Between Starfalls

by S Kaeth

  “How do you make it float?” Takiyah asked, but the guards ignored her.

  They passed several more buildings, all shaped like boxes and set in grids. The guards in the lead pushed and shouted to clear a path through the throngs of people. One of the irregular-shaped buildings loomed like two arrowheads sitting one atop the other, and Taunos frowned. It seemed clear that the strange, metallic buildings were not made by the same people who laid out the grid. But what did that mean for them? He clenched his jaw. It was too late now. He’d brought them in here, and now he had to deal with the ramifications, whatever they were.

  Ra’ael grumbled, glaring around her. “The Kamalti are not real. They’re only legends!”

  Kaemada shook her head against his shoulder, and he glanced down at her face, slack on one side, but full of a mixture of worry and excitement on the other. “It fits. And even if they’re not Kamalti, if they control the mountain, surely they know what happened to Eian!”

  Ra’ael narrowed her eyes, but her tone lost conviction. “They could have killed the Kamalti, moved in, and taken over.”

  Takiyah shook her head. “If someone killed the Kamalti, there would be stories. The simplest explanation is that they’re Kamalti.”

  Taunos nodded. “We keep alert but offer them no excuse to resort to violence. We wait and see if they’re as civilized as they appear. No threats of any kind.”

  FEN

  Chapter Six

  The Rinaryns are prolific breeders—they have to be to survive such high mortality rates. Many families have anywhere from six to ten offspring, and more are not uncommon. However, accidents occur regularly, infant mortality is very high, and childbirth is dangerous for both mother and child.

  An example of mortality rates: a family in the nearby village by the surname Tsrian had only three children. The mother died during childbirth along with the fourth child, and the father never remarried. A year after the battle they call the Great Attack, the two younger Tsrians lost their lives during a raid. Before that, the father fell in a hunting accident, leaving only one surviving member.

  Another family in the village by the name of Sierso is an additional example of the risks of Rinaryn life. There were once ten children, but two died in a hunting accident. The elder two, along with their families, were killed in the Great Attack. The mother left to parlay with their attackers and died a few months later. The raiders killed the father when he pled for his wife’s body, along with the younger son and twin toddlers in the following raid. Of a family of twelve, there are now only three left, and one, being dragonbonded, is effectively dead to the village.

  —journal excerpt

  The metal building sat like a sharp rock in a stream, ready to gash open the foot of an unwary wader. Kaemada stared with growing trepidation as her brother carried her toward it, his strides immune to the shoves of the guards. He shifted his grip on her, and Kaemada wished yet again that her limbs didn’t feel like liquid. The anxiety and humiliation ate at her, her weakness made apparent. How was she to find Eian if she couldn’t even walk? Ra’ael was carrying her pack; all Kaemada carried was the hunter figurine that Takiyah had made for Eian. She cradled it, feeling foolish, but it was as close to Eian as she could get.

  The metal doors of the building gaped open at them as they approached, and Taunos paused, looking as astonished as she felt. Who moved the doors? One of the strangers behind them struck Taunos’s shoulder, rocking him forward, and he stepped past the threshold into the corridor.

  “Where are the people who operate the doors?” Takiyah asked. Kaemada watched her from over Taunos’s shoulder as her friend peered at the sides of the doors. The guards did not answer.

  The hallway stretched far ahead, the ceiling pressing down on them and the walls too close. It was like going down a throat lined with odd lights—smooth, square panels glowing from the walls. Kaemada wrestled with her growing sense of dread.

  “Are there lanterns behind those squares?” Takiyah hunched down for a better look at the lights before her guards forced her upright again.

  Ra’ael scowled at their guards. “How dare they tear so much metal from the ground! Everyone knows it should be given freely. No wonder they’re locked down here, away from the sky and the spirits.”

