The Days of the Golden Moons (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 5)

by J. Naomi Ay

“You will think differently when you see him,” Sorkan replied. The door shut behind him.

  “Not likely,” I called. “And I'm not going to hang around and wait for him.”

  Tossing the towel, I grabbed one of the suede dresses hanging in the closet and slipped on some shoes too. One thing about Karupta clothing, you could move freely in it although with all the shells and beads, everyone could see and hear you coming and going. It was still raining though, and the pitter-patter against the windows and the roof would masquerade the clicking and jangling of my beads.

  The window opened easily once unlocked, so I stuck my head out and looked out at the side of the house and the roof line. As I mentioned, the house was made of logs and near my window was a corner with end posts at angles from each other. I reached out and touched the end post. It wasn’t far. I could climb out the window and from there up the posts. I couldn’t swing myself up to the roof though. The overhang was too deep.

  If I could get around the corner of the house, I would be able to sidle over to the roof that covered the front porch. Somebody might notice me there though, as there were no trees in the front. I needed to get to the upper roof to hide behind the chimney until dark. If I could climb across the porch roof, I could probably lift myself on to the upper roof. The clay roofing tiles were wet but otherwise should have been easy enough to walk across. I would cross the upper roof and then what? Unless I could come up with a good size rope and manage to loop it around the closest tree limb, I would be stuck up there until Sorkan left. Then I could climb back down to the lower roof and drop onto the front porch.

  I went back into the bedroom and looked through the closets and drawers for something that was or could be made into a rope. One closet had Senya's clothes in it, leather leggings and tunics, ceremonial robes, two sets of Dress Blacks and accessories.

  Leaning inside, I looked for something I could use. I smelled him, his scent, the wind, water and pines of the forest, a hint of tobacco.

  For a moment, I was struck by longing so sharp and fierce, I briefly lost my resolve. Then I heard voices downstairs, Sorkan and Rekah, and my determination to leave came back with a vengeance. I slipped on one of Senya’s tunics over my dress and hunted quickly for something to make into a rope.

  In the closet, next to the Dress Blacks, were two long gold sashes and four sets of shoulder aiguillette. I stuffed them into the pockets of the tunic and wrap the sashes around my own waist, so I didn’t have to carry them. I hoped there was a tree in the back of the house which hung over the roof. I could tie all of this together, and it might be enough to reach the tree and swing me over to the main trunk like Tarzan. Or Jane. Maybe I would even yell as I did it. Not a Tarzan yell but something like “Go to hell all you de Kudishas!”

  The men's voices grew louder now, and I heard footsteps on the stairs. With no time to think this through anymore, I climbed out the window. I nearly lost my footing on the first end post and broke my neck. I was not deterred. I was already over and across the lower porch roof when they reached the bedroom. By the time they had figured out I was no longer there, I was hiding behind the chimney on the upper roof.

  The rain was pouring down again. The tunic repelled most of the water for a while but eventually it became saturated and then my dress underneath started to soak it in as well as my shoes.

  It was pitch black, and I had been out here for eons. For some time now the men had been wandering around the house both inside and outside calling my name. They couldn’t see me up here and couldn't hear me even if they wanted to because of the storm.

  I was shivering in the wet even though it was warm. I figured I would probably be sick for a week because of it, but when stubborn Katie de Kudisha set her mind to something, she saw it through no matter how stupid it was.

  A bright light flickered through the trees for a moment and I could dimly hear the engines of a speeder. Rekah and Sorkan left the house, the door slamming shut behind them. I quickly tied a makeshift rope of the sashes and braid and then ran across the roof. As luck would have it, there was a tree limb right where I needed one, and after a few attempts, I managed to loop my rope across it. Holding both ends, I swung away from the roof and propelled myself against the trunk and onto a lower limb though I gouged a few holes in my skin and dented a rib or two in the process. This was a hell of a lot easier thirty years ago in boot camp.

