Thia tried to picture herself wandering the streets of a strange city, filled with foreigners speaking a different tongue. She’d begun learning Pelanese, the language spoken in Severez and Kata, but she was far from fluent. I can’t bring attention to myself. I’ll have to … adapt. Fit in. But I will be alone, totally alone!
She forced back panic. You’ll manage. You can do lots of things. Her truth-telling ability had proven useful to one
merchant. Perhaps she could find employment with another one. Q’Kal was, by all reports, teeming with merchants.
Or perhaps someone needed a clark. She could read, write, and cypher, and not everyone could do that well. She could cook simple fare, which she’d learned from her days serving in the temple kitchens. She looked down at her hands, pale blurs in the starlight. She could always scrub and clean. Oh yes, every postulant learned that skill.
She heard a soft hail from behind her. “Thia?”
The glow of an oil lamp illumined the night, its yellow light bobbing up and down in time to the quick strides of the woman carrying it. Thia knew that voice, so she did not trouble to raise her veil before turning to face Marzet’s eldest, Joyana. “I am here, Joy.”
Joyana was carrying a large basket over her arm. “It is time to take the watch their supper,” she said. “Can you take care of that again? Father is weary after his bargaining, and has asked me to play my hand-harp for him until he falls asleep.”
Thia nodded and reached out for the basket and lamp. “I will,” she promised. “Tell the Shekk I said to sleep well.”
“Oh, he will,” Joyana assured her. “Nothing puts Father in a better mood than making good bargains—and, thanks to you, he made many tonight.”
Thia smiled. “It is good to be of service to those who have been so kind to me.”
“Nonsense, you paid us back long ago, Thia. We are in your debt.”
“You are the one who speaks nonsense, Joy,” Thia replied.
“I am more grateful for your kindness than I can ever say.”
She tried to put every bit of conviction she could into her voice, hoping that Joyana would remember her words after she was gone.
The two young women exchanged another smile, then Joyana turned back toward her father’s tent.
After raising her veil, Thia went the other way, the light of her lamp providing a small puddle of gold in a vast black sea of night. She trod carefully over the winter-blasted turf, avoiding the prickle-bushes that could deliver a painful sting. One by one she sought out each of the guards at his post and delivered the food. She did not speak, only doled out each meal and a measure of watered honey-ale, receiving each guard’s thanks with a dignified nod.
Her heart quickened as she headed for the last guard post.
Is he on duty tonight? she wondered. She had no way of knowing. You are acting foolish, she chided herself. What is wrong with you? He’s just a guard with a beautiful horse; the two of you have barely exchanged a handful of words, because his Pelanese is no better than yours. What ails you?
Still, as she approached the last guard post, she realized she was holding her breath. He was stationed at the farthest perimeter of the camp, near a large rock outcropping. When her lamplight revealed the swish of a silver tail and she heard a soft whicker of welcome, she smiled, grateful for the anonymity of her modesty veil.
She hesitated, lamp held high, searching for a glimpse of him, but saw nothing. She already knew he could move as silently as a mountain cat. Thia peered into the darkness.
“Where are you?” she whispered in Pelanese. She was still not fluent, but she had learned much since leaving the temple.
“Here, lady,” came a voice from behind her. Thia started so violently she nearly dropped the lamp. She whirled around, to find him standing scarcely two paces from her.
“I am sorry—I did not … have fear not …” In his distress, his command of the foreign tongue was slipping. Thia held the lamp higher.
The guard was taller than she, with brown hair pulled back and fastened with a leather thong. He was clad in a horseman’s buckskin breeches, high boots, and a leather corselet studded with metal rings. Thia could not see the color of his eyes, and wondered whether they were dark, like her own. Slowly, carefully, he held out his empty hands, palms up, plainly hoping to allay her fears.
“You move too quietly,” Thia said finally. She held out the last package of food and the flask from her basket. This
guard drank only water, never ale. “Here is your supper. You must be hungry.”
