As she leaned back in the chair, she wondered how she could warn Junari of this ephemeral danger. They would be betrayed, but the tiles did not name the source of that betrayal. It might be the pilgrim followers. It might be their hired captains. It might be someone trusted. Another possibility occurred to her that stilled her trembling hands and froze her racing heart — the tiles could be read to suggest that the betrayal would come from the Goddess herself.
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THE WITNESS
HASHEL
DUST CLUNG to slender silk cables of a tattered spider web, a foreground of decay offsetting the chaotic charge of men in metal, leather, and wool running from other men similarly clad, trampling the summer wheat beneath the soles of their boots. Hashel leaned back from the open-air window of the little hut. The old woman reached over him to pull the weatherworn shutters closed.
“Think we should run?” The old woman looked down to him in the murky light of the hut.
Hashel thought about the men fleeing toward the small town and the other men pursuing them. He could not hope to outrun the men, nor could the old woman. The soldiers might pass straight through the town and ignore the houses. Only a fool would try to hide in a hut with an army chasing him. Hashel frowned at that thought as he looked around the hut for a place to hide. The shanty house contained a wooden cupboard too small to crouch in and a bed too low to the floor to crawl beneath.
“I thinks we should wait.” The old woman sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m too old to run.”
Hashel nodded his head and sat beside her. The first of the fleeing soldiers roared past the hut, the flimsy door shaking on its squeaky hinges. As more men followed, the sound of their passing came to resemble a stampede of cattle, rushing mindlessly around the fragile clay brick walls. Men yelled to their comrades as they passed, and others cried out as they apparently crashed over the small stone fence behind the hut. He heard pigs squeal. Then came the ringing sound of hard metal making contact with its kindred form and the wails of men whose flesh offered no resistance to sharp steel.
“It’ll be over soon.” The old woman patted him gently on the back.
Hashel found himself shying away from her touch.
“Don’t speak, eh?” the old woman asked. “Seen things, has ya?”
Hashel paused a moment and then nodded.
“Hard ta see some things.” The old woman let her hand rest on his shoulder.
Hashel resisted the urge to pull the old woman’s hand away. Her fingers felt cold and hard.
“Harder still when bad things happen to our own self.” The old woman took her hand away and clasped it with the other in her lap.
Hashel nodded again. He held his hands in small fists on his legs.
“I’ve seen some bad things in my time.” The old woman looked up to the cobwebs dangling from the soot-crusted rafters of the hut. “Seen some good things, too. Don’t get ta choose what we sees and what happens. But we choose what ta remember and what ta cast away like chaff in the wind.”
Hashel thought about this. It sounded nice. To let a forgetful breeze carry his memories away so they could not keep him tied down. But if he cut the cords that held them, they might just as easily swirl him up in a cyclone of remembrance as leave him free of their pain.
“Where ya from?” the old woman asked. “Yer not from here. How’d ya come to be caught in a battle?”
Hashel considered this question, then pointed to the door. He did not know what the old woman made of this. Only so much could be conveyed with gestures.
“Lost, eh?” the old woman said. “I’m lost myself, I is.”
Hashel doubted the old woman could be as lost as he was. This thought made him impatient to get back to trying doors in the hopes of ending up once more in the palace where he might have some chance of finding Ondromead. The sound of men running past the hut and through the town had faded. He stood up and went to the door.
“Not one fer staying ’round, are ya?” The old woman stood and joined him as he opened the door a crack.
The bodies of dead men littered the street, bleeding pools of reddish black into the dust. No living men walked the lane.
“I knows a place we can go,” the old woman said. “A safe place.”
Hashel looked up at the old woman. He had found a safe place and wished only to return to it. He wondered if he would now find himself bound to her company if he could not find a way back to Ondromead.
“This way.” The old woman pulled the door open and pushed him through it.
Hashel’s stomach lurched as he walked from the dark hut and into cloudy daylight, stepping not onto the hard dirt of the street, but the soft grass of a familiar palace garden. His head spun as he looked around himself. He appeared to have stepped from a palace hall into the back of the garden nearest the temple. He saw the old woman nowhere. She had not passed through the doorway with him.
He smiled and raced across the garden lawn, staying close to the walls, heading for the temple. He did not know how long he had been gone, but he knew that Ondromead eventually needed to go to the temple if for no other reason than to witness the impending murder of the zhan at his wedding ceremony.
He spied two guards in leather armor holding spears near a side entrance of the temple. Both men looked back over their shoulders toward the temple nave. The wedding must have already begun. Hashel ran faster, not even pausing as he dashed between the two distracted guards.
“Iah!” one of the guards yelled out.
Fingers brushed his arm, but Hashel kept running. He raced along the side of the room, past guests dressed in fine silks of various colors with accents of red and gold. He glanced over his shoulder to see the guard giving chase, the spear still held high in his hand.
Hashel found a wider gap between two rows of guests and lunged for it, using the advantage of his diminutive size to cut past the people and into the main aisle of the temple. He looked to the altar at the head of the aisle where the priest held the wine cup high above his head. The bride and groom stood before him. It would happen soon. The zhan would be killed soon somehow. That was what he remembered the tall man saying.
