Wrath of the White Tigress (29 page)

"The greatest sin of my people. It has pursued us for twelve generations since our debasement, relentlessly chasing us across the desert. We can move fast enough to survive, but just barely. We were once a settled people in a fertile land, but since then we have avoided civilization so that no others might suffer, for the Stain is miles wide and it will kill any whom it crosses."

"What sin was so bad that such a thing came to be?"

"I cannot speak of it to an outsider. Trust only that we earned it."

"How did you know we were here?"

"A dream told me. And the Bright Spirits, my ancestors, verified it to me. They said that if I risked helping you against your enemies that you would help us destroy the Stain."

Jaska chuckled. "Well, a prophet told me to look for friends in the desert, so here we are."

"What's funny about that?"

"Only that I can't defeat your Stain anymore than you can defeat my enemy."

"Then what hope is there?"

"Little, and but one. There is a weapon that can kill demon or god, and I must find it to kill my former master. If it will work against him, then it may work against your Stain as well. I was told that your people could help me find it."

"Well, I'm a pathfinder, so it's possible. Does it lie in the desert or far away?"

"Somewhere in the Eastern Mountains."

"The Temple of Avida?"

"Yes! Do you know how to get there?"

"No, and according to legend it moves nightly so that even if a man finds it, it's gone the next day. But I will help you, and we shall see."

Jaska conveyed his appreciation then drew into silence as he scanned the surrounding terrain with a heavy heart.

"If I'm not prying too much," Rahazakir said, "what did this priestess mean to you?"

"To Ohzikar, and to me, she meant everything. She was my only barrier from madness, and I fear what life shall be without her."

~~~

Ohzikar again looked up to Jaska with a flicker of hope in his eyes. Jaska shook his head and told him they must leave. The templar burst into a rage. "She didn't leave you behind when we should have!"

Jaska held out his hands. "What would you have me do? I can't locate her, and neither can the pathfinder. We don't have the time to scour the desert looking for traces, not with this cloud of evil creeping toward us. And who knows what has become of Salahn and his two palymfar? And who can say whether even she could have survived such a blast?"

Ohzikar cursed, picked up what little gear of his he'd recovered, and stalked away with thudding steps that were only barely slowed by his injuries. A half-hour later, they overtook him and continued onward, without him saying another word. Jaska was too miserable to even try to speak with him. Besides, what could he say?

A twilight breeze stirred a thousand gathered tents of goat hide. Brown and grey, wide but low, they barely stood out from the surrounding desert. A traveler might have missed them altogether except for the firelight, the scents of burning dung and roasting meat, and the voices of children playing.

Mounted warriors with scimitars and desert bows intercepted Jaska and his companions. Rahazakir calmed them, and they fell in beside their chief, eyeing the foreigners suspiciously. Inside the encampment, dozens of tribespeople swarmed their chief and the foreigners he had rescued. The tribe almost never encountered outsiders.
 

Rahazakir explained what he needed to various sub-chiefs. Soon emergency tents were set up. Elder women came with herbs, precious water, and bandages to tend wounds. Men brought the best of the food they had: roasted meat, goat cheese, and sour dates. Children gathered in droves and gawked until dispersed.
 

Lharro and Hyrkas took Chaolis from Yumiryo's back and solemnly placed him within their tent. The Arhrhakim planned to chant for three consecutive nights, guiding Chaolis's spirit into the Underworld before burying him in this dry, barren land so unlike the place of his birth.

To a stranger's observance, the Yritti seemed content, as if there were no great doom that followed them. It took time for one to see the small marks of frustration and brooding that edged their demeanors. They were a good-natured and gentle people, despite the harsh lives they lived. Few had been lost to the Stain over the years. Yet the Stain did follow. All of them knew its weight from the moment of birth.
 

Some elder tribespeople, when they felt they could no longer be of use, would remain behind to feed and thus satiate the Stain, temporarily slowing it down. This was another cruel facet of their existence and a demonstration of love by the elders, for their spirits would be trapped in the Stain, a fate far worse than oblivion.

Jaska shared a tent with brooding Ohzikar. When his companion began to sob while repairing his shield, Jaska quietly exited. He sat outside and watched dark Zhura rise, a charcoal blotch against the night-black sky. Some said her influence had brought sorcery into the world and that Avida the Bright Moon held her in check. Such were the thoughts of philosophers. Men like Jaska had only reality to deal with. Sorcery existed and it ruined more lives than it helped. Of course, the same could be said of iron and steel, prowess and bravery.

Jaska was a man of all those things. He had brought a hundredfold more ruin than good. He hadn't been strong enough to save Zyrella or to resist Salahn. But there was yet a chance, and Zyrella's likely death only hardened his determination.

Jaska eased himself into the Shadowland and traveled as far as he could, skirting around the Stain and heading back toward the canyon. He neither saw nor felt any living presence. Apparently, Salahn had given up on pursuing him. Jaska didn't understand why. Perhaps a ritual demanded immediate attention. After all, other than a prophecy made two decades ago, why should Salahn fear him?

Jaska returned to the world of the living where a brave yet kind-hearted warrior waited on him.

"Any sign?" Ohzikar asked.

"None."

"Thank you for giving me privacy."

"You tolerated me when I need much more than that."

"Yes, for her sake. I would do anything she asked of me." He slumped down and held his head in tired, trembling hands. "I am a templar without a temple and without a priestess or a goddess. I am your man now. I am nothing save palymfar."

"You are your own man."

"But I have never been free to choose my life's path."

"Then let vengeance be your way."

"No. I will fight as a palymfar, for a higher cause, even if both paths lead to the same end. If I did otherwise, so much hate would fill me that I would no longer be myself."

