by Dana Marton
“You must stay here as long as you can,” I said, and she nodded. “I do not wish you to come to harm. When they find out that I left, tell them I ordered you. Tell them I gave you herbs.”
I drew a deep breath, assuring myself that as long as I had known him, I had never seen Batumar mistreat anyone under his command.
I slipped the scroll from its hiding place and tucked it under Leena’s dress, then picked up an armload of clothes, hoping to use them to cover my face.
“Your hair, my lady,” Leena called after me as I hurried for the door.
I dropped the clothes and reached up to yank down the elaborate coils that marked me as a concubine. If she had not called me back— “Have you something sharp?”
Lena paled. “My lady…”
I remembered the emerald brooch and dug through the trunk at the foot of my bed until I found the heavy jewel.
So Lord Gilrem, after all this time, would aid my escape yet from the Kadar. I sharpened the edge of the brooch on the rough stone of the wall, then chopped my dark hair as short as I could. An uneven cut for certain, as this once, Leena refused to help and would only wring her hands and watch me tearfully.
I tossed the fallen locks into the fire, then picked up my bundle again and lifted it high in front of my face. I stooped my shoulders and shuffled out the door. Pleasure Hall stood empty, but two guards guarded the door outside. I shuffled right past them.
When I passed out of sight, I hurried toward the servants’ quarters and blended in without trouble among the men and women who bustled about, too busy to pay attention to anything else but their tasks at hand. I kept my head down and made no eye contact but hurried on like the rest.
I left the clothes by the washroom, grabbed a pinch of cold wood ash, and rubbed it into my face, then watched my complexion turn pallid in the reflective surface of a giant copper pot. I glanced around, and when no one watched, I rubbed another pinch of ash into my hair until it turned dull and streaked with gray.
I shuffled from the washroom to the kitchen, more careful here since the kitchen servants knew me best. Keeping my head bent and my gaze down, I joined a group of women carrying baskets for the market. In but a few steps, we were outside.
Two hand wagons stood abandoned nearby, a small flock of hens picking at the ground. Three empty milk pails sat outside the kitchen door. I sucked in my breath. A little farther down the street stood several guards talking. We would have to pass by them.
Their jesting and laughter carried to my ear, their carefree mood in stark contrast to my own fearful state. I worked my way into the middle of the group as we neared them, praying to the spirits to shield me from their eyes. To my chagrin, instead of passing by them quickly, one of the younger women tarried to talk to a warrior. The rest stopped to wait for her.
I stood cringing in the middle, the guards but a few steps away as they joked with the young and pretty women. I kept my head down and my back bent.
I hefted the large basket from one hip to the other—it weighed a fair load even empty. Would an aged servant so easily carry such a thing? I slid the basket to the ground at my feet.
“Old woman,” a guard called out, and my heart lurched. “You should leave this heavy work to others. Have you no daughters to go to the market for you?” He strode toward me.
I shook my head but would not look up. I had met many of Batumar’s guards as I walked through the palace every day and had even healed some of them in the back of the kitchen.
I sucked in my breath as the warrior, young to be in the Palace Guard, bent over me. I thought he had grown suspicious and meant to look at my face, and I nearly panicked, looking for a way to run, but he picked up my basket instead and started down the street.
“I will carry this for you,” he called back. “And when the market is over, I will find you and carry your purchases back to the palace.”
The spirits be praised, the group of women followed him.
The fortress city of Karamur always bustled with people, but their numbers grew twofold on market days, according to the servants. I had no trouble blending in and disappearing among them once the guard left me. I set my basket next to a merchant’s busy table and walked away.
A cacophony of noises surrounded me, loud bargaining, laughter, mothers calling for their children. I pushed through the shoppers, careful not to draw attention to myself, not daring to linger and marvel at the colorful crowd or their exotic wares.
Without the mist, I could not hope to scale the cliff, for I would be seen. I waited in an alley until the market ended; then I slipped among the traders and farmers streaming out the city gates.
The walls had been reinforced since I had last seen them, and more guards stood on duty everywhere I looked. With every step, I expected the call to ring out to seal the gate. I remembered well the strange contraption of giant bars that hung from iron chains. I scarcely dared breathe until we walked through the tunnel-like passageway into the open.
In front of me spread peasant huts too numerous to count, interspersed with fields and small groves. The great forest stretched like a dark green wall on the horizon. We were at summer’s end, the weather still warm, even here, half-way up the mountain.
I walked among the chattering traders until we reached the forest and were out of sight from the walls of Karamur, then I slipped into the woods as if to relieve myself. I watched from the shelter of a dense bush but, as I belonged to no one, no one stopped to wait for me. Crouching low, I backed away until the undergrowth became thick enough so I could be sure I would not be seen when standing.
Massive emerald giants reached to the sky and waved their smaller branches as if welcoming me. The sky was but a splatter of pale blue above. I drew a shuddering breath of freedom, then turned my attention to the ground and soon found an animal trail that led up the mountain.
I followed the trail up and up, then turned east and, under the cover of the majestic trees, made my way toward where I thought the Forgotten City lay, still walking an upward path.
