Rexrider (First World's End Book 1)

by Mark Angel

  Melok glanced toward Tamik as if he had only just remembered he was talking to someone.

  “The guardian, his name was Tsi‘gal, asked me a lot of questions, mostly how I had come by such exquisite weapons. I didn’t expect to speak, I didn’t want to speak, but soon I found myself trying to answer each of his inquiries as best I could. I couldn’t help myself. Words just spilled out of my mouth.

  “Tsi’gal seemed to understand my situation. He openly admired my set of weapons almost to the point of recognition. I wondered if he was going to try to take them from me. Instead, he invited me to live at Guardian’s Gulch and learn how to use them properly, and their origin never again came up.

  “‘When young people have nowhere to go they are welcome to live with us, that is if they do their share of the work and behave themselves,’ he said. Then he added, ‘With a set of swords like this, it would be a shame not to know how to use them properly.”

  “I realized then that he might be the one to train me as my father had wanted. I agreed to take a look around Guardian’s Gulch, but did not promise to stay there. His laughter at my reticence was hearty enough to startle me. Then, after we finished eating, he got up and walked away without another word. I followed him. The rest is history.

  “I discovered much later that Tsi’gal had six toes on each foot. Until then, I didn’t believe people like that actually existed. Of course, that is where I learned of the Power and how it was used. But I don’t think you can really understand it unless you have it.”

  Tamik felt as if a shadowed place in his mind had been struck by light. The connection between his father and Tsi’galivo took on a whole new cast. His father’s casual opinion about the Power, however, disturbed him. Tamik did not have the ability to wield the Power like a Six-toe, but he felt he fully understood its terrifying nature. Still, he did not want to interrupt his father.

  “Tsi’gal recognized determination in me, a trait considered rare in outsiders, or even proper Rexians. I told him I didn’t want to be a guardian. I wanted to be a rexrider. He laughed, as always, from the gut and said he would help me become a rexrider, if I would just shut up long enough to learn what he had to teach me at the Lodge.” Melok smiled at his son. “See? You are not the only stubborn and insolent member of our family.”

  They shared a good chuckle, Tamik somewhat cautiously, still not sure of where his father was leading. In contrast, Melok’s more explosive laughter stopped abruptly when he gripped his side. He scratched the stained bandages on his stub and, undaunted, picked up his narrative again.

  “I was willing to do what was necessary, and was Named and initiated into the Order of Guardians like other orphaned and lost children. I worked hard to advance to a Junior Guardian to prove that I could do anything I set my mind to. Eventually my efforts paid off. Tsi’gal got me a place as a stall assistant. I had some experience with my father’s domehead and came well-recommended, or I could never have won that position.

  “Determined to make my mentor proud, I worked harder than any other assistant. Almar was born soon after I had made the saddle crew for Rayak, and my empty fantasies of becoming Rayak’s next rider were shattered. It would have been impossible, anyway. I looked and smelled completely different from that family. At that time, I still didn’t understand how much that meant to a rex. I did, however, master the skills of a saddler and was well on my way to learning the advanced skills of beast handling. The fact that I showed no fear of the predators, though perhaps not the wisest approach, was probably the main reason I had become so useful around the stalls.

  “By the time I was your age, I wasn’t even an initiate rexrider, and had little hope of getting a beast of my own. Nevertheless, I was promoted to saddler for Rayak and was like a big brother to Almar. Once I even saved his life. Almar’s father rewarded me by giving me Gar’s egg. And you should know the rest.”

  Tamik lifted his shoulders, saying, “I could stand to hear it again.”

  Melok tried to shift his hips, but the contraption holding him in place would not permit much movement.

  “I was thirty-five when Gar hatched and I finally became an initiate Rexrider, oldest of the cohort. Your mother and I had already been wed thirteen sars and Meera was nearly grown. Jalan would’ve been satisfied as a saddler’s spouse but was proud of my advancement, and her young family. ” Melok sighed. “Needless to say, my relations were more than thrilled that I had the prospect of becoming a proper rexrider.”

