Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  Lhaurel looked up to see that the last wagon had pulled ahead of them by several spans. The only reason she could see them at all over the long grass was because they were slowly cresting a rise in the otherwise flat expanse around them.

  “One last question, Talha,” Lhaurel said, quickening her pace. “Back on the ship, with Elva. What is House Kelkott and what did you mean about politics?”

  Talha’s smile slipped a little and she pounded her staff into the ground a little harder than normal. “I guess I will have to teach you eventually. Our lessons will resume tomorrow morning once we reach the Geithoorn locks. I will teach you of the Great Houses and the great game they play with each other.” She sighed and made a sour expression, and Lhaurel hid a smile.

  It was nice to have the old Talha back again.

  Chapter 17: Scents and Sounds

  “The Progressions were a belief stolen from the Relao, then changed once the Seven Sisters gained prominence in the religious capacities of the Orinai.”

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

  Lhaurel smelled Geithoorn before she saw it. According to Talha, Geithoorn was a small town compared to just about any other place in the Empire. It wouldn’t have existed at all if it weren’t for the locks and the lake next to which it rested. Lhaurel only had a vague idea what the locks were, but she’d gathered from context that it had something to do with a means of transportation by water. Talha had briefly explained that the Sisters controlled the canals and the locks when they’d caught back up with the wagons earlier that morning. That control granted them a knife on the economic pulse of the Empire—whatever that meant—through the tariffs and tithes charged for their use. None of that, however, explained the smell.

  “What is that horrid stench?” Lhaurel asked, unable to take it any longer. Next to it, Grunt’s odor was rather pleasant.

  She and Talha were sharing the same wagon now, Talha having mostly returned to her normal absentminded self. Talha looked up from her book, which lay open on her lap, and glanced over at Lhaurel, blinking as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep.

  “What’s that?”

  “The smell. What’s that smell?” Lhaurel said. She brought a hand up to cover her nose and mouth.

  Talha frowned and sucked a deep breath through her nose.

  “It’s not Grunt, here, Honored Sister,” the wizened wagon driver said. “It’s the smokeweed. They bring it down from the plantations up north, see.”

  “Ah yes,” Talha said, tapping one finger against her nose. “That must be it. I’d forgotten it was harvest season.”

  “Aye,” the driver said, flicking the reins. “They have to be getting it done before the snows move down this far. I heard the winter’ll be bad this year. Snows in the mountains, crazy clouds up in the sky. The weather’s been something awful east o’ here, I heard. Crazy storms and the like.”

  Talha mumbled something incoherent and turned back to her book.

  “How can you stand it?” Lhaurel asked, nearly gagging.

  “You get used to it,” the driver said. “Most don’t even notice it anymore. You’ve been gone from the big cities for a while if you’ve forgotten the smell . . .” The man trailed off and he suddenly gulped, as if remembering to whom he was speaking. A bead of sweat appeared on his bald head and dripped down over his nose. “Forgive me, Honored Sister. See, I didn’t mean to imply nothing.”

  Lhaurel waved him to silence with her free hand, catching a glimpse of buildings on the horizon as they passed over a tall hill. Dozens of squat little buildings clustered around what appeared to be a rather wide street. Low walls rested on each side of the main roadway, blocking it off from the buildings near it. The buildings themselves looked to be a ramshackle array of stone and wooden structures, though Lhaurel was only able to catch the merest glimpse of most of them before they passed behind a hill and it was all lost to view. What had fascinated her, however, wasn’t the buildings or the oddly constructed road. No, the fascinating part had been the people scurrying back and forth between the buildings.

  There had been dozens of them, each looking as if they were about their tasks, walking intently and with purpose. Though Lhaurel hadn’t truly been alone since leaving the Sharani Desert, she longed to be able to see other people who weren’t Sisters, priestesses, or those they’d hired. Talha constantly spoke about the Sisters being scions of the Orinai people, yet Lhaurel had not yet ever really seen an Orinai, unless you counted the smelly driver or the sailors back aboard ship. They’d been part of the Orinai people, tall, well-muscled, light-skinned, and powerful in their own right. But they’d also been either so afraid of Lhaurel and Talha that they’d not really been worth trying to understand or they were the opposite, like Elva, too intently loyal and fervent to be much of a target for actual understanding and learning.

