by Dora Machado
Meliahs’ Hounds. No wonder they were legendary. That's what they called their brutes. Whoever bloody Vargas was, he would have been utterly satisfied to see the monsters he commanded. Tirsis, Poe, Eneis, Vargas. Seer, dreamer, teacher and lawman. Their sayings seemed to comprise what the keeper had called the Wisdom. The sages didn't speak for themselves. The Wisdom spoke through them or better yet, they spoke through the words of… who? Their rulers? Wisers? Long dead soothsayers?
The thud of the lever dropping to the next notch startled her. The boards rumbled beneath her feet. A new portion of the platform's rim disappeared. How many notches on the beams? Time. Sariah remembered she didn't have it to spare.
She went for the basics. “Who are you?”
A young woman stepped forward. “Who are we but the witnesses of treason, the heresy's spurners, Meliahs’ faithful followers? Who are we but the fist that waits in the shadows to unleash the blow?”
At least they saw themselves as Meliahs’ own. “I too worship Meliahs. I was seized while pursuing the stone truth. I must continue her work.”
The young woman shook her head. “Many are those who claim the goddess's service. Few will serve her faithfully.”
They were as suspect as they should be. “Look, I don't know what you want from me—”
“You shall not be deterred,” a tall woman said. “Just as strength is rewarded with life, weakness can only be cured with death.”
In the Guild, they beat you to get your attention. These sages slapped you equally hard, but with their verses. “Are you the people called the pure?”
The sages exchanged odd looks. A moment passed before the boy stepped forward and said, “What's pure but stone? What's impure if not all but stone?”
Her hopes that she had found the pure collapsed. This place wasn't it. But if she hadn't found the pure, could she at least find confirmation that she was on the right path?
“Are you the keepers of the truth?”
There was general laughter and a burst of applause. Sariah gathered she had gotten the answer to her question right. Yet she despaired at the cryptic exchange. What could she tell these people that might prevent her death? What did they know about the Guild and the stones, about everything that had happened in the last few years? Would they believe anything she said?
As if reading her thoughts, the old man spoke again. “I saw lies in the stones, tales fashioned to proclaim the false and promote the wicked. I saw death and obscurity for the endless aftertime.”
However far removed from the rest of the world, these people were thoroughly informed. The sequence of ominous noises began again. The lever's thump, the chain's whine, the quaking rumble, they all conspired to distract Sariah. This time, she didn't stop to watch the next chunk of platform fall away.
“Did you come here as a result of the execration? Were you punished for some trespass, like the people of the Domain, and condemned to live here?”
“Behold, Meliahs saw the future's ruins,” one of the sages said. “She dreamed a warning in the fairest minds, that her children would be separated, hunted and killed. She saw the land broken, the suffering weeping, the stones betrayed. Her tears fell on the souls of the righteous and we were born one thieving people out of the wretched divide.”
Fascinating. Was this the tale that Leandro's wising promised? Surely, it had to be. These people had retreated to the Bastions’ isolation in the times before the execration. But what did they mean by thieving people? Perhaps they were Zeminaya's doing too. Perhaps Zeminaya's powerful wisings extended to the Bastions.
“Do you know of an ancient stonewiser called Zeminaya?”
The old woman hissed. “Curse the sinners’ names, for they carry the dead on their souls.”
Sariah gathered Zeminaya was not a safe topic to discuss with these people. This time, when the lever dropped and the boards quaked, she had to step away from the crumbling edge. The dais was disappearing from under her feet. They wanted her tale, a reason to spare her life or end it. She wasn't sure how much to tell them, but the combination of the shrinking pedestal and the deadly moat were enough to compel some truth from her.
“I follow a beam of light.”
“Welcome is the brilliance that leads us.” The girl smiled. “Noble are those who follow, for they have earned a chance at the truth.”
“That's very encouraging,” Sariah said, “but it doesn't tell me what you want from me.”