  The amount of metal was overwhelming. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all metallic, with occasional panels of a smooth, black substance on the walls. Doors were set into heavily engraved metal frames and themselves bore strange designs. The only hues were black, white, and shades of grey, and Kaemada soon missed the array of vivid colors and natural materials that her people favored. They hadn’t seen any wood or straw or bright cloth here. She couldn’t wait to be away, to find Eian, to be back under the open sky with the fresh breeze on her face. Taunos carried her through hallway after hallway, and Kaemada’s heart raced as if she were carrying Taunos rather than the other way around. She cringed away from the metal surrounding her.

  Kaemada tried to reach out to Tannevar, but their link was crippled and she could only dimly sense him. Walking beside them, Ra’ael kept her gaze fixed ahead, her mouth set in a straight line, no doubt wrestling with her own claustrophobia. Taunos’s hold on her tightened, and his jaw clenched. The walls converged on them. The ceiling was too low. There was no air. Kaemada couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think under the weight of the fear that possessed her. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to draw each panicked breath.

  “Shareil.” Taunos’s voice was steady, as if nothing was wrong.

  His calm was a salve for her fear, keeping the waves of panic from closing over her head and drowning her completely. Every so often, she could gasp a breath through the mind-numbing terror, and she marveled that Taunos and Ra’ael could continue at all.

  “Close your eyes, little sister. Envision the forest outside Torkae. We’re walking to Galod’s clearing. Ready?”

  Covering her closed eyes with her hands, she brought to mind the forest. The sound of birds calling to each other. The smell of leaves crushed underfoot. The purpleberry bush that grew under the tatterbark tree which was home to a family of scoundrel tailosaen. Eian laughing and leaping into piles of fallen leaves. Would she ever see him again? Hot tears pricked her eyes, and a sob burst from her lips.

  “We’re here.” Taunos’s voice was low. Kaemada opened her eyes.

  Another set of doors yawned open for them, and they entered a room ringed with glowing, curved tables. Lights from the ceiling illuminated geometric patterns imprinted on the light grey floor. Large panels of the smooth, black metal they had seen periodically in the hallways prevailed among the walls.

  The guards forced them to cluster inside a large, circular design in the middle of the room.

  “Do not move from the ring,” ordered one, brandishing his baton. The others tossed their weapons and packs into a box outside the door before taking up positions at the edge of the room.

  Taunos set her down, and she sank to the floor beside Tannevar, barely avoiding collapse. She loathed touching the cold, hard, metal floor, but she had no strength to stand or even crouch. Kaemada buried her face in Tannevar’s thick fur, mumbling apologies while he whined and grumbled. Her eyes burned with the threat of tears, and she gulped around the lump in her throat. Eian was not there. She cast a despairing look around the room, her gaze lingering on each guard, searching for some hope of sympathy for her son.

  “This is incredible,” Takiyah breathed, her tone a mixture of appreciation and concern as she turned in a slow circle, surveying the room.

  “Where is Eian?” Kaemada called to the guards lining the room. They didn’t respond, and she tried again, her voice faltering and breathless. “Have you seen a little boy with dark hair in the last two days?”

  Still, they ignored her, and she scowled at them, fumbling at the chains binding Tannevar. Her brother crouched beside her, fishing a strange, twisted, red stem out of the herb pouch under his belt. He pressed it into her hand as if to h
ide it from the guards.

  “Here, Kaemada. They might keep us waiting just because they can, so this is as good a time as any.”

  She took it gingerly. “What is it?”

  “It’s a medicine from a people I found in my travels. It will make you very dizzy, so you might want to lay down, but it will give you some strength once the dizziness wears off. Crush it between your back teeth.”

  She hesitated, looking up at him. “Ameyitum. I never meant for all this trouble.”

  “Hush, cha’atanahn. We will find him, I promise you.” He wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

  She nodded, taking the stem and doing as he said. It tasted terrible and her tongue burned like fire. As he had warned her, the room began to spin, but he caught her and laid her next to Tannevar, who nuzzled his cold nose into her neck. She buried one hand in Tannevar’s fur and gripped her brother’s hand with the other. The world swayed and rolled, so she had no concept of which way was up and feared to fall off the floor itself. The ground was unforgiving, as uncaring as the guards were to her plight. Closing her eyes, she clung to her anchors. Tannevar was there, even if she could barely feel him. Taunos was there. He’d make everything right again. She just had to be strong enough not to hold him back.