  “I just saw it,” Lhaurel said to Talha. “Geithoorn. It’s just there, over the next rise.”

  Talha didn’t look up from her book. “I know child, now sit down before you make a scene. The town watch will have been alerted by now and sent runners to ready the barge. We shall not be here long.”

  Lhaurel would have made a face at the woman, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate for either her station or her age. Still, Lhaurel considered it for far longer than she should have.

  After a moment, Talha closed her book and turned in her seat, gesturing to her priestesses in the wagon behind her. Lhaurel watched as a pair of them leapt from the wagon and rushed forward.

  “Run ahead with your sisters,” Talha ordered. “Make the barge ready to travel. Let Alcine’s priestesses know we will be leaving immediately. We have no time for ceremony today.”

  “Yes, Sister,” the priestesses said together and hurried away at a jog. Talha’s other priestesses clambered down from the wagon and hurried after their companions.

  Talha then turned to Lhaurel and raised a single red eyebrow. “Might I implore the use of your priestesses as well, Lhaurel?”

  Curious, Lhaurel nodded. “I never know what to do with them myself. I’m sure they’d welcome being able to do something other than sit around.”

  Talha’s lips twitched, as if unsure if they should slip down into a frown or up into a smile, but the expression was gone in a moment.

  “Go into the town and seek out the market,” Talha said to Lhaurel’s priestesses. “Fetch the supplies we’ll need for at least a three-week journey. I do not wish to have to stop once we are on our way.” Talha reached inside her flowing skirt and pulled out a thick leather pouch, which clinked as she tossed it to one of Lhaurel’s priestesses. The priestess who caught it glanced at Lhaurel momentarily, who nodded, and then shifted to the side of the wagon so she could climb down.

  “Oh, and no fish,” Talha said. “We’ll get enough of that in Estrelar.” The priestess bowed and rushed off. Talha waited for the space of half a heartbeat and then looked back at Lhaurel’s other priestesses. “Well? You think she can carry supplies for all of us by herself?”

  The other priestesses scrambled to obey. Lhaurel watched them go until they disappeared behind a low hill.

  “Are we really in that much of a hurry?” Lhaurel asked.

  “Much more so, actually, though there’s nothing to it. We have to take the canals now, instead of travelling over land as I was originally planning. It will still be a long journey, and your studies will still need to be concluded before we reach Estrelar. Now hush. We’ll be entering the town soon.”

  When they rounded the bend a few minutes later, Lhaurel got her first real view of the town. Several dozen people waited for them in front of the town proper, their backs to the buildings that lined both sides of what Lhaurel had thought was a road. It wasn’t.

  It looked like a river or stream, but contained within walls that had obviously been constructed solely for that purpose. It was at least thirty spans across, about the length of a ten people across lying lengthwise. As Lhaurel looked, she saw it str
etched off into the distance as far as the eye could see. Some sort of flat, elongated craft about half as wide as the canal itself sat on the water, long, thick ropes holding it in place against one wall. Several structures, almost like little huts, rested in the middle of the craft and people clad in white scrambled on and off it, carrying supplies and other goods into the small buildings. Made of a dark, polished wood, it looked like nothing short of a tiny floating village.

  She knew that it was a barge—the word recalled, Lhaurel assumed, as part of the memories and knowledge Elyana had given her during her first and only meditation, but she didn’t want to dwell on that. The thought of someone else’s knowledge embedded in her mind still frightened her. It was one of the reasons why she’d not ever gone back to her meditations after that first night.

  “Hold, Grunt,” the driver said, pulling on the reins.