He glanced back down the row of guests to see the guard clumsily pushing his way forward past men and women who cursed at him in loud voices. Hashel turned to the altar. He could warn the zhan. Try to save him. But how? Rush the altar? Disrupt the ceremony?
As he tried to decide what to do, he heard a shout near the front of the temple. The man he had heard speaking with the zhan earlier ran toward the dais. As the man dove toward the zhan something black flashed through the air. The bride cried out and clasped a hand to her arm as she fell to the ground, covered by the zhan, in turn sheltered by his protector. The man who shielded the zhan twisted and pointed to the domed ceiling as men and women shouted and screamed.
Hashel looked up and noticed a small hatch open in the temple ceiling. Something or someone heavy pushed him forward, and he fell to his knees. At first, he thought it to be the guard come to collect him. Then he noticed the legs and feet crushing around him as the guests tried to exit the sanctuary in panicked fear for their lives.
He rolled away from a man who nearly stomped his hand flat and tried to get to his feet. The rush of the crowd pressed him toward the main doors as he stumbled in an attempt to gain his balance. People shoved and pushed and kicked him — an obstacle to be removed from their path to safety. He clung to the folds of robes to stay upright, his feet barely touching the marbled floor. He noticed another child, a girl about his age, being held in her father’s arms high above the trampling feet below her. He had no one to hold him up away from danger. He had only his own feet and hands to spare him. Feet that failed him by tripping over a woman fallen to the ground, wailing as people crushed her beneath their slippers and boots.
Hashel tried to cushion his fall, but no room existed to tumble aside and his open palms took the brunt of the impact, kee
ping his face from smashing into the cool marble. His hands did nothing to stop the booted foot that slammed into the side of his skull. His ears rang and his vision blurred as he tried to push himself up, a man falling over him to trap his legs.
His breath escaped his lungs in ragged bursts as he struggled to free his feet, using one hand to protect his head from being kicked again while he used the other to shove against the smoothly polished floor. A woman’s heel trampled his wrist, and he cried out. As he held his elbow up, he managed to free his legs. Turning over, he sought to curl himself into a ball. If he could not escape with the crowd, maybe he could survive the stampede until Ondromead found him. The old man must be in the temple. He would still be searching for him. Wouldn’t he?
As Hashel bent in half, a hand pulled at his arm, raising him to his feet.
“Lost again, are you, boy?”
Hashel looked up into the face of the old woman. She smiled at him, appearing completely unconcerned by the chaos around her.
“Follow me. I know a safe place.” The old woman pulled him behind her as she pressed her way through the crowd, heading not for the main exit, but for a set of stairs to the side.
Hashel ran to keep pace with the old woman, her outstretched palm parting the crush of fleeing guests — a tall prow slicing easily through rough waters. It took him a moment to realize that she now wore robes of shimmering blue silk rather than the ragged dress he had seen cloaking her aged flesh in that hut. The way she spoke sounded different as well. How could that be? And why?
They reached the stairs, the old woman again shoving her way past guests who were trying to run up the steps and away from the perceived danger. The mindlessness of the crowd’s panic only occurred to Hashel as they made it to the top of the stairs and the press of human flesh eased. None of the people running for their lives had ever been in any danger. The archer who shot the arrow to kill the zhan would not wait to target random guests rather than flee. They were unimportant to the dominion when compared to the zhan who had nearly been killed, but they all thought of themselves as essential. So much so that they created greater peril to themselves and others attempting to avoid the minimal risk posed by staying put.
The old woman pulled at his hand, guiding him along the edge of the balcony against the flow of those egressing from the temple. She headed toward a statue at the balcony edge near the middle of the chamber. Beside the statue stood Ondromead, looking over the railing, his mouth tight with worry.
“I think you’ve misplaced something,” the woman called out as she and Hashel stepped up beside Ondromead.
The old man turned, surprise and a hint of fear blossoming across his face. He reached out and pulled Hashel to his side. The old woman let go of Hashel’s hand and smiled down at him.
“Are you responsible for this?” Ondromead’s voice carried loud and angry over the din of frightened shouting around them.
“Am I?” The old woman gave a quizzical smile. “Did I bring a boy into this?”
“It is you casting us about like seeds in the wind.” Ondromead pulled Hashel tighter to his side.
“A farming metaphor. Very apt.” The old woman looked at Hashel. “A seedling needs to be planted in firm ground so it may grow deep roots against the storms of life. It cannot be plucked up and set down again and again like a potted flower in a maze garden.”
“Leave us alone.” Ondromead pointed a bent finger at the old woman.
“It is you who should leave the boy alone.” The old woman appeared sad as she stared at Ondromead. “How long will it be before he is hurt or worse? Here is another metaphor. He is not a stray dog. You should find a home for him and let him go.”
“You do not tell me what to do, Meraeu.” Ondromead’s hand shook with visible anger as he growled at the old woman.
“I can only offer you advice.” She looked again at Hashel. “I hope to see you again one day.”
