Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (19 page)

Monika usually was quiet, while Basha
and Oaka sang songs or told stories to entertain themselves during
the long hours. Occasionally, Monika would be prompted by Basha to
share some information about the Za Desert. Whatever problems Oaka
might have had with Monika, he had to admit she was a good
companion in that she knew what she was doing, and she was a good
hunter as well, which she proved that night when they stopped, and
she shot two rabbits with just two arrows. Monika took her turn at
watch that night and the next, and while Oaka remained half-awake
during those times, making sure that she did nothing which would
reveal her true evil side, Monika remained constant--sitting by the
embers of the fire, staring down at the smoky remnants, or else
looking around with vigilance into the darkness when she seemed to
hear something. She did not reach for a knife or anything like
that.

The
morning after
Monika started traveling with them,
the
13
^th
day of Markee by Oaka’s reckoning, Monika went over to
confront him. “Why did you--” She sighed, and shook her head. “Why
did you continue along with us?”

“
Us?” Oaka scoffed,
and said, “There is no ‘us’ with you in it.”

“
For real.” Monika
said, glaring at him.

“
You never really
answered that question of ‘why did you come with us?’” He
remarked.

“
I did. I said I
wanted to protect you all.” She said. “Now--”

“
That’s not the real
answer.” Oaka said. “You know something about us, about--whatever
it is we’re supposed to be searching for. I heard you and Basha
talking yesterday morning about his prophecy and what not--you know
who controls man and beast. And you know what the Tigora’l
is.”

“
Don’t say that.”
Monika said, stepping towards him. “Not here, not now. I don’t know
everything, but--”

“
I’m here to protect
my brother.” Oaka said. “From your deceit and lies.” He told
her.

Monika stared at him,
and then turned and stomped off as Oaka was surprised by her
reaction. Why would an agent of Doomba act like this? If she was a
Follower of Doomba, or whatever they were called,
s
urely s
he would have
killed him? No, she
would not have, Basha would have known then that she was
untrustworthy
, and she was
trying to keep her real alliance with Doomba a secret, after
all
. Oaka sighed, and shook his head. He
was confused by all of this, and wished that he had not permitted
Monika to travel with them.

Oaka sat
down on the ground for a moment, staring at the
dirt
, upset by his
confrontation with Monika and depressed by the situation in general
with Basha and Basha’s quest. Then he stared at his hands for a
while as his mind wandered, and he thought about the dream he had
the other night. There had been a fire in the forest, he recalled,
and he had been so angry, but Sisila had been there as well. Fire
was passion, he knew, Sisila. Fire was anger as well, Monika. Fire,
passion, anger, the recipe was there…the spark was in his fingers,
he realized. The fire was there.

Chapter 7: The Story

Would you let me tell you a lie?
Would

You believe every word that I had to
say?

Would you let me believe that every
word

You told me was true as well? Who lies
then?

--
Lies, Tarak

Geda was confused and concerned as well
when he did not even know what to think of his wife anymore. Ever
since the clock workshop had caught on fire, Habala had seemed even
more gloomy and distracted, going off on tangents he could not
comprehend, especially when it came to Brigga. She was obsessed
with that woman, trying to find out some deep, dark, terrible
secret of hers that Brigga was hiding, or something like that.

Brigga could not be hiding anything,
Geda thought to himself, because there was nothing for her to hide.
Brigga did not have much in her life as far as he knew, not much in
the way of wealth or treasures, just a daughter, he was certain,
who gave her mother grief with the way she received and rejected
valid suitors like Morton, Habala’s cousin.

Morton might not be
much of a catch, he knew that very well when the man was an idiot
he put up with just for Habala’s sake, but at least Morton was a
man who was interested in Nisa and could give her some stability in
life. That had to mean something, considering she was a
copper
-
less, balnor waif who didn’t have a father, just a mother,
and the two of them had been working for half of their lives to
support themselves. Let her depend on someone else for once,
instead of leading them on and then dropping them after a while
when they had lost her fancy. That way, Geda wouldn’t have had to
dry Morton’s tears, and Morton wouldn’t have broken his fiddle at
the Courtship ritual. It had taken him days to repair that thing,
and it was all that he had left of his boys now
,
that and the balls
they had once juggled.

He missed them, oh
gods, how he missed them. He missed their smiles and their
laughter, he even sometimes missed the way they argued with him,
because at least he could get a decent conversation out of them,
one full of thought and passion, even if a little bit misguided and
mistaken. At least they weren’t boring, those sons of his, for he
could depend on them to liven up his existence with their
shenanigans, even if they sometimes made him
worry
. His worry for his
boys
was almost worse for him than it was
for Brigga with Nisa
, he
felt
.
At least Brigga knew that Nisa could support herself if she
had to, he wasn’t that certain about Basha.

But now that they
were gone, he had nothing to fill up his life with anymore. He
couldn’t mourn for them and weep, though, not the way that Habala
could, for he was a strong man, a sure man, a brave man who was in
charge of the inn
.
H
e had to be strong for her, and for his
family, after what had happened, and take care of the inn so that
it didn’t fall apart in the boys’ absences. He could not weep, he
had to be strong and sure, there was no time for misery or grief
for him when business had to be taken care of first. Everything
else came second for him in the end, even his wife and
sons.