  The wagon ground to a halt in a cloud of dust. The gatheriu grunted and made a noise that sounded like falling stones striking one another. The creature jerked slightly in his leads, barely more than a simple shifting of weight, but it was enough to pull Lhaurel’s attention away from the barge. Talha had gotten to her feet without Lhaurel noticing. The Sister stood near the rough ladder that led down the side of the wagon, peering down at the trio of men who had come forward out of the crowd. Lhaurel glanced down at them as well, noting the low hum of voices and trying hard not to focus too much on the stink in the air.

  The man in the center of the trio was a portly fellow, his stomach barely contained by the straining green shirt he wore. His pants were tight fitting and black, though Lhaurel could only guess at the material as over half the pant was covered by knee-length brown boots with brass buckles so heavily polished they gleamed in the sunlight. Lhaurel glanced up from there, noting his round face, squat nose and thinning black hair. The other two men were more simply attired, with loose white shirts and brown leather vests, flowing grey pants, and calf-length leather boots. Neither of their shirts looked as if the buttons would burst at any moment either.

  “Welcome, Honored Sisters,” the portly man said, throwing his thick arms wide in a welcoming gesture, though he kept his eyes lowered in an obvious sign of subservience. “It’s been several long years since any of the Seven Sisters had passed through the Geithoorn locks. I would have had a feast prepared, had I known you were coming. Regrettably, the priestess neglected to inform me.”

  Talha’s back was to her, so Lhaurel didn’t see the expression on her face, but Lhaurel did notice a slight shift in the woman’s posture that indicated that the man had said something wrong. The silence that fell over the rest of the small crowd also gave Lhaurel pause. When Talha spoke, the cold iron in her voice took away any doubt.

  “There was no neglect, steward. Do not forget your place. I will inform the Great Houses of your arrogance and conceit upon my return to Estrelar. I do not doubt your position of influence here will be, regrettably, granted to someone more deserving than you.”

  “I—what I meant was—I mean . . .” The portly man’s words trailed off into wordless grunts. While Lhaurel wasn’t sure what the man had done wrong specifically, part of her had been offended at the man’s tone, so she didn’t feel much sympathy for him.

  Talha ignored him completely, instead addressing the other two men who had come with him. “Our priestesses are already within the town making the appropriate preparations. You will assist them in getting this completed in all haste. Now.”

  Both men bowed low, bending at the waist completely. They turned and headed toward the barge, one of them towing the portly man along with them. Lhaurel watched them go, doing her best to ignore the battling emotions within her at the sight.

  Chapter 18: Honor’s Folly

  “It is unclear, however, where the current understanding of the Iterations originated.”

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

  The barge was made ready in such a short time Lhaurel had trouble believing it. After Talha’s confrontation with the portly, green-clad man, she had gone off to speak with the priestess in charge of the locks. Apparently, a storm had passed through the lake into which the canal fed, causing the water levels to rise. According to Talha, that was going to cause a little bit of extra work for the priestesses, though she didn’t seem overly concerned.

  Lhaurel was trying to decide if she should send one of the priestesses to fetch Talha when she appeared with a woman Lhaurel could only assume was the priestess Talha had gone to see. Talha’s companion wore the same white robes as the other priestesses, but hers was far more ornate, festooned with intricate, colored patterns along the sleeves and with a shawl of a deep maroon about her shoulders. Lhaurel had never seen a color quite like it before. She also seemed a lot less obsequious than the other priestesses, her eyes meeting Talha’s on more than one occasion that Lhaurel saw just in the few moments it took the two women to walk the few spans from the side street where they’d appeared to Lhaurel’s side.

  “I thank you for the use of your barge,” Talha was saying as the pair approached. “And the additional priestesses to get us through the swells. I will be sure to return them.”

  The colorful priestess—Lhaurel didn’t know her name—shook her head, her short, blond hair bouncing around her ovular face. “There is no need of that, Sister. These have been here for many years. It would do them good to visit their branch of the temple in Estrelar. I think, also, that Mhenna would be glad of them. I have prepared a missive, requesting a rotation that will better serve the people here. If I may implore upon your goodwill?”

