before her. “Think, child,” she said more gently. “The human has been among us for seven full great cycles now. How much longer must we wait for him to show his inner self, for us to hear his Bloodsong? Do you know?” Esah- Zhurah slowly shook her head. “Nor do I. And do not forget that the Empress already has given him one reprieve. Were it not for that, his bones would have been reduced to ashes two cycles ago.” She ran a hand through Esah- Zhurah’s hair, thinking how much she had come to think of her as a daughter, though Tesh-Dar had never given birth. The metamorphosis of the ritual that had changed her talons from accursed silver to beautiful ebony and given her the strength of five warriors had done nothing to alter the barrenness of her womb. “It is your destiny, child,” she said softly, sensing the trembling of Esah-Zhurah’s heart. “And his.”
“If he survives the Challenge, or if I must face him in the arena under the code of
“Listen to me well, young one,” Tesh-Dar said coldly. “Your soul, as are the souls of all those who are of the Way, is bound to the will of the Empress. Her will is clear in this matter, you can feel it pulse in your veins as well as I. If you cannot do as you are bidden, your hair will be shaved and your soul left in the barren shadows of Eternity.” Her eyes softened. “I have heard the cries of those sent to that place, child, the agonies of those fallen from Her grace. It is a fate I bid you to avoid.” She paused. “If you face one another in the arena, the human must die. If you both refuse to fight, I will decide the matter myself, and your soul will suffer accordingly.”
“Yes, my priestess,” Esah-Zhurah replied woodenly, her body suddenly numb and lifeless. Even the release of suicide had been taken from her, condemning her to live in a lonely, loveless purgatory. “I understand.”
Tesh-Dar paused a moment. “Esah-Zhurah,” she said softly, noting the black streaks that poured from the child’s eyes as her heart cried out its mourning, “I grieve with you. Long have I thought about the coming of this day, and long have I dreaded it, for both of you. Many nights have I lain awake, wondering what could be done, listening for the song of his blood, but there is nothing. Even the Ancient Ones, who once watched the two of you, have gone silent, no longer interested, I fear. They do not hold sway over Her, for She rules even in their ethereal domain, and Her word has been given. Our Way shall be as She wills it.”
“Yes, my priestess,” Esah-Zhurah intoned, her thoughts now dark swirls of hopelessness.
“Go now, my child, and spend wisely the time that remains,” she told her, gesturing for Esah-Zhurah to rise. “Go in Her name.”
Esah-Zhurah blindly made her way back to their camp where a fire burned brightly among the forest trees. Her feet trudged along the ancient cobblestones that wove their way about the kazha like a system of great roots, embracing everything. It was a seemingly infinite path that, in the end, led nowhere. As did her Way. She suddenly stopped in her tracks and gripped the handle of her knife. She saw in her mind the image of her plunging it into her chest, feeling the blade part her ribs with its serrated edge, the tip piercing her heart, and the blood in her veins suddenly growing still. It would be the end of life, of suffering against the unknown, of what she knew to be her future. To kill Reza would be to kill a part of herself, a part that she had come to value above all else, save her love for the Empress. And even that…
“Troubled are you,” came a husky voice from behind her. Esah-Zhurah whirled around, only to find the ancient Pan’ne-Sharakh, the mistress of the armory, staring at her with her half-blind eyes. She bared her fangs in a friendly greeting, exposing the once magnificent incisors that were now faded yellow with age, worn down so far that she would soon starve, unable to tear her meat properly. Tesh-Dar was old even by Kreelan standards, but Pan’ne- Sharakh was older still: she had been fitting armor to warriors since long before Tesh-Dar was born. There would be much mourning on the day she departed for the Afterlife and her deserved place among the Ancient Ones.
Esah-Zhurah bowed and saluted. “Forgive me, mistress, but you startled me.”
“The body is old,” Pan’ne-Sharakh said, “but the mind still quick, and the foot light upon the earth, by Her grace and glory. You shall walk with me.” Pan’ne-Sharakh held out her hand, and Esah-Zhurah dutifully took it, gently cradling the antediluvian woman’s bony fingers in her own armored gauntlet, careful not to let her talons mar the mistress’s translucent skin. “Tell me of what troubles you so, my child. For even these old eyes can see the works of sorrow woven upon the tapestry of thy face.”
