by Jo Sparkes
Clamping down on his anger, Tryst drew up beside Drail as they journeyed on. “What about Marra?”
Many men would have shown confusion, pretending they had no idea why the question was posed. Drail was not of their number. His brow lifted - not at the audacity of the question, but in consideration of the genuine answer. “Marra and I are both desert born. We’ll likely end up together on the Flats, raising fine sons. Sons who will play in games greater than any yet played.”
Yet as he spoke, Drail’s eyes followed Adeena.
“When your comet days are done?”
Drail nodded.
More questions welled up - about exactly when that would be, or what Drail would do in the meantime. And did Marra truly want to leave Missea and Agben? Tryst refrained from asking them, but only just.
Because to his own ears, he sounded less a concerned friend than a village snoop.
With the sun setting at his back, Drail made himself comfortable before the small fire. It was stoked for heating water rather than people, yet the flames provided a cheery spot to gather. They hadn’t allowed themselves tea in days, and sipping it now was a treat.
“How much farther to the Gathering?” Jason asked.
“I do not know,” Adeena replied. “We travel another day, perhaps two, to the village by the goss trees. The Leader there will take us to the Gathering.”
“Goss trees?” Drail asked.
“Another village?” Tryst demanded.
The girl waved at the string forest behind them and turned to face Tryst. “We are in an area I have never seen. And it would not be…prudent…to burst upon the Gathering without Terrin escort.”
Clearly the Prince was not happy, though Drail found her explanation reasonable. If this Gathering held the importance the Defense Master thought, surely a party of Skins would not be warmly welcomed.
“But this Leader will escort us?”
“If we declare ourselves shaka. So I was told.” Doubt clouded her eyes, and the conversation ceased, though clearly the Skullan had much to say. Drail expected questioning to resume at any time, but no one spoke again.
With no trees near, sleep-slings were spread across the ground. They slept as best they could.
5.
KIRTH WAS ALREADY REGRETTING this journey.
The land they faced the next day sloped ever up, moving them higher and tiring Kirth quickly. As the jungle did not thin, the path itself grew more troublesome, and the ache in her back demanded more rest periods.
Rain had been her responsibility, even if the woman had studied under anyone who would teach her. Kirth should have recognized her ambition, her blindness to the bars of decency. Agben still debated crossing that line between healing and enhancing; it never occurred to her that Rain would eagerly pursue the third discipline.
On the path ahead, she watched Marra’s careful steps, trying to avoid the thorny foliage despite wearing the odd jungle pants. Marra was a good girl, she knew. Yet the young apprentice also had a thirst for knowledge - and now an avenue to satisfy it.
Still, Marra was very different. Rain had sought power, prestige. Rain would keep secret all she learned, to make herself more powerful. Kirth had watched Marra show others how to use a tube to extract, or judge a brewed potion to be properly heated.
Marra had that humbleness Trumen so often displayed. She shied away from power and attention. And deceit was foreign to her.
“Stop.” Tinge held a paw out behind her as she scanned the thickening jungle. “We need goss sticks.”
Kirth frowned as Marra plucked two sticks from the ground, brushing the dirt away before handing one to her. She’d never heard of goss sticks; so how did Marra know?
The little Trumen must have read her thoughts. “Tinge used one earlier.”
Behind the girl, Tinge quivered with amusement. “My friend, we are close to our destination. Let us get through this last bit, and we can make tea and talk.”
The Terrin turned, leading them on through thickening jungle. Marra peered up at Kirth - with concern, she realized. Stars, if she doubted the little herb girl, she might as well just give up.
At times the plants receded slightly, allowing the sun to trickle through. Its beams highlighted intricate webs, allowing Marra to avoid them. More often the thick branches obscured the light, rendering the strands invisible. Twice her stick dipped too low, and the resulting web engulfing her face were repulsive. Her fingers brushed hastily to clear it from skin and hair.
The goss stick, held at a proper distance, swept the path clear. Well, the path before her face at least. Marra hated to think of the web accumulating on her clothing, along with any of the tiny Reeders. A bath and a thorough scrub would be most welcome after this, she decided. No matter how cold the stream.
The goss jungle never thinned - it simply stopped altogether. Squeezing between two trees growing very close together, wincing as branches snagged her hair and clothes, Marra popped through into the clear.
Suddenly a carpet of delicate moss stretched before them, peppered with clumps of wildflowers painted aqua and violet and scarlet. And then she noticed the Terrin.
Some distance ahead, far enough she couldn’t see individual faces, a cluster of them sat on the moss. And beyond them a second cluster, and a third beyond that. Still more, she saw, to the south. It wasn’t until she heard Kirth’s gasp that Marra looked north and saw the Black Tower.
The Tower of Zaria.
At the apex of the hill it stood, above a stone wall on a ragged ridge at odds with the gentle green field. The Tower soared into the air, so black it appeared more a hole in the sky than a structure made by man. Surely of the same poured stone used in Missea’s black arena, only more ominous. And tall enough that mists shrouded the upper half.
Not mist - smoke. Seeping out of holes oddly spaced on the facade. Old tales tickled Marra’s memory, of fire dragons whose nostrils poured such smoke.
