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

by G. L. Breedon

  “That was well worth losing an inn to fire and being hounded by men set to kill us.” Rankarus exhaled in supreme contentment.

  “It is good to know that your stamina has not decreased with age.” Kellatra laughed and kissed his chest.

  “My stamina may be intact, but I doubt I’ll be able to bend over tomorrow.” Rankarus slid a hand beneath his lower back.

  “As you mention tomorrow, we will need to decide our course soon.” Kellatra felt hesitant to raise such a potentially divisive subject after such profound intimacy.

  “Are you still set on following the pilgrims to a land no one has ever returned from?” The tone of his voice indicated his low opinion of the idea.

  “Yes.” Kellatra sighed, her frustration beginning to evaporate the fog of bliss clouding her mind. “I meant that we must decide which road to take west. I thought we were in agreement in this.”

  “We were. Then men held knives to our children’s necks.” Rankarus did not alter his skeptical tone, although his arm remained gently around her shoulders. “It is a great risk placed on a hunch made from dreams.”

  “I cannot explain this intuition.” Kellatra bit her lip. “When I wake from the dreams, I have such an unshakable certainly about the book being connected to them. As the day proceeds, my doubts collect, but as soon as I fall to slumber again, my misgivings drop aside. And I believe the greatest dangers are behind us.”

  “I do not like these choices.” Rankarus’s body tightened against her skin. “There are too many unexplainable things happening around us. The codex. The dreams. The star. The pilgrims. It hurts my head to think of them all and what they might mean and why we are pulled into them. I don’t like the feeling of being maneuvered by someone or something. It gives me a deep foreboding.”

  “Do you feel something bad will happen if we follow the pilgrims, or do you feel something bad will happen if we investigate the codex?” Kellatra leaned up on one elbow to look him in the eyes.

  “The book has brought nothing but misery into our lives.” Rankarus shook his head.

  “It is important somehow to what is happening in the world. I know it is.” Kellatra frowned, thinking again about the intuited connection between the codex and the dreams.

  “I don’t care about the world,” Rankarus said. “I care about you and the children. Why must you be at the center of the mystery?”

  “I do not know, but I feel that I am. Or if not the center, then in close orbit about it.” She stared at Rankarus, his annoyance plain on his face.

  “You are not tied to this mystery, this damnable book, because of fate or gods, but because you wish to be. You desire to know its secrets. You want to solve its puzzle.”

  He spoke aloud the truth she had refused to fully acknowledge.

  “I do,” she admitted.

  “I know why.” Rankarus grabbed her hand and held it tight. “You’re like a hawk-hound at the scent of the curious and inexplicable. But how much are you willing to continue to risk to uncover these secrets? My life? The children’s lives?”

  “I feel I risk more, risk us all, by not seeking to understand the codex.” Kellatra wished she could better articulate that suspicion.

  “Or do you tell yourself that to assuage your fears?” Rankarus did not release her hand, but he stared at her intently. “In my old life, I had to know when to abandon a prospect as too dangerous, no matter how much coin awaited me as a reward. Can you forgo this quest in light of the danger it poses?”

  “Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

  “I…”

  The first drops of rain burst against her skin. She had only a moment between those initial splatterings before the black-ash sky above began to hurl torrents of water to the ground. They sat up, clinging to one another, feeling the air cool and the pressure drop, expecting to be soaked beneath the sudden maelstrom churning the tall grass of the glade and whipping the trees in sinuously violent rhythms.

  “I don’t understand.” Kellatra looked around, disbelieving her eyes. The rain did not fall upon them.

  “Is this you? Are you doing this?” Rankarus stared at her, his face tight with sudden fear.

  “If this is The Sight, it is not mine.” Kellatra held to Rankarus tightly, wishing to pull her dress over her head, but unwilling to release him.

  “Look.” Rankarus pointed, and she followed his hand.

