Read A Solitary Journey Online
Authors: Tony Shillitoe
A Solitary Journey (52 page)
Emma was in school as Meg stood with her co-workers outside the shirt factory to watch the line of young men march past in their dark green uniforms, peacemakers slung over their shoulders, some smiling at the audience, others with their faces set in grim resignation. The endless Ranu-Andrak war was reaching yet another crucial phase so the Andrak war machine was committing troops and equipment with greater fervour to the front lines. Behind the soldiers came cavalry followed
by wagons loaded with the big grey peacemakers that fired massive explosives.
When the procession ended the foreman told everyone that Missus Tunbridge said they could go home for the afternoon. Despite Dyan and Letta’s insistent invitations to join them for lunch, Meg headed for her cottage alone, troubled by memories and driven by a desire that had nagged her for several months since her three fruitless visits to Se’Treya.
Inside her cottage, she shifted Whisper who was sleeping on the emerald bedspread onto a chair in the main room before she retreated to the bedroom and shut the door. There she stripped off her vest and shirt and stood before a long mirror, studying the faint thin discolouration between her breasts where the sliver of amber was embedded. Her latest dreams had her standing among Andrak soldiers, wielding her magic to slay an endless number of enemies who streamed towards her until she stood in a macabre sea of bodies and blood. Her once-lost memories of the killings she’d committed in Queen Sunset’s name haunted her every morning she woke from the war dream and so she had come to her decision.
A long time ago, marooned on an island, she believed the safest way to stop the Seers from acquiring the amber Conduit was to embed it in herself, never guessing at the consequences until she became the Conduit incarnate. Then the magic changed her life irrevocably. After the release of the Demon Horsemen and the death of Light she sought anonymity and safety in Summerbrook. The arrival of the Kerwyn changed all that and before she had fully recovered her memories she had become a killing machine with her magic. Wherever she went inevitably she was hunted and she ended up killing someone with her powers, even in Andrak. Now the latest dreams foretold her using the Conduit’s power to kill yet again. In Marella she had found peace and anonymity for herself
and for her daughter. Perhaps, if they ever found Treasure, all three of them could live quietly and peacefully like everyone else. But as long as she was the Conduit that hope was under threat.
Before the Kerwyn, during her years of peace in Summerbrook, she’d contemplated extracting the amber from her chest. Fear kept her from acting—fear that the Seers might one day find that she was still alive—fear that without the magic she couldn’t protect her children or her husband. All of that proved pointless. When the Kerwyn came she hadn’t saved anyone with her magic. And now, as Rees Feond of Marella in Western Andrak, she was as far from the Seers as she could ever hope to be. There was no threat to the Conduit and no need for the magic. All it had ever really brought to her, when all that happened was measured, was misery.
She gazed at her eyes in the mirror. The face there, framed by the short black hair that she had to dye every week, was tired. So many nights had been wasted, lying awake, weighing the consequences of her decision. Taking out the amber closed the door to Se’Treya and A Ahmud Ki. But he wasn’t there anyway. Each of her four visits revealed a dead and empty place. Only the strangely energised walls at the end of the corridors puzzled her.
Doorways for the Demon Horsemen,
she surmised and resolved not to return. She missed him. He even told her that he loved her as he left, but she realised that his lust for power was stronger and that he wouldn’t return.
The ghosts of the brutal past, the glimpses of future killing fields, her lost love and a desperate desire for peace and safety drove her to the only decision that made sense. She sank to the floor beside her bed, onto her back, and pressed her hands across her chest, covering the amber stain. On the island, so many years ago, she relied on instructions for a spell she barely believed would work to embed the amber sliver. Now she relied on her strength of
will to rid herself of the demon in her being. She closed her eyes, braced her body for the shock that she expected, and imagined the amber easing from her chest.
