Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2)

by Courtney Bowen

  Popo frowned, but slowly nodded.

  “What do you want from me?” Mila asked.

  “A taste of life,” Loqwa said, approaching her. “Just a taste, and that is all. To know what life is and what is valuable about it.”

  Mila and Loqwa kissed. “That is good.” He said.

  “I will grant you what you want.” Loqwa said to both of them in that moment. “The price has been paid. Something will come of it--many things.” He said, retreating back into the spirit world.

  Mila breathed again in Popo’s arms. “Popo?” She asked, looking up at him.

  “I am right here, Mila,” He said, grasping her close to him.

  “I was--I was--” Mila gasped. “Popo, I am not--”

  “You are not dead, Mila, you are alive!” Popo cried.

  “No, Popo, that is not what I was going to say.” Mila cried. “I was pregnant, but now I am not. Where is the child?” She asked.

  Down in the valley south of the hills and forest, green grass grew from the ground for the first time. This was followed by flowers, and from one of these flowers, blooming for the first time, the petals opened to reveal a being no bigger than a seed sitting in the middle of the flower. The being stood up, and jumped down from the flower, growing to the height of a pet cat by the time its feet touched the ground. He walked on across the valley, growing to the size of a child and then a man and then even bigger as he went to the hills and forest where his parents lived.

  Meanwhile, Popo had found Menthar, and set forth to punish him for the very first crime. Mila testified against Menthar as the first witness and victim, and Popo was the first judge who sentenced Menthar to banishment as he could not bring himself to execute his brother. He sent Menthar to the desert that had formed on the other side of the hills and forest, where Menthar would burn under the hot sun without anything to sustain him. Menthar went, with the full force of Popo and Mila pushed against him, but he hated his banishment.

  Popo and Mila settled down, uneasy even though they were satisfied for now that Menthar had been punished. They felt restless because of everything that had happened, because of their unanswered questions, because of their discomfort with each other now that things had changed so much. Suddenly, they were startled by the appearance of a strange, new god, one that they had never seen before. They had thought it was only them and their siblings.

  “Who are you?” Popo asked, staring at the strange new god, who seemed familiar yet different.

  “My name is Tau, Popo.” Tau said. “I am your son and Loqwa’s son and Menthar’s son and Mila’s son, of course.” He said, looking around at his first two parents.

  Mila and Popo stared at one another in horror.

  Monika rode off, furious. “I said you might not like it!” Oaka shouted at her.

  “Oaka--” Basha said, rounding on his brother. “Do not provoke her. And do not threaten her.” He insisted.

  “You do not know her,” Oaka said. “You do not know what she is capable of, and--” He shook his head. “Never mind, I should not have brought it up.” He said, riding off in the opposite direction of where Monika had gone.

  Basha sighed as Fato returned. “What is going on?” The falcon cried.

  “Nothing, just some stupid squabbling going on between Monika and Oaka, again,” Basha said, turning to the falcon. “What about you?” He asked. “Where do you always go flying off to?”

  “Now that is none of your business,” Fato remarked, flying away from him again.

  “Everyone keeps secrets,” Basha said, and stopped, thinking to himself. “Everyone keeps secrets...” He said, eying after Monika’s path.

  “Monika?” He called, following after her.

  “Should you not go after Oaka?” She asked, stopping her horse Deja and turning towards him. “After what--”

  “He can--I--” Basha sighed. “I do not want to lose him, okay? But I don’t want to lose you either.”

  “Why?” Monika asked, staring at him. “Why are you so certain that I am good company?”

  “You have your reason for coming with us.” Basha said. “I believe that reason. You said you wanted to protect us--I believe that as well. I believe--you saw my new sword, you know what it could do, and I think you know it was responsible for what happened at the warehouse.” He said.

  Monika looked away. “I believe you are right.” She whispered.

