The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1)

by G. L. Breedon

  “I believe that is how you see yourself, but that is not what I see.” Nukapan did not take his eyes from Sha-Kutan’s gaze. “Would you like to know what I see?”

  “No.” Sha-Kutan’s patience, never more shallow than when thwarted in a plan, drained away at the monk’s words. He did not know why he had listened, but he did not wish to listen anymore.

  “I see a sword that is discolored from use, tainted black, but still reflective of light.” Nukapan continued to stare at Sha-Kutan. “I see a sword that can be something other than what it is.”

  “And I see a monk who’s done talkin’.” Sha-Kutan leapt forward and swung his blade at the monk’s neck.

  Nukapan raised the sword in his hand as he stepped to the side and bent his body back, under the arc of Sha-Kutan’s blade. Snapping back to an upright position, he brought his sword up to strike the back of Sha-Kutan’s blade, pushing it farther away even as he moved sideways, striking out again with the flat of his blade, cracking the larger man’s wrist.

  Sha-Kutan howled in pain as he dropped his sword. He turned, his face contorted in rage, to confront the monk. Nukapan held the blade tip toward Sha-Kutan’s chest. He wanted to charge the monk, to crush his neck beneath his fingers, to take the sword from his hands and ram it up through his bowels. The look of placid disregard on the monk’s face stopped him. He had never faced an opponent who could disarm him so swiftly, nor one who seemed unconcerned with his response. The monk represented a far greater danger than the five men he had killed only minutes before.

  “You did not expect to find a monk who knows how to use a sword?” Nukapan smiled slightly with his question. “I, too, once thought myself to be a shadow blade. But I was wrong. I had merely let the blood I shed coat me in rust, layer after layer, until I did not know that I had once been pure, clean steel, easily reflecting the light.”

  “What do ya want?” Sha-Kutan resisted the urge to step backward. He did not fear the monk or the sword, his years facing men with blades had worn that instinct down, but the monk’s words troubled him in ways more frightening than battle.

  “I want to offer you what another monk once offered to me.” Nukapan lowered the blade, but kept the tip pointed at Sha-Kutan.

  “I need coins, not words.” Sha-Kutan made to spit into the fire but found his mouth suddenly dry.

  “I will offer you words first, then a choice.” Nukapan stepped back and lowered the sword to his side. “The Pashists in Northern Juparti have a legend they tell. A tale of a kinsett named Willona who lived a thousand years ago. She was born with a birthmark of a butterfly on her neck. The girl’s mother died of fever shortly after her birth. However, her father never remarried and sired no more children, raising her as the son he did not have as well as the daughter he cherished. As rhegan of the northern territory, her father would pass his throne on to his heir. But her father had no sons, and a daughter could not inherit. When her father died in battle, the whole land fell into chaos, kinsa fighting kinsa for the right to the throne Willona’s father once occupied. Her pleas for peace were as whispers among her cousins’ and uncles’ cries for power.

  “In desperation, Willona retreated to the forest temple behind the palace and prayed to her chosen god, Landrohani, the goddess of the forests and all the creatures within them. In the middle of a forest glade, Willona prayed to her goddess to transform her, to strike her breasts from her body and fashion them into another organ. She prayed to be remade a man, to be the son her father never sired, the boy her mother never birthed. She prayed in deepest anguish for the lives of her people dying in the battles being fought to assume the throne she should sit upon in peace were she a man.

  “After hours of devoted prayer, the goddess Landrohani spoke to Willona, a voice of the forest, a voice of creaking branches and chirping insects forming words woven into meaning on the breeze that rustled the leaves. Landrohani agreed to grant Willona’s request in exchange for a sacrifice of great value. Having no means to obtain an offering, Willona chose to give what little she possessed and hoped it would be judged worthy of reward. She pulled the vines of wild grapes crawling up the nearby trees and braided them into a rope. Satisfied with its thickness, she climbed to a high branch as her father had once taught her, crawled out to the wide, strong limb, and lashed the vine-cord around the arm of the tree. She then tied the vines around her neck, said one more prayer for assistance to her goddess, and fell from the branch. As she hung from the rope, choking from lack of air, she watched the sky cloud dark with birds.”

