“Lost the walnuts, but everything important is still aboard,” Abananthus said.
He walked beside Jadaloo and Ooshoo as they all trudged up the mountain trail. An hour later, the woods opened around the path to reveal a wide clearing. A small cabin fashioned of tree logs rested near a long vegetable garden. A woman sat on a narrow porch under the extended awning of a roof. Abananthus had never seen a home constructed quite that way. Nor had he seen a woman like the one who stood up from her chair. Taller than himself, unless his eyes deceived him, her skin seemed to glow in the diffuse light, paler than the bone-white hair of her head. Even from a distance, he could tell something looked strange about her eyes, as though they contained more red than white or black.
“Tamateraa.” Kellatra sighed from behind Abananthus.
“Took you long enough.” The pale, red-eyed woman stepped off the porch of the house into the drizzling rain. “I expected you days ago.”
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THE TEMPLE
JUNARI
“HERETICS!”
Junari pressed her back into the seat of the carriage, looking around Kantula’s shoulder at the outstretched arms and wide-eyed faces outside the cabin door. She did not understand all the Shen words shouted and cried throughout the crowd, but one rang clear in her ears.
“Heretics!”
The men and women crushing against the carriage looked frightened, no doubt fearful of her and the pilgrims and the silence of their own god.
“Heretics!”
Junari pushed Kantula to the side, leaning toward the people beyond the entrance of the carriage.
“Wait.” Junari reached out a hand to stay Jupterus’s sword near the door. As she did so, more words formed from the fog of voices, resolving within her mind.
“Heretics! We are heretics! Take us with you! Protect us! Save us, Mother Shepherd!”
Junari pulled herself toward the door, clasping the hands of the people reaching out to her. Men and women swooned at contact with her. They did not grasp at her, did not tug at her arms or clothes. They only wished to touch the prophet.
“These are our people.” Junari looked to Raedalus, his eyes filled with concern as she inched closer to the new pilgrims.
“Careful, Mother Shepherd.” Raedalus placed a hand on her arm and stayed her momentum, pushing himself out the door ahead of her, shouting to the Tanjii pilgrims to move back.
“Room, room! Room for the Mother Shepherd!” Raedalus shouted in Shen, forcing the crowd back by an act of will.
Jupterus and Kantula followed him, helping to create an open space around the carriage door. As Junari stepped out, she looked up to see Commander Bon-Tao, still atop the driver’s bench, a whip in his fist, two soldiers with swords drawn at his side.
“All is well, Commander.” Junari raised a hand to stay his whip. She beheld the throng stretching across the street, people shouting, waving their hands in the air, smiles and tears painting their faces. The crowd numbered well over a hundred. People in the back climbed atop overturned vegetable crates to stand taller. Men held children on their shoulders. Women pressed to the front to better see.
Junari twisted toward the carriage and extended her arm up toward Commander Bon-Tao. He frowned at her, clearly unhappy with the unfolding of events, but clasped her hand and pulled her up beside him. She turned to the Tanjii pilgrims, raising her arms and gesturing for silence. Slowly, the people ceased their calls, voices fading, cries diminishing, even as tears still stained their cheeks.
“Moaratana welcomes you!” Junari shouted in Shen, her voice carrying across the street, amplified by the walls of the houses and shops around her.
Commander Bon-Tao touched her arm gently.
“Do not incite them.” His eyes stared into hers.
Junari nodded at the commander. She understood his concerns. His charge to protect her did not negate his duty to defend his city. A riot of pilgrims needed to be dealt with harshly. She had no intention of provoking discord. She hoped to achieve quite the opposite effect.
She looked out again at the pilgrims gathered in the street before her, taking a moment to herd her scattered thoughts into a flock of words appropriate to the conditions of the field before her. These people sought her protection. The Protection of Moaratana. Trapped among their fellow Tanjii citizens, they had waited in secret for her arrival. To reveal themselves meant risking being branded a heretic and killed. Yet they stood before her in the street, before their neighbors, proclaiming their devotion to the Goddess. Imploring her for assistance. Begging to join the pilgrim band on the most dangerous portion of their journey.
