“A Pashist wheel.” The soldier sneered. “That’s a Pashist book.” He turned to glare at Sha-Kutan. “A heretic book.”
“It was my father’s,” Sha-Kutan said. “I keep it for memory’s sake.”
“You were reading it.” The soldier slammed the book down on the table as he walked back around to stand behind Sha-Kutan.
We must turn their attention to us.
That seems done.
We must distract them. Make them punish us. Forget about the dogs and the house.
“This book is a sacrilege.” The soldier leaned down to once more shout in Sha-Kutan’s ear. “The Kam-Djen priests are clear. There is only one god. Only Ni-Kam-Djen. To worship a false god is an abomination.”
“It is merely a book.” Sha-Kutan stared down at his hands, trying to feign fear in his voice.
“One you were reading!” The soldier’s arm arced down, stabbing his dagger through the cover of the book, deep into its pages.
“No,” Sha-Kutan said, struggling to hold his hands in place where they gripped the table, slowly denting the wood as he stared at the knife blade protruding from his book. “No. I cannot read. I look at the markings. It eases my mind.”
“So you’re too simple to be a heretic. Is that your claim?” The soldier grabbed the book and pulled his blade free.
“Yes,” Sha-Kutan said.
“Liar!” The soldier smashed the book into the side of Sha-Kutan’s head.
The table wood cracked under the force of Sha-Kutan’s fingers as he willed himself not to raise his hands.
We must not defend ourselves.
He stabbed the book.
We must protect the woman and child.
“Do you know what the punishment for heresy is?” The soldier grabbed Sha-Kutan by the hair, meaning to pull his head back. Sha-Kutan’s head did not move under the strain against his long hair.
Weakness. We must display weakness.
Weakness only encourages the wicked.
The soldier yanked at his hair again and Sha-Kutan relented, tilting his head back to look into the soldier’s face.
The soldier’s men, clearly unnerved by the sudden shift in the night’s events, shuffled uneasily by the door. The two men outside drew closer. The dogs pulled at their ropes, imploring their masters with low yelps to leave the house and run far away.
“I asked you a question, you mindless drooler.” The soldier shouted his words, spittle flicking out to splatter Sha-Kutan’s face.
Inner calm. Still the mind. Peace before anger. Anger clouds the mind.
Yes. Anger clouds the mind.
“No,” Sha-Kutan said. “I do not know the punishment.”
“Fifty lashes,” the soldier said. “But I could kill you and Ni-Kam-Djen would rejoice.” The soldier pressed the blade of his dagger to Sha-Kutan’s throat, the slender edge of the steel pressing into flesh, blood welling up beneath it.
Breathe in the light of love; breathe out the darkness of anger.
Yes. Love before anger.
“Sir.” One of the soldiers near the door stepped forward. “The fugitives, sir.” The words seemed vaguely phrased to allow his commander to reach a conclusion on his own that might redirect the men’s efforts.
The soldier continued to stare down into Sha-Kutan’s eyes, openly struggling to control his anger and indignation. After a moment, the soldier removed his blade from Sha-Kutan’s neck. He gave Sha-Kutan’s hair one last tug and then stepped away.
“If I had the time, I would tie you to a fencepost and lash you myself.” The soldier spat again, this time striking Sha-Kutan on the ear.
Patience. Patience sees purely.
Yes. In The Golden Path of Radiance, it says, “Patience is courage masked.”
Yes. Anger is for cowards.
“I may not have time to whip you, but I can still strap you to a fencepost and let you bake in the sun for a few days until someone finds you. I’m sure someone will come for you in a day or two. You have neighbors who visit, don’t you?” The soldier’s grin sat lopsided on his unshaven face. He pointed toward Sha-Kutan as he spoke to his men. “Find some rope and take this halfwit heretic outside and tie him to a post.”
Patience wins.
Yes. Patience.
When they are gone, the woman can free us.
We can free ourselves.
