by SC Huggins
The crooked nose, with the incongruously bulbous smooth lips that spat out its paralyzing venom with deadly accuracy and its single eye sat on its forehead like a Qiga presiding over a council meeting.
It took one step forward, tucked its large head into its chest and charged, striking the still shocked Rami deep in the stomach with its horns.
His breath left him in a hoof and Rami took a hurried step back, groaning from the sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t think, only feel as his whole body pulsed in disbelief and pain. Belatedly, he recalled the stories narrated at his father’s feet, the vivid descriptions of the ewr and how poisonous its saliva was. The spittle from its tongue was a deadly venom capable of killing in a short span.
Feet skidding sharply as the ewr continued to propel him at great speed to where only the Dejis knew, Rami tried to gain traction as his feet continued to skid against the sands. Miraculously, he found traction when his feet hit an outjutting stone. With all his might, he grappled with the ewr, hot puff of air leaving his chest in painful gasps even as his skin and lungs burned in desperation. Rami struggled to control his amazement at the creature’s power, grunting when he finally gained a good hold on both horns.
He groaned deeply and tried pushing back, knowing he could never match the ewr for strength, Rami gave one great desperate heave, praying for just a sliver of space, anything.
The ewr pulled back slightly for a second attack and Rami took his chance. He pushed a quick hand into his tunic and pulled out the Triga. In the struggle, it nearly fell off his hands and he pressed hard on its centre, muttering the required words over and over and so quickly they ran into each other.
He disappeared.
The ewr stumbled forward into the empty space where Rami formerly stood, still propelled by his own momentum. It righted itself and spun awkwardly around, single eye vacant and wide as it searched for its adversary. Its eyes found Jani across the distance and it stopped, one eye blinking comically in its ugly face.
Jani ran.
She ran off three paces when she recalled her promise to Wereu. With a loud sob, she turned, too quickly as her legs slid briefly and awkwardly against the ground in her haste. She jumped the last distance and lunged for Rork’s pale, still hand. The ewr turned full circle, puzzled over Rami’s disappearance. It swayed as it turned until it faced.
She dropped Rork’s hand and took a quick step back. Unbidden, tears ran down her cheeks, Jani’s breath hitched somewhere between her throat and her mouth. She took another wary step back, ready to run for her life, when the woods suddenly rang out with a piercing inhuman cry. The ewr’s head whipped in that direction and stayed there. It cocked its head and twisted its body towards the forest to Jani’s relief.
It charged into the woods.
Jani whimpered and wiped at her tears with shaky fingers, then she grabbed Rork’s hand and pulled.
TAFIK PACED THE LENGTH of the courtyard, worry and fear tearing at his insides. It was one thing to envy Rami his position as Qiga and quite another to sit on the chair for any length of time. Was Rami unable to kill a defenseless woman and a small boy? What—
“Didn’t Rami return with you?” Old Pena asked carefully.
“We have to make a decision,” one of the chiefs said courteously. Too courteously, because Tafik knew they felt no sympathy towards Rami.
“What decision?” Tafik struggled to get out.
“The men from Lima are here about charting the flow from our river,” Old Pena offered helpfully.
“What should we tell him?”
“Well, you should have waited to inform me first instead of gathering together already,” Tafik snapped.
“He came all the way from Lima, we only wanted to speed things—”
“Is that the real reason you’re here?”
“We—”
With the same momentum with which the ewr propelled him, Rami skidded into the courtyard, and landed with a sickening thump smack dab in the center. For a moment, complete silence trailed his arrival, until he groaned. Lightheaded with pain, Rami bared his teeth and glanced down at the cut across his stomach. He blanched at the sight of his own intestines hanging out.
He groaned.
The triga slipped from his bloody hands. Frantically, but with trembling hands, he beckoned Tafik closer. White-faced, the younger man pulled away from the shocked chiefs and ran to his Qiga
“The healing flame,” Rami instructed frantically.