“I thought Terrin disdained such fancy structures as we skins like to build,” Kirth glared at Tinge. “I thought living within nature, within the land was the way of your people.”
“It is,” Tinge told her gently. “This thing dates back before memory. The Zaria priests claimed it to house the scrolls.”
“There must be a lot of scrolls,” Kirth said dryly.
Marra had always been a little nervous of the Black Arena. What she felt now, approaching this Black Tower, bordered on terror.
It looked unnatural, so deeply black against a brilliant blue sky. Chills stirred the hair on her arms despite the midday’s warmth, as if the very structure sucked the heat from the air.
They passed near - but not too near - a cluster of Terrin heating pots over low-banked fires. Perhaps it was nearing time for the evening meal, Marra thought. If so, her stomach was unusually silent. The Terrin worked at the same plodding pace as Tinge, seemingly ignoring them.
Although more than a few heads turned as they passed.
Tinge marched up the steps cut into the stacked stone wall, striding straight to the black cylinder. Squinting, Marra couldn’t see any sign of a door. The Terrin rapped on the slick wall, the sound oddly similar to that when a glass vial struck a stone table.
She saw nothing - even when a crystal tinny noise vibrated through her. The door was half-swung open before she knew it had yielded, and then it yawned before her, an opening wide enough the three of them could pass through abreast. The door itself Marra could only judge by the shape of the opening, for the black portal against the Black Tower was impossible to see. Reluctant to leave the sunshine, she entered only because she was more reluctant to part from Kirth and Tinge.
The interior was just as black, with the same shiny surfaces of the arena. These, however, were lit by braziers evenly spaced on the walls, revealing cushioned couches, soft rugs, and elegant tables with glass pitchers and matching goblets. A room in its way as luxurious as any she’d seen in Tryst’s palace.
A fluttering near Tinge drew her attent
ion to a Terrin so large he loomed over the female of his species. He wore a white robe - which meant he was an acolyte.
“What chance led you here?” he growled.
“The wisdom of Agben,” she growled back.
His body swelled, his eyes flashed. Marra honestly expected him to strike the female where she stood - and then the Desert Crane save them all.
Tinge, however, turned her back to him, striding to the most prominent chair, lowering herself with a regal authority worthy of King Bactor. She motioned for them to follow her example.
“I am not here for pleasantries,” she rasped, waving her hand dismissively. “Go tell your High Priest I demand to see him.”
His glare was a threat to Tinge, to Kirth. For an instant Marra thought he intended to smite them all.
And then he shut the outside door and vanished.
Tinge waited till the acolyte left to do her bidding.
Then she reached to pour herself a goblet of water, satisfied to see no trembling in her hands. For she was angry.
Very angry.
Male Terrin treated females with great respect. All Terrin treated Agben - skin or Terrin - with great respect. It was the way of things. So to encounter such hostility, such insolence in a second year acolyte infuriated her as she hadn’t been in a century.
“He seemed…reluctant,” Kirth probed.
Tinge poured two more goblets of cool water. “Zaria seems to have altered recently.”
“How recently?”
It was a good question. Rubbing her itching neck, she sighed. “I’ve not been to this tower since before Rain first stood on the Dim Continent.”
“Rain has diverted the proper course of things,” Kirth said. “Yet I find it difficult to believe she could affect Terrin so easily.”
Tinge agreed. “No Zaria priest - no Terrin male - would allow…”
She broke off as a small priest, as proclaimed by his red robes, appeared. He bowed, gesturing. “Lady, if you would please to follow me.”
Marra and Kirth rose with her; she felt the priest’s startled reaction and forestalled his words. “Wait here, my friend.”
Kirth nodded. She and Marra sat again, seemingly comfortable to wait as long as required. But the elder gave her a swift look, bespeaking her concern.
It was a look, Tinge realized, that the priest would not grasp. Perhaps she had spent too much time with the Agben skins as of late.
For by Yute, she hadn’t spent enough with Zaria Terrin.
Marra lifted her goblet, but couldn’t drink.
Her surroundings were so odd. Furniture as cozy as it was pretty, matching the blueish rug that kept their feet off the cold stone floor. But with no windows and no sunlight, she felt imprisoned in a small pocket of comfort surrounded by evil shadows. A pretense of safety as much an illusion as the Terrin impersonating King Bactor.
“Kirth….” she began, but the elder silenced her with a gesture.
The Terrin acolyte returned. “Come.”
He led them down the same hall Tinge had taken. In the dim light his white robes were rapidly consumed by shadows, making it necessary to keep her eyes on him. Marra could just make out hollows in the walls, evenly spaced black voids where doorways probably stood. Whether the black indicated shut doors or open rooms not in use she could only guess.
The passage veered right. A black void appeared on the left, this one flanked by torches burning on either side. Lifting one from its holder, he stepped inside.
Marra could barely discern stairs leading up. The acolyte passed these, choosing a second stairway descending into the dark.
By the Desert Crane! It seemed the many levels above were not enough - there were levels below. How many floors did this Tower contain?
