Tel paused to tap out another message. Must move now. Enemies coming.
He was already moving, tiny legs jackknifing through the air as he leapt from rock to rock. If she waited any longer, the light would be gone.
Munayair stepped forward, training her eyes on the tiny figure hurrying ahead. Her boots found purchase on the slippery surface of the first rock and the next. Soon, the shore had faded into blackness behind them. The surface of the lake spread still and icy around them.
“Tel,” she whispered. “I’m afraid of this place. I think it’s driving me mad.” He glanced around, then continued on his way. She shivered. “Madder, I mean.”
The voices began not long after. Faint snatches of sound, whispers teasing at the edge of hearing. She clenched her fists, fighting to keep her breath slow and even, moving on pure instinct after Tel.
Her steps faltered. The whispers grew louder, and a familiar voice leapt to her ears.
“It’s not safe here. Raiders often come this way.”
Her head swiveled. “Tel?” she cried. “Captain Tel! Is that you?”
Rippling like a mirage, a face appeared before her, smile wide enough to transform the eyes into slits. No one would have described it as handsome, hardened as it was by sun and ice, carved by wind and water. But tears blurred Munayair’s vision at the sight. He spoke again, in northern Sayakhun’s guttural accents.
“Where have you been, kar-ler? I’ve missed you.”
Tel rapped on a stone. Enemy. Enemy. Move fast.
“I had to leave. I couldn’t say goodbye.” She swallowed sorrow like a clump of rice.
The bell rang louder, pulling. She tore her eyes from Tel’s face and kept moving, slowly as if through taffy. It got easier, although every few steps she had to fight the longing to go back.
More voices came.
“It’s getting dark, we should ...”
“Naya, if you put that there one more time, I swear I’ll ...”
“How have you been, young one?”
“… let me look at my granddaughter!”
Voices from her past assaulted her on all sides. As they pounded like a physical wave, her steps wavered. She glanced aside and halted.
Not five paces away on the mirror-smooth surface of the lake, a tall man waited. Gentle lines fanned from the corners of soft, deep-set eyes, but no smile touched the stern corners of that mouth. They watched each other in silence.
He spoke in a quiet voice. “So, you’ve returned at last.”
“Father?” Munayair gasped.
Her mind said, It’s a trick, an illusion.
It also said, He came.
She took a step towards him, slipping on the slick stone. “I ... I ... you’re not real. You’re three hundred leagues away! I–”
Darun raised his eyebrows. Tel’s tapping rang in the stillness, insistent. Enemy. Enemy. Enemy.
“You’re not real,” she repeated, and started to walk again.
Come away, fast.
“Are you coming home, Munayair?” Darun’s eyes searched hers.
“I—I can’t.”
His voice sharpened. “This war is devastating our lands. I need my heir at my side.” He held out a hand. “Daughter, don’t deny me. Please.”
Munayair shook her head. “I’ve given my oath to the adepts.”
“What about your duty to your land?” For a moment, anger colored his tone. “Your people?”
Words twisted in Munayair’s throat. Tel’s tapping echoed frantically. Enemies. Coming all around. Move, now!
She tore her gaze away and walked onward.
He called from behind. “What about the debt you owe me, child? For what you did?”
The words struck like blows. She ran, leaping from rock to rock, fists clenched with determination. The bell tolled in time with her pounding feet. Voices called and cajoled, but she kept her eyes on the stones under her feet. Only once did her step falter, only once did her eyes turn before she could catch herself.
“Moony?”
Before her stood a girl in a simple grey dress, black hair to her shoulders and dark eyes in a moon-fair face. How proud Enebish had been of that pale skin, soft and supple as calf leather. Once she had seemed so old and knowledgeable, the pinnacle of all Munayair hoped to become. But now Munayair realized her sister had died absurdly young, only a child. A bud plucked before it could bloom.
“Moony, where have you gone? I’m afraid of the dark ...”