“And drag those mongrels in here and see if they can catch a clearer scent.” The soldier grabbed hold of Sha-Kutan’s shirt collar and pulled, meaning to haul him to his feet. Sha-Kutan did not move.
If the dogs enter, they will find the woman and child.
Then we must kill the soldiers.
We could fight them or show them our essence. Scare them off.
They would return with more men. And we would have to kill all of them.
“Get up or I’ll run you through where you sit.” The commanding soldier drew his sword and leveled the blade at Sha-Kutan.
They are men, sacred living beings deserving of life.
And they will kill the woman and the girl.
There are too many to kill with our hands.
“Do you hear me, stone brain?” The tip of the soldier’s blade dug into Sha-Kutan’s shoulder. Sha-Kutan did not flinch.
“Please go.” Sha-Kutan stared at the soldier, his voice low and filled with urgency.
The two soldiers by the door stepped forward as they raised their swords, their faces filled with trepidation. The men outside released the ropes holding the dogs and crowded into the small house. The dogs scampered away, watching from behind a tree in the yard.
If we kill them in this way, She will sense it and She will come.
We could give them the woman and girl, and they will go away.
And they will kill an innocent child and the woman who protects her.
“Move!” The soldier stabbed the tip of his sword deep into the flesh of Sha-Kutan’s arm. Sha-Kutan remained motionless.
The only way we can kill them is the way that will reveal us to Her.
And She will hunt us once more.
After so many years of peace.
“If you will not stand, you can sit here forever.” The soldier raised his sword, making to swing its edge at Sha-Kutan’s neck.
All our choices lead to death.
We cannot escape what we are.
As the soldier flexed his arm, putting his sword in motion, the flame of the lamp fluttered and guttered out, plunging the house into deep shadow. A darkness blacker than oblivion, colder than the grave, spread across the men, chilling their hearts, filling their minds with dread beyond expression.
The soldier’s blade stopped abruptly, as though striking rock without sound. The sword flew from his suddenly shaking hand and clattered on the floor.
Sha-Kutan finally stood — and death enveloped the room.
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THE FUGITIVES
OGTANKAA
NIGHT JAYS called their mating songs across the marshlands, the bright light of the twin moons painting in pale gray the packed dirt and worn down stones of the elevated road cutting through the watery plains.
A lone woman stood in the middle of the lane. The hunter. She raised the eyes of her dark-skinned face toward the glowing orbs in the starry heavens above. Two moons, white and cratered from ancient cosmic battles. Sister celestial bodies traveling through the sky, never touching, yet always within sight of each other around the curve of the night horizon, always showing the same faces to the world below them.
The big sister hid perfectly behind an index finger upstretched at arm’s length while her smaller sibling barely peeked around the edges of the smallest fingertip at such a distance. A child’s game. Hiding the moons. The Yiityoth tribe of the Kytain Dominion called them sisters, hiding from brother sun. The mountain peoples of the northern Nevaeo Dominion named them Lanut and
Lanua, illicit lovers banished to the night sky, forever forbidden to embrace. The fishing folk of the Punderese Coast said nightly prayers to the twin guardians of the sky, Kanma and Kanmathus, beseeching the night gods for blessings to protect them in their slumber.
The hunter, Ogtankaa, had spoken with all these peoples and many more across the Iron Realm, traveling from dominion to dominion, from lowlands to mountains, villages to cities, deserts to ocean isles. For nearly twenty years, she crossed the land, asking simple questions, listening to rumors and long-told tales, waiting to uncover a hint of a trail, searching for a sign, hoping for a signal.
When the moment came, it almost passed without awareness. It had been so long since she felt the once-familiar tremor in the field of life, that discordant vibration in the substance of reality, that she nearly missed it. It lasted only a few seconds, then passed. A momentary lapse of her prey’s long maintained restraint.
Ogtankaa always knew it to be a matter of time before her prey revealed itself through a reawakening of its nature. It could not be avoided.
We are what we are and we do what we do because we are what we are.
