Tesh-Dar silently considered the implications of what the girl had said. If it were true, there was far more to these two than she had ever suspected. But how could it be? Sighing silently in frustration, she told Esah-Zhurah to leave. “You will be summoned when I pass judgment upon you.”
“And what of–”
“His fate,” Tesh-Dar cut her off angrily, “shall not change for the better with your meddling. Leave me now.”
Esah-Zhurah withdrew quietly, leaving Tesh-Dar to fume in a miasma of anger, sadness, and fear. She recalled the sight of Esah-Zhurah’s hand, the diagonal cut across the palm, still crusted with blood, a bridge the child had built between her own race and the alien youth. The song from the human’s heart as he fought the monster in the valley played through her mind, and she frowned in consternation. She could not make the wrong decision now, for all might depend on it later.
“Oh, child,” she exclaimed softly, “what have you done?”
***
Reza waited quietly in the priestess’s chambers. Kneeling on the floor, head bowed and eyes closed as he waited for the priestess to return, he thought of the rapidly healing scar that marked where he and Esah-Zhurah had exchanged something more than words. He let the pleasant memories of the night occupy his mind while his exhausted body rested.
“You are lax, child.”
The voice snapped him awake, and he found the priestess standing near the enormous window that encompassed most of the far wall, looking out toward the mountains of Kui’mar-Gol. “Slayers of the genoth should not become inattentive, even in sleep. Were I of a mind, I could have killed you all too easily.”
“Were you of a mind, my priestess, there are few you could not kill,” he replied quietly, his eyes on the floor. “Even in my dreams, my strengths could never challenge yours.” He noticed that the pouch that had been bound to his waist was missing.
Tesh-Dar instantly sensed his feelings. How strange, she thought, to be able to touch the child’s spirit as I can those of my own people. Finally, after all this time. “It is here,” she said, holding the pouch up in one hand without looking at it. She had already surveyed the contents: two eyestones of extraordinary size and color. She held one in her other hand before the window so the light shone directly into it, filling the room with a blaze of cobalt blue that Reza could see reflecting from the floor.
“While alive,” she said, almost as if he were not there, “the eyestone warns the genoth of the presence of prey by their heat, and is nearly indistinguishable from the other scales that coat the creature’s body.
“But when the genoth dies, if the blood and fragile tissue are destroyed and drained rapidly from the eyestone, it becomes a thing of great beauty, an ornament much sought after, but rarely won in the contest between sword and claw. If not prepared quickly enough, the eyestone becomes opaque as milk, ugly and useless.”
She turned to him, slowly twirling the sparkling gem in her fingers. “This one is of the rarest color, human. Only two other sets are known to exist in the Empire. This is the third – and greatest in size.” Most eyestones were little more than a finger’s breadth in diameter; these were as big as Reza’s palm.
She set the prize down carefully, reluctant to part with it, admitting her own vanity at seeing colors the hue of her own skin sparkle and dance with life. She prayed that the stones were a sign from the Empress, symbols of the two young warriors who had come to mean so much to her, despite her anger at their unfathomable actions. Perhaps, as with the eyestones, it was their time to change, to metamorphose into the most precious of jewels, things of value and beauty. Or to die. Esah-Zhurah had said that Reza believed in the Empress, that he had truly accepted the Way. She had to know.
Her cloak whispered as she crossed the floor and knelt in front of Reza. Their eyes met. “It seems a lifetime ago,” she said quietly, remembering the day she had first met him as a tiny, terrified boy, “that we once faced each other this way.” She took his face in her powerful hands, the tips of her talons meeting at the back of his skull. “I must ask you this, Reza, and on your answer much depends: do you accept Her in your heart, and the Way of our people as your own?”
Reza no longer had to consider the answer to such a question. He met her gaze steadily. “I do, priestess,” he said, feeling the pressure from her hands as they pressed gently against his cheeks.
After a moment, she released him. His heart was true. “It is so,” she replied, standing up once again, returning to the window.
