by Emanuel, Ako
“Yes; how they managed to complete it so fast almost bespeaks the will of the Goddesses,” the Fourth said. “Our warru are in pursuit of her but cannot snare her. I do not see how we can prove any of these things. I say we focus on the facts needed to rescind the challenge gracefully and save the Public Face. Actually trying to win the challenge against the Heir-” she, too, shook her head for emphasis, “-impractical. The High Queen will not wait too much longer before making her response. We must be ready to meet her counter-challenge and soften the blow to the Face.” Nods met her statement. A hint of a smile issued from the First.
“What if I have proof?” The Fifth asked quietly. Four sets of hidden eyes settled heavily upon her, then twitched involuntarily to the Sixth, the puppeteer.
“What proof?” the First asked, just as quietly. The smile hint vanished.
The smile of the Fifth was tangible. “All in good time, Sisters. First I must verify that what I have is indeed proof, and then we may discuss ways to use it. But I agree that we should work to establish our plans to rescind the challenge if what I have comes to naught. It was but a thought to ponder upon. Merely a notion.” A seed. Planted, it would bear fruit. But whether sweet or bitter remained to be seen.
A sils followed, in which no other notions were put forth. The meeting closed then, with the initial plans of action laid down. Each then turned her cup upside-down to indicate her accord, and then, without another word to each other, one by one they stood and left, in the order in which they arrived. Last to leave was the Sixth. She sat and continued to stare at the walls, some ripple of agitation or emotion shimmering over her as the emptiness crept back to see if its place were still taken. Then she left to let the emptiness do its jadine work.
CHAPTER III
the light, watchful and wary, waited for its stalker to show itself, but the stalker was too clever for that; it snuck up from behind, and the light, startled, turned..
Jeliya struggled back up to consciousness, fighting off the cold darkness that pressed in on her like the absence of Av and Av’s blessing. She opened her eyes. She found herself staring up at a lead green sky smudged with grey clouds. Silent trees, sentinels quietly disapproving, stared back down at her, shaking leafy heads. She found that she lay in a bed of ice needles spread out in a snow-flake pattern around her, a frozen princess in ice glory. The others lay in a circle about her, all unconscious, all in their own little glory of ice. The layer of frost coating them and everything around them made them sparkle, like a powdering of diamond dust. The sparkle actually spread a ways beyond the group the surrounding area, including a wooden structure that stood not far away. Jeliya just lay where she was and shivered - that was all she could do. How long have I been lying here? she wondered, while eve approached and dropped over them in silken silence. She stared up at the motionless trees, unable to move herself, unable to think, or find the will to act. She could not even muster up the will to care. All she had was just enough strength and presence of mind to set up the weakest of wards before her eyes closed again.
The next time she opened them, it was to the sight of wooden walls. Everyone she saw was wrapped in a desi and drinking from steaming calabashes. A warru came over and lifted her up, helped her to drink from one such bowl. She inhaled the soup, scalding her tongue and not caring, for the warmth seemed to give life and strength back to her limbs. Wordlessly, everyone sat and shivered and drank their soup in the grain barn, which was what the wooden structure turned out to be. No preparations were made to continue. Even the Katari, somewhat restless by nature and eager to travel, were reluctant to move - they all lay on their lower stomachs, listlessly drinking soup and munching preserved sweet grass, and not looking at anything in particular. By mute, mutual agreement they stayed the eve in the barn, sleeping where they sat, the kati’yori also sleeping with heads down, still saddled with panquins and tack. Only one industrious servant seemed to have the energy to do much, and she expended it in making the soup and wrapping the others in the desi that she had valiantly wrestled from the packs. She was the first to fall asleep once everyone had been fed, and no one begrudged her that.
Av’dawn found them still asleep. Jeliya, again, was the first to awaken. This time she did move, moaning slightly, turning her throbbing head to look out the high windows of the oval barn. Av was just climbing to the top of the sky, slim footsteps left as slight wisps of cloud in Av’s wake.
