Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  “I did not…” he began, then stopped.

  “You didn’t what?”

  But Shorn would say nothing more.

  As the day went by, Netra’s hard resolve faded and then disappeared. It seemed unbelievable to her what she had done. The memory was there, but it was as if another person had done it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Shorn as the sun began to set. He gave her a curious look, but said nothing. “I don’t know what happened to me.”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes. “I can’t describe what it was like, those days and nights of running from that man. It was horrible, like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I felt so alone. Nothing I did made any difference. I couldn’t get away from him no matter how I tried. Today, when he grabbed me, I just went crazy. Everything poured out at once. But that’s not me. I don’t want to be that kind of person. I’m not a killer.” As she said the words she pictured the Tender she’d pushed in front of Gulagh’s attack in Nelton and her own words sounded like a lie.

  “I’m not a killer,” she repeated, but could summon no conviction. What am I becoming?

  She started to cry then and couldn’t stop. She stopped walking and just stood there, her whole body shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself and cried for everything that had happened, from Gerath’s death to Alissa’s. It all poured out at once and swept her away.

  For several minutes Shorn stood there looking at her. Then he moved closer and awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder, just for a moment, and then he pulled away.

  Thirty-one

  That morning when she woke up, Shakre felt more or less normal for the first time since riding the wind. The wind blowing over her felt like sand rubbed in a raw wound, but she no longer feared losing herself to it. Though she still felt weak, she decided she would go for a walk. She wanted to see some of the land the Takare now found themselves in, land so different from the Plateau. It was a nice morning, chilly but nothing compared to the weather she was used to, and the rain that had fallen overnight had washed away much of the ash coating the land. When she turned to waken Elihu she saw that he was already awake, his bright eyes fixed on her. He rose silently, seeming to know what she planned even without words. They crept through the sleeping camp and out into the forest, heading toward the ivy-covered cliff, just visible in the distance downhill from the camp. They had barely entered the forest when a sound made Shakre turn. It was Werthin, a worried look on his face. Shakre shook her head and waved him back. His concern was touching, but right now she wanted to be alone with Elihu.

  Werthin had left with the first search party that went east and he’d returned within a day of leaving, escorting almost a score of survivors from Splinterhorn Shelter. A day after that another group came in from the east, escorted by two more of the searchers. There had also been a group of survivors from the west. They spoke of meeting Rehobim’s group, but Rehobim sent no escorts with them, telling them he needed his warriors for fighting.

  He had also sent word with them that they were to go to Youlin to learn of their past lives and begin practicing with some of the weapons taken from the outsiders. Almost all who were of fighting age did so. They were awkward at first, but they were improving quickly. All of them had lost loved ones—apparently more than one group of outsiders had invaded the Plateau—and the intensity with which they approached their training was unsettling. Yesterday they had trained until it was dark, some by themselves, others sparring with a partner. Those who did not have weapons trained with clubs or practiced hand-to-hand fighting. They were nearly silent as they trained, with none of the mocking and jeering that so often accompanied warrior training, each one completely focused on the task at hand. Those who sparred went at each other with a silent ferocity that made Shakre fear her skills as a healer would be put to the test, but somehow when they stepped apart there was never any blood or broken bones. Finally, Shakre could watch no longer and went to find Elihu, who was helping a group of Takare—mostly older men and women, who looked askance at the activities of the younger ones—with a rough shelter.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I know my adopted family at all,” Shakre said.

  Elihu’s expression revealed nothing as he turned to look at those who were training, but she could feel his concern all the same.

  “It is as though I have been living with people who were only wearing costumes all these years and now I wake up one day to find that they have thrown the costumes away and I don’t recognize the people underneath at all.”

  “Not all of us,” he said. “Others feel as you do.”

  “Yes, but not very many.”

  “We were warriors for far longer than not,” he said.

  She took his hand. “Is it just me? Is the problem mine?”

  “We are caught in a war between the gods,” Elihu said.

  “Tu Sinar is dead. I wish I could believe that Melekath will stop there.”

  “But you don’t,” Elihu said, drawing her close.

  “No,” she said miserably. “I don’t. And now I have to stand by and watch while people I have come to love change into something else.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said softly. “But what they will change into is not yet set. You may still have a say.”

  But that was yesterday. Now it was a new day and the sun was rising. She needed to put away her fears and be grateful for what she did have.

  They had circled around so they could get on top of the cliff and were nearing the edge when Elihu stopped suddenly and pointed. Jehu was standing on the edge of the cliff. As they watched, he wrapped his arms around himself and shook his head vigorously, as if refusing someone insistent. “No!” he yelled. “Get out of my head!” Then he stuck his fingers in his ears and hunched over. When he straightened, he seemed to have come to some sort of resolution. He squared his shoulders and started to step off.

  “Jehu, don’t!” Shakre yelled, startling him so that he turned.

  Tears were running down his face. “I have to,” he cried.

  “No. You don’t,” Shakre said.