“This is a difficult day for me, Reza,” she said, “as it will be for you, and for your tresh.” She paused. “You exchanged blood, an acceptable tradition among certain of our people. But such a thing is only to take place after the final Challenge, and is always decided by the Empress Herself, or the head priestess of the Desh-Ka. It was the greatest gift Esah-Zhurah could give you as one who follows the Way, but it may prove her own undoing. She breached many of our codes to give you what you now possess.”
Reza looked up, concern spreading across his face like cracks wending their way across a lake of ice. “My soul,” he said quietly.
Tesh-Dar nodded. “Or its voice. Perhaps we will never know. Regardless, by giving you her blood, she imparted unto you her honor, and made you something more than you were before. But the fact of her transgression remains, and it has tainted you in turn,” she went on. “I am left with no alternative but to punish you both.” She saw Reza’s grim expression. “You will both be bound to the Kal’ai-Il for punishment with the grakh’ta, the barbed lash. Six strokes for each of you, this day, upon the rise of the Empress Moon.”
Reza’s relief was enormous. Esah-Zhurah would be spared a humiliating death or the shaving of her hair. The pain of such punishment would be torturous, but it was endurable. He did not have to consider his own chances, however. Six lashes with but a single evening in which to heal would leave him a cripple in the arena for the final Challenge.
It did not matter, he told himself. Whether he died in the first combat or the last was immaterial; at least it would not be Esah-Zhurah who would have to suffer the pain of killing him. She would still have a chance at life, a chance to cleanse her honor. “My thanks for your leniency, priestess,” Reza offered humbly.
“I wish… things could be otherwise, Reza,” she said softly. Her anger had burned itself away at the thought of him dying in the arena, now to die with the bloody welts of his shame fresh beneath his armor. She knew that the punishment was unforgivably lenient, but there was no force behind the thought that they had done something wrong, as if the wrongness were merely a symbol upon a parchment being consumed by fire. The Ancient Ones were still and quiet. They did not call for blood, as they were wont to do in the rare cases when one of Her children strayed from the Way. Tesh-Dar only knew that they watched still, and their sightless stares into her soul made her wary of her footsteps in this matter. And then, she thought, there was the Empress.
“I thank you priestess,” he said, “for everything.” He paused, wanting to say something more, even reaching out his hand toward her, a tentative bridge over the rift that had always existed between them. They probably would never speak again, for the punishment would be rendered soon, and the Challenge would begin with the rising of the sun tomorrow, and Reza would be dead soon thereafter. He wanted to tell her that the malice he had felt toward her for what had happened to his parents was gone, that he had forgiven her. She had, he finally admitted to himself, become a surrogate mother to him, and perhaps something more, something beyond his ability to understand.
A quick rapping on the door startled Reza, and he turned to see a tresh enter and kneel. “They have found the genoth’s body,” she reported, looking askance at Reza. “The tale is true.” She paused. “They also found the mutilated bodies of Ust-Kekh and Ami-Char’rah.”
The priestess looked at Reza, noting the sad surprise on his face. “We never saw them,” he said.
Tesh-Dar thanked her, and the warrior left.
She and Reza looked at each other, the moment Reza had been searching for now lost.
“Go now,” she told him, “and fetch me Esah-Zhurah, that I may inform her of my judgment.”
Reza saluted and left, hoping that at least the final hours before their punishment could be spent quietly together.
Tesh-Dar watched him go. She was saddened that she would never know the words to the feelings she had felt flowing from him.
***
Esah-Zhurah was distraught, but not because of her own punishment.
“Priestess,” she asked in a determined voice, “is it not possible for one of us to accept the punishment for both?”
“Do not be foolish, child,” Tesh-Dar admonished, summarily dismissing the idea. Or trying to. “The punishment of one is suffered by the other. That is the code of the tresh. You have known this. You must withstand six times of the grakh’ta, and so must he, for I can give no fewer, and have not the heart to give more.” She stopped her pacing to face Esah-Zhurah, whose own eyes were downcast. “Child, he is to die in the Challenge on the morrow. Is it not better that he be allowed to share in your pain?”
