Vessel

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “You have to admit it’s effective,” Korbyn said. Around them, the warriors lowered their weapons. Pia continued to sing. Wordless, the song was a soothing melody that was at once as sad as a farewell and as uplifting as a child’s laugh.

  “You know, I think I like her,” Korbyn said.

  “You’re just happy you don’t have to heal anyone,” Liyana said.

  “True.” Raising his voice to be heard over Pia’s song, Korbyn called to the warriors, “I am Korbyn of the Raven Clan! These are my companions! We bring word of your goddess! We must speak with your vessel!”

  One of the men laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  Liyana felt as though her innards had curdled. Oh, goddess, we’re too late.

  “It is vital!” Fennik said. “We must speak with her immediately!”

  “You can try,” said the man who had laughed. “Pretty sure she’s still drunk.”

  * * *

  Soiled clothes and empty jugs were strewn over the camp. Tents were pitched askew on boulders. Liyana picked her way through the debris. Behind her, Fennik had chosen the expedient solution of scooping Pia into his arms and carrying her. Left on the outskirts of camp, the horses grazed on the scant, tough grasses—they could not navigate through the rubble.

  “There are no bodies. No blood. I don’t understand this,” Fennik said. “It looks as if they were attacked, but I don’t see any wounded.”

  Korbyn marched in front of them with zero regard for where he stepped. As Liyana hopped over another shattered pot only to land on a soggy shirt that reeked of urine, she thought that he might have the right approach.

  Pia clung to Fennik’s neck. “Are we in danger?”

  “We are late,” Korbyn said.

  Liyana felt her stomach clench. Men and women perched and sprawled on the rocks. Some looked listless. Others celebrated. And others clutched jugs and waterskins as if they held all the liquid that remained in the world. Perhaps, for this clan, they did.

  “The waste here . . . I do not understand it,” Fennik said, frowning at the jugs. “They cannot be immune to the drought, can they?”

  An old woman lurched out of a tent. She wore a headdress of bones and feathers that dangled down to her ankles. The bones clacked together as she moved. “You!” She leveled a crooked finger at Korbyn. “Bah! You again, pretty talker. You can change your face, but you can’t change your soul.”

  Korbyn swept forward in a bow. “Runa, you are just as beautiful as you always were.”

  “Humph. None for you today. Runa has standards, she does!” With that, Runa lurched back into her tent. The door flap smacked her on her wide rear.

  “You can’t know her, can you?” Liyana asked. Once he was summoned, he’d come straight to Liyana from his clan. The old woman must have mistaken Korbyn for someone else.

  “She was younger then. Same sunny personality.”

  Fennik frowned at him. “Impossible. She would need to be . . .”

  “One hundred sixteen years old, yes,” Korbyn said. “Mathematics are not your forte, are they? She always excelled at convincing magicians and deities to heal any ailments.” A smile danced on his lips. “It was fun being convinced.”

  Pia sniffed. “Spare us the details of your lascivious youth.”

  Liyana quit walking. “You didn’t! What about Bayla?”

  He shrugged. “She was with Sendar. I was pining.” Eagerly he began climbing the slope toward the woman’s tent.

  “Korbyn, we have a mission!” Liyana called after him.

  “She’s the chieftess,” Korbyn said.

  He swung the tent flap open. Liquid splashed him full in his face, and he staggered back. Liyana gasped. To waste liquid, be it water or liquor . . . An image of the wide-eyed child from the Silk Clan flashed through her mind.

  Spitting, Korbyn wiped his face. “I’m honored I rate the quality refreshment, but you’ll wish you hadn’t wasted it.”

  Runa stuck her head out of the tent. “Eh, I’ll lick it off you.” Cackling, she pointed at Liyana, Fennik, and Pia. “Oh, look at their faces! Don’t worry, children. My husband would have his testicles for trophies if we revisited old times.” She wagged her finger at Korbyn. “You watch yourself, my boy.”

  Korbyn laughed, and his laughter echoed off the rocks. A few of the Scorpion Clan warriors stared at him. Others, sprawled by their tents, laughed with him.

  “You always were a force to be reckoned with,” Korbyn said.