“Many thanks, lady,” he said.
She knew from experience that he would not sit to eat, nor remain in the lamplight. She gently stroked the gray mare’s neck and shoulder while he took the bread, meat, cheese, and dried fruit over to his guard post. He stood there, eating without relaxing, all the while scanning the darkness and listening for any signs of intruders.
When he was finished, the guard came back to stand beside her as she petted his mare, humming softly in a way that seemed to please the animal. “You know horses?” he asked.
“Not much,” Thia replied. “Where I was raised, we did not travel, nor did we ride for pleasure. But I like them. She is beautiful, this one. So gentle.”
She caught the flash of his teeth in the lantern light as he smiled. “Gentle, not to enemies, no. Falar is battle-trained.”
“ ‘Falar’? Is that her name?”
“On her pedigree, it is Chotak Falar-azeen. In my tongue it means ‘Chotak’s Silver Blade.’ ”
“Greetings, Falar,” Thia murmured, and laughed a little to see the mare’s ears flick back and forth in response to her name.
The guard motioned to her. “Time for my round. You will stay until I return?”
Thia hesitated, then nodded.
She spent the minutes petting the horse, wondering what it would be like to ride such a splendid steed. While traveling with the caravan, she’d occasionally ridden a plodding mule, but never a horse.
The guard materialized out of the darkness suddenly, with no warning. Again Thia jumped, startled. “You move so quietly!”
Again that slight smile touched his normally stern mouth.
“That is my … what is the word? My duty here. I am Pen Jav Dal … or was.”
She haltingly repeated the unfamiliar phrase. “What is that?”
“The Silent Ones.”
“Silent Ones?”
He looked away, and she sensed that he regretted having revealed anything. He did not talk much, not to anyone.
Silent One. It is an apt name for him.
Thia studied him for a moment, then said, softly, “I do not mean to pry. I am not one who asks for truth while withhold-ing it.” She drew a deep breath. “My name is Thia. I was raised in Amaran. Until a few months ago I was in holy orders.” She looked up at him in the lamplight, and his face held strange shadows, seeming almost a mask.
After a moment she continued, “I wore a habit and went unveiled, because I am not a marriageable woman. If you are skilled at reading faces, you will see that I speak the truth.”
Greatly daring, she bent over and picked up the lamp, holding it high, then dropped her modesty veil.
The guard held her gaze for a long moment, then spoke in a low tone. “I am Jezzil. From Ktavao.”
Her eyes widened. “You are a long way from home, Jezzil.”
He nodded. “So are you.”
Thia smiled faintly. “Yes, I am farther from where I was raised than I ever dreamed I might be.”
“Where were you raised?”
She hesitated for a long moment. Jezzil reached out, his movement uncertain, unlike his movements when handling his weapons or his mount. His fingers brushed the fabric of her shawl where it lay over her shoulder. “I am a Silent One,” he reminded her. “You can trust me to repeat nothing.”
Thia looked up at him, knowing he spoke the truth. “I was raised in Verang, in the temples. I was a priestess until a few months ago.
Then I ran away.”
Jezzil’s eyes widened. “One of Boq’urak’s priestesses?
And you dared to run away?”
She nodded, and suddenly found herself fighting back tears. Hastily, she raised her veil and fastened it again, using that moment to try and regain her composure. “I lost everything when I learned the truth,” she said finally. “Boq’urak is a vicious, cruel god, not worthy of reverence. I ran away when I realized what I had been serving all those years. If they find me, they will kill me.”
This time he reached out and touched her hands as they held her shawl clutched about her. His fingers were rough, callused from rein and weapons. “Sister Thia,” he said. “I understand, more than you dream I can. When I was Chonao, I was …” He searched for the words. “I was a priest who fights. Warrior priest. Then I ran away too. Now I am no better than a dead man to my brothers, my order. If they find me, they will kill me.”
