“When will they wake up?”
Lesanova hissed and elbowed Dedari, but Vantra saw nothing wrong with the question. The ghosts, after clambering into the wagons and leaving Memmi and her uncle as leaders of the Nevemere, had collapsed, including her. Rils broke canisters of mist into the beds at Red’s insistence, and a Light shield kept it from leaking into the desert. They absorbed all that was there, and then he dropped the shield, and they sucked in the faint wisps that drifted through the night air.
And, as far as she could tell, all lost consciousness because the recharge was not enough.
She only woke because Kjaelle jiggled her essence as she vacated the interior. After finding a leather string, wrapping it around the Sun shard, and looping it over Laken’s base, she followed her to another wagon, where Katta and Red sat on the bed’s floor and enjoyed an enormous evening meal of meat and fruit skewers with the four nomads.
Where had they gotten those?
“They’re up,” Kjaelle said. “But resting.”
“Which is where you should be,” Katta reminded her, nudging her shoulder with his own.
“I’ll go back in a moment.”
“Now that you’ve checked on Katta,” Red said with a smirk. The elfine produced a ghost of a smile.
“Yes.”
“Kenosera says you can eat,” Tagra said, motioning to the food. “There’s plenty.”
“Where’d it come from?” Vantra asked, envy zipping through her as she knelt next to Red. The edibles looked wonderful; juicy burgundy fruit, seared meat with red middle, triangles of grilled purplish vegetables between.
“We passed nomadic Nevemere,” the ex-stable hand said. “The Durnmera group. They make a loop of the dried lake, trade at Sunbright and with the Voristi, but now they’re heading to Black Temple with their supplies, hoping to help.”
“It will,” Katta murmured. “It’s not going to be easy for anyone there until provisions from Sunbright arrive. Food will be limited, and while communities come together and work hard during terrible tragedies, some will seek to harm others to ease their suffering and place blame. To avoid all that, an exodus will occur to home villages and caravans, putting strains to care for extra beings on them.”
Fyrij cheeped in agreement before stuffing his mouth with fruit. Red grinned and set another small piece on a crumpled paper in front of him, which he tore into with a ferocity that startled Vantra. How hungry was her little caroling?
“He did his best to beat back Rezenarza,” the Light acolyte said. “He’s quite the brave one, our Fyrij.”
The caroling preened, juice dribbling down his chin and ruining the satisfaction effect. Vantra slipped her finger across his head and down to his back, no care for his messiness. They had water in the supply wagon, and she would make certain he washed.
“He is,” she said. “I’m honored to travel with him.” He jumped about, chirping, then snagged more fruit provided by Red.
“Where’s the shard?” he asked, wiping his fingers on his pants before taking a meaty mouthful.
A flash of light in the distance dimly lit the interior. She glanced out the open window at the darkening landscape. The wind whistled past, then died, before taking up the song again. Heavy clouds filled the sky, promising a hearty downpour. “Laken said he’d guard it.”
Tagra laughed in disbelief. “Laken? But how can he guard it? He is only a head!”
Vantra bristled at the insult to her Chosen, but Red pointed his skewer at him. “He can shout for help, just like you. And, I hear, he has a nasty bite.”
Tagra raised his eyebrows as everyone else laughed. Then Vantra’s annoyance dwindled. “I have a question.”
“Just one?” Red asked, planting his hand on his chest, shocked. Kjaelle reached over Katta and thumped his arm, which she appreciated. She did not feel up to teasing.
“I’ve already asked dozens,” Kenosera admitted. “And I haven’t enjoyed many answers.”
She did not want to bring up tender subjects for the nomad, and the question foremost on her mind should not. “Who was the man healing Verryn?”
“Zibwa,” Red said.
She froze. The Nevemere froze. Kjaelle waved her hand as Katta chuckled, dropped the empty stick onto a haphazard pile, and selected another skewer.
“The Healer?” Vantra whispered. How had she not recognized him? But, as with Verryn, images she had viewed of him in history books and religious texts did not resemble his presentation closely enough to identify him by face. But why not realize his power? She should have; she had touched Ga Son, felt the depths of syim majesty. She should have identified it within him.
No wonder so many Sun priests disregarded her mother’s insistence that she inherit her position. She could not divine the divine.
“Levassa called for him, but I think he was already on his way.” Red signed, rubbing at the spot the elfine struck. “It would be exceedingly difficult for a syimlin to ignore the blast we sent out, and the touch of the Beast tempered by Verryn was obvious.”
“Tempered?”
