by Stephan Knox
Dried up corpses of men, and a few women, lay about in disarray over the cavern floor.
Aari stepped around him, but before she got the closer-look she was attempting, Tannin’s hand came up to cover her eyes as well as hold her back to prevent her from going in any farther. She reached up and eased his hands from her face. She’d seen this before, only back then, the kills had been considerably fresher.
She carefully stepped over the mummified bodies of the priests preserved all this time by the dry, altitude air. She made her way across the cavern to a narrow passageway on the opposite wall and followed it.
Tannin quickly fell in behind her. He let out a growl when the narrow passage would not permit him to switch positions with her, but she heard him draw his spadone, knowing he was ready to throw her to the ground and fight over her if he had to.
Aari led them through the winding passages that would have easily aided in an escape during an attack. Like a labyrinth, she followed one to another in one chamber and up a small flight of stairs to an open balcony of rock overlooking a massive cavern that seemed as large as the mountain top.
The ceiling glowed with starlight which hung in strings of glowing blue luminescent that cast shimmers of its light onto the massive stalactites that hung down like the teeth of a beast. Below them, in the large cavern chamber was a small pool of dark liquid. It was lined with a curb of stacked rocks around its edges. Carved stone bowls of oil still lined up around it, seemingly untouched for all these years, tracing around both the pool and along the walls of the chamber. What was truly surprising was the wicks in each of them were lit, giving off just enough light— enough to see. Which meant someone was in fact here.
“Aari,” Tannin scolded in a hushed tone as she rushed down the small narrow steps to her right that coiled around the cavern’s walls, taking her to the floor below. He kept track of her as well as everything else. Someone was definitely here, he could sense them, but there was no scent to go with the presence. He kept his eyes locked on her as she approached the pool below. She stopped short of its edges, uncertain of the murky liquid it held.
“Do not touch it, child, please,” a gentle masculine voice spoke from the receding wall behind Tannin.
Tannin spun, sweeping out with his sword, nearly taking the man’s head off as it came to a stop just a hair from his throat.
Not a whisper of disquiet or fear showed on the man as he reached up slowly until his fingers touched the blade, then gently brushed the threat aside. He held Tannin under his soft gaze with a moment of regard then stepped passed him and then made his way down the steps craved into the stone.
“It has been poisoned,” the man said to Aari.
Tannin watched. He recognized the man as the same one he had encountered in the market of Quinenset.
Aari’s eyes followed the soft-spoken man as he went down to join her. Tannin could read some expression of recognition on her face, but she wasn’t sure of herself either.
He gritted his teeth, sharing in the uncertainty of the Keeper’s presence and followed him down, now keeping a vigilant eye on the Keeper as he stepped to Aari and placed a hand on her head.
“Do you remember me?” The Keeper gave her a soft and enduring glance.
Aari looked deeper, but she didn’t know his face and she shook her head to say as much. That was— not until his face began to shift.
It was as though his face— its skin— was made of shifting sand. First, his features appeared to blur, and then she began to question if perhaps it was her vision that grew hazy instead. She shook her head and blinked several times, then attempted to force her eyes to focus on him again.
The details of his face deepened becoming lines as the returning facial features face aged before her, growing older until he was old enough to be an elder. Now, she remembered him. He was the one who came to the Skaddary academy when she grew ill. He’d taken her to a cave that had a pool just like this one. It could have been this same one, but she didn’t remember the long stairs of the mountain. But he had brought her somewhere so that she could be provided comfort in its pool when her Symbiotai was evolving within her.
“Now do you?” his aged voice crackled, filled with longing and love. Devoted emotions she had never felt from any other person or deity before.
His facial features shifted again, regaining its youth yet held recognizable maturity still.
She looked at him, tilting her head as she saw the new him, but it took a moment longer before she knew from where. Or when. And then it struck her.
This was the face of the one who’d pulled her out from under the broken altar when the temple, which had once been her home as a child, was destroyed and all who she knew had been killed.
She nodded. And that made him smile, but she could see the smile was only to cover up something he did not want her to see. And then he turned his attention towards Tannin.
“There is no reason to keep her here. Just sadness. Take her from this place, Titan.”
“You are the Keepers of Destiny!” Tannin bit out with an explosive rush of emotion with not all that he felt coming only from his Symbiotai. “How could you let this happen?”
The man took a long deep breath, clasping his hands in front of him before answering, “We can weave destiny and fate. We can guide, steer, and yes, we can even manipulate the path people follow. But in the end, every man has the right to choose his path. Whether the choice is as simple as turning left instead of right; to offer a credit to the hand of a pickpocket thief or not. Or a choice as difficult such as to take someone’s life— into their heart or send into death.” He glanced over his shoulder back to Aari who hadn’t moved, “Or enter union with one you do not love.” He snapped his attention back around to lock with Tannin.
Tannin felt the prickly hairs on his back and neck. He hated the innuendo, knowing he was the mark for it, not Aari.
