by Rachel Lee
“You are of love, Sara Deepwell,” he whispered. “That is all I know of such things. But it is enough.”
Near the front of the small column, Tess rode beside Jenah, whom she had insisted take Archer’s mount. She rode at Archer’s demand, for he was not sure she was yet strong enough to walk. And, she thought, he might well be right. A deep, aching fatigue seemed to press through every muscle and sinew in her body. She longed for sleep but could not bring herself to relax.
“You should rest, Lady,” Jenah said quietly. “Your body cries for it.”
“As does yours,” Tess replied. “And yet you also hold yourself awake. So we are both stubborn.”
Jenah laughed, and for an instant Tess saw once again the infinite beauty of the Anari people. She had seen it in the fleeting moments when Ratha and Giri joked amongst themselves. They were a people who, when the cares of the world could be set aside, seemed to glow with an inner joy that shimmered in the iridescent blues of their black skin. They were, she thought, the most beautiful people she had ever seen.
“What?” Jenah asked.
“Oh,” Tess replied, “I was just thinking how lovely your people are to behold. If the finest gold were spun into human form, it would not approach the Anari.”
“You mock me,” Jenah said, though the warmth in his eyes belied the accusation. “We are but humble desert stonemasons.”
“And I but a simple blond woman,” she said. “Take good words where you find them, Jenah Gewindi. I fear you have heard too few.”
“That much is true,” he said, smiling. “And thank you, White Lady, for your kindness. Someday, perhaps, you will tell me by what grace of the gods you were sent to me in my time of need.”
“I do not know whether it be a grace of the gods or a curse of men,” Tess said. “Perhaps some of both. The road to this place has been long and filled with heartache. But here we are, and on we go.”
“Tell me of your journey?” he asked. “Perhaps it will distract me from the ache in my back. While you have saved my life, I still feel the pain of the blow.”
“I am sorry that my healing was not more complete,” Tess said. “But of my journey, there is both too little and too much to tell. I awoke in the wreckage of a slaughtered trade caravan, far to the north, with no memory of who I was or whence I came. Archer and his Anari companions came upon me and took me to Whitewater, where we met Tom and Sara. Then we set out together to learn who had murdered the caravan, and that led us eventually into the city of Lorense, where we confronted the dark mage Lantav Glassidor and slew him.
“After that, we came south, for Ratha and Giri had heard of the uprising here and wanted to lend their swords to the cause. We skirted the edge of the Deder Desert, dodging Bozandari patrols, until we reached the borders of the Anari lands and came upon you last night. And that, my friend, is my journey.”
Jenah studied her for a moment and nodded. “There is much that you do not tell me, Lady Tess. I accept that, for I can see in your face that what you tell me is true. And your friends certainly bore true their oath last night. Perhaps in time I will learn more of you and your story. For now, however, I accept that you are here of free will and with pure heart.”
“I thank you for your trust, Lord Jenah.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I am hardly a lord, my Lady. I was simply chosen by my Tel for this mission. Chosen, it seems, to lead my brothers to their deaths.”
“Bear not that burden alone,” Tess said. “From what Archer has told me, you did all that could be asked for, and more besides. Your brothers’ blood is not on your hands, but on the hands of he who betrayed you. And in time, we will know who that is.”
“That time will be soon now,” he said, looking up at a jagged ridgeline. “Beyond that rise lie the villages of Gewindi-Tel. And there the truth will out.”
3
At the top of the rise, Giri looked out at the village below and paused for a long moment. Tess came up beside him and saw the glistening in his eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’ve waited a long time to see a telner, m’Lady. I thought I would never see one again.”
“Gewindi-Telner,” Jenah announced with a sweep of his arm. “Home of Gewindi-Tel, my clan.”
Tess at once noticed the odd configuration of the village: a large, round central building surrounded by a plaza that seemed to mimic flames spreading out from the sun. From there radiated three winding paths that led to smaller round buildings, each of which was set amidst even smaller stone buildings and fallow fields.
“All Anari villages are constructed in this form,” Giri said. “It symbolizes the end of the First Age.”
“What does it mean?”
Giri’s eyes clouded with sorrow. “In the end,” he said quietly, “the gods were so angry with the Firstborn that they tore the world asunder. It is a reminder that the world today is but a small part of what it once was.”
Tess looked down on the village with new appreciation, then realized they had been spotted. Even from this distance she could see the villagers beginning to gather, facing in their direction.
Jenah sighed heavily, but when he spoke, his voice was taut with anger. “Let me ride ahead and tell the story, lest the lady and her party be misunderstood.”
Giri nodded. “A good idea, cousin. I will ride with you as a token of our good faith.”
Jenah nodded. Giri turned, and in one sleek movement he swung into his saddle. “Wait here,” he said to Tess. “I’ll come when it is time.”
Tess was surprisingly ready to dismount and just rest for a few minutes, even though she had been dreaming of the comforts of civilization for these many hours past. She had hardly begun to dismount when strong hands clasped her waist and aided her.
Archer. She turned and managed a wan smile. “Thank you.”
