Adin buckled, shouting out in pain as he sprawled against his spear and onto the ground. Haraz shouted an alarm in his native tongue.
Nahrem delighted in the anguish he’d caused. Seeking another victim, he locked on Nakhet. Nahrem lunged for the woman, expecting an easy target. She deflected his ambitious assault with her spear shaft. Nakhet jammed the butt of her weapon into his shoulder, driving him to his knees.
Haraz tackled him to the ground. Nahrem’s vision filled with the large man’s face, his rancid breath almost palatable. Nahrem felt detached as he rammed his head forward into the heavier man’s jaw, the pains he would associate with such a blow never occurring. At the same time, he slashed with his knife, the guard’s chain mail and leather deflecting the blow. Someone grabbed his wrist, repeatedly slamming it against the rocks until his numb fingers released the blade. At the same time the big man on top of him, Haraz, brought a heavy fist down into Nahrem’s face. It was the last thing he saw before he fell into the Darkness.
The fine, white sand against his incandescent skin was as soft as the goat hair vest his mother had made him as a child. Raising a sunburnt hand to shield his squinting eyes against the dazzling sky, he surveyed the desolate and monotonous landscape. Nothing had lived here for eons, and nothing would ever live here again. Though different in its appearance, he somehow knew this was the place between worlds.
“Sinaya!” The sound of his voice seemed hollow in the vastness.
He reached down and picked up a handful of the white sand. Why have I returned to this place? There was a prickling along his legs and feet, like the minute bites of a thousand sand fleas. The same sensation crossed his sunburnt hands; the few grains that remained squirmed along his skin. Grimacing, he frantically wiped his hands upon his sarong, inspecting his hands afterward to ensure the strange granules had been dislodged. What is happening to me?
Ever so softly the ground beneath his increasingly tender feet began to move. Something bit him on the ankle and then jabbed him in the knee, forcing him to jump back onto the balls of his feet. Am I hallucinating? The writhing sand crawled and squirmed across his feet, leaving an itchy, painful trail of read welts. Desperately he scraped at the grit and sweat that mixed upon his skin. What is happening!
He rubbed the sole of his foot against his calf. A stinging warmth crawled along his ankle, searing the flesh as it went. He cried in pain. I need to escape! But where!
The burning sensation in his feet shot up his shins and across his calves. His vision swam. Not knowing what else to do, he ran.
“Sinaya! Help me, by the Great Sun help me! Sinaya!” He needed her help. He needed to know why he was here, what was happening to him. “Sinaya!”
With every stride, his muscles exploded in a white-hot pain. He was no longer sure where he was or what he was doing. All he knew was the pain, and the undulating sand which followed him like a massive storm. I must escape! It will consume me!
The storm roared, he heard voices in that roar, like the screams of a thousand people being consumed by their worst nightmares. His scream joined theirs. Knees buckling, he skidded across the ravenous grit, each minute granule digging into his exposed flesh. I don’t want to die!
“So live,” Sinya’s voice was like a beacon in the storm that roared within him. He searched for her but saw nothing but the bleakness of the Between.
The wave of sand sped towards him. In its mass he could see the contorted faces of those who screamed, their visage paralyzing him, holding him against the ravaging sand. Only his head was capable of movement.
Fine grit flew into his eyes, stinging him like the sand ants he was taught to avoid as a child. The swirling cloud of fine grit covered him, burying him in a shallow grave. He screamed. I need to find a way out of this before I’m buried alive!
“When and how you die is your choice.” Sinaya’s words rang true in his mind, jarring him to the present. Had she spoken them again or was it just in his memory? Tapping into the calm he so desperately needed, he found his Radiance as the swirling sand covered his face and mouth. The force of the storm was upon him. This isn’t real!
The first note of Anuu’s song escaped his lips as the sand enveloped him. He coughed, spat the stinging grit from his mouth, and sang the note again. Calm began to flow over him and from him. The storm beat upon that calmness and was repulsed. His confidence grew as that first note filled him. He pushed back at the sand with his Radiance. The circle of his calm widened. Another voice joined his own, though where it originated, he knew not. Thirty paces from his position he had scoured the dried, parched ground of the insidious sand. The landscape began to resemble what he had remembered in his first visit.