Thia caught her breath and stared at him in the lamplight.
“I see,” she said finally. “We have much in common, then.”
“Yes.”
She hesitated, and unable to think of anything more to say, stooped and grabbed her basket. Jezzil stepped in front of her as she turned to leave. “You will come back, Sister Thia? You are … I could not speak of this to anyone but Falar … but you, you understand. It was good to speak, after so long as a Silent One.”
She nodded. “Yes. I’ll be back tomorrow. Fare you well tonight, Brother Jezzil.”
He stepped back, raising a hand to her in half salute as she hastened away with her lamp, leaving him alone in the darkness, save for Falar.
Khith had traveled steadily for a month now, and still was not free of the forest giants and the warm embrace of the Sarsithe. It knew that in the North it was late winter, and the Hthras was not in a hurry to experience snow and ice again.
It remembered winter, from when it had traveled the world with its merchant father.
Khith could barely remember its mother. She was only a soft blur of warm, reddish-brown fur and a lilting voice that had trilled lullabies to her only child. She had died after being attacked by a wild jagowa while gathering river reeds for basket weaving.
Khith had been doing some weaving itself. Knowing that it would face much harder ground soon, it had been gathering reeds and vines, so it could make sandals to shield its long-toed, narrow feet from roads and streets. When Khith and its father had traveled in the lands inhabited by the humans, it had worn protection on its feet, just as it had worn a robe to cover its slender, furred body, and a hood to shield its eyes from the sun.
With the half-finished sandals tied to its pack, the Hthras trudged on, its ears alert for any sound, its large, round eyes constantly scanning the animal trail before it. Khith’s people loved the jungle, but were ever mindful of its myriad dangers.
It kept the sun always to its left after noon, and each morning it shed its pack and climbed to the top of a forest giant to check the position of its rising, in order to make sure it was still on track. Khith was trying to gauge its travel so that it missed the arrival of the rainy season, while still not having to travel during the worst of the northern winter.
Its goal was a human port town. Q’Kal had been one of its father’s favored places for trade, with ships tying up daily to the quays, vessels containing goods from Pela and other countries lying across the Narrow Sea. Khith remembered Q’Kal as a bustling place, the busiest port in the Pelanese colony of Kata. It has undoubtedly changed in twenty-five years, the Hthras thought with a sigh, shifting the pack on its back. Everything changes.
A port city, it had learned early on, tended to be more open-minded to newcomers. And where there were ships and sailors and merchants and those who served them, there was bound to be the need for a good physician.
Khith’s constantly roving gaze caught a tiny flash of ver-milion on a vine weaving across the animal trail it was following, and it froze in mid-step.
A brekiss!
The snake was long and narrow, scarcely bigger around than Khith’s finger. But to touch its skin could result in severe shock, convulsions, even death. Khith’s people used the
brekiss’s skin-venom in minute quantities to induce healing visions.
Carefully, Khith stepped back, away from the creature, and took stock. Two faint animal trails led off the main one, one on either side. Khith chose the one leading off to its right, since it appeared to roughly parallel the trail it had been following.
It hadn’t gone more than another twenty paces before it saw the shimmer of shattered, opalescent material and the half-melted spire that marked one of the Ancient Ones’ ruins.
Khith’s eyes widened with joy at the chance to add to its store of knowledge on that long forgotten civilization. The scholar knew that exploring ruins was dangerous, but it could not pass this opportunity by.
It circled the remains, eyeing them carefully. This had not been a large structure, as these things went. Perhaps it had been some kind of remote outpost, or way station.
The Ancients always stored their records belowground.
Khith picked its way carefully into the heart of the ruined structure, stepping high over the vines wreathing the ruin, searching for an opening that would lead below. When it spotted a sunken place, it nodded in satisfaction, then waded out of the ruin to locate a suitable fallen branch to use as an improvised excavation tool. After half an hour of digging and scraping the undergrowth away, Khith broke through the overlay of soil and roots into emptiness. Its heart hammering with the thrill of the quest for knowledge, Khith dropped to its knees and cleared away soil, revealing a crumbling stairway leading down into damp darkness.
