“Dark Sight of the blasphemers,” a heavyset village woman said. “Dark Sight ta tempt us away from Ni-Kam-Djen.”
“What seer could be powerful enough to cause so many to dream the same dream?” Raedalus replied. “What seer can place a new star in the heavens? You are farmers, are you not? When the spring frost comes late and yet spares your crops, do you not thank your god? When the summer cyclone rips through the forest yet leaps over your houses, do you not thank your god? When the winter snows bury your village, yet you all survive to the thaw of spring, do you not thank your god? How can you ask us to ignore our eyes when you so clearly trust your own?”
A few of the villagers muttered a confused and conflicted assent to Raedalus’s words. He knew his examples to be poor analogies to the actions of his goddess, as easily attributed to coincidence as divine intervention, but he cared more in that moment for saving the lives of his fellow pilgrims than the theological purity of his argument.
“Some of you may have had the dreams and they may have frightened you.” Raedalus opened his hands in a gesture of calm and peace. “All of you have seen the star and it may terrify you. These are unsettling times, but you need not fear us. We do not wish to take away your god. We do not wish to take away your land or your homes. We wish only to follow our dreams and the star.”
“Ya takes our people,” a thin man with a metal tipped hayfork shouted from the back of the crowd. “Ya carry wives and husbands and children away. Ya sneak through in the night and grab ’em.”
“We take no one.” Raedalus raised his voice, indignant at the suggestion of kidnapping. “We do not ask people to follow us. We do not snatch them from their beds. The people from across the land who join our pilgrimage do so to follow their hearts.”
“The Dark Sight bitch tricks their minds,” the hayfork man said. “Makes ’em sees the things they see.”
“You see the star.” Raedalus pointed again. “Do you think this a trick? The Mother Shepherd is the vessel on Onaia of the Goddess. She is our protector and guide. She does not have The Sight and does not need it.”
Raedalus sensed the mood of the villagers beginning to shift again. The looks in their eyes transformed from curious back to scared and potentially violent. He needed to do more than merely pacify them. He said a quick, silent prayer to Moaratana, begging for guidance and protection. Then he turned to the villagers and appealed to them from his heart.
“Some of you have had the dream.” Raedalus looked around at the now familiar faces in the crowd. “I know this. Someone has had the dream in every town and hamlet we have passed through. Maybe only one of you. Maybe nearly all of you. But fear stops you from speaking out. Fear of what your wife or husband will say. Fear of what your friends and fellow farmers will do. Fear of what will happen. Fear the militias will come and the people you love and trust will turn you over to be killed or burned alive. And you should fear these things. I have seen these things. I have seen the pile of ashes and bones left when men and women and children are tied to trees and set aflame. I have seen militiamen slaughtering my friends and fellow pilgrims. And I have beheld my goddess’s vengeance. I have heard Junari, the Mother Shepherd, plead for protection from the Goddess, and I have witnessed fistfuls of lightning shatter the sky to destroy those who would butcher us. I have seen these things done by the Goddess’s hand and I am not afraid. These men and women with me are not afraid. Look at them. They are old, their muscles weak, their bones frail, yet they march toward the western ocean to follow the vision from their dreams and the call of their hearts. I tell you now, that if you have had the dream, if you feel the call to follow the Mother Shepherd, if that star in the sky speaks to your inner silent place, I tell you it will be safe to come with us. Release your fear. Embrace the Goddess. Believe your eyes.”
Raedalus held his breath and clasped the hand of the woman beside him, as much to comfort her as to still his shaking fingers. The village crowd had grown quiet at his words. He hoped they proved powerful enough to sway a few of them to passivity and that these few might lead the others in releasing the pilgrims. His only other option would be to try and push past the men blocking the road and create a diversion that would allow the other pilgrims to run to safety. It did not seem a plausible plan.
“I got the dream.”
A soft voice whispered from the back of the crowd. Raedalus turned and followed the villagers’ eyes toward a young girl of fifteen or sixteen. She stood beside a large, bearded man with a sheep staff in his hand. The look of concern on his face as he stared at her pegged him as the girl’s father.
“Heretic.”
Raedalus did not know who uttered that word.
“I’m no heretic,” the girl said, more loudly and defiantly. “But I got the dream.”
“I got the dream, too,” the girl’s father said, placing his arm protectively around her.
“So does I,” an elderly woman said from the other side of the crowd. “And I’m too old to care who knows it. Burn me if ya like. If not, I goes with ’em.”
“I goes with ’em, too.” The girl looked up to her father as though asking permission.
“We both goes.” The father looked around, his eyes daring anyone to mention burning.
Two more, a young husband and wife, called out their admission of having the dream and their desire to join the pilgrims. Then three more after that. Eight in all. Too many for the other villagers to fight or intimidate.
Raedalus and his fellow pilgrims waited for the new sojourners to grab their things and join the small band. The other villagers dispersed to the edge of the road, a few calling out curses or spitting at the new pilgrims as they passed, while most watched in confused fear. Beyond the occasional neighbor begging the new pilgrims to stay, speaking of the Pure Lands and the loss of their souls, no one offered any significant interference.
