by Thomas Rath
His mind whirled in a cacophony of thoughts and images that blurred together in a mass that made his stomach upset. He tried to sort the images and hold onto something solid but they kept crashing against his consciousness like the waves of the sea during a violent storm. Switching his focus back to his visitor he tried his best to ignore the noise in his head and concentrate instead on the immediate danger.
“T’ach’ned t’omane’bar d’ne anar namani. Rest easy, you have nothing to fear from me, namani. J’udak’int t’jafna obik. I bring food for you to eat.” It was a woman’s voice that drawled thick with accent. It wasn’t an accent he could place though. Somehow he knew that it was different but he couldn’t tell why or even how he knew it. Though obviously female, the voice was fairly deep and had a hard edge.
“Shi Lo Ko Sho Kaysão?”
“What?” the woman asked as she moved closer and the light suddenly winked out. He tensed for a moment, his vision briefly dropping into darkness before it quickly returned. He could see the woman clearly now. So clearly in fact, he was surprised to see her light a reed in a brazier set not too far from where he lay and then proceed to light candles that were positioned throughout the room. It was then that he finally took stock of his surroundings. The walls were fabric. He was in some sort of large tent but only the walls gave away that he was not in a more permanent structure. Many intricate tapestries hung about the room in breathtaking splendor. Many were of horses and riders galloping to war, others depicted scenes from great and glorious battles, another caught the dying breath of a past hero. All had the taste of battle but surprisingly their workmanship was of such exquisite quality that the actions depicted were almost lovely. Two armoires made of dark cherry wood stood against the walls on either side of him and chairs of the same type were scattered about the room.
His visitor had just finished lighting the candles that hung on sconces dropping down from the ceiling when he noticed the two sword handles sticking up from scabbards tied to her back. He had not seen them before. They were such a part of her that they seemed to mold to and move with her body. He eyed her closely now; really seeing her for the first time, and found it made the hair on his neck tingled. There was danger in this woman, and yet, he did not feel threatened by her. Still, he had to be careful. Like the tapestries, she was death enshrouded in beauty. The way she moved was sinuous and fluid like water over a smooth rock. She was tall though not as tall as he and wore brightly colored pants with a pattern of stars dyed across them. Her shirt hung loosely about her top but was not so large and baggy to get in her way should she need to draw and use her swords. Unlike her pants, though, it was a rather plain, deep blue with no visible design.
Moving his eyes to her face he caught the slight flash of a tiny red gem that was pierced through her left nostril and flickered against the candlelight. Her skin was olive and her hair was long and dark. She wore it braided, dropping down her back and reaching just past her waist. It was her eyes though that captured him. They were a deep blue, dark but crystal bright. In those eyes he could see death smoldering just beyond the edges, but for the moment, they held him with…what…interest? He felt them studying him with exactness, laying him bare. He felt that all of his weaknesses had been searched for and discovered in a mere flashing moment. He was in the lion’s den though luckily, the lion seemed to have already fed.
“I’m not sure,” he finally answered, confused at why he had said what he had. It had just come out so naturally. It was his tongue; he knew that. It was the language he spoke. Yet, he could speak this other although it was more forced. He took a breath to repeat the question in this tongue she understood, but she cut him off.
“What is your Tja?” she asked dropping to the carpeted floor next to him and placing a tray of food within his easy reach. He scanned the fair quickly, not recognizing any of it, though its smell wafted up to him beckoning.
“My what?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly and her voice took on a stronger bite, like steel being pulled from its sheath. “Do not toy with me, namani. What is your Tja, your kin group, your clan? Where do you stake your tents?”
He was confused. What was she talking about? A Tja? He suddenly felt he was on a razor’s edge. Her eyes, though beautiful, quickly took on the look of a raptor ready to devour its prey.
“I don’t know,” was all he could say. It was the truth as far as he could remember, but he wasn’t sure if it was the whole truth.
She considered him for a long moment, the raptor’s look slipping away but the hardness still clinging to her gaze. Her manner was relaxed but he felt that at any moment she could pull the swords at her back and cut him to pieces. The swords. He was still amazed at how they seemed to fit her like another piece of clothing; so much so that he had almost forgotten they were there. Almost.
“Jon’te kabuj v’oban’kufa nok t’obik’reyna’keynadar.”
Her eyes locked onto his as she said it but it was like rocks being pounded together for all he could understand. He just shrugged. He felt they were reaching a turning point but was quickly growing tired of the game. If she was going to kill him then she needed to get on with it. Otherwise, he had some questions that needed to be answered.
“Listen, if you want to talk then you need to speak words that I can understand. I can also speak a different tongue but that’s not going to answer any of the questions that I know you must have and that I certainly do.”