Khith had explored many of the ancient ruins before, so it knew there was a good chance that the lighting systems had failed. Hastily, it improvised a torch from its trusty branch and some moss, then set it afire with a mumbled word and a hard stare.
The Hthras descended the stairway, torch held high. There was water underfoot, but the Ancients had been marvelous engineers, and the walls and ceilings were mostly intact.
Quickly, Khith surveyed the rooms, many of them still containing moldy lumps it knew must have been furniture: kitchen, sleeping rooms, offices, storage rooms … and, yes!
One of the storage rooms held, not unused furnishings, but record books! Khith was aware that the Ancients had used methods other than printed paper to store information, but since there was no power for the readers, it could not read them. Still, most of the Ancients had also produced some paper records, perhaps for quick reference.
An hour later it fought its way up the stairs, back into the light above, three crumbling record books held tightly beneath its arm. What a discovery! Hand-scribed records, the first such ones that I have located! A true treasure!
The Hthras knew it should push on, make at least some progress toward its daily travel goal, but curiosity and the desire to learn won out. Khith made camp a short distance from the ruin, then sat down after a quickly swallowed dinner to peruse its find.
Translating the handwritten records was much more difficult, it found, than the printed ones it had discovered in the Lost City. The books were actually written by several individuals, it discovered, over a period of years. They were journals of the sentinels who had been posted to this remote outpost, far from the cities that lay to the east.
The last journal was in the worst shape, but it had the latest date, so Khith examined it first. As darkness gathered over the jungle, Khith sat, totally absorbed, attempting to puzzle out the ancient words on the filthy, crumbled, and pest-nibbled pages. Fragments and snippets of meaning surfaced as it struggled to translate: (Name) was here tonight for scheduled inspection, told me of new (untranslatable) device. I was fascinated, asked many questions … (indecipherable smudge) … told me it can open (doorways? gates? or was it corridors? hallways?
entrances?) … Khith puzzled over the word, then resolved to come back to it later. … to allow
passage to another (place? plane? world?) … experiments commencing …
That cannot be right, Khith thought, perplexed. I must have translated that wrong. I should cross-check that word with my notes. A passageway to another world?
For a moment it considered digging out its notes, but decided to read on instead. Perhaps the term would become clear in context. Khith waved the flame of its little torch higher, shedding more light on the damaged pages. The next few were stuck together. With painstaking care it separated them, only to find that they were damaged beyond reading, only a few words visible per page. This section must have gotten wet at some point, and mildew set in. Finally it discovered another semireadable passage.
Another message today from (name) in the east. Experiments have been shut down, but now there is trouble. We are not alone, it appears.
The next page was vermin nibbled. Khith clicked its tongue in frustration and turned the page.
… damage has been done … government crumbling …
plague in (untranslatable) … war in (untranslatable).
(Name) says there is a rumor that the (gateway? door? portal?) brought this upon us. Caused us to be noticed. Makes no sense to me, but every day the reports grow worse. I used to curse the day I was sent here to this remote outpost, but now I am glad to be far away from the chaos. What of (name) and (name) … fear for them fills me. Will I ever see them again? All is crumbling around us …
Khith shivered, despite the warmth of the jungle night.
Even in such a battered, mostly indecipherable text, the desperation of the writer came through in those scrawling, hastily written words. The Hthras realized that it might be the first person ever to read about the final days of the Ancient Ones, and shivered again. Turning the page, it saw that only a scant half page of text remained.
More refugees today. I gave them what provisions I could, then sent them on their way north. Mothers holding children.
I will never forget their eyes. The world is (coming loose? unraveling? fraying?) more with every hour that passes.
(Name) says that they sent a mission through the (portal?
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