by B A Vonsik
“Very well, now,” the stranger commented as if checking off tasks needing doing. “No eyes who have seen me or mouths to speak of my passing.”
Pax, Sugnis, and the Baraan Ursan stood up with Rogaan raised up in between them, all looking at the stranger, dressed richly in clothing and armor unlike anything they had seen and with extraordinary abilities, walking off with the expectation they would follow.
“Who be dis one?” Pax asked with his thumb pointed at the stranger, blood still freely running from cuts in his arms and his head.
“A long tale,” Rogaan answered without explaining. “He keeps his name from us. Though that matters little. He is our way off this rock.”
“I have pressing matters to attend to, young ones,” the tall stranger spoke loudly for them to hear, prodding them to get moving. “It is time for grand adventures and a story of the ages.”
Chapter 6
Bindings
Symbols, bright and boldly colored, spun in his head. No longer did they dance in random, confusing ways. Instead, they moved and spun in patterns he now could follow. He felt confident, given time and few interruptions, that he could figure them out, all of them, and stop them from tormenting him. Head throbs accompanying the symbols were painful, but he found a way, a mind trick, to endure them, allowing him to concentrate on the puzzles instead of just wishing them gone. The method was crude, inflicting physical pain upon himself with small sharp sticks, but effective. Still, he rather the whirling symbols not be about in his mind and wanted relief from them, like when that Tellen was around. I wonder what became of him, Aren thought. A knock on the door startled him, causing the small stick he pressed into his left side to slip from his hand as sparks of popping lights flashed all about him, some stinging. Growling at himself, Aren’s frustration flared for not having better control of himself. He forced himself to stare forward and focus on nothing so to concentrate on stopping the stinging flashes without having to contend with the symbol puzzles with closed eyes. The stinging lights diminished, then disappeared. After a few moments of blinking and arranging himself, he felt composed enough to think. Nobody knows of this . . . hiding place.
“I know you to be in there, Evendiir.” That irritating, high-pitched voice of the young woman Tusaa’Ner commander, the sakal, was unmistakable. She spoke with tones that grated on him, though in her words now he detected a hint of disgust. “Come out. You are summoned to Za Irzal’s chambers.”
“Oh, the indignities I must deal with,” he grumbled to himself before launching into an internal tirade. That dim-witted sow of perversion wants me back in her chambers. And to do what . . . wash her floors, help her dress that cushioned bottom of hers, empty her pots, play with her? That last thought gave him the shivers that he allowed an overexaggerated flailing of his shoulders, head, and arms.
“What is happening in there?” The sakal asked with a hint of concern in her voice.
“Nothing . . .” Aren answered, trying to stall for time to compose himself before Irzal’s half-witted youngling had her city guard troupe knock down the door. When Aren felt calmed enough and composed, he stood tall and dignified as he opened the door.
“As the Za wishes,” he recited in a practiced tone as the bile rose in his throat. Endure. My time will come.
In the open doorway, the sakal glowered at him with her fists on hips. A hand shorter than himself and with her red-yellow hair pulled into a tail, she stood there with an impatient glare wearing tailored tanned hides of half armor on her booted shins, hips, upper chest, and shoulders over a white weaved tunic belted at her waist. The hide forearm guards she wore looked of low-quality workmanship, though well used. A sheathed long knife completed her tough Ursan look that Aren assumed she was trying to achieve. That glare from her tan face held a mix of disappointment and disgust. “Does not the Za do enough for you that you must find a place to pleasure yourself?”
“Whoa, pleasuring—” Aren protested as a flash of pain accompanying spinning puzzles appeared in his mind’s eye. “Not what – “
“Follow me, servant Aren,” the sakal ordered as she sharply turned away, expecting him to follow without the usual discourse and discussion. “I have instructions to escort you back to her.”
