by Lesley Smith
Taras had birthed Ishran just a few weeks after Nolam had passed, making him the new Clanfather several years before his time. It would be another two decades before Jio came along and somewhere in between, Garrin had borne a son of his own, Kadian, who had fallen in love with Meresia’s child.
He briefly wondered if he would ever see Garrin again. So many would die, so many wouldn’t survive the journey, would his dead sons’ other father be one of them?
The old man—and he felt his age—thought back to the last time he had come so near to this place. A few hours walk, less on a baelish, was the cultists’ sacred space, a shrine of sand and glass and burning heat.
Ishran had died there when the Sons had tried to prevent them rescuing a girl who would become the High Oracle. Jashri—as he would later name her—had been staked out to die in the sun’s harsh glare, blinded and screaming in agony as she roasted alive. The baelish had smelled the blood and had dragged the pair of them to the source.
Ishran had died there, cut down by a cursed blade in Jashri’s place by a nameless cultist who met his end seconds later. His soul for hers, a bargain struck with Jaisenthia herself even if Jeiana had never confirmed it. He doubted that she remembered it. Taras had been so grief-struck that he had ordered those of his clan to wrap Ishran’s body in Riverclothes and they ferried his rotting corpse all the way back to Aiaea for burning, the ashes scattered as soon as Taras could get to Abbia. He still remembered Garrin’s face as they wept, tears clumping the ash as it blew free in the wind of the Bay of Lilies.
That was the moment when Taras decided he would one day kill the man who commanded those who had killed his son. That was when Taras knew he was going to end Asamu’s life. He would do it for Mere too, for the mother she had not known, for the cousin she had lost and for all the souls who had died under Asamu’s rule.
Jeiana was looking at him, her grey eyes focused as if she could hear his murderous thoughts in her mind. Perhaps she was the Lady of the River, he believed it, but proof was another thing entirely and sometimes his mind overrode his soul. If she was, then perhaps she was sensitive to those soon to enter her boat, perhaps she knew Asamu was at the end of his life, and that it would come at his hand and not hers.
If they ever made it to Abbia, he had a duty as a Clanfather to test her. She would know what was in the box hidden beneath the sacred altar by her sister and her opposite. But that was for another night, another day, in a place of grass and ocean a world away from this accursed place.
He focused now on Saiara, standing a few steps in front of them. Today she was Aia’s instrument and her people needed water. Taras knew she wouldn’t simply back down but he wasn’t sure if she had the strength to call Asamu’s bluff.
Taras stepped forward, he placed a hand on the oracle’s shoulder and spoke in her ear. “Your Grace, what is your command?”
Her lip was trembling, the weight of her decision almost too much for her to carry. She knew what must be done and didn’t like it, yet it was the lesser of two evils and the choice that she must make if they were to survive.
“We must take Pesh. There are people, Cavari, still living under Asamu’s oppression. We need that water or we won’t make it to Alarim, let alone Canhei.”
“I know,” Taras said.
“Violence is anathema to me but…” her voice trailed off, into the sands shifting around them. “We will die. He will pick us off before we can get to the water, otherwise. I’ve seen it. I will not sacrifice the lives of those who trusted me. The entire future of our species depends on our survival.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Differing paths, the same outcome.” Saiara turned to face him, blind eyes staring through the blood-coloured cloth. “I see what you intend to do, Taras.”
“Then I must do it?” Taras asked, not seeking validation…and yet.
“I will not sanction murder. I will not help you find revenge for the loss of your son,” she said. “But Asamu must die. Once he’s gone his devotees will fall.”
“I will take this burden from you,” he said softly, voice suddenly thick with anger.
“No, you won’t. It is mine,” Saiara turned and raised her voice a little, the wind hiding her words from the watching cultists. “Brothers, sisters, we must take this oasis if we wish to live beyond dawn. We have to act now or we will die here. Take up arms to save yourselves, to save the old, the ill and those too young to walk. If we do not strand up now, we will die and never see the sacred valley of Canhei. Kill none but those who seek to harm you! Are you with me?”
