Protector of Thristas: A Lisen of Solsta Novel

by D. Hart St. Martin

  When her mother’s companions caught up, they, too, dismounted, one of the guards assisting Holder Corday though he seemed to need little help transitioning from false-booted saddle to wooden foot and lower leg. Insenlo ran up to Rinli and threw her arms around her sister.

  “I love it here!” the younger girl exclaimed, and Rinli smiled.

  With the family greetings completed, Elder Hozia welcomed the Empir to Mesa Terses, reacquainted herself with the Empir’s Will whom she’d met during the treaty negotiations, Rinli remembered, and then offered to escort them all up into the mesa. The moment came and went quite quickly, and Rinli realized the next few days were likely to move swiftly past her as well and that she’d better be prepared to pay attention.

  Lisen lay on the pallet, her back to Korin, unable to sleep, not unlike the preceding three nights here. She felt him roll over and put an arm over her. He always moved so softly when they were alone. Anyone not-her would never believe the sweet gentleness of him.

  “You smell of Garla,” he whispered. “How does that happen? You’ve been here four nights, and the essence of your homeland still envelops you.” He traced a finger down her side, and to her delight, his touch thrilled her through the nightshift. He kissed her neck, and she wiggled away.

  “Damn,” she breathed, then sat up on the pallet and took a few deeper breaths. “Enough. It’s going to be a long night.” The rehearsal this morning before dinner had gone well, and she knew her role in the ceremony. But with so many details for everyone involved to remember, the potential for disaster was great.

  “Good evening to you, too,” Korin replied without sarcasm.

  “Good evening.” She turned her head to look at him. He’d sat up and was tying his eye patch on. She reached out to touch the leather thong as it wrapped over his hair on the left side, the side with the patch, and then leaned in to kiss him on the lips. They did not—could not—linger there and, instead, separated and stood up.

  “Breakfast with the Elders and then the investiture,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He grabbed a candle and stepped out of the chamber through the curtain to light it from the torch outside. When he returned, he pulled off his nightshift and slipped into one of his Guard-like tunics. She’d brought a tunic of Ilazer green, one without a pouch slit nor gold braid, mid-calf in length, a simple one of simple cloth she’d had made for this occasion last year.

  As she struggled with her hair, pulling it back into a braid and trying to catch all the recalcitrant locks to feed them in, Korin slicked his already-braided hair back into his queue with a little oil.

  “Have you noticed the change in Rinli’s attitude around me?” she asked as she wrapped the leather tie around her braid, ensnaring her vaguely tamed hair in its embrace.

  “The burden of leadership has begun to settle,” Korin said and sat down to put on his sandals. “You know, she watched you very closely at the last Council session, and she asked a great many questions regarding the decisions you made. Now it’s about to be her turn, and she realizes that every decision she makes is going to affect someone.”

  She plopped back down on the pallet and pulled her sandals on and closed buckle after buckle halfway up her leg. “Too bad the damn burden couldn’t have settled on her sooner.”

  “You’re here two more days. Maybe…” Korin rose.

  “Here? In the mesa? I’d be mad to even try.”

  “You’re right.” He reached down to help her up, and once she stood in front of him, he smiled. She never grew tired of that smile. “You look regal.”

  “No. I don’t. But thank you for pretending that I do. I left everything that defines me as regal in Avaret. I probably should have at least brought the crest.” The crest was a bronze chain bearing the Ilazer family emblem—a crevix, the black bird resembling Earth’s raven but with a puffed-out chest.

  “We should have created something that could represent the title Rinli’s taking on.”

  “Wait,” Lisen said and leaned down to dig into her satchel. When she found what she sought, she pulled it out, straightened up and displayed it proudly for Korin. “A mantle.” It was actually a woven scarf made of tan and brown wool. “Thristan colors, see? I can use it when I pass the title on, drape it over her shoulders.”

  “To represent the burden.”

  “Yes.” Lisen folded the scarf into a small bundle. “Do you have a piece of cloth or something that I could hide this in?”

  “You don’t want Rin to see it.”

  “No.”