The man only continued as if it were nothing but a statement of factual choices as any other, “To fulfill one’s greatest achievements or not. This, we cannot change or take away. The priests who had sought refuge here, though they knew they heir location had been sold to those who wished them exterminated, chose to remain to protect the pool.”
“They died in vain,” Tannin cursed.
“Did they?” He tilted his head to the side as if waiting for a particular response. When it did not come he continued, “While those who stayed defended the pool, one was able to flee— unseen. He carried with him the most precious. The last Symbiotai which had been protected here. Had all who dwelled here fled, the hunters would have continued after them, and all would have perished. Do you still think they died in vain?” He paused a moment. “Perhaps,” he offered as an answer. “It’s easily recognized from an emotional perspective as such, from one side of the equation.” He nodded in agreeance to what he bestowed to them, to say all perceptions were right from the one perceiving it.
“And what of the pickpocket? What choices did he have?” Tannin leered at him, all this talk of choice when there was little of such things when one was faced with stealing for the sake of food and survival.
“Ahh—” the Keeper chuckled warmly. “The rat of Horozoh—” he glanced at Tannin with a fond gleaming in his eyes, “He is a crafty one, he is. I will tell you his choices, for he did not take the coin you tossed to pay him to leave.”
“By drenn, foolish boy,” Tannin cursed under his breath.
“By your perception, yes. Though how much of his choice you did not witness. He, however, did. He knew the older boys were watching and known to gang up on him to steal what he risked gaining for himself. Or, in this case, his gifted one, and he understood, precognitively, he would once more have nothing. He then chose to ignore the coin you tossed him and instead snatched the folded pocket of leather from one of the nearby guards who'd gathered for their meal. He used his blade to cut its cord, and he then made a run with it.
Like a gazelle—” the Ke
eper paused, looking to both Aari and Tannin but soon deducted that neither of them knew of what creature he spoke of. “Ahhh, shame. It was a glorious creature of both speed and grace. Half that of a deer in size, emblazoned with astounding color contrasts, and amongst the fastest sprinters of the animal kingdom.” He smiled inwardly a moment before continuing, “To continue, the older boys did catch him and just as they were preoccupied with beating him and taking the money pouch, the soldiers of the stolen goods caught up with them as well, and found the leather pouch in another’s hands, instead of the ones who did the taking. While the soldiers rounded up the older boys for theft, the little Rat of Horozoh slipped off free. He returned to the bank, found the coin you had tossed, and he ate well that night.”
The Keeper then turned to face Tannin more directly, still wearing a gentler manner than a man should in Tannin’s presence. “You see, his perception saw more choices, and he chose wisely. Risky, yes, but wisely. Choices that would not seem so from where you sat watching him.”
The story ended, leaving the air around them in silence, and the Keeper’s eyes drifted back to Aari, a fearful pain was being held back by him. A warning on his lips he didn’t speak of. None of which was missed by Tannin. There was something the Keeper wasn’t saying.
“What are you not telling us?”
The man’s eyes flickered with a mildly startled expression in them, realizing he’d been seen feeling. Feelings he’d defended before the Edify mother. He held no shame of them, but it served no purpose for this one to witness them. He glanced at the tall warrior. The one, legends spoke of already and, called the Titan. This one had so many choices— as many productive as reckless. Yet the one the Titan teetered on the most was what to do with Aari.
It saddened him.
He tucked his head into a tilt for a moment, gathering his thoughts— listening to whispers on the æther— the very constant breath exhaled from the Prima Materia. He then nodded a silent compliance. “Tannin, of the Bedouin, an army under the command of Jazirian, marches presently for Maegrethe’s fortress. They are many, yet they are also tired. Strong words could convince the stronghold in the city of Maegray that Jazirian’s army has come to take over and disperse them from their titles. One battle— will be enough to start civil war.”
“The people and the land do not need civil war,” Tannin argued.
The elder understood this, but logic was needed here too. “Nor does it need tyranny or apartheid. One must weigh them out. Either choice, the population of people will be culled. Shall it be the soldiers that carry out the Blood Lords’ orders or the people who must suffer under them? Remember, one choice will always lead to others that may or may not be able to make, pending the first step of many. The rat of Horozoh may have taken the one coin you tossed him, the older boys would still have beaten him and taken his coin, and he would have gone another night without food. At his ends of desperation, he would go back and tempt his fate for the leather of credits. Only, there would be no one to toss a coin to him the second time. He would make the choice and pay with his life after all.”
“How is it you know this?”
“I am a Keeper of Destiny, we see all the choices you have before you make them. Even the choices we make out of fear or desperation are choices one has made. To pay a tax to a warlord so to buy some time, to pick a side so not to be at odds with the masses. Why we make the choices does not diminish the gift.”
“Gift?” the word huffed from Tannin’s lungs.
