The Woven End Page 20

  "And an honest man, at that," Persenimos said. He tried to smile, but his face, tight with tension, failed. "You are familiar to me. Why is that?"

  "I am Brádach son of Sannindi. I was known to Your Majesty once when I escorted Y'Armos son of Etetuol to the palace."

  "Ah, the oarsman. Well, good man, when the Triland comes through this victorious, I will reward you greatly for your loyalty.”

  "I don’t need any rewards if we get through this. I have everything I need, Your Majesty."

  "I insist. Go. You must have a family to defend. Go."

  "Nay, but I have a widow," he laughed. "She doesn't need my help, though. She’ll be fighting, too."

  “Women will fight as fiercely as any,” said a woman’s voice.

  Brádach turned around. Talua stood before him.

  “We need more men like you, sir. May the Star rise on you.”

  He answered with a wink, “It does.”

  She smiled and took to the road home.

  A riderless trotter galloped into the park, snorting and foaming as it slowed to a stop near a guard who grabbed its hanging reigns.

  "Men, prepare yourselves!" Shouted the king.

  Spears lifted, sweat droplets forming, and eyes gaping, they stood ready.

  Brádach held his spear and began singing, quietly,

  “Rise up, mighty warriors, fight for your lives,

  Fight for your brothers, fight for your wives…”

  The king looked down at him, met his eyes, and nodded his approval.

  Raising his voice he carried on.

  “Fight for your children, raise them strong and true.

  For if you do not do it, who will do it for you?”

  She was not there anymore, but he thought of Talua.

  “Rise up, women of virtue, fight for your souls.

  Fight for the men you love, fight for your homes.

  Fight for your children, raise them—“

  And so it began.

  #

  Cova's tin lantern cast stars of light on the leaves and forest floor as he pushed his way through the foliage. He and his companion traveled with a restrained, but urgent, gait. The forest demanded caution to pass safely, but the situation demanded speed.

  "It's not right," Cova's companion whispered.

  Cova kept straight on, not looking back. "Yes, well, Nat, I understand your thoughts on this, but the king thinks that it is right and so, you see, we are doing it."

  "How will it reflect on my honor for stars to come if the Triland survives this? What will I face if I emerge and the Triland is filled with hostile çepehlars?"

  "I suppose His Majesty hopes that you will emerge and reclaim the land in time. You are an intelligent young man, and I'm certain you would find a way to gather a following and accomplish something or nearly die in the process. There is honor for you from the stars. You will find honor either way."

  "I do not seek honor. I want only to preserve the remaining honor I have. The honor that is given to me by my lineage by—"

  "Obedience to the king is no dishonor, Nat. There…there it is," Cova said, panting.

  "Where?" Nat stood by Cova's side. There was a clearing, but no sign of…

  "There," he said, pointing. Cova took a few steps forward and crouched to brush away a camouflage of leaves and twigs, revealing two metal doors, each with a brass ring. He pulled them open, one at a time. The musty smell of an underground room, and the pungent odor of freshly turned soil wafted upward. A long case of stone steps lead down into—into what?

  "This?" Nat breathed, appalled.

  "It's fine. It's well built with stone and clay and is supported by wood beams. There's a small vent, and the floor is firmly packed. There's even a cot and chamber pot. Quite safe."

  "What was the original purpose of this place?"

  "Ah, it hid ancient Alchemines, judging from the drawings on the walls."

  "And how do you know about it?

  Cova beckoned for Nat to follow him down the stairs. "I hid here when they rejected me, until I could get my bearings and set out for a new life.

  "Then, your—ah, well, your agamar hid here once. She fled to this place because your apar set out to destroy her, suspicious that she killed King Trimos in order to set your apar on the throne. Queen Amars, you know, are often the king's closest counselors while they live. She's a powerful Alchemine, you see, and King Trimos did not trust her and never sought her counsel or gave her any of the rights of a queen.”

  "I was told that she was dead."