“Verryn did a remarkable job, considering his inexperience,” Katta said. “The Beast had great power backing him, and objects imbued with his energy can still do monstrous damage, as you witnessed. I wasn’t lying, about the destruction, if we had not been there.”
“But . . . all the way to Watermarket?”
“Yes. Combining so many of his ill-intended artifacts together in one place would end in no other way.”
So matter-of-fact and sincere. Comprehending the enormity of potential devastation fuzzed her thoughts, and she fought to retain the scope. It illustrated how strong a syimlin’s magic was, to imbue objects with energy that lingered so long after their demise. Her awe of Erse Parr increased; she had faced the Beast without a syimlin’s power or the Gift of Life, and conquered him despite the might at his fingertips.
“I’m sure quite a few of the native Evenacht deities had a shock when it whisked past them,” Red said. “And if syimlin heard prayers and paid attention, they’d know. The desert may not have many ghostly inhabitants, but it’s not devoid of them, either.”
It had not occurred to her to pray to Zibwa, and Verryn certainly needed the aid. That should have been foremost in her thoughts.
“Or Erse asked him to help Verryn,” Kjaelle said. “You know she was watching.”
Vantra knew, from reading religious texts, that Zibwa and Erse and Verryn were friends, perhaps not as close as Veer and Talis to them, but near so. Zibwa despised the Beast, did his best to undermine his viciousness and lust for power, and welcomed Erse to Death’s mantle with relief. Because of his previous hate, many felt that the representative of Life would abhor everything Death, but the two syimlin walked the same path, one at the beginning, one at the end. They refused to antagonize one another for the mortal-perceived dichotomy.
Her mother preferred the path model, where neither Erse nor Zibwa held more sway, they just represented existence at different points of life’s cycle. She liked it as well, mainly because she hated the divine infighting so many priests found exhilarating. Those historical fights led to much death and destruction, for no reason other than vanity and pride. True, her mother claimed most of the stories were for religious, cautionary purposes and did not represent a real incident, but they still affected the mortals who read them, to everyone’s detriment.
Burning with shame, she decided she might as well cure her ignorance about important things. Then she could bundle her embarrassment all up into one package, rather than string it along, bits and pieces coloring future events in her life.
“I would like to know more about this oracle.”
“Oracle?” Kjaelle asked.
“The Recompense,” Red grumbled. The elfine’s startled reaction only furthered her embarrassment.
“Rezenarza keeps mentioning it, and the naro vi-van spoke of it. Levassa gave me an overview, but I don’t understand why he sees a broken oracle as important.”
“It’s not,” Red stressed, a snarl on his upper lip. Katta cast him a warning glare, which he ignored, and sighed.
“What do you mean by he keeps mentioning it?” the Darkness acolyte asked.
Vantra bowed her head, staring at her entwined fingers. “He worms into my mind,” she whispered. “This last time, he spoke to me before Levassa collected the ghosts at Black Temple. He wants me to return to Evening and warns that dire things will happen if I don’t disregard the liars I travel with. Levassa told him to go away, but he returned for a final snip.”
“Rezenarza misleads many,” Kjaelle warned, her voice warmed by embers of loathing. “He laughs, that it’s his nature.”
“But why target me with it?”
“Disregard the liars, eh?” Red asked. “Like he’s one to talk.”
“And Tagra said the naro vi-van said something about the Oracle and the Snake.”
“She did,” Tagra said, and Kenosera nodded with him. “She claimed the Oracle sings again, that the false daughter of the sun will fall to darkness and the Snake will wallow in hollow shame as recompense.”
“That’s not part of the Recompense,” Red said. “The Snake’s never named. Sun’s daughter is, but that’s why it’s a sundered oracle—she died before she could fulfill the legacy.”
“A true daughter of the Sun,” Vantra whispered. “How could Ga Son allow that to happen?”
An uneasy silence descended, then Katta huffed a sad laugh. “He wasn’t expecting it.” He leaned back against the bench, the half-eaten skewer dangling from his fingers. “Before the modern era on Talis, syimlin had to watch themselves and their followers with care. Someone always wanted to usurp power, whether to claim a mantle or priesthood. Death, destruction, mayhem were prices the greedy forced others to pay for their ambitions. But once technology made living as easy as magic did, the want for religious power dwindled. I can’t say exactly why, but fewer beings tried their luck against syimlin, and the lesser syimlin refused to bid for a greater mantle.”
