by Lesley Smith
“I was, apparently, the only survivor.” Jeiana said. “But my tendrils were torn off in the chaos.”
Suddenly remembering her calling, Senara dropped the bloody, pus-covered bandage into a tray on the edge of the bed. “You were right about the infection. I’m going to clean your wound with salted water. It’s going to hurt, but once it’s clean it should heal nicely.”
Jeiana bit her lip and tried to be stoic, but instead she cursed, and then she wept. The salt water burned as it purified, but it was a good pain, one which grounded her deeper in this borrowed form. By the end her hands were shaking, and Senara stopped, feeling her tremors.
“Jeiana?”
“Ana,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Ana, let me get you some water. You’ve gone pale.”
The water was sweet on her tongue and tasted of the incense wafting through the room, there to counteract the smell of sickness and infection which dogged places like this from one end of the universe to the other. Incense burned the back of her nose but the sweet smell was bitter on her tongue, and even the warmth of the walls couldn’t take away the awareness that this was a place where people endured suffering.
Jeiana lay on the bed and tried not to drop the glass while the healer cut a new dressing to size. Senara smeared the two wounds with an odd-smelling ointment, then gently re-dressed them, sealing them down with some kind of gumsap painted around the edges of the dressings. The sharp blade of agony became a dull ache and then vanished in minutes as if Uryen himself had laid a hand on her skin. Jeiana suddenly felt exhausted, but Senara smiled as she washed her hands in a bowl and then took the glass from her still-shaking fingers.
“Lie still for a little while. Recover. Sleep might give you the strength the infection stole from you.”
With that, and the assurance she was safe and exactly where she needed to be, Jeiana slept.
“It’s called Ashoi Sedorath. The Forest of the Dead,” the man beside Jeiana said. “Though many have forgotten that, preferring its newer name, the Forest of the Lightflies.”
They were walking through the green casually. An afternoon stroll, both of them walking with staves as was the Kashinai way. She was dressed in a hakashari, but he wasn’t. His pale pink skin and braided silver-blonde hair stood out starkly, as did his lack of a tail. He wore strong shoes and a black jacket and trousers unlike any clothing she had ever seen a Kashinai wear, which she realised was because he was not Kashinai and not afraid of Thaeos. That aside, he wore no jewels or any sign of his origins but the calm, patient expression in his silver-grey eyes.
“That’s a depressing name,” she said. “Especially when this place is so full of life.”
The man was amused. “And that’s the point, life breeds from death. Animals, people, and trees die. Their nutrients are absorbed into the soil which feeds a new generation. Without death, there is no life.”
“And without life, no death,” she answered, quietly understanding the reason for the forest’s original name.
“Exactly.” The man wasn’t young or old but somewhere in the middle. Even so he seemed ageless and frozen in time. He sounded pleased that she had grasped the concept so easily. “The Kashinai language is very logical when you think about it.”
The forest was thick, a canopy of blue, silver, gold, and red leaves, some as large as a hakashari; deep water catchers with veins that sparkled. Jeiana could hear birds singing and hear the flutter of wings. The trees formed a natural arch which shielded them from Thaeos’ rays, casting colours on their skin as the leaves absorbed the rays like light through bottles of ink. It felt like they were talking through a bubble of existence mirrored against the real world forest in which her body was sleeping.
“Am I dead?” She asked. “Or just dreaming?”
“Alive, dead, past, future, present. They’re just words to get your head around the concept that no one can understand.”
“What’s that?”
“Sentience.”
“Are you a philosopher?”
The man laughed, genuinely and so hard that he actually had to stop walking to double up and clutch his side. He learned on the staff, winded, and it took him a moment to recover.
“That’s a no, then.” Jeiana said wryly, seeing the twinkle in the man’s eye as they resumed walking.
The man shrugged. “I’d prefer not to comment.”
“So you’re sitting on the fence?”