The people answered her call as she knew they would. Sheer numbers were in their favour and Taras watched the stream of people, so like a river breaking its banks, as they overwhelmed Asamu’s forces. He himself watched the man scuttling off and felt Jaisenthia by his side. For this moment, he was her instrument, and not that Seaborn woman from Caerim.
Resolute, no matter the consequences, Taras slipped through the chaos and went to do that which must be done.
Dying hurt more than Asamu expected. The battle had startled him, men, women, and children suddenly charging into the oasis and overwhelming them. He hadn’t expected that, not from so many frail and sickened souls. He had taken down a few; slashing a woman’s neck open so her blood covered him like the feel of early morning mist, and he stabbed a man deep in the belly. Both had fallen and others had tried to take his life in return, but none succeeded.
He had moved through the houses, running for his life as his brothers died around him. They were outnumbered and people, even pacifists like the cityfolk and the Edoi, could be roused to violence if their loved ones were threatened. The Sons were outnumbered at least ten to one, even if nine of those were ill, womenfolk, or dying. Those left were motivated by fear and that made them worth twice their number.
“Divine Father, he whose grace has fallen upon me.” The prayer of the dying was old, the first thing whispered in the ear of a Son of Thaeos at birth, before even his name. “I live in your light, I die by your will. Grant me the illumination of your fiery heart.”
Asamu thought of Vakai, his malformed son who had died at the hands of that potter’s girl, Kia. She had killed him, his imperfect boy. Would Vakai be waiting for him in Thaeos’ paradise? Though imperfect, the boy had been pure, a son of his loins and no one else’s, as it had been done for generations.
“There you are.”
The Edoi man was a few years his junior but his face was dark with raw grief where a scab on his heart had been picked at and fresh blood allowed to well. His green eyes were narrowed to slits, the cleaver in his hand glinting in the light of flickering flames hanging in the wall-alcoves.
“Who are you?”
“I am your death. I’m the man who found the girl you tried to kill,” he said clearly. “And I’m the man whose son your men slaughtered.”
“So you’re that mad bitch’s saviour,” Asamu wheezed, genuine mirth erupting from his throat. “And you took her and gave her to the temple and she repaid you how? Does she even know your name?”
“I don’t care! She had done nothing to warrant the death you were meting out for her.”
Asamu spat the words. “She killed my son.”
“Who, from what she told me, tried to rape her! You think that excuses your inbred monster? Jashri might not be perfect as an Oracle but after what you put her through, it’s a wonder she had any sanity left.”
Asamu spotted a knife on the table, blade glittering silver, but before he even had time to lunge for it, Taras pinned him down and kicked it away.
“Does your goddess support murder now?” Asamu asked.
“On the day when I stand before the gods, I know I can explain my actions. I can justify your life to save everyone in our caravan, everyone who is enslaved here. But do you know what makes us different?”
Asamu glared, suddenly curious to know the answer. “What?”
“I will ask forgiveness from Aia for every day left in my
life and all those which come after.” With that Taras stabbed his cleaver into Asamu’s heart, ripped out the blade and then walked out into the morning, leaving the old cultist to die in the darkness, away from his god.
With the day came peace. Saiara sat with Eirian and Vashi, helping to fill skins and every container they could find. People drank thirstily, the sick were washed and the wounded tended to. The fruit was picked from the trees and divided, great sachi melons split in half and quartered, so the people could break their fast together.
The dead were buried in makeshift graves, the oracles saying the appropriate prayers over them. There were a scant handful of Cavari left and they, imprisoned within their own homes for so long, were more than eager to join the caravan of refugees.
While the caravan slept through the day, Saiara used her staff and found her way to the spring. She sat in the shade of a pana tree, her back resting against its trunk and alone with her thoughts. The noise of the water calmed her, as did the knowledge that she could, at any time, reach out and drink. For a few short hours, they was no rationing, no desperate rush. There was simply rest and contentment.