  “Well, let me see.” Korin stood for a moment, then turned to one of his baskets and pulled out a homespun towel.

  “A towel? Seriously, Korin.”

  “It’s clean and it’s the right size.”

  Lisen took it and wrapped the scarf up in it. “Yes.”

  “Leave it here during breakfast. I’ll come get it after.”

  She nodded and set the package down on the pallet, the heaviness of what was to come settling into her soul. The daughter she’d bartered in exchange for peace had come of age. At the time of the negotiations, this day had appeared on a horizon so far removed from the moment as to fail to exist. Yet, here they stood, she and Korin, and the pain of loss overwhelmed any sense of fulfillment.

  She sighed. “Let’s go.”

  “Tinlo, I don’t have time for you now. Rinli needs me.” And Tinlo watched, disappointed, as Madlen wiggled out of his grasp and flounced up the tunnel.

  He’d only wanted to talk to her for a minute, try to explain, somehow, without actually telling her, why he would have to act. The entire mesa was pausing when they should be moving, stopping when they should be going. And all because of Rinli Ilazer’s outcoming day.

  She was the Empir’s daughter—the Garlan Empir’s daughter. And that Garlan Empir was handing over Thristas to her. What gave the Empir the right to do that? From what he’d learned as he’d studied old texts and questioned the bards of the mesas who maintained the stories, the title of Protector of Thristas had been assumed by an ancient Empir. The desert hadn’t asked to be protected; some Garlan had simply claimed the place and its people as her own.

  And now, this three-quarter Garlan child had set herself up to disrupt the Hanii with her investiture? He spat.

  He patted his shindah under his robe. Everyone at the ceremony would have one; no one would question him or even notice. He allowed himself to conjure up the vision of Madlen’s gratitude and relief when he freed her of her soul’s imprisonment by the Destroyer’s daughter.

  Time enough later for a hero’s celebration.

  He headed up the tunnel to the Pit.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GROPING IN THE DARK

  Lisen stood back with Elder Hozia and watched as Madlen kept realigning Rinli’s tunic gown to get it to settle just right and a man and a woman, both Elders, braided her hair. She and Korin had contributed green and orange ribbons, and in addition, the Elders had added the black of no family and a thin gold chain which Lisen had provided at their request. She believed this, in combination with the black ribbon entwined with it, symbolized the deity part of Rinli’s heritage. Whether the Thristans had accepted this story or not—and Lisen knew that many hadn’t—they’d committed to paying homage to it in the ceremony.

  “Go, take your place now, my Liege,” Hozia said.

  “Lisen, please.”

  “No,” Hozia countered, “in this you are the Empir. I will join you shortly.”

  Lisen knew where to go when she left Rinli, to the entrance across and a few steps up from where she stood now. It was the Pit, the place where children were welcomed as they tugged their way out of the pouch, where Rinli herself had made her entrance sixteen years ago. Lisen had nothing of that day to remember. She was elsewhere, a hostage to Ondra and her co-conspirators where she remained ignorant that she and Korin had conceived. So she missed nothing at the time, but having no memories of a day in which memories were made caused an ache she�
��d never fully acknowledged before.

  I’m here now. We will create memories tonight.

  She turned to look down the tunnel. The members of the mesa’s tribe were already gathering for their procession. The Garlan and Thristan sides in this plan had meshed two very dissonant ceremonies as best they could—the Thristan Hanii unpouching ritual and the traditional Garlan throning. There was no throne, and Rinli was sixteen years removed from her father’s pouch. No one could claim expertise in this matter as this was a singular ceremony; it had never occurred before and it would never occur again.

  Lisen pivoted and strode up to the entrance to the Pit. She’d only been in here twice before—once on her previous visit to Thristas to approve the chamber’s use today and earlier this morning when they’d held a semblance of a rehearsal. She stepped in and looked around. Torches had been lit, but it remained a huge, low-ceilinged space, and she thanked providence that she’d never have to come here again. And they welcome their children here? She sighed. Perhaps a lifetime of revering this space for the emergence of new life lifted it from the gloomy chamber she saw.

