Tygg pushed aside the flap and stepped inside. The den was a small, naturally formed cave, its interior warmed by thick candles and woven rugs, its simple furnishings piled with parchments. But Baunti’s home was bare compared to those who lived in the village below. Here, in the higher perches, there were few luxuries to be found. Those who dwelt here considered themselves closer to the gods than most, and so had turned away from earthly comforts and toward that which the After Place would one day offer them.
“Sit,” Baunti ordered. He narrowed his one fully functioning eye, scrutinizing Tygg with interest.
Tygg turned his gaze to his own feet, for the first time grateful the old man’s other eye was blind. Two eyes trying to see into his soul would have been more than he could bear. He stepped to a nearby mat and sat as instructed, then turned his attention to Baunti, who settled on a mat across from him.
“So, you have brought a Pedant and an Imela to Adjo,” Baunti said. He poured tea into a mug and handed it to Tygg, pouring a second for himself.
“Aye,” Tygg said.
Baunti took a sip of his drink, then set the mug aside. “Tell me of them.”
“The Imela is Taubastet. I am certain she is the one my Qwa t’sei spoke of.”
“And the Pedant?”
“It is Or’n,” Tygg said. “As you knew it would be.” He turned his face from the old man, praying Baunti had not seen the regret that was surely written there.
“I am pleased that you were able to put your personal feelings aside,” Baunti said. “I must confess, I had my doubts.”
Tygg’s eyes turned to his. “Did you?”
Baunti smiled, his toothless grin deepening the lines of his face. “There is a friendship between you and Orryn, is there not?”
“Aye.” Tygg clenched his mug tightly. He had never confessed that friendship to anyone, not even Baunti.
“And yet you brought him here, knowing his fate would be in your hands.”
“His fate is as the gods wish it,” Tygg said. “I had no choice.”
“Oh, you had a choice,” Baunti said. “You always have a choice. Regardless, it is done. He is here now, as is the Imela.”
“Aye.”
Baunti sighed. “So you have chosen this path over the others.”
“I have chosen the path that will secure the survival of our world! Does that mean nothing?”
“It means everything to us. But what of the rest of it?”
“That is why I have come. You have studied the walls, Baunti. This Qwa t’sei, the one I have chosen; is it time to set the final phase?”
Baunti tilted his head. “Do you feel it is?”
Tygg nodded. “I do.”
“Then you must do so.”
Tygg set the mug aside and rose. “Thank you, Baunti. I owe you my salvation.” With a bow of respect, he turned to leave, but the old man stopped him short.
“You owe me nothing,” Baunti said, struggling to rise from his mat.
Tygg helped him to his feet.
The old man stood before him. “There is one more piece of wisdom I wish to bestow on you,” he said, “so listen well.” Baunti placed his palm upon Tygg’s chest. “This is where the gods dwell, boy. Not in a temple. Not in the clouds. Not even in a cave. But here.”
Tygg looked down at the old man’s hand. He could feel his own heart thumping against it.
“The Cloud Walker has interpreted the choices that await you,” Baunti continued, “but it is the voice in your heart that will tell you which ones to make. Remember that.”
“Aye, Baunti. I will. But I must also remember my great-grandsire from many generations back. He listened to his heart. And for that he will be forever known as the Great Betrayer.”
“Perhaps that was as it was meant to be. Who are we to know?” Baunti removed his hand from Tygg’s chest. “The Path be with you, Tygg.”
“And with you,” Tygg replied. He turned away and stepped outside, then aimed his feet toward his destiny. How unfortunate that Orryn had to play a part in it.
CHAPTER 9
The entrance to the Cave of Souls was wide and low, huddled beneath a domelike overhang that protected it and the knowledge it contained from vandals and prying eyes. At one time there had been no need to guard the cave; no Taubastet would dare disrespect it, and what enemies they had lived far from the reaches of the cliffs. But the Syddian wars had changed all that. Now the cave was protected by well-armed sentinels, warriors who would surrender their lives before allowing anyone unauthorized to enter.