He felt like a hollow
man without purpose sometimes, without a song of his own anymore.
Habala
,
he loved her, but sometimes he didn’t love her enough, and
sometimes he wondered if she cared for him as much as he cared for
her, or more or less. He wondered
…
it had been so long ago that she
had loved or been attracted to his younger brother Smidge, and she
had chosen him in the end, yet he wondered sometimes if her eyes
ever slipped towards Smidge, if she longed to have him in her
marriage bed instead. Perhaps she wondered if her life would have
been different, better even, if she had gone with Smidge instead of
him.

Geda didn’t want to think that, and he
had been perfectly happy for years believing that Habala was
satisfied with him, happy with her life as wife of the innkeeper of
The Smiling Stallion inn, especially when they had children to
raise together. But now he was not so sure of himself, especially
after the boys had left, and he wondered if she might stray, slip
away from him without anything to hold her back now, and head
towards Smidge instead. That would be a nightmare. He didn’t want
Smidge to win Habala’s heart, he loved her, but what could he do to
keep her? What could he offer her? He had to think of something, or
else hope that he was just being paranoid, that she wouldn’t go and
leave him for his brother.

He hated Coe Baba,
for Coe Baba had taken away everything he had ever loved, and
swallowed it up until there was nothing left but himself, and he
hated himself. It was a void where people lived and died in the
same space, in the same atmosphere that their ancestors had done,
and so nothing ever changed, nothing ever progressed, and
nothing
ever
happened. Perhaps he should have left Coe Baba a
long time ago as his boys had done, slipped away and disappeared
into the world beyond forever, but he had come back to Coe Baba
after joining the Border Guards for a short term of duty, in the
hopes of finding that Habala’s heart had changed for him, and it
had, but what good had it done him all these years later? Not a
lick of good, considering that the end result was the same with the
boys gone
;
nothing ever changed.

Well, perhaps something had changed, or
something had happened, in the oddest way possible. Though it was
difficult to discern, as one had to scour through the records and
keep track of all the purchases and inventory over the years, it
seemed that The Smiling Stallion inn had seen an increase in
customers in the last few decades, particularly those who
worshipped the Oracle of Mila.

And while he did not
believe in the Oracle and her powers of foresight, observation into
the future, he did wonder if there was some sort of meaning to be
found here, a purpose in how people were seeking out her
advice
, not just in terms of
his own personal gain from his business dealings with
them
. Perhaps they were seeking comfort in
knowing what might happen to them, feeling that the world was
crushing in on them, and that things were becoming more unstable or
uncertain, falling apart basically. Perhaps they might hope that
they could be prepared for what might come if they listened to the
Oracle, plan ahead on how to face it, avoid it, or change it even.
Perhaps word had spread, and more people were coming because they
thought they might find something interesting here, not really
knowing what to expect or desiring any specific
information.

Perhaps he was seeing
too much into this, as he was usually a cautious, pragmatic man who
never really believed in anything until he was certain that there
was something here, and it took a lot to convince him in the end.
He could not take things lightly whenever there were large personal
stakes involved, including his wife, family, and the inn. And he
had to be certain, to know what was possible and what was not, so
that he would not lose everything
that
he had
ever
invested in his
enterprises by a half-mad, risky gamble. He did not understand
things easily enough
,
when it had to be explained to him, to know just
what he was dealing with here. It had cost him a lot, the last time
he had taken a huge, personal risk without much chance of reward,
moving quickly without knowing what was involved, what was at stake
here, and what he was dealing with
;
it had cost him the life of his
dear sister Dorvina, he felt.

No, he had to be
cautious here, especially with Habala, to know what they were
dealing with. He hoped for the best, and hoped that their marriage
might survive, just as he hoped that his sons might
survive
. T
he boys would make it if Sir Nickleby was by their
side
.
H
e trusted the man more
than he trusted the Oracle, although that wasn’t saying much
considering his low opinion of the Oracle. Perhaps the boys might
survive, perhaps they might not. He would never know, would he?
What future was out there for them? He just had to get used to the
possibility of hearing nothing from them, they had
vanished.

Later that afternoon, Monika listened
to Basha and Oaka talk, and then asked, “What sort of legends do
you know?”

“
All kinds,” Basha
said. “The Old Man told us many of them when we were young, the
simple kind. And then there are the ones in ‘Legends of Arria’ and
‘The Chronicle of the Knights’ that we have
…
”

“
I know one,” Oaka
said, turning to Monika. “You may not like it.” He said.

“
Try me.” She
said.

“
There are many
different versions of these legends.” Oaka said. “The simplest are
the most innocent, and intended for children at story-time. But
some, the most difficult to comprehend and perhaps the most
gruesome, are kept inside the pages of red-marked ‘Legends of
Arria’ for adults. Here is a story I first read when I was
thirteen.” Oaka said.

The Forest Myth

The four gods who had
first risen out of the water spread apart then, one at a
time
.
Loqwa went first, as he could not stand being near them, and
went further afield. The four gods spread out across the land they
had made, exploring their new domain. Mila came first into her
forest. Willowy and tender, Mila was as supple as the leaves on the
trees she had made. She smiled to herself, looking around in
admiration at what she had created
,
the beauty of the trees and the
forest sprouting.

Mila was the forest goddess, but she
was also goddess of mystery and magic, love, animals, knowledge,
the earth, females and their offspring, creation and water before
other gods and goddesses came along to take up some of her other
duties. The forest belonged to her, and she walked through it,
growing every plant that would cover this planet. The earth was her
home now, her mother ever since she had fallen from the sky. She
still needed sunlight, and water quenched her thirst, but she
nestled within the earth at night and slept, satisfied that she was
safe and well protected.