  Seating myself somewhat comfortably on a limb, I gathered my rope into a coil and settled for the night, willing my arms and legs stop aching.

  A long time passed. Morning dawned. The rain had stopped, and the sky was clearing. I was still damp and shivering but somehow had slept for brief periods of time. When I awoke, I listened carefully for voices. It was silent except for the morning songs of the birds in the trees around me.

  The sky lightened a little. I needed to get moving. I had about fifteen feet down to reach the ground with only a few large limbs to assist, so I couldn’t climb down, and it was too far to jump safely. Instead, I uncoiled my rope again, knotted it around the limb I was sitting on and then used it to rappel my way to the ground. It would be a flag waving to everyone when they awoke, but hopefully by then I would be long gone.

  This country was beautiful, no question about it. It reminded me of the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, the wild forests of the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, the rivers, inlets and bays leading out to the Pacific Ocean. I wandered through the forest as the dawn began to obscure the stars and the faint yellow glow of Erindad 37 lit the darkness around me.

  After hiking uphill for a couple of hours, following the path of the river toward its source, I heard the sounds of water falling and came into a great cavernous valley. In the center of this valley was a large lake being fed by a giant water fall hundreds of feet above me. The lake was a crystal clear blue and surrounded on three sides by walls of sheer rock. The fourth side where I stood now was a grassy meadow.

  Venturing back into the forest, I came upon wild blackberry bushes and spent some time picking and eating them. Berries were good food, super food actually, full of vitamins and antioxidants. There was no protein there so their benefit would be short lived, but I was hungry. Before jumping off the roof, I should have grabbed some food from the kitchen.

  Heading further into the brush toward what appeared to be huckleberries, I heard a growling sound right in front of me. Unfortunately, the sound was coming for a large black bear who apparently thought these berries were his. I turned tail and ran as fast as I could, tripping over some roots and slipping on the loose ground of the hillside. I went tumbling down an embankment rolling through blackberry brambles, nettles, ferns, and all manner of flora to land unceremoniously in a freezing cold, muddy rivulet.

  “Damn,” I said to no one at all. I ached all over in a torn, bruised way and my skin burned, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t broken any limbs except maybe my neck. Every part of me and my clothing were now covered in mud. My head throbbed. “Damn,” I said again as I lay there studying the broken bits of blue sky between the towering Douglas Fir trees.

  The bear apparently decided that I was no longer a threat to his berries and after glancing at me from the hilltop, wandered off in the other direction. White puffy clouds circled the sky overhead, and I was content to watch them which in the back of my mind told me, I ought to have been worried. I could have been concussed and shouldn't just lay there or fall asleep. I was too tired to think and my head ached, and if I had tried, I would have discovered I couldn’t move anyway.

  I drifted off for a while enjoying the pleasant sensation of sun on my face and cool muddy water beneath me. A long thick yellow snake slithered by in the water and for a moment stopped to appraise me and stick out his tongue.

  "Would you like an apple?" he said.

  "Get lost," I replied, deciding that this was absolutely the very last time I'd go wander around the forest. The snake glided away as I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, the sun had passed behind the trees an
d mosquitos were buzzing in my ears. My face felt like I had spent too much time enjoying the sun and would be regretting it very soon. There were three men standing above me, casting a shadow across my body.

  “Tuman? Sorkan? Rekah?”

  “No, Sister,” one replied with a beatific smile and offered me his hand. He helped me to my feet. “Come.” He pulled me along and I walked with him upriver. Another man led us while a third followed close behind.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, glancing back around. I saw my body still lying comfortably in the mud. I wasn’t frightened at all though I thought I should have been. After all, I was walking upriver, and most of me was still back there. I felt like myself. I could feel the man's hands on mine. My cheek was itchy from where a mosquito had just bitten me and my legs and arms ached from my tumble. “Did I manage to kill myself falling down the hill?”

