The man shook his head. “I ain’t ever been beat. My first time won’t be by a woman.”
“No? Pity.” Sara caught his sword with her wooden one, letting it slide down the shaft. Not expecting the forward momentum, the man stumbled. The heel of Sara’s hand found the tip of his nose. Before he could react, she spun away.
“Nice move, but my nose been broke plenty.”
“So I’ve seen.”
The bandit approached, wheeling his sword.
The sword is an instrument of great beauty but showmanship does not win battles. Her grandfather’s words echoed in her head. This man was better than the others, but he fought to look good. Like lightning, Sara’s wooden sword knocked the weapon from his hand then tapped him on the temple. He fell in a puff of dust.
“Next time, I suggest you take advice when it’s offered.” Sara made her way to the peddler on suddenly shaky legs. They were only wounded, but she could have killed them. Next time I might have to.
Zeynel peered at her through half-closed eyes. Her anger spiked. Had he been on his own, he would have been robbed or worse, yet he sat there as if they’d taken a break to stretch their legs. Her voice was harsher than she intended. “We better get going before they wake up. As it is, we won’t make the next town by nightfall. I doubt we’ll meet any more robbers, since they’re territorial. But I would like to find a place to sleep for the night.”
She fought sudden nausea. After a few deep breaths, she vaulted up to the seat and reached for her water skin. Her hand shook. The sound of breaking bone echoed in her memory.
Zeynel nodded once, closed his eyes and hummed, this time a different tone. Thalami perked her ears, veered off the road and, at a brisk pace, made for the woods.
“First fight?”
“What?” Sara turned to the old man, who gazed ahead, seemingly unconcerned. She’d spent countless hours sparring against her grandfather and even more mastering the techniques of the craft, but it was her first real fight. How did he know? He could be a little bit grateful.
Zeynel glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Sara stared ahead. Practice with her grandfather hadn’t prepared her for hearing the sound of bone cracking or having to clean someone else’s blood off a weapon and knowing... Her irritation drained with the rest of her adrenaline. “Not if you count a warthog. How did you know?”
Zeynel’s eyes clouded. “I remember.”
Chapter Ten
The last rays of the sun hid behind the mountains, tinting the forest in shades of purple. Thalami continued to pick her way through barely discernible paths under towering pines.
Sara broke the silence. “I thought there was a town at the edge of the forest.”
“There is. About five hundred wheels that way.” Zeynel gestured north with his arm.
Sara considered the man next to her. Was he waiting for her to ask why he wasn’t taking them to the nearest town? The question was on her lips, just as the inclination to jump off the wagon and head there anyway was in her head, but something kept her rooted to the hard, wooden bench. She studied Zeynel. There was something about him...not exactly a mystery. She shook her head and reached for the stone. Ilydearta hummed beneath her tunic as though content. Maybe she only lingered out of curiosity. Either way, she didn’t think he was dangerous.
“Satisfied?” Zeynel flicked the reins but kept his gaze on the landscape ahead.
Sara grinned. “Hardly, but I don’t think you’re dangerous.”
“You’d be wrong.”
His expression hadn’t altered.
She took a deep breath. “So you are?”
“Thalami is dangerous under the right circumstances.” He nodded to a nearby tree. “That ancient beauty is deadly under the right circumstances. It’s all perception.”
“You mean it’s relative?”
Zeynel grinned. “Something like that.” He cast a sidelong glance at her. “And you are the deadliest of them all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Power with no discipline is a dangerous combination.”
Did he mean sword craft? She excelled in that discipline, waking every morning to practice Shi’ia before setting off again. Her skin warmed. She clenched her jaw to still her tongue. She meditated daily. Grandfather drilled discipline and he wouldn’t fault her. Could he mean Ilydearta? He hadn’t seen the stone, she was sure of that.
“Most people unleash a flurry of words to hide ignorance. You take the time to weigh a statement before responding.” He turned his gaze on her, his blue eyes hooded. “That is admirable.”
“Uh...thank you.” It came out more a question than a statement. Who was this guy? Whoever he was, he definitely had the ability to get under her skin. Something about him intrigued her. She’d stay and discover exactly what that was. Sara settled against the backrest.
“Good decision. You won’t regret it.” A smile tinted Zeynel’s words.
After plunging straight through the woods, Thalami maneuvered between massive trunks to pause in a clearing carpeted with long grass. With the ease of experience, Zeynel unburdened the mare from yoke and harness.
Sara shrugged off her cloak and placed her pack on the wagon seat then set about gathering wood. Zeynel was smaller than she’d first thought. In fact, they were roughly the same height and she was by no means tall. There was, however, a rumor of suppressed strength or power within him, and yet his every movement suggested gentleness, especially with the mare.
Sara gathered a few stones and circled her cache of wood. Soon a fire blazed in the small clearing. Zeynel moved past her toward the wagon’s rear to reappear an instant later. He handed her some dried meat and an apple. “It’s not much, but...” He shrugged.
