Diridan's Daughter (The Two Moons of Rehnor)

by J. Naomi Ay

  Diridan's Daughter

  A Two Moons of Rehnor Novella

  by

  J. Naomi Ay

  Published by Ayzenberg Inc

  Copyright Ayzenberg, Inc. 2013

  All Rights Reserved

  230413

  Cover Art by Amy Jambor

  © Can Stock Photo Inc. / PaulMatthew abd © Can Stock Photo Inc. / varuka

  Also by J. Naomi Ay

  The Two Moons of Rehnor series

  The Boy who Lit up the Sky (Book 1)

  My Enemy's Son (Book 2)

  Of Blood and Angels (Book 3)

  Firestone Rings (Book 4)

  The Days of the Golden Moons (Book 5)

  Golden's Quest (Book 6)

  Metamorphosis (Book 7)

  Choices (Book 8)

  The Beginning (Books 1- 3)

  Mid Vita (Books 4 & 5)

  Novella Collection

  Lydia's Dance

  Taner's Running Game

  Meri

  King of the Streets

  Diridan's Daughter

  Caissa's Favor

  Thad's Mistakes

  Space Doctor

  Big Red

  Journey to Rehnor series

  The New Planet

  Aran's Gift

  My mother died when I was twelve years old. During the winter, she had become ill with a cough that would not go away. Always she was coughing; sometimes so violently she could no longer stand on her feet. She would collapse in a chair or even on the sidewalk, her face turning blue as she fought for a breath.

  At first she refused to see the village doctor. She would wave away my father when he suggested such a thing. Later, she went to the clinic and returned with some tinctures and potions, none of which did anything to quiet her spasms. When blood began to spurt from her mouth, or seep down her lips after each episode, my father went to the King and begged for passage to Mishnah. They had fine hospitals there and more advanced medicine than the strengthening herbs, Old Lorak our doctor could provide. The King held my dad, Diridan in high esteem for he was once a great warrior. He had also been a friend of the King's son, Prince Lot who had been killed in battle long before I was born. My father had said he was the last to see Lot alive.

  "I would have given my life for his in an instant. I should have taken that bullet in my own heart. It was meant for me, not for him." Such was his sorrow as the two were the best of friends. The Prince's oldest brother, Sorkan, my father despised. He blamed Sorkan for Lot's death although I wasn't certain why. Sometimes, if Father was in a particularly sad mood, he would speak of the battles and what he called Sorkan's mistakes.

  "Arrogant, cocky!" My father raged. "He could have gotten every one of us killed. As it was, poor Lot paid the price for his pompous brother's miscalculations."

  "Hush, Diridan." My mother tried to soothe my father's ire. "You can't bring anyone back from the dead, and you were all so very willful and young then." My father would shout a bit more, perhaps even shed a tear until he grew tired and would let my mother lead him off to bed.

  The King mourned his lost son as well, and replaced him with my father who was now treated as a great chief. The King would take him hunting, a twosome instead of three, and on holidays, we sat in the Temple behind the Royal Row. Afterward, we were the first to follow them out. During banquets in the Great Hall, only the King and Princes were served before us and always we were given the choicest cuts of meat.

  "Let us ask Diridan his opinion," the King was often heard to say. "I value his wise counsel on many things." My father was never a chief of any sort but merely a carpenter and maker of chairs. All he owned was a shop of the furniture he crafted and his memories of carrying a sword a dozen years before. The King loved him a little bit, so he offered my mother passage to anywhere. He would provide the transport himself for he had a limousine which he rarely used. We, of Karupatani only rode our horses or sat in carts. We walked on our own feet or travelled upon the water in a boat. Only the evil Mishaks flew speeders or planes that crossed the stars. We lived simply off our land and desired nothing else.

  "I refuse to go to Mishnah," my mother declared when my father shared this news. "I don’t care if the King himself orders me. If I can't be cured in Karupatani, then I am not meant to live." My father tried everything he could to convince her otherwise, but my mother was steadfast in her refusal to go.