Aren begrudgingly followed the Tusaa’Ner sakal through the halls of the building where the city’s hands administrating the urban and surrounding areas slept and worked. Aren too worked but did so through his emotions at the distaste of being a servant instead of working on the paper and clay documents that lay about the tables and shelves he walked past. “Servant” is too unspecific a naming, more properly a “bonded slave,” Aren corrected the commander in his own head, knowing better than to speak his mind openly. Bonded to Za Irzal, at her request . . . demand, by the Gals’ pronouncement of his sentence. It was a surprise to Aren. He stood before the Gals, certain he would be put in prison in the place they sent the Tellen and his Baraan friend or to remain in the city jail under the arena. It wasn’t until sometime after being handed over to Irzal that he learned that it was her aide Ganzer who made issues before the court and Gals until they relented. Since then, he served her needs and whims. It would be less demeaning if she had half a brain, Aren complained to himself. The woman was beautiful despite her being in her middle years for a Baraan, but her influence over him was strong. He fought at it but unsuccessfully. I hate her for it. Her daughter, when she visited, offered a little relief from the Za’s relentless demand for attention.
That daughter, the sakal, now kept an even pace as she led him from the stone and wood building into the gloom of the rising morning sun and onto a dirt-covered gathering area where many serving Farratum’s Sakes, Tusaa’Ner, Zas, Gals, and everyone of position mingled after receiving morning bread and drink. The sakal did not slow as her boots landed on the packed dirt, swiftly transiting the gathering area as sandal-footed people dressed in neat and clean tunics moved from her path, leaving a cleared avenue for Aren to follow. Exiting the gathering area as quickly as they entered, the sakal led Aren onto a worn dirt path leading eastward through a thin stretch of woodlands, yellow and red blooms, and an occasional showing of blue flowers lining the way. Sweet fragrances filled Aren’s nose as he chased after the sakal. She seemed to be in a hurry. They moved quickly in the direction of the old temple pyramid where Farratum Zas conduct their doings and where Irzal usually could be found working. Aren felt a sneeze building up as he tripped over an unseen root.
Symbols suddenly reappeared in his head, vividly colorful and tumbling and moving almost erratically. They made Aren miserably dizzy, and with an impending sneeze . . . Not now, cursed things! Aren demanded of the symbols, then involuntarily sneezed loudly as he stood in the dirt path. In the middle of his sneeze, pounding throbs hammered his head as a vengeance of new colorful cyphers whipped around spinning and tumbling. Aren dropped to a knee as he feared falling over, not knowing which way was up. The moment his knee touched the ground, he felt righted. Concerned at his display of weakness, he immediately rose and tried to walk but stumbled several times, walking into trees and a prickly bush. “Ouch! Miserable brambles.”
“What ills you?” That irritating, high-pitched voice of the sakal rang like a bell in Aren’s ears. Her tone was frustrated as her words were without compassion. She continued with more than a hint of contempt in her tone, “I thought you Evendiir were part of the wild places?”
“You Evendiir . . .” Aren started a harsh retort before thinking of the repercussions. Spinning symbols distracted him from forming an intelligent response . . . Those two puzzles fit together. Aren found himself concentrating on them. A compulsion took hold of him to bring them close to each other, fit them, make them . . . one. Nothing else mattered. He stopped their spinning. Yes, these belong to each other. Aren rotated the symbols so the lines of each matched at the edges. He then concentrated on them touching. They moved closer. Pain everywhere! Each thumb of him screamed out in stinging torment. Aren felt himself falling and hi
tting something. Pain . . . everywhere! Stop! Make it stop! Music, almost imperceptible, flirted at the edge of his consciousness.
“Servant!” the music announced. The stinging pain diminished.
“Aren!” the music called out his name as the stinging pain fell away.
His thoughts clearing, Aren searched for the two symbols to make them one. Gone! A sadness filled him for a long moment before anger took over him. I was so close to ending this torment. Unable to see anything beyond a now-empty void, Aren felt the pressing of hands on his chest and head. That music turned to a voice, sweet and concern-filled, but unintelligible. Pay for your insolence. Reaching for a knowledge he knew not from where it came, Aren’s skin prickled as a tingling throughout his body intensified. Release!
