by Jason Fry
The fane itself was a low, pyramidal structure of cobblestone, green with creeping moss. Hejira Tenboots was sitting on its front steps, sharpening his sword. He looked up as Ramoa and Stax emerged from the bamboo and smiled widely.
“You are not late,” he said.
“Why do you sound surprised?” Ramoa asked. “It’s super annoying when you do that. Anyway, I’m never late. You’re always early.”
“Call it what you like. I am glad to see you regardless,” Hejira said. “And you too, Stax Stonecutter, though your arrival is a surprise to me. What do you think of the Rain-Jungles of Jagga-Tel?”
“They’re beautiful,” Stax said, and meant it. He’d never imagined there were so many varieties of green, ranging from the dark traceries of the vines to the brilliant squares of melons that grew in the underbrush.
“I think so too,” Hejira said. “Unfortunately, the Lost Fane was plundered long ago, and its treasury is empty. I had been curious about what would be inside.”
“Guess it isn’t so lost, then,” Ramoa said, and Hejira shrugged.
“Things can be lost multiple times. But they have a way of getting found.”
While Hejira and Ramoa compared notes on their journeys, Stax lit a torch and explored the inside of the temple. On the lowermost level he found trip wires that had been severed, rendering whatever trap they’d once triggered useless. Beyond them was a hole in the wall—raggedly cut, he noted with disapproval—and chests that contained only a few shreds of rotten meat.
Stax studied the carvings on the temple walls, wondering what they’d meant to the people who’d built this place. Upstairs, he gathered fallen stone and walled up a corner of the temple as a refuge where he and Ramoa could sleep.
Ramoa heard the noise and came to see what he was doing and smiled, but shook her head.
“That was kind of you, Stax,” she said. “But a good thing about traveling with Heji is you can sleep out in the open. As long as you don’t mind being woken by the occasional grunt or stabbing noise, of course. I figured we’d set up our beds on top of the pyramid, so we can see the stars.”
That did sound more appealing than sleeping in the temple—it smelled musty, anyway—and so Stax took apart his bed and followed Ramoa back down the stairs, where Hejira was testing the edge of his sword with one finger.
“What did you decide your code said about sleeping in the jungle treetops?” Stax asked Hejira, remembering their conversation back on the savanna.
“I debated that as I walked here,” Hejira said. “And I concluded that it is forbidden. If people live in the treetops, they are a shelter, and I have foresworn shelter.”
“But birds nest in acacias and other trees,” Stax said. “Does that count as shelter?”
Hejira looked thoughtful. Ramoa punched Stax in the arm.
“Goodness, Stax, don’t encourage him,” she said. “His code is ridiculous enough as it is.”
Hejira smiled and clasped Stax’s shoulder. “Ramoa told me what happened to you in your mine just before she arrived. I find creepers the most dangerous inhabitant of the night. They are stealthy creatures, with excellent senses. You must have performed very capably to survive that fight.”
“I didn’t,” Stax said, wincing at the memory of the creeper’s gaping black mouth and green flesh. “The explosion knocked me flat on my back. I’m no warrior, Hejira. I just got lucky.”
“This is a strange conclusion to reach,” said Hejira. “You also prefer to believe that you were lucky to survive being marooned. You might instead conclude that you are capable and resourceful in difficult situations, and take heart from that.”
Stax shrugged and muttered something.
“Heji doesn’t give out compliments casually,” said Ramoa. “And neither do I. Though perhaps you could use some combat instruction. We could help with that.”
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Stax said.
“Excellent,” Ramoa said. “Heji, you take swordplay and I’ll handle archery?”
A few minutes later Stax was standing face-to-face with Hejira, sword held in front of him, touching the tip of Hejira’s. Hejira brought his sword down, sweeping Stax’s aside, and immediately was inside Stax’s guard, blade against his throat.
“I guess I’m dead,” Stax said, stunned by the speed and ferocity with which Hejira had moved.
