Way Walkers: Tangled Paths (The Tazu Saga)

by Leigh, J.

  “A moot, Rhod?” He laughed angrily. “In the Monortith line? Montage’s line? Do you think I am stupid?”

  “Moots happen, Your Highness,” Petalith broke in with a tone of authority and spiky anger. “The history texts and even the Twelve Ways admit that all the races came from human, once. From the Clan to the Lu’shun to the Tazu and all the rest—only the Solki claim difference. A moot amid Tazu is simply a reminder of such.” Her voice softened as she patted the babe’s pink head. “He might still father full-Tazu shifters, and he might harbor strong Ability as well. It’s been known to happen with moots, despite their appearance. The blood is still Tazu.”

  “What use is that to me?” Kyanith hissed, shaking his head. “If a Monortith male’s seed could sit on the gold throne, then I would have no issue for heirs. One of my three boys could have the seat! No, our laws say the kings of the Tazu Nation must come from the female side of Monortith.” He jabbed an accusatory finger at Rhod. “And you give me a naked pink rat that cannot sit on the Tazu throne without becoming a laughingstock!”

  Taking her sobbing child from Petalith, Rhod pursed her lips, knowing part of what he said was true. “If there would be any fault in my son’s ability to hold the throne, it would be gleaned from the current king’s inability to cultivate in a perfectly healthy heir the qualities he has to be a great ruler. Your shallow-sightedness of what he is not, rather than what he is, is what would mar his rule, Uncle. On my honor, the fault will not be found in Jathen.”

  “Jathen?” Kyanith’s eyebrows shot up. A cruel laugh exploded from his lips. “Jathen? Atop everything, you give him a human name?”

  Rhodonith bit her bottom lip. Despite the moot issue, she had fully intended to give her son the Tazu name she had picked out weeks ago: Cornetith, after her dead uncle. Jathen had spilt from some other part of her, and she didn’t even know what it meant. Yet Jathen was his name. Every fiber of her being told her so, and she had learned long ago never to go against what her Ability whispered. Rhodonith may not have been a powerful enough Talent to directly converse with her spirit guides, but she sensed enough to know when they thought something was important. Or when something was right.

  Her uncle shook his head. “You are pretentious, little princess, and you’ll soon find such folly will win that child nothing but scorn and condemnation.” Turning on his heel, he made one last callous comment over his shoulder. “I’ll take some heart in this, though. With such a pitiful little rat as a son, whatever bottom-feeding dredge you took to bed will never step forth to claim it. So at least I don’t have to deal with your bad judgment badgering me on a daily basis on when his son will rule. As if the human-aging rat will outlive me, anyway.”

  The words cut deep, their sting resonating through Rhod.

  Petalith placed a comforting hand on her elbow. “I know there is no social order of law that says you need tell anyone, but who is the father, Rhod?”

  Rocking the crying Jathen, she asked, “Does it really matter so damn much, Pet?” Eased by the movement and probably fatigued from his tiring debut, the babe’s eyelids drooped. “Is not the first law of Spirit ‘Let no one impede the free will of another’? Lineage amid Tazu is matriarchal, always has been, always will be. My son is a Monortith by my blood. What difference would it make who his father is?”

  “None to his high-righteousness,” Pet admitted. “But a moot is different from a half blood, Rhod. If you at least admitted to that indiscretion, your boy could be quietly set aside in the line for a full-blooded Tazu. As a moot, he is still a Tazu and a Monortith, but his right of succession is a pricklier path. The king has reason to be upset. No moot has ever held the gold throne, and there are those who would be of mind to make certain it never happens. Your son could be a catalyst for a civil war.”

  Rhodonith sighed. “I see what you are saying, but I cannot lie. I conceived him as a tyrn, Pet. You said it yourself. No other but a full-blooded Tazu in that same form could have had me then. He’s a moot, and that is that.”

  “Then we all need to pray that you can have another boy-child who is Tazu-in-full and that this one will step aside.” Petalith placed a light kiss on Rhod’s brow. “Go to your room and get some rest. You both need it.” She left the hatchery.