“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!” that sweet voice screamed out in agony, then fell silent.
Confusion gripped Aren. What just happened? What did I do? His vision no longer a dark void; instead, a cloudy blur that kept improving. All the pain gone, replaced by a sense of euphoria. It filled him. I like this. Aren repeatedly blinked, wanting to see what transpired on the dirt path, wanting to satisfy his curiosity. At the same time, a fearful panic welled up within him that he had done something Irzal would find for him a “proper” punishment.
He sat quietly, allowing his vision to clear well enough to stand and walk without getting stuck again by another prickly bush. A low moan came to his ears, not far away, where a blurry lump lay, unmoving. Another moan. Aren grew concerned as he looked for any movement. None. In short moments, his vision cleared well enough for him to move. He then rose and approached the fallen sakal. Her low groans told him she still lived, but he feared she might not be well. He felt her Light wane when he released whatever he held. It was a strange sensation, unlike anything he ever felt, and her Light was almost not when she fell away from him. Now, looking into the sakal’s eyes, he saw confusion, though with an attempt at searching, gaining focus as the moments passed. Good. Her mind is still with her. Aren felt relieved he would not have to explain her death. Now, to get her not to place him in an isolated cell.
“Sakal,” Aren spoke to her in a calm way, hoping she would remember him as caring. “Do you hear my voice? Are you able to sit up?”
The sakal started clumsily waving her arms, almost flailing. Aren remembered his father’s teaching of nature and lightning and how it affected those struck by it. The sakal behaved in a like manner as his father described. What did I do to her? The sakal’s eyes showed focus as she attempted to speak, but all that came from her was gibberish. Then her arms flailed again as her legs trembled. Aren’s sense of relief started to wane. The sakal’s body trembled more before settling down to more normal movements.
“Sakal . . .” Aren asked calmly again, “do you hear my voice?”
Her eyes focused on him as more gibberish, this time almost understandable, came from her lips. Her right hand moved unsteadily to the side of his head, then grabbed Aren’s ear, twisting it, causing him terrible pain.
“Aaarrrrgggggg,” he cried out. “Let go of me!”
Dajil kept a firm grip on Aren’s ear, and there they remained until the sakal could speak understandable words, no longer in a high pitch, but in a voice both pleasant and soft. “What you did to me . . . What did you do to me?”
“I don’t know what hurt me . . . or you,” he lied, hoping it would take hold.
“Can’t feel my arms or legs much,” the sakal informed him.
Aren didn’t know how to respond. She had his ear, literally, in her hand. Each attempt he made to pull away or remove her hand was met with a painful twisting. So, there they lay and sat until Dajil managed to move well enough to sit up. She looked at him with uncertain eyes before letting go of his ear.
“I don’t know if you speak truth,” Dajil stated with a soft voice. “You looked confused and lost . . . in pain. Then, your eyes glowed when I touched you, and I felt . . . terrible pain and couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.”
“I say, sakal, I don’t know what happened,” Aren reasserted his previous words. There was much truth in them. He truly didn’t know what happened, but he knew deep down what did come from him. And Aren wasn’t about to admit that. “Let me help you stand.”
Dajil did let him help her up where she then stood with unsteady legs. She insisted they get to her mother before she sent the entire Tusaa’Ner after them. With Aren helping her keep steady, they walked out of the woodland tract and onto a busy stone plaza coming to life under the morning shadow of the looming temple.
Aren looked up at the tall, stepped pyramid with its western-facing sides and the plaza gracing its western flanks in dark gray shadows as the brilliance of the rising sun illuminated the sky beyond above the northern slope of the structure. He felt a twinge of dizziness as his eyes were drawn up to the heights of the pyramid. Aren tried shaking off the sensation but found it still with him. Tumbling symbols momentarily appeared as did the ache in his head before he managed to partition his mind and the symbols with them into a safe corner. The pyramid, once a temple to the Ancient Gula, was now taken over by those governing the city Farratum and greater Shuruppak. In there, Za Irzal and the other Zas kept offices where they conducted official affairs. A foreboding swept through Aren as he thought about entering the place. He felt it every time he laid eyes upon the ancient temple, now misused. Disrespectful younglings. Insolent ways. Aren was surprised at the thoughts in his head. Where did that come from? he asked himself. Shaking off the strange thoughts, Aren continued to help the unsteady sakal as they made their way to the front of the old temple through and sometimes around Baraans, mostly, going to and fro about their morning affairs, with only some paying them any attention.