  The rain fell around them in great sheets, forming a curtain of water that did not touch them but rather encircled them, leaving a perfectly round, dry space in the center of the clearing, the two of them protected within it from the sudden storm. Rankarus pointed to a path of dryness extending from that circle toward the west, a canal cut through the sea of falling water.

  “A sign.” Kellatra voiced her realization and her fear.

  As her words faded, the rain ceased, ending nearly as quickly as it began. They sat in silence a long moment, holding to each other in the cool air.

  “More like a command than a sign.” Rankarus shivered slightly in her arms.

  “Do we heed it?” Kellatra found herself suddenly far less enthusiastic about a journey to the Forbidden Realm to uncover the secrets of a mysterious book. It had seemed a plausible idea when it remained a hunch. Knowing some unearthly power demanded their obedience filled her with dread and trepidation to act.

  “As I said, I don’t like some unseen being pushing us around like blocks on a game board.” Rankarus grimaced as he looked to the sky. “It may not be a goddess giving us instructions, but something wants us to unravel the mysteries of that book. Much as I hate to say it, I don’t know that we have a choice.”

  “We head west, then?” Although she asked it as a question, Kellatra knew it to be more of a statement of intent.

  “No.” The firmness in Rankarus’s voice called her to look at him. He smiled. “West will take too long. We head south and catch a ship. We can sail around the coast to Tanjii in half the time and avoid the Shen war, bandits, and fanatic militiamen. If we have no choice but to follow this dream quest, we can at least choose our path.”

  “Very wise, but very expensive.” Kellatra kissed him and stood up, grabbing her dress and pulling on her underclothes. She possessed an irresistible urge to be back on the road again as soon as possible.

  “We’ll need to find more coin along the way.” Rankarus stood and tugged his trousers over his legs. “I know a few old tricks that could make us enough to pay for a sea voyage.”

  “We have enough coin left to buy some lead.” Kellatra shimmied into her dress and pulled the drawstrings tight behind her back.

  “Lead?” Rankarus frowned in confusion. “Do you hope to poison your way to the Forbidden Realm?”

  “Of course not.” Kellatra smiled, enjoying the effect she knew her words would have. “With enough time, I can turn the lead to gold. If we had months, we could buy a ship.”

  “What?” Rankarus shook his head in obvious confusion, his voice pitching high. “All those years of saving every small coin and you can make gold from lead?”

  “It’s not easy.” Kellatra grinned at her husband’s consternation. “Where do you think I found the funds to buy the inn with you?”

  Rankarus tied his trousers and held his shirt with one hand as he pointed at her with the other, puffing up his chest. “This must be the very last secret.”

  Kellatra laughed and winked at him, grabbing her boots and the blanket from the ground and stomping through the wet grass of the forest glade back toward the camp. She ignored Rankarus’s protests as he gathered his boots and the rucksack and rushed to follow her. She breathed a long sigh of contentment now that he would follow her. He would moan about secrets and lost opportunities and endless gold and the dangers of the sea and the Forbidden Realm and damnable cryptic books and much more — but he would follow her. He would follow her because he loved her, just as she had followed him to run an inn, just as she would follow him to the ends of Onaia when the time came — because she l
oved him.

  THE TEMPLE

  TAKSATI

  SMOKE CLOUDS hung in the air, rising slowly in the breezeless barn, curling over the salted sea flesh, dehydrating, curing, and preserving the meat for the long voyage ahead. Taksati rubbed a chunk of dried fish between her thumb and fingers before placing it in her mouth and chewing it. Dry, as hoped, but not chalky.

  “This batch will do.”

  Taksati looked around the large barn at the landed school of fish drying by the smoke and heat of three fire pits, strings holding them to poles mounted on racks near the flames. She rubbed her eyes, watching the gray swirls seeping through the newly cut holes in the roof. The barn had once held livestock, but Junari had asked her to supervise the preparation of dried goods for their journey, and Taksati had appropriated the barn and converted it to her purposes. Years as a child in a fishing town and many more helping manage the temple’s storehouses gave her ample experience in how to smoke fish and dry fruit and vegetables and organize the pilgrims set to each task. Junari’s personal needs were few, which left most of Taksati’s day spent working to secure the food they would eat in the coming weeks upon the water.