  “You’d better believe it,” Runa said. “I hear you want our vessel. Go take her. We’re done with her.” She waved her hand toward the northern side of camp. “Fair warning, though—she’ll be less happy to see you than I am.” Smiling, Runa spat in Korbyn’s face.

  Wiping his cheek and neck with his sleeve, Korbyn trotted down the slope back to them. “Believe it or not, I deserved that,” he said cheerfully.

  Pia looked disgusted. “Water is life.”

  “I think there are a few stories you haven’t told,” Liyana said. It seemed the safest thing to say. Korbyn whistled as he crossed through camp, aiming for the north corner. She shoved the image of Korbyn and that woman into the back of her brain. She had no right to feel . . . whatever it was she felt, even on behalf of Bayla.

  Men and women were sprawled between the tents. A few whispered and pointed at them as they passed. Some laughed. Liyana tried to ignore them.

  Korbyn climbed the rocks toward a lone tent perched precariously on a boulder. Liyana, Fennik, and Pia followed him. He held the tent flap up, and they all entered.

  Inside was a young woman. Her telltale vessel tattoos were visible. She wore a sleeveless tunic that was stained with grease and blood. Near her was a heap of shredded silk and silver bells—her ceremonial dress, destroyed. Her hair flopped over half her face. Several thin braids were stuck to her forehead and cheeks. She snored loudly.

  “This is she?” Fennik said.

  “Is that her snore or a pig’s?” Pia asked, wrinkling her nose. “And what is that odor?” Liyana guessed it was the dried vomit in the corner, but it could have been the girl herself. Or both.

  Korbyn nudged the girl’s leg with his toe. “Good morning!”

  Groaning, the girl opened one eye. “Outta my tent.” She leveled a finger at each of them. “Don’t like you. Or you. Or you.”

  “That’s okay,” Korbyn said cheerfully. “We probably won’t like you either.”

  “She cannot be the vessel,” Fennik said.

  Oh, goddess, it was going to take hours to coax this girl into sobriety, much less convince her to come with them. Liyana wanted to scream. Every day they encountered more delays! She thought of her family, facing day after day, believing that Bayla would never come, believing they were doomed. And this girl, this drunk, pathetic girl, was keeping Liyana from saving them.

  “Set me down, Fennik,” Pia said. “I want to go to her.” Fennik lowered her to the ground, and Pia felt her way across the room. She knelt next to the girl, and she patted her hand. “We’ll find your goddess. Everything will be okay.”

  The girl bit Pia’s hand.

  Yelping, Pia snatched her hand back and cradled it to her chest. Fennik rushed to her and wrapped his arms around Pia’s shoulders.

  The girl giggled.

  “What’s your name?” Korbyn asked.

  “Raan. Raan, Raan, Raan. Rrrrrrr-aaaaaaa-nnnnnnn, ra-ra-ra-ra . . .” She swirled her fingers in the air as if she were conducting music. “Na-na-na-na . . .”

  “Sober her up faster,” Liyana said to Korbyn. “We can’t talk to her like this.” Liyana had once seen one of the herder boys in this state. It had taken him hours to be coherent. Aunt Sabisa had dumped a pitcher of precious water on his head.

  Korbyn knelt next to her. “Don’t bite. I bite back.”

  Giggling, the girl Raan gnashed her teeth together.

  Laying his hand on her shoulder, Korbyn concentrated. Over the course of a minute, the girl’s face flushed and then pale
d into a sickly green and then settled in the normal range. Liyana noticed she had nice brown eyes, now that they weren’t dilated. In fact, she was beautiful, if you discounted the disheveled hair and stained clothes.

  “Do you feel better, Raan?” Pia asked solicitously.

  Raan scowled at them. “What did you do?” She searched through the piles of blankets that had been tossed around her tent. “Aha!” She displayed a waterskin as if it were a trophy.

  Korbyn intercepted it and tossed it across the tent. “You’re done celebrating.”

  “But it’s a new era! We are free!” Scrambling across the tent, she fetched the waterskin, took off the cap, and lifted it to her lips. Crossing the tent in three strides, Korbyn covered the opening with his hand. “Aw, don’t let it go to waste,” Raan said. “Once the drink is gone, it’s gone. This is the last of it. Can’t make more without a miracle.” She seemed to find this amusing. “Come on. Half the clan is celebrating with me.”