A shocked look flickered across her face and then was hidden almost as quickly. He waited for her to pull her swords but the air about her had changed. She suddenly looked almost…bored? Just then there was another flash of light as a man entered the tent and strode right in, stopping next to the sitting woman. The man considered him briefly but also gave off the same air of boredom that had suddenly taken the woman. He felt like a mere insect to be looked at briefly and then brushed aside without further thought.
The man was about the same height as the woman and wore similar garb save his was all black. His eyes were also blue but lacked the deepness of the woman’s. The same two sword hilts poked out over his shoulders and were just as much a part of him as the woman’s were of her. His face was clean shaven except for just under the lower lip where a patch of hair grew that was braided and hung well below his chin. On his right ear sparkled a gem like the one in the woman’s nose but was a drop that hung from a loop. On his head, he wore a crimson cloth tightly wound and tide at the back. The cloth suddenly caused a thought to flash and try to take form in his mind, but it was quickly lost in the whirl of images that still pounded against his skull.
“Losh y’oban’tjal,” the man said, his voice rolling out deeply from the depths of his chest.
“I know he’s not Tjal,” the woman said with a strange inflection in her voice that almost sounded like remorse. “I just called him the worst thing I could think of and he didn’t even flinch.”
He had had about enough of this. They spoke to one another as if he wasn’t even in the room. “When you two are finished deciding who I am not, maybe you could help me understand who I am.” It just popped out of his mouth without him even thinking. Who I am? I know who I am. I’m…. But he couldn’t come up with anything. He knew he had a name, but nothing came. He tried to think through the whirlwind of noise continually crashing in his head but he couldn’t break through it. He really didn’t know who he was.
Both regarded him with blank, unreadable stares that told him nothing of what they were thinking. “He speaks a strange language,” the woman blurted, “but I can’t make sense of it.”
There they went again, talking around him instead of with him.
“What does he call himself,” the man rumbled, his accent thicker than hers.
She looked down at him briefly and then looked back up at the man. “He has not said.”
This was too much. “That’s because I don’t remember!”
Both looked at him as if suddenly just realizing he was in
the room. The man flashed a quick glance at the woman and then turned back and asked, “What do you remember?”
He tried to think for a moment, searching, trying to push back the tornado in his head and capture a thought, any thought, but it was no use. He couldn’t stop the storm that raged on in his mind. He couldn’t hold onto anything. There were constant flashes of what might have been memories, but they came too fast for him to hold on to. And even if he could, he wasn’t sure anything would be there. He suddenly felt very empty. He had no past, no life, nothing before the mere moments ago when the woman first came in. No idea where he was, where he had come from, or where he had been going. “Nothing.” The word escaped his lips without him really knowing he was saying it until it was already out.
The man sighed heavily and the woman just looked at him with the same bland expression. He watched them, waiting for a response, but neither made even the slightest move. He opened his mouth to repeat himself but the man cut him off. “You may stay here until you are well enough to travel and then you must go. We cannot help you any more than that.”
He looked at them incredulously as they both turned and started to leave. “Wait! Where am I supposed to go?”
Neither stopped but continued to the tent door. “That is not our concern,” the woman said reaching for the flap.
He was desperate. “Please, wait. Please don’t go yet. I have so many questions. Please, won’t you help me?”
They hesitated. The woman looked back at him still nothing showing on her face. “What would you have us do that we have not already done?”
This was his only chance. He felt it. He knew that if he didn’t gain their help now that he never would. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t know who I am.”
“I do not know who you are either. I cannot help you.” She turned again reaching for the flap. The man at her side, obviously tired of being there and anxious to be gone, pushed past her and disappeared through the tent door with a quick flash of light.
“Wait, please,” he pleaded, the desperation thick in his voice. “Please, at least tell me what happened to me and how I got here. Please. I don’t even know where here is.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes digging into his skull. Once again he felt like an insignificant insect that was being regarded and dismissed almost in the same moment. Who were these people anyway, apparently saving his life and then forcing him out without another care? All he knew was the inside of this tent and they wanted him out of it as quickly as they could force him.
Her eyes dropped and a long sigh escaped her tight lips. “Fine. I will stay with you awhile and answer your questions but you still must leave when you are well.”
“Agreed,” he said quickly, relief washing over him.
The woman glanced once more at the flap that separated her from the outside eyeing it as if longing to be free from him but then, instead, she turned back and walked over to his side. Crossing her legs beneath her she sat on the floor the boredom still plain on her face. “I am here. What would you have me tell you?”
He lay back, resting his head on a pillow and stared up at the tent ceiling. There was so much we wanted to know that he wasn’t quite sure where to start. “Well,” he finally started, “I guess the first thing is your name.”
She regarded him for a brief moment and then sighed. “I guess that would be proper. You may call me, Jne.”