  Melok’s eyes glistened with the memory of his one love. Tamik wished he had known her—in that way he was sharing his father’s pain.

  “We were happy together, although her family had at first considered it beneath her to join with me, a man of little expectation. But we made each other laugh. She was ten generations a rexrider herself. She gave up her mother’s mount, leaving the she-rex in the capable hands of her sister, Gogana, when Meera came along.”

  Tamik did a double-take. “Tiga’s rider is my aunt?” Tamik stood up. “Why hasn’t anyone told me?”

  Melok shrugged. “Her family blames me for your mother’s death. Being rexriders themselves, you’d think they’d understand her desire to have another child . . . a boy to ride Gar. They don’t talk to me much anymore.” Melok made a phlegm-saturated sound that Tamik guessed to be a laugh, perhaps a rueful one, and then he coughed outright. “They never did talk to me much, actually. I guess that’s why I am so close to Pako and Ka’tag. Like me, they both came from outside the local Order of Rexriders.”

  Still catching his bearings after the revelation regarding Gogana, and compelled to find any kind of emotional release given the gravity of his father’s words, Tamik blurted out, “Sometimes I think you blame me for mother’s death.”

  Melok shot his son a stare of disbelief. “No one blames you for her death, Tamik, least of all me.” Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. Soon his ragged breaths came at even enough intervals that Tamik guessed his father to be sleeping. Melok then surprised him by speaking again.

  “Tamik?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “They’re yours now.”

  “What are?”

  “My father’s sword and dagger.”

  “But Appa—”

  Melok’s eyes were mere slits now, and the effort to relate his past had obviously exhausted him, but he managed to raise a crooked finger, enough to silence his son’s protestation.

  “Couldn’t you use a good sword, one that won’t break as easily as your first, and one that will be rightfully yours? And you don’t even have to leave me the dagger.”

  Tamik was speechless.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Melok closed his eyes completely and grinned. “I’ll put myself to use somehow. You’re not Gar’s primary rider yet, and I’m sure you could use my experience in Council if Gar becomes Prime Bull.”

  “Of course,” Tamik replied soberly. The young rexrider had a lot left to learn, just to catch up to where he should be as Gar’s Secondary Rexrider. And a formal ceremony to bestow the title of Primary Rexrider upon him could only take place if his father died or officially stepped down.

  “Are you going to be able to come home soon?” Tamik asked. Despite his father’s pain, a look of peace had come over his lidded face.

  “They'll be moving me to your sister’s place in a few turns.”

  Though to some extent relieved that he would not have the burden of caring for his father, Tamik felt a tinge of irritation that he had not been consulted on the matter, and that it was automatically assumed his sister—who already had a son and spouse to look after—could better care for their father than he. But the feeling passed quickly as he realized their assumptions were right, and that the teller’s accommodations afforded Melok a more comfortable and nurturing environment than his own dwelling.

  Tamik brightened for the first time since he had taken a seat next to his father. “So you will be joining us all for the Feast of Return?”

  Melok nodded. �
��You just make sure you go take care of Gar every turn. Let your sister worry about me.”

  A smile emerged on Tamik’s face and he rested his hand on his father’s arm.

  Melok gripped Tamik’s arm and leaned painfully toward him. “Tamik,” he said harshly, staring piercingly into the young man’s eyes. His fingers dug into his son’s muscles. “When I was your age, I could dream of nothing but riding a rex. What do you dream of?”

  Tamik considered lying to his father, but he never really had before and could not bring himself to do it now. He looked back at Melok with a stare as steady as his father’s. “I still dream of revenge.”

  Melok sighed and fell back onto his pillows. “Then I have failed you.”

  Passion takes back-saddle to none.

  The world loses form at its gates.

  Motives fail unless conjoined with the object of one’s love.