“It’s what I do,” he said, agreeing solemnly with a small wink.
For a moment she smelled the forest, the rich earthiness of it melded with a thousand different flora, and the dampness of the stream that ran to the east, carving a slow path through the landscape. To their left was a fallen tree, gutted over the centuries and now hollow and half covered in fungi. An adult could easily have crawled inside, but her companion was right. Death allowed this sacred landscape, this outdoor temple to the elements, to thrive.
When she turned back, her companion was gone, and suddenly the forest had faded as well. Instead, Jeiana stood on the edge of a beach. Below her was an ocean of stars, but the stars were a reflection of the universe drifting in the water. Nebulae and galaxies spun, pulsars blinked, shooting stars fell, and it was transcendentally beautiful. The water, which she realised was the River of Stars magnified a million times, turned from a stream to a multiverse-spanning ocean. No sun was setting or moons hanging overhead, just the light of the stars as they rose, blue-white and mesmerising.
Leaning over the edge of the cliffside, Jeiana saw him sitting with his back to her, resting easily against a rock. He was going nowhere quickly, and to her relief, probably hadn’t even realised she was there. Nearby, a boat was anchored to the shore. It was a triangular coracle—a kerash—which she recognised from her childhood amongst the Seaborn, and it was just big enough for two.
Had he had come for her? She was barely begun, her task not even started yet.
Frightened, Jeiana took a step back, suddenly envisioning a fatal loss of balance. The cliff was a good fifty metres above the shore, more than enough for a Kashinai to fall and break even the hollowest of bones. Even so, the panorama was amazing.
“You’re not the first person to think that.” He was standing behind her, the same clothes, the same kindly expression that failed to hide his amusement. “You wished to speak to me?”
“I thought we just were.”
“I told you, time doesn’t exist. We’ve not spoken and yet we’ve talked for hours.” He indicated the way to the forest and selected a long branch lying on the ground to use as a walking staff, handing it to her. “So, do you feel like a stroll?”
“I get the impression I’ve already agreed,” Jeiana said, and accepted the staff.
The forest started a few steps later, towering trees of twisted bark which formed a canopy above their heads. Lightflies drifted in the comforting shade, their bellies lit up as they hovered over still-open flowers. This was not such a bad place to live even if it enveloped more miles than the Kashinai had tamed. If the Southern Desert was known as the Sea of Sand then this was the Sea of Leaves.
“It’s very beautiful.”
Now they were standing on the river shore and Jeiana had started to get her head around the strange jumps that felt as if they were out of sync with the universe.
Her companion answered without missing a beat: “Yes it is.”
“Are you doing that?”
“Maybe.”
For a moment, Jeiana felt bold. “So, if we’ve been talking for hours, tell me: what’s your name?”
“I’ve got lots of those. Two thirds of them, I think, you’d be unfamiliar with. I don’t think anyone has ever given me a name, not on Ishvei’s World. You could name me, if you wanted.”
“I could?”
“You’re the only person whose name I would accept.”
Jeiana blushed. “Why me?”
“Because of who you were,” he said. “I owe more than a life debt to you and
because you are the other half of my soul, we fit together perfectly. Even Kashinai, muddled as you are, you sense that.”
“Ash,” she said slowly. The word meant ‘ending’ across every Kashinai dialect, it was the word reserved for death. Had she been trying to remember his name? It definitely began with an A but Ash wasn’t it. Even so, it fitted him perfectly.
“Yes,” he agreed, leaving her unsure of exactly what he was agreeing with, but he seemed saddened. “That’s how I’ll be known here.”
“Why?”
“Because you killed me.”
The Calling
Inspiration touches all of us, from the poets and the artisans, to the calligraphers and cartographers, regardless of age or clan or walk of life. Without that there would be no oracles.
The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.