The looks of devotion she saw in the eyes gazing up at her reminded her of a young woman years ago, filled with love for the gods, overwhelmed with desire to glimpse the divine, standing before a trio of Pashist priests, pleading to be accepted as a temple initiate, desiring only to lay her life before the gods in service of their will. Junari saw in the faces of those before her a passion not unlike what she once felt in applying to join the Pashist temple. A fervor, she now realized, that appeared dim and inscrutable compared to the adoration her heart manifested for the Goddess Moaratana. If she could give these new pilgrims a taste of the Goddess, show them her love and benevolence, it might ease the fears of their predicament.
“You come to the Goddess Moaratana as she comes to you.” Junari spoke slowly in the Punderrese dialect of Mumtiba. She had not mastered the Shen language well enough to convey her meaning. She heard a few in the crowd repeat her words in Shen to their fellow pilgrims. She trusted the Goddess to make her import known for those who could not catch the translation of her speech.
“You are welcomed into the fold of the Goddess.” Junari smiled at the pilgrims beaming back at her. “Moaratana accepts into her embrace all who have witnessed the truth of her being and chosen to believe. You have seen the dreams in your slumber. You have seen the star, guiding us to you, from across the realm. Join us now as the Goddess star shows us the path to the Forbidden Realm and the new life she promises to build for us there.”
Those who understood her words cheered. Those catching the delayed translation from their fellow pilgrims raised their voices a moment later.
“You have risked much to stand here and voice your belief in the Goddess.” Junari waved her hand to indicate the streets around them. “You are heretics in a city balanced between two arms of the same faith. You risk being crushed between those opposing forces. Your courage commends you. Do not think it will be ignored. The Goddess will protect you. Moaratana will…”
Junari’s sentence faltered and faded from her lips as she looked east along the street. A new crowd marched the cobblestones of the narrow lane, a mass of men and women, arms raised high, hands clutching sticks and brooms and axes and metal pry bars. A scream turned her head westward along the road to find a similar sight, a violent mob attacking the new pilgrims from the rear. She looked back. Kam-Djen fanatics yelled curses as they clubbed the men and women fleeing before them. The two hammers of the fanatic mobs pressed the would-be pilgrims toward the center, crushing Raedalus and Junari’s guards against the side of the carriage.
“We must go.” Commander Bon-Tao grabbed Junari’s arm.
“Go where?” Junari looked around, seeing the new pilgrims pressed close on all sides, driven inward by the assault of the fanatics against their fellow citizens at the edges of the crowd. She saw a woman fall, blood gushing from her head under the impact of a shovel blade.
“Mother Shepherd, we must flee.” Raedalus pulled himself to the top of the carriage, pushed up from below by Kantula. Once atop the carriage, he turned and helped Kantula join him. One of the city soldiers reached out a hand to pull Jupterus up beside them.
“We can cut our way to that alley.” Bon-Tao pointed to a narrow gap between two buildings twenty feet behind them. “It will lea
d to a street that runs to the southern wall.”
“You will not cut your way through my pilgrims.” Junari brushed Bon-Tao’s hand from her arm as she glared at him. “It is a tragedy enough that Kam-Djen maniacs slaughter defenseless believers.”
“Mother Shepherd, we cannot stay here.” Raedalus wiped blood from his lip. “They will overwhelm the new pilgrims and they will come for you.” He pointed to the Kam-Djen fanatics already forging through the crowd of believers, slicing a path toward the carriage, screaming as they swung the blades of work tools and kitchen knives. She understood their Shen curses well enough.
“Kill the heretic bitch!”
“Kill the false prophet!”
Junari ducked as a knife spun through the air toward her head.
“Mother Shepherd…”
Raedalus’s voice faded as the carriage lurched, tilting under the pressure of the bodies pressed against it. Junari slid sideways as the wheels on one side of the wagon left the ground. Men and women, pilgrims who moments before cried with joy, now shrieked as the carriage fell atop them. Junari screamed as well, skidding across the roof of the cabin and falling atop a woman half trapped beneath the overturned vehicle. Junari’s head struck the ground, the smooth edge of a street stone biting into her scalp.