Daring to look Tesh-Dar in the eye, Esah-Zhurah shook her head. “I would rather have him stand a fair chance in combat and die at my hand or yours with the honor he has earned among us, rather than let him be speared like a meat animal, crippled and helpless with injury.” Their punishment would be received without the usual support from the healers. If Reza was whipped with the grakh’ta, he would be so badly injured that he would die in the first round of the Challenge, if he lived even that long. “If I were to receive twelve lashes,” she pressed, “must he also be punished? Must he, priestess?”
“There is precedent, Esah-Zhurah,” Tesh-Dar reluctantly conceded. “It is terribly rare, and has never happened in my lifetime. But…”
“Then it can be done,” Esah-Zhurah finished for her. “It is within your power to grant.”
“Esah-Zhurah…” Tesh-Dar’s voice died, for she did not know what to say. She turned away to look toward the mountains in the distance, hiding the feeling of impending loss that she could no longer conceal, for the mourning marks had already begun their march down her cheeks. Inwardly, she cursed the unforeseen turn the Way had taken. She had held such high hopes for these two, believing that Reza would survive to become something that had never been in all the history of the Empire: one not born of their race, but who might wear the collar in the name of their Empress, with Esah-Zhurah at his side. To see him perish now was a tragedy she mourned with a strength she would never have admitted. “If you must,” she said in a despondent voice. “I will let it be so.”
Tesh-Dar turned to her, the elder’s face unreadable but for the mourning marks that now flowed openly down her face like ebony streams against a twilight sky. “Go now and prepare, child,” the priestess told her, “for when the light of the Empress Moon shows in the referent of the Kal’ai-Il, it will be time.”
***
Reza waited impatiently for Esah-Zhurah to return. Already the Empress Moon was rising above the twilight horizon, and their Way together grew shorter by the minute. He had no illusions about his future: his life would end tonight, save for the stilling of his heart by the sword or shrekka of one of the peers come morning. But he had accepted it as his Way and Her will, and knew that the Bloodsong would carry him from this place to yet another.
He held the knife he had won as a prize in his first combat the day Esah-Zhurah had taken him to the city so many cycles ago, the day that the priestess had taken the two of them under her wing. Carefully, he laid it aside. It was his gift to Esah-Zhurah. It was his most prized possession, and he wanted her to keep it in remembrance of him.
Suddenly he sensed that she was coming, and turned to greet her.
She was not alone. A healer accompanied her through the perimeter of trees that were the only walls to their home-in-exile, the clawless one’s robe flowing like water in the light breeze.
“Are you prepared?” Esah-Zhurah asked quietly, kneeling next to him.
Reza nodded, wanting to reach for her and take her into his arms one last time. But the healer hovering nearby gave him pause. “Why is she here?” he asked.
“I asked her to come, my love,” Esah-Zhurah said softly, wrapping her arms around Reza’s neck. “She is here to take care of you,” she whispered in his ear.
He felt a light sting on the side of his neck as Esah-Zhurah pressed a tiny patch against his skin, injecting a tranquilizer the healer had prepared into Reza’s carotid artery. His eyes flew wide in surprise and he made to grab for Esah-Zhurah’s hands. But it was too late, the drug already rushing through his system, robbing him of control over his voluntary muscles. He fell limply into Esah-Zhurah’s waiting arms, asleep, before he could say a word.
“Forgive me,” she begged, holding him tightly for what she knew would be the last time. “It was I who brought punishment upon us, and it is I who must answer for it,” she told him, knowing that he could no longer hear her. “In exchange for my pain, you will have a fair chance in the arena on the morrow, a chance to win. Perhaps even a chance at life, should it be Her will.” She tenderly kissed his sleeping lips. “That is my gift to you, my love. Should I be gone when you awaken, remember that I will always be with you, until the day the voices of our souls shall be one.” She placed the Empress’s blade, the gift from Pan’ne-Sharakh, in his waist belt. “This is now yours,” she said. “Go thy Way in Her name, my love.”