“No, you are just at the beginning of the learning process,” Hejira said.
Over the next hour he taught Stax to watch the way he was balancing, to sense which way he was leaning, and to sense when to give way before an attack to avoid being thrown off-balance and when to stand his ground and push back.
After an hour Stax felt a little more capable with a sword, but Hejira still made short work of him in their exercises. If Stax found a momentary advantage, he quickly proved too eager and left himself open for a countermove. And if his defenses started to crumble, fear and dismay overcame him, and he soon found the tip of Hejira’s sword against his chest.
“Your body is learning, but your mind and heart are lagging behind,” Hejira said. “A warrior never lets emotion direct the fight. Emotion will carry you to a place your body cannot follow, causing you to lose your focus. And with no focus, you are undone. Put aside your emotions, so that there is only the moment.”
To his surprise, Stax found that that helped him. By the end of the next hour, he was breathing hard, but Hejira had repeatedly pointed out what he was doing right, instead of what he was doing wrong, and had said “good” several times.
“And now archery,” Ramoa said.
“I’m too tired,” Stax said.
“Oh stop, you barely have to move to fire a bow. Come here, Stax. Aim for the cocoa pods on the side of that tree.”
Ramoa handed Stax her bow and Stax admired the weight of it and the way it fit in his hand. While Ramoa watched, he nocked an arrow, sighted down its length, and let it fly. The arrow went wide, speeding into the greenery.
“Don’t move your hands when you fire,” Ramoa suggested. “You line up the shot and then you let go of the bowstring. No more than that. The path of the arrow’s already determined, and you just send it on its way.”
“Easier said than done,” Stax grumbled, but he tried again. This time the arrow went low, thudding into the dirt.
“You’ll get it,” said Ramoa. “Here, let me show you something that might help.”
She took the bow out of his hands and nocked an arrow.
“Stand right behind me and put your hands over mine.” He moved a step toward her. “Closer, Stax, I’m not going to bite you. There. Like that. Now feel what my hands do. Keep your eyes on the target and breathe out,” she said, and he could feel her shoulders move against him as she said it. “Empty your lungs, so that you’re still. And then…you let go.”
Her hand opened under his and the arrow streaked from the bow to split one of the cocoa pods.
“Now you try it,” Ramoa said.
Stax took the bow from her hands, nocked an arrow and drew back the string, waiting for the tip of the projectile to stop making little circles and hold still. He breathed out and opened his fingers.
“Yes! That’s it, Stax! Perfect!”
Ramoa clapped her hands. Stax’s arrow had hit the cocoa pod right next to hers.
“You have further lessons to learn, Stax Stonecutter, but you are more of a warrior than you think,” said Hejira.
Ramoa returned carrying the two arrows in one hand and a cluster of cocoa pods in the other.
“I agree with Heji. Tomorrow, we’re making you a bow. This jungle wood will be ideal for building one. But for now, since you brought some wheat, we can make cookies.”
On journeys, and the reasons for them * Across the Endless Dunes * A long-awaited meeting
Ramoa built the fire, Hejira made the cookies,
and Stax was assigned to lookout duty. He paced around the circle of firelight, peering out into the dusk, convinced every bush was a creeper and every tree hid a skeleton archer.
But nothing challenged them and soon they were eating cookies, which were delicious though too hot, causing Hejira to hop around blowing comically on the overly large hunk of cookie he’d bitten off.
“The man won’t wear shoes or sleep under a roof, but he loves cookies,” Ramoa said, grinning at Stax. “He’s an odd one, that Hejira Tenboots.”
“We all are,” Hejira said, with a small smile. “It is what makes us interesting.”
“You’re certainly that, my friend,” Ramoa said. “So where are you bound next, Heji? I’ve promised to head down to Karamhés and guide a caravan south. That will bring me within a few days’ journey of River House. Do you want to come with me? They could always use another capable guide.”
