Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  * * *

  Lhaurel sensed the group approaching before she even came fully awake. The door to the healing chambers swung open as Lhaurel’s eyes did as well. Two men carried a woman between them. Their steps were short and shallow, moving as if she were a great weight. They placed her on a bed near Lhaurel’s. Khari hurried in after them, expression grim.

  “Out of the way,” Khari snapped, making shooing gestures.

  The two men backed away, though both stayed close. Lhaurel vaguely recognized one of them, though it took her longer than it should have to find his name. Gavin, the outcast.

  Khari knelt alongside the woman, checking her pulse. Lhaurel knew it was weak. She could feel it coursing through her veins and escaping through several small cuts along her body. What was more, she could feel the child within the woman. Its own heart beat like the flurry of an insect’s wings. Was it supposed to do that?

  “Gavin,” Khari said, looking up. “Run and get me some clean cloths and this woman’s husband.”

  “She hasn’t any.” Gavin said, but hurried out the door.

  “Evrouin,” Khari said, turning to the other man. “Do you have any children?”

  The man nodded. His expression was thoughtful, yet with a sorrowful cast to the set of his mouth. He glanced at the door through which Gavin had exited.

  Lhaurel, unnoticed to the side, struggled to rise. Didn’t they feel that something was wrong? Couldn’t they sense the faint heartbeat of the child within the woman? No, of course they couldn’t.

  “Yes,” the man said. “I have three daughters. This woman, she isn’t going to make it, is she?”

  Khari looked up at him sharply, expression harsh. “Don’t give up on her so easily. She survived the Oasis, she can survive this too.”

  “And the baby?”

  Khari looked away and shook her head.

  Lhaurel felt the build of power within Khari before she noticed the mist forming around the woman. It was a mostly bluish, with only a faint hint of red, which Lhaurel found odd for some reason. Khari seemed to glow with a strange penumbra. Lhaurel felt the woman’s heartbeat strengthen, felt it quicken and surge. But the baby—

  “The baby,” Lhaurel croaked, making Evrouin jump. “Its heart just stopped beating.”

  Evrouin whirled to face her as Khari opened her eyes to regard her, profound sadness in them.

  “And the woman?” Khari asked.

  Lhaurel wasn’t listening. She forced herself to sit up and staggered over to the spring that gurgled in the corner of the room. Crawled was more like it. Stumbling was much too dignified a word to describe what she did. Ignoring the questions, the words, the other people, Lhaurel put her face in the water and drank deeply, following her instincts. She felt a surge of strength, albeit slight, as she swallowed the cool, slightly-salty water.

  Then Lhaurel reached within herself and drew on her powers. It came easily now that she knew what it was she was doing as far as drawing on her powers was concerned. It was not simply the petal on the surface of the water that Khari had described. No, it was a forceful shifting of her very blood, an outward expulsion followed by an inward return. She gathered her power, vision slightly clouded by the red mist which formed around her.

  Blood. Without it the body died. But with it—

  Lhaurel stumbled over to where the woman lay on the cot, chest rising and falling with the barest of movements. Evrouin protested, but Khari held him back, though she herself looked more than a little concerned. Lhaurel placed a hand on the woman’s swollen belly.

  Lhaurel reached out to the infant with her power, pushing blood through its veins. She willed the blood to pump faster, pushed at the unborn child’s heart, matching it to her own beating pulse. There was damage there, inside the child. Lhaurel could feel it within her. She pushed more blood through the veins.

  Beat. The heart pulsed once on its own. Lhaurel forced her powers into the damage, pulled half-formed veins and lungs to grow faster. Beat. The heart pulsed on its own. Lhaurel withdrew her power, feeling so weak she slid backward onto the sands. Sounds returned.

  “Evrouin, quick, grab her hand.” For a moment Lhaurel thought Khari was talking about her. “She’s going into labor. Lhaurel, the baby?”