“A sunless dawn,” the same old man repeated. “A branded beast. The life taste of the waiting dead.”
With a crashing boom, the lever dropped another notch. Sariah bolted from the crumpling section. The pedestal was less than a third of its original size and the lever seemed to be falling faster each time, making it more likely that Sariah's question-and-answer session would end earlier than expected. Calm. She summoned the difficult emotion. One problem at a time.
A sunless dawn, the old man had said. I follow a beam, Sariah had said. Welcome is the brilliance that leads us. Of course. Had she been rendered deaf and blind?
She moved fast and purposefully, trying to outrace the lever. She fetched Leandro's game from her shoulder bag. The cracks between the boards presented a new problem, but she didn't allow it to slow her down. She spread her tattered mantle on the center of the diminished pedestal. The sages watched her intently. She didn't speak as she set up the board. Words, she knew, were of no consequence to these people.
With the game set, she ran the plays in her mind, moving the snakes and scorpions faster than she had ever done before. Done. She stepped aside and waited for the arrival of the only sunless dawn she could summon of her own accord.
The hum preceded the light, but when it arrived, the beam fit through the dome's opening exactly. Stunned, Sariah realized it had been built for that very purpose. It landed on the game and fired the little pieces to sparkling brilliance. The sages’ gasps and prayers rose above the hum. The boy was crying. The old woman knelt on her ledge.
“Joyous is the day of the light,” someone cried. “The promise has arrived.”
Despite the beam, the lever boomed. The wood whined. The boards trembled. The rim collapsed again, leaving only a few paces of space beyond the beam's searing light. Sariah feared that Leandro's snakes and scorpions would spill over, but the beam held them fast in place.
The beam was welcomed but it was not enough. What had the man said? A sunless dawn, a branded beast? The only beast she could find in the chamber was the warrior standing by the lever. She didn't think he had anything to do with this. What about the brand? There were no branded animals in the chamber, nor depicted on the dome's expansive decorations. A brand. A beast. A mark. A seal. Her seal?
She stared at her hands with trepidation. These were not scars she liked to show anyone, let alone these strangers who disliked Zeminaya. How would they feel about her seal? Could it stand for something or someone other than the old intrusion?
The boards trembled beneath her feet. Concentrated on her thoughts, she had missed the lever's loud drop. The chunks of planks were falling faster now. The marks on her palms were the only brand she had at hand. No alternative.
She lifted her hands and displayed the scars, turning slowly for all the sages to see the seal the twin stones had bestowed on her, the triangle within the oval stamped on her palms.
“The future's glimpse,” the tall woman said. “Meliahs’ herald, come to collect the tribute of our lives.”
Cold dread iced Sariah's belly. She was no herald, no tribute collector, no future to these people. She only needed to live to do her duty. Now if they would only stop the lever—
They didn't. The sages weren't content with the beam and the seal. They still wanted something else from her. What was the other thing the old man had said? The life taste of the waiting dead?
Light and seal she had managed to put forth. But a life taste? What was that supposed to mean? Sariah wanted to scream. Life taste. Unafraid to spill their… Blood? She g
roped for her little blade. “Do you want my blood? Yes? Have it then.”
She cut her palm below the thumb and turned it down to bleed on the boards. She looked up hopefully at the sages. No response. That wasn't what they wanted either. What was she supposed to do?
The keeper landed before Sariah without a sound. The rope he had ridden across the moat hung limply to one side. He stood on the opposite side of the beam, like darkness born out of the light. He was much taller than Sariah had surmised and younger too. The beastly claws protruded from his fisted hands, sharply honed blades sprouting between his clasped fingers. The scaffolding quaked, this time much harder. The keeper edged the light beam. She crept in the opposite direction, avoiding him.
He beckoned her with a quick curl of his claws. “Come.”
Damn the keeper. She couldn't possibly defeat those blades. Wait. Was it his blood that the sages wanted? Not that she wanted to engage him in a fight, but she remembered she had some weapons she could use. Think. Breathe. Act.
