“Didn’t I tell you not to dawdle?”
He said nothing, his suspicion and annoyance drowning out the impulse to apologize.
The upper level had been a never-ending maze of identical passages; down here was worse. By the time she led him through a door into a small room with a writing table and pair of stools he knew he would never find his way to the stairwell on his own, let alone out of the building. She latched the door behind them.
“Sit.” She took her seat on the far side of the writing table and examined the note Javed had given him last night. The woman was delicately boned and pale. He wondered how much time she spent down in this catacomb of archives to be so untouched by the sun. She slid a knife under the seal swiftly and deliberately, and he noticed that the seal remained unbroken as she read.
“Why did you come to Vidyavana?” She asked finally. The note was short; it shouldn’t have taken her that long to read.
“Because I want to know what it was that destroyed my home, and how to fight it.”
“And you think the Loremasters have this information. Why?”
“Because the only other place I’ve seen creatures like that is in the depiction of the Sealing of Tchraja on the walls of my city.”
“Ah. Tchraja’s twenty-third manifestation fell, and /He inhabited the scorpion beasts below the earth /A thousand times a thousand infinities poured forth /From the hollows of the Qaehl. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Have you evidence that these creatures are real, then?”
“Only my own experience, and Gita’s. I never once saw one fall.”
She nodded, crisp as her demeanor. “Have you spoken to anyone but Javed of this?”
“No. No one but Javed and his wife know why I’m looking into the legend.”
“Good. Good enough, at any rate. Make sure it stays that way. There is a small group within the city of those who believe the old legends are factual but obscure tellings of ancient history. Most of us are Loremasters, but not all, and not all the guild believes. Those who make too much noise about this are locked up, ‘for their own good,’ they say.”
He shook his head, not quite sure he could trust what he heard, but could not suppress a grimace at the heavy-handedness of the approach. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen the nightmare come to life before my eyes. But you’re saying if I work with your group I might find out about the creatures?”
“You just might. I’m Zareen.” Her smile was pleasant as she finally introduced herself, extending a hand. Bahadur clasped it firmly.
“Better chance than I can get elsewhere. Bahadur. A pleasure. When do we start?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The night before Ravi said they were to leave the road they spotted firelight off in the distance, away to the south. Ravi spent the better part of that night studying their map. When no bandits materialized, he determined they should go there in hopes of fresh water and information.
Chandi leaned forward in the saddle to avoid feeling like she would tip out the back as they rode up, away from the road. After this dune the ground was flat. She thought she could see people moving near a small, squat rod shape.
“Hail!” Ravi called. Several of the moving people started at the sound, and there was some pointing and discussion before the band sent a rider to meet them.
“Hail, travelers!” The stranger’s voice was muffled by the long brown robes that draped him – or her – from head to toe. Even his face was hidden by cloth and shadow. “Return to the road, there is nothing of value here.”
“We seek nothing from you but information, if you have it to give.”
“Come to the well, then, but there is only death in the deep desert. We have lost many this past season.” The rider’s voice sounded hollow to Chandi.
“All the more reason for us to speak with you.” They followed the rider, and when they drew near the well he spoke with his fellows in an incomprehensible dialect – if it even was a dialect of Trade. There was a great deal of head-shaking and pointing to the north. Eventually, the rider who had greeted them turned around and addressed Ravi again.
“You see there are few of us. We, who know the secrets of the deep desert, are fleeing. Our livestock are all gone, and our children. For the girl if not for yourself, do not go this way.”
“I’m afraid those are the very reasons we must. We’re going to put an end to it.”
“Is such a thing possible? Are you gods rather than men? Can you also heal the land and bring water back to the springs?”
Ravi paused for a moment, looking around the tiny encampment. “What happened?”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper behind the veil. “Demons. Demons came and devoured everything they caught, night after night, and wherever we moved they found us again. Some they poisoned, and within a night or two they were devoured as well. Our tribe is already dead, but we few cling to life.”
“Demons? I don’t believe such things exist. Did you see these things that devoured your people?”
“Only the bones they left behind, and the poison with no cure.”
Chandi had never seen the remains of a body, but the poison sounded consistent. The image of Uncle Rostam in the caravanserai, convulsing as they tried to give him antidote, sprang to mind. Her stomach clenched in a wave of nausea.
Ravi nodded. “Will you tell us where we might find water when we leave this well?”
“You insist on entering the wilderness, then?”
“We do.” Chandi spoke up, and she felt the attention of all the hooded and veiled figures turn to her. “If we fail, we fail, and the Qaehl remains as she is. If we succeed, then no one else has to suffer like your children did. But if we don’t even try…”
Their interpreter turned back to the remnants of his tribe, and they spoke. Eventually, the interpreter turned to face them again.
“Since you are resolved, we will tell you.” He – or she – sighed.
