Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  The silhouette vanished and Lhaurel squinted against the light once more. A priestess hurried up with their staffs born on white cloth. Talha reached out and took hers and, after a moment, so did Lhaurel. Talha headed up the stairs and Lhaurel followed.

  The smell of the sea hit Lhaurel as she stepped out onto the deck. The familiarity of it rang with a double resonance within her. The salty tang reminded her of the salt springs of the Sidena Warren where she had bathed on the fateful day of her marriage that had started all this. A mildew smell pulled up images of the vast underground lake beneath the Roterralar Warren, though the sea’s smell wasn’t stale. There was a freshness to it. But another part of Lhaurel recalled the smell of the spray itself with familiar longing. The misty water left a thin sheen on her cheek and she reached up a hand to feel at it, smelling the brine.

  “Sister?” Lhaurel started. One of the priestesses behind her cleared her throat softly and Lhaurel moved forward, not having realized she’d stopped.

  The ship rocked gently in the water, the movement more pronounced now that Lhaurel had a horizon to act as something to compare the motion to. Sailors huddled around the rails, watching her. A shoreline rested in the distance, visible through the ropes and rigging that stretched down from the masts. Lhaurel followed Talha across the deck and up another set of steps to where the captain waited behind the wheel. Noticing them approach, he stepped back from the wheel, letting another of the sailors take it, and whipped off his hat.

  “I am sorry to have bothered you, Honored Sisters,” he said, hands clenching and unclenching on the hat, “but I didn’t know what else to do.” He licked his lips and pointed behind them with his hat.

  Lhaurel turned, mirroring Talha’s movement at her side. Three more ships rested in the water not a hundred spans away, each as big or bigger than their own vessel. They formed an impenetrable line between their own ship and the shore, which lay only a few hundred spans further behind them. Lhaurel could barely make out people and wagons moving about on the shore.

  “A blockade?” Talha said with more curiosity than anything else. “Who would be so foolish as to block the passage of one of the Sisters? You’re flying the appropriate colors, are you not?”

  “Y-yes,” the captain said, shuffling his feet and pointing at one of the masts. “Since before we found you.”

  Lhaurel glanced up the mast and saw a red and white flag fluttering from the top of the mast.

  “What colors are they flying?” Talha asked, squinting across the distance at the other ships.

  “House Kelkott.”

  Talha frowned and leaned against her staff.

  “Sir,” one of the sailors called from the prow. “They’re putting longboats in the water, sir. What’re your orders, Cap?”

  “A thousand pardons, Sister,” the captain said, shooting a look across the deck at the sailor who had spoken. “Tinget has never had the honor of hosting a Sister aboard ship before. I will see to his punishment myself.”

  Talha nodded.

  Punishment?

  “What would you have us do, Sister?”

  “Wait.”

  The captain nodded and licked his lips again, hands twisting the hat into a roll and then letting it go over and over again. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face, sticking his long, brown hair to his scalp in wet mats. A few sailors moved across the deck below them, readying line and long poles with hooks at the end, but their movements seemed slow and lethargic. As if they were nervous.

  As if they were afraid.

  Lhaurel looked over at Talha, seeing her unconcerned expression and taking reassurance in that.

  “I think we should go down and await our visitors, Lhaurel,” Talha said quietly, gesturing toward the stairs with one of her ink-stained hands. As Lhaurel stepped forward, Talha leaned in close and continued in a whisper, walking alongside her. “Watch your words, child. This smells of politics and you are woefully unprepared for that. As a Sister, your words will take on a hundred meanings both to the devout and unbeliever alike.”

  Lhaurel tried not to let her confused curiosity show as she walked with Talha down the steps and onto the deck. This wasn’t the first time Talha had spoken so scathingly of politics, but it was the first time she’d implied a limit to her own power and authority along with it. While much of what Talha had been teaching her about the land and the people had been frighteningly familiar to her, this wasn’t. Lhaurel wasn’t sure if that fact alone made her more or less afraid.