With her newest charge sleeping and Karos left in the care of one of the neophyte-healers, Senna left the Hall of Healing and walked across the temple complex, heading for the dormitories and the temple’s lone bathhouse. Her role now was not as priestess but as kin to her cousin. It was a role no other could fill, and Senna wanted this chance to see Saiara in her new robes as she walked into the temple.
Thaeos was sinking which meant both her cousin and her beloved must have returned by now, Senna thought to herself as she walked through the busy streets packed with revelers, and she soon found her clothes tinted by coloured pigments thrown from high windows. Her feet were bare in her sandals and quickly stained silver, gold, red, and blue and it made her feel all the more holy.
The stone streets were like an artist’s palette, stained with pigments from the procession. Her sandals clicked and clacked as she walked, leaving footprints through the coloured dust; creating a living piece of art which would last until the rains came. The townsfolk were down by the river lighting candle-boats and watching them float gently downstream. Each boat was a wish they hoped the Lady would grant in the next cycle.
The river and its tributaries snaked through the city and on to the coast, alive with tiny candles flickering as far as the eye could see. In the skies fireworks exploded like stars of every colour in the spectrum, and people were cheering, not a care in the world. She could smell the salt from the tide and, thanks to the firepowder used in the spectacle, the air seemed almost electrified.
“Joy to you, Kodia’s daughter!” Someone called as she walked through the temple gardens.
Senna looked up and returned the ritual phrase. “And to you, brother. May your night be long and filled with pleasure.”
She hadn’t yet been a healer for half as long as she had been a member of Danae’s temple and her household. People knew her for that vocation more than for her service of Uryen, whom she had served for little more than ten cycles. She had lived with Danae since her first blood and the Age of Maturity, first as a neophyte and trainee-priestess, before finding her calling and renting a small room in the private quarters of her temple.
Sometimes, when the whim took her, she would take a lover, even if it was just for a single night of enjoyment or to help a friend in need of relief. Senna, now approaching matronhood, was too focused on her patients to have more than the odd dalliance. But there were occasions when someone would darken Danae’s door and remind her of what she missed. Failing that, Lanna and Radoric were always trying to tempt her back, and there were times in the half-light before dawn when Senara imagined other lives that could have been, and sometimes felt a stab of regret.
Senara had gone to live with her cousin’s family after her aunt, Talith, had grown ill during the long, hot summer of the Great Quake that destroyed Erathi, four years before Jashri took Eirian’s place as High Oracle. She had been almost an adult then. Saiara was still a child, and nearly eight years separated them. Senna’s mother, Yena, had moved from Benai to the great city only for Talith to pass and Yena to be killed when the Great Quake destroyed half of the artisan’s quarter.
The area was now occupied by the poorer folks who had built a shantytown in its ruins, the dead space between the taverns and the temple which had never quite been repaired. Each time she walked by, Senna remembered seeing her cousin’s face on the morning Senna explained she was now an orphan. Faced with not one child, but two to bring up, her now-dead uncle had had an impossible choice, and Saiara had gone to Ishvei’s service while Senna went into Kodia’s. In hindsight, it had been a wise move. He died of heartsickness less than a season later.
Both girls went gladly, with the knowledge they would have safety and security, but the ties that bound them together never truly dissolved. Now, for one night, they would be reunited as siblings.
She thought of Casparias then. He had been orphaned in the Great Quake and had found his way to the temple, little more than a boy left to cry on the steps. There Caspa and Saiara were paired, she as a neophyte and he as her trainee attendant.
Attendant, she thought. It was the word everyone used, even though it suggested a slave or servant, and he was neither. Caspa and his ilk were much more than that, and Senna always preferred the other meaning of the word from the most ancient of days when it meant ‘one who supports’.
The pairing of priest and attendant had always been an important part of the religious hierarchy, once common even to those who entered Uryen’s halls or Kodia’s shrines, but in recent memory that had become more known for the Ishveian and Aian Orders. The other Orders preferred a more balanced line between the pair, that of tutor and student, or mentor and trainee. Ishvei and Aia though, required something deeper. Something much more profound.