The keeper's claws swiped at her head. Sariah stepped back, ripped a handful of beads from her plait, and hurled them at him.
Pop, pop, pop. It was a satisfying sequence, like bubbles gurgling in a boiling pot. The small stones stung the keeper, leaving bloody punctures on his throat. Surprised, he stumbled backwards and retreated to the other side of the beam. He was rattled but not dissuaded. He considered her through lidded eyes. The sages watched in silence.
A quick glance at the dead corpses in the moat strengthened Sariah's resolve. The keeper was fast. She sidestepped his new attack, managing to drop more beads under his dress. This time, he was prepared. He shook with the impact, but he was no longer surprised. Instead, he stood his ground and lunged. His claws scoured through Sariah's weave and raked her arm. Simultaneously, the other set of claws severed the remaining string in her braid. Her wised beads spilled on the floor and dropped down into the moat.
Now what? She faked a blow to the left and went for the larger stone in her pocket. The keeper's claws ripped through her wrist, screeching against her banishment bracelet. It felt like a scuff to the head, like a bloody scrape directly to the brain. She stumbled and almost fell off the ledge. Her wrist bled with a deep slash, but the wretched bracelet had saved her hand.
The keeper stalked her around the beam. He didn't wear his fellow Hounds’ terrifying garb, but he was no less fearsome. He sneered. She could tell he thought she was weak and unworthy, a sad combination of trinkets and tricks. Perhaps he was right. She kept to the opposite side of the beam.
The scaffolding rattled. One by one the remaining boards began to fall away. Sariah ran away from the void but towards the keeper's inevitable claws. Without stones she had no weapons. Or did she?
She called on her fear, on the massive reservoir of frustration and anger stored in her soul. At that moment, she hated the keeper, the sages, their maddening Wisdom; this useless, endless search, which had taken her away from Kael, from the little she had. At that moment she wanted to live when she knew she was going to die.
It was an act of desperation. The boards where she stood caved in as she launched across the beam. The beam's dry heat scorched her back even as she kneed the gaming pieces off the cloth board. With the pieces scattered, the beam quit and with it went the burning on her back. Her hands landed on the keeper's legs. Her fingers contracted around his calves. Her palms pressed against his skin like thirsty leeches. She struck. Stone Wrath.
The keeper howled like a gutted man. He flopped on the quaking floor like a dying fish. Sariah grabbed him by the ankle an instant before he fell into the moat. She was as astounded by her attack's strength as the sages were. Out of desperation, she had created a new weapon. Had she been too late?
The lever began to fall again, this time towards the last notch, despite all her efforts. It happened too fast. The keeper clutched the back of her neck. His fingers breached her mouth with extraordinary force, bruising her lips, scouring her teeth, smearing her tongue with his blood. Sariah gagged. Fresh blood. The life taste of the waiting dead. It trickled inevitably down her throat to her sickened stomach. She tried to bite him. He didn't budge. Bloody saliva dribbled out of the corners of her mouth. She had to swallow.
“What you are to me, I am to you,” the keeper said.
The sages lifted their hands as one. The impassive warrior wedged his spear across the lever. The lever bounced on the Hound's spear, and stopped. The boards beneath Sariah's feet held. The acrid taste of the keeper's blood was ablaze in her mouth.
Twenty-eight
SARIAH CRINGED WITH the vinegar's sting.
“Welcome is suffering, for it shall not be wasted,” the woman cleansing the wound on her arm said. “Wise are those who suffer in the flesh, for they are strengthening their souls.”
“Don't tell me.” Sariah winced. “Tirsis, the Seer.”
The woman beamed.
They were in a small airy room on the top floor of a mud brick house. Jars and bottles lined the shelves while dry flowers and desiccated leaves dangled from the ceiling's rafters. The kind woman had scoured Sariah clean of blood and filth and was now stitching the slice above her wrist.