The woman beneath her wailed for help as Junari rolled away. Raedalus reached out for Junari, seeking to place himself before her and to shield her against the Kam-Djen fanatics pressing over the bodies of the fallen pilgrims. Jupterus and Kantula stood beside Commander Bon-Tao, swords flashing in the sun as they attempted to push back a group of men stabbing with pitchforks and long metal hooks normally used to pull barrels from the merchant ship holds.
Junari held the hand of the woman beside her, tears in both of their eyes. A man grasped her arm. Thinking it to be Raedalus, she turned to find a knife-wielding fanatic readying to stab her. The man jerked back from her, pulled away by Kantula. The man’s grip tore the sleeve of Junari’s robes free, exposing the scarred flesh beneath the folds. Kantula thrust a sword into the man’s belly and turned to defend herself from another fanatic behind her. Junari turned back to the woman trapped beneath the overturned carriage, still holding her hand.
“Mother Shepherd…” The woman’s words faded in a moan of pain, lost in a vast ocean of sound, drowning out all individual voices in wave upon wave of anger and terror.
Holding tightly to the nameless woman’s hand, Junari tipped her head skyward as she shouted her petition to the heavens.
“Great Goddess Moaratana, listen to my plea! Listen to the cries of your people! Protect us from those who would kill us! Shield your flock from the wolves who tear our flesh! Show the fury of your wrath to those who slaughter your chosen!”
Junari’s voice echoed in her own ears as the sound of fighting crashed upon her. Uncertain if her goddess heard her appeals, she looked down from the sky to see the carriage burst into flame. Confused at what she witnessed, Junari shielded her eyes against the fire leaping upward from the side of the carriage cabin. The woman beside her cried out at the sight of the fire now consuming the vehicle pinning her legs. Her screams vanished in a greater cry, one called forth in terror from throughout the mass of people jammed into the street.
Kam-Djen fanatics yelled in panic as the wooden handles of axes and pitchforks and shovels and knives and jury-rigged spears burst into flame. Their cries of “Dark Sight” were lost as more screams rang out — salamander flames leaping from hand to breast, from man to woman, setting the clothes of the Kam-Djen extremists alight.
“Help me.” Junari waved to Raedalus and Bon-Tao as she watched the zealots flee before the righteous flames of the Goddess Moaratana.
Junari released the woman’s hand and placed her fingers beneath the edge of the carriage roof that crushed the stranger’s legs. She lifted with all her strength, feeling the vehicle begin to rise as more and more hands joined her own — Raedalus, Bon-Tao, her guards, and pilgrims still nearby and unwounded.
As they set the carriage upright on its wheels, the woman sighed with pain, her eyes fluttering, and she passed out. Another pilgrim, a young woman who could have been the wounded woman’s daughter, knelt beside her.
“We must go, Mother Shepherd.” Raedalus took Junari’s hand, his face a mixture of fear and awe.
“The alley.” Bon-Tao pointed to the path through the wounded pilgrims running for safety from the flames and the fleeing Kam-Djen fanatics.
Overwhelmed and dazed, Junari let herself be pulled through the remnants of the crowd of pilgrims, around men burning where they lay in the street, past women bleeding as they crouched against walls and hid in doorways. As they rushed into the narrow alley, she looked over her shoulder to see that the flames had spread to nearby houses and buildings, running up moss-covered walls to dance across rooftops and skip down the lane.
Junari coughed as she ran, her lungs choking on fear rather than smoke. In her anger and terror, she had begged the Goddess to unleash a divine wrath upon their enemies, and Moaratana had set the city aflame.
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THE WITNESS
ONDROMEAD
“SEEMS A hard way to go.”
“Nag Pat Gioth will burn up their souls.”
“I thought souls was all eternal?”
“Not heretics, the priests say. Heard tell heretics lose their souls.”
“Priests always said the wicked is servants of the good in the Amaranthine Fields.”
“New rules for the heretics. Like to show that daughter a few rules, I would. The mother too, maybe.”
“Hard way to go.”
