The Zi'veyn

by Kim Wedlock

  Rathen thought for a long moment, locking with the chief's gaze as he decided how best to respond without insulting anyone, but before he could begin to come to any conclusion, another lilting voice rose from the edge of the crowd.

  "I think we should let a priestess decide that for herself, Chief."

  The crowd parted to make way for this new figure, a woman adorned in the lightest coloured skins and a soft mantle of feathers which beautifully complimented her bronze complexion. She carried herself with a surprising elegance, and all around seemed to look upon her with as much reverence as they did their chief, if not perhaps more.

  Rathen's eyes flicked back towards him, and he decided on the latter when he noticed the restraint with which the chief responded.

  "You cannot seriously believe them..."

  "I do not," she replied plainly, "but I also cannot seriously disregard the possibility that they might be able to help us." She stood even taller, more imposing, and even Rathen found himself feeling smaller in her presence. "I think we should hear what they have to say."

  All eyes turned expectantly onto the chief.

  He stared back at the priestess, fire still raging in his eyes, but there was a thoughtfulness there as he weighed her words and, likely, the significance of the fact that she was willing to step forwards and encourage the welcoming of these quite possibly dangerous people. He looked briefly back towards them, his dark lips tightening as his gaze fell upon Aria, and his tense shoulders finally dropped in defeat.

  But he said nothing, merely gestured, and the four hunters encouraged them to follow him through the haphazardly constructed village, stopping only once they reached a building far larger and longer than the rest. He then beckoned Eyila, and after a brief, quiet exchange, she gave him Rathen, Anthis and Garon's names, pointing each of them out in turn, then returned to them as he disappeared inside.

  "You three go in," she told the men, "and remember what I told you: kneel, hands on your knees, don't turn your head, and get to the point." She looked then towards Petra and Aria. "You two will come with me."

  "Why?" Aria asked, her voice edged in panic as her grip on her father's hand tightened, but Petra smiled softly and offered her her own.

  "It's all right," she said gently, "you can stay with me."

  Aria clung to him a desperate moment longer, but both she and Rathen knew that Petra was perfectly capable of keeping her safe. If they had to be split up, this was the second best outcome.

  With an encouraging smile, Rathen gave her hand to Petra with the promise that he wouldn't be long, then followed the chief inside with the others, accompanied by only two of the four hunters. Once the door had closed, Eyila turned and led Petra and Aria away, followed by the remaining guards as well as the village's suspicious eyes and whispers.

  Petra raised her chin in defiance under the scrutinous stares, but she didn't let her own gaze brush across any of them. "They seem more untrusting of us than we are of them," she mumbled to herself.

  "They are afraid of you."

  She looked sheepishly towards the sharp-eared girl, but couldn't help frowning in disbelief. "Afraid of us?"

  "Cityfolk are greedy," she replied lightly. "Everything has a price, and if we do not accept whatever you deem something worth, if we're even willing to part with it at all, you will take it. Sometimes even kill us for it."

  Petra frowned. "Sounds like not even a desert will deter bandits."

  "It is not 'bandits', it is you people." Despite her words, she hadn't delivered them with venom. Instead she seemed merely to be stating a simple fact. "You have no sentimentality, no sense of accomplishment unless the result is money. Your spirits are corrupt. You pay no attention to one another, only to others' belongings."

  Petra wished she could have protested, especially when she looked around and found the two hunter-guards with looks of equal conviction on their faces, but she just couldn't avoid the painful truth in that last statement. "And you fear us because of that?"

  Eyila's eyebrows rose as she looked towards her. "I'm surprised you make no effort to deny it."

  "I wouldn't want to lie. It's a fair description of some 'cityfolk' - a lot, in fact - but," her eyes were ardent, "not the five of us. We're each driven by passion. Different passions, but passion never the less. Every one of us."

  The tribal girl considered her words, her eyes slighting in thought, and she soon nodded. "I have noticed that much," she admitted. "Which is why I have spoken out for you. But please understand, it isn't theft we fear, nor you personally. It's the corruption. Tribes who live nearer to your cities have weaker connections to the gods, and that is only in part because of the weak locations they have chosen to call home. They've also been influenced. They think more of personal gain and wealth than they used to - than they should. But we are left alone out here, and for that we have purer, happier lives, and a stronger link to Aya'u, just as the mountain tribes do Degon, the fire-mountain tribes do Shiya, and the water nomads, Uq'ua."

  Petra nodded, absorbing as much as she could in case it became useful later on. "Do you not trade at all, then?" She asked thoughtfully. "How do you get food? Clothing?"

  Eyila frowned in bewilderment. "We do trade, sometimes - a few of your kind meet a few of mine. You do have things we want, after all, like salt, just as we have what you want - though they are more frivolous things, crafts and a few spices. But we don't enter your land to do it, and neither do we allow them into ours. We meet at the borders on an agreed day of the month, and only trade what we can easily spare for what we need. Though we usually just trap or make it."

  "Trap?" Petra's eyes widened dubiously.

  "Do you like living like this?"

  Startled by the outburst, both Petra and Eyila looked down at Aria in surprise. But she was too busy spinning around in increasing amazement to notice, and she was looking too quickly from one thing to the next for it to be called staring.

