Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  Netra went to the door and stood there. There was still at least an hour of daylight left. They should be moving on, making as much distance as they could before dark. She came to a sudden decision.

  “We’re staying here tonight. It will give me a chance to cook some real food.”

  An hour later Netra had a pot of beans mixed with carrots and onions cooking over the hearth. It was soothing to her somehow, the familiar rituals of preparing food. As she went through the motions of chopping and seasoning and stirring she felt herself beginning to relax. Some of the craziness of her life began to chip away and she even found herself humming a song she hadn’t thought of since childhood.

  When the food was ready she went to the door and called Shorn in. “I made some for you, too,” she told him when he came in. “Sit down and I’ll serve you.”

  Shorn went over to the table, pulled out one of the chairs and looked at it doubtfully. Though it was sturdily built, when he put his hand on the seat to test it—a hand that was nearly the size of the seat—it looked like a child’s toy.

  “Maybe not,” Netra said surprising herself with a chuckle as she pictured him sitting on the floor, a splintered chair beneath him. “I guess there’s always the floor. Here.” She handed him his food.

  Holding the bowl carefully between his thumb and forefinger, Shorn maneuvered his bulk over against the wall and sat down. Then he looked at Netra questioningly.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “It won’t hurt you. It might even be good for you.”

  He sniffed the food, then nodded. He took the spoon, holding it like it was a toothpick, and spooned some into his mouth. Then he nodded again. “This is good,” he rumbled, sounding surprised.

  “Of course it’s good,” Netra chided him, taking a big bite herself. She watched Shorn with the too-small spoon and laughed again. “Oh forget it. Just drink straight out of the bowl. It’ll be easier for you.”

  Looking relieved, Shorn did so. Netra settled down to eating, and was surprised at how a feeling of comfort and warmth just seemed to spread outward from her stomach as she ate. With each bite the world outside seemed to shrink just a bit, becoming almost manageable. With each bite she felt more and more herself and she found herself feeling very grateful to Grila and her family. Once again, when she needed it most, they had sheltered her and comforted her. She said a prayer for them, wherever they were.

  When the food was gone the two of them just sat there, Shorn leaning against the wall, Netra with her chair turned so she could gaze into the embers of the cook fire.

  Netra slept in the next morning, not waking up until the sun had been up for more than an hour. Lying there, she felt truly rested for the first time since she could remember. No nightmares had plagued her. She felt hopeful, ready for whatever the day would bring.

  Netra packed up the extra food she had cooked and they set out, making their way south once again.

  “You’ve probably been wondering what I was doing up there on the plateau, by myself,” she said after they’d been walking for a while. She looked over her shoulder at him. He was wearing his usual stone face. “Or not,” she said. “You might be wondering why I talk so much and hoping I’ll stop.” She paused. Still no response. “But since you’re not going to say anything, I’m just going to tell you anyway.”

  They were in an area where the going was easy and she slowed her pace until he was walking beside her. “I was looking for my mother. I thought she might be up there. I’m not sure why I thought that. It sounds kind of crazy when I say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

  She glanced over and saw Shorn looking at her with what might have been a puzzled look on his face. She wondered why, then mentally shrugged and moved on.

  “I never knew my mother. She left when I was a baby. She was exiled from the Tenders and left me with them to be raised. I always thought she was dead, and when I found out she was alive, I left the Haven to go find her.” She shook her head ruefully. “It seems pretty silly now, looking back. She left nearly twenty years ago. How in the world was I supposed to find her?”

  They walked in silence for a while, then she continued. “But finding my mother was only part of the reason I left. I think you should know the other reason, if you’re going to keep traveling with me. When you hear, you might change your mind.” That thought was terrifying. She didn’t want to be alone again. But she also had to tell him. She couldn’t carry it alone anymore. “I left my home because…” She swallowed hard. It was difficult to say the words. “I left because I killed a woman.” She looked at Shorn to see what his reaction was, but he was once again staring straight ahead, revealing nothing. For some reason that irritated her. “So? Don’t you want to know why I killed her? Or does killing no longer mean anything to you?”

  Slowly he turned his head to look at her. “You will tell me if you want to. Or you will not. It is your choice.”

  Netra felt bad then, for what she’d accused him of. Why did she keep attacking him?

  “I will tell you. I don’t know if you want to hear it or not, but I need to say it. I killed her to save myself. Oh, everyone said I shouldn’t feel guilty about it, that she was going to stab me or that she was going to turn us over to Gulagh, but none of it helped. None of it changes the fact that I took another person’s life.” She thought of Bloodhound then. “And now I’ve done it again.”

  He turned his head to look at her again. “I do not understand. They would have killed you. Why are you guilty?”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then looked away. “I don’t know. I thought I was better than that.”

  They camped in a ravine that night and built a small fire. They had finished eating and Netra was sitting on the ground looking up at the stars when she announced, “I’ve figured it out.”

  Shorn gave her an inquiring look, but said nothing.

  “I know where you’re from.”

  Shorn raised a heavy eyebrow.