  “Yes I do. It’s my fault so many of our people have died.” He wore his long black hair unbound. The wind gusted and his hair blew aside, revealing the black thumb print, stark against his pale skin. His features were very fine, almost delicate, and the pain that gnawed at him from within accentuated his fragility.

  “It’s not your fault, Jehu. You have to know that.”

  “It is. Don’t you see?” He clawed at the mark on his forehead so that blood ran and his expression was anguished. “I wear Kasai’s mark and that means it can see through me. It knows where we are because of me. Kasai’s men will come again and this time they will kill us all. I have to kill myself before that happens.”

  “It sees through you?” Elihu asked. “Why did you not say anything before this?”

  “Because up there I could hide from it sometimes. It wasn’t always inside my head.”

  “And now you can’t anymore?”

  “No,” he moaned. “I can’t hide anymore. It is watching always, watching from inside my head, and now it talks to me too, tells me terrible things. I can’t…I don’t know how long I can hold on. Sometimes it is as though my hands do not belong to me anymore.” He buried his face in his hands. “I should have died when the others did, with Meholah. I have stained everything with my cowardice. It’s the only thing left that I can do.”

  Elihu and Shakre exchanged looks. If what Jehu said was true, then they had a big problem. Shakre turned to Jehu. “You’re right, Jehu. This has to end.”

  Jehu’s eyes widened. “You…you agree with me?”

  “Yes. But killing yourself isn’t the only answer.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. It is time to heal you, to erase that mark from you.”

  Now he was really staring. “You…no one can do that,” he breathed. “Kasai is too powerful.”

  “But not all powerful. Listen to me, Jehu. I can heal
you. I have ridden the wind and I can do this.”

  The look in his eyes changed. He was thinking about what she said, looking at it inside.

  “You will have to trust me,” she continued. Her voice took on a deeper, more authoritative tone. “Have I not always done what I said I would do? Did I not lead our people to safety?”

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  “Then come away from the edge and we will do this. I will heal you.”

  Like a half-wild animal he crept toward her, suspicion and hope warring within him. “If this does not work, you must let me kill myself.”

  “It will work,” Shakre said sternly, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. She had no real idea what to do. But she had to try. She couldn’t just let him kill himself. And if it doesn’t work? she asked herself. What will you do then? Will you let him carry out his threat? She would think about that later.

  “I will have to give you something to sleep first,” she said.

  He eyed her suspiciously. “I don’t think it will work. I don’t…I don’t really sleep anymore. It keeps me awake.”

  “One thing at a time, Jehu. Trust me.”

  He hesitated, and then nodded.

  Shakre opened the small pouch of healing supplies that she carried with her everywhere. If life on the Plateau had taught her anything, it was that danger waited everywhere and it was best to be prepared for it always. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that she was carrying hemsroot powder. A pinch of it dissolved in water made a person dizzy. Three pinches and the same person would sleep deeply through the night. Telling Jehu to tilt his head back, she dropped the powder in his mouth.

  A short time later Jehu’s eyes started to close. Mumbling something unintelligible, he staggered sideways. Shakre and Elihu caught him and gently lowered him to the ground.

  “How will you do this?” Elihu asked.

  Shakre shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know I couldn’t let him kill himself.”

  “Perhaps if you knew more about what Kasai has done to him…”

  “I tried several times to examine him, but he would never let me.” Shakre crouched beside Jehu. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, calming herself, then slipped beyond. His akirma had a large black spot near the top, corresponding to the burn on his forehead. This much she had seen before, from a distance. It didn’t really tell her anything. She needed to see deeper inside him. She steadied herself, shutting away all distractions, and narrowed her concentration until it was a fine point, like a needle she could push through the surface of his akirma. She felt pressure in her head, and then she was through.

  A network of black lines branched out from the black spot, crisscrossing the interior of his akirma like a spider web. They were stretched taut. What in the world were those things? Would it be possible to rip them out of him? Ever so gently, she touched one with her will.

  Jehu gasped and writhed on the ground. Pain blossomed across the expanse of his akirma.

  Withdrawing from beyond, Shakre felt Jehu’s forehead and checked his pulse. His heart was racing and his skin was hot to the touch.

  “What happened?” Elihu asked.

  “The burn goes beyond his skin,” she said, frowning. “It is anchored to the very core of his being. It is almost as if the burn is a seed that was planted on him and then sprouted roots that spread throughout his akirma. I thought maybe I could tear them free and release him.” She turned her face up to him. “I don’t know what to do. All I did was touch one of them. You saw how he reacted.”

  Elihu looked thoughtful. “Whatever it is, it serves as a connection between those who bear the mark and Kasai, allowing Kasai to see through their eyes, and apparently even exert a certain amount of control over them. Jehu said that on the Plateau he could hide sometimes, so maybe there was something up there serving to protect him.”

  “Tu Sinar,” Shakre said. “But now the god is dead and Jehu has no defense.”

  “No wonder he wants to kill himself. Who of us could stand what he has already been through?”

  “Maybe it is the only solution,” Shakre said. “Maybe death is the only way to free him from Kasai.”

  Elihu looked at her with wide eyes, clearly astonished. “Is this the woman I know? The woman who never gives up?”

