Wrath of the White Tigress

by David Alastair Hayden

  They closed on one another then stopped, face-to-face. Jaska stared dumfounded at the figure that matched him in every physical detail except for his shining raiment. And yet, they were quite different in other ways. His counterpart possessed an aura of contentment. His vibrant eyes were no less passionate, yet they lacked the vengeance that lit Jaska's.

  Jaska gathered his resolve. "Let me pass!"

  The doppelganger shook its head. "I cannot. The temple beyond should not be sullied by filth such as you."

  "Then I will kill you."

  "That is only possible by killing yourself."

  "We shall see," Jaska said as he launched into his first attack.

  The doppelganger parried with ease and riposted with a supple slash aimed at Jaska's throat. Jaska bent backward so that the blade whisked by, barely missing him. The two of them attacked, dodged, spun, parried, and kicked as they retreated and advanced through the tunnel. Jaska grew fatigued, but his opponent seemed tireless. Yet despite his exhaustion, the doppelganger failed to hit him.

  Jaska began to suspect his opponent was deliberately missing, that his only goal was to prevent Jaska from passing. So Jaska began to concern himself more with getting by than defending. Jaska went on a savage offensive, launching attack after attack with saber, kicks, and claws. At last as he closed in, threw his arms out wide in a feint, and head-butted the doppelganger. His mirror image didn't dodge quickly enough, and Jaska tackled him.

  Jaska had planned to leap up and make a run for it, but something unexpected happened when they touched. Their minds also connected. Images from childhood, of his first home and his parents, and thoughts he'd never expressed to anyone before passed between them in swift succession.

  Jaska grasped the doppelganger by the collar and slammed him against the marble floor. "You are not me!"

  With a burst of strength, the doppelganger threw him off and again blocked Jaska's way forward.

  Jaska was no longer concerned with slipping by. "What are you? And don't say that you're me!"

  "I am a three-dimensional mirror then."

  "No, because I'm not the man you reflect."

  "Are you not? I was made to reflect your inner being."

  "I am not you. I can't be you."

  "Why?"

  "We are not the same."

  "I disagree."

  "What do you see when you look at me?"

  "I see before me a being like a Zhura-djinn, cloaked in shadows, bathed in the lifeblood of innocents."

  "And yet you claim that we are the same?" Jaska said, almost laughing.

  "We are. Zhura and Avida shine equally in all humans."

  "Zhura alone darkens my heart."

  "Avida is no less evil. His evil is only less obvious to you. His is a world of bound desire and order, taken to the point of stagnation. Zhura is uninhibited and instinctual, passionate and aggressive by nature. Only a balance could truly be considered good."

  "Metaphysics do not interest me. Get to your point."

  "Only a combination of us both could be Jaska Bavadi. That is the truth. Neither you nor I are the man that the twain of us is."

  Jaska began to back away. The doppelganger didn't follow. Madness overwhelmed him. Jaska turned and ran back to the portal, sliding down the slope, falling down stairs. He was prepared to abandon his mission, so frightened he was now of the doppelganger.

  But then he saw Ohzikar sitting beyond, staring at the entrance and waiting, his hopes pinned on the man he had almost killed but had now chosen as a mentor. A mentor who would run away in fear of himself.

  Trembling, afraid, angry: Jaska stood up.

  "I will not be a coward," he said. "I will not fall into madness and despair. I will right this wrong."

  He took several deep breaths, reciting a calming mantra. He turned back toward the tunnel and took a step. A moment of panic set in. He stopped and recited the mantra again. Then he continued. Step by step he did this until the fear left him, and then the anger. A relentless calm set in and he marched back up the tunnel and the stairs. He was prepared at last to face what awaited him.

  The doppelganger still waited on him, sword drawn. "I knew you would return."

  "How?"

  "Because we are ultimately the same man. And I would never have abandoned my cause."

  "I don't believe that we are the same."

  "It matters not whether you believe or understand it, only that you accept it. Otherwise you will never pass."

  "If we are the same, how is it that you are stronger and faster?"

