‘I see. But now the Enchantress says you can return.’
‘Yes! And so we should! C’mon, talk some sense into the man. You’re good at that.’
Murk eyed the tall fierce woman sidelong.
I am? Since when?
*
Ina had wanted to die, of course. That moment when she woke and saw what they had done. She felt no resentment against the mage, or the Enchantress – she understood they had done what they did to save her life. But would she have done the same? She’d heard it was one of the worst ways to go. Eaten alive from the inside out. She would’ve killed herself long before that.
At home there were places for the wounded. Honoured roles for those crippled in fighting: teacher, tutor, guard. Her wound was not gained in such a respectable fashion. Illness, sickness, had no place in her society. The weak were cast out, allowed to perish as they would. She had never given the practice a second thought. It was tradition. The way their forebears taught them. Now, however, she wondered at its fairness. Were the sick or malformed or maimed to be blamed for their affliction? Was it less ‘purification’ than plain intolerance?
She lowered her gaze to the child curled up at her side. She was brave, devoted, good-hearted and innocent. All the human values one would wish, yet wrapped in crippled flesh. Who was anyone to judge her? How dare anyone do so? The very thought affronted her to the core and brought a burning heat to her face. She realized she would kill anyone who dared.
There. That was more like it. Proper Seguleh thinking.
That was how the girl saved her life.
When the Enchantress T’riss came to them Ina had already made up her mind. And the way the sorceress looked at her, the secret smile on her lips, told Ina that she knew as well.
‘So you will stay,’ the Enchantress said.
‘Yes. If I may.’
‘Of course.’ Her gaze lowered to rest gently on the girl. ‘It looks as if you have a place here.’
Movement drew Ina’s attention aside: that giant fellow had returned and now stood among the trees, watching, as if afraid to approach.
‘Lek,’ the Enchantress urged, quietly. ‘Look who is here …’
The girl stirred, blinking. She found the man standing a little way off and her head snapped up. ‘Nagal!’ She ran to him with her limping hopping gait, and wrapped her arms round him. He patted her head.
‘An old friend,’ T’riss explained. ‘You will not be entirely alone here.’
‘Alone or not, there is no other place for us.’
The Enchantress peered round, nodding. ‘Yes. You are lucky, I think. Lucky in what you have found.’
‘And Ardata? What of her?’
The smile slipped away. ‘I want to be generous, but I do not know. It seems that some are incapable of change or learning and because of this the lessons come all the harsher, and perhaps too late. We shall see. I understand that it took a millennium of imprisonment in his own creation for Draconus to admit that perhaps he’d been wrong. So, there is hope.’
‘Then … she is gone?’
T’riss appeared surprised. ‘Not at all. As I have heard said – just because you cannot see her doesn’t mean she isn’t here.’
‘Ah. I see.’ Ina gestured to the burnt prayer-scarves and fragments of offering bowls scattered about the grounds. ‘Then the devout will continue their entreaties and the godhead will remain enigmatic … as is its definition.’
The Enchantress frowned mock disapproval. ‘You Seguleh are a far too sceptical people.’
‘Strange that I should end up here then.’
‘Perhaps you are in need of more philosophy.’ And with that, the Enchantress inclined her head in salute and went her way.
Ina sat for a time letting the sun’s heat suffuse her while she worked on forcing herself to relax. It was difficult; she wasn’t used to it. She glanced over to where Lek and Nagal talked. Lek, she saw, was urging him to come and speak to her. The big fellow actually appeared childishly shy. Strange how she would never have imagined that. Living here … new faces were probably a shock.
Many more will be coming now, though. Once word spreads. And of course they will look for the physical embodiment of what they are searching for. For Lek, daughter of their goddess.
She would have to begin teaching her soon.
* * *
He came in the night amid a burgeoning silver glow that suffused the temple grounds until all was lit as if by a lamp of white light. The youth, Ripan, led the way, piping an eerie and high energetic tune that sounded almost celebratory. Saeng sat waiting on a step. She held Pon-lor’s head cradled on her lap.
