by Kyrja
Right behind the men in hip wraps was a man who Jonath knew was accustomed to wielding power. He was arrogant and disdainful. He had an air about him that reeked of power, and he was suddenly afraid. This man wouldn’t believe the lie ready on his lips about being lost. This man wanted something terrible from them.
“Welcome S’ray,” he said with a smile that made Jonath hold Drena closer so she didn’t do anything bold or stupid. “You may not remember who I am, but I know exactly who you are. You are the mother of Amphedia’s savior. But you don’t even remember that you have a son, do you?” he asked, taking two steps closer, his presence looming over them.
“No matter. Because of you, I died,” he told them, his right cheek twitching in what might have been a ghost of a smile. “Your brother killed me, actually. But now I am here, the same way you are here. Together,” he reached out a hand to caress Drena’s face, “we’re going to replace your son with a new savior.”
Jonath was sure his heart was going to explode. How was Drena staying so calm? He had just told them they have a son! And now they were going to die, because there was no way she wasn’t going to use that blade to kill him.
“Kill him and strip her!” he commanded.
Chapter Nine – Memories and Nightmares
Leaning a bit further back in the comfortable chair they’d offered him, Gaku stroked his beard, not particularly pleased to find himself in the company of the people surrounding him. The oldest among them seemed to be a man dressed in women’s clothing, and he didn’t seem to be overly fond of the sharp-tongued woman standing next to him. At least he thought she was a woman. It was hard to tell with these people. No wonder he’d kept himself away from people for so long. The woman in question, he remembered her name was Tyran, hadn’t been what he would call the model of hospitality over the past two days either.
She had known exactly who he was looking for, even though she denied it. And she had tried to keep him from asking other people too. He could appreciate her keeping friends safe from strangers, but the very least she could have done was to have made sure he was treated with courtesy and respect while he waited. And to make sure he’d had enough to eat. He hadn’t appreciated having to dig into the stores in his own bag when there was obviously abundance to be found all around the village and throughout the area. She just didn’t like strangers. Well he didn’t like her either. Nor did he trust this Honsa to be able to lead them wherever they were going. He – if he really was a he – didn’t seem like he was going to be able to stand up to Tyran. He was pretty sure she would be bossing him around in no time.
Well, the truth of the matter was, he could leave them any time he wanted to. He’d been alone for a very long time, and liked it that way. He’d really had no choice at all in the matter of coming here though. He’d fought against it for nearly two years. Perhaps even longer, if he was honest with himself. He was too old to actually want to go walking for days or weeks on end to an unknown destination. He often took walks for days at a time through the mountains, but that was for his own pleasure, and not because he’d felt the need to do it. Like he was being pushed. Or maybe pulled. The weather had gotten all out of control over the past ten years or so. Enough so that he’d seen evidence with his own two eyes. Proof he hadn’t wanted to see.
And then he’d had no choice but to hear the earth as it called out to him, weaving its song into his heart. He’d thought he’d put all that behind him. He had worked hard to not hear. To not listen. But something had happened. Something terrible that had been made even more terrible. From listening to the people around him, he knew it had to do with a barrier that had come down. An invisible barrier. Around a place far to the south that nobody had ever known had existed. It boggled his mind to think of it. He’d never been one to travel so very far, although he’d heard of places outside of Midbar from others he’d encountered over the years. But for a whole civilization to exist without anyone having ever heard of it … well, that was just crazy.
The barrier around the place had both caused the rot and decay deep within the earth by the fact it was there, and then its removal had made everything worse. Far worse. And all this talk of gods and magic didn’t sit well with him at all. His ancestors had once been devoted to the Sun God, of course. Everyone had. He had some small idea that his people had come from the desert generations ago, but couldn’t imagine wanting to live where the sun boiled your brain day after day, with no shade. No trees, no water, no animals to speak of. Other than ones that wanted to kill you. He knew bits and pieces of what his grandparents had told him, but those were the things his parents had dismissed as nonsense and fire side stories to tell when you wanted a good laugh, or to teach a lesson.