He gave a slight bow of his head. “Let us make a small fire and eat something. Perhaps Lady Sara will be good enough to create one of her stews. You need to regain your energy, my Lady.”
Since events in Lorense and the discovery that Sara, the innkeeper’s daughter, was one of the fabled Ilduin, she had become Lady Sara. Tess herself had been referred to as such much longer, but she was still finding it difficult to accept the obvious implication: that she was set apart from her fellows.
She turned her gaze from Archer and looked down the long slope. Jenah and Giri were riding slowly, as if they dreaded delivering the message they bore. And in the town below, new stillness seemed to indicate that the people guessed what that message would be.
Sara and Tom seemed only too glad for the distraction of preparing a meal. Ratha gathered some wood and laid the fire before returning to his position against a rock. It was clear he was still on guard, though now it was against the traitor among the Anari. The remaining Anari, a group of less than twenty, merely sat stone-faced, awaiting their moment to return home…and their moment to be judged.
While the horses grazed among the sparse vegetation, Tess sat crosslegged on the brow of the ridge, looking down on the valley spread before her. Archer settled beside her, one knee raised, leaning back on his arm.
“The flower of the Gewindi Clan is mostly gone,” he said soberly.
“What did they hope to accomplish by attacking that patrol?”
“Exactly what came to befall them.” He sighed. “You dozed for a few minutes during the ride, and I spoke with Jenah. He said that Bozandari patrol was on its way to the Telnah, to take more slaves. Most of the men who died last night would have been taken. And some of the women, as well. They chose to fight instead, to preserve their Tel. From stories they have heard, the slave patrols have lately been killing many of those they don’t take, or burning the villages’ food supplies and leaving the Tels to starve.”
“Why in the world would they do that?”
Archer made a small movement, suggestive of a shrug. “The Bozandari have always been a hard people. Long it was a hardness born of necessity
. Their home city has always been a way station and trade center, but the Bozandari themselves had little to sell. So they learned to exact the greatest possible profit from their location. Traders coming to Bozandar are taxed, and the market keepers also take tax in kind on all goods brought for sale. It was how the Bozandari learned to survive.”
He paused a moment. “In times gone by, this was naught but a means of feeding themselves and their people. But taking from all whom they encountered became a way of life. And as their wealth grew, they could afford larger armies with which to intimidate or conquer their neighbors. For a people accustomed to providing for themselves from other people’s labors, conquest and plunder were but a small step.”
“But whyever do they turn these people into slaves?”
“It began because the Anari are such great workers of stone. The Bozandari wanted their cities to shine with the same beauty and skill, so they collected the best of the Anari stoneworkers and took them to Bozandar. But beyond that, why work a market oneself when one can make a slave do the work? Why cook one’s own meals when a slave can do that? Again, for a people whose history lies in surviving on the work of others, ’tis but a small step.”
Tess shook her head. “There are no limits to the cruelty of men.”
“It seems not.” His face grew shadowed, as if he were remembering things best forgotten.
For his sake, she tried to change the subject. “How is it the Ilduin came to have such power? If Sara and I are to be useful as Ilduin, it would seem that we ought to know who we are and how our powers work.”
He was silent for a moment, as if drawing himself out of a dark pit. “You speak of the Mysteries.”
“The Mysteries?”
“Aye. The secrets of the Ilduin. The Ilduin of old may have known. ’Twas said their powers were gifts from the gods. But whatever they knew, they kept to themselves. ’Tis said that at the end of the First Age, when horror and destruction lay all around, the Ilduin oversaw the building of the Anari temples and concealed all the Mysteries within those temples. If that be true, none has ever found the answers, though many have tried over the centuries.”
The stew was soon ready. Sara had an amazing way of throwing a few things into a pot and in a short while producing a savory meal. Tess ate with a hunger that surprised even herself, as if she had not eaten in weeks. Almost as soon as the food hit her belly, she could feel herself strengthening.
By the time Sara and Tom had finished cleaning up and were about to put out the cook fire, Giri began to ride up the slope toward them. He came fast, but not fast enough to cause alarm.
When he reached them, his face was grave and full of sorrow. “Let us go down to Gewindi-Telner. They have offered us lodging at Telnertah, the village temple.”
He looked past them at the other Anari. “You will follow us.”
* * * *
From times past, Archer recognized a few of the older Gewindi, and they him. His travels had taken him over most of the known world in his time, and taken him more than once. A few nods greeted him as he and Tess led the procession into town, but beyond nods, the greetings were nonexistent. The usually warm and outgoing Anari had become cautious of strangers over the three generations of their enslavement, and with the day’s bad news, they were even less inclined to warmth. Most faces were stoic, but on some tears coursed down.
Giri led them straight to the temple and into the guesthouse, made of stone and roofed over with a perfectly carved vault of granite.
“Stay here,” he told the party. “There is to be a judgment, and outsiders will not be welcome.”
He stayed to help unload the horses, then guided their mounts away to a stable. The rest of the party remained in the comfortably large round room that was somehow ensconced in the temple. There was a door that led into the temple proper, but Tom soon discovered it was locked.
“We can’t go in there?” he asked.