  — Pirlan

  18. Feast of Return

  Stonehaven before dusk, 33/01/1643--

  A thunderhead had just rolled through Kazak Valley bringing with it the first good rain since the onset of the dry season. The denizens of Stonehaven hoped it would usher in the time of wetness, but the skywatchers insisted there was little chance of that. Indeed, the off-season thunderheads did little but make the streets slippery, strike lightning that started random wildfires, and remind the dust of its relationship to mud.

  Tamik, unprepared for the deluge, was getting soaked as he hustled toward Meera’s to help her prepare for the dusk merriment. He had to admit, despite the gravity that seemed to be pulling at his life with greater force and frequency, the prospect of the Feast of Return excited him. Not that he bothered to keep to the tradition of fasting while the sun was up, he just liked the idea of a celebration that his whole family, limited as it was, would be attending. He skipped over the uneven pavers of Highland Coulee as he carried extra baked goods under a waxcloth the baker had been kind enough to provide.

  “Rexrider!” a female voice called out from behind him. Tamik turned to see Tyna, protected from the weather by an oiled rain cloak, running to catch up with him carrying a full basket of fresh green herbs for the feast.

  “May I walk with you?” she asked boldly.

  “I’d welcome the company.” Tamik smiled. He had invited her to come after avoiding spending time alone with her since their time together during and right after the hunt. He was conflicted about his feelings toward her. So much had changed in him in such a short time. And he had hoped to get cleaned up and changed before seeing her again. That plan was now off. He hardly looked his best, soaking wet and with a covered tray over his head although he was sure that his new riding outfit would later make a better impression.

  Tyna bumped him playfully with her shoulder. “Where have you been? I’ve barely seen you for a quarter moon.”

  “Well . . . there were my guardian’s duties, and I’ve been busy getting Father settled in at my sister’s place. I’m glad you agreed to celebrate with us, though.”

  “I thought I might come a little early, to help your sister and, of course, to see how Melok is doing.”

  “He’ll be glad to see you,” Tamik said, hoping he was right.

  She bumped him again, this time hip to hip. “I think I should also tell him about how Gar-rex is doing, since you have hardly seen him since the hunt.”

  “I check on him at least once a turn,” he said defensively. “He seems fine.”

  “You had better keep a closer eye on him. You don’t want to be left behind when the Prime Bull boots him out.”

  Tamik flushed with anger. “It might well be the other way around!”

  “Either way, you had better not neglect your father’s mount.”

  Tamik kept his mouth closed, not wishing to say anything he might regret in the heat of the moment. This woman’s words were infuriating, all the more so because she was right, and it made him feel guilty. He would spend more time in the paddock, he told himself.

  The pair arrived at Meera’s as the clouds were breaking up. Tyna’s bangs looked dark when wet and her cloak was dripping, but her outerwear did its job and underneath she was dry. The same could not be said for Tamik: he was soaked through.

  Meera greeted them at the door, her chestnut hair rolled up in a bun, wearing a billowing ankle-length, wormthread dress arranged in several rustling layers, each a slightly different color of iridescent blue. She was nearly as tall as Tamik and slightly bowlegged, as was he. She embraced her brother warmly, but quickly, taking care not to get too dampen herself, then wasted little time giving him instructions.

  “You had better get some dry clothes on before you catch a chill,” she suggested after briefing him on what else he had to do before the feast could be had.

  Tamik grumbled his acknowledgment. He had felt confident that Tyna had finally stopped seeing him as the boy she used to know, but his sister’s tone of voice put doubt back in his mind. He slumped down on the door bench to remove his muddy boots as the women exchanged greetings.

  “Rudan will be down shortly,” Meera informed them while taking Tyna’s cloak.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I change,” he said to Tyna, as he finished pulling off his boots. He stood up and for the first time saw her without her weather wrap. He was dumbfounded. She wore a dyed red shift skirt made of skawskin with black wormthread trim. It was a supple piece of work, tightly molded to her every contour, curves with which had become intimately familiar.

  “You look terrific!” Tamik as good as shouted. “Even your hair matches.”