  Cova chuckled a little. "Nay. Not dead. Persenimos ordered the captain of the guard to interrogate her. Let's just say that the Captain was not kind. She couldn't take to a house right away, for she knew he would search for her. She had to wait the hunt out down here. There!”

  Cova slid a large rock away from a hole, just big enough for a fair sized man to crawl through.

  "Well, Nat, here is food, water, a little wine, some necessities for fire. The vent is there." He pointed. "See that it is not clogged. If it seems to become clogged, there is a metal rod in the sack I've just given you, and you must clear it out. If the Great Soul is willing, I will see you again and—"

  "Are you going to fight?"

  "Yes, in my own way. I realize this is a difficult moment, but I really must hurry. Sakat will need help. Farewell, my Prince."

  Cova stepped outside, slid the boulder in place and began his artistry.

  #

  The queen amar wove a spirit cloak and threw it over her deep red soul. Her form transformed into that of an enormous gray kreev. She twitched her pointed ears and sniffed the Star fall air with her long snout. She smelled them—filthy çephelars— and expressed her disgust as she drew her mouth back in a snarl and snapped with sharp teeth. Her long, bushy tail twitched, her tongue lolled, panting with excitement. She ran through the streets unmolested, as Trilanders hid in their homes.

  Peace lovers, she thought. A nation without selith is a nation that will know no patriotism or devotion.

  The padding of great paws and the gentle snorts of a wiggling snout caught her sharp kreev ears. She increased her speed to intersect with the creatures.

  Aaaaand— Now! Stars upon you!

  She leapt out of the darkness, wet mouth, sharp teeth, and a snarl in her throat. She sank her great fangs into the çephelar's creature, tearing out a chunk of its throat. The beast cried out in surprise, hacked, and fell to the ground with a fatal gurgle bubbling from its throat. It wretched blood and gave up its breath.

  The çephelar rider, a woman, pulled a small knife sheathed in her hair and stabbed at the kreev. The kreev leapt out of the blade's range, and as the woman turned to face the kreev again, the kreev found itself surrounded by several of the çephelar's fellows.

  #

  Cova began a weaving so complex that he stood to collect his thoughts in the midst of it. If he were to release this spirit and attach it to the wrong spirit, the whole thing would collapse. Carefully, he pulled the matter together. The boulder stretched so that there would no longer be any gaps in the wall of boards and clay. Cova grasped for the forbidden blackness of permanence: the thing of time, matter, and mind that Alchemines daren't weave, out of respect for the Great Soul, and fear of the slytes. Such tampering might not be forgiven by nature.

  With this blackness, he would not only create permanence, but would create an entire layer of solid spirit that would keep the cell habitable.

  Slytian was the language of the universe, the language of the slytes. It was like the marrow inside the bone, the spirit within the soul, and the water spirits within the sea.

  Every spirit within a soul contained Slytian words, but they were too small for the soul's eyes to see without a slyte. Cova placed the proper words, like an embroidered incantation, into the trap he wove with the coarse black spirit. In this moment, he did not tamper with the Great Soul's work, for he possessed the Great Soul's authority to work. He was, according to Nat-Scrios, we
aving the Great Soul itself.

  "Labo koris kolis ko pa. Labo koris kolis ko pa. Labo koris kolis ko pa. Labo…"

  In ten thousand and ten stars the permanence would fade away, and Nat would be free.

  Nat, though ignorant, grasped the general idea quickly. He heard his uncle’s body mumbling, and then shouting, screaming, and doing all those things he had heard it do before when he performed certain weavings. His uncle was doing something to trap him. He knew it, somehow. He felt it in the words, in the sound, in the air around him. Something trembled in the wall’s spirits. Frantic, he clawed at the walls, weaving every destructive force that came to mind in an attempt to break the walls down and escape. He harmed himself but nothing else. Cova was too far ahead. Nat watched as the spirit world above and around him disappeared. The spirit of permanence blinded him to every beautiful spirit outside of his dark room.

  "Traitor!" He shouted.