“Mistress… I…” Esah-Zhurah stuttered, not knowing how – or if – she could tell the ancient mistress what she knew, what she felt. But suddenly the words came, slowly at first, but then in a torrent that surprised Esah- Zhurah. It was as if they were not spoken by her own tongue, but by a force that lay within her, beyond her control. She laid bare her heart in a way that would have shamed her into punishment in the Kal’ai-Il had her words become known among the peers or reached the ears of the priestess. But to this quiet ancient who now shuffled slowly beside her, she told everything. Her feelings, her desires, her shames and fears. Everything.
Her words carried them over a path that eventually wound its way to a secluded overlook that took in most of the great plains and the mountains beyond, a place of private meditation frequented by the priestess, although she did not declare it as her own domain. It belonged to Her, the Empress, as did all things that lived or did not live, as far as the eye could see, as far as the stars above, and beyond.
Pan’ne-Sharakh stood silently for a long time, staring into the distance. Her milky eyes, their vision useless a mere meter beyond her face, were still able to peer into a vista of hard-won wisdom that had come with the many cycles of her life and the mystical thing that pulsed in her veins, the spirit of their Way.
“Dearest child,” she said, still focused on whatever it was that she saw in her mind, “much have you suffered for this creature, this human, and more are you willing to endure, it would seem. I would caution you against such things, but you are far beyond that, now. Far beyond.”
She let out a resigned sigh, and Esah-Zhurah became afraid that she had been foolish to tell the old woman anything. But the look on the mistress’s face was nothing if not compassionate. “Long have I walked the Way, my child, and many strange and wonderful things have I seen. But I have never beheld such a wonder as are the two of you, the warrior and her animal tresh. He is still a stranger among us, but his heart and mind have become one with the Way. You have led him that far.”
“But his blood does not sing,” Esah-Zhurah lamented, wishing she could see something on the horizon other than darkness. Death.
“No,” Pan’ne-Sharakh answered, “it does not.” She looked up at the young woman beside her. “But still, the Ancient Ones wait. I have heard the priestess speak on the matter, and she believes they are no longer interested in the goings on at our humble kazha. I believe differently.”
“How, mistress? What is to be gained by their silence?”
“They wait, child, as if holding their breath, as if a single whispered word would snuff out the candle that flickers here, beneath the Empress Moon. They wait for you.” Seeing that Esah-Zhurah did not understand, she went on. “Why, child, does the human’s blood not sing?”
“He is not of the Way,” Esah-Zhurah replied. “He is not of Her blood.”
Pan’ne-Sharakh smiled as if Esah-Zhurah had just explained the answer herself. “That is so, child. He is not of Her blood. And what is there to do about such a thing?”
Esah-Zhurah shrugged in the Kreelan fashion, pained frustration showing on her face. Her patience was wearing thin, mistress or no.
“Do you remember, child, the history of this order, the Desh-Ka, since the times even before the First Empress?”
Esah-Zhurah shook her head. She had been born into and raised in another order, the Ima’il-Kush. Her knowledge of the Desh-Ka, the oldest order known among their people, was far from complete. “No, mistress,” she said. “Little is taught of those times, for it is said that the Empire and the Way have always been one, and that what was then, remains as now.”
Pan’ne-Sharakh waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Long was the Way before even the First Empire, child. But no matter. In those times before Keel-Tath and the Unification, before the curse She later wrought upon our blood, the Desh-Ka were the greatest of the warrior sects that lived on our world. Many outsiders aspired to come among them, but few – terribly few – were ever chosen.” She took Esah-Zhurah’s hands in hers. “Once there was a ceremony, long since forgotten in the minds of most, which was the mark of one’s acceptance into the Desh-Ka. And even over the thousands of generations since Keel-Tath’s birth, every warrior bearing the great rune of this order has also borne a scar,” she explained as she ran a callused finger across the palm of Esah-Zhurah’s right hand, “that marks their acceptance by one who has gone before them.”