  Once again, the sailors moved back toward the rails as she and Talha passed, each of the men holding onto the wooden rungs as if they were about to fall. Several looked away, glancing at the longboats approaching over the water. A few—Lhaurel recognized some of their faces from the Devotions—bowed respectfully as she and Talha passed. Others simply stared at the floor. Their fear was palpable. Part of Lhaurel saw it as the respect due one of her station. The other part, the young woman who had lived in fear herself for most of her life in the Sharani Desert, felt pity for them and, partly, ashamed.

  As they got to the rail at the front of the ship, Lhaurel couldn’t help but look out over the vastness of the ocean around them. The expanse of water stood there like a silent sentinel, reflecting light and undulating with the motion of the wind. She was struck by how much it resembled the shifting sands of the desert. Images and memories of those she’d left behind passed through her mind. She straightened and looked over at the approaching boats.

  Three longboats bobbed in the water, two sailors working the oars on each one. Lhaurel was only slightly bemused at knowing the correct terms. She was starting to get used to it.

  The middle longboat edged ahead of the others and a figure stood up at the prow. A figure with blood red hair.

  “Another Sister?” Lhaurel asked in a muted whisper so only Talha, who was a few steps away from her, could hear.

  Talha snorted and looked down at Lhaurel, face wrinkled in disgust.

  “Not even close. There are some among the greater Houses who feel that imitation gleans additional support from the Sisters and our sphere of influence,” Talha said. “They’re nothing but panderers. Pay them no real mind.”

  “Ahoy the ship!” the figure, clearly a woman by the timbre of her voice, said. “Permission to board?”

  “My ladies?” the captain asked. Lhaurel hadn’t noticed him come up.

  “Ask them what they want and why they have stopped a ship bearing the colors of the Seven Sisters.”

  “Yes, Honored Sister,” the captain said, licking his lips. “Great One?” Talha glanced at him with a look that would have made Lhaurel squirm if it had been directed at her. “There are three of them and but one of us.”

  Talha’s eyes flashed. “Do it now.” Talha’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was hard enough to break stone.

  The captain took a half step back and swallowed hard, though his hand stilled on his hat. After half a heartbeat, he stepped forward again, seeming to have regained a measure of his resolve. Lhaurel would have felt some small pity for him if he hadn’t also stepped away from Talha and closer to her when he did so.

  “What business are you about?” the captain shouted. “We bear the colors of the Seven Sisters.”

  His voice seemed to echo over the waters. The longboats came ever closer. The figure standing in the prow of the lead longboat raised her hands to her mouth to shout back.

  “We have a message for the Sister aboard your vessel, borne by Earth Ward through the stones.”

  The captain looked over at Talha, but Lhaurel spoke before she could think to keep her mouth shut.

  “What message?”

  The captain’s head whipped around to face her so fast Lhaurel thought it might snap. Talha gave Lhaurel a cool look, but didn’t countermand her. Lhaurel nodded toward the approaching longboats.

  “What message?” the captain shouted, turning slowly back out toward the other vessels.

  “It comes from Estrelar, fro
m the Sisters’ Temple!” The woman’s voice rang out. Even Lhaurel noticed the awe and fervor in it. It was strange to her, seeing the different reactions to even the mention of the Seven Sisters.

  Talha stepped forward to the rail, ignoring the captain as an intermediary, which seemed to please him. He stepped back hastily as if wanting to get away as quickly as possible. Lhaurel looked from him out to the woman on the longboat and her rapt, pointed attention.

  “Bring your message then,” Talha shouted. “And then be on your way. You have delayed us. I would know your name so that I may speak to the Patrons of House Kelkott upon my return to Estrelar.”

  Lhaurel saw the woman flinch as if struck even though she was still a few dozen spans away.

  “A thousand pardons, Honored Sister,” the woman shouted, though her voice was far more subdued than it had been. “I am Elva, of the Kelkott Plantation. I did only as bidden by your Sisters.”