Emma opened her school exercise book and picked up the autoscribe. ‘Watch this, Mum,’ she said proudly, and she wrote boldly in Andrak, ‘My name is Emma Feond. I am ten years old.’ She shifted the book on the table so that Meg could see the result.
‘I’m very impressed,’ said Meg, and she kissed her daughter’s forehead, brushing aside the red locks that dangled across her temple. ‘I take it you like being here.’
Emma nodded and closed the book. ‘Where’s Whisper?’
‘I suspect she’s out in the back garden,’ Meg replied, shifting a cooking pot on the hearth fire. Emma slid from her wooden chair and headed for the rear door. ‘Tea will be ready shortly,’ Meg called after her daughter as the door closed, and she smiled, pleased to see Emma happy. She reached above the cooking hearth to a shelf of metal containers, pulled down one labelled ‘Salt’, dropped a quick peck into the steaming stew pot and returned the seasoning container to its position. Her fingers brushed the tiny green ceramic jar beside it, sending a tingling thrill through her arm. She lowered her hand, but her eyes rested on the ceramic jar, checking that the lid was securely sealed with melted blue wax, before she returned to her cooking. It held her past, a sliver of amber. The world had changed entirely since the beginning of her journey from Summerbrook, but then so had she. Meg Farmer, Meg Tailor, Meg Kushel, Lady Amber—all those people no longer existed. She was Rees Feond, she lived in Marella and worked for Missus Tunbridge, her daughter was safe and happy, and she was at peace in a new place and a new life.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WESTERN SHESS
The title of Shess for the vast western regions first appeared on cartographers’ documents during the seven-century reign of the Ashuak Empire, when Emperor Haarva began his expansionist crusade, and the Ashuak word ‘Shess’, meaning ‘foreign ones’, referred to a conglomerate of tribal factions with diverse cultures and languages. Despite disharmony and constant factional fighting between the many tribes, the great Ashuak armies failed to control the land they invaded. Instead, they learned that a disunited enemy was more troublesome than a united one because they were constantly harassed and confronted by new tribal groups who did not accept that the defeat of their neighbours also signified Ashuak rule over them. During the period of the Ashuak Empire, individuals sometimes tried to unite tribal groups against the common enemy. The concept of nationalism never superseded parochial tribalism, but the Ashuak principles of expansion and imperial rule took root, and after the Empire collapsed the strongest tribes in the north and west gradually dominated their neighbours to establish fledgling kingdoms.
Western Shess first took shape under the warrior chieftain Bigaxe Royal, a veteran of several battles with the Ashuak invaders. Bigaxe declared himself king of his region, demanding that his neighbouring tribal leaders recognise his sovereignty, and ruthlessly enforced his leadership over the many dissenters. Curiously, Bigaxe retained the Ashuak name for the region, probably because the only existent maps of the land were Ashuak in origin.
Royal successors settled their capital at Port of Joy and extended dominion further north and east during three centuries of Royal control, but rival kingdoms in the north in mountainous countryside eventually halted expansion. To the south, fierce tribal resistance, reminiscent of the war against the Ashuak invaders, stopped the kingdom from growing larger.
Although a patriarchal lineage, the death of King Godson Royal from illness shortly after the death of both his sons in battle left his only remaining child, his daughter Sunset, to succeed to the throne. Queen Sunset Royal defied numerous political manoeuvres to prevent her succession and assassination attempts once in power to successfully rule for twenty-seven years, before her son, Future Royal, began to fight for the throne, backed by religious rebels.
Religion is split between the ancient shamanistic forms with a multiplicity of spirits informing their followers, and the spreading monotheistic Jarudhaism imported from the eastern lands.