“And then people began to think syimlin were fairy tales,” Red said. “Worshippers followed precepts because they thought it made them look like good people, moral people, not because they believed divine retribution awaited them if they didn’t behave. It allowed them to bludgeon others with their holiness and spite and promote their superiority, the true goal of it all. Other entities thought worship was superstitious nonsense held by the religious hierarchy because of greed and the perks of authority, and governments and institutions sought to take advantage of the moral failings. Few thought syimlin ever walked Talis, and the majority relegated them to historical references that ruling bodies used to justify or condemn some momentous event.”
“And then death deities destroyed the Sensour invaders, and others conducted miracles to ease the suffering afterwards.” Katta chuckled. “Suddenly the world had to deal with the fact that, not only were syimlin and other divinities real, they’d been insulting them for centuries by claiming they didn’t exist.”
“Sun’s Circle,” Red interjected. All things repeat; Vantra supposed that expressed the circular nature of events well enough.
“Lesser syimlin took advantage and grew outrageous followings built on guilt, a rather poor base for lasting tenets, but whatever.” Katta shrugged. “Greater syimlin saw their own temples swell with the influx of new followers, who claimed to hold them in great esteem.
“In the years following, the public solidified the reverence of those who fought against the invaders, and any hint of usurping their mantles or their temples met with general disgust and anger, sometimes violence. So the interstellar invasion of Sensour ushered in a time of peace, which has led to prosperity and the complacency that brings.
“Sun became complacent, and his daughter died for it.”
“But she is a daughter of a deity,” Kenosera said, confused. “They do not die.”
“Evenacht superstition claims that, but it’s not true, here or on Talis,” Katta said. “Any deity can die, as Erse Parr showed. And so can their children.”
“Though it’s hard to kill a syimlin,” Red interjected. “Using the mantles as a power source make them nigh untouchable—unless, as Katta says, they grow complacent. The Beast did. And thank the syimlin he died for it.”
Why Katta and Kjaelle thought that so amusing puzzled Vantra, but she did not ask after it.
“Can the oracle be resurrected?” That Rezenarza appeared devoted to it bothered her. Why, she could not say, but a bud of anxiety formed around the realization.
Red blinked at Vantra. “No, but I also don’t believe in oracles,” he said. “The Recompense, or the Enlightened Ones, or Light’s Ascendancy.”
“Whether one believes them or not is irrelevant, since some do,” Katta said. “And they will act on that belief. The naro vi-van claimed the Oracle sings a new song. So perhaps not a resurrection, but an addendum?”
Red bit into a skewer, the glint of fury in his eyes briefly illuminating the wagon. “That’d be like her.”
“Few lie with the purpose of an Oracle.” The Darkness acolyte eyed an unapologetic Kjaelle with disapproval, but she stubbornly stood by her words.
Vantra frowned. “Wait. You know who issued the Recompense?”
Red paused, lowered the food, then a pale pink spread across his cheeks. “Oh. Um, yeah.”
“Her name is Machella,” Katta said, soft enough his voice did not travel beyond the wagon. “Long millennia ago, she was a Sun acolyte of exceptional Sight. She spoke of small things for average people, and her guesses proved true time and again. She broke that once, to Ban Tor before he led his troops against the might of the Flerinzhall. She told him he and his would die, but his son would avenge him and wipe the Flerinzhall from memory. Her prediction came about; Ban Tor suffered defeat and died, and his son obliterated the Flerinzhall. He honored her above all others, including syimlin, and she became as influential as a minor deity in his court.”
Ban Tor? Flerinzhall? Vantra had never heard of them. How ancient were they? The son had not wiped from memory, though, had he?
“She even predicted her own death, to the clock’s moment,” Red muttered.
“She arrived in the Evenacht and her first act was to proclaim the grandest Oracle, which she named the Recompense,” Katta continued. “The Evenacht’s Redemption. Few believed her, and the Sun acolytes, jealous of her living fame, kicked her out of the temple. She founded her own and persisted in proclaiming her Oracle.
“Everything she said came true. Large things, small things, things that changed the Evenacht or simply one being’s afterlife. Thousands upon thousands of years, her predictions held true. She issued no others but to cradle the Recompense.”
“And then the star, the woman who was to usher in the final Recompense, was murdered,” Red said. “She was supposed to do grand things on Talis, with the bonds she forged in life holding strong when she arrived in the evening lands. She was to sweep across the continents and bring the Light of Redemption with her—and she died before any of that happened.”