Munayair wrenched her eyes from her dead sister’s face and ran after Tel, blinded by tears. The shadows were now a refuge. She could hardly hear the bell over the drumbeat of her heart. Her boot caught on a rock and she tripped, jarring her knees. She teetered above black water. Then she righted herself and collapsed onto the stones, where she lay sucking in air. Then she pushed herself to her knees.
Tel stood beside her, glyphs burning against the dark. Enemies here, he tapped.
Her breath caught as more voices echoed. Deep voices with clipped, precise accents.
“You cannot run forever, little Sayakhunii.”
“We will find you.”
She whirled, icy water soaking her. Darkness lay thick on her eyes, overpowering Tel’s glow. Everything was black.
“Your grasslands will burn. We will consume your wagons and your herds,” one hissed, close by, and she shrank back, gasping.
Four shapes took form from the darkness, staggering toward her. Three wore the scorched tatters of Bui-taran scout uniforms. Their faces and hands, every inch of exposed flesh, were raw and red and blistered. Eyes white as boiled eggs. Flesh hanging from their bones much as rags hung from their frames. Air rasped in their lungs, a painful rattle.
Munayair’s heart stuttered. Stones cutting at her fingers as she clawed at the ground, pulling herself backward as they advanced toward her. Terror built like a scream in her mind.
The fourth figure spoke. She froze.
“You should have stayed with your people,” it said. A tall woman stepped forward, long black horsetail and blue robe billowing in a phantom breeze. She swayed, a deathless corpse, filthy, rotting, burned beyond recognition. Skeletal fingers clawed the air. “You betrayed us, Moony. You destroyed me.”
Munayair’s breath stuck in her throat, and her stomach heaved. “Mother,” she gasped out, horrified beyond tears.
She scrambled back, terror building, pushing and fighting to be free. Flames sprung up all around. Strangled by smoke, writhing in the grasp of burning flame, she crept forward on blackened stumps. Her hand reached into emptiness, and she pitched forward into icy water.
The water embraced her, cold and muffling. She sank down and down. Relief surged through her. She was free. No more faces, no more voices, no more consuming flame.
A thin silver glow glinted off trailing bubbles. Tel leaped into the cold water, limbs thrashing.
Little bold one, she thought as her mind drifted. Don’t follow me too far.
She sank into darkness and was glad.
Chapter 8: Spirits of the Lake
Life returned in bursts. She expelled water from her eyes and lungs, struggling against a tight embrace like a shroud—her soaking, tangled robes. She broke free and panted on hands and knees. Finally, she stopped choking and drank in sweet air.
She inspected her hands grasping the rough stones. Her own hands, thin, tan, black with ink. Not claws of blackened bone.
She realized she could see.
She lurched backwards onto her knees. Blackness surrounded her, held back by a beam of light. The silence seethed with eyes. Her heartbeat pounded like a drum.
“Hello?”
The word dropped like a pebble into a mine shaft. She swallowed against the pressure pushing against her throat, threatening to take control.
“Jita?” she croaked. “Tel?”
The darkness swarmed, shadows within shadows writhing like trees in a high gale. Munayair shrank in her puddle of light. Pressure built like water pushing at a dam,
and she trembled, cracking at the seams.
“Who are you?” she cried, pain ripping through her aching throat. “What do you want?”
To her terror, a reply came. A multitude of voices, ranging from resonant to sibilant, speaking in unison.
We are the spirits of the lake, they said. It has long been our duty to judge the minds and hearts of all who approach. We investigate what has been and what will be, offer wisdom and foresight for the long journey ahead.
She bowed her head. “What do you see?”
Words dug through her mind, relentless as tree roots, cold as a river dredging away a high bank.
I name you, Naya.
Munayair of the Sarem-ori clan.
Peacemaker. Teacher. Glyphmaster.
Child of Horses.
Traitor.
Munayair cried out and clapped her hands to her ears, but the words seeped into her mind like smoke through a tent wall.
The lost child.
Runaway heir.
Moony.
“No.” Munayair breathed deep to steady her heart, control the building pressure. “I left it behind—”
The past walks beside you no matter how far you run.