  "Because that which is pure within you is stronger than that which is corrupted and that which doubts. It is tireless because it is eternal."

  "How will you know that I have accepted this?"

  The doppelganger smiled. "I shall know."

  Jaska studied the doppelganger and wondered if this was the man his companions saw when they looked at him. It couldn't be. Then he thought of the White Tigress and knew she had seen him thus from the first moment. And Zyrella had seen him this way, too. Even Ohzikar had learned to see this man and not the other.

  Jaska stepped up to the doppelganger. "We should not be the same man. What I have done should stain me throughout."

  "And so it would have, but you did not do any of it of your own free will. Your intentions were pure."

  "I don't want to be you. I fear becoming you as much as I disbelieve that we are the same. If there is a purity that remains, I don't want it ruined by the many deaths that I must bring about."

  "But it has already been stained. I appear whole and different, but we are in fact one and the same."

  Jaska closed his eyes and stepped forward. He should have collided with the doppelganger, but he didn't. He took another step and then another. He opened his eyes and the doppelganger was gone.

  For better or worse, Jaska had accepted who he was.

  Expecting other tests and dangers, Jaska crept toward an arched doorway. The frame was outlined with odd silver glyphs consisting of various circles interconnected with straight lines originating from different tangents. He sensed magic in the glyphs, but certainly not of any type he understood. He approached carefully, and seeing no alternative, decided to advance.

  Without incident, he stepped into a giant dome-shaped chamber with a vaulted ceiling thirty feet overhead. The room gleamed like the hallways outside, but here traces of silver patterned the walls so that the interior looked like the surface of Avida.

  No doorways led beyond, unless they were hidden. The room lacked furnishings and artifice with one notable exception. An amazing statue rose from a head-high pedestal in the room's center. The statue depicted a being unlike any Jaska had heard of. As an Arhrhakim was to a human so was this being, only its inhuman features were those of a hawk rather than a jackal.

  Judging by its muscled frame and narrow hips, Jaska guessed the neuter being was more male than female. Its body was human except for taloned feet. Wings spread outward from its back, bearing feathers of vibrant emerald, gold, silver, and ruby. Its upturned head was that of a charcoal goshawk with black rings circling its sharp, slanted eyes of jet and gold.

  A shield adorned one arm and it held a spear in the opposite hand. The being wore a black-belted kilt of white leather, a torque of gold, ornamental leather shin guards and nothing else. With wings spread and arms held out, it bared its chest toward the entrance.

  Jaska stalked around the statue, eyeing it warily, for it was made of neither stone nor metal. As far as he could tell, Avida himself had frozen a living being of flesh.

  This place didn't resemble any of Avida's shrines Jaska had seen before. Perhaps the Eirsenda had imagined that Avida looked like this, rather than as the hoary, bearded giant clad in silver armor which Jaska had always seen depicted.

  Regardless, Jaska was left wondering what he was supposed to do. He had reached the legendary temple. What next? Neither Keeper nor weapons awaited him here. He started to touch the statue, to see if it felt as rea
l as it appeared, but when his hand neared, he felt a strong, magical aura. Stepping away, he used his qavra to analyze the statue again. It didn't radiate a pulse of magic.

  Not knowing what else to do, Jaska knelt before the image and prayed. "Lord Avida, I beseech you for aid against the powers of darkness. I have come here to your temple seeking the Keeper of Swords and a weapon that will strike down my former master, a man of great evil who aspires to become a god. I ask that you judge me not by the deeds he forced me to commit, nor by the boy I was before then. Judge me by the scarred man I am now, and if my cause seems worthy to you, grant me the aid I seek."

  At once, the statue moved with grace and smoothness. The arms fell to the sides. The head turned down toward Jaska and the eyes focused on him. The expansive wings folded back. The beak opened, and an eloquent and even-toned voice issued forth, fluent in common Hareezan.

  "I am," said the being, "Quarelairen, the Keeper of Swords. I am not the god you pray to, though the sincerity of your prayer did awaken me. Long have I slept awaiting you, Jaska Bavadi, Slayer of Shadows, Blade of Avida, Wrath of the White Tigress."

