume of dust and debris still hung in the air from last night’s assault. How had the Sorrow Bringer found them? They’d been Blended. And yet, She’d honed in on their position as if following a compass point.

  Jessira spoke. “I think it was The Book,” she said, answering his unvoiced question as she so often could. “The Chims say the Queen is Daughter to the First Father. Maybe She can sense Her Father’s presence. Maybe when you read The Book of First Movement and experienced His memories, She could somehow feel a part of Him re-enter the world.”

  Rukh considered her words as he stared back in the direction from which they’d come. Jessira’s explanation made sense. “I guess neither of us should ever open it again,” he said.

  “Is it even safe to keep?”

  Rukh was wondering that exact same question. It might be the safest course to throw it aside, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to follow. Rukh didn’t want to give up The Book, not after working so hard to obtain it. Just as importantly, The Book had been lost to Humanity for three hundred years, and if it held the final thoughts of the First Father, it had to be important. They had to find a way to hold onto it.

  “For now, I think we should keep it,” Rukh replied. “If the Queen found us through it, then She would have chased after us when we left the pond. The fact She didn’t suggests She can’t track The Book unless it’s being read.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Jessira said, worry tingeing her voice.

  Rukh hoped he was right, too.

  “We need to get home as fast as possible,” Jessira said a moment later.

  “We should Blend hard all the way there,” he replied.

  Jessira nodded. “One of us will have to maintain focus at all times. Even when we’re camped for the night”

  Rukh blew out an exhalation. “It’ll be hard work.”

  “We’ve done harder,” she said, smiling wanly a moment later. “Our timing certainly is terrible. Looks like we’ll have to wait until we reach the city.”

  “Wait for what?” Rukh asked. A moment later, the answer came to him. “Oh.” He sighed in disappointment.

  Jessira laughed. “Can you wait?”

  “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” he asked, smiling half-heartedly. The smile left him. For weeks now, he had wanted to ask Jessira a question. Events had conspired against him, and there had never been a time to bring it up. But after last night, the question had taken on greater urgency. Jessira held his heart in her hands. She could lift him to the clouds if she said ‘yes’, but how awful if she said ‘no.’ He had to know one way or the other. “What are we to one another?” Rukh asked, his heart suddenly pounding.

  Jessira sobered, sensing the serious nature of his question. “What do you want us to be?” she asked, a fearful, yet hopeful expression on her face.

  Jessira deserved wine, music, romantic poetry, and a serenade but Rukh didn’t have any of that. All he had was the love in his soul. Nevertheless, he had to do this as properly as possible, as a Kumma should. She stared into his eyes as he took both her hands in his. He kissed her palms and knelt before. He touched her feet. Jessira trembled, and he looked up. “There are many truths in this world, Jessira Viola Grey, but for me, the greatest is this: my love for you. I love you with everything I know. Will you marry me?”

  He might have said more, but Jessira pulled him to his feet and kissed him, silencing him. He kissed her back, holding her tight in the circle of his arms.

  “Yes,” Jessira said with a breathless laugh. “Yes. Now and forever.” Her face was wet with tears.

  Rukh came to an unexpected stop. He held up a hand for silence and motioned ahead. Jessira read his gestures. Chimeras up the trail. Heading toward them. Three nests of Ur-Fels and a Bael.

  Jessira’s heart thumped. She had long since learned to trust his more acute senses. In the two weeks since Suwraith had annihilated the area around which she and Rukh had been camping, they’d come across a number of Chims scouting the western foothills of the Privation Mountains. Another group of them approached.

  Jessira carefully made her way off the narrow trail they were following. The horse plodded behind her. There was no help for the gelding’s heavy steps. Meanwhile, Rukh had already disappeared. Jessira figured he had probably backtracked, wiping out their trail as best he could.

  Jessira waited for him to return even as her ears strained for the harsh barking of the Ur-Fels. She sensed movement to the right. With it came the feel of a Blend.

  Rukh.

  She exhaled in relief and Linked with him. He popped into view.

  “We should keep moving,” she said the moment he was close enough to hear her whisper. Blended hard as they were, there was little chance their words would carry, but there was no need to take unnecessary risks.

  Rukh nodded, and they glanced about, searching their surroundings for a path leading away from the Chims.

  They stood along the floor of a deep gully. A stream, heavy with the morning’s rain, raced south, carrying a flotsam of wet leaves and small branches. Basalt cliffs with green and orange streaks loomed in sharp relief, merging with the heavy presence of the nearby Privations. The animal track they had been following had seemed like the easiest path up and out of here, but apparently, it was also the easiest way down. They needed another way out of the gap.

  A barking sound came to them. An Ur-Fel. Another bark. More. All of them coming from the animal track. The Chims seemed to be gathering, calling loudly as if they had discovered something.

  Their trail maybe?

  Jessira didn’t bother cursing. She uncased her bow, set a string to it, and readied an arrow. Rukh’s hands glowed, and a green-hued bubble surrounded him. A Shield.

  “It is an unshod horse,” a booming bass voice said. Given the depth and clarity of the speech, it had to be the Bael in charge of the nests. “Nothing to it. Leave it be.” A moment later. “A boot print you say?” The Bael sounded excited. “There’s another. Look.”

  Jessira and Rukh held still. A fight was best avoided, and perhaps these nests would still somehow overlook them.

  The Bael continued. “They likely heard us and cut through the forest to escape our righteous wrath,” he said, his voice filled with surety. Jessira tensed, waiting for the moment when flight or fight would become inevitable. “See the scuff ma
rks on the roots of that oak over there. They’re making their way south even as we speak. Go! I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  Upon the Bael’s shouted order, the Ur-Fels barked with excitement and took off in pursuit of their quarry—in the direction opposite of where Jessira and Rukh stood. They shared wondering looks at their good fortune.

  A second later, Jessira tensed.

  A crunching sound came from where the Chims had been clustered. A Bael stepped through the clinging branches of a tall lilac bush. He was big, even for one of his kind. White feathers drooped from his horns, dripping wetness. A young commander of the Fan Lor Kum. Despite the cold of the mountain spring, the Bael wore nothing more than a breechcloth and a leather harness. His chained whip was coiled at his hip, and his trident was carelessly held as he seemed to search around.

  Jessira swallowed. The Baels claimed to be friends of Humanity, and maybe they were. Li-Choke certainly was, but what about the rest of them? How could they really trust that every Bael believed as Choke did? She readied her bow.

  “If you’re still here, Li-Choke sends his regards,” the Bael said, speaking softly. “I don’t have much time. Mother has us hunting for—” he snorted in derision “—a man named Linder and a woman named Cienna. The First Father and the First Mother. Choke thinks She might mean the two of you. We’ve left a gap in our lines. Make your way north out of this ravine and across the valley on the other side of the cliffs, then head due east. After that, the way is clear. Good luck brothers.” With that the Bael disappeared back into the foliage. He raised a ruckus as he burst through the heavy brush, moving south of their position.

  “I think that’s more than enough excitement for one day,” Rukh murmured.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to try and take them all by yourself?” Jessira teased, speaking softly.

  “I might have,” Rukh said with a grin, “but you’d have just gotten mad at me for stealing all the glory.”