She breathed in, out, in again before raising her head. “I acknowledge all those names as mine. But surely, to live in the past is to deny the future.”
Wise words, the voices said. However, to forget old sins is to risk falling into old errors.
Munayair bowed with forehead pressed into the ground. “I seek only a future brighter than the past. Nothing less brings me here.”
An approving murmur rose from the legion. Munayair felt for the first time this might be going well. She straightened, pressing her hands to her eyes.
Silence fell like a mist.
What is that? said a voice, deeper and slower than the rest.
Her arm flew over her head, pulled by an invisible force. The mark glowed white against her skin. Munayair gasped. She rose, trembling.
“I ... it’s an old, it’s a birthmark. I’ve had it since I was a child.”
The shifting shadows drew closer, as flowers to the sun.
Ahhh! Such warmth.
A thin voice cried, How deep does it go?
Creaking like branches in the wind, the shapes reached inside her as the mark flared brighter and brighter in response. Munayair cried out. The pressure grew, pushing like a fist against her guts, thrashing like a living creature seeking to free itself.
“No—no!” Munayair heard herself shrieking underneath the whispering. “Don’t—please, don’t!”
A little deeper, they murmured back. Almost ...
Munayair’s control slipped.
The pressure punched through her chest. Sheets of water roared into the air, drenching her with spray. A deep humming, like the lowest string on a tobshuur vibrated in her ears. Her hair sparked and her teeth chattered in her head. A huge animal bellowed from a great distance away.
With an alarmed rustle, the shadows retreated like scurrying beetles, leaving her once more alone in the spotlight. Groaning, she fell on her face. The world whirled and spots danced across her vision.
Munayair shook her unsteady head. With each breath, the pressure eased until she could see again. She rose to her feet, swaying, and rubbed the mark. It was several degrees warmer than the surrounding skin.
It is time, kar-ler, the voices cried in chorus, to face the truth. Although you fled from it, your doom will soon overtake you.
The oathmark you wear outweighs any obligation to the Order of Adepts.
Hear our judgment. We are the spirits of the lake, guardians of the gateway between life and death, and we speak now to Munayair.
Daughter of Darun, son of Adiula, daughter of Sechen, daughter of Melrrei, son of Adya, son of ... The words continued like the peal of a bell as other voices spoke.
Sarem-oryn Munayair.
Moony.
Speaker to spirits.
Oathbreaker. Murderer.
She sat frozen, unable to even weep. What was happening? She could not understand.
Firebringer. Earthshaker.
Accursed.
True Heir of Geshuu.
... Yisu Qatun, daughter of Tuva, son of ...
You will never be an adept of the Order of Words. The voices hammered, cold and relentless.
You have walked this road for a long while. Time to retrace your steps and find the true way. The quickest way forward is the long road back where you began. You must take the first step.
... daughter of Bat-Edele, son of Adya, son of Budal...
Hurry, one urged in her ear, before the grey death silences us all forever.
The shadows reared above her, a tribunal passing their sentence. Munayair fell back.
Go, and take your names with you.
You are no longer welcome among the Order of Ink Adepts.
“No, p-please.” Her vision blurred. “I’ve worked so hard ... does that count for nothing?”
You came before us bearing the oathmark of a god, the deepest voice said. Not just any god, but the most jealous and vengeful of all. To defy that oath would bring disaster upon yourself and us.
She could not move. “Is there no way?” she cried. “What can I do?”
Fulfill your oath. Burn away corruption and free the prisoners. Give voice to the silent. Open the doorway and save us all.
A soft voice spoke, barely louder than a whisper. You will come here again, dear one. But not before you are prepared. You will know when it is time.
Go. The judges glared, harsh and unyielding.
Defeated, she stumbled backward, tripping on the edge of her robe, and ran into the dark. When she stepped out of the light, cold water dragged at her limbs. She clawed in the direction she hoped led up, lungs screaming for air.
