One Great Year (15 page)

“Does it hurt?” Inti asked, not for the first time. He was always fascinated by the symbol.

“No,” she said, smiling. “It's an honor to display the symbol of eternal life and unity. It is the mark of how we are all connected. We are all One,” she explained. It was an exchange they had had many times, but this time his four-year-old mind posed a new, more challenging question.

“Was Papa chosen by God?” he asked. Sartaña paused, unsure how to answer. Was Katari chosen by God? Helghul? For every positive there is a negative, for every yin, a yang. Her Marcus-brain contemplated the question, and Sartaña considered her answer carefully.

“Yes, Inti, Papa was chosen by God,” she finally answered, kissing his rumpled black hair and pulling him close.

Theron's energy grew stronger and more obvious every day. Though it filled Sartaña with a complete love and connection that she adored, she worried that Katari would take him away, that Helghul would tear them apart once again.

Near the end of his fifth year, as Sartaña had feared and expected, Inti's father began to take a greater interest in him. Katari had recognized Theron just as Sartaña had, but the resentment that Helghul had once exhibited toward his unrequited love was not evident in his relationship with his son. Inti spent more time learning at his father's side, severely limiting his time with his mother.

Katari was fonder of the clever boy than he would admit and enjoyed him as a companion and a student. Inti wished to please his father, but he felt frightened and intimidated by him, and he missed Sartaña.

Inti's fifth birthday was approaching, which, according to local customs, signaled a formal transfer from the care of his mother into his father's hands for instruction. Sartaña had explained to Inti that he would be seeing her progressively less in the days and months to come. Her intuition warned her that Katari would separate them more than was typical, and she was preparing him for that eventuality.

“But I don't want to go with him. He scares me. Why can't I just stay here with you?” Inti asked one afternoon in the back garden. Sartaña was crouched on her haunches, carefully choosing from her plants and herbs the ingredients needed to soothe the toothache of a citizen. She showed Inti the plants that she was harvesting and indicated to him how the leaves could be wadded up and chewed to numb the pain.

“A boy needs his father. You will grow to be a man under his tutelage. He will teach you things I cannot,” Sartaña answered, trying to be positive but secretly dismayed by what lessons and morals Katari would seek to instill in their son.

How would a spirit like Theron's fare under such a dark, self-serving mentor? Could she be bent, twisted, altered to his will? As these questions passed through her mind for the thousandth time, Sartaña had a vision of Inti—knife in hand, claiming his first head as a leader and warrior, Katari standing over him, directing and demanding. It was a picture not of the future but an image of what the father would wish to see, how he would school his son.

Sartaña stopped working and drew the youngster into her lap.

“Follow your instincts, child. Always do what you know to be right and the heavens will smile on you. You are special, Inti. You come from a long line of healers and priests. If you listen, your intuition, your spirit voice, will never lead you astray. Stay open and loving and trust your inner voice, and you will be loved, a gift to our people.”

Katari growled to himself only five yards away. He had come looking for them to have Inti join him on a survey of the outer boundaries, and now he stood listening, obscured by a row of bushes. His ire was raised as he listened to Sartaña's sickening, sweet sermon. She was now more a threat than a tool; the high priestess had served her purpose. The time had come to eliminate her influence.

Katari walked away without revealing himself. Soon enough he would enact the second stage of his scheme, and Inti would be his alone to mold. Together they would be the most feared and prolific conquerors of all time.

Without warning, Sartaña's door burst open and Katari entered in swift strides. She was startled and jumped at the movement behind her. The guard, who had become familiar over the years, flashed a concerned glance as he closed the door. The sentinel had always been kind and had benefitted from Sartaña's compassion and expertise when his own children had fallen ill. He was a good-hearted man, a husband and father, and he liked her and Inti and had witnessed what a loving mother she was.

Sensing the gravity of the unexpected incursion, Sartaña lowered herself from her seat and bowed her head, kneeling.