She shivered still, the slight chill and airlessness of the Av’ru still within the core of her, a prickle of cold that seemed to numb her very soul...
When was the last time I performed the Rite of Solu? she asked herself suddenly, just recognizing the first signs of lor’den. It had been at least two turns, if not longer.
Gritting her teeth, she forced her reluctant body up, stumbling to the side door of the barn, taking her desi with her. She cracked the door as quietly as she could, and slipped through.
Outside the structure, she looked for a clear, Av’lit patch of ground. Before her was a cart path worn in the ground, overshadowed by gulu trees. The trees formed a ring about the barn in once neat rows left to grow wild. Distant hills rose to the right, and the land rolled off in gentle swells, the path from the barn following the curves.
Spying an irregular spot of Av’light to the nor’weste, she limped to it, crossing the large circles of dead grass that marked the egwae’s arrival. She reached the bright patch, and fell to her knees, let the desi slip off her shoulders.
“In you there is light....”
After completing the rite, Jeliya studied her surroundings. The lonely barn was on a low rise, with the land falling away to the norae and weste, a small stream flowing at the lowest point. Beyond the stream were fields of grain and alternating patches of the leafy heads of ground provisions. She could see that the rough path that led from the barn door turned to follow the stream for a short way before crossing it over a crude plank-bridge, while the marching lines of gulu trees paralleled the water course away este. Off to the norae were distant green mountains speckled with bright spots of color.
Where are we? she wondered, taking in the signs of wuman occupation. Where did the Av’rujo send us? Was this a place the Av’rujo had known? Well, obviously, it is, she thought a little scornfully to herself. Now, how to get their bearings without encountering others...
“Jeliya!”
She turned, saw Pentuk and Otaga coming toward her. Picking up the desi, she wrapped it around her shoulders and pushed herself to her feet.
“Princess, what are you doing out here by yourself?” the Warru First asked sternly, taking her arm with one hand and putting the other arm as support around her waist. Pentuk did the same on the other side.
Do they suspect me of trying the rite I performed on the Katari plains, when I tried to reach Gavaron? She had never explained what she had been doing, but their concern now, as then, was palpable.
“Rite of Solu,” she said, trying to smile. “Felt lor’den starting.” She felt them relax a little at the explanation, but not completely.
“You still should have awakened one of us,” Otaga chided. “Though we are in wuman territory, there may still be enemies about. All will come to naught if they capture you.”
“Yes, Warru First, you are right,” Jeliya acquiesced, feeling the first shackles of her position resettle upon her. “Til we are safe back at T’Av’li, I will not wander out alone again.”
Otaga nodded, mollified. Pentuk was silent on the other side. When Jeliya glanced at her, she gave a sheepish shrug and smile. She would not openly question the Heir.
About half the egwae members were awake when the three slipped back inside the barn, including Staventu and Jahun’no. They all looked up as the Heir and her escort came in, varying degrees of concerned and curiosity in their faces.
“I went out to look around and to perform the Rite of Solu,” Jeliya said to the group at large. “The Av’rujo gave me an image of this place to av’tun to. She did not tell
me where it was, though. So I went to try and figure out if I had been here before.” She let Otaga and Pentuk lower her to her pallet.
“I wondered how we got here,” Staventu said, nodding.
“Itiri, would you take two of your scouts and see if you can ascertain our position?” Otaga ordered, as Jahun’no came over to check on Jeliya.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Well enough,” she said, not wanting to tell him that she was bone tired. He considered.
“Lor’den?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “I had a bout of it before. That’s what drove me outside in the first place,” she admitted. “I hope I caught it in time.” She also kept her voice low. The others politely ignored them.
“We’ll see,” he replied, standing up and moving aside to let a warru give Jeliya a bowl of food.