  She turned at the sound of someone entering the chamber and smiled as she saw it was Korin. He carried the package in which she’d placed the scarf.

  “You remembered,” she said.

  “Of course.” He handed it to her, and she held it close to her chest.

  “I can’t believe Thristans unpouch their children here.”

  “It’s a very happy time.”

  “I believe you. It’s just so dark and…enclosed.”

  Korin put his arm around Lisen’s shoulders. “You don’t usually have a problem with the close quarters of the mesa.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe it’s the low ceiling.”

  “You know what I’m thinking,” he said, disengaging. “I’m thinking you should put the scarf on and then take it off to put it over Rinli’s shoulders.”

  “Yes. That way I don’t have to figure out where to put a mysterious package.” She unwrapped the scarf and unfolded it.

  “Here.” Korin took the woven scarf and placed it over Lisen’s shoulders, allowing it to fall a bit in the back. She took one end and tossed it over the opposite shoulder, setting it in place; then, she looked around.

  “We’re early,” she commented.

  “Rinli’s ready?”

  “Hozia sent me away, but they were nearly finished.”

  “And the ribbons?” he asked.

  “Yours and mine, both, along with the black one and the gold chain.”

  “Beads or bells?”

  “I didn’t see any, but they could have included them after I left. What do those mean anyway?” Lisen tapped one of Korin’s beads. He only wore them here, never in Garla.

  “Milestones.”

  “This one?” She tapped the same bead again. “The brown one?”

  “Simple. Acceptance by the Tribe. If Rin gets anything, it will be a brown bead.”

  Lisen nodded. Alerted by the sound of footsteps just outside the entrance, they took a step away from each other. They did this without thinking; it was a practiced response to intrusion on their privacy. It turned out to be Hozia, leading Rinli and the two Elders who had assisted her in her preparations. Leaving Rinli with the others, Hozia came directly to Lisen.

  “The remaining four Elders will be here momentarily,” Hozia said in her flawless, exotically accented Garlan. “They are instructing the Tribe.”

  As Lisen nodded, Nalin arrived escorted by Insenlo. He had but one duty—serve as witness for Garla—but at least they’d found something for him to do. He and Sen stepped over to where Lisen, Korin and Hozia stood.

  “This is quite a chamber,” he said. “Korin, did you say it was natural?”

  “Yes. The rest of the mesas have such a chamber as well, but they were all carved out to resemble this one by the Thristans who settled there.”

  “Let us take our places,” Hozia urged.

  Nalin left them to sit down on an outcropping of rock opposite the entrance but still on the near side of the Pit itself. Korin and Insenlo stepped down into the Pit and sat down on its rocky surface. Rinli left the two Elders and joined her father and sister, lying down supine in a nest of blankets, looking up at Korin. Lisen found the dip in the edge of the rim above her family and took several deep breaths. A moment later the other Elders entered and gathered around Hozia behind Lisen.

  Within seconds, Lisen heard the hum, the hum that turned into what she had been told was the traditional unpouching lullaby. Korin began to sing with the approaching Tribe, but he looked to Lisen and sang in Garlan.

  “Hold to the shadows, dear one.

  Follow me and note all I do.

  Fear not, little one, I am here.

  Stay safe as I hug and rock you.”

  Lisen looked to their daughter lying in front of him and watched a tear slide down past her temple. Korin had sung this to her as she prepared to pull herself out of his pouch, and although Rinli couldn’t possibly remember the moment, Lisen believed her daughter knew this wasn’t the first time he’d encouraged her to step out and claim her rightful place in the Tribe.

  The members of the Tribe entered and began to fill the chamber. They surrounded the Pit itself and crowded in around it, but not a one of them stepped down into it. They continued to hum and sing, repeating the single-versed lullaby several times. When they finished, Madlen, representing the youth, slipped into the Pit and stepped over to sit next to Korin. During a baby’s emergence, the young ones of the Tribe who could walk gathered around the soon-to-be-unpouched parent, but the Garlans and Thristans had agreed that since children might be difficult to direct, Madlen could represent Rinli’s peers.