Gasping, she burst from the inky water, coughing and shivering in the numbing cold. Her knees hit gravel, and she half-swam, half-crawled towards shore. Tremors shook her, and tears ran hot as candle wax along her frozen skin. Witchlights dazzled her eyes, guiding her.
As soon as she could draw breath without choking, she dared glance up. Ten adepts stood before her in a row, hoods raised, arms tucked into black robes.
She struggled to rise. As dripping water pooled by her feet, she raised her hood and bowed her head.
“Prentice Adept Munayair Sarem-ori, the spirits have spoken.” Adept Sanrizu, precise as always.
“Time for you to rejoin the world,” another voice said. Adept Kasebi. “And take on you duties befitting the life you will find there.”
“The ink you bear is yours,” Adept Mandiwal quavered. “However, you are stripped of the adept’s robe.”
A pause. A mineral taste, flat and lifeless, filled Munayair’s mouth.
“Munayair Sarem-Ori, you are cast asunder from the Order of the Adepts of the Word. You must leave here and never return.” Attar’s voice was crisp, clear, and it cut through Munayair like a knife.
Munayair fought for words. “W-wait,” she gasped, shaking from head to foot. “I d-don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”
She turned towards the black-shrouded figures. They watched, unmoved. Her eyes landed on the hunched form of the high adept, and an involuntary shudder ran over her.
“M-milady High Adept? Please, help me!” she cried, voice cracking. She dragged back her sleeve to uncover the mark on her wrist. The gathered teachers stirred, murmuring, but the high adept made no sign of having heard or seen. Munayair’s teeth chattered and she forced words between them. “The spirits saw this and denied me entrance to the Order of Adepts. You have to speak to them, explain!”
Adept Attar moved quickly, stepping between Munayair and the high adept and slapping Munayair so hard her head jerked to the side. “How dare you address her, you worthless dust eater?” she hissed. Someone gasped, quickly stifled. Mandiwal took the high adept’s arm, whispering in her ear. Ajhai’s head doddered on her neck and she turned, shuffling into the darkne
ss.
Munayair yelled through her aching jaw, all dignity forgotten. “Don’t turn away from me! I know you can speak!”
She took a step after the high adept, and her numb legs buckled. Only Sanrizu’s strong hands kept her from collapsing onto her face. “Let it go,” Sanrizu hissed. “Once the spirits have spoken, none can overturn their judgment. Not even her.”
“I said it, eight years ago,” Adept Attar spoke for all to hear, “when Simrat brought her here. We should never have allowed a Sayakhun pagan inside these walls. It’s blasphemy and will lead only to trouble. And now I have been vindicated.”
Adept Kasebi’s hand landed on Munayair’s arm. Sanrizu stood on Munayair’s other side, and both women looked at Attar without expression.
“And at the time, Adept Ajhai dismissed your concerns as blind superstition,” Kasebi said quietly but distinctly. “Too bad her illness prevents her from dealing with you now. Tell me, Mahsa Attar, have you enjoyed the past eight years with no one to check your ambition and greed?”
Attar glanced between them, eyes narrowed. Tension thickened the air, and Munayair struggled for breath. Adept Attar’s scowl lengthened. She whirled, white moon flashing, and was gone.
Munayair turned to Sanrizu. “Please help me,” she wept, fingers curling around folds of silk on the adept’s arms.
“Stand straight,” Sanrizu snapped, shaking her off. “Walk out of here without looking back. You have to leave your robe, but at least you can retain your dignity.”
Standing alone, Munayair found all her tears had dried. With steady hands, she unbuttoned the purple tunic she had worn since last initiation. Water-laden silk puddled on the floor, and she stepped away in her shift. Exposed skin rippled with goosebumps as she walked up the smooth stone corridor. Towards her former home. After the struggles getting to the lake, the walk back seemed very short. A corridor, a spiral staircase, and at the top a door opened into the courtyard where Anjita had taught her class. Stars blazed overhead. Thirteenth bell had long since passed, and Howler hung low in the sky. Bader had already vanished below the horizon.
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