Chandi beamed. “Thank you! Oh, and if you follow the road back to the west, about six or seven days from here you’ll find an oasis. There was a group of Khakhewar camped there when we left, and they might be able to help you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Pounding. Running. Darkness. No, not running, galloping. Pain. Black powder smoke. No, wood smoke. His eyes strained to open. There was a warm light around him, and he could see a blur of wood as his eyelids struggled to separate. He was on his back, laying on something soft. It felt like there was something draped over his body, too. He sweated, but one thing at a time. First, he needed to see. His eyes felt grainy; as he tried again to open them the blur of wood became the slats of a roof. He let his head roll to the left. Somehow he felt certain there was only a wall to the right. There was a pillow under his head; strange the order things came to him. A cauldron boiled on the other side of the room in a stone fireplace. No wonder he was warm. Overlaid on the smell of smoke was something green and herbaceous. He tried to speak, to ask where he was, but it came out as a croak.
A young girl’s voice came from somewhere else in the room.
“W-h-.” Before he could finish the sound a dark figure moved across his vision and a small hand lifted his head. The rim of a cup materialized on his lips. They were parched; the water felt cold and wonderful as he swallowed. She took the cup away too soon; a powerful thirst still gripped him.
“So will you be staying with us this time?” The new voice was old and brittle like a tree that weathered too many years at the edge of an oasis.
“Where am I?” His own voice was rough and rasped against his throat. It felt like he had swallowed a bucket of sand.
“We are of the Bezrashi. Granmama is our Hekevidya.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat to keep from coughing. “How… how long?” Now he did cough, violently, but the wracking spasms from his lungs did not produce the expected fire from his ribs.
“You have been in my care for the last moon,” the old woman s
aid, coming into view. “Your mind has surfaced a few times, but never for long. Akanksha, go tell them he has awakened.”
“Yes, Granmama!”
“You are very fortunate. Tonight’s fire was to be either a celebration or your funeral pyre.”
This somehow seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. The old woman was just as leathery and hardened as her voice suggested, with a long white braid trailing down her back.
“I will help you sit and dress yourself when you feel able. You are like a small child now; you will need to build up your strength again, bit by bit.”
He felt himself color, more when he realized he was bare under the light blanket they had covered him with. He cleared his throat again and catalogued his condition. Head: groggy. Vision, all right. I can hear. I seem to have all my limbs. My side doesn’t hurt – that’s a pleasant change… He attempted to raise an arm, but his hand felt as heavy as lead.
“I think I would like to get up.”
The old woman was surprisingly strong for her age, and soon he sat on the edge of the bed with the blanket arranged across his lap. He had to wait for the rush of blood away from his head to stabilize. Then he noticed his skin seemed to sink between his ribs; maybe it wasn’t just that she was strong.
“So what do I call you?” He had more air now that he was sitting upright, but his throat still felt raw and his voice still grated.
“Granmama doesn’t quite fit, does it?” She winked at him. “The adults of the tribe call me Hekevidya and say its respect because it’s always been that way. But whoever heard of using Sran as a name, eh?” She was moving around the room while she spoke without hurry, gathering what must be clothes for him. “My name is Zena, but no more than one or two others will know who you mean. While we’re exchanging names, what is yours?”
“Zena. Thank you. Shahin. How was I found?”
“Unconscious, half-dead from thirst, feverish, and tangled in the reins of a horse in not much better shape. She came straight for my hut when she found the village.” Zena cackled as she moved back over to where Shahin sat. “Seemed she could smell the medicine. Men started taking her out with the goats once she had her strength back, now she puts them to shame.”
Shahin had to smile, and he wondered if it looked as wan as he felt. “Kamari’s…” he had to clear his throat again. “She’s a good horse… Could I get some more water?”
With great care and a good deal more fussing than Shahin thought was necessary she helped him dress. He nearly overbalanced in the act of standing to pull on smallclothes, but Zena caught him handily. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, and yet he was. She’s a grandmother and a srani. Nakedness is nothing new to her… was the mantra he repeated until he wore both smallclothes and a tunic to cover his shrunken frame.
“Why are my fingers so stiff?”
“Because I’m very good at what I do. They should loosen up a bit, but your hands were so swollen we had to cut away the reins. I may have mentioned that you were lucky?”
Shahin looked at her for a long moment, considering several responses. “Yes, I suppose I was. I should be dead.”
“So what happened to you?”
Shahin supposed she had a right to know, and sooner or later these people would probably face them, too. “The city I was in was attacked and overrun. I fled with another man and a girl, and aggravated an injury sustained on my way to the city. I couldn’t keep up, so when the attackers caught up to us I sent them ahead and blew up the tunnel behind us.”
It was hard to read Zena’s face to gauge her reaction. “Kamari is a very good horse,” was all she said.
“The attackers… they weren’t human.”
“There will be enough time for the whole story later, after you’re more fully awake. Come, come, tonight is not a night to discuss destruction. Tonight is a night to celebrate survival. The men wish to see you walk about and prove that the last turning of the moon was not a waste.”
Shahin had to use Zena’s shoulder for balance while he walked. They paused in the doorframe of her hut and he straightened, casually resting one hand on the wood. At least, he hoped it looked casual.