“What—”
Rami tried to sit up, only to groan and plop wearily bottom first on the ground. Tafik attempted to help his brother up by raising him by the shoulders. But Rami closed his eyes and groaned at the pain. His body was on fire, his stomach, head and hand- especially the hand where the ewr smacked him.
He pushed Tafik off him and groaned at the pain the movement caused. “The flame,” he gasped in between harsh breaths.
Tafik nodded blankly and pivoted on his heel to get the magical healing flame.
Jani. Rami remembered suddenly. The thought gave him strength and he stretched out his hand to grab at Tafik’s hand, but made contact with air.
Rami groaned as pain of an intensity he’d rarely felt streamed through his frame.
“Here,” Tafik pushed the healing flame towards him, and quickly withdrew to avoid his bloody hand.
Rami panted harshly, and stretched out his hand to grip Tafik’s hand with force. He ignored the younger man’s grimace at the sight of his blood drenched fingers marring his neat appearance.
“Take care of her. She. Is. Still,” his breath caught, “alive,” he finished.
Tafik froze, but his eyes remained on Rami’s fingers as bumps of disgust rose all over his skin. “Rork?”
Blinking away the looming dizziness, the sound of Rork’s head hitting that Rock before falling to the ground in a heap filtered through the haze of pain in his skull. The metallic taste of blood became one of victory and he felt peace. They were very close. Rami held the healing flame closer to his body. “Dead,” he replied with no inflection in his voice. He jerked his head towards the triga where it had fallen. “Do not forget the alak,” he said, struggling to breathe through the pain.
DESPERATE AND MORE fearful than she had ever been in her life, Jani pushed the horses, cursing, sobbing and shouting at the animals to move faster. She winced when the ropes drew taut on the raw skin of her palms, but that was the least of her worries. Jani wished the events of the day could be erased and leave her life as it had been yesterday. An ewr? The war? And Rami’s plan to kill off his family? Was there even a war?
Jani laughed hysterically, the empty sound echoed through the forest, reminded her of that piercing cry that had drawn the ewr away and sobered her like nothing else could. Uwan was surely coming to an end for that long ago banished ancestral creature to roam the land like the much hunted anu. There was only one path left for her- she couldn’t return home to Rami, but she had a future with Tafik.
Jani took a deep breath and her heart grew warm with relief. The vibration as the horse’s hoofs hit the ground no longer resounded with depression but with hope. She was close, very close to the future she’d always wanted.
Rami.
She would not think of him now; this was not the time to mourn what they never had. Rami would surely come after her- a moan from the cart pulled her from her unsavory thoughts and she glanced down at her son.
Jani shook her head in grudging admiration. Rork was holding on, how?
Nothing about this day would surprise her again.
Pity he had no powers. He was good, and brave. How could he still be alive though? Jani couldn’t wrap her head around that. Through the last lap of the journey, he floated in and out of consciousness, and Jani wished she could afford to drop him somewhere. He was dragging her back and they needed as much distance between them and Rami. Why had that woman insisted?
Mad woman.
The next time he fell unconscious, Jani huffed out
an exasperated breath, and dropped from the cart. She seethed, hissing through gritted teeth at the wasted time as she quickly unharnessed the horse and strapped Rork to the horse saddle. They had to get to Chaldi before their pursuers caught up with them.
Dawn just streaked the sky in amazing colors when Jani pulled to a halt before Wereu’s caves in Chaldi.
Jani wasn’t surprised to find Chaldi as peaceful as it was during her last visit. Exhausted, but excited at the prospect of a new life stretched ahead of her, Jani jumped down from the horse and approached the caves where Wereu lived.
Coming off a line of powerful witches and the last of her descendants, the people speculated, respected and feared Wereu. As an offspring of the former ruling Qiga and the last of her kind, they were in awe of what she represented. But they were wary and proud of the uncontrollable powers that rendered her insane. And yet, some believed her dead and the tides of time helped swept her off the minds of her people.