Sariah looked out the windows. The house was nestled within a sprawling settlement of two- and three-story buildings. They had walked over a maze of rooftops to navigate the streetless place. Twin domes rose in opposite corners of the city. The sheer size of the settlement and the number of people who lived there astounded her.
The keeper stumbled down the ladder like a teetering toddler.
“Are you still feeling the jolt in your legs?”
He took a chair by the window and, ignoring her question, arranged his skirt on his lap. “The goddess's greetings, for she is just and fair to all her children—”
Sariah couldn't stand it any longer. “I know you don't have to speak to me in the Wisdom. You talked to me at the dome.”
“Wise is he who speaks what has been wisely spoken before him, for his wisdom cannot be doubted.”
“That's Tirsis again.”
“Who needs the burden of a voice when all has been properly said?”
“The teacher, Eneis. He asks questions all the time. But I don't want to speak to the sages. I want to speak to you.”
The man made a big effort, as if his mind had forgotten how to translate independent thought into word. His mouth curled in disgust, but he finally spoke his own words. “Why speak to me when you can speak to the sages?”
“Because the sages are gone and dead. Because they can't tell me what I need to know. Don't you want to speak for yourself?”
“There is no wisdom greater than the Wisdom.”
“I don't have time for this.”
The man's claws popped out of his right hand.
“What are you doing?”
The blade froze against the keeper's forearm. “Do you want me to speak without the Wisdom? Fine. I do. I trespass. I cut myself.”
“No, nay, no.” Sariah was horrified. “I want neither your pain nor your blood.”
“You want my words but not my blood?” He stared at her as if she was both crazy and dumb.
“You. Your people. Do you cut yourselves every time you don't speak the Wisdom?”
He nodded.
“Meliahs spare us. I just want to speak to you. Without bloodshed. Can you do that?”
The man's Adam's apple bobbed helplessly up and down his throat. “Only if you command me to do so.”
“You would heed my command?”
“I'm your keeper now.”
“Oh, no.” She wasn't falling for it again. “I'm not your pet or anything like it. And you're not mine.”
“Pet?” The man considered her dubiously. “Of course you're not my pet or I yours. But you can command me as you wish.”
Strange. One moment she had been fighting the man on the bloody pedestal and now he wanted to obey her? “I really don't want to command you. I just want to talk to you.”
&
nbsp; “Now that the sages have found you true, you can do as you want.”
“And you won't cut yourself?”
“It's a strange command to follow, but if you want, I won't cut myself when I speak to you.”
“And you won't make me drink your blood again?”
His eyes flashed with fury. “Do you find my blood unworthy?”
There was much more to the blood drinking than she knew. “I just don't like blood.”
“You don't like blood?” His brows clashed in complete incredulity.
Was that so hard to believe?
“Perhaps you find my blood unimpressive.”
“Unimpressive?” Sariah was lost. “You don't need to impress me. Your claws did that.”
“You won the fight.”
“Oh, that. It only happened because I thought I was going to die. Otherwise, I'm sort of clumsy with the blade.”
“I thought so.” A flash of teeth broke right beneath his nose's audacious septum. “But you didn't have to tell me. You're unexpectedly unassuming.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I'm in a hurry. I need answers and I need to rejoin my friends.”
“They've made such a ruckus at the cliffs.”
A measure of relief washed over Sariah. If Kael and the others were able to make a ruckus at the cliffs, then they were alive and in good condition. Just to make sure, she asked.
“You haven't hurt them, have you?”
“Not much.”
“I must see to them.” Sariah shook off the woman's attentions and stood up.
“The body's healing precedes the mind's peace,” the woman said.
“Meek shall be the dragon at the foot of the stone,” the keeper replied.
“Fierceness in all things,” the woman spat. “Killing AND caring—”
These two were fighting. With the Wisdom's words. Incredible.
Sariah spoke to the woman. “Thank you, but I don't need your services anymore.”
The woman glowered at the keeper before she left the room.