Other than birds, I saw no animals, not even a stray deer. Perhaps the noise of my approach had scared them away. I had lived too long among the Kadar and forgotten the way of the woods. I walked as a visitor, not as one who belonged here.
I kept my eyes open for any sign of danger and prayed to the spirits to keep me from the path of predators. I hoped not to see a tiger and, more importantly, not to be seen by one. I fortified my spirit by convincing myself that the great beasts would not wander so close to the city. And if they did, I hoped the Guardians had placed upon the mountain some protection.
Evening approached, my stomach grumbling with hunger, by the time I considered I might be lost. I looked for anything edible and found a low-growing vine that I knew had starchy, bitter roots, suitable for eating. I kneeled and with a stick dug into the soft earth around the base of the vine, not wanting half the root to break off in the ground as I pulled.
A branch snapped somewhere to my right.
My hands froze.
The snapping of a dry branch was not unusual in any forest, but this was followed by a series of softer sounds. Something moved through the woods. Toward me.
I dared not move, for the slightest noise would betray my location. If the animal had not caught my scent yet, I still had some chance of escaping its attention, huddled low by the bushes, close to the ground.
A flash of brown moved among the trees. A tiger. Terror gripped my heart. A giant beast it looked to be, as tall as a man, from what little I could see.
And then it finally stalked near enough to—
The Guardian of the Scrolls stepped into plain sight, looking mightily unhappy.
I slumped with relief.
“There you are,” he groused, squinting. “Darkness falls fast in the tall woods.”
I jumped up and ran to him, and would have hugged him if the scowl on his face did not hold me back. “How good it is to see you, grandfather. Did you know I was coming?”
He gla
nced at my hair and clothes but did not comment on them. “I felt the scroll.”
I pulled it from under my dress and handed it to him. “Would you read the prophecy to me again?”
He nodded and turned back the way he had come. “When we are warm by the fire.”
“Batumar knows,” I said as I walked behind him. “About the prophecy and me. He wants to see the Forgotten City.”
The Guardian shrugged. As we came out at the edge of the woods, he pointed to a gorge below us. “If he comes, this is what he will see.”
The dim light of dusk revealed a steep slope, covered with jagged rocks, a puff of cloud resting on the bottom. I saw no path as he walked down into the gorge, and yet somehow he found foothold where there had been none, and stepping in his steps, I was able to follow.
We arrived at the bottom much faster than I had expected, and once we broke through the cover of mist, the Forgotten City spread before us. The soft glow of the Forum’s golden dome shone in the middle like a great jewel. We were but a short distance from the Guardians’ cave.
“Why are the Sacred Scrolls not with the rest in the Forum?” I asked, remembering my mother’s tale about how the honeycombed walls held all the knowledge of the world. I very much wished to see that. Maybe those other scrolls, not the ones in the Sacred Cave, contained the answers to our questions.
“The Forum stood empty since before my ancestors came here, the scrolls hidden by the First People during the long decades of ancient wars. Many things they did not pass on to the Seela,” the Guardian said.
Like a blow felt his words. The thought of such a treasury of knowledge lost forever ripped through my flesh. I still struggled to comprehend that tragedy as we reached the cave.
The other two Guardians welcomed me with joy and shared their simple meal of soup and bread. The Guardian of the Cave gifted me with a hooded brown robe similar to his own. Its hem swept the floor of the cave as I walked.
It made me feel, if not renewed, then different. Not Tera, daughter of Chalee, not Tera the slave or Tera the concubine, but someone I did not yet know, someone I more and more wished to become.
When I told them what had happened at the palace, they prepared for me a sleeping place in the far corner of the cave and and left me in peace to think.
But before he retired for the night, the Guardian of the Cave came to me. He pulled an apple from his robe and set it on the stone by my side.
“What do you see?” he asked gently.
“A green apple.”
He gave the apple a quarter turn.
“A red apple,” I said. That side must have been toward the sun.
Another quarter turn.
I stared at the dark opening of a worm hole in the middle of a rotten brown spot. “A wormy apple.”
He offered a kind smile, then walked away.
I thought long and hard on what he meant to teach me. To see better, I thought, to see more thoroughly. To see every side. Of what? My destiny? The war? Batumar?
“Eyes are the organs of distraction,” my mother used to tell me. “They notice the smallest things, crowd everything full of useless detail, and steal attention from where the focus should be.” Many times she had bidden me to see with my heart.
I lay down. The uneven rock bed dug into my side even through the furs, so I moved around to find a more comfortable spot. Too fast I had grown used to my feather bed at the palace and the comforts of Pleasure Hall.
Although neither my hair nor my clothes needed Leena’s ministrations, I missed her and hoped she was not punished for my escape. But as I lay on my pile of furs in the corner of the cave, I refused to miss Batumar. Still, I could not stop my thoughts from going to him as I looked out into the darkness and watched the stars through the mouth of the cave. I half expected to see him appear there, having come after me.
