Chapter 32

When Melekath saw the first humans created by the Mother, he was filled with jealousy. Bitterness grew in his heart until at last he went away in secret and created the Gift, which he gave to those humans who were seduced by his lies. But the Gift made them into abominations. Left alone, they would have destroyed all that Xochitl had created. She raised the lesser gods to war against Melekath and besieged the unholy city of Durag’otal. After many great battles the city still stood. Finally, Xochitl had no choice but to reach into the earth and seal Durag’otal in stone, imprisoning Melekath and his spawn. As the prison sank beneath the earth, Melekath cried out a curse on Xochitl and all who followed Her, his voice shaking the land like thunder. He swore to break free someday and destroy all Life.

The Book of Xochitl

 

Netra and Siena left in the morning after breakfast, taking small packs and enough food for several days. As they were getting ready to leave, Netra several times noticed Siena touching something under her traveling cloak, on her chest. Looking closely, Netra saw the leather thong around Siena’s neck when she turned her head and knew she carried her sonkrill. Siena’s Selfsong was calmer than it had been in a while, some of the fear she had been radiating gone. Such was the power of hope.

In contrast, Brelisha’s Song was brittle and somehow raw. Netra’s sense was that she had slept poorly or not at all last night. She never once looked at either Siena or Netra during breakfast and didn’t react at all when Siena told the rest of the women where they were going. It bothered Netra to see her like that and she realized then how much she had always relied on Brelisha’s iron strength.

It was a beautiful morning. The ground felt good under Netra’s feet, the sun welcome on her face. The desert was bursting with life. A jackrabbit paused under a palo verde tree, twitching its ears, and a hawk lifted off from its perch and caught the breeze. Out here, surrounded by the majesty of Xochitl’s creation, it was hard to believe Melekath was making plans to destroy it all. In the light of day, it just didn’t seem real.

“Brelisha gets mad because I’m always ducking my lessons. She thinks I don’t care about anything, but it’s not true. That’s not why I get out of the Haven whenever I can.”

Siena looked at her. “Then why do you?”

“I’m afraid,” Netra admitted.

“Afraid of what?”

“Of ending up like the rest of you.” Her words trailed off and Netra looked away, fearing she had said too much, that now she had hurt Siena’s feelings as well. When would she learn to just keep her mouth shut? “I didn’t mean it like that,” she added softly.

Siena smiled at her. “I know that.”

“It’s just that I love this world so much,” Netra said suddenly. “There’s so much to see, to experience. When I’m out in nature I feel so close to the Mother. I never feel that way when I’m reading some old book. I’ve never understood how the rest of you can spend so much of your time indoors where it’s broken and decaying when out here it’s so vital, so alive.”

Siena said nothing for a bit, looking around her at the morning as if she hadn’t seen it in a while. “I remember feeling the same way once.” There was sadness in her voice.

“What happened? How did you lose it?”

Siena shrugged. “Life. The passing of years. They go by faster and faster and then one day you look around and realize you’re not the same person anymore.”

Netra thought about this as they walked. “I don’t want that to happen to me.”

“I pray that it doesn’t.”

After that they walked in silence until Netra said, “Melekath is still in the prison, right? He’s not free yet?”

“No. I think we would feel it if he was free.”

“Then how come Tharn is free?”

“The Book does not specifically say what happened to the Guardians when the prison was created, so no one knows for sure. But over the years many Tender scholars have speculated that the Guardians were not trapped when the prison was sealed, that Melekath sent them out of the city beforehand.”

“Then how come they were never seen before…?” Netra saw again Gerath’s death and could not say the words.

“Again, it is all speculation, but some believe that although they were able to flee the city in time, they were caught in the Gur al Krin desert and have been trapped there ever since.”

“But now that the prison is weakened they were able to leave?”

Siena nodded.

“Tharn said…” Netra’s words trailed off and she swallowed hard. A tear slid unbidden down her cheek. “It said it hates us, Siena. Why?”

“It hates us because we are the chosen of Xochitl and it is a minion of Melekath. It hates us because our forebears stood with Xochitl at the Banishment.” Siena sounded like she was reading straight out of the Book.

“I know all that,” Netra said. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, why does it hate us? The Banishment was so long ago. The Tenders who were there are all long dead.”

“I suspect it doesn’t seem so long ago to Tharn, who is immortal. A prisoner does not forget the prison he lives in—or the jailer who put him there.”

“But it wasn’t us.”

“It doesn’t matter. Tharn has had nothing to do but hate, nothing to think of but hate, for thousands of years while it waited in the desert.”

Netra tried to imagine what it would be like to spend thousands of years trapped in the Krin, hating the ones who put her there. She’d never spent much time thinking about the Banishment. It had never really seemed all that real, just something she read about in a book. Another thought occurred to her. “What about the Children, those people who followed Melekath to Durag’otal?” Netra asked. “What do you think happened to them?”

“They must have died soon after the Banishment,” Siena said. “There is no way they could have survived for very long.”

“Couldn’t Melekath have kept them alive somehow?”

“How? The Book states that no LifeSong can enter the prison. Nothing can live without LifeSong.”

Netra remembered what it had felt like when she broke the flow of Song connected to her. Utter abandonment. Despair. Was that how those people felt when the prison rose around them, blotting out the sun? What went through their thoughts? How long did they live afterwards? She shuddered.

“Why did Xochitl imprison them too?” Netra asked. “Couldn’t she have just let them go?”

“They were abominations. They betrayed the Mother and chose to follow Melekath into evil.”

“But maybe they were just confused. Maybe Melekath lied to them.”

“Most assuredly he did lie to them.”