Gaku had a good mind to just sit here in this comfortable chair and drink the fine ale someone had brought him. Someone other than Tyran, of course. She wouldn’t be bothered to throw a bucket of water at a dog on fire, if he wasn’t mistaken. No compassion or common sense in that one. No hospitality at all. And when everyone else left in the morning, he would just send them off with a fond farewell then head back to his own home with his own problems. Either they would fix whatever was wrong, or they wouldn’t. Just like the sun – Sov was dead now, or so they said. Or gone. He wasn’t sure which it might be, or why it even mattered. There was a sun in the sky now, and whether it was a Sun God or a Sun Goddess, the grass was still green.
No! There it was, reaching out to him again – the Song of the Earth. No! Why did it have to choose him? It was just a single note. A quiet, little note, winding through his bones. It wasn’t something he could hear so much with his ears as it was something he heard in his bones. They vibrated differently when the earth sang to him. The Song had always made him feel younger, happier, ready to take on the world – and win! But not anymore. Now it cried. Or made him wish he could weep.
“You must come with us,” he heard a voice tell him. It was that man dressed like a woman, he could tell. He was standing behind him. “We will need you.”
“Why should I care?” he asked quietly, already regretting having asked. He should have just ignored the voice altogether. Him and his pretty dress, too.
“Because I know the potential for things. For the future. You are needed,” the voice told him.
“I’m an old man. I should go home,” he said, half-heartedly, still uncertain if he would or would not go with them. It would probably be more trouble than it was worth.
“No,” the voice told him, quietly, calmly. “You are a pathetic, old man who needs to learn some manners, and if you ever forget that I am a woman in a man’s body, I will punch your teeth out. My name is Ceirat. Say my name.” When he paused, the voice was closer to his ear now, even quieter than the first time. “Ceirat. Say it.”
“Ceirat,” he replied, his heart beating faster.
“Get some sleep, Gaku, we’ll be leaving in the morning. Whether you have any teeth or not when you come with us is up to you,” she told him, then clapped him on his shoulder. Hard.
Gaku felt a smile steal over his face as he heard the … woman … walk away. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
* * * * * * * *
Tyran watched from the doorway as Honsa and Ordan walked away, glad in her heart the two of them were so happy with each other. It was a good match. Good enough that she had to acknowledge a small, harmless lump of jealousy in her heart. They’d been best friends for a long enough time that they would already know each other well enough to easily overcome whatever awkwardness or obstacles they might encounter in being lovers. In her heart of hearts, she wished them well. She also wished she could find a way to stay behind. She was feeling melancholy and snappish and couldn’t seem to stop being abrupt with everyone. She didn’t want to go, and she was honest enough with herself to know most of the travelers would breathe a sigh of relief if she didn’t. No one would miss her, and she knew that was the crux of her problem.
She looked around for Ceirat and found her talking to
that crusty old man who’d said he heard the Song of the Earth. That was a phrase she hadn’t heard in a long time. Nor was it something that anyone now alive had probably heard. She only knew of it from others’ dreams. When she’d first learned of it, she’d thought it was some kind of poetic phrase describing the feel of the dirt, or maybe the “life force” some spoke of when purposefully reaching out with their senses to connect energetically with the land. She had shrugged it off as an inconsequential, fleeting thought; none had asked her to read their dreams because they had heard the Song of the Earth, after all. Most came to her seeking solace from nightmares, or a better understanding of their fears. And yet, she had found a thread winding through some of their dreams leading to something entirely different than what she’d expected.