  Rhod stood alone, her heart and stomach wavering in fear, anger, disgrace, and loneliness. Jathen, seeming to sense the rolling turmoil in her soul, began to fuss and kick. Looking down, she could not help smiling. His warm body and squirming vitality were reminders that, not too long ago, she had feared him dead.

  “Oh, shush, shush,” Rhod cooed, sniffing back tears as she rocked him. “Don’t you listen to a single word of any of it. If Spirit, Montage, and the rest of the Children wished for you to be born a moot, then they must have had very good reason. You signed your life’s contract to come into this life this way, so if they convinced you of the need to be different, who am I to question? After all, I must have agreed to have you before I was ever born into this life, too. So there’s no point in crying or fussing or worrying. You have come to me, and you are mine. And that’s all that matters.” She kissed her son’s gold-fuzzed head and took him to bed, happy beyond expression to have him.

  PART ONE:

  HOME

  Chapter 1

  The mirror cracked.

  A starburst of cracks reminiscent of a spider’s web radiated from where Jathen had slammed his fist onto the glass surface. The thin fissures distorted his image, adding jagged edges to his yellow hair. He hung his head, his left hand braced on the table. The subtle grain of worn marble registered beneath the beating pulse in his clenched palm, and along with the steady tick, tick, tick of his watch, he counted with the rhythm of rage. Eventually, he confronted his reflection with as much derision as everyone around him seemed to view his visage. His angular face with its delicate features and expressive lips was cleaved again and again, leaving dark lines across a smooth, creamy complexion. His eyes betrayed him with their brilliant golden hue ringed around slit, reptilian pupils. Portals to a draconic soul and unsuited to a human face, they burned back at him with a fury few ever saw, for after nineteen years of life, he’d become adept at hiding such things. Most days.

  He pressed his right fist against the glass, welcoming the pain. At least it was a hurt he could control. A dribble of crimson trickled down the mirror, further bisecting his image. The drop missed the marble basin of holy water beneath the mirror, instead marring the white of the marble tabletop with a single, despoiling blotch.

  Jathen sighed and straightened. I wonder what horrific sign Mother would read into this. As his rage abated, the reality that he had just shattered a temple mirror settled into him. Flexing his wounded hand, he scowled at the punctured mess of red, silver, and pink, taking note of the bright color of his blood. Red, just like everyone else’s.

  Shaking his head, he sank his bloodied hand into the basin. In the back of his mind, he realized doing so probably counted as further soiling of the space, but he decided it was better to avoid infection. The sanctified water was cold, and the salt and oils stung slightly.

  “Jathen! What did you do?”

  He turned to see his sister staring at him with mix of horror and concern, her milk-chocolate scales wide around her honey-gold eyes.

  Genthelvith Monortith had inherited their mother’s striped black markings and jet-black hair, but the creamy brown scales came from her Attieth father—one of the oh-so-pure Tazu families that plagued Jathen. For the most part, he had no quarrel with his full-Tazu sister, other than when she looked as if she were going to seriously question his sanity.

  “It’s nothing, Thee.” He turned his attention back to cleansing his hand, mindful not to splash his timepiece.

  No one called her “Genthelvith” without getting a seriously dark glare, as the name came from her grandmother on her father’s side, and she despised the wo
man with an almost unholy intensity. Jathen didn’t know the exact origins of it, other than that the woman had said something in front of Thee about her moot brother at which she’d taken serious offense. His sister always championed him when he was persecuted. Of course, she also berated him when she felt he was in the wrong.

  “Do you know how upset Mother would be if she knew you were doing something like this?” She kept her tone low, glancing around for wandering acolytes before finally shuffling closer to him. Hands planted firmly upon her hips, she chastised in a harsher whisper, “In Montage’s temple, too. The Gold Dragon preaches pacifism, Jathen! Spirit knows, Mother is practically the embodiment of the Way.”

  Jathen snorted, still miffed by his mother’s holy solution to the current abuse dealt him. As if leaving me here to pray will change anything. “Mother’s Way is not my Way, Thee.”