Outside it was dark. His eye was immediately drawn to the brightly crackling bonfire not fifty paces away. Men moved in the surrounding shadows, and he could smell meat roasting – surely not over that flame, but maybe in the coals around the edge. He could hear music but couldn’t see its source, and for a second he thought he was back with the Chèin’ii. Only, the music was rougher than he’d ever heard them play.
“Whenever you’re ready. The whole tribe has done pirani for your recovery.”
He looked down at the old woman standing half a pace in front of him. “All right. I’m as ready as I can be.” He reached out a bony hand to Zena’s shoulder for balance and began a slow walk towards the gathering. “I’ve been unconscious for most of a month, you say?”
“You were lucid once or twice in that time, but yes.”
“You are good at what you do to keep a grown man alive for a month.”
She cackled. “Do you wish to know which of the new mothers helped feed you, then? At which teats you suckled like a newborn?”
Shahin felt his cheeks color and stopped walking.
She cackled again. “I told you the whole village nursed you.”
Around the fire that night he was greeted with jovial smiles, boisterous laughter, and careful gestures. Welcoming slaps on the back were hastily retracted to pats on the shoulder; women who looked like they would embrace him pulled back and cupped his hand as though he were fine glasswork. Shahin could imagine nothing so irritating. Finally he was gently but physically “encouraged” to the front of the line for food. If anyone had bothered to announce it was ready he’d have gone there on his own in a heartbeat; “ravenous” was only the start of it.
He scooped up the dish of spicy rice and dates and chunks of cabrito with hunks of local flatbread. With every bite he saw the gauntness of his bony hand as it moved the food too slowly to satisfy his stomach. The hand began to tremble as he approached the bottom of the bowl. Is that really my hand? His shoulder was tired, which suggested it was. He lowered the bowl to his lap and had to tear his eyes from the hand clutching its flatbread in order to breathe.
Zena appeared in front of him and fed him the last bites in his bowl before shepherding him back to her hut. He was shivering now, but she insisted on stripping him to the skin before bundling him back into bed. The worst part was that Zena was absolutely right. Even if he had someplace else to go, he was all but helpless now.
But I’m alive. I can heal. Sleep claimed him.
* * *
Over the course of the week Shahin regained strength far more quickly than Zena expected, and because it was faster than the old woman expected the rest of the village was shocked. He had been a fast healer as a child, too. Zena still retained a firm hand on when he was and was not allowed to push himself, though. Most of the time, he was not.
“Excess energy should be diverted to healing,” she admonished anytime he thought about complaining. Shahin began to wonder if she practiced magic – even his own parents hadn’t read him so well! By the end of the fourth day she had him brewing and serving kafe – the most strenuous activity he was yet allowed – so skillfully that the next day he was set under the care of a young boy to sling stones at a target.
“Now wait just a minute, here!” The very idea was insulting.
“Akil is very good with a sling. What is there to complain about?”
“Come on! It’ll be fun!” The boy was perhaps six, with a wide toothy grin and black eyes that shone like Esha’s oldest’s had. He began to tug on Shahin’s hand.
Thus it was that Shahin found himself led out to a clearing behind one of the village huts. Akil thrust a long strip of wool cord with a loop in one end and a broad pad near the middle into Shahin’s hand. It was just past dawn, and the boy had already gathered a large pile of stones. He must
have known about this since last night, at the latest.
“Okay, you see that khejri tree over there?” The tree was perhaps fifty paces away. “We’re gonna throw at it. The first one to miss has to eat a bug!”
“What kind of bug?” Shahin eyed the sling dubiously. He’d never used one before.
“Oh, whatever’s around. Beetles, ants, worms. I heard about one kid who ate a live scorpion!”
“A scorpion?”
“That’s what my Uncle says! Never did say what happened to him, though.”
“Why don’t you show me how to throw with one of these first.”
“You can’t throw a sling? But, you’re a grownup.”
“In the place where I grew up I didn’t need to sling stones.”
Akil shrugged. “Put the loop over your finger, like this, and hold the knot in your hand. The stone goes in the cradle.” He was putting the sling on as he spoke, and then he began a large looping vertical spin. “Then you throw it, like this!”
Even watching carefully Shahin wasn’t sure he caught the moment when Akil released, but a heartbeat later he heard the rock knock against the tree trunk.
“Now you try! This one won’t count for the challenge.”
“How kind of you.” Shahin fitted the sling to his much larger hand as Akil watched.
“Now try not to spin it more than a couple times, but don’t let go until it’s coming back up.”
Shahin’s first toss, predictably, went awry. On a fourth spin he let go too late and the bullet curved sharply upwards to land with a puff of dust mere paces ahead of them. His second toss was better, landing in the dirt a pace or so to the left of the tree. On the third the knot slipped out of his grasp at the top of the arc and the stone landed in the thatch of the hut behind them with the sound peculiar to straw. After the fourth toss, which hit the target high but still hit, Akil declared the challenge underway.
Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1) Page 18