  Cova heard him through the ventilation pipe and hesitated with a small prick of the conscience. He fortified himself and proceeded. By the end of the weaving, he crouched to the ground and spoke into the ventilation pipe.

  "You will understand some day, Nat. You will understand."

  Tearful with rage, Nat cried up to his uncle, "Your soul be fruitless! Why have you done this to me? How long will you keep me here?"

  "You…you will understand," he murmured.

  Cova stood back to examine his work. One of the çephelars' creatures howled in the distance. The wailing of human suffering rode upon the horrible sound. Cova lifted his head like a hunted animal picking up the scent of its hunter in a nearby thicket. He grasped his lantern and fled.

  Not being a man in any shape for physical or spiritual battle, Cova opted for a long distance approach. He fled from the prince's hiding place to a cave in the same woods, far away. He sent himself across the water to Sakat. He could not take life at such a distance, but he could maim, and that was what he intended to do.

  In the lantern's light, his figure tossed and pulled, jerked and twitched, casting fitful shadows on the grass. Many çephelars fell out of the battle, grasping at their faces, arms, feet, legs, and chest, with no known assailant. Blood was shed, as great gashes appeared on their bodies courtesy of the golden soul of the island's governor, whose body stood several miles away.

  #

  The king's and governor's guard were experienced in protection and combat with criminals or zealots, but battle against a skilled and hostile army, riding animals they had never seen before, overwhelmed them. They had no plan except to fight, and no strategy except to survive as long as possible. Brádach fought his way through and took to an empty alley. There was no sense in letting everyone see him be stabbed over and over, and he wanted to fight with more passion. He could endure the pain and fight much better if he didn’t have to pretend he would die if fatally wounded. To go ahead and prevent the enemy from reaching the docks would be better for the king. He liked Persenimos. He didn’t want to see him die, yet.

  #

  A thick, large pawed, black cozer dashed into the street, the fur on its tail stood on end and its back arched and ruffled. It hissed as it threw off its form and fur like a cloak. The çephelar woman, a breath away from destroying the distracted kreev, had only a moment to gasp with surprise before Brádach emerged, seemingly from thin air. In the Sálverøld, he grasped her silver cord. He squeezed it with his strong soul’s hand. She clutched at her chest and fell to the ground, dead.

  He and the kreev turned on the others. The kreev queen would take the animals, the man would take the cords. They were hit, bit, kicked and stabbed, but they fought like brutes.

  #

  Persenimos speared several, shedding blood for the first time in his life. He made a fine image of a man of selith, even to the çephelars, but he could not be spared. The shrill scream of a woman pierced the din of battle. It stayed Persenimos' spear for only a moment. There were women among them?

  A çephelar noticed and took hold of his momentary vulnerability, urging her creature in for the throat of the king's trotter. The trotter's bellow was like a long blast of a low, mournful trumpet. The king fell with his trotter.

  Everything seemed slower, every moment was potentially fatal. He looked up at the dark, slender shadow of a çephelar woman atop the hulking creature she rode. She lifted her arm.

  Something in her hand.

  His pulse quickened, his adrenaline surged.

  Get up! Get up!

  He tugged at his leg, trapped beneath his fallen trotter. He shouted with the pain and would not try it again. His spear fell only a foot behind him. He twisted around, his leg screaming, and he grasped the spear. The çephelar rider felt the king's spear through her gut at the same moment that she delivered a hard blow to his neck with her sword.

  The king's ears filled with metallic popping. The world turned green like a spring bud flowering into a flood of purple fire. The fragrance of coro bark and blush lalia swirled through his perception and, with a flash of light, like the end of the Great Soul's lover, his world was no more.

  #

  All plans for his safety forgotten, Nat continued his futile attempts at escape. He wove a cloak of the smallest animal he knew to be capable of housing a human silver cord. He thrust his scratter head into the pipe, but his legs would not follow. Maybe if he squeeeezed in, he could wiggle through. The hind legs were wider than anything else on a scratter's body, and he feared being wedged in a pipe for however long his uncle determined.