  She stomped her foot on the ceramic-inlaid floor. “That doesn’t mean you should go about breaking mirrors.”

  “I’m sorry.” He felt a touch of irritation as he removed the last splinter of glass from his flesh. “But being told once again that I agreed to look this way when I was born—all that life’s-contract paths-of-fate stuff—it’s just enough to make me…”

  “Punch something?”

  Over the years, Jathen had become a connoisseur of the various forms of emotion his physical deformity invoked in other Tazu, allowing him to easily discern the difference between compassion and pity. Kind-hearted Tazu usually pitied him, which Jathen could never stomach. Pity meant they felt badly for him and grateful for their own normalcy. Anger and fear at least made sense; he was a reminder that any Tazu could spawn a moot. Those emotions were ones Jathen could easily deflect with words or fists. Pity always felt crueler in its soft, unconfirmed belittling. However, the sincere sympathy in Thee’s voice was a rarity. She understood him, the Jathen-who-was-annoyed not the moot-who-was-weak.

  “Yeah,” he admitted, his irritation ebbing. He dried his hand on his shirt, careful not to directly dab the actual cut. The blood- and oil-infused water stained the rust-colored silk, marring the violet embroidery along the hem. “Damn.”

  “Oh, here.” She fished a handkerchief out of her belt-pouch and wrapped his hand. Her yellow dress received a light spattering, but she either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

  “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, well, I agreed to be your sister when I got born, so I suppose I knew what I was up for.” She sighed, her pale gold eyes sad. “And I hate to tell you, but all the Ways believe in a life’s contract, Jath. Except one.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He stared at his wrapped hand. “Way of the Red. Way of Evil.”

  His little sister pursed her lips. “You aren’t really—”

  “Oh, Spirit, no, Thee!” Jathen patted her shoulder with his good hand. “I’m just frustrated. Mother means well, trying to integrate me into a Way so I have something to belong to, but all it’s doing is reminding me I still don’t fit in. After the last week and now this morning…” He shook his head. “I really didn’t need a reminder that I ‘agreed’ to this, all to evolve my soul. It’s hard enough being cast aside by almost everyone without being told I did it to myself.”

  “Montage’s Way is hard, Jath.” Thee had inherited their mother’s sense of faith, a thing Jathen sometimes envied and often found exasperating. “Not everyone is up for combining all the Twelve Ways to walk the Ultimate Way. Perhaps another—”

  He laughed, bitterly bemused that his sister had unwittingly taken up their mother’s crusade. “Which, Thee? I’m no Talent to follow Rosin. I’m not a healer for Desmoulein, and I don’t have any refined athletic inclination to fit under Kubesh. History and past lives bore me, while philosophy and truth confuse me, so Feator and Ulic are out. The only thing I do enjoy is drafting, but I’m so mediocre at it Bree herself would laugh me out of the Amber Way. Everything else I ever started, I never finished, scraping along to somehow find the thing to win Kyanith’s approval. A fool’s errand.” He shook his head. “Past those, Turin and his Way of Death is too morbid, Angani and her Way of Purity is too stifling, and while I’d probably do well to invoke Rhean to protect me, I’m certainly not in a position to do so for anyone else. I fit nowhere.”

  “There’s Beleskie.” She held up her rose-quartz pendant. “We could learn together.” The honest hope in her eyes nearly broke his heart.

  “Oh, Thee.” Jathen stared dejectedly at his younger sibling, knowing that, as much as she appreciated him, she didn’t understand that particular aspect of who he was. Thee was pretty, sweet, and popular, and above all else, she looked like a Tazu. He could not follow in Beleskie’s Way, believing relationships and interaction with as many people as possible were the best method to evolve one’s soul. In her ignorance, she simply did not fully grasp how it was for Jathen when she was off enjoying the company of others her age. He didn’t have friends. As a moot, he was shunned.

  “It’s just not me, Thee,” he said softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Five years younger than Jathen, at fourteen, she was still a scale shorter, but all too soon she would surpass him in that as well.