  "Of course," Eyila smiled. "It's freedom."

  Aria managed to spare a nod. "I understand."

  The tribal girl frowned sceptically. "How could you?"

  "I live in a forest," she replied, flashing her a big, beaming smile. "Before Mister Garon came to my house, the only people I'd ever seen were people selling spices and meat and fish. It was quiet, and safe - well, except for the wolves - but I could climb trees all day long, play in the stones, the river, and have all kinds of fun!"

  "You'd never seen anyone else?" Petra frowned in concern. "Don't you have any friends?"

  "Of course!" She grinned. "I have my daddy, and now I have all of you! I have loads of friends!"

  She couldn't help smiling at her enthusiasm, but she was quite unsure what to make of it. Eyila, however, was smiling broadly, and Petra could see an affection plain in her eyes that she had felt within herself not so long ago. It was something Aria was able to summon from deep within people without even trying - and while Garon may fight it, she was convinced that it was there within him, too.

  "I knew there was something different about you..."

  "Of course," Aria smiled. "I'm smaller, for starters."

  Chapter 35

  The ground within the chieftain's longhouse was littered with yet more animal skins, though these were far bigger than any others they'd seen and many had been stained with additional patterns besides the animals' own, likely to befit the prestige of the place. Unfortunately, that intention was offset by the hides' musty aroma, an odour that made their heads swim as they knelt, unmoving, upon them.

  Just as Eyila had warned, in the half hour that had passed the chief had indeed strode all around the room while Rathen had carefully explained their motives, mindful not to turn his head or add to his dizziness. The chief had proceeded to interrupt with plenty of difficult questions, but Anthis answered those too technical for Rathen to tackle, and quickly enough that no one seemed to notice the mage's failing. Garon, however, had barely spoken a word. He hadn't needed to, but it did seem to reinforce the
creeping suggestion that the officer was little more than a free pass to bend or break a few rules in the cities, as he contributed little else.

  Now, however, the room was silent, and no one moved. The trio's legs were growing numb and invoking a desperate need to shift and fidget, though they didn't dare indulge it, especially when a dropped pin would have sounded like the cacophony of Aria in a kitchen full of pans.

  The chief sat quite still in his own seat, little more than a collection of pillows though certainly far more comfortable than the near-bare ground, and his distant, wide-eyed stare made clear how perfectly torn he was between his thoughts. He was flanked by two elder tribesmen who, like Garon, had yet to say a word, and merely stared at them from beneath masks of wrinkles, while the priestess looked calm and contemplative.

  They waited for an agonisingly long while for the chief to finish chewing over their words. He eventually opened his mouth to speak, but shortly closed it again.

  The priestess suffered no such indecision. "I permit it," she announced, startling the room for various reasons, and the chief looked back at her in disbelief. She elegantly turned her head away from him. "I don't need to explain myself to you, Chief. This is a matter of safety for more than our tribe alone, and as it is Aya'u's shrine that they wish to see, it falls to me to make the final decision."

  "You believe them?" He asked dubiously, his tongue slipping from Turundan to their own dialect in his surprise.

  "You do not?" She asked in kind. "You have sat there in silence for five minutes, unable to make a decision, and I can guarantee it isn't because you don't know what would be for the best. You can see as well as I can that the facts are very simple: Ut'hala is in need of something we cannot provide, and these people clearly have a better idea of what is happening than we do, or Eyila, and may just be able to supply it. And if what they say of the broken lands is true and we turn them away, it won't remain a matter of simply keeping away from Ut'hala for much longer. The danger will come to us." She turned herself towards him and pressed her steady gaze. "You can fight my decision if you like, but you will not win, if just because your heart won't be in it. Don't be pig-headed."

  The chief's eyes narrowed distastefully, then he sighed and shook his head. "When did my authority shrink to that of a child?"

  He raised his head and looked over the three Turundans, returning to their language as they stared cautiously back at him. "You will not go alone," he informed them, ensuring that this decision, at least, would be his own. "By the rules of our tribe, a priestess will go with you; she will lead you and make sure you don't mistreat the shrine. When you return, you will share your findings with us, directly. And you will not leave until three hours after dusk. It is spring, but the deeper you go into the desert, the hotter it gets."

  Rathen's relief faltered. "We'd rather get there as soon as possible..." he said, taking great care not to appear ungrateful.

  The chief smiled, and Rathen didn't miss the barely concealed condescension. "You will cover far more ground by leaving later than you will by rushing out there now. It will be midday soon."

  "What are we to do in the meantime?"

  This time he hesitated in his response, and still appeared to be debating it even as it left his lips. "Stay here." Uneasy looks were exchanged on both sides, and he sighed in similar dissatisfaction. "There's little other choice. You will stay under guard at the edge of the village. You will not interact with anyone, and you will be informed when it's time to leave." His light blue eyes were severe. "Agreed?"

  A small knot formed in Rathen's jaw. "Agreed." He felt Anthis and Garon's gazes shift onto the back of his head, but if they objected, they kept it to themselves. There really was no other choice.