  She turned to model for him, her bobbed and freshly-colored sienna hair bouncing playfully upon the nape of her long neck. And except for the silky cross-laces that held her alluring garment in place, she was nearly bare to the base of her spine. Adding to the overall effect, her hem ended between her knee and her hip—her well-defined legs looked even longer than Tamik remembered. The straps of her sandals, which completed the outfit, were matched in color to the leather of the dress.

  “You are certainly wearing a breathtaking outfit, Tyna,” Meera interjected. “Now, Tamik, close your mouth and please take those sweets and savories to the kitchen.”

  “Right,” he said, pulling his gaze off of Tyna. He grabbed the baked goods and headed for the cookroom.

  As Meera hung the she-rexrider’s dripping cloak in an alcove near the door, Tyna took stock of her surroundings. Though she had known Meera since her childhood, it was her first time at the family residence of the Lead Teller. She was overcome by the beauty of the red featherwood wall panels surrounding her, each carved with a different episode from the history of the Civilization of Rex. They seemed to go on forever, down corridors to the right and left of her. At her feet, the ornately tattooed floor skins and embroidered rugs demonstrated complex weaves incorporating brightly contrasting dyes. These, too, illustrated ancient tales.

  “Use the upstairs washroom,” Meera called after Tamik, as he came out of the cookroom. “I don’t want you sullying the guest amenities.” Without responding he changed course straight away and headed up the steps.

  “This place is amazing!” Tyna exclaimed.

  Meera smiled humbly. “Rudan’s family has lived here for generations. He comes from a long line of Master Tellers.”

  More quietly Tyna added, “I brought these herbs, fresh from the grower’s market if you would like to add some more green to the table.”

  “Oh, they smell magnificent,” Meera said, taking a big whiff of the aromatic basket. Then she turned and left toward the cookroom, waving for Tyna to follow.

  ***

  Melok had settled in the salon, down the right passageway from the front door. He lay on a well-cushioned settee near a large stone fireplace carved into the back wall. A fire raging within it drove away any dampness in the air. The dancing light made the tapestries in the room seem almost alive.

  Over the hearth was a rack holding the most exquisite set of swords the injured rexrider had ever seen
, finer even than his father’s set. They belonged to the teller, who, to the best of his knowledge, had never used them. He had once heard that they were a gift from a man claiming to be from across the Eastern Divide. But he did not believe anyone could be from anywhere other than the Snail Continent.

  A sharp throbbing in his hip tugged his attention away from the bejeweled weapons and glimmering tapestry images. It had been an arc or two since his last drag off the pain pipe, and he was considering rectifying that situation when Rudanomi entered from the stairwell to the left of him.

  “Rexrider,” he said, extending his soft hand in greeting. “You were asleep when I got home. It is good to have you staying with us.”

  Melok nodded back, taking the teller’s hand in a brief but firm grip.

  Rudanomi stepped to a sideboard with glass windows on its doors, revealing the fine crystal in store. He removed a couple of small glasses.

  “Ferment to stimulate your appetite?” Without waiting for an answer, the teller set the glasses on a small, hardwood reading table with a pawee shell inlay. From another shelf in the cupboard he took a finely crafted crystal container and began pouring pale orangeberry distillate.

  “Wouldn’t want to seem rude by refusing.” Melok leaned forward, took the glass that was handed to him, downed it and held it out again immediately. The teller refilled it before taking a seat in his cushioned reading chair nearby.

  Sipping his second glass more slowly, Melok watched his daughter through the open archway to the adjoining eatingroom. She busied herself over the intricate feast settings on the long, polished heartwood table. He thought she fussed too much, and he was not the only one. But she got that trait from her mother, and he relished anything that reminded him of her.

  “A gifted hostess, indeed,” Rudanomi said with no little pride, noticing Melok’s muse.

  The old rexrider saw his daughter’s fervor as more of an obsession than a gift, but fought the effects of the distillate which had a tendency to loosen his tongue.