The second voice subtly grew in volume, and where once there was a single note accompanying him, now there existed a melody, its tempo building. As that tempo built it blasted the landscape of the sand so that only the parched salt flat remained. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the song that played about him, his own voice now silent. Finyaka could feel the music.
Euphoria filled his being as he searched for the source of that divine Song. An urge to dance took him, as the crescendo grew. A chorus of a thousand disembodied voices filled the air about him. With excruciating precision, he could make out each individual voice. Each mage-priest that sang the Radiance into existence. This is the Radiance! His pace soon matched the insistent, filling him with a joy he had never experienced before. All his cares were being burned away. Is this what it feels like to be chosen?
He wept, thinking of Sinaya as her words flowed through his mind. "So live, live a life, unlike other mage-priests."
“How? How will it be unlike other mage-priests?”
“Or not,” came her ethereal response. “It is your choice.”
Finyaka wanted to sing with the disembodied choir that surrounded him with their chorus. Anuu’s power pulsated through him.
“You still have a choice.” A whisper from the grave that floated through his mind.
Bathed in the glory of the Great Sun, feeling it call to him, Finyaka made his choice. He opened his eyes. They seared and boiled away, yet he felt no pain.
Grateful for his life, and the coolness of the morning air, Matasa inhaled slowly. If this were his last breath, he could die happy. Well, maybe, if he knew that Finyaka was going to be okay in Old Sondha’s care.
Sweat drenched the broad-shouldered healer as he lashed a wooden chest onto the most patient camel Matasa had ever seen, not that he was familiar with camels. Matasa packed the last of Sondha’s rolled rugs into another chest, thankful that not only was he of help to someone but also that that particular someone had more than shown his appreciation. After a restorative sleep, Matasa woke to a fulfilling breakfast of warm flat breed and dates prepared by Sondha’s own hands. He hadn’t, however, risked asking his healer-host about Finyaka’s missing golden armband.
“Is Finyaka safe to travel?” Matasa lifted the second chest.
“Yes, he will be safe to travel, although I am a bit concerned.” The healer pulled a handkerchief from his tunic and wiped his brow. With his free hand, he produced a wineskin from his voluminous vest. He yanked out the stopper with his teeth, then let it dangle from its cord. Sondha took half a dozen gulps and then offered it to Matasa, who declined. He’d learned early on that Sondha survived on alcohol and ambition, and he was all out of ambition.
“Why?” asked Matasa.
Sondha wrapped the wineskin with his handkerchief, corked it, and vanished it back into his vest like magic. “I may not seem like much of a healer, but what I know, I know well. Your cousin will survive the day’s traverse to Onubaki, but he should have come out of his sun-sleep by now. Something holds him there. I wish I knew what.” He shrugged and took the chest from Matasa.
An armed guard stopped to address Sondha. “That bag of filth from last night is still out cold,” she said, picking dried blood from her bandaged hand. “Should I leave him behind?”
“No, N
akhet,” scolded the old healer as if he spoke to a petulant child. “Nahdas wants him alive.”
Nahdas, Matasa had learned over breakfast, owned the caravan. Sondha described him as a savvy merchant who could turn a profit from a dung heap. Through Sondha, Nahdas had said that once the caravan reached Onubaki, Matasa and Finyaka were free to go. If Finyaka survives.
Sondha secured the last of the ropes. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. Matasa didn’t know a person could perspire that much. “Let me finish here first, then I’ll take a look at him.”
“Make it soon.” Nakhet grinned mischievously. “Ahken and Haraz are trying to conceive a plausible accident.”
“In which case, I’ll come along now.” The big man patted the camel with a comprehending nod, a faint smile at his lips. “Matasa, finish taking the tent walls down for me? I'll be back soon.”
Matasa strode inside the empty tent, hands upon the center pole. The drovers who had left the camel had taken Finyaka with them, to make him comfortable for the next leg of the journey.