  Lisen noted Madlen’s smile directed at Rinli. And her eyes. Her eyes filled with adoration and awe. Although Lisen had observed Madlen’s devotion to Rin, she’d never seen this. Clearly, betrayal would never come from anyone with this level of committed devotion.

  And then, she spoke, unscripted. “Korin, make her come.” Her voice rang through the lullaby, and one by one the Tribe grew silent. From what Lisen had been told, this was something Madlen had actually said to encourage Korin to allow Rinli to emerge sixteen years ago. Her timing in repeating it now added a sweet note to the whole that was the ritual.

  “Here. I am here,” Korin recited through the silence. Although Lisen had never heard the content of this ritual greeting to the child, she had known Korin would be delivering it as he had before, and she was grateful for her cursory understanding of Thristan. “I welcome you. I hold you. I will embrace you in moments of joy and comfort you in times of unhappiness. Your mother and I offer you up to Mantar the Maker who gave you to us, and we will keep you safe from Mantar the Destroyer till we no longer can.”

  Korin then placed his arms around Rinli who opened her eyes and sat up.

  “Korin, child of Hakor, child of Enka,” Lisen heard Hozia behind her intone.

  “I am here, Elder,” Korin answered.

  “Is this a child of the Tribe?” Hozia asked.

  Soft humming began, and Lisen’s skin tingled. This was how it had happened before. While Ondra and her group had held Lisen hostage, her child had emerged in this stone chamber, and she hadn’t even known. During all the planning for this investiture, Lisen could have never anticipated her reaction. She’d missed this once; now she’d been gifted with the joy of receiving her child.

  Korin stood up, drawing Rinli up with him, and he lifted his head to speak directly to Hozia.

  “This is a child of the Tribe,” he responded to the Elder’s question.

  “Then name her,”

  “Name her, name her,” the Tribe began to chant, a chant that continued until Korin responded.

  He took Rinli from behind by both arms and urged her forward towards Lisen. “You are a child of Mesa Terses, you are a child of The People, and your name is Rinli.”

  Silence.

  Lisen stepp
ed forward, reached out to her daughter standing in the Pit, leaned down to kiss the top of her head, and urged her to turn facing her father. Then she gently put pressure on Rinli’s shoulders, and Rinli sat down on the edge of the Pit. Lisen reached over to Nalin, and he handed her the scroll he’d carried with him all the way from Avaret. She unrolled it, noted the large word at the top—“Treaty”—and found the passage she was to read.

  “I, Ariannas Ilazer, as signified by my signature below, do agree to the following terms in order to establish peace between Garla and the desert to Garla’s east, known as Thristas.

  “I shall retain the title of Protector of Thristas until my first-born, Rinli, reaches the age of sixteen.

  “As a child of the desert as much as of the forests, meadows, rivers and sea, Rinli will give a share of her time before she comes of age to a life lived in Thristas, following its customs and attending a minimum of two of its four high rituals every year. By direct exposure to Thristan rites and customs, Rinli will fulfill her destiny to become Thristan.

  “On her sixteenth outcoming day, I, Ariannas Ilazer, Protector of Thristas, will pass that title to her, as a representative of my will in the desert. It will then be her responsibility to prepare herself and Thristas for its eventual independence. Although the majority of her time will be devoted to the desert she is called to protect, she will return to Avaret for Council sessions for the next two years

  “On her eighteenth outcoming day, I will relinquish my claim on the desert known as Thristas entirely, ceding it to my daughter Rinli’s care, and her responsibilities to Garla will end.

  “Signed,

  “Ariannas Ilazer”

  Lisen blew her breath out slowly. Now to do the deed. She found herself anchoring to Madlen’s dark, awe-filled eyes.

  “Rinli of Thristas, daughter of Lisen, daughter of Korin, as a symbol of the responsibility I pass on to you, I place this mantle upon your shoulders.” She pulled the scarf from her own neck and laid it carefully around Rinli’s. “I declare you Rinli, Protector of Thristas. Long life to the Protector!”