Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  “Why are the women wearing shufari?” Lhaurel asked, half-turning to glance back over at Talha.

  The Sister looked up, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So shufari survived all that time but the essence of the culture did not? Interesting.”

  Talha started laughing. Lhaurel pulled her attention away from the passing servants to look over at the woman. Talha quickly suppressed her mirth enough to take some more notes in her book, but not quickly enough to stop a few tears from leaking down one cheek.

  “You know, you can be extremely frustrating sometimes,” Lhaurel said. “Can’t I get a straight answer from anyone?”

  “Probably not, child,” Talha said, looking up, “but I will try. I believe your most recent question was about the shufari, yes?”

  Lhaurel nodded, not sure she understood or liked the sudden change of mood.

  “The priestesses, those dressed in white, wear the sashes to designate to which Sister and Progression they adhere. The ones wearing blue are yours, child.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yes, yours. Is that a straight enough answer for you?”

  Again, Lhaurel nodded. What else could she do?

  “Good,” Talha said with a small nod of her own. “Now I have a question of my own. How did you use the shufari?”

  “Women wore them to show what rank their husbands had achieved within the clan,” Lhaurel answered slowly, looking around at the many women, including the one standing next to her still, wearing the blue shufari.

  “Hmm,” Talha said, again taking notes. “That’s not so far a perversion from the original that it would no longer make sense. Interesting to note the change in gender roles, however. Among us, the woman’s rank supersedes the male in the relationship.”

  Lhaurel cocked her head, both at the unfamiliar words and the implied meaning. “The women?” she asked.

  “Indeed, child. The women are those who hold the most power, at least in regard to rank and religion. Men are the politicians, but they’re really a far cry from intelligent, I’d say.”

  Lhaurel shook her head, which was spinning from all the new information and the differences in the culture into which she was being immersed from what she knew. Yet, at the same time it seemed almost familiar to her. The juxtaposition made her nauseous. It was either that or the food.

  “I’m guessing by your reaction that such was not the case in your incestuous familial groups,” Talha said.

  “Incestuous?” Lhaurel stumbled over the foreign word, mind starting to go numb around the edges. She felt oddly restless and suppressed a sudden urge to get up and start running. What she wouldn’t have given to have even a practice sword with which to work the forms.

  “Inbreeding,” Talha said, taking notes in her book. “Parents mating with offspring, or siblings even. It’s fairly common in small, isolated populations. Generally, this manifests in lots of specific traits being brought to the surface, so to speak—things normally seen only once or twice in a dozen generations will crop up in three times the numbers they would normally appear.” Talha looked up and frowned at the expression on Lhaurel’s face. “Sorry, child, was that too complicated for you?”

  Lhaurel’s temper flared up and almost got the better of her, but Lhaurel managed to bite off the cutting remark before she made it.

  “We are not incestuous,” Lhaurel said instead. “But, regardless, yes, it was different in the Sharani Desert. The men were the Warlords and leaders. The women bore children and tended to their womanly duties.”

  Talha made a face, then took some more notes in her notebook. Was she ever not writing something?

  “So primitive,” the Sister said. “How could such knowledge and power have degraded so quickly? By the Path, I don’t know how any of you even survived at all. The odds were astronomically against you.”

  Lhaurel felt a headache swell on the edges of her temples, but she resisted the urge to massage them. Instead, she attempted to focus on what was going on around her.

  The priestesses—the women in white who wore shufari—flitted about, completing various tasks. There were male servants as well, along with dozens of warriors looking grim and stony faced in their stark red uniforms, but Lhaurel had expected far more of them than there were. Where were the armies? Where were the other Sisters? Only two other wagons sat in alongside the one in which Lhaurel had ridden, both the same squat, angular affairs as her own. And pulling them . . .

  “What in the seven hells are those?” Lhaurel asked, getting to her feet in such a sudden, jerking motion that set her already upset stomach into a churning mass of nausea.