  “I know that Oaka distrusts you. He has a reason to when you do not reveal everything you know about the sword and yourself.” He said. “You have a very complicated life, I know. You say little about your life in the desert, and never anything about how you got from there to Coe Baba and then to Coe Anji. I was about to ask you what the Oracle had said to you when I got hit in that bar fight, but Monika, what happened to you?” He asked.

  “That story…it reminded me of something horrible,” She said, turning away.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Basha said, after a pause, not really knowing what to say. If Monika had experienced anything like what Mila had suffered, then they really did owe her an apology.

  “Don’t be. It’s over now, and you’re not to blame,” She said, shaking her head. “I killed him who was.” She whispered, riding off.

  Basha sat there for a moment on top of Talan, and shuddered.

  “A small white bear and a big black bear had been in the woods, foraging.” Monika said the next day, telling them all about a dream she had last night. “When Tau’s Cup slid past them, they became unsettled.”

  Basha ate his food, feeling a little bit unsettled as well. Monika was the problem when she had disturbed him deeply, not because she posed a threat as such, but because he knew so little about her, with what she had said yesterday after Oaka told the story of Tau’s birth, and then what she had done later that night.

  Last night, after everyone had eaten and gone to bed, Basha stirred because of a smell that was both sweet and sort of sickly burning. Basha opened his eyes, and rolled over to see Monika crouched by the flames, which she had reignited, not even moving as she stared into them. The flames sort of looked like the colors he had seen in the Oracle of Mila’s cave when the Oracle was doing her prophesying, and he wondered if he would hear Monika mumbling in the Old Language, like the Oracle had been, if he was close enough to her. He fell asleep again at this point. He woke up in the morning thinking it was just a bad dream he had, but now he was not so sure.

  Oaka sat there beside him, nibbling. Oaka had continued traveling with them, not even stopping to ask why he should after another dispute with Monika, although he had gotten reprimanded. Basha had found Oaka sitting by the side of the road, reading Sisila’s letter to himself again as Joko grazed somewhere else. Basha had been seeing that piece of paper a lot more often these days, as Oaka seemed to keep taking that piece of paper out to read and reassure himself whenever he was worried.

  “What’s bothering her?” Oaka had asked as Basha approached him.

  “Monika is upset because--” Basha had sighed. “I know you don’t trust her, but have you thought that whatever secrets she might have, she might have a good reason for keeping them?”

  Oaka had looked up. “I don’t think so--”

  “Oaka--she has suffered in the past. Long before I first met her.” Basha had said. “When she came to Coe Baba several months ago in the Sna, she was limping. She had been in a fight. She had nearly died because of it,” He inhaled, and said, “I think it was similar to what she was doing at the warehouse, trying to free those slaves. I think she was one of them, once.”

  Oaka had stared at him. “I did not know that--”

  “Monika has some issues with trusting others,” Basha had said. “Understandable, given what she has been through. And I think we should give her some time to--relax, and trust us some more. Then she might be willing to tell us what she knows. Okay, Oaka?” He asked.

  “Fine, Basha,” Oaka had sighed. “Just as long as you are aware of what’s going on.” He had stood up and
shook his head as he muttered, “I thought--well, I thought she was a Follower of Doomba.”

  “Why, on Arria’s good green earth, would you have thought that?” Basha had asked.

  “Because--well, don’t they keep secrets and tell lies?” Oaka had asked.

  Basha had sighed. “Come on, Oaka.”

  By the time Oaka and Basha had caught up with Monika, she had stopped, and set up camp for lunchtime, with Fato already landed on top of a rock nearby. “Monika, I am so sorry,” Oaka had said, dismounting from his horse as she came over to him.

  Monika then punched him in the gut, not hard enough for him to fall down, but enough to make him double over and wince. “That is for making me--” Monika had groaned. “Do not upset me like that again.” She said, turning away from him as Fato laughed.

  “Heard you loud and clear,” Oaka had grunted and groaned as Basha grimaced in empathy. Even so, Oaka had continued on, though he kept clear of Monika for now.