  “We should never have left the path. There’s no way back.” Ra’ael’s voice was haunted. They had ignored the sacred law, and now they were here. It was all her fault, Kaemada knew.

  Takiyah dismissed her fears. “Stop over-reacting. We’re Galod’s students. This is only another challenge. How bad could it be?”

  “We may yet appeal to their sense of justice,” Taunos said. “If we keep our heads—”

  “So, what are we doing about it?” Ra’ael asked.

  Takiyah’s voice overflowed with confidence. “We have Taunos; we will come through this. Your fears are based on nothing more than stories designed to make children behave and listen.”

  “You’re the daughter of the Storyteller!”

  “Let’s find out how much danger we’re in before doing anything rash,” Taunos finished.

  “What about realmwalking?” Ra’ael asked, switching to Rinaryn.

  Taunos shifted, and Kaemada squeezed his hand. “No,” he said in Rinaryn. “I cannot bring anyone with me, and walking the realms is inexact. I can rarely jump back to a specific spot.”

  Ra’ael snapped. “I’m not going to my doom without a fight. You act like you know what to do, you make decision after decision without worry for the consequences, and now look where we are!”

  Except it wasn’t her brother’s fault. It was hers. She opened her mouth to defend her brother, but her voice was choked by the tears she held back. She tried to open her eyes but immediately closed them again as the floor threatened to toss her off. Up and down exchanged places in a dizzying dance. Kaemada squeezed her brother’s hand again, hoping he would know she was with him. Silence smothered her until Taunos broke it.

  “What do you see?” he murmured.

  Ra’ael matched his volume. “That one had a slight limp. I think something’s wrong with his left heel, by his gait. That one walks stiffly, probably an old back injury. That one seems strong, but is constantly twitching his fingers. He’s nervous. And that one is near-sighted.”

  “Or he simply prefers to glare at you,” Takiyah snorted.

  “That’s good, but did you see how the one with the limp stays away from the twitchy one? They never even look at each other. And the scowling one? His fingers are red and blistered. They may need bandaging. Finally, see how they’re not between us and the door? I suspect the door’s locked and these guards are only here for show. Same with the walk through the city—a ceremonial parade. The real fighters are out there.”

  “When the door opens, we can get our weapons, then fight our way out.” Ra’ael’s voice was so low it was barely audible.

  Taunos scoffed. “You know I would gladly give my life to save yours, but I only have one life to give, so let’s be reasonable, shall we?”

  Takiyah laughed. “You being reasonable? That would be a sight.”

  Taunos’s tone was light. “Alright. If need be, we fight. We have two advantages—unpredictability and strange terrain.”

  “So… You’re making things up as you go along, and we’re surrounded,” Takiyah said.

  “Exactly.”

  “How are those advantages? You should attempt to make sense if you want to lead.”

  Ra’ael’s questions gave away the source of her irritation. She had always been the leader of their fighting group. It would gall her to give that up, even to Taunos. Maybe especially to Taunos. Kaemada recognized his tone, though. It was the same voice he used when he was needling an opponent into a mistake. The brash overconfidence usually held a strategy, and he’d never let her down before.

  Her brother grinned. “They know they have the advantage. When they let their guard down, that’s our best chance. If, that is, we’re in true danger.”

  Kaemada glanced at the guards. Was her brother right? Were they simply for show? The world rolled again, and she shut her eyes once more.

  Calloused fingers brushed her hair back from her face. “Feeling better yet, little sister?”

  She peeked out to see him grinning at her. “I’m going to throw up on you.”

  He laughed. “It will pass soon. I promise.”

  “I might still throw up on you. Stop laughing at me.” Still, she smiled. She’d said two whole sentences without pausing for breath. It was all too easy to relax in her brother’s care, but impossible to do for long. Not with her son missing. She raised her head slowly to glare at the guards. “Why will they not answer me? Eian needs us.”