  “I know, I know,” Shakre replied. “It’s just, he’s suffering so much and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t bear to see him like this.”

  “He is not the only one. There are many more who bear the mark. Is death the only answer for them as well? Rehobim clearly thinks so.”

  Shakre sighed. “I’m still so tired. My thoughts haven’t been right since riding the wind—” Suddenly she broke off and put her hand to her mouth. “The wind,” she said wonderingly.

  “What is it?”

  “I never told you, but when you were caught by the poisonwood it had done something like this to you.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I used the wind. I forced it to blow through you, and the poisonwood lost its hold.”

  “So you might be able to do the same with Jehu?”

  “I might. It is risky, terribly risky. It could be that removing the roots will kill him. Or, if I cannot control the wind, it may shred his akirma. The wind’s power is not like the power that flows through living things. It can destroy more easily than heal.”

  “And yet, a moment ago you spoke of allowing him to kill himself as the only way to be free,” Elihu said gently.

  She stared at him. “I have to try, don’t I?”

  “What can I do?”

  “Hold my hand. I may need to borrow strength from you.”

  Shakre knelt beside Jehu. The look on his sleeping face was almost peaceful. He was more slightly built than most Takare, who tended to be rangy and large-boned. He’d always seemed too fragile for the harsh life on the Plateau. She remembered his birth, how he came into the world so quietly, something studious and intense in his eyes right from the beginning. Intyr, the Dreamwalker, had taken him into her arms as she took all newborns, but then she’d been unable to name his past life for several days. Shakre had always wondered if the woman had finally just picked a name out of pity for his parents. Maybe Jehu wasn’t Takare reborn. Maybe his was another spirit that simply wandered in.

  Jehu shuddered in his sleep and his face twisted. One hand rose off the ground and the fingers curled into a claw. Even in a dead sleep he couldn’t hide from the Guardian known as the Eye of Melekath.

  Shakre looked up at Elihu, crouched beside her with the sun over his shoulder. His eyes told her everything she needed to know. She couldn’t wait any longer. For good or bad, this had to be done.

  “If this doesn’t work, Jehu,” she whispered in his ear, “may the peace of Xochitl greet you at the end of your journey.” The old prayers were still comforting, even if she no longer believed them.

  Xochitl is gone.

  It is only us now. We make this what it is.

  She wasn’t sure if they were her thoughts or not. It didn’t matter. She crossed her legs and slowed her breathing, focused her concentration so that the rest of the world slid away, then caught an exhalation and let it pull her beyond. For a while she just looked at Jehu, studying the black smudge affixed to his akirma, the thin black roots that radiated from it. She really had no idea how she would do this. When she’d used the wind to cleanse Elihu of the poisonwood’s taint she’d been desperate, nearly out of her mind with fear of losing him, and she’d simply reacted. She’d pushed the wind into him, but she wasn’t sure how she’d done it or if it would even work in this case. Jehu’s akirma looked so fragile, like the touch of the wind would scatter it like a cobweb. It was unlikely this would work. What was more likely was that she would simply kill him.

  But what choice did she—did he—have? There were some things worse than death.

  When she looked for the wind, it wasn’t there. It was then she realized that she had not felt the wind all day. That
was irritating. The wind bothered her for years, making her dance to every nonsensical tune it came up with, and when she needed it, it was gone.

  Without thinking, she called it angrily, like summoning a petulant child. The words that came out of her were not human language, nor did she consciously choose them; they came from the depths of her subconscious mind.

  All at once the aranti was there, an amorphous cloud shot through with blue light that flashed and streaked erratically, faces appearing and disappearing in its depths. It was the same one she had ridden and it approached reluctantly, drawn in by the force of her command. When it was close enough, she took hold of it, using the strength of her will. She was surprised at how much easier it was this time.

  Not sure what else to do, she pressed the aranti up against the black smudge.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed harder and all at once broke through the outer layer of Jehu’s akirma. Eagerly the aranti rushed into Jehu, and the change from reluctance to eagerness was so abrupt that she lost hold of the creature and it charged wildly around inside him. Desperately, Shakre sought to grab it, but at first it eluded her. Finally, she corralled it and then found she didn’t have the strength to drag it from him. She had to draw on Elihu, but finally she was able to pull the aranti from Jehu. The aranti wriggled out of her grasp and raced away.

  Turning her attention back to Jehu she saw that the black smudge and the lines that radiated from it were gone, every trace of them washed away like mud in a stream. But Jehu’s akirma was in tatters, perforated with holes. Selfsong was leaking from him and she could see the intense, gathering glow of his Heart, preparing itself for the rush as it escaped his dying body.

  Shakre threw herself on him, pouring her own Selfsong into him, weakening herself until consciousness left her.

  Elihu watched as Shakre closed her eyes and went beyond. For a time she was motionless and then her head swiveled side to side as if she was looking for something, though her eyes were still closed. All at once her mouth opened and strange words issued from her. In response, a gust of wind blew across the meadow, raising little clouds of ash as it went. It swirled around her and then seemed to disappear.