  "We are at peace now," my father begged. "Even the younger princes have gone there to school. Do not die now out of stubbornness to accept treatment from them."

  "No," my mother insisted before breaking into a fit of coughs. "This is my choice, my decision. You will respect my wishes or I will go home." Home for my mother was her mother's house in Kirkut which was far across the hills on the other side of the Blue Mountains. With snow on the ground even here, the voyage on horseback, she would certainly not survive. My father had no choice but to watch her waste away. She was buried the first week of spring when the ground was still frozen hard. The men had a difficult time digging, so the hole was only half the normal depth. This is what I learned from the whisperings of the people, who gathered on the hill, to watch us mourn.

  "I hope she does not rise to haunt us." The loud voice of Prince Tuman's wife carried across the icicle grass and echoed in the canyon above the river. I shivered in my sheep skin cloak, the curly pelt more bothersome than comforting and one I would forever after hate. I prayed with my mouth though my mind and heart were elsewhere, and when it was my turn to pour dirt upon the casket, my hand froze and couldn't move.

  We walked back to our house and sat about our living room while the women of our village brought us food. The men came and stood around with nothing to say, shuffling their feet and clearing their throats. When the night fell, my father and I were alone staring at untouched food and our cold hearth.

  "Go up to bed, Cinda," he said, rising to his feet and heading to the door. "I'm going to go out for a walk and clear my head."

  I walked up the stairs which creaked as my feet crossed each one. "I was supposed to repair them," my father cried, his voice a plaintive wail that followed him outside on to our porch. "I had promised her so many times to mend the stairs. Why haven't I fixed them before now?" I shut the door to my room and sat upon my bed which was dressed in the blanket my mother had sewn. In my closet, all my clothes were crafted by her hand and my cupboard held the necklaces she had beaded. I gazed at each of these things, looking for something of my mother in them, but they were just things, empty things with no life. I shut my eyes and lay down upon my bed to stare at the ceiling, my heart cold and hard like a stone.

  I had never been a good student. I could add a list of numbers and subtract well enough, but anything beyond that sent my mind into a twist. The tongue of my people, Karupatani was once a great language as our nation was once a fierce power. After the war that devastated the mother planet, Rozari, both our words and our nation became simple. I could speak well enough and memorize the stories and songs that had been passed down, although learning them bored me to tears. My passion was drawing and sketching which I did every afternoon when freed from the school. I would take my sketchbook and pencils out to the fields and spend entire days capturing my village on paper. I had sketches of all the seasons both in the day time and at night. I had portraits of every animal we raised. I drew the valley in the snow, the fields with new green shoots, the sheaves of wheat as they bent in the harsh summer sun. In the autumn, I captured the rain as it fell upon the river, swelling over the banks of her shores. I drew the sky as it darkened to portend the winter, and I sketched the nights alight with the two golden moons. I recorded my entire
life between the pages of my book until the night when I drew my last picture. It was my mother's face as she had smiled at me, the colors in my memory already fading into gray. Then, I put my book aside and burned my pencils in the fire, for every picture afterward would only be colored black.

  ****

  My father was sending me to Shrotru to live with his sister. "It shall only be for a short time, Cinda," he said not meeting my eye. "I am going to be traveling with the King this summer. I'll visit with you when we pass through the village." I didn't respond. It wasn't as if I had a choice. I couldn't stay home alone, and I didn't want to anyway. My house was filled with ghosts, with the whispers of my mother. Every room held a trace of her scent. The empty walls still echoed with her voice. I would stay away from there as long as I could after school, hiding in the fields and the forests, searching for animals to befriend. At night, when it grew cold and dark, and I could no longer delay my return, I went home to light the fire and lamps, to prepare my father's evening meal. Then, the two of us would sit at the table, picking at the paltry offerings I had thrown together. Never was I as good a cook as my mother. Everything I created was either charred or underdone.