Raedalus led the pilgrims, new and old, from the village and along the Old Border Road, smiling broadly. It had not been a wonder as dazzling as lightning striking down from the sky, but he felt his goddess had performed a small miracle through him, helping him speak the words that saved them and brought more believers into her care. The Mother Shepherd, his once fellow priest, now prophet and leader, would be proud, and he desired nothing so much, not even completing the journey to the Forbidden Realm, as to make Junari proud.
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To continue reading Raedalus’s storyline follow this link.
THE CARNIVAL
PALLA
THE SONGS of crickets and cicadas competed with plodding hooves and the churn of wagon wheels on hard-packed earth. The sounds of forest life grew louder as daylight ebbed from the world. Palla reached up a pale hand to smack a mosquito biting her neck beneath her mane of crimson hair. She walked at the end of the carnival caravan, alone, a sheathed sword strapped to her waist. Her right palm rested on the hilt of the blade, trying to project the proper authority, to give the impression of skill where none existed. She could no more wield a sword than shoe a horse. The sword did not even have an edge. A dull blade of thin steel, it served as a prop for the plays the carnival performed at the towns they stopped in. However, someone needed to be at the rear of the caravan to warn of the militia. She only hoped that if the militiamen did arrive, her performance did not require the impostor blade to be removed from its scabbard.
“Do you think your friends are dead?”
Palla turned her eyes to the old pilgrim riding in the back of the last wagon. He had remained silent these last few hours. Ever since the yutan, roagg, and wyrin chose to stay behind at the fork in the road. Leotin agreed to allow the pilgrims to remain with them for the night, taking the left fork, and hoping it led south to the Old Border Road. He insisted the pilgrims leave in the morning, which assumed the three outlanders managed to turn the militiamen away or convince them to follow the other fork in the road.
“They are not my friends.” Palla gave a glance ove
r her shoulder. They were probably dead. It had been too long since the carnival caravan left them. She had seen them fight off bandits in the night, but a daylight battle between the three and a band of militiamen might not go as well. Even the giant roagg could be felled with an arrow to the head. She frowned at the thought.
“Why did they stay behind then?” The old man seemed confused.
“I am not certain.” Palla wondered about this as well.
“I am Jhanal,” the old man said.
“Palla.”
“You are from Nevaeo, no?” Jhanal asked.
“Yes,” Palla lied. She actually hailed from the Atheton Dominion, but she had spent the last year telling everyone that she was a merchant’s daughter from the Nevaeo Dominion. Both nations spoke the same language and held a similar ethnic composition. Only her accent would give her away. However, her knowledge of the various dialects and a natural facility for them left her well suited to disguise her heritage. She could also choose to speak the Shen language with a Nevaeo accent.
“You come from Atheton though,” she said. “The eastern region.” She recognized his origins as much by his clothes as the inflection when speaking the Easad tongue.
“Yes.” Jhanal smiled. “We have been on the road for weeks. We started with only five from my village. At one time, we were as many as thirty. Then the bandits. Then the militia. The frightened townspeople. The farmer who offered us his barn, then locked the doors and set it aflame. We twelve are all that remain.”
“A hard journey.” Palla wondered why the pilgrims persevered. She experienced the dreams each night herself, but she possessed no desire to realize the visions or to die in the attempt to understand their meaning. She had no inclination to die at all. She glanced at the fake sword banging against her leg and reconsidered that thought.
“Why did you argue to let us join your carnival?” Jhanal asked.
“It is not my carnival.” Palla acknowledged to herself that she often acted as though the carnival belonged to her. Possibly because she had never felt so at home anyplace else. Leotin, for all his grousing about her interference, seemed to understand this, and often indulged her by leaving her in charge of various activities. Oddly, although she had only been traveling with the carnival for a year, this assumption of status did not bother her fellow performers. They saw her as a helpful balance to Leotin’s often single-minded focus on managing his coins.
“Why help us, then?” Jhanal frowned as though trying to work out the puzzle represented by the young woman walking behind him.
“It was the just thing to do.” Palla had no better explanation. She often found she did not fully understand why she did things until well afterward. The full truth of why she had abandoned her family and her responsibilities to hide in a traveling carnival did not dawn on her until after months on the road.
“How do you know the just thing to do?” Jhanal asked.
“I…” As Palla began to formulate an answer to a question she preferred not to be asked, the wagon with Jhanal came to a halt. Commands carried voice-to-voice back along the caravan announced the making of camp for the evening.
Palla took the diversion as an opportunity to evade Jhanal’s query, helping to arrange the animals and wagons and set up camp alongside the road. As the first flames from the campfires started to cast shadows among the trees of the quickly darkening forest, a call arose from the rear of the caravan. Horses approaching.
Palla ran to the rear of the campsite, standing at the edge of the firelight, looking into the darkness along the road, listening to the sound of hooves. She could not tell exactly how many, but at least fifteen horses approached. She began to make out their shapes in the dimming light. They appeared to have no riders, or the riders walked unseen beside them. She soon discerned that only three walked with the horses. One at eye level with the horse he led, one taller than a man, and one short and thin. The three outlanders each led a string of horses, one tied to the next, along the road and into camp.