  It was only because Lhaurel was standing so close to Talha she saw the muscles in Talha’s jaw firm and the set of her shoulders square off.

  “Elva of the Kelkott Plantation, I bid you not to speak further until I have read the message you have brought. Displease me further and there will be consequences. Do not forget to whom you presume to speak.”

  The woman bowed her head and sank to her knees in the longboat, causing it to rock. Her red hair draped down over her face as if she were weeping. Perhaps she was.

  The captain was far enough back now that he wouldn’t overhear. Only a single priestess of each of theirs remained close. Lhaurel didn’t recognize either of them.

  “What’s going on?” Lhaurel whispered to Talha.

  “I don’t know.”

  The longboat pulled alongside and several sailors threw out a net before clambering down it to the craft below, securing it to the net with some rope. The woman, Elva, climbed up, Lhaurel looking down over the side of the craft to watch. Talha frowned at her, but Lhaurel didn’t really care. This wasn’t something she’d ever seen before, in either memory. Elva was clad much like the other sailors, in loose pants that clung at the waist and ankles, with a loose greyish shirt tied up the front and flaring at the wrists. However, she also wore a bright purple vest festooned with golden buttons and several curious symbols embroidered into the cloth. She also had a number of necklaces, rings, and earrings adorning her neck, fingers, and ears, respectively. Her nails were painted the same red color as was her hair. And her skin was as pale and soft looking as a newborn lamb’s. Lhaurel felt contempt well up in her as fiercely as she’d ever felt the emotion.

  Once on the deck, Elva pulled a small roll of paper tied with twine from her belt and held it up in the air before her on an upraised palm. She kept her eyes downcast, fixed on the wooden board of the deck. Talha gestured and one of her priestesses took the scroll from the woman’s palm and handed over to her with a bow. Talha took it in one hand, then looked over at Elva.

  “You are dismissed, woman. Take your boats and return to the ships. If you and yours are not out of my way by the time we are ready to sail again, I will sink your ships where they stand.”

  Elva nodded, her red hair cascading down over her face, and bowed so low that her hair touched the wooden deck. She was back over the side and headed down the net in moments. Lhaurel itched to watch her go, part of her wanting to see her topple into the waters below, but Talha was in the process of shaking open the rolled-up scroll. The Sister’s eyes darted over the page and her expression darkened perceptibly. After a moment, she crumpled the note in one hand and tossed it over the side of the ship.

  “What did you do that for?” Lhaurel said, moving over to the rail. The wadded paper bobbed on the surface for several long moments about twenty feet below her, then the water soaked it and it sank beneath the slowly lapping waves.

  Talha ignored her.

  “Captain,” she said, voice cracking like a whip. “Make for the shore. If the other ships don’t move out of the way in time, ram them.”

  The captain gulped visibly and nodded, his hat a crumpled mess in his hands.

  “What’s going on, Talha?” Lhaurel asked.

  Talha spun, her staff spinning in her hand. The reddish orb on the end of the staff stopped an inch from Lhaurel’s nose.

  “We need to get to Estrelar. Now.”

  Chapter 14: Beneath Blackened Skies

  “There is no clear designation in the histories of this or any other people regarding the emergence of the belief in the renewal of lives and its role in the movement and advancement of magical abilities within our people.”

  —From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 15, Year 1023

  Gavin strode along the rocky path, boots crunching against the loose rock and dirt. Above him in the darkened skies, the moon shone almost full, lighting the pathway enough to see by. He pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders and adjusted the ties fastening it closed. Despite initially disliking the heavy garment, he’d grown quite fond of the deep brown cloak. It kept him warm and provided a measure of concealment during dark nights such as these.

  Since that first walk on the night after Samsin had been tried, Gavin had made a habit of walking the length of the valley when everyone else had long since slipped into the comforting embrace of sleep. But for Gavin, sleep was elusive at best. There was simply too much on his mind. The long walks helped him sort through his jumbled thoughts and focus on what needed to be done. It was an entirely different problem from what he’d faced in the Oasis and he worried he was inadequate for the task.