  “Keep gathering your strength, little sister, while you can.”

  She laid her head back down, weariness forcing her to follow his instructions. Tannevar scrabbled at his chains with his forepaws, and she turned on her side, trying to help him escape the confinement he so hated. The metal refused to yield to her, and the medicine Taunos had given her hadn’t completely banished the weariness. She settled for stroking Tannevar’s head, hoping to calm him.

  “Ameyitum,” she whispered again.

  Taunos squeezed her shoulder. “Stop apologizing, cha’atanahn.”

  She reached for the song of the spirits. It seemed muted and distant, and she wasn’t sure she could feel it, but she strove to attune herself to that sacred music, anyway.

  Looking up at her brother’s face, she was struck to find pain in his eyes. He always tried to hide it, thinking she wouldn’t notice when he edited the stories of his adventures for her. If anyone could find Eian, it was him. And here he was, trying so hard to keep their spirits up, and she wasn’t helping.

  She put on a tremulous smile, straightening. “This is just what you expected, coming home, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not a game!” Ra’ael scolded.

  He grinned. “But it’s so much easier to pretend it is.”

  Ra’ael glowered at him. “You’re a perpetual adolescent, playing games and leaving the adults to clean up after you!”

  “Sounds about right.” Taunos winked at Takiyah, who choked with suppressed laughter. Kaemada found herself smiling again as Ra’ael sputtered.

  “Should I come home, then, Wildling? Live all my days in Torkae?” Taunos asked.

  Ra’ael muttered something to herself about the penalty for murder, and Taunos winked at Kaemada this time before turning back. “Oh, so I should continue my ‘perpetual adolescent’ wandering ways?” He tilted his head, looking so innocent in his entreaty that Kaemada had to laugh, though it earned her a glare from Ra’ael.

  “You’re impossible.” Ra’ael punched him in the shoulder, prompting him to rub it in mock injury.

  Taunos threw up his hands. “See? Unwinnable game.” He leaned forward and spoke in a softer voice. “Unwinnable games are no fun, you see?”

  “What if they insist on being played?” Ra’ael asked
, nodding toward the guards.

  He reached forward to muss up her hair with one of his roguish grins, speaking softly. “They think we’re weaponless because we lack conventional weapons. So let’s use what we have, shall we? Such as their emotions?”

  Ra’ael slapped his hand away, but a small smile curved her lips. Kaemada smiled at both of them. The Kamalti could never have known what they were getting into when they captured Taunos.

  Her brother was laughing when the doors slid open to admit a group of five Kamalti dressed in elegant clothing and gleaming adornments. The Kamalti stopped, staring at them.

  “I have never seen prisoners in such good humor before,” grumbled an elderly man, casting a disapproving glare at them and their guards. The guards looked down at their feet and shifted uneasily.

  The man glanced at the box that held their weapons. “They brought these with them? Lock them away. They will not be needing them again.”

  He swept his arm in a grand gesture, sending several guards scurrying, then strode into the room with a sniff. The other four followed, doing their best, it seemed, to imitate their leader. Kaemada watched them apprehensively, though anger built inside her like a wave.

  Ra’ael leaned over, whispering, “There goes any chance of us grabbing our weapons.”

  Taunos motioned with his hands, pleading for patience, and Kaemada took a deep breath, hoping to imitate her brother’s easy confidence.

  “Justice Hedrik, Justice Mezguf, Justice Fandrell, Justice Tydrik, and Lord Reason bring this court to session,” one guard said.

  The elderly man who had spoken before slammed the butt of his staff on the floor five times, sending vibrations rippling beneath their feet. Kaemada winced. Everything was wrong—the hard, unyielding metal that matched the hard, unyielding expressions of the Kamalti; the echoes of the closed space, rather than justice delivered under the open, in the presence of Eloí.

  “If I may have your attention,” he said with narrowed eyes and a haughty tone. “You are called here for judgement, having been found guilty of trespassing on Kamalti lands. Do you deny this?”