Esah-Zhurah kissed him one last time, then gently lay him down upon their bed. Two more healers came from the trees, and Esah-Zhurah watched as they carried Reza away to their chambers to watch over him.
High above, the Empress Moon rose.
***
Esah-Zhurah looked up from her meditation as Mara’eh-Si’er, Tesh-Dar’s First, approached. The time had come.
“I am ready,” Esah-Zhurah told her, standing up and forcing her mind away from Reza to the painful trial ahead. She followed the First toward the Kal’ai-Il, the Empress Moon shining full overhead.
Standing in the center of the kazha, the Kal’ai-Il was an ancient edifice whose worn granite pillars dated back to before the birth of the First Empire, from a time remembered only in legend. Forming a circle, the gray slabs that covered the ground radiated from the central dais to meet two concentric rings of pillars, themselves capped with purple granite blocks weighing hundreds of tons that bridged the tops. Every other pillar of the outer ring, thirty-six in all, supported staircases in the form of flying buttresses; the inner ring, comprising eighteen pillars half the height of those in the outer ring, had simpler stone stairways rising from the circle bounding the massive central dais. It was the largest structure in the kazha, but in all Esah-Zhurah’s time here she had never seen it used. She had only walked through it once, at Reza’s insistence as he asked her about its purpose in their lives. She had never considered that she would be the first one of the ancient kazha to be punished here since long before she was born.
“In all the kazhas throughout the Empire,” she had explained, “there exists one of these. In ancient times, as now, the Kal’ai-Il was where the most severe punishments were carried out. In our early schooling, we are punished lightly, but in a large group. The transgressions of one are suffered for by many, and it is a terrible dishonor to bring shame upon any but yourself. As we grow older, we are placed in smaller and smaller groups, the last being as are you and I, as tresh, before we enter the Way as individuals.
“But,” she went on pointedly, “the punishment becomes ever more severe for a given act. What a small child suffers lightly, an adult may well die for. At last, the warrior may find herself shackled in the Kal’ai-Il for offenses that demand public ceremony and atonement.” She paused for a moment and looked at Reza, trying hard to make him understand the importance of what she was trying to tell him. “The only worse punishment is to have one’s hair shaved and be denied death for a cycle of the Empress
Moon, to wander among the peers in shame as one’s name is stricken from the Books of Time, to die without honor, without a legacy among the peers, and to live for all eternity in the darkness beyond Her light.”
Now, walking behind the First, Esah-Zhurah saw that the tops of the two granite rings were crowded with the peers, who stood two rows deep facing the massive, worn dais, their heads bowed and eyes averted.
Her escort stopped as she reached the two massive pillars of the entrance, sheared midway from the ground like two enormous tusks, broken off in an ancient battle and never repaired.
“Remember,” Mara’eh-Si’er said quietly, leaning close to her, “you must pass this portal by the twelfth tone after your punishment has been rendered and you are released from the bindings. It is a test of your spirit above and beyond your atonement. It is a demonstration of your will to live in honor among your peers. If you do not pass this point,” she gestured toward the glittering ebony stone marker that was set in the floor of the entrance like a buffer between two different worlds, “the priestess is obligated to kill you, for that is the Way of the Kal’ai-Il.” She gestured for Esah-Zhurah to step forward to the ancient dais. Then she turned to join the elder warriors gathered on the inner ring.
Esah-Zhurah walked onward, her pace slow, the odd bit of gravel crunching under her sandals, loud as thunderclaps in her ears over the stillness of the wind and the silence of those around her. She noted with detached curiosity that nothing grew from the cracks in the slabs, some wider than the palm of her hand; the normally fertile ground was lifeless and dull, like mud from a dry lakebed baked into clay by a searing sun. It seemed that even the earth had forsaken those who trod this path.
Before her was the dais, a huge, ponderous structure that reflected the unyielding rigidity of the code under which she and her people were fated to live. The circular platform was overshadowed by a thick stone arch that looked like a natural formation, not something made by Kreelan hands. Two thick chains, their copper sheathing green with age, hung from the arch. Each chain had a metal cuff for the victim’s hands.
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