  I began to pack up my few belongings even though the tunics were now too short and tight. My mother would have realized I had grown this year. She would have sewn me new dresses or bought some from the store, but my father's eyes never saw me anymore. I put my shoes in my bag, each one had holes in the toes which I had plugged with paper. I gathered up my heavy coat just in case my stay included winter, and then I looked around my small room wondering what else to bring. A trinket or two, a shiny rock from the river? Pressed and dried flowers inside of a book? Everything that had meant so much to me before felt like nothing, just remnants of a life from long ago.

  "Cinda," my father said with a slight nod of his head. His voice was thick, and his eyes focused somewhere else. "Go outside and see the boy." He cleared his throat and rubbed his chin, frowning at the untouched soup before him. "I suppose we all must make homage to the Mishak, although it pains me to bow before Sorkan's son."

  "Who?" I looked out the window as crowds gathered in the street, pointing at the Mishak plane as it landed in the field.

  "The MaKennah." My father pushed the soup aside and rose to look out the window, as well. "I have told the King not be so rash with this young man. He knows nothing about who he is or what he intends. If the boy is anything like his father, he'll surely bring us into battle that will end badly for both the Mishaks and us. If he is anything like his mother or his uncle, her brother, then we are all doomed and should kill him before it is too late."

  "And what does the King say of this?" I asked. "Or the princes, Pedah and Tuman? Are they as concerned about this boy as you?"

  "No," my father cried, his anger igniting like a match. He walked back to the table and slammed his fist. The bowl of soup jumped, slopping its contents over the side and dripping from the table like a tear. "Go." He pointed at the door. "Outside with you. Make obeisance before your future king." Then, he sat down in his chair and held his face in his hands. The fire in him simmering before it died.

  I grabbed my sweater from the hook although it was too small to wear, so I wrapped it around my shoulders as I went out side. It was warm, in early spring. The breeze from the valley smelled fresh like newly mown grass mixed with blossoms just beginning to bloom. Birds sang from the trees and high overhead as I stepped down from my porch. In front of our gate, there was already a queue of villagers craning their necks to see the Princes as they escorted the boy down our street.

  A cluster of girls were all whispering behind their hands. Some hid their eyes as if he was to be too hideous to observe.

  "He is said to be as fair as a Lightie," the woman next to me scorned. "Though he has black hair like his father, his skin in pale and white."

  "He is like a Mishak," another woman spat her distaste into the street. "Like his mother, the daughter of the Mishak king. I won't ever get on my knees before a Mishak Prince even if he bears the name de Kudisha."

  "You'll have to," the butcher interrupted, pushing his way to the front of the street. "The King has declared this boy to be his heir. For better or worse, we're stuck with him unless some kills him first." Then, he raised his knife as if he just might do it. The women prattled on like hens cooing to their cock while I wondered if my father was in our house plotting his own revenge. Perhaps, this was why he was sending me away to Shrotru? Did he mean to start this battle when I was not around to see it done?

  A few moments later, the Princes and the boy appeared on the street. All the strutting and boasting ceased as the villagers shut their mouths. They obediently lowered their heads, and some even took a knee. I stood on my toes to catch a glimpse of Prince Sorkan's son, the boy who would be our king. He was walking in the center of the street behind his uncles. He couldn't have been any older than me at twelve years. Indeed, he was exceedingly pale and wan. In fact, he looked like he belonged sick in bed. I bent my head and curtseyed as I had been taught to do, all the while thinking of what I had seen in his face. Here was a boy very out of place, an air of sadness reflecting like a mirror my own. My heart swelled and reached out to him as he passed me by. Something compelled me to raise my head and looked into his eyes. When I did, I caught my breath and nearly fell to my knees, for his eyes were filled with silver light that sparkled and glowed. For a moment, he almost smiled before he turned away, yet I felt as if he had reached out and touched my heart. I felt no fear in his presence, only calmness and good. Perhaps, we were to be blessed by this boy after all.