Tygg increased his pace, and with it his determination. In his youth he’d had no interest in spirituality or what awaited him in the afterlife. He lived for the here and the now, commanded by the euphoria of the hunt, whether it be man, woman, or beast. He loved the exhilaration of battle, the thrill of coaxing a woman to his bed, and the primitive rush of taking down an animal with a single blade in his hand. He had been a wild, rebellious boy. Until he met Nauney. She had tamed him and guided him and stolen his heart, but he had refused to let her claim his soul. And for that she was taken from him.
After her death Tygg had sought forgiveness by turning to the spiritual teachings of the spirit elders. If he did his duty by the gods, they said, he would one day be reunited with Nauney. Then his soul would be with hers forever. More than anything he longed to make amends, to gain the forgiveness of the gods. But the spirit elders said there was only one way for him to do so. He had to set a Qwa t’sei.
To set one’s Qwa t’sei was to make a vow to both gods and tribe, to choose a future and make it happen for the good of all, regardless of the cost to self. It was a great sacrifice and only those carefully selected were allowed to do it. In the past the ritual had been expected of all the warriors of their tribe, but after the failing of his great-grandsire the ritual had come to require much more training and control. And now, with the Taubastet population dwindling after so many years of warfare with the Syddians, it was agreed the time had come for a savior. Tygg was determined to be that savior. Not only would he save his own soul, but he would one day be reunited with Nauney. How he was to go about this he did not know, that was what he would find out today. But he did know it involved Orryn and the Imela, and he could only pray he wasn’t saving his soul at the sacrifice of theirs.
The history between Orryn’s people and Tygg’s had been a tumultuous one, but it was the Tearians to the east who had performed the first genocide against the Taubastets. It had begun centuries before with the sport-killing of the Taubastets’ holy cats, followed by the taking of their most sacred relic, the Kee. The relic had been given to them by the goddess Bastet and was valued above all else. But the Tearians were a powerful kingdom ruled by a demonic king, and it wasn’t long before the Taubastets were slaughtered and driven out and the Kee lost to them.
Those that survived fled and settled in the southwest where they lived in solitude for many years. The Kiradyns to the north avoided them for the most part, but when one of the Kiradyn clans, the Sandrights, was corrupted by a Tearian trickster, their name became Syddia and a new purge was begun.
At first Syddia’s governing body was subtle in its assimilation of the region, but over time the outlying clans were forced to either adapt or die. Only the Basyls managed to separate from them, though it took some doing and a great deal of bloodshed. But the Taubastets fared far worse. What had started as protests and skirmishes plunged into all-out war when a Taubastet spy learned the Syddians had the Kee in their possession.
The fight to reclaim the relic endured for many centuries, only recently had a treaty been signed, but it was a fragile peace. The Taubastets still did not have their sacred Kee, and the Syddians swore they had no knowledge of its whereabouts.
But Tygg knew differently.
He approached the cave entrance and was immediately stopped. “By whose authority do you come?” a guard demanded, aiming his spear at Tygg’s chest. It was only a formal warning. Tygg had been there before, once t
o name his Qwa t’sei, the second time to learn more of what it entailed. Today would be his third and final visit, and it would be the most important of all: the phase of his Qwa t’sei that would reveal his ultimate goal and what it meant to not only Orryn and the Imela, but also to the survival of the Taubastet people, both in this world and the next.
He bowed to the warrior. “I am Tygg, come by the authority of Baunti, spirit elder,” he said.
The guard withdrew his spear and straightened his stance. “You may pass,” he said.
Tygg nodded and stepped past him, but then he felt the weight of what he was about to do. It was here, within the Circle Chamber, that he would learn the closing chapter, and once he accepted it, there would be no turning back. In times past, when there were fewer spirit elders to guide them, an individual would make but one vow to a Cloud Walker. It was they who transcribed the gods’ messages onto the walls of the cave and set the Qwa t’seis. But after what had happened with Tygg’s ancestor, the Great Betrayer, extra precautions were taken. Perhaps one vow would tempt betrayal, but with three no one dared risk it.