~~~

Jaska, Hyrkas, and Ohzikar went before the tribal council and were introduced to each member via his illustrious family history and personal deeds, most of which seemed inane. Last of all, they met Goat Shaman, an intimidating figure with his horns and furs, darkened eyes and malicious grin. That he supported their cause seemed a little disturbing.

Winning the tribe's approval wasn't easy. They didn't want their chief to go, but they had no way of stopping him except to convince him otherwise. They spent two hours trying. The council's chief complaint was that a sub-chief must lead them through a large turning arc before Rahazakir returned, increasing their danger. They also feared reprisals from the Stain, punishing them for attempting to thwart it.
 

"If I gain the weapon I need, I will aid your tribe first," Jaska promised.

Knowing they couldn't win, the council finally conceded. The elders left, but Goat Shaman remained to give them advice before they departed.

"I have a question," Hyrkas said. The plight of the Yritti fascinated him. It was similar to the problem his own people faced, yet their Stain was time and it lay ahead of them. "What happens if a single member of your tribe leaves? And then another and another, so that many of your people would escape?"

"Black boils will eat away at such a tribesman's body within a month," said Goat Shaman. "Many tried in the early years, and such was their fate. The disease was contagious, too. So they also carried death to other people."

"By the gods, what is this curse?" Hyrkas said.

"The curse of a forsaken goddess," Goat Shaman whispered. "And more I shall not say." His voice rose. "Now go. There is little time to waste and there is much at stake. If you should find the temple, Jaska Bavadi, take your old qavra in with you."

"I won't risk touching it."

"You may risk more if you don't carry it into the temple."

"Why?"

Goat Shaman shrugged. "Such are the visions of a shaman."

"I am maligned by visions and prophecies. What else can you tell us?"

"Only what my masters passed down to me. The temple is protected by one of the Eirsendan Keepers. Terrible beings. Only those worthy meet them and live to tell about it."

~~~

Rahazakir bid his people farewell, spun Yumiryo about as they chanted his name, then rode off while they sang heroic ballads. He traveled with a worried heart. It wasn't easy to leave his people, but he promised himself he would see his people saved from the Stain for all of time.
 

The travelers rode horses, but a train of camels loaded with four weeks worth of water and supplies trudged behind them.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the camp Ohzikar said, "What of you, Rahazakir? If we are on this journey too long won't the black boils take you?"

He shrugged. "It's possible. For now I'm technically still fleeing the Stain. Once I'm not, it will take at least a week, perhaps two. I will have adequate warning. Nightmares and urgings to return will signal the oncoming sickness."

"If either happens," Jaska said, "return immediately and don't worry about us."

From the Central Desert to the Sheflar Wastes, they rode as swiftly as they might across the parched, stony desert. This was some of the most inhospitable terrain in all of Pawan Kor. The Sheflar Wastes made the scrubland of Hareez seem like a verdant paradise. It was a flat expanse of grey pebbles, strewn across a plain of reddish sand. Wiry-stemmed succulents dotted the landscape, but there were only a few oases.
 

The Yritti avoided this land near to the Eastern Mountains as much as possible, but daring treasure hunters and sorcerers searched the wastes for Eirsendan ruins and the qavra stones that often slept within. Often one would stumble upon mysterious, cyclopean blocks of evenly cut stone, jutting from the wastes. Sometimes there was the hint of a temple and perhaps a tunnel leading down into burial chambers no human had ever stepped within.
 

Everyone was somber, except Ohzikar whose grief kept him in a state of mourning and Jaska who seemed possessed. He pressed them continuously. Even through the early hours of evening they rode. Jaska would chant a spell of darksight and the others would light lanterns. During the mornings they would briefly practice the katas and meditations of the palymfar, though Jaska's teachings were perfunctory. His mind dwelled on Zyrella and his past. He missed her presence almost as much as he loathed himself.

The Arhrhakim had brought Chaolis with them, tied to the back of a camel, wrapped in gauze and furs and preserved from putrefaction by some skill of Goat Shaman's. The Arhrhakim had decided to bury him in the mountains rather than the desert. No one sought to dissuade them. At each sunrise and sunset, they would chant a prayer over him, strengthening Goat Shaman's spell.

Once, they fell behind the others while Lharro lingered over Chaolis's body. He was lost in morbid thoughts until Hyrkas touched his shoulder. "Come, Lharro. Let's not dwell in the land of the dead while yet we live."

"It should have been me, Hyrkas. He was young and I have less to live for."

Hyrkas frowned. "He knew the risk when he decided to come along. This was his fate, not yours."

"But he wanted to see the world, he wanted these experiences. I don't care for them at all. I came here to do what must be done, not to see these hateful, barren wastes."

Hyrkas had thought as Lharro did at first, but he had begun to like the desert and the open expanses. They stretched his mind and broadened his awareness. He felt giddy with it all, as if drunk on the wine of the gods. He wondered if their enclosed mountain retreat had come to shape his people in ill ways.
 

"At least he died in the wide world he wished to see."

"That doesn't make it fair," Lharro replied. "There are so many humans, so few of us."

~~~

A woman's tortured screams awoke Zyrella. She jerked her body forward but that brought pain to her stiffened muscles. The chains that bound her rattled. At first, she thought that she had gone blind, but slowly the world came into focus as she blinked and cleared out the mucus gathered during her long slumber.
 

The bleak cityscape of Kabulsek stretched out before her. Weak and emaciated, her mouth dry, her lips cracking, Zyrella hung chained to a narrow spire on top of the central tower of the Grand Temple of the White Tigress. Naked and exposed to the elements, she had blistered to hues of pink and crimson with patches of skin already peeling. Even the inside of her body felt as if it were on fire.