  Talha looked up from her notes, brow furrowed in either concentration or concern, then noticed where Lhaurel was looking. The creases in her forehead smoothed to their normal size and she gave a half-grin.

  “Those? They’re just gatheriu.” Talha’s voice was dismissive, though there was a hint of suppressed mirth mixed in as well.

  As large as one of the vessels they pulled, a single, massive creature stood strapped to each wagon. Massively wide at the shoulders and hips, with heavy, square heads, the creatures looked almost like a cross between a sandtiger and a bull, but three times as large. The front legs were thicker and longer than the back, giving each of the creatures an odd, stooped back, though Lhaurel couldn’t remember it affecting their gait enough to notice in the back of the wagon. They appeared quite docile despite their size. All three sat idly munching at the long grass and scratching at the dirt with the long, thick claws that grew from each front paw.

  “I’ve never seen anything like them,” Lhaurel said.

  “They’re native to the northern regions here,” Talha said, a note of curiosity creeping back into her voice. “I would have thought there would be one or two in the Sharani Arena after all these years.”

  Lhaurel shook her head. “If there were, the genesauri ate them long ago.”

  Talha pursed her lips for a moment, tapping one finger to them for a moment before nodding.

  “I suppose,” Talha said, lifting her finger, “I have wondered how the genesauri managed to sustain themselves for so long. Surely there were never enough of you to provide a sufficient diet for the thousands of monsters that ravaged that area.”

  “They ate each other too,” Lhaurel noted, still distracted by the gatheriu themselves.

  “Yes, yes. But no population of any size can be maintained solely on the merits of self-cannibalization. Water and blood bind me, I hate unanswered questions. That is something you and I must discuss in detail later. For now, we must turn back to your studies. We may have several months to reach Estrelar, but the time will pass all too quickly. Sellia will be most displeased if you aren’t ready when we get there.”

  “Ready for what?” Lhaurel asked, tearing her eyes away from the gatheriu to look over at Talha with her entire focus instead of simply sidelong.

  Talha smiled at her and Lhaurel squirmed as she met the woman’s discordant, humorless eyes.

  “For life as a Sister.”

  Chapter 3: Death

  “Goodwill. Conquest. Power. Knowledge. Strength. Arts. Honor.

  “. . . these are the Paths people trod. Those who stray from the Progressions wander into darker Paths and are lost.”

  —From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 18, Year 1172

  The soft patter of drums echoed through the valley, a rhythmic, staccato beat that contained within it the dull, hollow sounds of death. Flames crackled in counterpoint to the steady precision of the drums. Two massive bonfires lay on either side of an open expanse near the far end of the valley, casting heat all the way to where Gavin stood within the assembled crowd, though it may have simply been his mind grasping for something it only thought was there. A stone block roughly the size of a large man sat in between the fires.

  Brisson stood behind the stone, his uncovered head bowed low, breath misting out before him. Gavin could just make out the dark, robe-like garments Brisson wore. He wore something similar h
imself. It served to keep out the cold, but seemed almost like a thick blanket except for with a hood and drawstring to tie it closed. The freezing air still managed to cut through the fabric and burn at his lungs with each breath. He was one of the few Rahuli that had come to the ceremony. The rest were still too weak, too exhausted from their frantic flight from the Sharani Desert. Too afraid of the cold.

  Why did Beryl try to kill us?

  Gavin shook his head and banished the thought. They’d been in the valley for a little longer than a week and already Gavin was beginning to see there were far more pressing concerns than dwelling on the past. Despite Brisson’s words to the contrary, the Rahuli were far from safe. They were as broken as they’d ever been, a shattered remnant of a once proud people, surrounded by a culture they neither knew nor understood. Gavin couldn’t afford to let the Rahuli fall into obscurity. They were united now, and needed to stay that way. The Orinai armies were still out there.

  Brisson looked up and raised one hand. The drums ceased, the drummers but shadowy figures at the fringes of the light cast by the fires.