  She looked forward to being on the open ocean again. She had not sat in a boat since she left her family in her fourteenth year to apply to the temple. For years, she had wept in her pillow each night that she could not fulfill her dream of being a priest. She laughed now at the thought of an illiterate daughter of a fishmonger becoming a priest. By the time she had taught herself to read, the temple priesthood saw her only as a servant. All those years later, she served the prophet of a new goddess. She, who had envied others, now stood in a position others envied — personal servant to Junari, prophet of the Goddess Moaratana.

  “Seal them in the barrels and bring in the next batch.” Taksati spoke to the two women minding the fires and the fish as she stepped out of the barn into fresh air and sunlight.

  An ebony-skinned girl of ten or so followed her from the barn, clinging to her heels as she walked past the barrels of fish brining in preparation for the smokehouse. Nearby, three women gutted more fish for the barrels, rinsing the meat and rubbing it with salt.

  “What’s she like?”

  Taksati looked over her shoulder at the girl trailing behind her. It had taken her some time, but she had gotten used to people, especially children, asking her about Junari.

  “Why do you want to know?” Taksati did not pause in her pace, her age belying the speed with which she could move. The girl hurried to keep up as she walked along the path down to the fishing boats at the shore.

  “Because…” The girl frowned as she appeared to contemplate that question. “I want to be like her.”

  “You want to be a prophet?” Taksati did not try to keep the skepticism from her voice. It seemed every girl among the pilgrims wanted to be a prophet.

  “No. I want to be a vessel.” The girl said the words proudly.

  “You want to be a ship loaded with cargo?” Taksati’s tone teased, but she took time to give the girl a second appraisal. The child did not proceed in her questioning the way most did.

  “No.” The girl laughed. “I want to be a vessel for the Goddess. Like the Mother Shepherd.”

  “Ah.” Taksati slowed so the girl could walk beside her. “There are many kinds of vessels. There are clay cups and silver chalices. Which manner of vessel do you wish to be?”

  “I don’t know.” The girl frowned again as she put her hands on her hips. “I think a crystal vase. Big but clear.”

  “Interesting.” Taksati had expected the girl to say she wished to be a golden vessel. “Why clear?”

  “So the light of the Goddess can show through.” The girl grinned as she spoke, seeming to visualize what she described.

  “What’s your name, girl?” Taksati looked at the child again, seeing something in her she had once seen in herself long ago. Something she saw in Junari.

  “Atula,” the girl said.

  “What do you do here, Atula?” All the pilgrims had work assigned to them, even the older children.

  “After helping with the morning meal, I usually help my father with the fishing, but today, I was helping my aunt in the smokehouse. Sometimes, I help my uncle on the ships, fetching him tools.” Atula seemed proud that she did more than one thing.

  “Not anymore you don’t.” Taksati looked into the girl’s eyes as she spoke. “I have need of an assistant. Each morning, you will report to me.”

  “You want me to be your servant?” Atula halted, her eyes wide.

  “My assistant.” Taksati stopped as well, glancing over to the men hauling their netted catch from shallow boats to the sandy beach along the water. After a moment, she looked back to Atula.

  “I’ll be a servant to the personal servant of the Mother Shepherd?” Atula beamed with joy.

  “Assistant. To serve is something else.” Taksati squinted at Atula. “Now run along and help your aunt so she won’t be shorthanded for the day. Tomorrow, you’ll come straight to me in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Taksati!” Atula wavered in place, seeming uncertain what to do. She settled on a quick bow and then turned to run before skidding to a stop and looking back. “How will I know where to find you?”

  “It’s not a big town, and you’re a smart girl. You’ll figure it out.” Taksati smiled at Atula, wondering what strange impulse had governed her tongue and what she would do with a young assistant.