Ondromead watched and listened to the two men from the inn as they talked near the rear of the wagon he stood upon with Hashel. The elder of the two men spoke correctly. The high priests of the Tot Gioth faith had convened a special council to debate the fate of the souls of heretics. Ondromead had witnessed the final vote himself. All twelve of the robed men agreed — heretics of the new goddess no longer possessed souls if burnt by fire. The god Nag Pat Gioth, the Great Destroyer, the Father of Death, consumed their souls as punishment. There had been a profound theological argument as to whether these heretic souls were consumed by the God of Destruction for all eternity, or if they simply ceased to exist. That question had been tabled for discussion at a future date. The faithful needed to know the dire consequences of following the heretic star. They lost their souls and any chance at joining their loved ones in the Amaranthine Fields upon their deaths. They did not need to worry if this process took a day or lasted for all time.
As Ondromead watched the armed guards of the town tie the five hapless believers to the stakes thrusting up from the planks of the narrow scaffold over the pyre, a hand tugged at his arm. He looked down to see Hashel’s eyes, wet and pleading. The boy pointed to the pyre, stabbing his finger as he pulled at Ondromead’s sleeve.
“You know we can only witness.” Ondromead sighed, sensing the boy’s pain as his own, as if he would experience the agony of the men and women while they burned alive. “I have told you. We cannot interfere. I have tried. Many times. It has always turned matters from awful to disastrous. Turn away. It is for the best. We will leave afterward. Soon. I promise.”
Ondromead patted the boy on the back of the head, resting his hand there for a moment. The child perceived things more powerfully than most. He eventually turned the events they witnessed into song. A birth of a child rising from his voice by the fire later that night, a lullaby to soothe all wounded minds to sleep. A death likewise brought a ballad of aching beauty to make one realize the joy and sorrow of being left behind when loved ones fled the firmness of the world for some ephemeral life beyond mortal grasp.
Hashel bit his lip and turned back toward the temple. Ondromead sighed again. The boy could be stubborn. His continued silence evidenced his obstinacy. Ondromead followed the
boy’s eyes. The scene looked familiar. One seen many times in many lands over thousands of years. Angry people setting light to their fellows over a disagreement in belief or action. A pyre built from fear as much as wood. Something about this scene struck him as more similar than most. Maybe the morning hour. Most heretics and dissidents met the flames at night rather than with the first rays of the day. Maybe the number. Usually, there were only one or two. Often women accused of Dark Sight, frequently for the simple act of blending herbs to heal the locals, or for being a little less like their neighbors than the men with the torches thought they should be.
Ondromead looked at the black book in his hand, flipping back through its pages, quickly finding the entry that came to his mind. Not as long ago as he remembered.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
CRIES AND shouts fought the caws of ravens and the crows of cocks as morning light cast stone shadows across Ondromead’s blinking eyes. He sat up to discover headstones flanking him on all sides. He turned to the sound of voices, angry and afraid, righteous and pleading. He pushed himself to his feet. He stood at the edge of a graveyard behind a modest temple at the far corner of a small village. The temple looked to be Kam-Djen in design, a single spire rising up from the front. Zatolin by the markings above the door. Men and women with sticks pushed five people through the streets. Five people in the robes of Pashist priests. Another small crowd of cowed villagers followed, urged forward by men with swords and axes.
Ondromead walked toward the temple and the crowd. He hated waking straight from a dream-filled night to a morning of witnessing, especially when the event looked to be violent and sad and unjust. Another helpless priest caught in the wrong place and set to fire by priests of a different god. He scratched the sleep from his head as he walked. The village appeared familiar, but they all did after so many years. He had probably been there centuries ago. Yes. Yes, he had. He recognized the way the spire sat, at an angle on the temple, rising between two large hills in the distance where the sun floated above their summits. The spire had been added long after the temple’s construction, pulled down, rebuilt, and finally left alone. He forgot the name of the village, but knew it rested at the border between the Punderra and Tanshen Dominions, on land that had once belonged to the Juparti Dominion. A village that found itself in all three nations repeatedly over the centuries as the national boundaries shifted under war and negotiations.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 37