The Great Betrayer had been little older than Tygg when he disobeyed his Qwa t’sei, thus allowing the demonic god Marcassett to continue her assault on his people. His name could not be spoken, but Tygg knew it and sometimes whispered it to himself: Tyym. It made his grandsire seem real, human, not the caricature of betrayal he had been painted to be. Somehow Tygg did not feel the man’s decision warranted him being cast into oblivion, nameless and despised. Tyym had only followed the voices in his heart, Tygg reasoned, and yet, it did not matter what Tygg thought. I will bring honor back to our family, grandsire, Tygg said to himself. Perhaps one day they will forgive what you did. But he knew it wasn’t likely. His grandsire had not been of Taubastet blood, only an orphan raised by them, and when he left and did not return, he not only disavowed his oath to the tribe, but abandoned the woman who carried his child.
Tygg drew his courage and entered the cave. Daylight disappeared at his back. The cave was cold, but he was accustomed to the frigid temperatures of the cliffs. Taubastets knew how to tame the elements by sheer force of will, at least most of them did.
He blinked to focus his eyes. Although they were accustomed to darkness, all who entered the cave required some form of light to guide them. There were no stars or moon to give what lay within it shadow or shape.
A row of fiery torches came into view, and Tygg lifted one from its bracket. He held it out, casting a flickering glow upon a spiral of narrow stone steps leading toward the deepest recesses of the cave. He made his way down slowly, his free hand tracing the wall at his side, until at last he reached the bottom and stopped. Before him four tunnels stretched from a large circular space. He had only to choose which one to take. All would lead him to the Circle Chamber, a tubular cavern that stretched beneath the towering needles of rocks that spiraled above the earth’s surface. But it was the exact location within the Chamber that would dictate his final Qwa t’sei.
Tygg studied each of the passages and felt doubt well in his chest. If he chose wrong, it could mean a false future, or worse still, a soulless death. Many seekers had made the wrong choice, never to be seen or heard from again. Was that to be his fate? He closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart. The voice in your heart will tell you what to do, Baunti’s words reminded him. Tygg opened his eyes to the passage directly in front of him. Though he had heard no voices in his heart, only the thundering of it, somehow the passage before him seemed right.
He stepped in, trusting his instincts to guide him, but he had not gone far before the tunnel grew narrow and confining. Had he chosen wrong? He thrust the torch out, refusing to turn back, and took another step, but the ground suddenly dropped from beneath him and he tumbled.
Tygg scrambled to his feet and retrieved the torch he had dropped, rotating in a slow circle as it cast its light upon the space. The walls around him were covered in mosses that radiated a luminous glow, and the crystals imbedded in the rocks winked at him like spectral eyes. Tygg shivered and crossed the space as quickly as he could. The chamber felt alive as he passed through, as if it were watching him, judging him. A path appeared up ahead and he hastened toward it, keeping his eyes on his feet rather than the lost souls he feared might dwell there.
The path led him on as it serpentined through spirals of rock that reached from floor to ceiling. Tygg worked to keep his feet planted on the slippery path, but it wasn’t long before he detected a flickering light up ahead. He hurried toward it, realizing it was the chamber he sought, but when he reached the threshold he stopped. No one dared enter the Circle Chamber without a direct invitation from Yatka, the Cloud Walker.
“Tygg,” a raspy voice said.
Tygg bowed. “Yatka. I have come to set the final phase of my Qwa t’sei.”
The Cloud Walker called Yatka shuffled toward him. A thick, molten candle burned in his hand, throwing distorted shadows across his weathered face. Hunched and half Tygg’s size, the Cloud Walker stopped at the threshold and leaned closer, his rheumy eyes scanning Tygg up and down. “So today it will be done,” he said.
“Aye,” Tygg replied.
The old man grinned, then gestured toward the room. “Enter.”
Tygg hesitated.
“Have you doubts?” the Cloud Walker asked, eyeing him closely.
“Should I not?”