  Talha smiled, taking the proffered scroll. “I will ignore the irony of that remark. I will deliver your message, priestess, and my compliments on what you have done here. I will ask but one more thing of you, however.”

  “Name it.” The priestess’ eyes flicked over to Lhaurel for a brief moment, a question in them, then back to Talha.

  What was that about?

  “That fat idiot who approached us, the fool in green,” Talha said.

  “I know him. He appointed himself the political leader here a few months back.”

  Talha’s expression hardened. “Dispose of him for me.”

  “Of course.” The priestess bowed and turned to go.

  “Wait,” Lhaurel interrupted, reacting without thinking. “You don’t mean kill him, do you?”

  Talha spun on Lhaurel, eyes hard as stones and lips pressed tight together. “Yes, kill him. It will serve as a lesson to those who witnessed his insolence.”

  “You’d murder him for that?” Lhaurel’s stomach flipped over inside her, nausea swelling up from deep within.

  “I would not do it if he had not forced this action upon me. His death will serve as a reminder of the respect due the Seven Sisters. It would serve you well to remember it yourself.” Talha’s voice was a whisper, but it shook Lhaurel with the force of a raging storm.

  Gone was the kindly, absentminded woman Lhaurel had come to know on their journey thus far. Even the taciturn, moody Talha of the last few days was better than the Talha that now stood before her. Lhaurel took an involuntary step backward, then her back stiffened. Every part of Lhaurel urged her to stand.

  “Whatever it is you do,” Lhaurel said, “you will have to live with it for the eternities, Talha. His death will not change the Path.” Lhaurel didn’t know where the words came from, but they resonated within her in perfect counterpoint to the raging storm of Talha’s words. Lhaurel brought her foot back forward, locking eyes with Talha. “Be wary of what lessons you teach this people.”

  Talha froze for a moment, then her mouth tugged down into a frown. She brought one hand up to tap a finger against her lips.

  “I think it is time we leave,” Lhaurel said. She felt blood pounding in her ears and a small voice at the back of her mind questioned what had just happened, though Lhaurel wasn’t able to devote much attention to the thought at the moment. She and Talha had been alone for that moment, but now the
ir priestesses were approaching, bringing with them the final items to be loaded onto the barge.

  Talha turned and looked over her shoulder at the approaching priestesses and then nodded, striding past Lhaurel without looking at her. She stepped out onto the barge and Lhaurel followed, only then wiping away the sweat that had appeared on her forehead. The priestesses all filed on the barge after her. There were a lot of them, more than just those who had come with them. Lhaurel saw maroon shufaris mixed in with both hers and Talha’s. The “borrowed” priestesses, perhaps? There were so many, in fact, that Lhaurel had to move closer to the small hut-like constructions in the middle of the barge to give them space to board.

  “Let us be off,” Talha said.

  The priestesses moved in what looked like practiced forms. They split into two even groups, one going to each side of the barge and then arranging themselves in a line parallel to the railing there.

  “Loose the line!” Talha shouted. On the shore, several men untied the long lines that held the barge in place against the canal wall.

  “Release the lock!”

  People rushed by on the shore as the barge rocked and shifted, drifting out from the canal wall toward the middle of the gap. Lhaurel was grateful she was holding onto her staff for the support. Still, she watched the people running on either side of the canal with rapt attention. She wasn’t sure what was about to happen. No oars or poles were in sight which, Lhaurel assumed, would have been the usual means of transportation for a water craft of this size. And she still didn’t know what a lock was.

  A noise sounded from ahead of them and the barge lurched forward. The priestesses along the rails reached out and grasped onto them, keeping their balance, though their faces and expressions were intent and fixed ahead of them. People from the town appeared along each side of the canal, pointing and waving as if watching some sort of great game. Lhaurel turned to get a look at what lay ahead of them.