“I see you seek to ingratiate yourself,” Katari laughed, devoid of mirth and seething with contempt. He paced her quarters, his square frame puffed up, appearing twice his size, as if ready to do battle. The shrunken heads, her first husband's included, jiggled sickeningly on his belt like charms. “There is nothing you can do to change the path we are on, Marcus,” he continued. “I have planned for this day.” Sartaña stayed silent, waiting for Katari to explain. “Your role as mother is fulfilled; I will be taking full charge of Inti from now on.”

Sartaña looked up and was swiftly staggered by the leather of his foot against her face. She was lifted off the floor, and her head slammed against the stone wall behind her. She cradled her skull in her hands. Her cheek was red and bruised where she'd been kicked. She hung her head, unable to stop her tears, and she dared not look at Katari again.

“You have served your purpose. Inti has bridged the gap between our people. I have re-established Stone-at-Center as a profitable hub of trade, and I have gained even more through exploiting the weak-minded flock that seeks spiritual enlightenment and answers here. I couldn't have managed this without your help,” he scoffed.

“But now you are done … a ghost … dead. As of tomorrow the city will be informed of your accidental death … a budding pregnancy gone horribly wrong. With no woman to help you, you tried bravely to tend to yourself and you bled to death in the process. They will mourn for you having died with your unborn child. They will pity me. I will hang my head in mock grief. No one would suspect me now. I have arranged for a wrapped body to be mourned in your absence.”

“My absence?” she interrupted “You will not kill me?”

“Kill you? No, I like to know exactly where my enemies are, Marcus. If I release your soul back to the Universe, there is no controlling when you show up again … I don't want any surprises from you. I like the idea of keeping you, like a head on my belt, under my control,” he said.

“Inti …” she began.

“My son is no concern of yours. To him, as to everyone else, you are dead.”

“It doesn't have to be like this,” Sartaña pleaded from her knees.

“No it doesn't, but this is how I want it,” Katari answered. “There is more to be done, you see. It is important that no one here ever suspect that you remain alive. Inti must never know.”

Katari approached Sartaña menacingly and she reacted like a cornered animal, no longer subservient or compliant. The fury in every cell of her body radiated hatred, and her Marcus-brain regretted that she had not tried to eliminate Katari before now. She could have poisoned his wine, put a knife to his throat as he slept. She might have died trying, but instead she had allowed Katari to unravel his evil plan. She had handed him control of her precious Inti, her dear Theron.

Sartaña shuddered at what Helghul would do to the spirit of her child. What kind of minion would he seek to create, and would he destroy the boy in the process?

Still on her knees, Sartaña lunged at the approaching Katari and tackled his legs, bowling him over. He crashed to the ground, but the diminutive woman was no match for him. The warrior was quickly back on his feet, more angry and vicious than ever. He struck a powerful blow to her jaw and Sartaña fell to the floor, cracking her forehead as she landed. She saw a blinding flash of light that disappeared to overwhelming black.

Katari knelt in front of her, triumphant, then concerned that he may have killed her in his rage. He found that she was still breathing, so he unsheathed the cradle-shaped stone blade from his side, swiftly bringing it to her face. Her small room was gory with blood by the time Katari finished his evil work, and he wrapped her in bloody sheets and carried her out past the worried guard.

Katari acted like a distressed husband and father as he moved through the palace, seemingly toward the sacred courtyard where all religious ceremonies and rites were performed.

Sartaña awoke alone, unable to move, in severe pain, on the floor of a cell in the deepest recesses of a prison. Her head felt like a swollen, pulpy mess, and she couldn't move or work her jaws at all. She had vague recollections of someone pouring water into her mouth and forcing her to drink even though it was excruciating. The rest of her world was agony coupled with blinding flashes of light. Only the total disconnection of unconsciousness gave her any reprieve.

On the third day, she woke for longer and was able to sit. Her head felt like she wore a crown of thorns, and she wobbled dizzily. Her body ached and burned for food. She was grateful when the guard opened the door to deliver her water. She recognized him as the guard from her former chamber.