  “It’s safe. Beating. Healed.” Lhaurel couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  Lhaurel couldn’t tell if Khari understood or not, but Lhaurel wasn’t sure it really mattered. The baby was safe. She had done something good. Maybe she wasn’t only a monster.

  * * *

  Gavin sat with his back up against the wall, knees bent up under his chin. Shallee was going to be alright, the baby as well. A boy. He smiled and massaged his temples with shaking fingers.

  He heard a door open and then close. Evrouin appeared before him.

  “She’ll be fine,” Evrouin said.

  Gavin nodded.

  “Thank you, Evrouin,” Gavin said in a weary voice. “For your help saving them.”

  “No one deserves that kind of death. Not even an outcast woman.” Evrouin took a seat on the ground next to Gavin and smiled softly, undercutting the barb.

  Gavin chuckled and shook his head. “No wonder everyone hates you.”

  “That’s the price of making hard choices. You have to live with the consequences, boy.”

  Gavin nodded and grinned ruefully. His grandmother had said something similar on more than one occasion.

  “You and I were in the middle of something when this all started, I believe,” Evrouin said.

  Yes, that was right. They’d been about to complete a right of challenge. Gavin blinked and tried to get his mind back on the matters at hand. Did Evrouin want to complete the duel now?

  “I may have misjudged you.” Evrouin said. “Don’t misunderstand, you still don’t have any claim as leader of the clans, but you’re an honorable man and an earnest one. Your problem is that you’re naïve.”

  Gavin grunted. This wasn’t what he’d expected.

  “You don’t act like a leader, not normally. People look to their leaders for strength and hope. That’s why the clans that followed Kaiden did what we did. He snuck us into the Oasis caves from the outside. He gave us hope. The others, they look to you with some measure of respect because of your fight against Taren, but you threw it away when you claimed dominion over them.”

  Evrouin’s expression was focused. Despite the mildly insulting tone, it was the first time Evrouin had met and held Gavin’s gaze. There was sincerity there.

  “They need to be led,” Gavin said. “All this squabbling between clans, this in-fighting, it’s not doing any of us any good. There’s change on the wind. You sensed it yourself or you never would have backed Kaiden’s plan.”

  Evrouin nodded and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the red sandstone wall.

  “In that we can agree. What you did now, after the quake, it brought back some measure of the respect you’d earned before, but you lost something more important. Trust. And you have to earn that back. You have to show them, show us, that you can and will earn it back. I don’t know if you can do it, but I’m willing to give you a chance.”

  Gavin wanted to protest, but Evrouin was right. It stunned Gavin to hear such calm rationality from the man he had come to see as rash and full of temper, but it made sense, in a way. He didn’t trust the man—one moment of sentimentality was not enough to earn that—but Gavin had already started forming the same conclusions himself.

  “Do you have a plan on how to do that?” Gavin asked.

  Evrouin grinned. Gavin found the expression slightly ominous on the stern man’s face. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Chapter 7: Lost

  “The second Iteration on the Schema is that dealing with the evolution of water. Those possessed of this ability are called ‘wettas.’”

  —From Commentary on the Schema, Volume I

  Evrouin sat on a stone bench with Alia, Maugier, and Khari in one of the smaller rooms in the hall near th
e healing rooms. They sat in two small groups separated by gender, with Gavin off to one side.

  Alia tapped her fingers against her knee impatiently. “Why aren’t we out there looking for Kaiden?” Alia demanded. “If it wasn’t him behind the quake, who was it?”

  Maugier nodded his agreement. Only just into his middle thirties, Maugier was a bit more rotund than the average Rahuli, though Gavin had never seen him slowed by the added girth.

  “While I hate to agree with a woman,” he said, “but why aren’t the Roterralar already sending out patrols? If they’d just grant more of us access to those marvelous birds of theirs, we’d have found him already.”

  Khari shot the man a glare, but it was Evrouin who replied.

  “Why aren’t we out trying to find Kaiden?” Evrouin repeated. “Because we’re in here fighting ourselves. I think it is time to call this sandstorm for what it is. Deadly.”