Old Man Moon entered the grounds and bowed before Saeng. ‘Congratulations, High Priestess.’
She snorted her embarrassment. ‘High Priestess of what?’
The old man opened his hands. ‘That is for you to shape. You are the priestess.’
She dropped her gaze, nodding. ‘I see.’
‘What would you have of me?’
‘Can you heal him?’
The old man knelt on his skinny shanks, just as any village elder would. He studied Pon-lor. ‘Hmmm. He has sustained ferocious damage to his skull and brain. And there is infection, swelling and fever. Normally such a mind would lie beyond recovery. However, the Thaumaturg mental training has served him well. He has managed to retain much of himself hidden away in disparate corners of his mind – so to speak.’ His gaze rose to her and she was startled to see a silvery glow in the pupils of his eyes. ‘And of course you are lucky in that this happens to be a particular speciality of mine.’
And though she knew the answer already, she asked: ‘What is your price?’
His sly teasing smile told her his answer. He turned his head. ‘Ripan. Start a fire.’
The youth’s shoulders dropped. ‘Must I?’ he whined.
‘A fire, Ripan.’
The youth slouched off, muttering and twirling his pipe.
Moon laid a hand on Pon-lor’s forehead. ‘Rest,’ he murmured. ‘Gather yourself … and remember.’ He sat back, his lean arms akimbo on his knees. ‘Now I shall collect the necessary ingredients.’ He stood.
‘Where … this time?’ Saeng asked, dreading the answer.
Old Man Moon grinned down at her. ‘Why – where you left off, of course.’ He walked off, stiffly, like an elder.
I do believe he enjoys it far too much
, she grumbled to herself.
Later, Old Man Moon returned to carry Pon-lor to a square of flat dressed paving stones, all brushed clean of dust and litter. A fire burned nearby. Ripan sat at it, looking bored and unhappy, his chin in one fist. A set of crude earthenware bowls lay next to the fire. Each possessed a stick that might have once been an offering. Indeed, all the objects struck Saeng as having been salvaged from the various nearby temple niches, shrines and altars. She wondered what effect this would have upon the procedure. All to increase its potency, no doubt.
She quickly looked away as Moon unceremoniously pulled at his ragged loin wrap. When he had lain down she looked back, forcing herself to eye his skinny shrunken buttocks – one half tattooed. ‘I am to finish the job, am I?’ she asked dryly.
‘Indeed.’
The glow emanating from the being had changed, inverted itself. Now, as before, the countless bands of pricked-out stars in their constellations glowed with their liquid silvery light while his flesh seemed to absorb light in a black night-dark background. The star field that was his back gently turned before her eyes, mimicking, she knew, the very sky above. She felt that if she pitched forward over him she would fall for ever as if into nothingness.
She shook herself and realized that she had been staring, fascinated. ‘As before?’ she asked.
‘If you would.’ Lying on his stomach, his arms under his chin, he reached out and sketched with a fingertip. The lines he drew glowed with a cold limpid light on the stone. ‘The blue ink, please.’
Saeng nodded and selected the roughly formed earthenware bowl that held a shimmering unearthly blue fluid. It gleamed like the sapphire light of some stars. She picked up a prayer stick, studied its sharpened end, then daubed it in the ink.
Crouching down over him, she set to work.
*
Murk returned to the treetops that night. He found that he now enjoyed sitting high up with his back against a trunk, his legs straight out, ankles crossed, on a fat branch. He watched the bright star field peeping through the intermittent cloud cover and the flashes of lightning from a rainstorm to the north. Bats swooped before his vision, chasing insects. The swollen head of the bright sky-spanning arch that was the Visitor was diminishing – passing beyond. Returning whence it came. The full moon shone down, reclaiming its rightful place as ruler of the night. To the west, the thick dark clouds were dispersing, drifting off. The leaves around him, however, still held their pale layer of ash.