The Keeper began to circle around in casual steps, looking to Aari then to Tannin. “Remember, it comes down to a choice. And every man has one. For it is the purest gift of will by the Divine Creator.” He glanced back down at Aari, the one they had always referred to as child though she had grown up so long ago. He felt the pain as if they had already lost her and he couldn’t bear it any longer. He turned and stepped away. “You may want to follow me, Tannin— slayer of the Blood Lords,” he spoke with a disconcerting directness, then vanished as if dust, only to reappear on the far side of the cavern that was seemingly a world away.
Reluctantly, Tannin did follow. There was something the Keeper wasn’t saying, something he didn’t want Aari to hear, but Tannin was willing to make that decision for her, so he followed as the Keeper led him back to the entrance of the hide-a-way.
The elder stopped glancing out the craved-out entry, out to the world below now falling under the evening dusk. “You can still catch up with the men of your tribe and she will be cared for by them, but you will never get another chance like this to pitch one army against another to disable two corner powers of the Blood Lords again,” the Keeper was very specific of Tannin’s choices. “There is another choice for you to make as well, once you reach there—” his voice fell hushed as he continued.
He’d no sooner heard the low whispered words, Tannin was turning on his heels storming back inside for Aari.
It irritated him how the Keeper would just appear and disappear, eavesdropping and meddling. But the third choice he spoke of had Tannon turning his back on destiny with absolution of his disagreement and noncompliance that They would even suggest such a choice.
He found Aari still in the chamber with the desecrated pool, kneeling over its murky water staring into it. He went to her side and carefully pulled her to her feet, not wanting to brush his aggressive rage on her. “Let’s go. We have a ways to travel if we’re to reach Dantuey in time to alert them about the marching troops.”
She glanced around him as though expecting the Keeper to have returned with him. But he had not. “What’s in Dantuey?” she asked,
“Maegrethe’s soldier camp.”
The elder only watched as they left but did not stir when the woman stepped to his side from nowhere. “Must we sacrifice her?” he asked.
“We must trust she will survive,” she replied, soft spoken.
“We do not know that for certain. Her future is so pale; her destiny hangs on by only a single thread of silk.”
“All the more reason to take strong measures to strengthen it. If we do not, she will be lost for certain. As will he.”
The two disappeared from view but he still saw them, as though they’d become apparitions on the vail of a choice. He didn’t like what he saw. “I beseech you, find another way.”
Her gentle hand pulled him to look upon her. Beauty met him. It was as though staring into the rising sun. Her eyes always tranquil and looked at him with such adoration as if he were her lover and not a child in the fabric of time.
“Why worry you now? A thousand generations of Terra and you doubt me now?”
“Never in a thousand Terra’s have I watched over one personally until I discovered little Aari in the fallen temple. She has suffered loneliness enough.”
The woman’s hand went to his cheek, love and compassion were all that existed in her touch. “It is not her we must strengthen through persuasion, but the Titan. Trust me in this. All will be righted when it comes to pass.”
The man’s hand covered hers, but he could not bring himself to lift his spirits. He would trust in her as he always had, but what was to come was going to darken his soul nonetheless with loss. Nothing would persuade him to welcome it.
Nothing.
Not even the Edify Mother.
THE PRICE OF A CHOICE
They’d only traveled a day when Tannin had them stopping earlier than his usual routine to camp for the night. Without even a word, he caught her by the coat and dragged her around the fire until she was nearly in his lap. Normally she would have put up a fuss, but she knew that look in his eyes. She’d worn that dark soulless look nearly all her life, existing but not alive. No thrill or vibrancy to look forward to. No person to share the warmth of a bed with or feel safe with. But while she knew what living in grey worlds was like, Tannin had never seemed to be touched with such dismal thoughts— to regret life itself. And just as she had the night the tribe of Laymask had arrived at h
is friend’s camp, eyes void of life, when Tannin had held her, she leaned over his lap and clung to him again. Hoping she could give to him what he had given her that night.
Things seemed so uncertain. She held no value in this world save for one thing, the one change she could make, and she’d refused him. Refused to put it into the hands of the man who could make the world a better place for her, as well as so many others, if she’d simply surrender to it. She didn’t even know why she could not. Yet she held him all the same, telling herself he needed it, when maybe it was really her who needed the reassurance.
He no longer knew where his thoughts were. The choices the Keeper told him of, about the boy back in Horozoh— strange how he had not mention Jima. Not that Tannin had asked, but one would think the Keeper would have dropped a hint as he had with everything else, making it sound as if every step led to the next— that one could not happen without the other.
He let his arm drop over the small body as she stretched out over his lap— grateful she gave him this much without the usual defiance. She had offered her union to him if he would take her to the hidden temple in the mountain and he had done that. Albeit, she did not find the solitude she had hoped for. He’d known it would not be there, but he had taken her all the same.
He gritted his teeth, as that third suggestion of a choice kept coming back to mind and again, even there, he rejected it. He looked down at Aari, at her face as she drifted off into a restless sleep. His gaze keen on how her face; how it was lit up by the golden embers of the fire, casting her in its warm glow. She could go her own way and find a place safe. No longer put to risk being with him, and he would still receive what he needed to fulfil his destiny.
No!