  Sha-Kutan knew this story. He had heard it once as a child. A bedtime tale from a mother whose face he could not remember. A Juparti woman who ran off with a Tanshen man, both killed by enraged family members, leaving him first motherless, then fatherless, a boy of eight wandering Tanshen city streets alone. He listened to the monk recite the tale, caught up again in the story as he had been as a boy.

  “As Willona died, the goddess Landrohani answered her prayer. Birds black and yellow and blue and multi-hued plucked caterpillars of white and red and gray from the leaves of trees throughout the forest and carried them by wing to the branch where the kinsett’s body swung gently in the evening wind. Thousands of the caterpillars crawled down the vine to swarm the girl’s body, casting and coating it in slender threads, weaving a cocoon about her lifeless form. By the time the sister moons rose above the treetops, the dead kinsett wore a shroud of whitest silk. The goddess Landrohani, taking the form of a sky herd of fireflies, settled upon the cocoon, instilling it with the light of life. The fireflies clung to the cocoon until it began to glow from within, shining like a beacon throughout the forest glade.

  “The light within the cocoon glowed brightly all night and faded only with the dawning of the new day. As the sun touched the silken tomb, a woodpecker flew down to strike his beak against the rope of vine, slicing it in small nicks until it snapped. The cocoon fell to the ground, bursting open, revealing a man, naked as a newborn, blinking with wonder.

  “Kinsett Willona, now Kinsa Willon, rose from the remains of his silken coffin and prayed with tears of gratitude to the goddess Landrohani. That day, he returned to the castle, and through his words and the birthmark still upon his neck, he convinced his cousins, uncles, and the court that the goddess had refashioned him as a man from his former womanly form. He assumed the throne and ruled in peace for many years.”

  “I doesn’t believe in gods.” Sha-Kutan had felt his discomfort growing as the monk relayed his story. He decided he did not like the story as he had when a child. It made him think of things he wished would remain unthought.

  “Neither do I.” Nukapan laughed. “Faith in a god is not the point of the story. Do you see the meaning of the tale?”

  “Yes.” Sha-Kutan found the legend fascinating and terrifying as he contemplated its connotation in his life.

  “My offer is to travel with you for a time.” Nukapan looked down the road. “Would you like that?”

  “What sacrifice will ya ask?” Sha-Kutan saw a deeper meaning in the story than what appeared at its surface.

  “A perceptive question.” Nukapan grinned. “As in the tale, it will be for you to decide. First, though, that wound needs tending. And then, let us grant these men the respect of a burial.”

  Sha-Kutan watched as the monk put down the sword and rummaged through a leather satchel he wore strapped over one shoulder. A moment later, he produced a needle and thread. Sha-Kutan allowed the monk to clean his wound and stitch it shut, refusing to so much as even grimace as the slender metal punctured his flesh. When Nukapan had finished, he took up a camp shovel from one of the dead men’s packs and began to dig.

  Not certain why he did so, following some instinct leading to actions he could not claim as his own, Sha-Kutan helped the monk Nukapan bury the dead men. In doing so, he realized that he interred a part of himself. That realization caused him to dig the holes deeper, to pile more earth atop them, to pat the soil down more firmly. Things once buried co
uld always be uncovered.

  THE PRESENT

  A BUTTERFLY flitted past Sha-Kutan’s head, dipping down to light upon the cream-colored petals of a flower growing near the base of a tree at the edge of the woods. He smiled at the insect. He had not smiled in a very long time. That thought erased the smile.

  He pulled his dagger from his belt and gutted and skinned the rabbits. When he had finished, he took them to Lee-Nin, handing them to her by the hind legs.

  “For the pot.” Sha-Kutan nodded toward the cook pot hanging on a tripod of sticks over a fire.

  “Thank you.” Lee-Nin took the rabbits and began quartering one with a knife. “I saw you talking to Chu-Ki.”

  “Yes.” Sha-Kutan looked for the man again.

  “I don’t like him.” Lee-Nin sliced a rabbit’s head free from the skinned body. “You don’t like him either.”