Zeynel settled on the other side of the fire, munching on his own apple. The crack of the fire consuming the wood and the occasional snort from Thalami were the only sounds in the small clearing.
“She’s been named in numberless songs,” Zeynel said, his voice low, almost a whisper, as if he was talking to himself rather than to her.
Sara rose and offered the mare her apple core. “Who?”
“A gift of the sea
Child of two worlds
One of the three
Death in her wake
Life in her touch.”
He was silent for a moment, brow furrowed, and then offered his hand palm-up. Their eyes met and, without thinking, she placed her hand in his. She jerked away as if burned but a connection held, something irreversible flowing between them.
“You are she.”
Sara flinched. “What are you talking about?” Ilydearta pulsed against her skin.
The air shifted. Sara glanced to the trees, but the leaves were still, no wind. Faraway, a wild animal howled and Thalami perked her ears for an instant, proffered a halfhearted neigh and resumed chomping at the apple core.
With a start, Sara realized she was alone. She looked over her shoulder to see Zeynel carting an armload of blankets to a secluded spot by a clump of saplings.
Who is he? She was tempted to confirm crazy in her list of adjectives for the old peddler but hesitated, watching him move around the clearing. No. Something told her he wasn’t crazy. But then what?
* * *
Zeynel stared into the flames. After so many seasons, finding her had been anticlimactic, so different from what he’d dreamed. He felt a smile tug at his lips as he considered that he knew better than to assume. How could he fashion an image of someone he’d never met—a stranger? And yet, that was the problem. Sara was no stranger. She was a thing of legend and his life’s quest. And here she was, flesh and blood, unaware of the power and hope she embodied, uneducated about the power she wielded and different from what he expected. So young, so very young and naive. Yet she’d managed to c
all him.
Had he expected a wizened warrior? How was he to prepare this girl? Was there time? His gaze roamed over the treetops and into the hills, black against the starlit sky. The world about them remained silent apart from the crackling and hiss of the fire, the whisper of the wind and, occasionally, a far-off howl, unless one could hear the undercurrents, the groaning of the earth, the sorrow and joy of the forests.
He placed his hand on a nearby tree and reveled in the textured bark against his palm, soaked in the peace only the ancient can achieve. She didn’t understand the language of Teann, but then how could she? Zeynel observed the figure huddled under her blankets and lit by the flames. He could feel her glow and the tendrils radiating from the pendant around her neck. After all this time, searching and waiting, he’d been unprepared when he caught up with a scrawny female dressed like a blacksmith, armed with a curved weapon and surrounded by power that coiled around her like a snake.
“Zeynel,” she said, “who are you?”
At long last, he’d found her. He’d found the Wanderer. “I am an old man and it’s been a long day. We will talk in the morning.” He rolled up in the blanket.
“What the...?”
He could almost feel the waves of frustration coming off her, but she scooted under the protection of a large tree and offered her back to the fire and soon silence settled in the clearing.
“Good night, Ilythra.” His voice was quiet, no more than a whisper, and the words dissolved into the night so she did not hear them.
Chapter Eleven
There could be no doubt—the bird was angry. The tiny creature leaped between low branches of the tree, its wings hazy, screaming at the top of its tiny lungs. When Sara moved, it stopped an instant, head tilted in an alarmed expression, only to continue its demonstration with renewed vigor. Creeping from under the blanket, Sara knelt, peering through sleepy eyes at the small bird. Its plumage was nondescript except for a brilliant blue breast, which it ruffled to twice its size. Must be the male. Above and behind the bird, on a forked branch almost hidden under the moss, twigs and dry leaves of a plump nest, peeked the gray head of his mate.
Sara emerged from the hollow under the tree. The clearing was empty of wagon and horse. I guess the old peddler left early. She reached for her pack only to find both her weapons missing. How was that possible? They’d been within an arm’s reach and she wasn’t a light sleeper. The sense of betrayal took her breath. She’d been wrong about Zeynel.
“Of all the cheating, swindling tricksters...” She choked back her rage. It was futile. She froze. How had she slept through the noise moving the wagon would have caused? Had the food been drugged?
Then she heard the sibilance of fast-moving metal through still air.
Keeping as quiet as possible, she made her way through the trees toward the sound. Zeynel’s slight figure whirled, her practice sword in one hand and her sword in the other. Her mouth dried. His eyes were closed and a low hum reached her ears, resonating with the trees, the air, the earth—no longer a noise but a part of nature. The sword is but an extension of you; swordplay is a symbiotic dance. Feel the weapon’s power, own it; become the weapon. Grandfather’s almost forgotten counsel echoed in her ears. You can tell a worthy foe by his feet. There lies balance, elegance, power...and danger.
And here, in a forest glen, her grandfather’s words had come to life. Soft leather boots glided over the needle-strewn ground, blades a blur over a shapeless green hat. Zeynel’s face glowed in the gentle light of dawn, serene, detached, in complete contrast with his arms’ lightning movements. Sara leaned against the rough bark of a tree, her knees suddenly weak. This old peddler was as good, if not better than her grandfather, but it was more than that. Still in his tattered coat and hat, Zeynel had somehow transformed. Gone was the scruffy peddler. Instead, a man possessing great power and majesty stood before her.