Saiara found herself navigating her visions, rerunning the most recent ones through her mind. Eirian had taught her meditations which would allow her to review the flurries of images, emotions, and unformed memories bestowed on her when she was granted a vision.
She had seen Pesh, its blood-stained sands. She had seen that Taras would be the one to kill Asamu, even if she would never tell him that nor command him to commit the act. She hoped that he had found the peace he needed, and that he could live with having taken another’s life, even if that person had been the reason why his son had died.
She thought of Jashri next. She had seen the oracle as a young girl, dragged to a profaned temple and tortured, all for the simple act of defending herself against a would-be rapist. That’s how she had been blinded, that’s how Aia had come to her, granting her a new life from the ashes of a dead one.
That was when, deep inside her belly, Saiara felt the first spark of life, the first movement of her child, Caspa’s unknown gift to her.
Her eyes snapped open and even through the cloth, she could see. Around her the world had slowed, the water moving more like clotting blood. A shamir darted from the lilies floating on the surface of the spring, hovering in the air with its impossibly fine wings catching the sunlight and glistening.
The vision cracked, the panorama falling into sand. She saw a great tree hidden under the earth in a cavern as big as the Temple. She saw Caspa and the Edoi boy, Jio, she saw Shaari’s beloved and a hundred other men, attendants all of them, though only half were brought to the Order by their love for their oracles, the rest were adopted in to a family which needed each other to survive. They were walking in the darkness of the years, the generations flowing as they tried to go north, as they tried to find their lost lifemates.
Caspa, though, had heard something and turned back. The tree was battered now, the sacred mirror broken, and the smell of sea-water permeated the cavern. Yet the great tree survived and in the chaos he found something he did not expect, a child that was not a child. A daughter to father in the absence of his own. A child who was not Kashinai but of a race just as old as Ishvei’s children.
“Saiara?” Senna’s touch was cool on her skin. “Are you ill?”
Saiara’s voice was strangely quiet. “I’m pregnant.”
“I was wondering when you’d notice,” Senna said.
“You knew?”
“I’m a daughter of Uryen. What kind of healer would I be if I didn’t recognise the signs?”
“It’s Caspa’s.” She sounded sure and it wasn’t a question. “We laid together at New Year, before all this. Before Jashri sent him away, before I was blinded.”
“Then we must make sure your child lives. In his memory.”
“He’s not dead.”
“What?”
“He’s not dead, Senna,” Saiara said. “But where he is, I will never see him again.”
“What?”
“He’s underground, in a great grotto. I saw his sons, his sons’ sons. A line which stretches down the ages. His children and those of the other attendants, they’re going to change, become warped by the darkness, but they are going to be fathers, they’re going to protect the lost children ripped from their mothers during the coming calamity.”
“What?” Senna wasn’t following a word of this. “It don’t understand.”
That was when she heard Vashi’s voice. How long had she been there? “You weren’t meant to be, Senna, but you’re the new Companion. I will write it down and you will be the keeper of the information. Your daughters and sons will continue the line, will help guide the Oracles to come.”
“One Companion, one Oracle,” Saiara echoed, her voice fading as if she were on the edge of sleep. “Siblings as we were supposed to be, Vashi, across time and the ages. As you made me promise…”
“Saiara?” Senna asked. With her eyes covered if it was hard to tell if she was asleep or had fainted. She reached out, felt for a pulse and was reassured. Her cousin was most definitely pregnant, the urge to sleep was strong simply because the daughter in her belly was stealing what meagre energy the Oracle had.
She sat, beckoning the Edoi handmaid to come and join her. “Now, Vashi, what are you talking about?”
Vashi’s stylus was dancing across paper, the quill scratching out hieratics as she transcribed. “Old Beren explained it all to me, Senna. The Companions are the true keepers of our history and our future. They have codices containing every prophecy, whether large or small, and the names of all the oracles, all the Companions since Kaiene.”
Senna shook her head. “I’m a healer. I don’t have time for this, not if I’m to keep our people healthy.”
