by Lesley Smith
And so, on that day when Ishvei’s World drifted closest to Thaeos, did the planet and its peoples feel the Starchild’s wrath and cower in fear in the darkness.
Against the Storm
Forces of nature are not just, they do not care if we live or die, but they must be. We should not fear nature for both birth and death are needed for us to grow and learn.
The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.
Taras was asked to seal off the caves from the outside world as dawn came. Many had stood outside, to watch the final sunrise in a solemn vigil. The sky was raw, the rising sun a golden gash in the eastern skies, surrounded by reds and golds and strange shades of violet and orange as the black of night was chased away.
High Summer’s Day had always been a day of celebration, but today it felt more like mourning. So many had been lost, so many had been left behind but still, countless had been saved from a long and lingering death. Taras found himself quietly thinking of the morning Jio had been born. After Ishran, Taras had wanted another son more than he desired to breathe but the gods hadn’t been kind and he couldn’t conceive. Kadian had been born with the harvest, taking after Garrin in most things, but with calm sensibilities. Jio had been the surprise which shattered their world, their wondrous unexpected blessing, even if Taras had not been the carrier. Jio was everything Ishran had been, so precocious, so willing to fight when cornered, even against impossible odds.
As Thaeos rose, Taras realised that this day would have been the birthing day which marked Jio’s manhood. They would have opened casks and presented him with an adult’s hakashari, offering him his choice of the five clans to be fostered out to; to learn a trade or see the world. He had had so much ahead of him, and yet Vashi, that sweet girl with a numinous soul, she was convinced the Oracles had seen him as if she were god-touched herself. He envied that faith, that conviction. Even now he looked at Jeiana and still saw the goddess sleeping inside of her. He believed in her, even though she had forgotten. She was the Lady of the River, and even if Jio had passed into her kerash, he would be safe and well cared for.
“Come on, all of you, we’ve not got long to do this. Everyone back into the caves! Anyone left outside stays out, so find your children. Come along now!”
He might be a gruff old mockery of a Clanfather but they listened anyway.
Taras knew this might be suicide but, truly, the Baareni had done wonders. He had been one of the first to understand the sheer scale of the maze of caverns, the network which went all the way to the start of the lake. There was fresh water in the largest cave, an eerie place lit by bioluminescence and an arched ceiling from the before times that was marked with stars, as if you were looking up into the celestial river itself.
He had found caverns large enough to stable the baelish, with hay and grain, troughs and pallets for the stablers. There were rooms for Senna to treat the sick, lit by sconces and kept apart from the general population. He had seen the pantries of preserved meats and sacks of everything an army of Edoi might need to survive a year on the road. There were casks of shamir honey and oil for cooking. The coldest caves had pools of ice, where water had frozen and never melted, where they could store meat and other things which would spoil.
Even though Lyse was gone, he wished she had remained so he could thank her. Without her they wouldn’t have survived and now, having been the one to find Jashri and bring her to Aiaea all those years ago, he understood that this had always been the gods’ plans for them. Sacrifices must always be made, pain must always be endured, but it would be worth it in the end, even if only a handful of them survived.
“Sealing the caves!” He called out, shepherding the stragglers inside. “Come on now, get in with all of you.”
The stones were heavy and could only be moved by several strong men. No one person would be able to just walk out and once the final stone was in place the caverns seemed too still. Taras bit back the dull sense of panic, of claustrophobia, which threatened to drown him. There was water, there was food and, most importantly, there was light and air. He had found the places where, if you looked up, you could see daylight even if you couldn’t see anything else.
He was Edoi, too used to the wide open places of the world. This was anathema to him and yet just as Jeiana had cross the bridge onto Abbia so he must face his own terrors. She had faced her fear of the white water which had killed her and become stronger as a result.
Taras, like Meresia and Garrin, had people who looked to him for strength just as the Clanparents had once looked to Eirian and now focused on Saiara. As they had people to support so the Edoi must, in turn, offer support to the Voice of Aia. Where the Edoi moved, so it was said, the people followed.
He made his way through the spiral of ancient steps and hallways, down into sleeping caves packed with people. Lightstones lit the larger spaces, piled in corners or stuck to walls with gumsap almost in mosaics. Talk of clans had gone by now, coins thrown into the lake as an offering to their safety and as an artefact of a bygone era that died with Jashri. Where they were going, into an uncertain future, money would not save you, nor would possessions.
Taras, being Edoi, knew this better than most. Only family, adopted or blood, would save you when all else failed, and they needed to imprint this concept on the naive cityfolk so they survived, not just them, but also the Edoi and the other souls placed in their care by faith and happenstance.
They had a shrine hall close to the water, the incense sweet and hanging on the air. There were no images, they weren’t needed, just the quietness of the space.
“Your Graces?” Taras’ eyes were still adjusting to the changing in light levels. The living areas were much brighter but here there were just a couple of small lightstones which were barely enough to see a shadow by.