  The chief rose to his feet and the three of them placed their palms on the ground and bowed forwards, waiting for permission to rise again, just as they'd been told to, after which the two hunters fell immediately back in around them and escorted them out after their leader.

  The sun was piercingly bright, and the heat-cancelling effects of the buildings became apparent as they stepped out into the almost-midday warmth. They fell instantly under the scrutiny of the rest of the tribe, but in the half hour since their arrival, they seemed to have adjusted, their eyes changing from almost violently mistrustful to a resigned but subtle watchfulness.

  Petra and Aria were very quick to rejoin them with Eyila closely in tow, and no time was wasted in leading them to their allocated area. It was only partially shaded, but it was enough, and it was quiet aside from a small, roofed area nearby, occupied by an older woman and four young girls about Aria's age. Aria watched them very closely as they enacted a dance composed of strange, jerking movements. In startling unison, they half-crouched while rising onto their toes and bent their arms at crooked angles, somehow still moving them fluidly, while their heads twitched to a shared rhythm and their wide eyes looked here and there as if indicating something to one another. It seemed at first as if they were panicked by something, perhaps intensely uncomfortable about their positions, but given their disciplined synchronisation, it could only have been part of the choreography. Eyila had told them that they represented birds, while the dancers that represented the wind were working on their costumes elsewhere, all in aid of a festival set to take place in the next few weeks. Apparently the dance told the story of the wind goddess's gift of wings to the eagles, but each of them doubted they would be able to follow the tale even if they saw the whole performance several times over.

  "Well we couldn't have expected to be allowed to wander off to a sacred site on our own," Petra said once their meeting had been recounted. "We wouldn't let one of them into one of our temples, would we?"

  "I suppose not," Anthis sighed, "but I was looking forward to getting away from these people." His eyes flicked about uneasily, observing the nearby hunters, and though intrigue marked his face as they fell again upon the strangely hypnotic movements of the children, his frown of mistrust only deepened. He looked back to the others. "It could be an elaborate trap."

  "I don't think they would go through these lengths for the five of us," Petra shook her head. "And anyway, it's this or nothing, right? We need to get out there."

  "I know, but--"

  Anthis was cut short by a sharp but subtle gesture from Rathen, and he turned in alarm to see the tribal girl stepping around the corner with five clay bowls balanced in her arms, which she duly passed around. They each looked dubiously at the meat that lay within, never mind the purple vegetables.

  "What--uh...what is it?" Anthis asked as politely as he could.

  "Oryx," Eyila smiled.

  "Oryx?"

  "What else would it be?"

  "That wasn't...well, that wasn't entirely what I meant..."

  "Thank you," Rathen said, if just to silence him, "but you don't need to feed us."

  "Didn't I tell you to accept food?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "Then accept it." She smiled strangely, but none could decide if she looked suspicious or pitying. "It isn't poisoned."

  Poison wasn't the foremost of their concerns.

  Rathen looked down at the meat as its pleasantly spiced aroma tickled his nose, then steeled himself and raised a chunk to his mouth. The others watched him in disbelief, but as he chewed, nodded and swallowed, the others saw little choice but to follow his lead. It didn't taste bad, but none of them had any idea what - or who - 'oryx' was.

  "Good," she said, satisfied, then turned and walked away. No one chose to voice the fact that she wasn't eating - nor anyone else within their sight.

  Eyila hurried through the village towards the chieftain's longhouse, darting smoothly around neighbours as she went, too concerned with carrying their oversized jars of coloured dusts, enormous drums and musical pipes to notice her. But when she made it to the far side of the village where the edifice stood grandly at the head of the central clearing, its walls adorned with flowing emblems painted with desert clays while the oldest an
d most exquisite of the village's wind chimes tinkled in the breeze, the white pennant that should have been hung over the front of the door wasn't there. The chief wasn't in.

  She turned quickly on her heel and made for the small wind shrine at the most eastern point of the village, assuming that perhaps he was speaking to the handful of priestesses about the matter, but when she rounded the corner and the oh so familiar stack of carven wind-scoured rocks fell into view, she found that he wasn't there, either.

  Despite how small the village was, it took her almost twenty minutes to track him down, and when she finally did stumble across him, he was just stepping out from the healer's hut of all places with an equally puzzled look on his face.

  "There you are," she sighed as he announced the same, and she hurried out of another jug-carrier's way to meet him, offering him a sheepish but grateful smile as she stopped at the edge of the sandy path. "I'm sorry for my earlier rudeness, but thank you for listening to them."

  "I didn't seem to have much choice," he grumbled. "And I'm still not at all happy about this," he added pointedly, "but Kahii seems to have the same loud and ill-founded trust that you do."

  "Well, if it's any consolation, I will keep a very close eye on them."

  His demeanour suddenly shifted and Eyila felt herself shrink in his presence, her buoyancy melting away. He straightened, growing taller, and his usually relaxed authority became apparent by simply breathing the air around him. She felt the need to stand taller, herself, if just to be taken more seriously, because she knew what was coming, had certainly expected it, and was more than prepared to fight it.

  His eyes were hard as he looked down his nose at her. "You are going nowhere. Anai will be guiding them."