“Perhaps. Though I am curious where our friend Stax sees his path leading him now.”
Stax looked at them, curious. “My path led me here. Have we done everything we’re going to do? I thought we’d at least explore the ruins to see if we missed anything, or…I don’t know, something.”
Hejira and Ramoa exchanged a look, one that made Stax feel like you do when two other people are enjoying a private joke.
“The object of visiting Jagga-Tel was to visit Jagga-Tel,” said Hejira. “I wished to learn what had become of the Lost Fane, and now I have done so. Whereas Ramoa—”
“Whereas Ramoa can speak for herself,” she said. “I wanted to observe the animals of the jungle—ocelots and parrots—and watch until I was confident I could imagine them with my eyes closed. Which I will do tomorrow at dawn, before Karamhés. Stax? What do you think of a trip to Karamhés?”
“If we’ve done what we came here to do, I need to go back to the savanna,” Stax said, holding up a hand when Ramoa’s expression grew grim. “Only to collect my gems and ore. Once I’ve retrieved them, I’ll go find this Champion and see if he can help me.”
“And how far would you travel in order to see this Champion?” asked Hejira.
“As far as I had to,” Stax said.
“For revenge,” Hejira said.
Stax shook his head. “For justice. My last night down in the mine, before I left the savanna with Ramoa, I thought about how there was nothing to stop someone like Fouge Tempro from taking away everything I’d worked so hard to collect. That happened to me, to the house my grandmother built. And it could happen again. To me. To anyone. I wasn’t Fouge Tempro’s first victim, you know. And I bet I’m also not his last. Someone like that will keep doing what he’s done, until he’s forced to stop.”
“In my experience, justice is something easy to talk about and difficult to achieve,” Hejira said.
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” objected Ramoa.
“Your sentiments, as always, are admirable,” Hejira said. “Stax, what if you achieved justice, but not for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your house was assaulted by raiders,” Hejira said. “Your possessions have undoubtedly been dispersed to the four winds. If you confront this Fouge Tempro, you may not find satisfaction for yourself.”
“It would be worth it knowing he’s been stopped,” Stax said. “However far I have to go to make that happen.”
Hejira nodded, his eyes narrowed.
“I know that look,” Ramoa said. “What are you keeping to yourself?”
“Something I heard, about this Champion in whom Stax has placed such trust.”
Stax scrambled to his feet. “What did you hear?”
“He dwells in a fortress in the Graypeaks, beyond the land known to traders as the Endless Dunes. Though it is far from endless; I have walked the entirety of it, and in both directions. From west to east it measures—”
“Heji,” said Ramoa. “I don’t think that’s the important part.”
“Ah. Perhaps not. Anyway, Stax, now that I know more about the path you intend to follow, I find it worthy. Should you wish to visit this man, I can point the way.”
“You mean you’ll come with me?” Stax asked.
Hejira looked surprised, and Stax realized that wasn’t what the traveler had meant at all. But then he frowned and looked up at the stars, his mind clearly working.
“Go with him, Heji,” Ramoa said. “I would if I hadn’t promised.”
“Very well,” Hejira said. “If Stax wants me to.”
“Oh, I most definitely do,” Stax said.
* * *
—
On its eastern margins, the Rain-Jungles of Jagga-Tel thinned and gave way to grasslands and rolling hills, which soon grew patchy and sparse, until finally they became mounds of sand that marched away to the horizon.
Ramoa turned from staring across the dunes to regard Stax and Hejira, her face grim under her glossy black curls.
“I wish I were going with you,” Ramoa said. “I feel like I’m making a mistake.”
“You are keeping a promise,” Hejira said quietly. “Like you always do.”
“Well, maybe this time I shouldn’t be.”
Hejira said nothing, and the look that passed between him and Ramoa made Stax feel uncomfortable, like he was intruding.