  “The Orinai have no concept of true loss,” Brisson said, his voice echoing slightly through the valley. “In their understanding of the Progressions and the Path they trod, they give no importance to a single life, for they believe they have many. We slaves, according to them, are unimportant, with but a single momentary life of servitude upon the Path. We are not welcome in any of the Progressions. According to them, we do not return in new bodies or move forward in Iteration. For us, death is something final, not fleeting.”

  Gavin glanced at the people around him, watching their reactions to try and gauge what this information meant since it made only partial sense to him.

  “They think they are better than us because they have longer lives, in their grand religion and understanding.” Brisson’s voice grew hard. “But they are not. Master Nikanor taught us that. I do not call him master because of ownership, but because of what he showed us about ourselves. We can live on far longer than our short existence, through the memories of those we’ve touched in this life.”

  Gavin pursed his lips, considering Brisson’s words, and scratched absently at his short beard, ignoring the twinge of pain in his wounded shoulder. The concept of death had always been a strange one to him, something he’d feared since childhood. It seemed so bleak an ending. According to what he believed, what he’d been taught at least, everyone ended up in one of the seven levels of hell according to how they lived in life. The best people ended up in the highest level of hell and suffered the least. But everyone suffered to some degree.

  Brisson placed his hands down on the slab of stone before him. Dark and roughly hewn, the dark stone shone with the words carved into every side. Gavin wasn’t close to enough to read them.

  “We honor him tonight, on his journey through the Progressions. He believed, even if not in the same way the Seven Sisters preach. For us, we can remember him as we remember this stone, which will last for generations. Our children and our children’s children shall remember him and his sacrifice for us as long as this stone stands.”

  Around Gavin, the assembled people bowed their heads, a soft murmur of sound passing through them like a gentle breeze. Gavin shivered. He didn’t understand these people at all, and that made him nervous. Brisson continued to speak, but Gavin worked his way through the crowd and back toward his own people. Toward the comfort of shared understanding.

  * * *

  Glowing motes of burning cloth danced in the midnight air. Gavin watched them as they consumed themselves and vanished into the blackness of night. Eventually, Gavin’s gaze drifted downward, passing over the silent, huddled figures of what remained of the Rahuli people, and alighting on the burning shufari nestled in the embers of the funeral pyre. The last of it curled up and faded away, climbing into the sky and getting lost among the glistening stars.

  The light from the flames danced over the assembled onlookers, casting their faces into flickering shadows. Gavin studied them, noting the haggard, haunted looks in their eyes. Two weeks of rest had not done much to cleanse the Rahuli of the haunted shadows behind their eyes, but it had granted them a measure of respite and allowed them to regain part of their strength. This was a broken people, but a united one. The clans were gone, left upon the burning sands of the Sharani desert with their forgotten dead. This pyre burned for them, in part at least. Part of it was for Khari, who now rested within the tombs of Brisson’s people. Gavin shut his eyes for half a heartbeat, feeling the thrum of his own blood pounding through his ears. Then he stepped forward into the light, letting go of Farah’s small, warm hand. His booted feet crunched in the hardened snow, and his nose filled with the scent of burning cloth.

  “Whatever realms of hell now hold our fallen kin,” Gavin said, “let us hope it is a kind one. Those who fell in battle fell defending us, we who now live. We have another chance. Let’s honor their sacrifice by taking upon ourselves their names. Let us write their names in our hearts, and let their sacrifice guide our actions as we—once again—rebuild.”

  Gavin’s gaze flicked through the crowd, glancing at each of them in turn. Evrouin stood with his wife at the forefront of the group, his posture upright and rigid, his eyes focused and hard. Cobb was farther back in the crowd, one hand resting on a sword, the other gripping his cane. There were others there in the crowd, ones Gavin couldn’t name, but upon each of their faces were signs of resolve and a deep, burning anger mixed in with the exhaustion and pain reflected there. Gavin’s own heart ached at what they had lost, but he’d found new strength as well, and a respect for this people he had not known before.