She had heard an old tribal shaman woman utter those words years ago. They held true for Ogtankaa as well. She possessed an essence as constrained and defined as that of her prey. And she would fulfill her destiny as always — she would hunt.
She looked down from the sister moons, her face turning toward the direction she now knew would lead her to her prey. Her prey would flee. Would try again to hide, but Ogtankaa swore to herself that she would not lose the trail again. Not after so long.
Where has it been hiding?
What will it look like now?
And what will it call itself?
More importantly, why has it been silent so long?
So consumed had she become in thoughts of her prey that it took a moment to notice something other than the sister moons shining bright in the night sky. A new star, unseen in all her years of travel, blazed in copper-tinted brilliance, heralding the direction of her prey.
Had she believed in such things, she would have considered it a blessing or an omen, and she might have said a prayer of thanksgiving. She believed in neither.
Ogtankaa began walking, following the new star westward toward the conclusion of her long quest.
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THE TEMPLE
JUNARI
CRICKETS CHIRPED their simple delight in the darkness of the forest along the Old Border Road. Moths and mosquitoes circled the campfires burning back the last hours of the night. Junari walked along the edge of the road toward the line of pilgrims congregating before a row of fresh graves, each marked by a patch of rich, black soil and a short branch of leaves thrust into the freshly turned earth above the heads of the deceased who would now lie forever beneath the ground. Women’s wails of grief clung to the moist air as the sobs of children echoed in between the silent trees. Men, too, shed tears, wiping their eyes with the backs of their hands and trying not to meet one another’s shame-filled glances. She saw Raedalus standing beside Taksati, their hands clasped respectfully at their waists. Junari did not understand how the oldest pilgrim had survived, but she could not measure her gratitude for that fact. Nor could she imagine leading this pilgrimage without her truest servant and most trusted confidant.
Of the nearly two hundred who spread out to sleep beneath the stars after sunset, fewer than a hundred and fifty remained, fifteen of them wounded so badly that they would need to be carried in the horse-drawn carts normally reserved for hauling food and supplies. They lost thirty-three men, twenty-two women, and eight children. She had lost them. Junari. The Mother Shepherd had led her flock to slaughter. Only the grace and compassion of the Goddess had saved them. The pilgrims had offered their gratitude as she helped dig the graves and prepare the dead and tend to the wounded. They thanked her for saving them and their wives and husbands and daughters and sons. She blessed them each, knowing she had done nothing. She had begged — petitioned the Goddess in a moment of fear and panic, presuming she would be dead before the words passed her lips.
But she had not died. The Goddess had provided the most tangible confirmation yet of her existence. Proof to destroy all doubts. Evidence to replace faith with certainty. And all that had been required was to ask. Why then had Junari not asked sooner? Why had she waited until her own life faced the blade to implore the Goddess for assistance? Was it because only in that moment of terror attendant to imminent death that she finally opened her heart and mind to true belief? If she had prayed to Moaratana when the first cry pierced the night air, these good people whose graves she stood before would still be alive. She could have saved them. Instead, her lack of conviction had assured their deaths.
Junari stared at the eastern horizon, wondering how many hours remained until the sun crested the edge of the world. Raedalus had suggested awaiting dawn before beginning the brief memorial, but Junari wanted to have the caravan of pilgrims on the road and away from the graves of the dead by sunrise. They had a hard road ahead. Best to bear their sorrow with them rather than let it weigh them down to immobility. She took a deep breath and looked into the faces of the people she had failed. They stared back at her with wonder and adoration and a hint of fear. They did not blame her for her hesitancy or weakness of devotion. They saw her as the embodiment of their newly named goddess. Moaratana’s earthly vessel and prophet.
Junari considered that name. Dragon Star. She had spoken it in a moment of fear, without thought. What did it mean to name a god in the absence of consideration? Had her goddess placed that name in her mind? Had Junari chosen the name, or had she merely uttered the consonants and vowels whispered to her by her divine patron?