  “The big black bear roared and motioned in the direction that the Cup went.” Monika said now. “The fleas off of his back leapt onto the back of the white bear. However, the white bear only went after the Cup for a short distance before he turned around. The fleas now attacked their old master, the big black bear, in a swarm. The small white bear grew bigger, red eyes gleaming. And that was it, there wasn’t anymore.”

  “Not much of a dream.” Oaka said. “I think you were just replaying in your own mind the arguments we’ve been having.” He winced to himself, remembering.

  “‘Dreams often have a way of truth, if we look so far into them, that we might see the future ahead for us in our sleep.’” Monika said, nodding. “That was from ‘A Book of Fay’, if I recall.”

  “‘A Book of Fay’,” Oaka said, and chuckled. “Prophecies and dreams, and now we’re referencing the Fay! Next thing you know, we might be wishing for the moon to come down.”

  “Oaka, the Fay did exist.” Fato declared.

  “Never figured you for an idealist,” Oaka said, staring at him in shock. “Or a dreamer. Basha is the one who would be saying that.”

  “Yes, well, you don’t know the half of it.” Fato declared. “I believe the Fay did exist, because…well, where would magic have come from?” He asked.

  “Magic is--was--” Oaka hesitated. “It’s a human thing. Maybe it’s from the gods.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s human! What about the animals? The unicorns and dragons, don’t tell me that wasn’t magic that created them!” Fato exclaimed.

  “All right, it was magic. It’s a natural thing. But I don’t believe in the Fay because, well, they were not natural, were they?” Oaka asked. “Fay were somewhere between gods and men, right? What’s natural about that? Gods exist if you believe in them, men and animals definitely exist, but Fay were more of a fancy to me, a wish fulfillment.”

  Fato opened his mouth, but then…howls in the distance.

  “Lowercase wolves?” Oaka asked.

  “No, in the middle of the day?” Basha exclaimed. “They’re Black Wolves, Hyena Wolves, Wolves uppercase!”

  “Let’s get out of here!” Monika cried, standing up. “Grab everything, and load the horses!” She told them.

  Fato had been keeping secrets from his friends, if you could call them friends, for how much they had been ignoring him these past couple of days, throughout this whole trip. Basha had been nice about letting him join up with them, after what had happened to Sir Nickleby; Fato understood that sometimes grief made people hard. Basha was a nice fellow, all things considered, and at least he listened to Fato sometimes. Oaka, a little less so; he had big problems with trust, Fato could understand that as well, apparently Oaka had been very upset over the loss of the knight, because he had been such an important man, and Fato might have teased the boy too much. He wasn’t about to let somebody debase him first without debasing them as well.

  Ah, Monika was a sweet girl, even if she was a little secretive and reserved, always ready to pet him and scratch him if he landed on the pommel of her saddle and leaned towards her. Monika even took some of the load off of him, for besides being the target of Oaka’s dismay for awhile, she took over as the main hunter for the group, sharing her kills with the boys. Now Fato could keep most of his kills for himself instead of sharing, and the meat tasted good.

  But even Monika did not know the truths Fato concealed.

  The fact of the matter was, he wasn’t carrying a very important message; he wasn’t even sure if it was worthy of King Sonnagh’s ears. He probably would just relate it to some court orderly instead, typical. What happened on the day the Black Wolves first started chasing him, and then Basha and Oaka was this: Fato had been flying along, but singing his ‘Fato the falcon, Fato the falcon, royal messenger bird extraordinaire’ song instead of reciting the message. He was thus distracted, and did not notice the pack of Black Wolves until he was almost on top of them.

  Luckily, the wind had been in his favor that day, and there was a convenient branch upon which he alighted. The pack of Black Wolves appeared to be resting after a morning meal. He watched, horrified yet fascinated as they lied upon the ground, gnawing at fleas like they were a bunch of dogs lazing about. But then a howl in the distance alerted the pack members, and they rolled over and sprang up onto their paws, setting off. Against his sane and better judgment, Fato decided to follow after them, to see what had triggered their agitation and what could make them move like this. He also wanted to know what they were up to so that he could tell King Sonnagh; this would definitely be worthy of the king’s notice.