“Hejira and I will be fine,” he told Ramoa. “And you have a caravan to protect. Who knows, there might be some marooned unfortunate along its route, with nowhere to go and no idea how to shoot a bow. He’s going to be glad you were there, just like I was.”
And he patted the graceful curve of the bow Ramoa had shown him how to make, which was now slung over his shoulder.
“That’s true, I guess,” Ramoa said. She smiled and put her hand on Stax’s shoulder for a moment, then sighed and looked off to the south. “Heji, I’ll leave word at the caravanserai in Karamhés, or with Brubbs and Xinzi in Tumbles Harbor. Stax, I’m counting on you to look after Heji. Don’t let him decide his code means he’s only allowed to walk on his hands or something.”
“You will be late,” Hejira said. “Perhaps you should be going.”
“Love you too,” Ramoa said. She sighed again, hitched her shoulders, and began striding off to the south.
“We must go,” Hejira said. “The Endless Dunes are perilous at night.”
Stax reluctantly turned away from watching Ramoa and followed Hejira across the desert, having to hurry to keep up with the black-clad traveler’s long, powerful strides. Hejira was silent as they crossed the sand, the grasslands behind them fading to a gray-green blur. Something was bothering him, Stax realized.
“You didn’t want her to go either,” Stax said, hoping he was right and Hejira was not, in fact, considering introducing some new element to his already punishing code.
“I did not want her to go,” Hejira said. “But I knew she would. She broke a promise long ago, and she still carries the weight of what followed that decision. That is what drives her from place to place. Seeking peace, when she will only find it inside, once she forgives herself.”
Stax said nothing for a few minutes, digesting this.
“What happened?” he asked finally, when it became clear that Hejira had said all he planned to say.
“That is Ramoa’s story to tell or not tell,” Hejira said. “Now come, Stax Stonecutter. Your own story lies ahead of us.”
* * *
—
The Endless Dunes struck Stax as different from the barren shore where he’d been left by Fouge and his raiders. That had been a dreary place, but the dunes had a stark beauty. They also boasted a surprising amount of life, from the green cacti that rose from the sand like towers to the rabbits that scurried for cover when Stax and Hejira came too close for their liking.
While the sun was fierce during the day, the temperature plummeted as night appro
ached. With the sun low in the sky, Hejira stopped Stax.
“I suggest you find a suitable place to camp for the night,” he said. “I can neither utilize shelter myself nor help others create it. So you must build your own refuge. It is against—”
“Let me guess—your code,” Stax said with a sigh.
He began to dig a tunnel into a clump of rock left uncovered by the dunes’ endless reshuffling of sand. Hejira stood nearby, scanning the horizon.
“I have a question,” Stax said. “If I started on my shelter too late, and something came to attack us before I got it built, would your code allow you to do anything about it?”
“I would test myself against the creatures of the night, as I always do. In doing so, I would be defending you. But I would not help you build. That would be interfering with your path.”
Stax leaned on his shovel. “Yet you warned me I should make camp.”
“You are an inexperienced traveler,” Hejira said. “You could not be expected to know the hazards of this region. However, now you do.”
“So tomorrow you won’t warn me that it’s time to camp?”
“I will not,” Hejira said. “Because now you know.”
“Your code is very complicated,” Stax said. “The more I learn about it, the more questions I have.”
“We should save those questions for tomorrow,” Hejira said. “But yes, my code is a source of aggravation for Ramoa, and for other travelers who accompany me. Which I regret.”
The warrior bowed, then turned to face the desert. Stax finished working on his shelter and slept snugged up inside, waking now and again to hear the clanging and grunting of combat outside.
In the morning, Hejira looked haggard, slumped over his sword with dark bags under his eyes.
“Did you sleep at all?” Stax asked, concerned.
“A little. The absence of trees makes crossing the desert difficult.”
Stax hadn’t thought of that and immediately felt guilty. “Tonight we’ll take shifts. You sleep in the sand and I’ll stand guard. Unless that’s against your code, of course.”