  “Perhaps,” the one in front turned around and smiled.

  We walked across the river. I mean, we walked on top of the water as if it were concrete. Then we floated up a short dune. At the top of the embankment, we stopped. I couldn’t see what was ahead as the path forward was entirely encased in fog.

  “Are you ready, Sister?” the one behind me asked.

  I turn backed to look at him and discovered the fog was completely behind me now too. It was a warm and welcoming fog though. I felt at peace. I felt like I had just returned home.

  “Sure,” I replied. “I’m ready.” The fog began to melt away revealing a golden sky filled with dazzling light. I saw a lake of brilliant gold water and herons standing on a dock. A gentle breeze tossed my hair about while propelling a small sailboat toward us. It was my father’s boat, stark white in the golden lake, sails aloft, heeled over on the port side, racing to us at a speedy 6 knots. The man on board waved to me.

  “Dad?” I called.

  Chapter 23

  Sorkan

  Rekah held audience on the porch of my son’s house. He had always done so because the house was far back in the woods and the noise and commotion would not disturb his wives and many children. Usually my son was not in residence, but this day he was present and I told Rekah to keep as quiet as possible.

  My son was upstairs in his office. Mounting the stairs, I glanced in the bedroom. The bed had not been slept in. I crossed the room and shut the window where it had remained open since that devilish woman climbed through it the previous night. She riled me now, that one. She needed to learn her place.

  Leaving the room, I went across the hall to my son's office. When my grandson was small, he had lived in this room. I recalled those times with great fondness. My son now sat at his desk typing at his netbook whilst listening to the ramblings of Lord Taner whose face appeared on the vid suspended above him. Lord Berkan looked bored on another vid and still another man I did not recognize smiled from a third. I settled myself on the sofa and listened to their chatter about places and things far beyond my world.

  Old Keko came in and removed an empty coffee cup and a plate from my son's desk.

  “Would you like anything more, Sir?” he whispered loudly. His hearing was far less than it had been in my youth.

  My son waved him away and for a moment when he lifted his hand I could see long scars beneath his golden cuff bracelets.

  “Prince?” Keko stood before me now. “Something to eat or drink for you?”

  “Thank you, no,” I replied and watched Keko back from the room. Keko was older than I, as old as my father would have been, were he still alive. Lord Taner and the others signed off, and for a moment the room was quiet save the sounds of my son's fingers clicking across the keys.

  “You did not sleep?” I asked, rising from the sofa and coming to stand beside him.

  “My leg pained me last night after the spaceplane,” he replied as strange foreign words scrolled across his screen reflecting in the black lenses of his glasses. He spoke with me in language of Karupatani whilst reading a document written in something that looked but wasn’t Mishnese. That was a skill I had never mastered, to read in one language whilst conversing in another.

  “And your wrists?” I asked for they looked quite painful too.

  “Ay yah. They bothered me as well.”

  “And you could not take something to dull these pains?”

  “No.” He shook his head dismissively. “I must suffer for that which I have inflicted upon myself.”

  “Perhaps you should just rest today then,” I suggested. “You are on vacation as are your Lords.” I waved at the blank vids. “You are all sorely in need of a rest, and you can suffer your pains as much as you wish whilst doing so. Whatever work you have can surely wait until your return.”

  “I must get Rozari organized. We must quickly get our government in place and operating before anyone grows dissatisfied and recalls that our invasion was not at their invitation.” His fingers flew across the keyboard making more words in the Rozarian language.

  “How do you see that which you are writing?” I asked though I studied his strange band of silver hair. How this came about so quickly, I could not fathom. Just weeks ago when last we met, he had not even a grey hair and now his head and beard were laced with these shiny silver tresses.

  “There are microchips planted within the frames of my glasses that transmit a mathematical image to me.”

  “Do you see the words as I do?”

  “No, but I see them in a way that I can recognize them and know what they are.”