“Indeed you should. As should we all.”
Tygg’s eyes skimmed over the flickering walls within the chamber. They were covered in images, so many it was impossible to tell where one began and another ended. How the Cloud Walker knew their meanings was anybody’s guess. So many paths. So many possibilities.
Tygg stepped into the chamber, his heart racing like that of an animal caught in a snare. Why was he so afraid? he wondered. The two times previously he had entered with bold determination, but now . . .
“Today the gods spoke to me,” Yatka said in a hushed voice. “The final image of your Qwa t’sei is drawn. Come.” He gestured for him to follow.
The Cloud Walker stopped before a section of the wall that was still wet with paint and nodded toward it.
Tygg studied the image. A nearly identical one, clearly much older, was drawn directly above it. “Why are there two?” he asked.
“Do you not know?”
Tygg straightened his back. “My great-grandsire,” he said. “But why are they the same?”
“You wish to make restitution for his dark deed, do you not? You must do what he could not.”
“Kill the host and return the Kee to Adjo.”
“Aye. The stars are shifting.”
Tygg’s eyes shot to his. “How soon?”
“A lifetime, no more.”
“But the Kee and the host are surely well guarded.”
“That is why you need the Pedant. You befriended him as you were meant to?”
“Aye.”
“And the Imela, the one of our blood, has been found?”
“She is with the Pedant as we speak.”
“Then your Qwa t’sei is clear,” the old man said. “You must escort them to Syddia.”
“Syddia? But surely I will be slain the moment I set foot there.”
“The Pedant will keep you safe for a time,” Yatka said. “That is how he will repay his debt to you. But your safety will last only until he is once again under the control of Marcassett.”
“So I am to escort the Pedant and the Imela to Syddia. Then I am to find a way to steal back the Kee from a creature who would love nothing more than to have my hide tacked to her wall. And if I fail?”
“Then we are lost.”
“You make it sound so final.”
“When the stars shift into their final alignment, the gods will return. We do not know who leads them now, for it was many generations since they were last here. During their first departure, Bastet gifted us the Kee, not only to keep us veiled from Sister World, but to keep the portals of A’niha op
en.”
“And only one portal remains,” Tygg said grimly.
“Aye, and Marcassett must not learn of it, for if she does she will destroy it as she did the others.”
“But if it was the Kee that kept them open, why did she simply not destroy it?”
“Marcassett did not know its purpose. It was molded by Bastet into a form she would not recognize, so it is believed she stole it only because it was gifted to us by the gods, whom she despises. Marcassett is an elusive, cunning creature with the ability to transfer her life force into the physical body of another. This is what kept her hidden from the gods when she fled after her mutiny, and is one of the reasons Sister World must never learn of us. For if they do they will seek us out, giving Marcassett an opportunity to move beyond our realm.”
“I do not understand why the gods gifted us only one weapon.”
“The Kee was never meant to be a weapon,” Yatka explained. “Perhaps Marcassett knows this, perhaps not, but still she uses it as a means of bloodshed. The last time the stars shifted, our people were without the Kee. During that time a great battle was fought between many tribes and Marcassett, who was in the form of a Tearian king. But she slipped into the form of another and took the Kee with her. That is the event your great-grandsire failed to prevent. If the gods return and realize the Kee is still in her possession, that she is once again in power and that Imelas are reaching our shores, they may feel we cannot be salvaged.”
“But they spared us before, did they not?”
“They did, at the last full shift of the stars, but only by the charity of a pure soul, a boy not of our tribe. He convinced them to give us more time. Through him the gods were swayed. But they will return. And when they do they may not be so easily convinced. If we fail . . .” Yatka shook his head.
Tygg felt a dark cloud loom over him. “What must I do?” he asked.
“After you arrive in Syddia, Marcassett, embodied as the Sovereign, will send for you. You are Taubastet. She will wish to torment you, to learn what she can of us. And that is when you must make your move. But I warn you: do not let her touch you.”
Shrouded Sky (The Veils of Lore Book 1) Page 6