  The Black Wolves were already in a swift lope and he could barely keep up. As Fato skimmed through the canopy, though, he did notice several members of the pack pausing, one at a time, to sniff and scan the area. They were looking for something, he could tell.

  At last, he became so dangerously curious that he spiraled downwards to get a closer look. A halted Black Wolf, who seemed not to notice the falcon, caught whiff of something in the opposite direction and yelped to alert the pack. Once several yelps had answered back, then the Black Wolf twisted round to maliciously and playfully snap at the hovering Fato.

  However, the falcon, half-frightened out of his wits by this action, inadvertently glided away in the same direction as their quarry, thinking to himself soon afterwards that the Black Wolves were after him. Accelerating through the forest, he got brief glances of Black Wolves sprinting round pine trees, howling in gory anticipation, right behind him.

  He even passed by a human hurrying to get away from this formidable force, his long legs flying--that had been Oaka.

  When passing over a gap in the forest canopy, he spotted another human directly below him. The falcon immediately circled round and dived down. He had to warn him. He had brought these Black Wolves upon these poor fellows.

  “Wolves! Coming this way! Get out of here, boy!” Fato cried, and then flew off.

  He did not see most of what happened next. He flew up high, and then realized that he had not been chased by the Black Wolves. Instead he realized that the Black Wolves had been waiting for the boys and chasing after them even before one of the Black Wolves--just one--had noticed him. That made him think for a moment, and he decided to go back down to see if the boys were still alive.

  At one point, coming down, he spotted the Wolves surrounding something, snarling, possibly a person that had been knocked onto the ground. But then the Black Wolves had scattered with a puff of smoke billowing up into the air and, coughing, Fato had avoided that spot, knowing that whatever or whomever he might find down there would be dead.

  The boys were fine for the most part when he spotted them, although crying about the loss of Sir Nickleby and worrying about why the Black Wolves had been chasing after them. Fato was concerned, especially when one of them turned out to be ‘Basha’. For Fato had been carrying not one, but two messages. Over a month ago, Fato had taken off from Old Fort Ca--near Coe Jaja, and south of Coe Kiki--with his first message
, from a Major Lupo to a Sir Nickleby in Coe Baba, basically saying, ‘Keep Basha safe’, amongst other things.

  Fato had stopped at a couple of places along the way, including Coe Aela where he had received his second message that was to be delivered to Coe Kiki, but he had to take care of his first message before delivering the second. So Fato had been heading north, on his way to Coe Baba, when he had spotted the Black Wolves and turned around, just in time to meet Basha personally. Sir Nickleby was dead, that had to be whomever (or whatever) the Black Wolves were surrounding before. He wouldn’t be receiving his message in that state, but it still remained lodged in Fato’s head--‘keep Basha safe’. Apparently Sir Nickleby had needed the message.

  Fato wanted to know more about them, why in the world Black Wolves would have been chasing after them in the first place when they didn’t seem that dangerous or impressive. Maybe the boys would have just been eaten by the Black Wolves, but the Black Wolves had already eaten, so why them? Fato decided to find out more. He decided to stay with them, and help them if he could, because they needed all of the help they could get in their pitiful, weakened state. At least he had done something noble for once, if not exactly smart, for all of the good it had done him now.

  He was a royal messenger bird, but he wasn’t the only one, nor was he the most important one. It was a little hard for him to stand out amidst the flocks of different birds, all shapes and sizes. He might have been one of the predatory birds, built to survive long flights and fend for himself, but he wasn’t one of the largest raptors. Some eagles and hawks were much larger than him. But Fato had dreams about being the noblest amongst them. He wanted to be a real royal messenger bird, used and kept by the king of Arria himself, trusted to deliver the most important messages. What glory that would be for him and his future hatchlings after him.