  “No.” Sha-Kutan spotted Chu-Ki by the river, kneeling down to speak with his daughter, Gao-Pai, and Sao-Tauna.

  “That is good.” Lee-Nin tossed a rabbit leg in the boiling pot of vegetables and roots.

  Sha-Kutan said nothing, watching Chu-Ki smile as he placed his hands on the shoulders of the two girls.

  We may need to…

  Kill him after all.

  A butterfly drifted past. The same one? Sha-Kutan stared at it, wondering how much of its nature truly changed with the metamorphosis of its physical form and how much of his own had been remade in the past years.

  To continue reading the Fugitives story arena follow this link.

  To continue reading Sha-Kutan’s storyline follow this link.

  THE CARNIVAL

  PALLA

  SAPPHIRE-BLACK ON gold, a motionless contrast of color. The night jay sat at the edge of a crenellation atop the castle wall, silhouetted against the amber clouds of a summer sunset. Palla watched the bird as it watched something beyond her sight. A mouse possibly? Another bird? The militia making camp outside the castle gate? She would never know. The night jay took flight, falling from the side of the wall and disappearing from view.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Palla turned to the voice of Donjeo, the fifteen-year-old Nevaeo boy standing next to Leotin. The boy pushed his poorly cropped hair from his face. From what Palla understood, he’d been with the carnival since orphaned as a child and taken in by Leotin and the others. He spent most of his time eating when not daydreaming and taking care of the animals. The boy had a knack with animals.

  “When are you not hungry?” Leotin placed a hand on Donjeo’s shoulder. The man looked sad. And worried. As well he should be.

  “When I’m asleep.” Donjeo’s face pinched in thought. “No. That’s not true. Sometimes, I dream about eating.”

  “The sun is going down.” Palla looked out at the courtyard of the castle. “Maybe we should set to making a meal for everyone.”

  She, Donjeo, and Leotin stood by the carnival wagons near the south wall. After taking command of the castle, Leotin had segregated the new inhabitants into groups. The carnival workers congregated near the wagons, clustered together, mourning the loss of two of their friends — the animal trainer and the bearded child, actually a midget woman with a beard. Not far from the carnival wagons, the pilgrims sat in a spiral line circling out from Jhanal at the center, holding hands as they quietly prayed. There had been two pilgrim deaths, both men who left behind wives and children.

  The third and largest group, made up of castle residents and townspeople, massed to mourn their dead near the horse stables and supply sheds. The priest had regained consciousness and led the people in prayers for the safe passage of the fifteen dead, including his mother and father, the tahn and tahneff, to the Kam-Djen Pure Lands. The last and smallest group, the three outlanders, stood guard in front of the gate to discourage any locals from attempting to open it for the militia.

  “Not yet.” Leotin frowned. “They have all lost people. They need a little more time to grieve. But you are right. They will require food soon or they will feed on their sorrow and turn it to anger again. Donjeo, find Cook and get him working on a meal to include everyone. I’ll talk to Pi-Gento and find out what stores the castle has available and what we can make of their kitchen.”

  “Right. Cook. Food.” Donjeo nodded with a grin, brushing his long hair from his face again and running off between the wagons to find the carnival’s cook.

  “What can I do?” Palla turned to Leotin. He looked very tired.

  “Nothing yet.” Leotin stared across the castle yard to the pilgrims seated in a spiral of prayer. “You can join your friends if you want.”

  Palla followed Leotin’s gaze to the pilgrims, conflicted by the suggestion. She did wish to join them. And yet, she needed to be doing something. Something to support the carnival. To support Leotin.

  “You didn’t tell me you had the dreams,” Leotin said. “Or that you have seen a miracle.”

  “It is…” Palla considered the words she had wanted to express to Leotin so many times, yet had failed to enunciate. “It is difficult for me to speak of such things.”

  “It is difficult for you to speak of most things that have to do with who you are.” Leotin’s gentle laugh melted into a sigh.

  “True.” Palla thought to say more but instead asked a question. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.” Leotin took a deep breath and stood a little straighter. “As soon as I figure out how to keep everyone in the castle from killing each other or being killed by the militia outside.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Palla placed her hand gently on Leotin’s forearm. “You killed a tahn and tahneff today.”