  “We are the Rahuli,” Gavin continued. “A people born of the rocks and sand of the Sharani Desert. Through it all, we will be strong and we will succeed. Let those who have fallen guide and bless us all.”

  Gavin let his last words hang in the air, echoing into silence. No one spoke. Only the crackling flames pierced the silent dark. Gavin waited a long moment before he turned and stepped back into the crowd. Farah stepped in beside him as he walked into the semidarkness toward Brisson’s valley. As if Gavin’s leaving were a sign of permission, the crowd began to break up as well, each taking their own route back toward their section of the camp. Gavin watched them leave out of the corner of his eye as he walked, some of the groups carrying lit torches to guide their way through the lingering ice and snow.

  “It was a good speech, Gavin.” Farah pitched her voice so that only Gavin could hear. “Not as good as the one you gave when the genesauri attacked the Oasis, but still a fine speech indeed.” She smiled at him and squeezed his arm.

  Gavin returned the smile and made an expression he hoped was somewhere between humble acceptance and pride at the compliment.

  “I worry, though,” she continued, voice still a whisper, “that it may not have the effect you were hoping for. I love your optimism, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing just now.”

  Gavin scratched at his beard. Though it had itched like sand caught in his pants at first, it was now just long enough that it didn’t bother him anymore. “What would you have had me say? Should I have told them we’re little more than a broken remnant of something we used to be? That we’re essentially prisoners of another new enemy? That there’s little hope of us staying who we once were?”

  Farah quickened her step. Once she was alongside him she turned to look at him, face somewhat illuminated in the moonlight. Gavin looked over and smiled at her. Even clothed in one of those ridiculous blanket-like coverings Brisson called a cloak, she was still beautiful, especially in the moonlight.

  “I—” Farah hesitated. “I just don’t want you giving them a false hope.”

  “A false hope is better than no hope at all.”

  “What is the test of honor,” Farah said, “to uphold the flame, or to snuff it out?”

  Gavin smiled, though he knew the expression would be lost in the darkness and let it fade away. �
�I guess we all have to figure out the answer to that particular question on our own.”

  Farah didn’t answer, but a moment later Gavin felt her small hand slip into his own. Though the gesture was becoming a familiar one, he still didn’t know what Farah truly meant by it, but he enjoyed the closeness. Pushing aside his own insecurity, he lifted his chin and, despite the chill in the air, felt just a little warmer.

  They walked on in silence, following the well-marked path back toward the few flickering lights that marked Brisson’s little valley. Gavin used the term “little” only in the loosest of senses. The whole of the Sharani Desert could have fit into the flat plain nestled between two mountains that Brisson called a “little” valley.

  As they neared the lip of the ravine leading down into the camp, Gavin noticed several guards hidden in strategic places along cliffs and crags around them. What was more, a shadowy figure was striding up the path toward them. Gavin didn’t need to hear the man’s voice or wait for the figure to fully resolve out of the darkness to know who it was. Farah’s grip tightened in his hand.

  “Brisson,” Gavin said, pitching his voice so it would carry.

  The figure didn’t slow, but Gavin noticed a marked change to his step, a slight hesitation perhaps. Good. Keep you off balance.

  “I thought I instructed you to complete your ceremony before night fell.” Brisson’s figure took shape out of the shadows, the tall man’s thin frame hidden inside the folds of a thick wool cloak.

  “It was delayed,” Gavin said. Brisson fell into step beside them. Farah let go of Gavin’s hand to shift to his other side, leaving Gavin between herself and Brisson. She took up his other hand.

  “Obviously.”

  Gavin waited. Responding didn’t seem necessary.

  “Your fire is still burning,” Brisson said. “I will send men to take care of it for you.”

  “Cobb will take care of it. It is part of the ritual.”