  "Forgive me, my lord," said Jaska, bowing low and ignoring the ridiculous titles applied to him. "I did not know you were the Keeper. I thought perhaps the Eirsenda pictured Avida as you are now."

  "Has time eroded at last all depictions of my kind?"

  "It has at least for those in my land, my lord. And since this does not appear to be a temple to Avida as I know them--"

  "You thought I was an idol of Avida." Quarelairen swept out his wings with a creaking whoosh. He rotated his neck and then his ankles one at a time. "The Eirsenda did not worship concrete images in the way which humans do. Concepts were more important to them."

  "If you know nothing of the outside world, my lord, then how is it you knew I would come? And how can you speak my language?"

  "To speak any language is a power all Keepers possess. We read the patterns of speech from your mind. As for how I knew you would come here, the Keeper of Destinies told me long ago when last I saw her."

  "Will you aid me then, my lord?"

  "I will grant to you weapons that you may use in honor of Avida against the misshapen creatures of Zhura, against the Stain of the Yritti, and against Grand Master Salahn."

  "The Farseer told me about weapons of white-steel, but that term means nothing to me."

  "When translated to your language from the Eirsendan, white-steel is an accurate name, as you will no doubt see. If you still want them."

  Jaska's eyes narrowed. "What price must I pay?"

  "Nothing that would violate your soul, but I cannot let such weapons fall into the hands of just anyone."

  "What then must I do?"

  "You must return them here after you have died."

  "After? How could I possibly do that?"

  "If you take the swords, you will also take on a binding spell that cannot be removed." Jaska groaned. "This spell will animate your corpse via a lesser Avida-djinn who will return here with the swords.

  "I am going to send him with you. He will be a great ally even though he is not in his full form. He was bound to the earth long ago and must remain until he redeems himself."

  "In a way, you have met him already. He empowered the doppelganger you faced. He is honorable, but do not trust him overmuch."

  "I will heed your advice as best as I can."

  "Kyshaiar!" the Keeper yelled.

  A silver falcon flew out from inside the pedestal and wheeled around the room three times before settling on Quarelairen's shoulder. He stroked the bird's head and spoke to it in a language of clicks and chirps that Jaska couldn't understand.

  "Do you accept this binding between you? That Kyshaiar must follow wherever you go and aid you as best as he can, that he will heed your commands so long as they do not violate his honor? And when you have died, he will enter your body, animate the corpse, and bring the swords back? After that, your spirit may go free into the afterlife."

  He had no wish to be bound again, but at this point, he would bind himself to oblivion to defeat Salahn. With a clenched jaw, Jaska said, "I agree."

  A white glow overwhelmed his senses. Kyshaiar said his name as he entered Jaska's body, heating every atom within, and delved through his mind uninvited. When Jaska came back to himself, the falcon was sitting on his shoulder. In a high-pitched voice it said to him, "Jaska Bavadi, I am content to serve with you. Your essence is pure, but your troubles are great. Our great destinies are intertwined now, but we shall see them completed together."

  "How will I help you? Is it your destiny to return the swords here?"

  "Many destinies have come to me through the eons. This one will see me returned to my true form. If I succeed."

  "It doesn't sound difficult."

  "No, it does not. And that, my new friend, is what worries me."

  "You don't sound like what I imagined an Avida-djinn would sound like."

  "I could, if you prefer, but after analyzing your essence, I have chosen mannerisms that will be comforting to you."

  "I thank you then, my lord."

  "Do not speak to me thus. I am simply Kyshaiar. Most of the time, I will pretend to be your trained falcon and nothing more. Others can only hear me speak if I wish for them to."

  "Now," said Quarelairen, "the weapons that you came here for."

  Jaska approached the pedestal. Quarelairen leapt off, his wings flapped, and he circled the domed chamber once and landed beside Jaska. He touched the pedestal, and a shelf slid out. Buried in velvet were two curved sabers sheathed in black leather that was trimmed in silver with crescent moon designs.