“So the Oracle sundered,” Katta said with a sigh. “If she had misspoke about a non-central being, a lesser event, no one would have paid much heed because of her previous successes. But for the culmination of her predictions to die before accomplishing anything?” Kjaelle placed a hand on his knee in comfort. “She held ashes, and she had no idea what to do with them.”
“I can see her trying to reform it,” Red said. “It was her afterlife’s work, millennia in the making.”
“She was correct about so many things, Qira.”
“She was good at guessing,” he denied. “She took stock of current events and made sweeping generalities that beings could bend to fit her forecasts.”
“When did this woman die?” Kenosera asked.
“Recently,” Red said, glancing at Katta. “I’m surprised she took this long to try again. You don’t make accurate predictions for thousands of years, then just give it up because of a missed guess.”
Recently? Katta mentioned complacency after the invasion, so within the last hundred years. Vantra smashed her lips together, annoyed. She had heard older Finders say the same thing of events that happened centuries previous. Ghosts kept terrible track of time, and she wondered who to question on it and receive a more accurate answer. Or did they only know she died, and not when? An embarrassed oracle might not give many specific details to cover up her failure.
“Qira’s never liked Machella,” Katta said. “He felt she misled through vague insinuations. Kjaelle agrees with him.”
“It’s a scam,” the elfine stressed. “Just like any other, only broader and more ancient in scope. It brought her wealth and standing, and even though the Recompense sundered, many still hold her in high regard because they devoted so much of their afterlife to her cause. They can’t let go, even if they aren’t as overt about it as before.”
“Like Erse?” Red asked, heavy on the sarcasm.
“She was one of Machella’s staunchest supporters,” Kjaelle said. “Who enjoys admitting when they’ve been had, especially a syimlin?”
Katta frowned, the half-eaten skewer waving in a sad, limp line. “The sundering never phased her,” he said. “I’ve wondered why.”
“What do you think the original Oracle meant?” Vantra asked. “Levassa said it talked about the Sun’s daughter bringing two hands of Life together and returning Light to the Evenacht.”
“I think it was nonsense, so it didn’t mean anything,” Red said drily. Kjaelle laughed as Katta made a pursed-lipped face. The nomads glanced at each other, but offered no words.
“OK, then what did other ghosts think the oracle meant?”
Red grinned. “Ah, that’s a far different question. And it’s one that has as many answers as there are beings who followed it. I doubt even Machella remembers her original reason for proclaiming it. I doubt it would have received much attention if she hadn’t predicted Talis’s ascension and he succeeded when his predecessors failed.”
“Talis’s ascension?” Kenosera asked. Vantra’s eyes widened. Machella was an ancient ghost, indeed!
“It is how our current Light became a syimlin,” Katta said, interrupting Red’s open-mouth readiness. “The Aristarzian Light temple was corrupt, sending countless boys to their deaths in hopes of discovering one who best represented the syimlin of Light. After receiving the final blessing for surviving the gauntlet, Talis used magic to destroy the temple, the mountain on which it sat, and the evil within. Others had attempted to do the same and failed, but he overcame all obstacles and defenders and succeeded. Light appeared to him and forced his mantle on him because he no longer wished to be a syimlin. Everything Talis fought against and destroyed, he now embodied. Machella predicted it, predicted Talis’s reaction to becoming a syimlin, predicted Old Man Death granting him the Gift of Life, and predicted how he dealt with a station he never wanted. It made an impression, one that held for millennia.”
That explained Red’s dislike of the oracle. He had been one of the failures, and the reminder must drive spikes into the horrid memories. Vantra bowed her head; perhaps more questions directed to Kjaelle would prove better. She still did not understand why Light acolytes had changed his ascendancy story to one of righteous might rather than one of tragedy that Talis overcame to become a wondrous, caring syimlin.
The wind rocked the wagon, dislodging everyone from their spots. Vantra grabbed Fyrij and held him close as she turned and smacked into the bench.
The slot at the back of the driver’s spot slid open. “Wind’s picking up,” Rils called, worry flavoring his tone. “There’s a lot of dust, and the ronyx aren’t liking it. I think we need to stop and get out the masks.”
“Have you seen any bordican?” Kenosera asked, struggling to sit up. He planted his hand on Tagra’s back, and his friend swatted him, annoyed, and rolled over.
“One,” he said. “And that was a ways back, before we hit the wind. Clouds are darkening, so I think it’s a rainstorm, not a rockstorm.”
“The amount of energy Verryn released could cause havoc with the weather,” Katta said. Vantra glanced at him, then realized Red held the uneaten skewers, protecting them from jostling. At least he knew what was important.