Ratha shook his head. “Not without invitation.”
In a corner was a small fountain with water gushing up from it, probably from some underground spring. There was a hearth on which wood for a fire had already been laid, though not lit. And there were a half dozen elevated stone pallets that could serve either as chairs or beds.
Windows beneath shades of animal skin that could be rolled up or down gave a view onto the sun-shaped plaza and beyond, to one of the curving paths that led between leafless trees to another section of the village.
Tess found herself drawn to the window and stood there for minutes uncounted, feeling as if she stood on some kind of brink.
“What is it, Tess?” Sara asked, coming to her elbow. “What do you see?”
“’Tis not what I see but what I feel.”
Sara nodded and remained beside her, staring out the window. More minutes passed, then a soft sigh escaped her. “It speaks to us.”
“Yes. But I don’t understand.”
“Nor I.”
Together they continued to stare out at the sun-drenched plaza and the winding stone path, so carefully laid out by long ago masons.
“This work is amazing,” Tom said, peering closely at a wall. “The stones are seamless.”
He pulled a hair from his head and attempted to slide it into the almost invisible crack between two stones. “I can’t…and the joints aren’t even square. See how each rock is cut in a different shape, yet each fits exactly into the others?”
“That is one of the many wonders of Anari stonework,” Archer said. “The stones are locked together so that nothing can dislodge them. But wait until you see the other things they create from stone. Items of such beauty and intricacy that no one else can mimic them.”
“Our blessing and our bane both,” Ratha said. “But that is about to end.”
With those words, he reminded them all that they had come to join a revolution.
Tess turned back to the window, Sara at her side, and resumed her study of the view, unable to escape the feeling that it was speaking to her.
The sun was sinking low in the west when at last Jenah returned. He was followed by a group of young men and women who bore stone platters of food for the guests and, surprisingly, flowers for Tess.
She accepted them with a smile and an expression of gratitude, but felt uncomfortable at being singled out in this fashion. After all, Archer, Ratha and Giri had fought beside the men of Gewindi Tel and certainly deserved more thanks than she did.
“Eat,” said Jenah. “Then we have a favor to ask of Lady Tess.”
That news was enough to destroy Tess’s appetite, but out of courtesy she tasted the food…and found it to be too wonderful to pass up.
Giri came to sit beside her around the feast and said reassuringly, “Fear not, Lady. All will be well.”
“Guests are treated royally by the Anari,” Archer added. “Among the desert peoples, to deny succor to a stranger is a mortal sin. Now that they are sure we are not agents of Bozandar, the old ways resume.”
“Aye,” Ratha agreed, with a laugh. “Wait until you taste the hospitality of Monabi-Tel.”
Giri joined his brother’s laugh. “Indeed. Monabi-Tel must exceed Gewindi-Tel.”
“Of course,” Ratha said.
His voice broke into song, a melody that sat low in his chest and seemed to rumble with the memories of the mountains themselves.
Monabi-Tel an leekehnen
Monabi lohrisie
Zar Tel mim Torsah seekehnen
Monabi lohr
Monabi fohr
Monabi-Tel wohbie.
Tess found herself laughing, despite having no idea what the words meant. Somehow the melody made her want to clap her hands as gleefully as a child. Finally she asked, “Of what do you sing, Ratha?”
“It is a children’s song,” he replied with a grin. “The words do not work well in your language, but it is something like this: Monabi-Tel live decently, Monabi people say. Our Tel craves wisdom peacefully. Monabi are good. Monabi are strong. Just ask Mona
bi-Tel.”
“As you can see,” Giri said, joining in the mirth, “we are raised to be a proud people.”
“And yet you make fun of yourselves at the same time,” Tess said.
“But of course, m’Lady,” Giri said. “To be proud and not make fun of oneself is arrogance. To make fun of oneself and not be proud is self-loathing. But to be proud and still make fun of oneself, that is wisdom.”
“Monabi-Tel were always our bards and tricksters,” Jenah said with an almost imperceptible wink. “Take naught that they say seriously.”
“And Gewindi-Tel were always our solemn and hardworking mentors,” Giri replied. “Look not to them for joy, but only for labor.”
“How much of any of this should I take seriously?” Tess asked with a playful smile.
“Very little,” Archer said, chuckling. “The play among Tels has been thus for time out of mind. From the smallest grain of truth they will build a mountain of playful lies about each other.”
“Aye,” Giri said. “It is why we have never made war amongst ourselves. You might say we celebrate our common differences.”
“That is well-spoken,” Jenah said. Turning to Tess, he added, “That which divides us is but a fraction of that which unites us. And thus have we played and laughed and worked together from the First Age.”
He paused for a moment, shifting forward in his seat. “But not all is play and laughter, m’Lady. As I said, we have a favor to ask of you. And the Lady Sara, if she would not mind.”
“I will do what I can,” Tess said, uncertainty and dread growing within her heart. “I fear I know too little to be of much use.”
“And I,” Sara added. “I pray that you do not expect too much, lest I disappoint you.”
“What they ask is naught but a small thing,” Jenah said, smiling. “Our Telneren ask. They will explain.”