  “Right.” Atula grinned with sudden confidence and ran off to her aunt.

  Taksati watched the girl’s spindle legs flying up the path back to the smokehouse. Yes, the girl reminded her all too much of herself at that age. A bright flame shielded from the world by fish and the sea and family obligations, unfettered but yearning to know and see and do. Maybe the girl would become a clear vessel one day. Two great women she might say she had a hand in fashioning.

  She greeted the men bringing their haul in from the sea and the women sorting the fish to determine which would make for smoking and which would be eaten that night for dinner. Too small and the fish were not worth the effort to smoke. Too large and their flesh might rot before fully drying and smoking. As she watched the men and women working the catch, one of the fish caught her eye. She stepped closer as it wriggled in the sun beside its soon-to-be salted companions. This fish would not be kept nor eaten nor thrown back.

  She bent and grabbed the fish in her hand before the others might notice it. It would not do for them to see it. She quickly tossed it in a nearby bucket.

  “Something fresh for the Mother Shepherd’s midday meal.” She smiled at the nearest woman. “They’ll be ready for a new batch at the brine table when you’ve finished sorting these.”

  She headed back up the lane to the town. She passed many people along the way and did her best to show them the face they always saw. Pleasant but stern, rather than panicked and worried. She forced her feet to keep to their normal pace up the street that led to the house she shared with Junari.

  Once inside the clay-tiled home, she stoked the embers in the fireplace and threw new wood onto the coals, blowing on them until the flames roared. Then she looked in the bucket again. The fish flopped its tail and its two heads, red eyes staring up at her. She grimaced and grabbed the tail of the fish, swinging it to smash its heads against the stone of the hearth before tossing it into the fire. The scales slowly took light, burning a deep crimson as a rank smell of rotted flesh rose with the smoke up the chimney hole. She stood before the flames until the monstrous creature had transformed into a blackened lump of char.

  She had never seen a two-headed fish, but her father had often told her the story of catching one the day a storm rose suddenly to kill three men from the town. He told other stories of two-headed fish as well. To catch one presaged ominous events. Their unnatural nature spoke of an imbalance in the world — a portent of unstable forces taking shape to form the future.

  Leaving the hearth, she went and dug a smal
l leather pouch from beneath the straw mattress of her bed. She sat at the table near the fire as she opened the purse and spilled its contents across the well-worn boards. A pile of clay tiles skittered along the wood, each glazed in white with black and red symbols painted across them. Pavigistay casting tiles. She kept them hidden from Junari and Raedalus. While an accepted form of divination, Pashist priests tended to believe that the falling of the tiles could only be read and interpreted by one with the proper esoteric training. She had learned to read them from her mother, who had learned from hers, and so on back for generations. When she came to the temple as a girl of fourteen, she could not read the words of the sacred texts, but she knew how to read the tiles, how to tell what the cock beside the tree meant and what could be implied when the sun sat atop the harvest bale or whether a girl should accept a boy’s proposal if she cast a boat before a sword.

  Taksati looked down at the thirty-three small square tiles on the table and gently flatted them. While not traditional, she found her best readings often came from the first fall of the tiles from the bag. She paid attention to the five tiles near the center of the spread. The farther from the middle the tiles fell, the less import their symbols held for the reading.

  A sun, a boat, a pig, a fish, and a flame.

  She looked at the tiles and frowned. Not a good reading. She gathered the tiles into her hands, silently spoke a single word to mark the casting, and opened her palms as the tiles fell to the table.

  A sun, a boat, a pig, a fish, and a flame.

  Her heart beat fast as she gathered the tiles in shaking hands.

  She whispered again.

  The tiles fell.

  A sun, a boat, a pig, a fish, and a flame.

  She read the tiles from left to right and top to bottom, but they still spoke the same message. The sun stood for the Mother Goddess, the boat their journey, the pig for ignorance, the fish for death, and the flame for betrayal. She cast the tiles three more times, giving up as the sixth attempt replicated the first once more.