  He fell from the pipe and dropped his scratter cloak. Something struck his head. He fell to the ground and touched it. It was not wet, nor did his touch offend the spot, though he winced in advance.

  A moment passed. The pain disappeared as quickly as it came.

  "Your apar is unraveling," Nat-Scrios told him. “Close enough to the water for the odds to be in your favor for inheritance.”

  Nat swallowed hard and exhaled with weary astonishment.

  "What will happen?" Asked Nat, fighting at a few blistering tears.

  "The çephelars are winning. However, they will not kill everyone. They may be fighting your king's men, but they are interested in breeding. I see their thoughts. The Trilanders are more human in appearance than they anticipated.”

  "Breeding. What Trilander would breed with them? Murderers!"

  "In time, or by force."

  "Get me out of here. Get me out! If anyone can get me out of this dreadful place, I am certain it is you."

  "Nay. This, I must not do. I cannot allow you to seek out your downfall."

  "You… you are with my uncle? You will betray me further?"

  "I am with you and your uncle," the slyte replied.

  "It cannot be both, for we are at cross-purposes. My apar's brothers are wicked men and there is none else to rally the people together. If we are to come to an end, let it not be said that we did so with compliance and bestiality!"

  "All is crumbling. The palace is ablaze. The cities—"

  "Let me out!" Nat screamed.

  The desperate weavings of the prince shook the Triland with a violent earthquake, collapsing buildings, crushing many çephelars and Trilanders alike, but his own prison remained steadfast.

  The superstitious of the Trilanders thought it was nature's announcement of violation, others thought it was a sign that the king had fallen, and still others thought it a fearful art brought to the Triland with the çephelars.

  Cova wearily lifted his head from his knees and looked to the east where he'd left his great-nephew.

  The queen amar fled to southern forests to nurse her wounds and looked to the west where she knew her grandson, the prince, was buried alive.

  Brádach, fought every çephelar to be found, looked on to his battle, and thought of nothing else.

  The king lay still in the bloodied grass, the flames of Sathas, great city of Tici, reflected in his glassy, unblinking eyes.

  PART TWO

  #

  Chapter Tw
enty-Three

  203rd star of the Çephelars

  His hand, balled into a fist, rose in the air. The crowd, accustomed to this gesture as a gesture of war to be succeeded by, "If you live you will yet die", gasped. Was he compromising to save his life?

  Those who hated Ob-Pas, surrounded him to force him into aggressive action. In fact, if he responded by rousing his followers to violence against his enemies, they would let him live.

  He did not.

  He would not bow to the violence of thousands of stars, the violence that won them the three islands, the violence he was born through which made his eyes blue, and his skin like tea and cream. He would not.

  He opened his fist. His open palm, a symbol of submission, not war, outraged them. It was against tradition, against who they were, against what they valued. The statement he made in the face of those who refused his rebellious peace-loving philosophy bordered on fatal.

  "I will not fight you. If I live, I will yet die, and I will live again in the Great Soul. We have exchanged the vision of the Source for the vision of the slytes. We have lost what created all of us. Our blood-thirsty submission to our bodys’ every whim destroys our souls! Never surrender to evil desires. Never make yourself your own servant. There is a great Master who is not what we have thought. It is—"

  Behind the crowd, a hooded figure stood, unnoticed until now. He blended in with the crowd of other hooded figures until Ob-Pas drew attention to him with his gaze. The figure pulled his hood down, revealing himself. Ob-Pas gasped aloud and drew his hand in and, his eyes trembling with tears, whispered, "The Great Soul is among us and we knew it not—"

  His enemies, unwilling to bear another word, fell upon him. His followers looked on, shrieking and crying. One woman threw herself onto the back of one of the assailants and pounded on his shoulder blades. He took notice and pummeled her into the ground before returning to Ob-Pas.

  The hooded man, hood in place, walked away.

  Ob-Pas was murdered, but his death changed the world.

  #