With the shiny black surface of the walls, she lost any concept of how far they descended. The steps spiraled, and if there were doorways to levels they passed, Marra never saw them. Sounds of dripping water mingled with the rasping of his robe, and Kirth’s gasping breath. The elder was growing tired.
“How much farther?” Marra asked, and winced at the loudness of her voice.
There was no reply.
Worried, she wanted to move beside her mistress, but the stairs were narrow and with only the wall itself for a railing. If they lost their balance, how far would they fall?
At last the stairs ceased. The acolyte veered down another hall, this one with no braziers, no light from any source save the flickering torch in the Terrin’s grasp.
She felt rather than saw the doorway, and knew themselves in some sort of room. A stench of mold and worse warned her before the sharp click of the metal grid.
A grid separating them from the acolyte and his torch.
“We are of Agben,” Kirth snapped.
“Welcome, Agben skins.” And Marra glimpsed a last flutter of a white robe before the light retreated into the void.
Late afternoon they stumbled into the goss tree village. Stumble, Tryst decided, being the most accurate description.
Adeena appeared to be using all her wood-lore, eyes scouring the ground, fingers testing a broken branch. It was the clattering of stones, however, that pointed them to their target. To his amusement the girl merely turned toward the noise, for all the world as if the broken branch had told her which way.
From a distance it appeared they headed toward a thick forest - before part of that forest suddenly swung open. A gate, opening within a disguised wall. These Terrin protected their village, either due to living close to the Gathering place or for some other reason.
Though the gate yawned wide, two Terrin blocked the path inside.
“What chance led you here?” growled one creature.
“A lucky path of intention,” Adeena spoke firmly. “The Leader Qwin chose these men to be his shaka to the Gathering.”
Qwin? This was the first Terrin name Tryst had heard, and he wondered if Adeena had known others she failed to mention.
“Qwin.” Terrin expression were always difficult to read - but this did not look like welcome.
“Qwin proclaims I am to present these gamesmen of the Hand of Victory to his brother. Qwall is to share in this great shaka to the Gathering.”
The guards turned to each other, fur quivering, fangs lengthening. They emitted a loud raspy purr.
Terrin laughter, Tryst realized.
Their entrance seemed in doubt.
Drail exchanged looks with Olver and Manten, both seeming as little pleased as he was. None of the Terrin villages had welcomed them, but this one reeked of distrust. The guards blocked the entrance, waiting till other Terrin arrived and looked them over. Their discussion was low, rasping, and impossible to understand.
“Qwall will wish to meet us,” Adeena insisted.
Despite a fierce frown, she drew her hands into her stomach - the girl’s sign of tension. One of the lessons Raston had taught was observing opponents’ outward signs of confidence, knowledge, and nervousness. Words could easily lie, but few knew enough to mask their signs.
And opponents who did that could not be taken lightly no matter their true feelings.
In the silence that followed Adeena’s voice, he heard a distant scramble, thump. And then the cries of an appreciative audience, albeit guttural.
“Comet!” he said, and turned toward the sound. The noises came not from within, but to the far side of the wall. He strode off towards it.
And after the briefest hesitation, the others followed.
Rounding the wall, Drail saw the field surrounded by sitting Terrin. It was larger than usual, which was just as well, for the four teams of the massive creatures took a lot of space.
They looked huge out there.
The Terrin played on moss, as on the other fields here. The only demarcation for the edge, as far as he could tell, was the sitting spectators. The cone in the center was the same hairy lump, the circle of darop teeth. What was different was the Terrin themselves.
The teams playing appeare
d to be the largest of their kind - fully half as large again as any he’d seen. On the Dim Continent they had always lumbered, moving with a clumsy gait. Now, thundering across the field, he remembered the speed that another Terrin in the Black Arena had shown.
Stars, they were fast for such large creatures.
“By the Great Goose…” Jason hissed.
The comet ball arced high through the air, to bounce off the cone. A Terrin caught it between his knees, and snatching it up ran toward the wickedly pointed teeth. At the last second he threw, successfully sinking it.
The crowd slapped the grass in approval.
Another ball dropped into the cone, and play was halted. Having sunk two balls, four of the Terrin - all with a wide red cloth tied around one arm - shuffled off the field to the steady beat of fists pounding earth.
When play resumed, the remaining comets sank quickly. A Terrin with a white cloth on his arm pulled the balls from the tail, and used his cloth to polish each, revealing the number of spots.
The red team won.
“I would not like to play these bastards,” Old Merle murmured.
“I would,” said Drail.
The sheer brutality of the game shook Tryst.
He’d thought the Terrin clumsy. Strong of course, but awkward in their odd bodies. He’d imagined them as poor warriors, neither equipped for a true battle nor anxious to fight. Already strategies to defeat them had brewed in his mind.
But the victorious gamesmen striding off the field belied that impression. These creatures relished the challenge, knew how to conquer opponents, perhaps conquer a continent.
The giant monster of the winning shot was striding towards them as a smaller Terrin told him, “The year has come for you to finally defeat the Bone Breaker.”
Noticing Tryst, the champion gestured. One of the guards spoke up.
“Qwin says these skins are shaka.”
Throwing back its head, fangs shooting toward the sky, the Terrin roared with laughter.