She ate and watched her brothers and the Warru First organize the egwae. Some began to clean up the signs of their brief residency. Others tended to the mounts. When Itiri and the two others came back in, she turned her attention to them, to hear what they had to say.
“By the readings of Av, we are somewhere on the edge of the Central lons,” Itiri reported, showing Otaga a complicated little device with an Av’shadow and lines of latitude and longitude. The scouts with her had similar devices, but their readings were each slightly different.
“The triangulation of the Norae, Este and Weste, and given the declination off absolute zenith, I would estimate - Ethelea’lon.”
“Three hundred yori’turns Sor’weste of the Ritious City,” Otaga mused. She nodded. “Make ready. When the Heir is able, we will proceed.”
Jeliya finished her food and wiped out her bowl, stowed it away. She then began rolling up her pallet and desi. She finished a little behind everyone else, but not by much. All eyes turned to her as she stood, pack slung over her arm.
“I am ready,” she lied.
the darkness turned...
It took them two more av’tuns, with a turn of rest between them, to come to within twenty yori’turns of the holdings outside the Ritious City. They had taken the last three hundred odd yori’turns in easy stages, others creating the av’tuns to let Jeliya and the other egwae leaders rest, on the whispered advice of the warru ol’bey. Thus, the scouts had gone to the fore, and over the next two turns and more than three hundred yori’turns they came to within the bounds of Ava’Lon itself, the Central Wuman lon and Jeliya’s home lon, at the center of which was T’Av’li. At this prearranged ‘tun point they were met by one of the missing scouts, the one that Rilantu and another scout had been unable to contact, who was full of apologies and explanations and instructions. She told how she had watched her sister scouts die under the claws of unholy creatures, even as the unfortunate ones tried to ‘tun a warning to others farther away, or ‘tun away themselves. Only her absolute stillness and silence in the ways of light had saved her. And after waiting for two turns in that stillness, without food or rest, to make certain that the abominations were truly gone, she had made her way overland to a neighoring lon and a small town, and av’tunned back to T’Av’li from there. The High Queen knew of the Heir’s return, knew about some of the attacks, and about the corrupt pearls. She had left instructions for the egwae to make temporary camp in the nearby field, during which time she would come to see the Heir herself. She held out an official scroll with the High Queen’s own seal, which could be verified by a drop of Jeliya’s blood. The egwae bowed to the instructions and bivouacked in the indicated field.
And here they stayed while the two freshest warru av’tunned ahead with the lucky scout and the five warru escorting her to announce the Heir’s presence and successful retrieval to the High Queen.
Jeliya, alone in her obin’tu in the middle of the field of grain, lay in a haze of exhaustion, depressed. Two more turns had been lost since they had escaped from the place of the av’tun traps.
But for Jeliya, there was no relief in the knowledge that she was so close to home. For, besides the tiredness from all the heated trials that she had faced, there was within her a cold, numb grief that she had all too many explanations for. For if the link had been an endless abyss that vanished to a point before, now it was a slender capillary and almost as vital as that most delicate of blood vessels, carrying life between the two soul-mates; and it was as thin as spider’s silk vibrating in the breeze, and yet somehow as strong. Or stronger, yet, for nothing save the power of the Goddesses would break it. She no longer tried to travel down the link - she would have to force it open to traverse it, and that would take more energy than she had life, for she was already dangerously overtaxed from moving the egwae sweeping distances, even with all of the members helping her.
Jeliya was numbly grateful for the reprieve from others being constantly around her, for now she could wallow in her loss until it was time to span the final distance to T’Av’li and stretch the precious, tenuous link to its ultimate limit. Now she could grieve, for she seemed truly without him and he without her. Now she could reconcile herself with his absence, and pull herself together. She performed the pay’ta’ri, and saw that all levels of her being were guinned into the link. In a way they were surely inseparable. Then she touched the velvet edge of the Jur’Av’chi, no longer a gaping, draining hole in her existence, but a softly sustaining tether that did not draw essence away from her. Instead, it imparted - something. Was that a whisper of him just below the conscious plane? Would she taste him in her dreams?