  “Yes, I did.” Leotin’s shoulders slouched. “I doubt we will be playing freely in the Daeshen Dominion for many years to come. When we get out of this sinkhole of a castle, we will need to make for the Old Border Road with all haste.”

  “To Tanjii still?” Palla kept her voice steady as she spoke the name of that far-off city. She would need to make a decision then, one she had tried not to think about the past weeks. One she did not want to make. One that had kept her from speaking to Leotin of the dreams and the goddess and the miracle at the pond. In Tanjii, she would need to decide whether to follow the pilgrims to the Forbidden Realm or stay with the carnival.

  “Yes, to Tanjii.” Leotin looked again at the pilgrims. She had no doubt he knew the choice she needed to make, yet he voiced no opinion on the matter. “Go to them and pray if you wish. We could use a miracle. And there will be much work to do once the dead are burned or buried. I will speak to you later.”

  Leotin headed off to converse with Pi-Gento, leaving Palla staring at the pilgrims. She noted that the townspeople, ostensibly praying themselves, kept a great many eyes trained on the pilgrims. How long before the two groups fought again? How long could the priest, pious and angered at his parents’ death, be held in check by Pi-Gento’s counsel or another blow to the head?

  Palla did not notice her feet falling forward into motion until she walked toward the pilgrims. Ranna sat at the end of the spiraling line. Palla lowered herself to the ground and took Ranna’s hand, continuing the chain of pressed palms that flowed from Jhanal in the center. Ranna opened her eyes briefly and smiled at her, squeezing her fingers. As she closed her eyes again, she began quietly reciting the same prayer all the pilgrims spoke in whispered unison, calling the Goddess by the name they heard nightly in their dreams.

  “Moaratana protect us.

  Great Goddess, shelter us under your wing.

  Smite our enemies who would destroy us.

  Take our lost loved ones to your bosom.

  Guide and instill us with your wisdom.”

  Palla recited the words in a soft breath, losing herself to the rhythm of repetition, her body swaying slightly as the cadence continued. A tingling sensation started in the hand wound with Ranna’s fingers, running up her arm and to her heart as it grew in vibratory power. Her heart opened and grew light, the weighted ev
ents of the day burning away as rising smoke that cleared her body, leaving her mind empty of worry. That emptiness filled with a sense of wellbeing, passed to her from Ranna’s touch. Did that sensation originate with Ranna or Jhanal, or did it come directly from the Goddess?

  She had spent more and more time with Ranna and the pilgrims in the days since the miracle at the pond. She found her childhood faith in Tot Gioth, in Mother Creator and Father Destroyer, shaken. In her teens, she had been devoted, but that devotion withered as the years passed. With her departure from her home to travel with the carnival as it journeyed from land to land, and Leotin and the others feigning whatever faith the locals required, she discovered her cynicism waxing as her belief waned.

  After the miracle at the pond, she felt shattered and reassembled. How could she not believe the things she had witnessed with her own eyes? Ranna had called for the Goddess Moaratana to shield them, and she had done so in the most inexplicable manner. Palla had ignored the dreams and explained away the new night star as simple coincidence, but she could not reject the evidence of her own experience. As real as her hand now holding fast to Ranna, the Goddess touched the world and did so to protect her. Surely the Goddess would do so again to guard a larger number of her flock.

  These had been Ranna’s words when the wooden gate of the castle closed behind them and the militia approached. If the Goddess protected the two of them, she would certainly intervene to defend a whole pilgrim band. Palla’s burgeoning faith had been shaken after the attack of the townspeople, but Ranna defended the Goddess’s hesitance to act, explaining that the pilgrims had so far been able to tend to their own defense. The Goddess would act when their own strength proved too little for the task.

  Palla accepted this notion the way she took all of Ranna’s pronouncements about the Goddess — with amazement at her friend’s utter conviction. Even after the miracle, even with her faith transferred and reborn, Palla did not possess that depth of belief. She wanted to trust in the Goddess, but found it easier to invest her allegiance in people, and she held little confidence in most of those. Ranna had become an exception to that stance, joining Leotin and Donjeo and a few of the other carnival folk.