“Sit with me, child,” the Sister said, pushing aside some of the things she’d placed on the bed.
Lhaurel sat, studying the woman only a few feet from her. The Sister’s eyes were a deep, dark grey. Such an odd color.
“You may call me Talha,” the Sister said. “I am the Sister of Knowledge.”
“Lhaurel.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Interesting,” Talha said, unstopping the ink and dipping her quill into the well. She began jotting down notes on some papers bound within one of the square objects Talha had picked up off the bed. “Still with the honorific lettering, I’d imagine, yes?”
“What?”
“Your name, you spell it with an ‘h’ after the initial ‘l,’ yes?”
“Yes.” Lhaurel chewed on her bottom lip, brows coming together over the bridge of her nose.
“Don’t chew your lip,” Talha said absently, studying Lhaurel’s features with darting, penetrating eyes. “I wonder what other tendencies remained and what fell to the vagaries of time?”
Lhaurel let her lip slip out of her teeth and rubbed her shoulder with the opposite hand.
“Tell me, child,” Talha said, continuing a steady barrage of questions, “what did you eat among your people? Were you all of a similar height and disposition as yourself? What were the common external characteristics of your people? How did you all manage to survive the genesauri monsters your past Incarnation created?”
The Sister waited, quill poised above the page, ink threatening to drip off the nib. Lhaurel licked her lips and then started chewing on the bottom one again. Which question was she supposed to answer?
“Um, we ate food, I guess. Sheep, some cattle, grains that we could find or grow. The Oasis offered a little variety to the diet, though some years were harder than others. I was taller than most others and the reddish hair I had before it became this dark was uncommon. Most had dark skin and hair, with brown or dark colored eyes. Sorry, what was the last question?”
Talha’s pen scratched across the page in a flurry, the end of the quill only a hair’s width away from the end of her nose. As she wrote, the Sister muttered to herself, whispering in the language Lhaurel had come to understand as the Orinai tongue.
“What was that?” Lhaurel asked.
“Hmm . . . oh right, I still need to teach you our language. Luckily, we have a nice long journey home before us without Sellia or Aiam to bother your learning. Our path will be much too slow for them, though I do find it quite fascinating the tones and inflections you’ve developed that differ from our own slave people. I suppose a thousand years’ separation creates variances in divergent, isolated populations, just as new species of animal develop when separated by geographic barriers that prevent further integration between the groups.”
“What?”
Talha chuckled. Lhaurel was surprised to hear some measure of actual warmth in the sound.
“Just the scholar in me at work. I was simply wondering how you managed to survive the genesauri monsters for all these years. The Circle of Sisters left the Sharani Arena to its fate long ago, convinced that your people would suffer horrendous deaths at the hands of Elyana’s creations. Mouths, really, I’d imagine. They didn’t really have hands now did they?”
“Thousands of us did die over the years,” Lhaurel said in a hard yet hushed voice. She stared down at her hands, remembering the battle at the Oasis, Saralhn, and the moment that had seemed to start all of this, when she had picked up that sword in Saralhn’s defense all those months ago.
“Really?” Talha asked, pausing in her writing to look up. “What was that like?”
Lhaurel sat up and leaned back slightly, lips pursing before she answered. She’d thought this woman different from the other two Sisters at first, a much kinder, gentler version of them, perhaps. But something sinister and callous hid just beneath the surface. The emotionless way in which she’d asked about the genesauri and her callous disinterest in the deaths left Lhaurel with no real desire to stay anywhere near this woman for any longer than she had to. “What was it like? People died. People I loved.”
“Yes, yes,” Talha said, resuming her writing. “Naturally. But how did the genesauri do it? Some of the books make mention of the fact that the genesauri could fly—are they those creatures we saw with your people? Did you tame some of them? Those looked far more like normal birds than the eel-like sand creatures most accounts agree on.”
“How did they do it?” Lhaurel’s hands began to shake, so she cupped them together, which only helped a little. “The sailfins burrowed up out of sand and skimmed over its surface in giant packs. You didn’t hear them coming unless they broke the surface and the terrible keening of their fins cut its way into your heart. By then, though, it was too late. They’d burst up out of the sand, crackling with energy, grab onto your brother, or your mother, or your sister and drag them back down under the roiling, red sands. The marsaisi and karundin were worse.”
“Interesting. I am not familiar with the subspecies. We’ll have to discuss this further. Yes, indeed.” Talha smiled and closed the bound papers and set aside her quill. “I can see this is an emotional subject for you. I think we’ll have to stop here with my questions for today. I’d hoped for more, but alas, my time with you is short today, only a few hours, and we must begin your lessons.”
Lhaurel pulled back her anger, allowing it to fade from a raging storm to a much smaller swell. At the moment, it wouldn’t serve her in the least. This woman reminded her of Khari for some reason, though she didn’t seem to have Khari’s fire. However, they both shared a seemingly innate ability to utterly infuriate her.
“Lessons?” Lhaurel asked finally.
“Indeed, child. Lessons indeed.”
“. . . though the names of the Progressions help in their understanding, they are also limiting by design.”
—
From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 14, Year 854
A knock sounded on the wagon wall, emanating from near the door. Talha looked over with her face scrunched in confusion.
“Ah, yes,” she said, her expression clearing. “Food. I thought perhaps you’d be hungry, what with the poor rations Sellia saw fit to provide you.”
Talha got to her feet, beckoning for Lhaurel to follow. Lhaurel got up as well, following after the woman out of curiosity more than any real hunger. They’d given her some bread and water earlier in the day. The day before she’d even been given several large chunks of dried meat. Lhaurel wasn’t sure what sort of meat it was, but she’d eaten it anyway. It had tasted familiar, at least.