“Taras?” Saiara’s voice, for that was all he experienced of her in the damned darkness, had a new kind of authority to it. Eirian had been tutoring her well in these past weeks, never knowing when student and teacher would be parted. “Is all well with my people? Are they all safely inside?”
“Aye, I oversaw it myself. I’m surprised you didn’t join them to see the last sunrise, though given your pregnancy I do understand.”
“I feel like a drunken sand mouse but the quiet helps, the darkness too. Thank you, Taras, for going in my stead.”
“It will pass eventually,” Eirian said gently. She’d been so quiet Taras had almost forgotten she was also there, hidden in the darkness.
“Are you well, Mother?”
“Just tired.” Eirian sounded exhausted. “I’ll be all right in the morning, after a good night’s rest.”
Of course they were never going to have a quiet night, Taras was lying beside Garrin, listening to the breathing of those around him. By the sound of it, half the large dormitory were actually awake, trying desperately to find respite. Kadian and Vashi were in the next cavern, Chelle with her children, and he felt oddly alone for the first time in what felt like years.
The children were the most unsettled, as much as their parents and elders tried to calm them with memory songs or lullabies. Taras could hear poor Kei’a keening as if her soul was being ripped from her body, and even brave Sui’a was unsettled.
Garrin opened one eye. “Can’t sleep?”
“No, my brain is telling me it’s day. The children know something’s wrong.”
The strange thing was, they’d expected the ground to grumble; they’d been bracing for quakes which never came. Saiara knew why of course, and she had patiently explained to the people.
“You cannot see love but you can still feel it. As Jeiana and the others sickened, so would we if we were still outside. It would be worse than a simple bite or scratch turned infected. We must be brave, we’ve come this far and I ask nothing that you’ve not already given me, your faith and trust.”
Garrin nodded. “Go and walk a bit.”
Taras wandered the caves for a while. Eventually he found himself in
the one they’d called the River Cavern, this was the one with the pool of water, the tangled weeds and plants which glowed gently in the darkness. The patterns of the heavens were mirrored in rock and marked by flecks of starstone in all the right places.
“Who made this place?”
To his surprise, Eirian answered. “Our ancestors. I assume they looked up at the stars and dreamed of other worlds. This must have been before we had the sacred words, had language.”
“So Ishvei didn’t literally create us then?” He asked, sitting beside the old woman and joining her in what could only be called star-gazing.
“Even bards and song spinners take liberties with fact if it fits a fiction.”
“So she created us, but didn’t carve us and breathe life into our finished forms?”
“Perhaps she and the other gods simply nudged us into existence. Perhaps it took a day but what is a day to a creature of eternity?”
“In another age that might be blasphemy.”
“There’s no such thing. The truth changes with us. As we grow, so do our perceptions.”
“You’re not Eirian, are you?” He asked.
“No, my son, she’s already gone. She passed this afternoon, in her sleep. She went joyfully, reunited with her beloved Khannam.”
“You’re her? Aia?”
“I have many names. You see me as Eirian because you were close and she was your elder, the one person you trusted. I’m no more a deity than you are a baelish.” She spoke with Eirian’s cadence, her accent Abbian, but her words, they were something else. “Saiara’s final test is to lead and she must do that with her own power, backed up by her people. Eirian was beloved and rightly so, but the new order now lies with Saiara and the child in her belly.”
“Will her daughter be a seer?”
“Perhaps. It’s not fixed yet because Korryn is still a mere babe. If she is needed she will be called. You know how things travel; a river floods and life grows, sometimes a tree will yield fruit one year but not the next. Kadian is more a child of Garrin’s father than he is of either of you, but he came from your love, as Ishran did before him.”
“My boy, is he all right?”
“All souls are, their ties to those who love them can be binding. He’s lived and died a thousand times since leaving you, called many others parent.”
“And Jio?”
“He still lives, far south, and safe, though it’s not a life he would have chosen.” Aia confirmed. “Does that ease your heart, Taras?”
“A little, Lady,” he admitted. Now she was in front of him it felt right, and guilt washed over him at not believing not one but two of Aia’s Voices in their prophecy.
“Hush now.”
“But what use am I if I doubt your Voice?”
“Doubt exists for a purpose, as does choice. We can make you listen but to truly hear, that involves free will. You must chose, my friend, and you must learn when you make your mistakes.”
“I believe in her.”
“I know you do.” The woman borrowing Eirian’s appearance smiled. “But she will need you in the months to come. Follow your heart and you will always find me there.”
Saiara could feel the heat through the rocks, feel the fear of the earth itself underneath them. The rock was crying in pain, the caverns shaking from the onslaught of so many people moving and slowly going mad from confinement. But they would be safe, as long as the air and the light held out.
How many days had passed since the onslaught had begun, since they’d sealed the outside and waited? At first there’d been nothing, just waking and waiting, and every day she could feel the little girl inside her growing. The morning she’d kicked for the first time had been the same day of a minor riot, quelled quickly and peacefully by Taras.
“You risk not only yourselves by trying to leave. A season is all we need, until Harvest and the cooling of the days.”