  They had meetings throughout the village about what to do. Now that the boy was here, unlike me, the elders were more worried than before. His strange silver eyes were said to not see. He moved about by reading another's thoughts. He had scars on his back and wounds from when the Mishaks had beaten him as they too were frightened by these traits. He never spoke, but it was said he understood every word. When he wanted something, he merely held out his hand. By pointing his finger, he could summon fire or light.

  "He's a danger to everyone of Karupatani," my father cried.

  "He's just a boy, Diridan," Prince Pedah said. "You have no reason to be fearful of this boy." The Prince was sitting on our porch drinking a glass of sweet tea which I prepared in my mother's best pot. He wore round spectacles on the end of his nose, and his hair stood up in back. His long legs stretched across the porch as he nervously tapped his foot. He winked at me twice and even smiled.

  "No." My father held his own glass, not yet having taken a drink. He swirled the tea around in a whorl. "You are defending him, Pedah, because he is your nephew. I feel there is something very evil in the core of his soul. I will speak to your father about it when we begin our journey soon. I shall tell him, I disapprove of the boy's presence."

  "Speak now, Diridan," Pedah's challenged. "Since when have you ever held your tongue before? My father has seen the boy and believes he is the one, the MaKennah foretold in the ancient books."

  "The Great Father, Karukan who authored those books was said to be a drunk and a fool. Not unlike your brother who sired the boy. I am afraid it must run in the family. Any man who could launch a war that destroyed an entire planet must have surely been insane. Whatever Karukan wrote must be drivel. I suspect this business of a MaKennah was written in a drunken rage. As soon as I have your father's ear, I will convince him exactly that. Then, we shall return the boy to Mishnah whether they want him or not. What happens with him shall be their problem, not ours." Now father swallowed his tea in one large gulp and smiled with satisfaction at the Prince. The Prince's foot began to tap a great deal faster on the porch. Then, he too finished his tea and rose to go.

  "Cookie, sir?" I cried, trying to diffuse the tension in the air. It would not bode well for my father to fall from favor.

  "No, thank you." The Prince refused the tray where I had carefully set an assortment of treats filled with jam. I had baked them
all myself with the last of my mother's preserves. Each one was shaped like a flower and carefully placed. My father had implored me to clean and bake so that we might impress the Prince with our hospitality, as it was not often this house was blessed with such a presence. Now all of my beautiful creations would end up in the trash. My face filled with heat and my eyes flooded with tears. I wasn't certain for what or who I wept. Was it my father's rage at the boy who no one wanted? Or was it me, the girl who had used the last of her mother's jam?

  For a moment, the Prince's anger seemed to subside. He gazed down and took my chin in his hand. He brushed away my tear with a sweep of his finger. "Diridan," he said, his voice soft as if his words were only meant for me. "For your beautiful daughter's sake, I caution you not to take any action untoward. You may speak with my father this night, but should he refuse to abide by your counsel, I suggest you return to Shrotru to your family's seat. Over the years, you have been as a brother to us, but our nephew is our blood and our Crown Prince. Our loyalties lie with he who has been foretold." The Prince removed his hand leaving my chin bereft. He winked with one eye so dark it was nearly black. Then, he stepped down from our porch and disappeared through our garden gate, softly humming a nameless tune that followed him as he strolled down the street. My father studied his tea although it had now gone cold.

  "I will speak to the King," he said gruffly and rose from his chair. He straightened his tunic and followed the Prince away while I went inside to throw away the rest of the tea.

  I left the tray of cookies for the birds to enjoy as I gathered all the tea glasses and my mother's pot. I wondered if ever again I would return to this house of my birth. Like Sorkan's son, I was being sent to live in a strange new place. I put the dishes in the sink and washed them carefully. Then, lovingly, I dried every glass. I placed them on the shelf with utmost care. I folded my towel just so and set it hanging from the rack, as if my mother might come home while I wasn't there. I made sure every speck of the kitchen counter was free of crumbs. I swept the floor, and then I wiped the windows. I straightened cushions, folded linens, cleaned the hearth. I did everything I could think to leave our home in order. Then, I chided myself for this wasn't home, just an empty house.