“Did the dung heap ever give you a name?” Matasa overheard Sondha ask before Matasa pulled the upright support beam from its position.
“For what it matters, yes. He called himself Nahrem.”
Matasa dropped the pole in shock. The tent billowed outward, then fell upon him like a settling cloud of dust.
A cacophony of noise assaulting Finyaka’s ears pushed him out of the Between as if he were one of the camels being shouted at by the drovers. Labourers grunted over boxes and lashings. Camels bleated their greetings to the rising sun.
Someone sat near Finyaka, their strong body odor mixed with the ever-prevalent smell of camel. Wool prickled his back and arms. Insects buzzed around him and tickled his skin where they landed.
Most of all he felt the warmth of the Great Sun, Anuu. Light be praised, I am alive. Something must have gone wrong with his choice if he wasn’t dead. Either that or the afterlife was a merchant’s caravan. He concentrated on his environment, basking in its nuances, and afraid to open his eyes in case this was another test of his worthiness.
“I have invested quite heavily in the well-being of this supposed mage-priest,” said a nasal voice from somewhere by his feet. “Recompense for my efforts is more than fair is it not, most wise one?”
Finyaka had no idea who was speaking or to whom he spoke, but he sensed one of them had been touched by the Radiance.
“If your strays are indeed who you say they are, Nahdas,” she said, in a strong, matronly voice, “then I concur. However, you should find contentment alone in the knowledge that you have helped a mage-priest of the Great Sun.”
Finyaka recognized her voice. She had sung the Great Song to him and he had submitted himself unto her and the others in the choir. Am I mistaken? Am I dead?
The woman’s words captivated him. Which strays did she speak of? Who was Nahdas? How am I able to sense the Radiance of the dead?
“Oh,” replied the nasal man, “I am jubilant in knowing I have done my duties before the Great Sun, but a man does not sustain himself and his family on piety alone.” He sounded rehearsed, comical even. Finyaka chuckled impulsively.
“He’s awake!” Matasa’s shout of joy filled Finyaka with a jubilance he hadn't known in a long time. The woman called for water. Unseen hands seated Finyaka upright. The woman’s powerful presence remained, her soft hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to look at her. It was as if he had looked into the heart of the great Sun. All that registered was a bright light.
Matasa gasped and the sniveling man exclaimed, “By the Light.”
The soft hand withdrew. Another took its place.
“What happened to his eyes?” Matasa’s concern was evident in his tone and his reassuring squeeze on Finyaka’s shoulder.
“I am not sure,” the woman replied hastily. “Let me investigate? I need to go to the village. Retrieve a few…items from my home. You stay here in master Nahdas’ tent. Do you understand me?” Her tone broached no reply.
Fabric swished away from Finyaka. A tent flap opened upon the sounds of a bustling caravan camp. Finyaka’s sense of the woman’s Radiance diminished.
“What about my recompense?” The nasal man hastened behind her. After a fleeting gust of wind, the flap shut out the village sounds again.
How can I be inside? I feel the presence of the Great Sun upon my skin. Warmth on his skin pulsated. His Radiance felt renewed, connected to his every fiber.
“Matasa?” Finyaka searched for his cousin with his right hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Matasa leaned in and gave him a fierce hug.
“I thought we had lost you to the stars little cousin.”
Warm tears fell against Finyaka’s cheek.
“I walked among the stars,” Finyaka said, “in the land between the Light and Darkness. Sinaya was there. She helped me understand my Radiance. I have overused my gift, cousin. She said that I need to show restraint if I am to survive its cost.”
“You used your Radiance liberally, though I, for one, am glad of it. Are you able to walk?” Matasa’s firm hands helped Finyaka to his feet. “We made Onubaki this morning. The lady that left, that was Asho, the mage-priest we were sent to meet. She’s willing to mentor you!” Matasa hugged him again and started ushering him across the tent.
Finyaka stopped. He had to tell his cousin what had happened, although it pained him to do so.
“The Great Sun Anuu gave me a choice.” He tried to sound as wise as Sinaya had, knew he was most likely failing at it.
“Oh? Then perhaps you should discuss it with Asho when she returns. I, too, have news for you.”