Then in shocked realization, Jeliya looked at herself. When and how did I become so dependent upon his nearness? Does that make me weak in the worst possible way? Jeliya stared at the wall, looking seriously at herself and the changes wrought within her by her experience. She had never depended so on another in her short life for completeness. Is it wrong? Will it cripple me in the moment that I most need strength?
She did not want to believe that. But she could not afford to discount that possibility. And she wished fervently for a wiser head to talk to, for reassurance that what had been done would not be her downfall.
But, she realized, her fear and worry and sorrow would have to wait. She was almost home, with all of its own perils. Whether she was crippled or uplifted by the Jur’Av’chi, she had to at least appear to be whole and well. She had to have control over herself until she could consult with someone how best to deal with the Jur’Av’chi, short of breaking it, or deal with it herself. She had to give every appearance of normalcy and fitness to rule.
So she pulled in all of her discipline and training as Heir to the High Throne. She stilled her quaking soul and took the fear apart piece by piece, worried the worry shred from shred, and buried the sorrow under layer after layer of mantra. And regretfully, she plastered discipline and tempered will over the link, covering it with opalescent sheaths until it was only evident on the subconscious level. She purged herself of emotion, of affectivity and disquiet until she did not even feel regret. She closed her eyes as Jeliya, after turns of hardship, torn between the love of her land and the love of her soul, exhausted and hurt and wilting inside, and opened them as High Heir, returned stronger for the trials she suffered to save what was hers and bearing tidings that could affect the fate of all those around her. It was not quite a lie and almost the truth, a compress for a wounded soul to be sent back into battle. And though, sooner or later her inner pains would have to be dealt with, she decided resolutely that it would be later. She did not have the time now to be distraught.
“Otaga, Pentuk, Rilantu, Staventu,” she called in a voice without even a shadow of the tiredness and distress she had freely shown up to now. Those summoned came in instantly, concern written on their faces, only to see a calm and somewhat careworn High Heir gazing placidly back at them. Of the wounded Jeliya there was no sign. The mantle of the High Heir completely shrouded her in a calm that was, to all appearances, unshakable. For an instant they were all dumb-founded. Then their own masks and discipline fell into place.
/> “We have been gone a long time, and we have been through many travails,” she said. “But we have returned to the Central Lon, and it has its own trials. Please apprise me of the events that occurred in my absence at the Bolorn’toyo. I have a lot to catch upon, and little time to do it.”
“Yes, you have,” Rilantu replied, sitting to her right. “On both counts.” The others arrayed themselves around her.
“Tell me what I have missed,” she said, looking around.
“The Bolorn’toyo, for one thing,” Staventu commented, and she did not fail to note that his hand was curled affectionately around Pentuk’s. His tone implied something serious, more serious than mere delinquency.
“Tell me.”
They all looked at each other, then left it to Rilantu to break the news. “Jeliya,” he said gravely, “you were challenged at the Bolorn.”
“What?!” Challenged? In her mother’s own Hall? “Why? By whom?”
“‘Why’ was because of your absence. ‘By whom,’ was the Ottanu.”
Jeliya’s head spun. A challenge? At the Bolorn? Things were a lot worse than she thought if some Border Queen felt she could challenge the High Heir in the heart of T’Av’li.
“And how did the Queens react to Mother’s announcement?” she asked with a sinking feeling.
“There were many strong protests. Calls for regency, for delay. And the Ottanu used that as an opening to question your whereabouts, and in doing so, question your fitness to assume the High Throne.” He told her the whole incident in detail, including what had occurred at the Salaka and their suspicions concerning Tokia’s motives. Jeliya listened carefully, frowning slightly, as she added this information to what she had learned out in the unclaimed lons. He told her about the High Queen’s idea to collaborate with the Doan Queen to possibly foil Tokia’s schemes.