As the weeks wore on, Saiara missed Eirian. They had come so far together only for death to part them. She’d been the one to find her, sleeping eternally, and she understood why it must be that way. As Aia had whispered, if she was to be heard then there truly had to be one Oracle in the world at a time, one raised to be the brave soul who shouted at the world.
For now that was her.
The first time there was a riot, she had let Taras handle it. The second time, heavy with child and exhausted from lack of sleep, Saiara realised only she could quell the unrest before it became too much. She must stand, there was only her, after all.
“Oracle, we crave the sky.”
“When will we be free to taste the air and the ocean?”
She stood before them in patched robes now too small, her eyes uncovered and staring out at them, unseeing. She did not want to be Jashri in her lofty tower but rather Kaiene, one of the people and never apart from them. She suffered as they did and if she lost their support, every soul under her care would likely die.
“I know, I understand this, but it’s not even Harvest yet. Understand I’ve seen how the worlds orbit Thaeos, dancing around him across eternity. The movements dictate the three seasons so when we are far from him it is Harvest then Spring, and when we are close Summer calls. We must wait, just a little longer, please. Would you doom my daughter? Would you doom your own children with impatience?”
At the mention of the child she carried, the unease began to dispel. After they had gone, Saiara knelt by the rock which Taras had placed, listening. She heard the bowels of the Earth and imagined the outside. Did it look the same or did flames burn the trees? Did the Grasslands cook and the baelish die in their pastures?
A part of her worried that they would unblock the entrance and everything would be the same. Was nothing worse than something? What if she had been wrong? Yet Saiara knew she wasn’t, felt it in her guts with the certainty of seeing with eyes that didn’t need vision to work. She knew that ‘nothing’ always included something; they had seen the fire falling from the heavens, travelled impossible distances only to meet an Oracle who had also foreseen this devastation. The harbingers had been there, and she had heeded Aia’s word.
Saiara knew she must whisper in the darkness and have faith that she would be heard.
That was when her waters finally broke and all Saiara’s priorities suddenly took on new perspective, seeming unimportant against something as simple as the birth of a child. All she could do was scream for her cousin and pray for a swift delivery.
Senna was worried; the Oracle, her cousin, her only blood-kin left alive, had her waters break too early. That was never good but here, underground, cut off from the fresh air and all the amenities she had taken so for granted in Aiaea it was frightening. Births were hard things, Jaisenthia came as she willed, taking parent and babe alike. She’d delivered her share, but never in these conditions, it was hardly clean or sterile, she had only tools she was still learning to use.
“I know what to do,” Jeiana said, their roles reversed now. “I helped Chelle birth both her daughters, remember?”
Senna found that it still confused her, hearing her beloved’s lips forming words belonging to a dead woman who forgot her body was growing cold. Jeiana spoke with a confidence and that scared her, just a little.
“This will either go well or turn nasty.” Senna gathered her things. “And if she dies, so do the rest of us.”
“Chelle survived as did Kei’a.” Jeiana reached out. “I have faith in you.”
“That was different. The City of Salt is a world away from where we stand now.”
“It’ll be all right,”
“When did you become so faithful?”
“Saiara’s as stubborn as a baelish, she’ll fight to live. I can tell,” Jeiana said and, for a heartbeat, Senna saw the shadow of Jaisenthia crossing her features even as it faded.
Even after forgetting herself, Jeiana knew who would live and die. She was even able to sense when, but was oblivious to this odd gift. Senna had never felt cruel enough to point it out ev
en if a part of her wondered, if she did, would Jeiana even notice?
“Come on, then, we’ll get her through this together.”
The labour was one of the hardest Senna had ever attended. She wondered, looking back, if it was because Saia was the nearest thing to a younger sister she had. It didn’t help that the entire kishai seemed to be loitering in the halls, desperate for news on their only remaining Oracle.
“Taras, get these people out of here. I’ll not have her die because someone wouldn’t let someone through with water.”
“I’ll do my best, Senna.”
“Do better. Kadian, go help him before you vomit. Have Garrin lend a hand too.”
Vashi’s beloved had never looked so relieved. He was getting better but Senna was still careful what she exposed him to. He didn’t speak and just followed his father.
“Jeia,”
“Hm?”
“Take her hand, it’s not much but it’ll help.”
She would have flinched, before, especially in a situation so dangerous, so unpredictable but now her Jeiana was gone. This woman, she knew what to do, the words to say and the platitudes to speak. Jeiana was also convinced Saiara would live, that she would survive to guide them out of the darkness.
The labour wasn’t quick, nor was it straight-forward. Time moved around them, day and night meant nothing any longer, unless you were quick enough to glimpse into one of the circulation shafts bored into the rock which arched over them.
By this point even the stragglers loitering under Garrin’s stony-gaze and Taras’ inability to deal with time-wasters had gone to their pallets. Kadian found himself filling pitchers of water heated over the fire while Vashi acted as Caspa might have, had he not been ripped from her side by circumstance and kismet.