Vashi had the knapsack, it wasn’t hers, not truly, it had belonged to Old Beren, the Codexmaster of the temple library. Speaking of him made tears well up in her eyes and threaten to smudge the ink as she pulled out the Codex of the River and the other tomes he had bequeathed to her. Senna touched them reverently and gasped when she saw the scrolls, tied neatly and stamped with Kaiene’s seal.
“The Sacred Scrolls?”
“Old Beren took them. They are, after all, the property of the Oracle.” Vashi shrugged. “I was just asked to ensure they passed to their new custodian.”
Some of the pages were ancient, the neat calligraphy carefully inscribed, easy to read even after countless years. Each passage had a notation indicating the prophecy’s place of utterance, the name of the oracle, her scribe, any witnesses, and the date of transcription.
“Old Beren is gone and so is his nephew, the current Companion.”
“Vashi, I’m no scribe and you…you’re Saiara’s handmaiden now even though she’s not formally offered you the position. I say this not from fear or to shirk responsibilities, but you would be better suited to this role than I.”
“But it’s temple law…”
“The temple set this down, not Kaiene, and I say now is a time for change,” Senna said. “Shouldn’t the Oracle choose her own Companion? I’m sure Mother Eirian would agree that this priceless trove is better in your care than mine. You and Kadian will have children…I’m getting too old for such things.”
“I understand your logic, but it makes me uneasy. I promised Beren.”
“Ask for Saiara’s blessing then, in fact I’m pretty sure she just gave it.” Senna looked over at the sleeping Oracle. “Vashi, she spoke of you as if you were her blood sister, as if your souls danced together through lives you no longer remember.”
“Then we keep this secret, between us, until this Changing of the Sun is done, until Thaeos’ rage has cooled?”
“Yes.” Senna pushed the knapsack across the sand, into the scribe’s lap. “Let’s bury the old with the sands and embrace the new.”
Vashi stood. “Shall we put our Oracle to bed then? The day is half over and we need to leave at
dusk.”
Senna agreed. “Jeiana will miss me, I think, if I say out here all day.”
Vashi spoke earnestly. “Senna, don’t worry. I think, I believe, everything will be all right.”
The healer nodded but her voice was grim. “I hope so, Vashi, I really do.”
Where the River Runs
The River winds and bends, stretching further than we with mortal eyes can see. The only constant is the kerash moving from shore to shore.
The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.
Nahris was tired, the caravans moved slowly and disease chased behind them like howling javva in the night. She had never seen one of course, they were a story told to keep children in line. Mothers and fathers told the tale across Reskha, albeit with slight regional variations, but their essence remained the same; they were amorphous creatures who slipped into rooms to devour the sweet dreams of naughty children and replace them with night terrors.
It was easy to hear a howl in the night and remember a horror she had believed a figment of her childhood. A jaava suited the death that restlessly followed them, feeding on the fear and terror as hope for survival diminished. It took more souls each day and chased them across the landscape, snapping at their heels. Unlike the Lady who traveled with Saiara, this death was dark and terrifying, it didn’t feel like much of a kindness as it ripped the life out of the weak and weary.
Around them Reshka was changing. The once-lush grass was now dry as the straw herded for baelish or imported into the city as fuel. The sky seemed brighter, the clouds far too wispy for this early in the season, and Thaeos burned. The heat was unrelenting, and even the freshest water seemed to taste brackish, poisoned by algae invisible to their eyes.
The River Road was an ill-made choice. The ground beneath them had an odd spring, as soil does when overwatered, and by the fifth day earth had turned to bog and then to swamp. Four strong men, two women, and three children were lost to the appetite of the waters, sucked down deep and drowned while the others watched, knowing anyone who tried to help would meet the same grisly fate. The last to die had been a girl only a few seasons older than Nahris and those eyes, panic-stricken, haunted her dreams for all the nights and days which came after. The girl had screamed and begged for help, for the men to throw a rope or kill her quickly with an arrow or a throwing blade.