Sartaña tried to speak but was unable. She had been horribly disfigured—there were deep lacerations healing on her face. She had a broken jaw as well. Someone had bandaged her head and chin. She had the strange sensation that her mouth was oddly hollow and cotton-filled at the same time.

She could only moan and make sounds from her throat, and she tried to use her tongue to assess the damage. She couldn't find it. Her mind reeled in confusion. She couldn't find her tongue! She willed it to move, and nothing; her mouth was empty and still. She couldn't feel her teeth, the roof of her mouth, there was no sensation at all. She frantically raised her hands, pushing against the bandages and, despite the blinding bolts of pain that reverberated through her head, she anxiously opened her slack, splintered jaw. Nothing: only a sickening stump where her tongue should have been. Katari had said he would silence her.

The jail was near the center of the city. When Sartaña was well enough to stand, she could almost touch all of the sandy rock walls of her cell at one time. She was grateful for a tiny square opening high on one wall and, though it did not allow her to look out, late in the afternoon it let in a single beam of daylight. The sunbeam was high above her, but if she stood on her toes her fully outstretched fingertips could just enter the opening, feel the sun's warmth and churn its shining particles as they rained down.

The tiny jail was almost empty. Katari did not believe in feeding and maintaining those who broke his laws or who opposed his views. His retribution was typically swift and final. Sartaña was confined alone. She was isolated and tended by just one guard.

Sartaña existed on a diet of water and a mealy broth with dry bread, and she languished, miserably tormented by the predicament of her child. Only the kindness of her guard sustained her. It was he who had filled her mouth with pain-relieving minced leaves and bandaged her injured jaw. His kindness later extended to communication. He provided the contact that she craved, and he kindly offered her updates about her child, though to do so put him in jeopardy.

Inti believed her dead. The pain he must be feeling, the anger, the mourning, and with only Katari to console him. Sartaña's Marcus-brain was tormented to once again be parted from Theron. The pain was made worse by the injustice of mother and child being purposely separated. It didn't matter what she thought, Katari was the father, the high priest. He had the power to do as he wished, and Sartaña knew that he had planned it all along. He had fooled her with indifference, convinced her to raise the boy and help win over the city. She had been duped into teaching him their ways, and he had planned to eliminate her all along. Her throat burned hoarse, dry, and thick with anguish, and she placed her desperate forehead on the filthy stone floor, praying for relief.

Understanding that there was great learning in suffering, she struggled to see the lesson, to embrace the strange path that she traveled. It was not for her to decide when or how her life would end. She prayed for the life and soul of her son, and she prayed for her vanquisher, hoping he could do better and therefore do right by Inti. Sartaña took solace in what remained of her limited voice. She had been reduced to the original primordial words of the Universe. From her gut, “aaa,” from her throat, “uuu,” and from her lips and nose, “mmm.” Her Marcus-brain understood the impermanence of her predicament in the grand scheme of things; still, it was the vibration of Aum or Om
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that brought her peace. It reminded her of the true nature of reality and helped her to feel connected in her isolation.

Inti had been inconsolable when Katari informed him of Sartaña's death. The child had not yet realized that he and his mother were separate people. He could not comprehend that she had gone somewhere that he could not go, and above all he could not understand why she had gone without saying goodbye. The child had begged to see her and was permitted to view the wrapped corpse laid out for the vast multitude of mourners who came from a great distance to pay their respects. He insisted that his mother was not in the wrappings, and he did not understand that dead meant forever. He asked the gods to bring her home every night. He promised to be a good son, and he was sure that he had somehow done something to cause it all.

Sartaña's funeral pyre had been the highest in the history of Stone-at-Center, and after her cremation the citizens had mourned for the prescribed twenty days, equal to one of their months. Katari had been thrilled with the economic benefit and gifts that the wailing pilgrims had brought, and he had ensured that the mourning did not interfere with the commerce.