  Alia frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that this travesty of living together needs to end. It is our biggest obstacle to getting anything done. We all get into each other’s way. No one trusts me or my people—there’s soon to be overt bloodshed over it—and the Roterralar are corrupting our women and giving them the illusion that they can lead. His gaze lingered on Alia and Khari, both of whom glared back at him in blatant defiance.

  “Well, if you’d just let us . . .” Maugier began, but Evrouin cut him off.

  “It is simply a way of life. We will be better apart, acting independently of one another.”

  “I agree,” Alia said, “though I’m not as concerned about your people, Evrouin, as I am my own. Your people can rot for all I care.” She tossed her black locks out of her eyes with a shake of her head as Evrouin’s expression hardened and Maugier chuckled softly. “Who gets to keep this place then?”

  “We do,” Khari said. The others turned to her. “This is our home. You are all here as invited guests. Whoever wants to stay can, but by doing so, they will become Roterralar.”

  A strange glint came into Maugier’s eye. “Why should we leave this place to you, woman? Hiding here, playing at protection. What happened to us was your fault.”

  “Do you really want to try and evict the mystics?” Gavin said, speaking for the first time.

  That silenced Maugier. Evrouin glanced at Gavin quickly and gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

  “I’m not leaving them here to hide from us all again,” Alia said. “If they give us some aevians I may consider it, but—”

  “That isn’t going to happen.” Khari said, voice growing hard. “Not while I still draw breath.”

  Gavin sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. This was getting nowhere. Alia turned to Khari, mouth open to argue, but Gavin interrupted before she could start.

  “Of course you’re not going to just leave them here. You know where they are,” Gavin said, a trace of his frustration creeping into his voice. “You’ve seen them. You can’t really think things can just go back to the way they were? There are only three real clans now, outside the Roterralar, for sand’s sake.”

  Alia recoiled and Maugier looked affronted, but Gavin continued. “Instead of worrying about what they’ll do, maybe you should be asking what the two of you can do for each other. Perhaps the Roterralar could act as messengers between the clans. Maybe they could actually do the job they say they can and spend their time figuring out what happened to Kaiden, or what was going on to make him decide to kill us all. The genesauri are gone, but we’ve turned into our own enemies once more.” The words tumbled out in a rush, but Gavin wasn’t about to stop them once they’d started.

  “How dare you speak to us like that!” Maugier said, his words short and intense. “First you embarrass us in front of our clans and claim dominion over us. Then you go and insult us! I won’t stand for it.”

  “Calm yourself,” Evrouin said, putting a hand on the large man’s arm. “Whatever you think, he speaks sense. As much as I hated them at first, the Roterralar can redeem themselves in the eyes of the people by truly serving us. Their mystics can help us find new places to live, new water sources where we can feed our herds and flocks and plant grains. They can protect us against Kaiden.”

  Alia snorted at this, but Evrouin continued as if she hadn’t interrupted.

  “Gavin is right. Things cannot be how they were before. We know them and they know us.”

  Maugier grunted, but his expression remained sour. Alia started drumming her fingers on her knee once more.

  “I think we’re all forgetting something,” she said, “the genesauri. The Roterralar claim they are gone for good, that they have all been destroyed. But what if they’re wrong?”

  Silence enveloped the room as the weight of that statement sunk in. It was Khari who finally broke the silence.

  “They are gone, of that I am sure. But if it will help the cause, the Roterralar will accompany each of the clans while they are on the sands to protect you. We will leave messenger birds with each of you, for you to send to us if ever there is a need.”

  Gavin looked over at her. It was a generous offer, especially coming from Khari. The Matron of the Roterralar was a hard woman, one who reminded him of the strength and steel of his grandmother, who had been the one to rally the outcasts into a semblance of a clan. Mercy, servitude, and humility were not emotions Gavin expected out of her. Nor, it seemed, did the clan leaders.