So, it was over. Tomorrow the Enchantress would send them on to wherever they wished. Yusen had held firm in his insistence on a slow cautious approach to this news of imperial pardon. The troop would request to be sent to some minor frontier outpost where they’d test the truth of it.
What, then, of him and Sour? They’d completed their term of service, mustered out. Yet civilian life hadn’t panned out as they’d wished. To tell the truth, he hadn’t felt comfortable sitting around with nothing to do. And this lot was badly in need of someone to hold their hands.
Besides, if what the Enchantress claimed was true, Yusen might be up for some kind of commendation and promotion. He might make
sub-Fist
in Seven Cities. Cadre mage to a sub-Fist in Aren would be a pretty soft posting.
And he had to admit that he wouldn’t mind getting to know Burastan better. There was something there, he was sure. Unless it was all just wishful thinking …
A gathering deep jade glow interrupted his consideration of strong shapely limbs. He glanced over, frowning, and was surprised to see a wavering image coming into existence here with him.
‘Celeste? That you?’ he asked, astonished.
The image solidified into the familiar shape of the girl and she smiled. ‘Greetings, Murken Warrow.’
‘Celeste? I thought you were gone. You know, melding or uniting, or whichever.’
‘Yes. I am. This is merely one last fading remnant left behind to say goodbye.’
‘Ah. I see. Well … thank you. You sound like you met with success, or satisfaction, or whatever.’
‘Yes. We are all gone now. All my brothers and sisters. Far to the west the Shattered God has been sent onward – allowed to translate into another existence – however you wish to put it. As have I.’
Murk’s brows rose in wonder.
Really? Something happening in the west?
‘Well, as I said before, I wish you luck with Ardata.’
The girl tilted her head, puzzled. ‘Ardata?’
‘Yeah. You know – this entity you chose.’
The girl laughed, a hand going to her mouth. ‘Oh, Murk! Not
her
. She is as nothing next to that which I have reached out to. She would be a trickling stream compared to the ocean I have found here.’
Murk stared, his brows furrowed.
An ocean? Here? Whatever could she mean?
‘I’m sorry … I don’t …’
Celeste extended her arms outwards as if to encompass their entire surroundings. ‘I’m sorry, I keep forgetting your human biases and preconceptions. I speak not of any one individual being as you would know it, Murk. I speak of all this. Everything about us. I speak of what you name
Himatan
itself.’
Murk’s brows now rose in earnest. ‘Oh.
Oh
… That’s … amazing, Celeste.’
She was nodding her agreement. ‘Amazing, yes. Fascinating. Infinitely absorbing. The complexity. The interrelationships. It will perhaps take a millennium just to fully comprehend one part of it. And in its own way it is aware, Murken. It responds. It takes steps to assure its continued existence. It is an entity in those regards – no different from any lower-order being, such as yourself.’
Lower-order being?
‘Ah, well, I see. I think. Then, you are not gone? Not faded away?’
A soft smile answered that question. ‘No, Murken. Thank you for your concern. No. It was your advice that saved me. Your encouragement gave me the strength to take that irreversible step before the greater part of myself was sent onward – towards dissipation, or who knows what. I remain now as part of that which you name Himatan. Thanks to you.’ She clasped her hands before her and bowed. ‘So, farewell, Murken Warrow. May you find acceptance and belonging, as I have.’
Murk bowed his head in answer as Celeste’s presence faded from view.
He returned his gaze to the infinite night sky.
Acceptance and belonging
. Some, he knew, would sneer at such sentiment. Yet humans were social beings. Perhaps it was these simple qualities that everyone sought, though they masked them with other, loftier sounding names: ambition, domination or glory.
Acceptance and belonging. He decided then that he’d tag along with Yusen’s crew. They could use a cadre mage. And if he was going, chances were Sour would follow.
He’s come along, that fellow. Shown some real potential. He just better not start getting any ideas about who’s in charge, that’s all
.