  He sighed and his breath puffed out before him in a little misty cloud.

  Since Brisson had finally relented to the patrols, Gavin had spent the remainder of the day organizing duties with Cobb and Evrouin and making sure they had the right people to go on the patrols with them. Cobb, oddly enough, had been far more difficult to convince to allow women into the patrol groups than Evrouin, but had eventually relented when his wife had pulled him aside and spoken with him. Gavin wasn’t sure what she’d said, but Cobb had been unusually silent ever since.

  From there, he’d met with Farah to see what she’d need to start working with the mystics and if she would require more assistance in the eyrie. Farah had been distant over the last few days, but she’d assured him that she had all she needed for both duties she’d been given and would keep him updated if she needed anything. Then she’d kissed him.

  His feelings toward her were a jumble of new emotions, which only served to make his thoughts all the more lethargic and he was never entirely certain where their relationship was at or if they even had one at all. Farah did things her own way and in her own time and Gavin was loathe to upset that.

  After his talk with Farah, Shallee had volunteered to organize the remainder of the work details. The former outcast was a steady rock upon which Gavin found himself relying more and more. Even with a small babe in her arms practically at all times, she found the time to talk with him and anyone else who came along. She went out of her way to visit Alyson in the medical building and look in on the wounded and frostbitten. She visited the mothers and children of the Rahuli people and, with all that, got less sleep than any of them.

  Then there was Darryn. The swarthy man hadn’t been anywhere Gavin or Benji could find once the meeting with Brisson had concluded, nor had Farah been able to find him when she’d gathered the new mystics together for their first meeting since joining Brisson’s people in the valley. Gavin wanted to know what the man had been up to outside the valley, especially after the argument the two of them had a few days previously. It was partly to search for him that Gavin was out walking again, searching the valley.

  Gavin worked his way down the path, following the ridgeline of the rocky shelf that bisected the valley. All the main buildings rested up on the higher ridge, an area that stretched back for several miles until it hit the mountains once again where the new eyrie lay. The lower part of the valley, below the ridge, was a rock-strewn strip of land that h
ugged the side of two mountains for several miles before ending in a box canyon. There was no way in or out, according to Benji, which is why the former slaves kept their herds of cattle and gatheriu—whatever those were—down there. Gavin thought it the perfect place to look for someone who didn’t want to be found.

  In truth, that wasn’t the only reason he was walking tonight. Outside of the stress of getting the patrols taken care of, Gavin couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going to go wrong. He knew, logically, that they were safer now than they’d ever been, but part of him felt as if something else was coming just over the horizon, the feeling that someone was watching him but was gone as soon as he turned around to see who it was.

  “Nonsense,” Gavin muttered to himself as he walked. “Everything is fine . . .”

  He trailed off.

  Something moved in the darkness further down the valley. Cattle perhaps? A light flared up and Gavin heard the distant sound of a striker being used a moment later.

  Not cattle.

  Gavin dropped a hand to his greatsword, squinting into the darkness. It was clearly a man, but the distance was too great to see who it was. The figure remained swathed in shadow and indistinct light. Thankfully, whoever it was wasn’t moving. The small bubble of light from the lantern remained stationary. Licking his lips, Gavin crept closer.

  “You can stop trying to be silent in your movements,” a familiar voice said from behind him. “You make more noise than a bull after a cow in season.”

  Gavin spun, but only made it halfway through the turn when a hand reached out and grasped the wrist of his swordhand before he could finish drawing his sword. The hand was like iron.

  Gavin looked up into Tadeo’s expressionless face. “What’re you doing out here?” Gavin asked, only partially relaxing. His heart raced and blood pounded in his ears.

  “I live here,” Tadeo said, releasing Gavin’s hand and walking around him. “Put the sword away. This thing is not needed.”

  Gavin frowned at the man’s accent. It was heavy and thick like the rest of Brisson’s people, but completely different at the same time. And the way he spoke left out common words or else replaced them with others completely.