Jarudhaism is a corruption of the faiths originally started in the old eastern empires and kingdoms, a blend of Hohdaism and Jaru, along with some of the teachings of the philosopher Alwyn, called Alun in the
Shessian sect, as well as aspects of the shamanistic beliefs of the earlier Shess tribes. In its simplistic form, Jarudha is the one god who created the world and all of the people, and who has set down his laws for life through a series of great books collectively called
The Word. The Word’s
origins can be traced back to the Hohdan priests of the Ashuak Empire and a text called
Jaru’s Gift
that arose from earlier works written by Jaru philosophers, but subsequently
The Word
has been expanded to encompass at least fifteen known philosophical and religious works. Followers of Jarudha believe that Jarudha’s hand guides the affairs of the world, and that Jarudhan disciples only act according to His Will. They also believe that the world is corrupt and sinful, and that the time is approaching when Jarudha’s disciples will rise and assert dominion over the unfaithful who will be converted or destroyed.
In Western Shess, Jarudha’s disciples are synonymous with magical ability that is called the Blessing. Acolytes who demonstrate genuine magical skill are elevated to the rank of Seer, and the Seers believe that they are the vehicles for moral and spiritual consistency and reform. Jarudhaism is confined to the capital city, Port of Joy, and nearby towns. Outlying villages do not have Jarudhan representatives living in them.
The political structures are quite simplistic because of the tribal roots and brutal determination of Bigaxe Royal and his successors to keep control. Essentially the regent is the supreme authority and law, and the leadership beneath is militaristic. The religious leadership is the only exception, and tensions between the Royals and the Jarudhan disciples have been taut throughout the kingdom’s history.
The Royal influence as a physical presence seldom extends beyond ten days’ travel from Port of Joy, so many of the outlying farming districts and villages are not directly affected by the laws and edicts enforced in the city and close towns. Many of the distant villages are operated communally or in loose democratic ways, and taxes are paid, sometimes irregularly, as tithes to representatives of the local Tithe Lord.
The naming tradition has always centred on people being identified with their employment or place where they were born. Before the rise and fall of the Ashuak Empire, Shessian inhabitants had single names, but the Ashuak use of surnames was adopted and retained after the Empire collapsed. A woodcutter or butcher would be called Woodcutter or Butcher as the surname and then words commonly used in the trade were often used as first names. Hence there might be a family of three boys named Log, Crossgrain and Handsaw Woodcutter.
Children born into the Butcher family might be named according to cuts of meat or implements or even animals.
Surnames do not automatically identify related families. Farmer is a common surname, for example, and there would be unrelated Farmers in the same village and across the entire kingdom. Of course, descendants of a family of Sailors can move into other working industries, in which case someone named Hawser Sailor could well be the bartender in a local tavern, while Seam Clothmaker could be a farmer. Sometimes people also change their surnames when they change work. So Labourer Pullman, whose father was working on the wharves, could join the army and change his name to Labourer Onespear by choice. Western Shess has not yet conducted an official census or established a corporate identification system and so personal names are only useful for personal identity. Foreign names are evident in the cities and large towns, but the rural communities generally retain the traditional and simple name forms.
Shessian language has specific grammatical rules. A sentence is organised with the verb, the subject and then the predicate. Common usage has reduced many sentences to phrases best understood in expression than in straight translation.
The English sentence, ‘i am eating my food’ becomes approximately ‘Eating I am my food’—’Doshalinae emahdu mahdu shali’—although its more accurate expression would be ‘Doshalinae emahdu’ (‘I’m eating’). In common usage, however, it is expressed as ‘Doshemah’.
Thus, ‘If you touch my wife, I will kill you’ becomes ‘Kill you I will, if touch my wife you do’—’Sunahso yahwu emah, ha kaso mahdoos yahwu.’
Greeting is simple. ‘I’m pleased to meet you’ in formal form is ‘Jahn yahwu emahdu tessa’, but it’s common usage is a brief ‘Jahntess’, which serves as ‘hello’ does in English. The equivalent to ‘good day’ is ‘Jarubahn’, which originated from a very complicated ‘Umen emahdu ehae yahwu nena fueppo bahn t’Jarudha’, meaning ‘I am happy to see that God has given to you another day’.