* * *
I spent the next three days and nights with the Guardians, most of it in the Sacred Cave of the Scrolls. I also spent some time at my mother’s grave, where I felt closest to her spirit. On the fourth day, after the Guardians of the Gate and the Cave had left for the Forgotten City in the morning, I rolled out once again the first scroll, still the only one to open.
I was determined to make more sense of the prophecy, to unlock some secret meaning. The enemy neared with every passing day. The Guardian of the Scrolls watched from the corner of his eye but looked away when, after a while, I once again rolled up the scroll and set it aside, frustrated to the brink of tears.
“I went to visit the Seer last night,” he said.
Since he brought up the topic, I did not think it would be terribly impolite to inquire further. “What did you wish her to see for you?”
“I wanted to know how your Leena fares, but—” He held up his hands as if to stop my hopes from springing too high. “Selaila was on another search.”
That seemed to be her way. Her body forever in her hut, her spirit unreachable. Twice the Guardians had thought to introduce her to me, but we were sent away by her mother each time with prostrate apologies. So instead, they had shown me the Forgotten City, its curious buildings and solemn people, even the empty Forum, the sight of which greatly saddened my heart.
“Thank you for trying.” I smiled my gratitude.
“You have been worried,” he said gruffly and turned away.
I had spoken of Leena and Batumar a lot in the past few days, I supposed. We passed the evenings trading tales.The Guardians told me about the Seela and their past, and I talked about Karamur. They had a great curiocity for the fortress city, a place that stood so close to them yet remained mostly unknown to their people.
Still, that the Guardian of the Scrolls would go as far as seeking the Seer surprised me. Of the three Guardians, he had shown the least interest in my tales, although I had caught his gaze on me time and time again as I had relayed the happenings of the palace.
Maybe he was softening toward the Kadar. Or perhaps he was softening toward me. He had finally, the day before, allowed me to prepare for him a tea of herbs and was now moving around more easily. His complaints had decreased by half, for which the other Guardians had privately thanked me.
“Grandfather,” I addressed him with utmost respect, then pointed to a short passage on the scroll, bringing up once again the thought that had been nagging in the back of my mind. “…well-favored by the spirits, for she will have all three spirits of the people of Dahru and even the spirit of our forgotten people.” I looked at him. “How could that be me?”
“You have the spirit of the Shahala from your mother,” he said. “And the Kadar from your father.”
“But the others? How could I have the spirit of the Seela? And how could I have the spirit of the First People when they have been gone for centuries?”
“The Seela are said to have in them some of the First People’s blood and with it their spirit, from whence come our gifts.”
So between the two of us, we had all four spirits. But that was not what the prophecy called for. I mentioned this to the Guardian, but he shrugged, looking not the least concerned.
“Then how about—” I read on, “She will know all people, for she will have been all people.”
“You have been the child of a powerful mother, and then an orphan. You have been a slave. And now you are the sole concubine of the most powerful warlord of the land,” he said. “Most of us start out our lives and the path before us never changes. At birth, I was a Guardian, and I will die a Guardian. But you have walked the path of many.”
“But I have not been all people. I have not been a merchant, I have not been a mother, I have not been a warrior—”
“You have been enough. And the next passage says: …they will raise their eyes to her with hope so that as she had cast out their pain, so she might cast out the darkness also. You cannot deny that is true. You are a healer and have cast out the pain of many.” He fell silent then, and we sat like that for some time, each absorbed in our own thoughts.
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br /> “You can read the scroll now,” he said after a while.
I nodded. He had read the prophecy for me until I knew the words by heart and began to grow familiar with the strange letters that created them. I already knew the language, so I only had to connect letters with the sounds.
“Then you no longer need me.” His voice sounded tired and listless again as it had when I first met him. “My work is finished.”
“But I do need you and so does everyone else.”
“I am but a useless old man. A coward at that—” His face darkened. “For I fear what is to come and look only for a way to avoid having to live through it.”
I thought for a moment. “The Shahala have a saying: There is no greater courage than to accept one’s destiny.”
He looked up at that.
“You dedicated your whole life to guarding the scrolls, and when I came, you taught me. You sacrificed much, and there is honor in it. I question my fate with each breath of the day. You completed yours.”
“I did what I had to.”
“And gave up much along the way for your people and strangers you will never know.”
“I would have liked to have had a family.” He admitted the first personal detail since I had known him.
“You have a son.”
He remained silent for some time, and when he spoke, the words fell heavy from his lips. “At the time deemed right by the Seer, a young woman was selected from the maidens of the city. She walked up to this cave and conceived our son, then walked back down, and I never talked to her again. When my son was the right age, he came to me for training. A few days before you appeared out of the mist, he ascended the mountain to purify his mind and body and to wait for my death so he can descend and take over his duty.”
“And the other Guardians?”
“The son of the Guardian of the Gate is on a journey through the Gates to learn them better. The son of the Guardian of the Cave…” Disapproval filled his eyes. “A restless one, that one, and undisciplined. He decided to go on a quest, searching for other sacred caves in the mountains.”
“There are other sacred caves?”