“Then why didn’t Xochitl give them a chance to repent? She is supposed to be all loving and merciful. Why would she condemn all of them to die?”

Siena shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“To us it doesn’t. But we do not know her mind. We have to trust that she had her reasons. That’s all we can do.”

“Now you sound like Brelisha. ‘Stop asking questions, Netra. Trust in the Mother.’ I don’t see what’s so bad about asking questions.”

“Maybe it’s because asking questions leads to doubt. Doubt makes a person vulnerable to Melekath’s lies. Maybe that’s how he was able to lead all those people astray.”

“I guess,” Netra said. She didn’t feel very convinced. This was another reason why she didn’t like studying the Book. Too many parts of it didn’t add up, but when she started questioning it, someone was always telling her to stop asking. Have faith, they said. As if having faith meant to stop using her mind and just accept whatever was told to her. What if the Book was wrong?

A squirrel scurried across the road ahead of her and stopped on top of a rock, looking at them with its bright eyes. Being out in nature was so much simpler. Out here it was easy to have faith. There was so much evidence of Xochitl’s love everywhere. Out here it all made sense.

Lost in her thoughts, Netra hardly saw Tornith as they entered it. Like Rane Haven, Tornith sat in the foothills of the Firkath Mountains. It was a dusty, sleepy place, the homes built of baked mud bricks and stone. Most of the inhabitants made their living off the herds of shatren and sheep they grazed in the valley, or from the hardscrabble fields that dotted the rocky earth around the town. Although it was still fairly early when they got there, the day was already growing hot. Dogs barked at them from shady nooks under porches as they passed.

As they approached the center of town, Netra looked up and saw a familiar figure come out of a shop and climb onto his horse. It was the farmer who had come to them for help with the sick bull shatren. He scowled when he saw them. Ashamed, Netra turned her face away. He spat on the ground and spurred his horse past them. Siena kept her expression neutral, but Netra could hear the change in her Song, the way it wavered slightly.

The road left town and dropped down out of the foothills to skirt along the edge of the Tark Valley. The valley floor was flat, dotted with waxy-leafed greasewood so evenly spaced that they seemed almost to have been planted, and the walking was easy. Mixed in with the greasewood were mesquite trees and cholla cactus, bristling with long thorns. Small gray birds flitted between the greasewood bushes as they passed and a stripetail lizard darted across the road, pausing in the shade on the far side, its tail curling over its back. Far overhead, a pair of buzzards scribed lazy circles against the vastness of the sky.

By late afternoon they had climbed the rough escarpment that marked the eastern end of the Tark Valley and entered the band of broken, stony hills that separated the valley from the Plains of Dem. As the sun began to slide to the horizon Netra began to get more and more nervous. Every patch of reddish stone was Tharn, every unusual noise was the Guardian stalking them.

“I thought you said we’d be in Critnell by now,” Netra said.

Siena stopped and wiped sweat from her face. She was breathing hard and stray hairs had worked their way loose from her bun. “I thought we would. It is further than I remember.”

“I’ll carry your pack if you want,” Netra said.

“No. I’m fine. Just give me a moment to catch my breath. I’m sure we’re almost there.”

The road led up the bottom of a sandy wash and curled between two low volcanic peaks. The shadows grew longer but still the town did not appear.

“We have to go faster. I don’t want to spend the night out here,” Netra said. All too well she remembered running through the darkness, afraid that Tharn was chasing her. She had dreamed about it all night.

“We’re almost there,” Siena panted, holding her side. She pointed to a hill in the distance. “See that black hill? If I remember right, Critnell is at the base of that.”

The sun dropped below the horizon as the hill slowly drew closer. More than once Netra realized she had gotten too far ahead of Siena and had to stop and wait for her. Finally, they emerged from a copse of the green-limbed palo verde trees and she could see the outermost homes up ahead.

“Do you think someone will take us in?”

“It is the only hospitable thing to do for travelers,” Siena reassured her. “Especially since we carry our own food.”

“But we’re Tenders…”

“No. We’re only two women in brown robes. Keep your sonkrill hidden. We’ll have no problems.” Siena spoke calmly but Netra knew she was nervous.

Critnell wasn’t much, a dozen homes huddled up against the black volcanic rock of the hill. But right then it looked like an island in a stormy sea. Netra was holding onto Siena’s arm, trying to hurry her forward, when the wrongness struck her and she stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” Siena asked, and then she heard it too.

The Song coming from the town buzzed and seethed with pestilence, so strong that Netra’s skin started to itch and she half expected to see hives all over her arms.

Siena’s face went pale and she put her hand over her mouth. “Close yourself to it, Netra,” she said.

Netra swallowed against a sudden urge to vomit. Then she began to seal herself off from the poisoned Song. It was normally not that difficult to do, somewhat akin to holding her breath when confronted with a powerfully bad smell like a skunk, but the feeling of sickness was so strong that it was hard to concentrate.

Then she managed to succeed, and the nausea subsided. Now the poisoned Song was like a wasp trapped behind glass, unable to get to her, but still there, buzzing angrily in the distance.

In the town, nothing moved. No fires burned, no dogs barked, no sheep bleated. Netra took Siena’s hand and the two women went forward cautiously. With each step she took Netra felt the sense of wrongness increase. The sonkrill felt hot against her skin.

They stopped a stone’s throw from the first house. It was built of the same black rock as the hill. There was movement inside, a pale smear at a window, and then a woman crawled out of the open door and collapsed on the ground. Even at this distance they could see the blue-black lesions on her arms and the side of her face.

“We have to try and help her,” Siena said. She took a reluctant step forward.

“It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do,” a voice said from behind them.

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