After all, the daughters of those Orders were not as the priestesses of some worlds who sit in solitude and contemplation. They were artisans and bards, bakers and pleasure-givers, healers and visionaries who led very active lives at the heart of their communities. That led to mental and physical strain on them and so they were given another—male or female as she chose—to support her as her attendant.
As Saiara’s only living female relative, Senara was the one who would help prepare her cousin for her initiation. It was supposed to remind the prospective temple maiden of what she was about to leave behind.
Senara walked to the temple steps and made the climb. It was supposed to be slow and meditative; difficult in the still warm air. She wondered if Saia and Caspa were actually back yet, or if they were still frolicking at Danae’s. The idea of waiting made her uncomfortable.
She tried to spend as little time in the complex as possible, for fear of crossing paths with the High Chamberlain or, worse, Jashri herself. It had been known to happen, and Senna was sometimes called to treat the sisterhood’s maladies even if Jashri refused to recognise that she had been the first year neophyte, and the only woman accepted into Uryen’s service who had cared for the future High Oracle when Jashri first came to Aiaea.
Senna understood her reasons. She was one of the few who did, and she could not hate Jashri, only pity her.
The worship hall was eerily quiet. Most of the people were out on the streets celebrating, so the only people remaining were members of the clergy. She noted older priestesses sitting in meditation around Ishvei’s chapel and in the small alcoves dedicated to the other gods. Some, seeing her healer's robes, tilted their heads to her in that respectful way which made her feel like a fraud about to be struck down by annoyed deities.
“Excuse me, sister.” Senna raised her voice a little higher than a whisper. In the flickering candle light it seemed like noise travelled faster than light from a starchild. “I’m looking for Neophyte Saiara.’
“She’s in the dorm.”
“Thank you. May inspiration follow you always.”
“And you.”
In the dorms, attendants and priestesses could be heard singing hymns as the neophytes walked around nervously or tried to meditate. Senna spotted her cousin and Casparias, already dressed in his freshly pressed attendant’s robes, helping her to memorise the passage she had to recite as part of the
ceremony.
“Saia!”
Her cousin’s head snapped up so fast Senna heard the muscles make popping noises and inwardly she winced.
“Cousin!”
Saiara hugged her, and Senna was suddenly reminded of the little girl in a white shift her uncle had walked to the temple, her hair pinned up and her eyes wide. Now that girl was a woman and about to make one of the biggest decisions in this lifetime.
“You came! I’m so glad.”
“Of course I did. I never break my oath.” Senna saw Casparias. “Good evening, Caspa. It’s good to see you again.”
“And you, Healer Senara.”
“Come, Saia, let’s get you dressed and ready.”
Senara took her cousin to the bathhouse, and with the assistance of a female attendant named Aisia, got her dressed. Saiara’s hair was washed and a blade applied to erase excess hair on her legs and around her tail. Her skin was scrubbed until several layers had been scuffed off, and by the time she was dried, Saiara looked ready to drop from exhaustion.
“Tired?” Senna asked gently.
Saiara was pleased to see her, though the weariness deep in her soul showing. “We didn’t have much time to sleep. Thank you for recommending Mother Danae’s by the way.”
“She took good care of you, then?”
“Yes.” Saiara lowered her eyes. “Lanna tried to tempt me from Caspa’s embrace.”
“She will do that.” Senna agreed, laughing at the flush rising on her cousin’s face. “Are you still nervous?”
“I feel the same as I did on the day came here.” She winced as Aisia tugged her her hair in an attempt to dry it. “Ow.”
“Apologies, Neophyte.”
“It’s all right, Aisia,” Saiara said.
Senna sensed something weighing on her cousin. “I’ll take over from here. My thanks to you.”
“As you wish, Healer.” The attendant folded up the towels, bundled them into her arms and made a swift exit.