Did names make meaning, or did meaning give rise to names? Did it matter? She was Junari, Mother Shepherd, the Dreaming Prophet, and first worshiper of Moaratana, the Dragon Star, the Goddess of the Forbidden Realm, and she had a funeral to conduct.
“This night of tears stabs at my heart.” Tears fell hot against her cheeks, and Junari ignored the impulse to wipe them away. Better they were acid to burn her face and mark her failure. She could not hide them from her pilgrims. As always, she spoke Juparti tinged Mumtiba, the pilgrims in the crowd translating to their companions who spoke Shen and Easad.
“We have lost many brothers and sisters and little ones this night. They will never see the ocean waves or the far shores of the Forbidden Realm. They will not bend their backs to help rebuild the fallen temple of our dreams. But they will be with us. They will watch over us. They will give us strength when we feel weak. They will grace us with courage when we are filled with fear. They will remind us of our promises and our oaths when we forget our purpose. And they will welcome us when we, too, pass through the slender veil between this world and the next. Until that day, we will love them and remember them and honor the sacrifice they offered of themselves for us this night — this night of tears.”
Junari did not know what doctrine the new religion might eventually hold for those who died, but she did not concern herself with theology that morning. Pashists believed in a soul born again and again into new bodies and new lives, while Kamites and the Tot Giothians believed in an everlasting life of pain or pleasure in a world beyond our own, but she did not worry what to believe of an afterlife. She knew in her heart that her goddess would protect her in this life and whatever might come once she died. And she believed the same for those who lay dead in the ground before her.
“Moaratana.” Junari took a moment to let the name be whispered and repeated among the mourners. “Goddess Moaratana defended us this night, and I assure you that she will shelter our loved ones in death. She is benevolent and loving, but she is fierce and powerful, and those who seek to harm us will feel her wrath.”
She gestured across the road to the twenty-one shallow graves, ea
ch marked with a small rock at the head of the deceased. Many of the pilgrims had wanted to abandon the bodies of the militiamen or burn them, but Junari cautioned them to respect the dead, even one’s dead enemies. The militiamen’s swords now rested in the hands of the pilgrims they had intended to kill. There would be others who wished to prematurely end their pilgrimage, and they needed to learn to defend themselves from such attacks. They had been lucky so far, encountering only small bands of militiamen and bandits, both usually turned away by the large number of pilgrims they faced. She should have predicted that her flock would eventually encounter a bigger pack of wolves. Another failure.
“We leave our dead here as we march forward, but we will carry them with every step.” She hoped the words she offered provided some small comfort to assuage the grief gripping every person she saw before her. There were other words one customarily offered to the dead. Prayers of safe passage and fortunate return. She could not use those prayers. Not with a new god and a new religion. She raised her hands to her chest, interlocking her fingers, and bowed her head.
“Moaratana, bless us in our time of sorrow. We have given our loved ones to the earth. Hold them in your bosom as we carry them in our memories. Comfort and protect them until we are reunited. Bless us with the solace of your grace and merciful compassion. Anaha, Ahana.”
Junari did not know if ending the prayer with the traditional Pashist approbation would be appropriate, but when the congregation of pilgrims repeated it in unison, she accepted it as right and proper. As the last echoes of the ancient Pashist meditative mantra faded, another noise replaced it. Gasps of wonder and guttural sounds of surprise spread among the pilgrims in a pulsing wave. Hands went up to cover hearts and fingers pointed to the sky. Junari turned with trepidation, wondering what fresh turmoil she might face.
As cheers and chants of the Goddess’s name rose up behind her, Junari stared at the brilliant crimson star blazing between parted clouds in the dark western horizon. The newly birthed celestial orb hung above the Old Border Road, a beacon to guide the dreamers of all lands to their far-off destiny. A sign of their goddess’s power and commitment to her faithful. A challenge to all those who disbelieved and abused her followers. A gift to bind each new believer to her prophet.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 7