Finyaka eased himself out of Matasa’s arms. “I know what has been asked of me.”
“Amazing!” Matasa said. Once again, Finyaka found himself in the older man’s tight embrace. “Praise be the Great Sun! What does the Light have in store for us?” Matasa’s enthusiasm both warmed Finyaka’s heart and made it difficult to say what came next.
“Matasa,” Finyaka said, “I need to go to the Golden City alone.”
Matasa pushed him away, saying, “But we have done so much together.” Finyaka’s arms flew out, seeking something to brace himself against. He trembled, still weak from his ordeal. “Why would the Great Sun take you from me now? Does Anuu know how much I suffered for you?”
“I don’t know why.” Finyaka struggled to keep from feeling the hurt Matasa projected. “All I know is Sinaya said I have to defeat the Darkness before the three bands which bind the Golden City are destroyed.”
“Nothing in that statement says you need to do it by yourself!”
“I can’t explain it Matasa. I…” Finyaka faltered. His cousin’s defiant protest gutted him. Matasa had not been there, in the Between. Finyaka didn’t know how to make him understand.
“You are drunk with your own power,” said Matasa. His voice dropped to a menacing low. “You’re no better than the rest of your family.”
His words hit Finyaka harder than any of his father’s slaps to his face. The sound of Matasa leaving the tent spurred Finyaka into action. He rushed toward the village’s commotion, bumping to objects as he found his way. As he burst into the bustling encampment, he slammed hard into someone and toppled to the ground. The chaos around him assaulted his senses.
“Hey now, watch where you’re going,” The obstruction hefted Finyaka to his feet. He looked in the direction of the man he’d collided into. “By the Great Sun, what has happened to your eyes?”
Finyaka stumbled free of the man’s hands. There was no way he could tell where Matasa had gone. “Matasa!” he yelled; his voice lost in the chaos of the crowd.
Vitriol consumed Nahrem’s sensibility. The growing feral part of himself, the part that wanted nothing except Finyaka’s blood, paced in his brain like a caged tiger. After all the beatings he had endured the night he stole into the caravan, one would think that he should’ve had no mind left. Yet the torture he underwent steeled something with hi
m, something evil.
The sweaty man who smelled of alcohol, the guards called him Sondha, had given him a sun-forsaken drink yesterday before the caravan departed. The tincture was supposed to heal his wounds. Nahrem spat it out. He wanted to feel everything.
Pain fed the Darkness within, and the Darkness knitted his injuries, or so Nahrem believed. The pain would get him out of this tent, one that reeked of the old oil-burning the brazier that barely warmed the small space overnight. The pain told him that his wrists, though bloodied and tied together, were still capable of movement. Each wriggle against his bonds felt like a sand snake sinking its fangs into him. But he still had feeling. That meant he was capable of movement. He thought of the countless times his father had made his point by yanking on Nahrem’s ear so hard that he cried, or worse, forced back tears to prove his strength. Even tiny actions cause great damage.
Haraz, the guard who’d discovered Nahrem that fateful night, whipped back the tent’s entry flap. He ducked his head and strode inside, fist poised at the ready.
“It’s awake,” said the sunlit figure behind him. Nahrem welcomed another dull pain in his hip as the guard kicked him. All else seemed distant.
“Can’t believe Nahbas didn’t let us kill him.”
Nahrem smiled. He recognized the other guard as Ahken, the fourth guard that night. Obviously, the one whose legs Nahrem had slashed still wasn’t able to walk. His inner darkness celebrated its first victory; second if he counted Sinaya.
“Nahbas wants to get a good coin for the supposed adherent of Anuu, or his golden armband. Once we deliver the mage-priest safely, then Nahbas will decide what to do with this beast.”
Both laughed, one from inside and the other from outside the tent.
A plan unfolded in Nahrem’s brain. He tensed his upper body without drawing attention to his muscles. Making a show of moving his feet, Nahrem pretended that he was trying to sit up.
“Stay put, camel-dung, or we’ll forget what Nahbas said.” Haraz aimed a rough boot at Nahrem’s chest.
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 131