The horses bore bundles. Swords hung in sacks on some; another carried bows and arrows. Other burdens consisted of what appeared to be packs of grain and foodstuffs. The outlanders had returned with the militia’s arms and supplies.
The three outlanders came full into the firelight, halting the horses at the edge of the camp. Palla noticed the absence of wounds or blood on the three. No cuts, no bruises. No evidence of a fight. How did they manage to turn the militia away? Had they frightened them off? Bribed them somehow? She considered it possible, however unlikely, that the three might return, but to return with the spoils of battle and no sign of conflict did not make sense. Palla disliked it when the events of a story confused her.
“What happened?” Palla asked as she stepped up to the three outlanders.
“Birds,” Shifhuul said, handing Palla the reins to the line of horses he held. “Birds happened.”
“What does he mean?” Palla turned to Yeth. The yutan woman seemed caught up in her own thoughts. She looked at Palla as though only just realizing the human woman stood before her.
“I do not know. I do not understand what happened.” Yeth dropped the reins she held to Donjeo, the boy who looked after the animals, and followed Shifhuul. Donjeo looked flushed and flustered. Palla had not seen him in hours. Probably just woke from dozing in a wagon again, Palla thought. The boy seemed to nap half the day when allowed.
“It looks to be a miracle.” Jhanal stepped up to stand beside Palla.
“Where is the militia?” Leotin asked as he strode up to Tarak.
“Dead.” Tarak patted the head of the horse he held.
“You killed them all?” Leotin’s eyes went wide.
“We killed none.” Tarak looked up to the sky.
Palla followed his gaze, stars beginning to glow against the ever-darkening night, one among them redder and brighter.
“How did they die?” She stepped closer to the roagg, her eyes narrowing. She loved a curious story. Mysterious and bizarre fables had been her favorite tales as a young girl, a preference that had not diminished with age.
“A flock of birds killed them,” Tarak said. “But I do not know why.”
“A miracle, then.” Jhanal beamed in the flickering firelight. “The Goddess protects us.”
“Possibly.” Tarak lowered his gaze to Jhanal. “Or something else.”
A chill ran through Palla. She had considered the dreams to be a coincidence of occurrences outside the circle of her small world. She dreamed the dream, knew others who did, found it amazing, but did not believe it to be more than a queerness infecting people’s minds. Even a star appearing in the sky as seemed predicted by the dream might be merely chance. But a flock of birds somehow killing a militia presented a story of bewildering complexity. Could a new goddess have intervened to save the pilgrims and the carnival? Could some other entity have acted upon the world? Could one of the outlanders have The Sight?
Palla smiled as she led the horses to the camp. Her journey just became more interesting, and the truth that took so long for her to admit when she fled her family came back to her — more than anything, she wanted to live an interesting life — to be the hero of her own curious story.
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THE THRONE
TONKEN-WU
“DISAPPEARED?”
“Yes, my zhan. Gone as though they never lived.”
Tonken-Wu stood alone with Zhan Kon Tin-Tsu in his private study. He watched as the newly crowned zhan considered his news. All his efforts to learn the identity of the men who attacked the zhan the night before proved unsuccessful. The men’s bodies no longer lay within the palace. Without corpses to provide faces, tracking down anyone who might have seen or known them became impossible. A review of the ranks of the guards and palace soldiers convinced him that the night-slayers’ origins resided outside the city walls. Probably hire
d swords from the militias, or even men who had breached the southern border with the Tanshen Dominion.
“And the ceiling in the Grand Hall?” Zhan Tin-Tsu stood looking at the painting of his father hanging above a fireplace in the study.
Tonken-Wu had seen the man at a distance years ago and the likeness struck him as eerily accurate. The painted man’s face held a not unexpected resemblance to the man staring so intently into its oil-on-canvas eyes.
“I do not know, my zhan.” Tonken-Wu bowed his head in shame. His continued failure appeared entirely lost upon the zhan. A less generous man would have cast him from his sight or thrown him into a prison cell by now. “There are no marks of foul play among the support columns, nor any evidence of such with the ribbing that held the ceiling stones in place. I have heard stories of a weapon possessed by the rakthors that might have been able to accomplish such sudden destruction, but from all reports, that device is accompanied by great torrents of black smoke. I observed none as the ceiling fell. You were right about further attempts on your life.”
“The Sight, then.” Zhan Tin-Tsu turned from the painting and sighed. “Raise your head, Tonken-Wu. You have not failed me.”
“You have nearly been killed twice in the last day while in my presence, my zhan.” Tonken-Wu forced himself to raise his head, feeling shame at doing so.
“I have been saved twice in your presence.” Zhan Tin-Tsu smiled.
“Neither time with much assistance from me, my zhan.” Tonken-Wu found his voice growing tight at the memory of the previous night.
“I believe otherwise.” Zhan Tin-Tsu’s tone sounded cryptic. “You may leave me now. I have prayers to recite before I retire. Allow no one to disturb me.”
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 20