  “You must be from across the sea. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She smiled, waiting for his reaction, feeling smart for having figured it out.

  “The sea?” he said.

  “Yes, the sea. The one to the east, by Qarath. I’ve never seen it, of course, but I learned about it and saw it on maps. Karyn said it’s huge, though no one knows how big it really is, because no one’s crossed it in thousands of years, since before the Empire, before even the Banishment.”

  “No one crosses the sea? Why?” Shorn seemed genuinely surprised by this.

  “Because it’s too dangerous. It didn’t use to be. People used to sail on it in big ships, but then there was the war between the gods of the sea and the gods of the land and anyone who went out on it was killed. For a long time no one would even live by the sea because monsters would crawl out of it and kill everyone.”

  “This does not still happen?”

  “Not in a long time. Anyway, I thought that maybe your people lived across the sea and that somehow you found a way to cross it but your ship sank and that’s why you’re trapped here.”

  Shorn seemed unsure what to say. Finally, he scratched his neck and said, “I have never seen this sea you speak of.”

  She stared at him for a while. “Never?”

  He shook his head.

  “So…no ship?”

  Another shake.

  “Where are you from then?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time and she was sure he wouldn’t answer. But then he pointed to the sky and said, “Up there.” He pointed to a different area. “Or maybe over there. I do not know these stars.”

  For a moment Netra just sat there, stunned. Then she said, “That’s not possible. Nothing lives up there.”

  Shorn shrugged and said nothing.

  “But they’re just dots of light. How could you live there?”

  “They are suns. All of them. Like yours.”

  “Those are suns?” The thought staggered her. How could there be more than one sun? “And there…and th
ere are people living on lands by those suns?”

  He nodded.

  “And you come from one of them? What is it called?”

  “Themor.”

  “Oh,” Netra said faintly. “That’s why you never heard of Xochitl or Melekath. You probably never heard of Atria either.”

  He shook his head.

  She stared up at the stars. Her whole world suddenly felt very small and insignificant. He came from a place where nothing that went on here mattered. At all.

  “But…how did you get here?”

  “You do not have a word for it. Like a ship, but metal and made to fly between the stars.”

  Netra thought about this for a while, but she could make no sense of it. A giant metal ship that flew between the stars? It seemed impossible, but then she looked at her copper-skinned companion and he was impossible too. She sighed and leaned back against a rock. Who was to say what was possible and what wasn’t anymore? She voiced the only other question she could think of.

  “Why?”

  The look he turned on her was filled with pain. The wall he hid behind slipped fractionally and she could feel the anguish that filled his soul. Twice he opened his mouth but no words came out. Then he stood and walked away. At the edge of the firelight he paused, his back to her. The words that finally made it out came from between gritted teeth. In a barely audible voice he said, “I failed. I am…krenth-an, one who is seen no longer by his people.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

  Netra felt sick inside. There was so much pain in those words. No wonder he wanted to die. She feared losing her world and he had already lost his. And she had been so harsh, so critical of him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Netra blinked at the tears in her eyes, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. This, then, was what drove him. This was what crushed him. He did not return and finally she lay down on her blanket, staring at the embers of the fire as it slowly died.

  Thirty-four

  They were walking the next morning when Netra suddenly stopped. Sitting on a boulder beside a large ravine was a man with his back to them, bent over something he held in his hands. Shorn started forward, but Netra put her hand out and held him back. Then she closed her eyes, listening to his Selfsong. It was hard to hear, as if he was very far away, but she heard nothing hostile in it, none of the scorched wrongness of those marked by Kasai.

  She led them in a short arc that took them around to one side, hoping to see what it was he was doing. As they got closer, she could see that he held a piece of wood in his hands, like a short club, but too thin to be one. He was humming as he ran his fingers along the wood, over and over again. Under his fingers the wood slowly changed shape, as if it was clay instead of wood. The neck stretched and grew thin, the body rounded and bowl-like.

  He looked up and his eyes fixed on her as if he’d known she was there all along.

  “You’re a Tender, then,” he said. He was an ordinary looking man, slightly built, with thinning brown hair and a wispy mustache. It was hard to tell his age. He could have been anywhere from thirty to sixty.

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “Song bends around you.” His eyebrows drew together. “Interesting, though, since you don’t have a sulbit.”

  “What’s a sulbit?”

  His eyes shifted to Shorn. “He’s a big one. Where did you find him?”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. “He’s not from here.”

  “No, he’s not.” His eyes took on a distant, unfocused look. “Not from anywhere on this world. He’s an interesting one.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know?” When she shook her head he set down the piece of wood he was working on and picked up what she’d thought was a flask sitting beside him. But now she could see that it was a small harp. He plucked a few strings and immediately she knew what he was.

  “You’re a Musician.”

  He doffed an imaginary hat. “The very same.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “The question is what are you doing here?”

  “I’m going home.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Not to Qarath? To join the fight?”

  “Afterwards.”

  He nodded as if it was what he’d expected. “There’s a god there now, you know. Maybe more than one. They think we don’t notice, but we do.”