  "Take them, Jaska Bavadi. They have awaited you for centuries."

  Jaska lifted one of the swords. Black leather was wrapped around the sword's mahogany hilt. He drew it from the sheathe carefully. The blade gleamed, though it was more white than silver, like the moon itself. It seemed impossibly sharp, almost as if the edge of the blade itself was a sliver of thin wire.

  "White-steel," said Quarelairen, "is stronger than any other metal. It holds a sharper edge, and it can cut through flesh, bone, and even spirit. A Zhura-djinn, even one that is insubstantial, will be as soft flesh in response to a blade such as this. A lesser Zhura-djinn will meet oblivion from even a single blow. Its mere presence will cause most to recoil."

  "It will harm Avida-djinn, too," said Kyshaiar. "Though not so much as it can harm our shadowy cousins."

  Jaska stepped away and slashed the blade one way and then another. "Where does this metal come from?"

  "Avida's surface," said Quarelairen, "though it is rare even there. Some fell to the earth long ago after an asteroid strike. Small pieces still fall from time to time."

  "An asteroid?"

  "A large rock hurtling through the vast empty space between the planets and moons," replied Kyshaiar.

  "Surely someone would have found some more recently and forged weapons from it."

  The falcon shook his head. "The metal is rare in Pawan Kor. The Eirsenda gathered all they could find and fashioned weapons from it. Before their demise, it was all placed with the Keepers who guard it still. Although, the Zindarhi in the East do possess a few white-steel weapons."

  "Even if your people found some," said Quarelairen, "they would have to learn how to smith it, a process requiring magic and complicated metallurgic techniques. Only the Eirsenda and the Zindarhi ever knew this art."

  Jaska sheathed the sword and attached the scabbard to his weapon belt. He then took up the other and bowed on one knee before the Keeper. "I am grateful to you, my lord."

  "There are two more things you should know. First, the woman named Zyrella did not die."

  Jaska's heart thumped and his breath caught in his throat. "Where is she?"

  "Agents of your former master captured her and then Salahn took her back to Kabulsek. The second thing I must tell you is that Zyrella is a valrycca."

  "I don't know what that means."
/>   "That is unfortunate," Quarelairen said, "for I do not know either. I cannot know everything, and the Keeper of Destinies did not impart such information to me."

  The fires within Jaska that had been diminished by the serenity of the temple reignited. Zyrella was in Salahn's torturous care. He wouldn't stand for that. Even now, she might be suffering. "Do you know why Salahn returned to Kabulsek rather than pursue me into the desert?"

  "He feared the Stain because of a false prophecy given to him by the woman known to you as Nalsyrra."

  That knowledge didn't surprise Jaska. He had always known Nalsyrra served her own cause, however obscure. "Can I destroy the Stain with the white-steel swords? Is it Zhura-djinn or something else?"

  "I know nothing of its nature, but if you can survive its onslaught and reach its heart, you can defeat it. But that will not be easy. Know that Salahn is a far greater threat to the world. Nothing is set from here on. The Keeper of Destinies wanted Kyshaiar to go along for a good reason."

  "I can't turn my back on the people who helped me reach this point. I could not have made it here without them taking a great risk. If I fail against Salahn first, the Yritti would have gained nothing for helping me. Besides, if I can't prevail against this Stain, then I have no hope against Salahn."

  "As the Keeper of Destinies predicted. Take the one called Rahazakir with you. Give one of the swords to him. He may carry it until the Stain has been defeated. You may also allow the man named Ohzikar to wield one of the swords, if necessary."

  Jaska remembered Goat Shaman's advice. "I was told, my lord, to bring my old qavra here with me. Do you know why?"

  "Yes. The binding is gone now."

  "You removed the sorcery?"

  "No. You broke the spell on your way in, with help from Kyshaiar."

  Jaska nodded, understanding that he had fought past the part of himself that had still been bound to the qavra. That part, ironically, had been what he thought of as himself and not the being that had blocked his way. He could have walked through him at any time, if he had been in the right state of mind.