As she stood watching Ceirat speak with the old man, it occurred to her that the first time she’d heard of the Song was from her own grandfather. She’d been a small child then, no more than six, she was sure. She hadn’t understood what a Mezhdu was then, or that she had been a girl inside of a boy’s body, so had still been living her life as a boy. Everyone had understood she was different by then, but not what might be different about her. She understood now that her parents and other family members had known their ancestors had come from a land far away and had once been gifted with many different kinds of magical abilities. They had been testing her back then, trying to determine if she had been born with magic. She had spent a great deal of time with her grandparents then, along with some of their friends which, to her six-year-old sensibilities, were very old people. And perhaps they were. Some from Nohoyo were graced with very long lives, indeed.
When her grandfather had taken her to see one particular woman, she had claimed to be more than two hundred years old. Try as she might, Tyran couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but she did remember her breath had smelled of onions. She had asked Tyran to tell her about her dreams. It had seemed a very odd request, even then, because children don’t often have the ability to describe things beyond what they might think was fascinating, or what had scared them. The woman had asked her to try really hard to remember her nightmares. She hadn’t wanted to know the details, only what it was that had scared her in her dreams.
She very clearly remembered telling the old woman that her scary dreams were about hiding. Back then, her boy-self had been frightened of being different, and hadn’t understood why he always wanted to wear dresses, nor even why he wasn’t allowed to. He had liked pretty things, Tyran remembered, finding it ironic that, as an adult, she had never been particularly fond of trinkets, baubles, or even so very fond of dresses, for that matter. But as a boy, she had wanted very much to wear dresses, and hadn’t been able to understand why she wasn’t allowed to. Her boy-self had always been drawn to what he had only been able to describe as the “other girls.” But, of course, he’d been made fun of, so had stopped insisting. But he’d never felt comfortable playing with the boys. They didn’t like doing the things he did. And so he had withdrawn into himself, spending more and more time alone, until his parents had noticed, and that’s when all the “testing” had begun.
The old woman had wanted to know if his nightmares about hiding had included being buried in the dirt. He’d been terrified of the very thought. Did his bones sometimes ache? Or did they feel fuzzy? Did he want to leave his body? The answer to that question had led to many other questions until they had finally asked all the right questions, although it had taken some time for everyone to understand Tyran-the-boy had been born with Tyran-the-girl within his body. And it had been later still before she had understood her gift of reading dreams. By then, the woman with the onion breath had passed into her next life, so she hadn’t been able to press her for whatever answers she may have been able to provide.
Tyran remembered, though, the intensity with which the woman had questioned her, as if she was hoping to hear that Tyran-the-boy was able to hear the Song of the Earth. Her odd questions had made little sense back then, but her search for answers later had led to a small understanding of what she thought might be called the Song of the Earth. It was more of a vibration than actual music that one might sing to, although it often sounded like a kind of a melody. Or so she had learned. It was, she supposed, an invitation from the earth to become a part of the earth itself. But what that might actually mean wasn’t something she’d been able to understand at all.
Because her people were originally from Nohoyo, she had always believed there was some kind of ancient magic involved, and it was very likely that the origin of that magic had long-since been lost. It was only because some of the dreams she read often depicted scenes and knowledge from generations before the dreamer who had come to her had ever lived, that she had been able to piece together what she knew now. She had many guesses and theories, but nothing solid she could point to in order to understand better, or to even point her in the right direction to learn more.
And now there was this man among them who claimed to be able to hear the Song of the Earth. She had been wary of him since she’d first met him. Not only was he rude, condescending, and judgmental, but he was also hiding secrets. So she was going with Honsa and the others regardless of her own desires in the matter. She wasn’t at all certain he wasn’t a threat to everyone, and until she found out differently, she would treat him as if he was. That, of course, wouldn’t win her any affection from the others, and she had a feeling she wasn’t likely to be able to get any answers from him easily, so she was going to have to find a way to make him tell her.
There – he actually smiled! Eyeing Ceirat out of the corner of her eye, she felt a smile steal across her face, wondering if the other woman would be willing to help her get some answers from the man.
* * * * * * * *
“Kill him and strip her!” he commanded.