  “It is a plan worth considering, I think,” Evrouin said. “I propose we call another Gathering. The people are scared and they need our strength. We will talk to them about this. Enough of them are already wanting to leave, more so now after the quake.”

  Both Alia and Maugier snorted.

  “You think the people should decide?” Alia asked. “Evrouin, you’ve been the most vehement against letting anyone but us leaders have a decision in anything.”

  Just a few short weeks ago, Evrouin would have been well within his rights to kill the woman right then and there for talking to a man with such scorn. It was a testament to the true changes that were taking place that Evrouin’s face only reddened slightly. That and everyone knew Khari’s ability with the sword. If Evrouin raised a hand against Alia, Khari would probably kill him.

  “Yes, Alia, I think the people should have a say in the matter. No, I don’t think they should decide, sometimes they don’t know what’s good for themselves, but they should at least know the choices we’re contemplating. And, to be clear, I never thought you should be included in the decisions, woman, any more than you thought I should be. Just for different reasons.”

  Gavin frowned at Evrouin’s words, but he didn’t want to undermine the man’s main point, which was that the people should be informed and given hope.

  “Very well,” Maugier said. “Let us gather the clans together again. Let’s discuss our grand exodus.”

  They stood to leave, Gavin rising with them. He was unsure of what part he was to play in all this, but they had allowed him to participate in this meeting, which was a good sign. It wasn’t what he had wanted. It wasn’t full leadership of the clans, but it was something. His plan had failed miserably, but his grandmother, Elvira, had taught him that failures were not truly defeats, they were lessons taught before a victory.

  “Wait here a moment, Gavin,” Khari said.

  Gavin had just reached the door, but turned back into the room. Khari gestured for him to shut the door. He looked questioningly toward Khari. Up until now, their relationship could best be described as “rocky,” so Gavin wasn’t sure what to expect.

  The short woman frowned at him and pursed her lips. It was the look a butcher gave a goat prior to slaughter.

  “I hate to say I told you so, but what you did earlier was brash,” Khari said. “It wouldn’t have really worked, you know, not in the way you wanted it to. The people are too leery of tyranny, still far too broken to be of much use.” Gavin waited, unsure of how to respond. This was the leader of the mystics and the Roterralar af
ter all, and she was lecturing him about being brash.

  “But you are trying,” Khari continued. “You sense the changes on the wind. You can feel what’s going on. You’re doing your best and that is all anyone can ask.”

  Gavin pursed his lips. “Is there something you’re getting at?”

  Khari eyed him again, that same appraising look. “Yes. I mean to make you the leader of the mystics.”

  * * *

  Gavin could feel the tension in the room even before the Gathering started. He sat within the crowd this time, no longer in front. Evrouin, Maugier, and Alia stood at the front of the crowd with Khari off to one side. Still, those around Gavin shot him curious or hostile looks. He breathed an inward sigh and decided he simply didn’t care at this point. Khari was giving him a chance to prove himself as a leader, and he would accept that chance. The only downside to it was he really would have to learn about the mysterious relampago powers he possessed. In truth, they were more than a little intimidating to think about. Well, Gavin thought as an image of Farah popped into his mind, that wouldn’t be all bad.

  As if those thoughts had drawn her, Farah herself shoved through the crowd and stepped up alongside him.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re a bold one, aren’t you?”

  “Me?” Gavin asked.

  “Claiming rule of the clans like that,” she said. Then she smiled. “It was pretty amazing, I must say.”

  Gavin returned the smile.

  At the other end of the room, Evrouin got to his feet and signaled for silence. The man stood atop some of the rubble that had been moved away from the rooms in the greatroom. Repairs and cleaning were still underway throughout the Warren, but the work had halted once again for another Gathering. Evrouin had been right. Everyone was on edge, everyone was scared. More than once Gavin had heard Kaiden’s name mentioned.

  “People of the Sharani Desert,” Evrouin said in a booming voice which carried all the way to the back of the room. “The time has come for us to leave this place. It can no longer be our home.”