  “I see.” I shrugged and headed toward the door before he could launch into an explanation of nanotechnology or some such thing that was far beyond my simple brain. I would find Rekah's petitioners to be more entertaining, I expected.

  “I expect you will too,” my son concurred though I had not uttered a word. “I will come downstairs for a bit. I need to stretch my leg.”

  He paused in his work and then rose to his feet, balancing for a moment on his right leg, his hand gripping the desk. I saw he wore a brace today on his left leg, which he did now when it was pained. He held out his hand, and his cane came bidden from across the room.

  “Let me help you down the stairs,” I insisted and put my arm across his back. I felt him tense and shirk away from my touch. He was not used to being touched, I reminded myself. No one may touch the Great Emperor. I held him tighter until his muscles relaxed, then we hobbled down the stairs as one, his arm across my shoulders and I holding him upright.

  “You are too old for this,” he protested mildly. “And I am not an invalid.”

  “I am old but fit and strong,” I replied. “And you are indeed an invalid.”

  “Thank you,” he said when we were safely planted on the ground floor.

  “My pleasure.” I did not release my hold upon him. Neither did he move his arm from my shoulder. He smiled a little, shyly almost. I kissed his head. My son.

  Upon the porch, Rekah sat in my father's chair as the people of Karupatani come before him to resolve their disputes. I sat next to him and greeted my friends, offering my opinion when asked. Rekah was nervous today. More often than not he took my judgment and made no alteration to it. For this, I thought, I should be sitting in my father's chair instead of him.

  After a time, I grew bored with the proceedings and was glad this was not my responsibility. I rose and stretched my old bones, glancing around the side of the house at the rope the lady created to escape from the roof. It swung about in the wind. Then, I returned to the porch and waved to a serving woman to fetch me some sweet tea. As she did so, my son emerged from the house. His cell was still in his hand, and he was telling someone he would speak with them again at a later time.

  “Would you like some tea too?” I asked as he pocketed the cell.

  “Sure,” he shrugged and lit a cigarette. The audience was on their knees in obeisance before him and even Rekah was on the ground before my father's chair.

  “Get up.” My son waved his hand for all to rise as he settled himself on the steps. No one
moved.

  “Perhaps you would like a chair?” I offered.

  “No. I shan't be here more than a few moments. I came to have a word with Rekah.”

  “Would you like to adjudicate, Sir?” Rekah rose nervously and offered my father's chair.

  “Not at all,” my son replied, sucking on his cigarette and taking the glass of tea from the woman who nearly dropped both his and mine with her trembling hands.

  I took my glass from her as well and then she backed away, her eyes never leaving my son's face. Never did I have that effect on anyone, I considered. What a nuisance it would be to render both woman and man insensible just by my presence.

  Rekah cleared his throat and was about to call forward the next petitioner when my son abruptly interrupted him.

  “So Rekah, have you ridden my horse?”

  Rekah grew pale, and his hands began to shake. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I won’t do it again.”

  My son’s eyes flashed. “No, you won’t,” he agreed. I glanced from son to nephew deducing that this was clearly not about a horse.

  Rekah called forward the next petitioner who had come to our village from across the continent. The man stepped forward, his eyes too locked upon my son. He made obeisance again in the dirt.

  “State your need, brother,” Rekah commanded though his voice still wavered.

  The man opened his mouth but did not speak. He looked cautiously at my son.

  “This is ridiculous,” my son said and finished his cigarette. “I shall go back inside.” He started to pull himself to his feet but nearly toppled over.

  “Are you alright?” I jumped to assist him, grabbing his arm. Rekah reached for his other arm and together we held my son upright though strangely, his body had gone slack. His head lolled back though his eyes were open and flashing brilliantly. “Senya! Senya what's the matter?” I prodded him.

  “No, no, no,” he mumbled, twitching in our arms.

  “No, what?” I cried.

  “Is it a seizure, Uncle?”