  “And the other half?” Pia asked, distaste clear in her voice.

  Raan shrugged. “Drowning their sorrows. They didn’t like me much anyway.”

  “I cannot imagine why not,” Liyana muttered. She crossed her arms. All the time to journey here, and this was what had waited for them. This girl would be a greater drain on Korbyn than Pia was. At least Pia tried.

  Raan pointed at her. “I heard that. Who are you people and what are you doing in my tent? Did Runa tell you where to find me? I shouldn’t have punched her.”

  “You punched your chieftess?” Pia’s voice rose an octave.

  “You’re a judgmental little thing, aren’t you?” Raan said. “Do I enter your tent without an invitation and ruin your party? If you must know, she blamed me for the failure of her barbaric ceremony. And while I am thrilled it failed—”

  Pia clenched her delicate hands into tiny fists. “You disgust—”

  “Enough,” Korbyn said.

  “She celebrates the demise of her clan!” Pia said.

  “I rejoice that the goddess wants us to find another way to live,” Raan said.

  Korbyn stepped between Pia and Raan. He laid his hand on Pia’s shoulder, as if to prevent her from charging bull-like at the larger girl. “We need her, and she needs us, whether she knows it or not.”

  “I don’t need anyone,” Raan said. “That’s the whole beauty of being free.” She spun in a circle with her arms raised in the air, and she kicked at the clothes and blankets at her feet.

  “You are not free,” Pia said. “You have responsibilities to your clan. You must die so that your people can live. Like the rest of us.”

  Raan quit dancing and stared at them.

  Pia rolled up her sleeves to display her tattoos. “Fennik, Liyana, show her.”

  Flexing his biceps, Fennik showed his tattoos.

  “Our goddess chose not to come,” Raan said. “She granted me life!”

  Liyana didn’t move. By the tent flap, she watched the others argue with Raan, trying to convince her that this was the correct course, explaining their mission and their reasons, and resorting to guilt (from Pia) and threats (from Fennik) and reason (from Korbyn). Raan refused to believe them. When Korbyn poured her waterskin out, Raan pummeled his chest. She then shouted obscenities until Pia covered her ears with her hands and screeched as loud as a whistle.

  Liyana backed out of the tent. She let the flap fall down, muffling the sound only slightly. Men and woman clustered at the foot of the boulder, listening to the drama and taking bets on the outcome. She walked past them. A few men whistled at her. A few women laughed. A few children ran up to her and tugged on her sleeves. As before, she ignored them all.

  She marched directly to Runa’s tent and barged inside.

  Runa was dunking her fingers into a bowl of honey and then licking them, slurping as she sucked at her knob-like knuckles. “Excuse me, child?”

  “You aren’t as drunk as you were pretending,” Liyana said. “I’ve seen drunk before. You wanted to throw liquor at Korbyn because it was fun. I’ve wanted to throw things at him too. He can be infuriating.” She thought of how closemouthed he was about their final destination. “But this isn’t about him. Or me. Or Raan. It’s about whether our clans survive. Our deities have been kidnapped, and Korbyn says we need the deities’ vessels in order to rescue them. He won’t want to leave until Raan joins us.”

  Runa blinked at her. “Let me guess. Raan is refusing.”

  “You forced her to submit to the ceremony, didn’t you?”

  “It required three of our warriors to ensure her presence.” Runa dug her fingers back in the honey and scraped the bowl with her nails. “We had to threaten her cousin’s life before she would dance. But she danced while I filled the words with magic and sent them to the Dreaming. Yet still Maara didn’t come. Perhaps . . . you speak the truth.”

  “You need to force her again,” Liyana said. “You must exile her. She has a strong self-preservation instinct. She’ll know the only way to survive is to come with us.”

  “And when the time comes for her to give up her body for our goddess?”

  Liyana hesitated. “We outnumber her.”

  Runa chuckled. “Your friends are in her tent trying to convince her, aren’t they? But you, you are here. You are a determined one. And clever.”

  “The needs of the many outweigh the desire of one.” Liyana felt as if Talu were here, whispering words in her ear. “She can’t be allowed to kill your entire clan simply to hoard a few more years of her own.”

  “Ah, the certainty of youth,” Runa said. “You care a lot about a clan that is not your own. I wonder. . . . Is this out of a sense of what is right or out of a fear that you may be wrong?”