“Everyone’s in a rush?” Aren commented to himself but aloud before he realized he spoke the words.
“They’re all in preparations,” the sakal answered partly. Aren felt light-headed as Dajil’s words felt sweet and appealing. She continued guiding Aren toward the south side of the massive granite stone construction, built by the Ancients, legends said. Aren felt the sakal . . . Dajil, was warming to him. She seems taken by me . . . good, he congratulated himself. She guided him onward, toward the main entrance sitting between the southwestern and southeastern steps, both rising from the plaza to the top of the pyramid where a temple house stood. In days of old, sacrifices to the Ancients were both plentiful and regular here, using all four staircases to ascend with offerings. Now, sacrifices were made to the officials seeking tributes and taxes and obedience by the peoples.
That uneasy feeling kept at Aren as he looked upon the pyramid entrance. Four Tusaa’Ner stood flanking the large timber double doors. The guardsmen were dressed in full uniforms; dark blue tunics under dark hide and metal shoulder and chest armor, bright red sashes, helms, hip guards, leg and shin guards, shields and short spears. The plumeless helms identified them as low rank. The timber doors to the temple stood open, allowing a throng of servants to scurry in with empty baskets and sacks and more servants to emerge from the structure with filled baskets and sacks.
The Tusaa’Ner guardsmen suddenly appeared surprised and guilty, all at the same time, when they realized one of their sakals stood before them and the pyramid doors. Two of the Tusaa’Ner quickly approached with their helm-covered concerned faces.
“Sakal,” the larger of the two guardsmen spoke, “forgive our inattention. It will not happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” the sakal replied in her high-pitched voice that Aren didn’t seem to mind, so much.
“Are you needing assistance?” asked the guardsman standing tall and respectfully.
“Yes,” she answered while her hands firmly squeezed Aren’s arm. “Bind this one. He’s a danger to the Zas and everyone else.”
Chapter 7
Temple of Sully
Aren stood in a fume, his hands and arms behind him painfully in bindings. How could she do it to me? he asked himself while standing between the t
wo cold-as-stone-faced Tusaa’Ner guardsmen that accompanied the sakal from the main entrance. They waited in Za Irzal’s outer chamber, a reception room some four strides square, with walls of granite blocks covered in tapestries, several two-person benches, and more chairs lining the walls. The coverings bore images of those in arenas and fighting pits . . . Things Aren wasn’t interested in and trying to forget of his own experience. Two heavy wood doors stood opposite each other, one leading to the main hallway, and the other leading to Irzal’s inner office chambers. An enchantress! Yes, an enchantress, Aren ranted in his head. That’s how she tricked me to the temple entrance . . . and her guardsmen. Symbols glowed brightly as they spun past his sight. No more trusting Baraan women. They all have their sways to enthrall minds.
Voices behind the closed door to the inner chambers were muffled, even for Aren’s keen ears, but the tone and pace of the words hinted at an argument. Another glowing symbol, this one blue, spun as it sped across his vision. The guardsmen flanking Aren appeared impatient, if not bored, as if this were all normal. Aren knew better the truth of the Za and her daughter. He bore witness to their lively exchanges on more than a few occasions over the months. The sakal didn’t like Aren, and the Za didn’t like his mistreatment—unless she was the one performing it. She has gone too far this time! Aren told himself about the sakal; yet, another glowing symbol, this one red, spun and sped across his vision. That one’s familiar . . . Aren became distracted from his anger. The door to the inner chamber abruptly opened. The red-yellow, long-tailed-haired sakal stood glaring at Aren with her fists planted on her hips.