  Leaning into him, she said, “I worry about you, Jath. You are either sad and quiet or angry and quiet.” She glanced meaningfully at the mirror. “It’s all got to go somewhere eventually.”

  Looking around the alcove, he regretted damaging the space. Great care had been taken in the inlay of white stars on the blue floor and ceiling, while the table, mirror, and basin made for an ethereal focal point against pale silver walls. If only out of respect for the artists and architects who had created it, Jathen said, “I suppose I should go confess to this one.”

  “Um… yeah.” Thee sounded about as enthusiastic as he did.

  “Come on.” He felt slightly more himself, though a hot ember of anger still smoldered in his chest. Jathen walked his sister back into the main sanctuary, seeking out the head of the temple.

  The main sanctuary was an enormous round space, and no matter his personal issues with his world’s religion and his country’s main Way, Jathen was always impressed by it. Temples to Spirit were built in spires the continent over, and ones dedicated to Montage were a riot of colors. The domed ceiling was dizzily high, coated in gold, which always shone. Jathen often wondered how often they had to fly up there to scrub it. Goldenrod paint covered the walls, and tapestries in all the other Way colors hung evenly, even the taboo crimson of the Red. With dozens of stained glass windows spilling even more patches of color onto the floor and benches, the room gave a sense of being held inside a slowly turning kaleidoscope as the daylight made its way across the sky. As a child, Jathen would hold his hands under the tinted light and imagine the Children had painted him to look more like a proper Tazu. But much like faith, the colors didn’t last beyond the sanctuary’s threshold.

  Hausmannith stood at the front before the long altar carved from a single rosewood trunk. His golden robes and black scales were obscured by a weaving mist of incense, but the gigantic gold statue of Montage he faced glittered through the haze. The Highest Child of Spirit was depicted in his dragon form, gleaming with diamond eyes and curled wings.

  Maybe that’s where the Tazu prideful egotism comes from. Jathen walked up the center aisle to stand behind the recently assigned head Walker. Since all the Children are dragons in their true forms, the Tazu think they are somehow better by association. Maybe it only means that we are all dragons underneath the skin. After all, every race has red blood.

  Hausmannith turned and spotted Jathen’s hand. “What happened to you?” He still clutched the swinging incense brazier, and the musky fumes rose, thick and pungent.

  Jathen stifled a sneeze, distractedly wondering how the full-blooded Tazu, who had a much stronger sense of smell, managed not to gag. “I had a minor disagreement with the alcove mirror.” He wished he’d c
hosen a better phrasing, as he sounded far more flippant than intended.

  “The mirror or the image therein?” Hausmannith’s penetrating jade eyes set Jathen’s ears to burning. The Walker nodded. “I see.” Putting the copper burner on the altar, he tucked his dark hands into his sleeves. “Show me the extent of it.”

  Jathen and Thee led him back to the scene of the vandalism. Hausmannith surveyed the destruction and desecration with silence and a level gaze. He picked up the basin of “unholy” water, tilting and gazing into it as if discerning some abstract destiny from its soiled contents.

  To Jathen, the Walker’s actions evoked images of Petalith’s amateur attempts at divination over tea leaves. He felt that same rising anxiety, as Petalith always seemed to predict doom in people’s futures. Especially mine.

  “Thee,” Hausmannith said, looking up from the ruddy water, “would you be so kind as to wait for your brother outside the sanctuary in the vestibule?”

  “All right, Master Hausmannith.” Thee gave Jathen’s arm a reassuring squeeze before leaving.

  Steeling himself for a good verbal lashing, Jathen put on his most humble expression, ready to feign penitence.

  Hausmannith stood quietly, the only movement the gentle spinning of the soiled water as he gazed pensively into the basin. After a few more cricket-like ticks of Jathen’s watch, the Montage Walker addressed him softly. “I’m somewhat concerned for you, Jathen.”

  Oh, Spirit. He is endeavoring to read my future in that thing. “That seems to be the general consensus.”

  The bowl stopped spinning as the Walker shot Jathen a candid glance. “What I mean is I have very good hearing. Just because you get angry and break a mirror doesn’t mean you aren’t meant for any Way other than evil.”