He smiled. “I like that name.”
The boredom on her face seemed to increase and he knew he would lose her quickly if he didn’t get right to the point.
“And what shall I call you?” she suddenly asked.
He shrugged. What should she call him? He guessed it really didn’t matter since he had no way of knowing what his real name was. “Call me whatever you like.”
He thought he caught a sudden twinkle in her eye but it was only a flash that was instantly replaced by the dullness that seemed to take over her whole being. “Then I will call you, Renja,” she said flatly.
“Renja?” He shrugged again. It was as good as anything he would have come up with. “What does it mean?”
“Outsider. One who does not belong. One who is other than the rest.”
He held up his hand. “I get the point. Fine, Renja it is then. Now, tell me, Jne, why is it I have to leave as soon as I am well enough?”
She sighed as if the answer were obvious. “Because you are Renja.”
“I see, but why are Renja not accepted? Why are they not allowed to stay?”
She eyed him with a look of forced patience. “Because they are Renja.”
He sighed. It was like trying to move a boulder with a feather. She was not going to give him anything more and that was that. He guessed it didn’t really matter anyway. More important was discovering who he was and how he had ended up here. “So, where are we and how did I get here?”
“We are in a tent and you were carried. You ask very childish questions.”
He was beside himself. He would probably be just as well off to wait it out until he was healthy and then try to make it on his own with all the help she was.
“Fine,” he said and then drew in a deep breath. “Where was I and what was I doing when I was found? Who found me and what were they doing when they found me? When I was brought back, where did they go to bring me here? What is the name of the land the tent is pitched on and what would you do if you were in my situation?” He forced it all out in one breath rambling off his list and wording it the best he could to solicit more than short one-word responses.
Jne smiled slightly. She was pretty when she smiled. “Those are much better questions.”
Renja smiled back at her. “Thank you.”
“You were in the valley of Raven’s Eye peak on the other side of the Mogolth Mountains when you were found. As far as what you were doing, you were laying in the mud unconscious.”
He interrupted. “Was there anyone or anything around me to suggest what may have caused me to end up that way?”
Jne shook her head. “There was no evidence of anyone around you when you were found.”
“Any tracks?”
“None.”
“Anything out of the ordinary?”
Jne smiled again as if suddenly enjoying this game. “Another good question. There was a large burned out area not far from where you lay.”
Nothing had brightened his memory yet but the more information he could squeeze out of her the better. “What was the burned area?”
Jne’s expression changed to one of thoughtful contemplation. “It was strange. It was a large area that was burned out but there was no evidence of any fuel around to burn.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five days.”
“Five days?!”
Her expression changed again as she regarded him with a look similar to how a mother might regard a child. “Was I not clear the first time I said it?”
He didn’t answer her. He had been unconscious for five days? No wonder he was so hungry. Absently, he reached over and grabbed a piece of meat from the tray and shoved it in his mouth. It was somewhat dry and tough to chew but he didn’t care. It would fill his stomach and that’s all that mattered. He had been hungry before but knowing now that he had been out for so long only added to his appetite.
“What else was found in the area?” he asked wiping some drool off his chin.
“Nothing.”
It didn’t make any sense but that was nothing new so far. “All right, so who found me and what were they doing when they found me?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I found you, that is why I know so much of where you were and what you were doing.”
Renja shrugged. She had a point but he wasn’t going to assume anything with her. “So why were you out there?”
Her face dropped slightly. “I was searching for someone.”
“Who?”
Her tone turned cold. “It does not concern you, Renja.”
&nbs
p; He put his hands up. “Fine, fine. Sorry I asked.”
Jne didn’t respond but just kept her hard glare fixed on him.
He grabbed another piece of meat and shoved it into his mouth, his stomach happy for the company. “So who was with you?”
She almost looked shocked that he had asked her that. “No one.”
He stopped chewing. “Then how did you get me back here?”
She gave him the mother to child look again. “I carried you on my horse, of course.”
“But how did you get me onto the horse?”
She sighed heavily and turned her gaze to the tent flap staring at it longingly. “You have returned to childish questions again. If you talk like a child people will treat you like one.”
“If they think me a child would they allow me to stay?”
She looked back at him. “No. And, I lifted you onto the horse.”
He looked her over again. Her size and bulk said that it would have been impossible for her to lift him on her own but the look in her eyes told him it was foolishness to challenge her. How he got here didn’t much matter anyway.
“So, what was the route you took to get us here?”
The roughness in her face relaxed some. “We came through the pass and traveled south across the plains and then east until we reached the Tja.”
“What is…?” he stopped himself before asking knowing that she had already told him somewhat of what a Tja was and he was not willing to risk the childish question lecture again. What had she said it was, a kin group or clan? He started again. “What Tja are we in?”