  Liyana thought of Jidali. Of Mother and Father. Of her cousins. She wasn’t wrong. “Will you do it for your people?” she asked. “Or if not for your people, then for Korbyn, for whatever he was to you and whatever you felt for him.”

  Runa didn’t answer. She dunked her fingers into the honey again.

  Liyana waited, wishing she could scream like Pia. She hated the taste of the air inside Runa’s tent. It was thick and smelled overly sweet. She felt as if the smell were pouring down her throat and permeating her skin. It made her skin itch, and she longed to run outside and let the desert wind scour her clean.

  “Yes, I will,” Runa said at last. “But I will regret it, as will those who love you. And perhaps even Korbyn himself.”

  * * *

  Liyana fidgeted, and her horse shuffled beneath her. Up the hill, Runa was breaking the news to Raan, and Raan was not taking it well. Her reaction echoed through the camp.

  Raan rattled off a string of expletives that caused Pia to wince. “You were wise to interfere, Liyana,” Pia said. “She will realize that this is the right course of action.”

  More shouting, and then a crash. Raan had begun to throw pots and pans. “I am not certain she will realize that anytime soon,” Korbyn commented.

  Liyana wondered how long they could afford to wait. She thought again of Jidali and how her clan must feel with despair pressing down on them.

  “Do you think she’ll try to flee?” Pia asked.

  “She won’t be allowed to jeopardize our mission,” Fennik said. “I’ll guard her myself.”

  “But how will you prevent it?” Pia asked. “We cannot harm a vessel. Her deity needs her body to be pristine.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Liyana said.

  Pia began to object.

  “Her goddess only needs her alive and able to dance,” Liyana said. “If Raan tries to run . . . we blind her. She can’t run away if she can’t see where she runs.”

  Pia paled.

  “You are . . .” Korbyn paused, clearly searching for the appropriate adjective.

  “Mother called me practical,” Liyana said. “Fennik, I am sick of delays. Will you fetch her? Carry her if you have to. And if she protests, we can tie her to a horse.”

  “She isn’t going to like u
s very much,” Pia noted.

  “I won’t let my family suffer because she wants to throw a temper tantrum,” Liyana said. She noticed Korbyn was staring at her. She refused to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to see what he thought of what she was saying. “We are leaving, whether she likes it or not. Fennik?”

  Fennik strode toward the tent. A few minutes later, he emerged with a sullen Raan. His hand was clamped around her arm, and he was nearly dragging her.

  Runa watched from on top of a rock. From where she stood, Liyana couldn’t read her expression. But she did notice that the clan’s warriors fanned out on either side of her. The rest of the clan huddled by their tents, watching and whispering. When Raan tried to run back toward Runa, the chieftess signaled to the warriors. Standing on the rocks all around the camp, the warriors raised their bows and spears.

  Scooping Raan up as if she were Pia, Fennik lifted the Scorpion Clan’s vessel onto a horse. She kicked him once before she sank into the saddle.

  “Fennik, tie her to the saddle,” Liyana said.

  Raan shot her a glare. “Don’t. I will ride.”

  No one spoke again as they rode out of the hills.

  Slumped in her saddle, Raan refused to meet any of their eyes, which suited Liyana fine. One more vessel, Liyana thought. She wished she could urge her horse into a gallop and race across the desert to Bayla, wherever she was. Just one more. She hoped that the final vessel cooperated easily.

  As the sun set and shadows stretched around them, they pressed on. By unspoken agreement, they wanted as many miles between them and the hills before they camped. On unfamiliar ground, Raan would be less likely to make an escape.

  As the stars speckled the sky, they selected a stretch of baked clay punctuated by rocks and cacti to be their camp. Pia commenced her nightly ritual of brushing her white hair. Fennik tended the horses while Korbyn put himself in a trance to summon water and food. After drinking away their supplies in the wake of the failed ceremony, the Scorpion Clan had had little to spare.

  Liyana pitched the tent and started the fire. All the while, she kept her eyes on Raan. The others, she noticed, did the same.

  Huddled by the tent flap, Raan was glaring at Korbyn as he caused a bush to sprout leaves. “It sickens me,” Raan said. “Killing people so they can play at being human.”