After a whirl, Zeynel froze, her curved sword horizontal over his head, the wooden sword in his outstretched arm pointing at her as if nailed in midair. Then his features relaxed even further and the shadow of a smile stole across his face.
A defenseless peddler?
“Good morning.” Zeynel ambled toward her. “You look well rested.” He offered both weapons handle first.
She opened her mouth, but no words formed. Sara took the weapons.
“The craftsmanship of the sword is excellent.”
“Thank you,” Sara replied. “I didn’t make it. Where’s Thalami?”
“She left earlier, but don’t worry. She can find her way home.”
“And the cart?”
“Sold it to a man in the village.” He winked. “No, you didn’t sleep through any racket. There are times when even a peddler doesn’t want to announce his approach.”
“You know Shi’ia.”
Zeynel inclined his head, his eyes twinkling.
“Did you know my grandfather?”
Zeynel smiled. “I know many.”
“Are you always so cryptic?”
“Do you always ask such general questions?”
Sara bit back her irritation. “Did you know Willam of Ardel?”
“Your grandfather, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Willam of Ardel is legend among some. A fierce warrior who disappeared without a trace. Some say he so mourned his son that he sailed off to find the deadlands to join him.”
“He sailed off to a little island with me.”
“Ahh...” Zeynel nodded. “That would explain much.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means what it means, Sara. Your grandfather is lost to us. I am sorry.”
“How did you know that?” Sara narrowed her eyes.
Zeynel laughed. “A man who takes his granddaughter to an isolated island does not leave her to wander the lands of Anatar alone, especially in these times.”
Sara’s cheeks warmed, and tears welled in her eyes. “He walks the deadlands.”
“Then he is reunited with his son and you are alone.”
“Yes.”
“No longer, Sara.”
She looked up and into Zeynel’s blue gaze. “Who are you?”
“I have told you. The better question, who are you?”
She’d asked herself the same thing. Who was she now? A wandering healer? A homeless female with no family. A woman with a quest she had no idea how to accomplish. They were all partially true, and yet none of them completely true.
“What is your mission, Sara of the Island?”
Could he think her any stranger than she thought him? “I am to find the Siobani.”
Zeynel tossed her another apple out of a leather pack. “No, that is your secondary task.”
Sara caught the apple out of reflex but didn’t eat it. Some part of her brain registered he hadn’t flinched at the mention of the Siobani. “What do you mean?”
“It’s an apple. You eat it.”
“No, I mean why is that my secondary task?”
“Because first you must learn to wield that stone you wear.” He bit into his apple.
Sara placed her hand over the stone, somehow not surprised Zeynel knew of it. “You are not a peddler.”
“Oh but I am. And I am also many more things. Do not judge a person merely by what you see before you, or limit them by it. People are faceted, like that stone you wear, capable of many wonderful, or deadly actions.”
Sara rubbed her temples.
“Eat your apple. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Sara had a feeling he didn’t mean merely distance, or that Zeynel’s words rarely held only one layer of meaning. Who is this man? And the humming... Was he meditating?
“We?”
Ilydearta throbbed against her skin and Sara kn
ew the answer before registering the whisper.
“You called me.”
She opened her mouth to protest but deep blue eyes stilled her tongue. Had she? There was no doubt she’d wanted someone to teach her about the stone, and Zeynel was the first person who spoke of the Siobani without fear. Did he know where they were?
“How did I call you?”
Zeynel smiled. “And that, Sara of the Island, is why you called me.”
* * *
The trees thinned, affording her a glimpse of yellow wasteland far below them and stretching as far as the eye could see. Maelys had called the desert Tir Rhos, but Zeynel corrected her—he said that only those who had never traversed it called it by that name. It was the Faisach. The Trader’s map didn’t name the wasteland at all except with a symbol that looked suspiciously like a skull. Now that she’d seen it with her own eyes, only one word came to her mind: forbidding.
She glanced at Zeynel, who hummed a tune, stopping now and then to admire a flower or plant along the road. With his tall staff tapping the earth in time with his steps, he looked like a man taking a stroll in the woods. She’d asked him why they didn’t at least keep Thalami. He’d replied that she’d already played her part and had business elsewhere. Sara had let it drop.
Zeynel moved ahead of her on the narrowing path. After three days, he was still a mystery. He worked hard, never complained and never told her anything about himself. He was tireless, walking when she walked, stopping when she stopped. He ate more than a man twice his size, but brought more than his share of food to the pot with his uncanny knowledge of edible plants. There was nothing extraordinary about him, yet she felt with every cell of her body he was not ordinary.
Despite her questions, he hadn’t said another word about her being she or who she was. But Sara knew with a certainty it had something to do with the stone. She was going with her instincts on this one and they told her to wait. So she waited.
She adjusted her pack and stared at the golden expanse before her. How in the hell are we going to cross it?
Journey of Awakening Page 12