From high in the caves, Wereu watched the foolish Jani drag her own son up the steep climb to the cave’s entrance. For a moment, she felt a frisson of alarm race down her spine. Was the boy dead? Didn’t the useless mother give the egg to the boy like she instructed?
Bloodless lips drawn in a taut line, Wereu decided it didn’t matter. She would do what was necessary for the boy. Slowly, her cracked lips parted in a satisfied smile, then she threw her head back and laughed throatily. In that moment, Wereu never looked more crazy and more lucid in her entire life.
O! When her family ruled the clan, how easy life had been, she had everything she ever wanted. Then, life was simple and she could run around the village and play with her mates all day. Until the powers just kept growing, and never stopped. Her life became complicated as the magic ate up her senses.
Her father as the Qiga had been best friends with one of the council chiefs, Rami of the Mapu family. The most dominant ruler ever in their history, father would have survived the holocaust had he not trusted his best friend.
White eyes glinted under dirty-white brows as Wereu absorbed the pain of the betrayal that still burned after all these years. She cackled, the sound echoing off the walls of the caves as she considered the irony of what would soon follow. In any act of betrayal, there was always that thorn the betraying fools would forget to cut off whose point would grow out long enough to later pierce their side. As ruthless as the Mapu family were, they killed off all the witches who might grow strong enough to challenge them and the heir. But Rami hadn’t imagined his heir would be powerless.
Was she really that forgettable? Though, her muddy white hair, over grown eyebrows, crazed eyes and filthy appearance gave more credence to the rumors of her insanity, it still didn’t explain how she was overlooked given how powerful she’d been at twelve. Especially since her very existence caused the holocaust. By the time she grew powerful enough to control her powers, so many years had rolled by, and the battle too great for one powerful witch.
Perhaps, the caves were just too musty for them. Over the years, in the solitude of the caves, she’d slowly mastered her powers and regained her sanity. The one person who could have reported to Rami that she was alive and well, Jani, had her own agenda.
“Conniving fools,” Wereu murmured, and almost regretted it because the smell of her bad breath hit her nostrils in waves. She knew Jani was desperate and determined when the younger woman endured their sessions despite the smell coming off her.
Wereu smiled, exposing a gaping toothless mouth, the smile pulled at the sagging skin of her cheeks, giving her a terrifying aspect. Yes, father could have stood a chance of survival if he had a male child, a sane one. The corrupt priests and Rami who orchestrated the greatest bloodshed in their history, assured him the insanity would reduce with time as the child grew more in control of her powers. So, father protected and hid her, he told no one, not even mother. Father simply took her to the caves one day and explained that this was to be her home for a time.
A time became many years.
She thought it was the saddest day of her life, until the holocaust. It was always the holocaust. With an able heir, perhaps, Chaldi could have contested the attempt made on the throne by the Mapus. But even as he was more powerful than his friend, the Mapus had something he didn’t have- a powerful heir. It was easy to convince the corrupt priests and the witches from the other villages to join his cause. The white eyes glazed over momentarily and her painfully cracked lips pressed down in a taut line at the memory. She only survived those endless days in the caves because of her father. With mother too scared to see her own daughter, every day, without fail, father would trudge up the hill to visit and talk. She smiled and the white of her eyes lit up, for those days spent learning control over her powers were the happiest she’d ever been. Father treated her with care, with love, like a jewel, Wereu recalled wistfully. Never did she get to know such love, until the great Mother gave her a better life as a Deji and as if that wasn’t enough, a chance to avenge her family.
Yes, this mad witch would be the first mortal or Deji to die, ascend and return. Wereu inhaled the scent of a fresh day and held it, before releasing it slowly, savoring the exhale and her sunken cheeks moved with the motion. She would remain eternally grateful to Mother for all her immortal life.
Her eyes suddenly narrowed, and Wereu tried to imagine the power and might of The Ancestral Mother. Was there even anything to compare it with? If it existed she couldn’t visualize it, because even if it did, it owed its existence to Mother. It made the Yasre’s actions even more bewildering.