Drena heard the man’s words. The High Priest’s words and felt a strange echo in them, as if she’d seen him do the same thing before. But this time I’m going to kill you! she heard herself think, not understanding why those words felt right. Nothing else mattered but killing him. Everything she had ever done in her life had prepared her for this moment in time. And she was ready. Pushing off of Jonath, she lowered the blade in her hand as she took the three steps needed to get to him. She would rip him from his belly to his heart and would slit his throat. She could already see the gash in his neck forming as she moved. She could feel his hot blood on her hands and felt the triumph of having succeeded as he coughed up the dark blood of his lungs, laying on the floor. It was crystal clear in her mind. She could even smell the coppery taint of his blood. Undoubtedly, it was splashed all across her face, creating a mask of victory. No thought was needed, she was action personified. Death delivered. She saw his eyes fly open in surprise, turning quickly to fear.
In the next moment, she felt herself being flung backwards away from the man, so shocked, she wasn’t even able to scream with surprise. The stone wall was unforgiving as her body slammed into it. She had no control over her body as she lay there, crumpled on the stone floor, unable to make out voices as pain shot up her spine, pinning her to the floor. She heard Jonath’s yell, and other voices. She heard a dozen feet as they moved, scraping against the ages-old floor. She fought against the paralysis, determined not to lay there as they killed her Jonath. She would not be their victim. Not again. Again? Why – just why did it feel like she had already suffered through all of this before? Is this how she had died the first time, and now she was going to do it all over again? Had she come to this same end over and over again? No, it wasn’t possible. Gods, her head hurt. Were her ribs cracked? Why was she laying in a pool of water? Why couldn’t she move? Jonath!
And then he was there beside her. She felt, more than heard, him drop to his knees beside her. She felt the weight of his hand on his back.
“Drena,” he panted. “Are you all right? Please tell me you’re all right. Please,” she could hear the note of pleading in his voice. She tried, the gods kno
w she tried, but she couldn’t move. She thought her neck might be broken, but she felt so numb, she wasn’t sure. She could hear her breath wheezing as she exhaled. And she was getting cold. Help me, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t quite make her mouth say the words.
“Stand back, please,” she heard another man say. Then Jonath’s hand was gone. No! Come back! I don’t want to die again. Not yet.
She thought she heard someone say something, but wasn’t sure. It almost sounds like a song, she thought. Why is he singing? Then she felt the magic soaking into her. That’s what if felt like. As if she was a dried up husk. A sea creature, left for dead on the sand, unable to breathe in the air, she was dying. As the wave of magic washed over and through her, she shivered. For a moment, she was colder than she had been, but then she felt the warmth of life returning coursing through her. She could breathe easier. She moved her fingers, trying to steady herself, where she was sprawled on the floor, half sitting, mostly slumped over, her face almost touching the ground in front of her. Her hair was matted against her face, obscuring her vision, but she was beginning to see better. She could hear voices again. Separate voices. There were other men here besides Jonath and whoever was helping her. Now she felt the magic burning through her and cried out. It was too hot.
“Again!” the man’s voice commanded. “Shout again!”
And so she did, calling on all the rage she’d felt in being denied her right to kill the man who had raped her. Yes! Now she knew who that man was – High Priest Rayisyn! Her voice was that of the beast who had been wounded in battle, daring the hunter to come get her. Her growl turned into a howl and then she was free of the pain. And she remembered. She remembered everything. Jonath dying. The priest raping her. Chared saving her. Denit taking her through the tunnel back to the desert. Her son – Jarles! She had a son. He had blue eyes. She remembered that above all. And the most beautiful smile. And then … then she had been brutally murdered. She remembered running. As fast as she could. Jarles was safe. He must always stay safe. And so she had run so the Merlarn priests would follow her. And Jarles would be safe. They had killed her to keep safe their secret that Rayisyn had raped her. Inhaling deeply, she remembered everything.