The old woman smiled at him briefly, and then she turned and walked away, blending with and disappearing into the crowd of people still clearing from the temple.
“Stay away from us,” Ondromead shouted, but the old woman had gone. He looked down at Hashel, his face serious, but his eyes radiating relief. “Stay away from her should you see her again. She is not to be trusted.”
Hashel nodded his assent, wondering how Ondromead knew the old woman and how she had come to find him in that hut. Could she be a traveling witness like the old man? Or did she have something to do with their transfer between distant locations each night? Had she, as Ondromead suggested, been responsible for him getting stranded in that town beside the battling armies? Hashel decided he didn’t care what the answers might be to his questions. He had found Ondromead again. His only concern now revolved around whether the old man would take the strange woman’s advice and leave him behind someplace. He hoped that would not happen. He did not want to be anywhere other than beside the old man.
“We should go. We’ve seen all we needed to see today.” Ondromead walked along the edge of the balcony, avoiding the few people still in the temple, keeping his arm around Hashel’s shoulder. “Let’s find someplace to wait for nightfall where we don’t need to walk through a door.”
The old man smiled down at Hashel as he affectionately squeezed his arm. Hashel returned the smile. He could not wait to fall asleep that night and wake again far from the palace and its portals and doorways and archways. As he followed Ondromead, he wondered what would become of the zhan and his bride. It pleased him that she had only been struck in the arm. The zhan had survived the attempted murder and his bride would no doubt live to complete their wedding ceremony another day. It felt good to witness something hopeful after the battle he’d seen earlier in that town. He held to that sentiment of hope, cloaking himself in it, wrapping it tightly to his inner flame to protect against the winds he sensed brewing, not from without, but from within.
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THE FUGITIVES
LEE-NIN
SHADOWS DAPPLED the foliage of canopied trees, firelight reaching upward, seeking the comforting touch of a multitude of brethren blazes cast across the infinite black of the night sky. Lee-Nin looked down from the stars visible through the layers of leaves and branches above the small clearing to watch while Sao-Tauna played with a stick as it smoked, pulling it in and out of the campfire, removing it before the bark ignited in flame.
She wondered at how such simple acts could keep children occupied for so long. Particularly a child such as Sao-Tauna. This thought brought her back to wondering, as she had so often the past days, what manner of child Sao-Tauna might truly be. What she had witnessed the girl do defied all sense and reason. She knew things could be done with The Sight that strained the imagination, but from all she understood, seers required years of training. How could a child of seven open a door of light in midair that sucked a man to another world? For that matter, what sort of creature might come from such a world to inhabit a man? Did she travel with such a little girl and such a man, or did she share the road with a pair of creatures more dangerous than any she had read about in the terrifying tales in the Legends and Fables of Hin-Ma-Ter? Could it be possible for both to be true?
Thinking of Sha-Kutan made her wonder what kept him so long in returning. He had set out an hour before dusk to hunt food for the night. She had hoped he would have come back with a rabbit or a fox by now. She would be happy for a badger or a fat wellid. She’d be happy if he returned empty-handed. She would prefer a growling stomach to staying the night alone. Of course, she would not be alone — she would be with Sao-Tauna — and she might wake to find herself pulled through a veil of light and shadow into some other realm. She shivered at the thought, her motion bringing Sao-Tauna’s attention.
“He’ll be back soon.” Lee-Nin phrased the words as though they were an answer to Sao-Tauna’s questioning face.
Sao-Tauna nodded and turned back to playing with the stick, dousing
it once more in the flames and waiting for it to begin to smoke. The snapping of a twig from the impenetrably dark forest behind her caught her attention. She assumed Sha-Kutan would emerge from the blackness to reveal his catch. A hand clamped across her mouth and drove the thoughts of Sha-Kutan from her head. She struggled and reached for the knife at her belt, but a blade pressing into her throat stilled her motion. Her heart clanged in her ears until she heard the voice speaking into them.
“Still now.”
She knew that voice well. Had heard it in nightmares. Knew the face that went with it. The warden commander sent to kill Sao-Tauna. She looked and saw another man holding the girl. Three more men emerged from the darkness between the trees around the campsite. She swallowed back her fear, the blade of the knife digging into her throat with the motion. She had to think of a way to keep herself and Sao-Tauna alive long enough for Sha-Kutan to come back and save them. At the very least, she needed to find a way to scream and warn him. It would likely get her throat slit, but he might be able to rescue Sao-Tauna.
“You can either die with the girl, or you can live to answer my questions.” She smelled the stench of unwashed flesh radiating from the warden commander as he held her to his chest. “You want to live?”
Lee-Nin nodded her head, her eyes locked to Sao-Tauna and the man holding her, one hand covering the girl’s mouth, the other clamped around her arms. Sao-Tauna did not struggle, but the look on her face and in her eyes spoke to the depth of her fright.
“Where’s the man?” the warden commander growled in her ear as he released some of the pressure on the hand over her mouth.
“Hunting.” Lee-Nin hoped he would come back and finish his hunt among the warden commander and his men. She wished now that she had encouraged him to kill them long ago.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 78