“Why would the created rebel against the creator?” she murmured to herself. It made no sense, Wereu thought, recalling her last memory of the ancestral realm. She refocused on the fool who had no right being a mother, and the innocent boy.
“Yes, innocent,” Wereu whispered into the empty caves. They were roughly the same age at the time she was rejected. At least she had her father, who taught her fairness, justice and love. Here was the most powerful witch to come from the Mapu family and Virai. Perhaps, he could be the greatest in the clan, a boy about to be handed over to her at no cost. And just like her, he had no one.
Crazy or no, Wereu knew they would have turned the village over searching for her and slaughtered her just like they had every threat to their ruler-ship. Many fell during that holocaust, especially all their powerful witches. So, the Mapus had Chaldi where they wanted her- powerless.
She recalled the holocaust clearly. Father was unusually late and Wereu was set to throw up a tantrum when her caves grew unbearably hot from the fires they lit using the scepter. She’d run from the caves, fear for her father spurring her towards the entrance. There she watched the strange yellow flames burn, and lick its way through the village.
Wereu went became nearly mad with grief. She ran back to the caves.
She dreamed, schemed and planned, until she grew too old and weak to avenge her family. The boy being dragged like a sack of meat to be chopped was the answer. The Ancestral Mother had seen fit to crown her years of suffering with joy. She had waited all her life for just this moment. Wereu took a deep breath and released it, her revenge was now.
JANI COULDN’T CONTROL her shiver as she walked up to meet the madwoman. It was only desperation that pushed her into making this deal with Wereu. Her shiver turned into outright fear when she saw the smile. A strange sight indeed. Do mad people find things funny? Did it bode well for her request? Well, she had brought the only thing Wereu asked for, her son.
After securing the horses, she untied Rork and lifted him into her arms. Panting under the dead weight of the unconscious boy, Jani staggered forward and her foot kicked against one of the many rocks and stones protruding from the ground. She cursed and nearly fell, Rork was quite heavy, but the distance up hill to the caves hurt less than a life with Rami would. But the closer she got to the entrance, bracketed by strings of crawling plants, the more energized Jani became, excited at the prospect of living her life with the man
she loved.
How did her affair with Tafik begin exactly? The corner of her mouth curled up in a smile as she considered this. Love truly conquered all. Their affair began with a glance- on her wedding night. Jani paused to hitch Rork up her arms before continuing the long walk to a new life up to the caves. When she made the long journey to Virai from far away Miivu, the most distant land on Uwan after Gier, more than twelve years ago to get married to Rami, her head had been filled with the idealistic dreams of the young. She would have her own home, preside over a village as a wife to the Qiga. And escape the suffocating existence for a woman in Miivu. It sounded exciting, her sisters were jealous. Then, she met her husband to be.
“She’s too skinny,” Rami said loudly to his brother.
Dirty and fatigued from the long travel, Jani looked from Rami to Tafik. Despite her exhaustion, she was both anxious and excited. Who of the two men was to be her husband? Rami had come for the ‘sighting’ more than a year before. Jani always hated their marriage tradition. The prospective suitor would come to look his bride over without her knowledge, if she was to his liking, he would press the parents for her hand.
Even at that anxiety filled moment, as she stood beside her horse, before the two men- one so ugly, she could hardly bear to look upon him, and the other so handsome, like the rays of the sun, he hurt the eyes, she still didn’t know when he came for the sighting.
But he answered her questions.
“How can you bring me a skinny woman,” Rami had muttered angrily, “you know I hate them skinny, I like them with some meat on their bones!”
He had turned away angrily. “You might as well marry her!”
“Sema,” Tafik murmured, “the future.”
It was all he said, but Jani understood and her stomach roiled sickly. She wasn’t naive. She knew they would never be courted for their looks but Rami was just so disrespectful and—
“Ya!” he stooped and eyed her distastefully, “you are right about something for once.”