  “There’s a god in Qarath? Who? Is it Xochitl?”

  “No, not Xochitl. But one who was close to her. Lowellin.”

  “The Protector?”

  “The same.”

  “And he’s helping the Tenders?”

  “In a way. But you can’t really trust him. You can’t really trust any of them. The gods only want to win. They don’t care what they break along the way.”

  “This is still good news. If Lowellin is helping us, that means Xochitl will too.”

  He shrugged and went back to shaping the wood. It was eerie how the wood changed shape under his hands. “Maybe, maybe not. She’s been gone a long time. Could be she can’t help.” He held up the wood and looked at it sadly. “I’ve ruined this with my clumsy hands.” He tossed the wood away. “You’re very passionate, aren’t you?”

  “If by that you mean I care, you’re right. I care a great deal.”

  “Be careful with that. Passion has a way of being blind.”

  “I want to stop Melekath. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Like I said. In Qarath, you’ll fit right in.” He stood. “There’s nowhere to go, but I’m leaving. Maybe I can find an empty mountaintop for my last song. If none of my brothers have gotten there first.” He looked down at her. “Don’t look for any of my brethren in Qarath. Except Tinn, of course. He may still be around. Tinn was always wrong in the head.”

  Then he jumped off the rock and walked off. As he was leaving, he walked behind a bush. It was just a little bush, but he never came out the other side. He was just gone.

  Shorn gave Netra a questioning glance and she shrugged. “They can do that, disappear when they want to. It’s part of their power. If they don’t want to be found, they aren’t.” She realized then that he’d never answered her first question. “I wonder what a sulbit is. He seemed surprised that I didn’t have one. It must be something that the Protector gave the Tenders to help fight Melekath. Do you realize what this means?”

  Shorn just looked at her blankly and she laughed at his expression.

  “The Protector was appointed by Xochitl long ago to watch over the Tenders. He hasn’t been seen since before the Empire, shortly after Xochitl disappeared for the last time.”

  She paused, but Shorn only shrugged.

  “This changes everything. If the Protector is here, then that means Xochitl sent him to help us fight Melekath. Which means she has forgiven us and is returning our power to us so we can fight. This is our chance to finally redeem ourselves.” She was getting excited now. This was tremendous news.

  “He said not to trust the gods.”

  Netra frowned. “He did. I wonder why he said that.” Then she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We can trust the Protector. He is Xochitl’s right hand. Probably he’s just worried because of what the Tenders did the last time we had power.”

  “You told me you are not a Tender. Not anymore.”

  That brought her up short. “I don’t know, Shorn. I broke our most sacred vow. But in war, people die. And this is war. When we get to Qarath I’ll confess to the FirstMother and let her decide. If she wants to cast me out, then I’ll accept that. But if she says I can join the fight, then I’ll do whatever it takes. No matter what the cost is to me.” Shorn looked troubled at her words and she asked him, “What’s wrong?”

  But he only shook his head and wouldn’t respond.

  “Well, you be as gloomy and as worried as you want to be. I’m taking this like the good news that it is. Melekath’s coming, but we’re no longer helpless. What could be better than that?”

>   Thirty-five

  The high valley Netra and Shorn had been walking through petered out over the next few days and a gradual, but steady, descent began. They were coming around the edge of the Firkaths now, only a few days away from the Haven. The bushes, trees and tall grasses of the high valley began to give way to the more familiar plants of Netra’s home. Cactus began to appear here and there, bristling with thorns. The land became rockier, the hills steeper. The sight lifted Netra’s heart more than she would have expected. After so many days away, running, afraid, it was all so normal and familiar that she found her eyes misting up and a lump in her throat. On a rock outcropping Netra saw a type of lizard she recognized and stopped.

  “Look,” she said. “See that?” The lizard puffed itself up, then began to raise and lower itself, as if it was doing pushups.

  Shorn fixed his amber gaze on the small creature. “What is it doing?”

  “I’m not certain, but I think he’s warning us.”

  Shorn’s head turned and he studied the terrain around them. “Of what?”

  “That this is his land. He claims this spot and we had better stay clear.”

  “He is too small.”

  “Tell him that.”

  The expression on Shorn’s face was such that Netra abruptly broke out in a laugh. He shot her a stern look, clearly unhappy that she was laughing at him, and that made her laugh harder.

  “I do not see what is so funny,” he said stiffly.

  As her laughter died down, she responded, “Neither do I. I just know it feels good.”

  They continued to lose elevation and the desert Netra loved so much completely took over. She pointed out things to Shorn as they went along, naming the joshua tree, with its long stiff spines in place of leaves, and the catclaw tree, with its thorns sharp and curved like a cat’s claws. She saw no sign of blight down here and she found herself feeling hopeful for the first time in many days. Melekath had not won yet. He had not even completely freed himself from his prison. In the bright warmth of the day, everything seemed possible. She floated along in these happy dreams, chattering to Shorn about whatever crossed her mind.