Talha opened the door to the wagon and stepped out. Lhaurel hesitated for a moment, eyes adjusting to the direct sunlight. Except for a few brief moments at night when they let her out to empty her bladder, Lhaurel hadn’t been out of the wagon since being taken prisoner. For a fleeting moment, she contemplated running, then Talha’s hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her out into the open air.
A long table had been set up on the ground next to her wagon, upon which a pure white cloth had been placed. Lhaurel’s attention was immediately drawn to the mounds of food resting on top of the cloth.
Dozens of different foods rested in metal dishes the color of early morning sun. Large glass pitchers of various liquids rested between the platters of food, though Lhaurel only gave them a passing glance. She counted four different kinds of meat glistening and steaming in the chill air, a dozen different breads, and an array of fruits she didn’t recognize. Only two chairs were set up next to the table.
“This is all for us?” Lhaurel asked, her voice soft and her expression slack with incredulity.
“I ate earlier, child,” Talha said, pulling her to a chair and then sitting in the other herself. “I wasn’t sure which foods you’d prefer, so I had the servants prepare a little bit of everything. I know it’s rather sparse, but still better than what you’ve had until now.”
Lhaurel gaped. This was more food than what the Roterralar could have eaten during a banquet, and she’d thought some of
their
meals had been extravagant. Lhaurel just stared at it all, overwhelmed and hesitant to participate in such a meal when she knew her own people would be struggling for food now, fighting their way through the mountain passes. Eventually, however, her stomach betrayed her by rumbling at the savory smells that wafted toward her.
Lhaurel reached for a platter of meat, not bothering with the strange utensils that lay next to the platter on the table in front of her. She’d dumped about half the tray onto her platter before she noticed the woman dressed in white standing next to her. She jumped as the woman bowed slightly in her direction.
“Honored Sister,” the woman breathed in Lhaurel’s tongue, though with an inflection that made it seem like the language wasn’t hers either, “may I assist you with your meal?”
Lhaurel glanced over at Talha, but the Sister was busy writing in her book again, which someone had fetched from the wagon for her. Lhaurel looked back to the white-clothed woman, noticing that the woman wore a blue
shufari
about her waist. What was
that
doing here?
“I can do it myself,” Lhaurel said, returning to her meal and choosing to ignore the woman.
She sampled a little of everything, making note of those foods she liked and those she didn’t. Lhaurel had tried pouring herself a drink at some point during the meal, but the white-clad servant had immediately taken the pitcher from her and poured a cup of the clear liquid Lhaurel had been reaching for. Lhaurel had thought it water, but it burned her throat as she’d tried to take a swallow and so she’d left it untouched throughout the remainder of the meal. During it all, Talha never stopped scribbling in her book.
When Lhaurel finished, wiping her grease-covered fingers on her cloak out of habit, she leaned back in her chair, only then noticing the ring of wagons which encircled them and the numerous servants scurrying back and forth. The wagons, all three of them, rested in a shallow depression between hills. The ground was rocky, but devoid of ice and snow. In the distance, Lhaurel could still see the plume of smoke from the Sharani Desert and the two mountain ranges sitting on either side of the horizon.
“Why are the women wearing
shufari
?” Lhaurel asked, half-turning to glance back over at Talha.
The Sister looked up, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So
shufari
survived all that time but the essence of the culture did not? Interesting.”
Talha started laughing. Lhaurel pulled her attention away from the passing servants to look over at the woman. Talha quickly suppressed her mirth enough to take some more notes in her book, but not quickly enough to stop a few tears from leaking down one cheek.
“You know, you can be extremely frustrating sometimes,” Lhaurel said. “Can’t I get a straight answer from
anyone
?”
“Probably not, child,” Talha said, looking up, “but I will try. I believe your most recent question was about the
shufari
, yes?”
Lhaurel nodded, not sure she understood or liked the sudden change of mood.
“The priestesses, those dressed in white, wear the sashes to designate to which Sister and Progression they adhere. The ones wearing blue are yours, child.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, yours. Is that a straight enough answer for you?”
Again, Lhaurel nodded. What else could she do?
“Good,” Talha said with a small nod of her own. “Now I have a question of my own. How did
you
use the
shufari
?”
“Women wore them to show what rank their husbands had achieved within the clan,” Lhaurel answered slowly, looking around at the many women, including the one standing next to her still, wearing the blue
shufari
.
“Hmm,” Talha said, again taking notes. “That’s not so far a perversion from the original that it would no longer make sense. Interesting to note the change in gender roles, however. Among us, the woman’s rank supersedes the male in the relationship.”
Lhaurel cocked her head, both at the unfamiliar words and the implied meaning. “The women?” she asked.
“Indeed, child. The women are those who hold the most power, at least in regard to rank and religion. Men are the politicians, but they’re really a far cry from intelligent, I’d say.”
Lhaurel shook her head, which was spinning from all the new information and the differences in the culture into which she was being immersed from what she knew. Yet, at the same time it seemed almost familiar to her. The juxtaposition made her nauseous. It was either that or the food.
“I’m guessing by your reaction that such was not the case in your incestuous familial groups,” Talha said.
“Incestuous?” Lhaurel stumbled over the foreign word, mind starting to go numb around the edges. She felt oddly restless and suppressed a sudden urge to get up and start running. What she wouldn’t have given to have even a practice sword with which to work the forms.
“Inbreeding,” Talha said, taking notes in her book. “Parents mating with offspring, or siblings even. It’s fairly common in small, isolated populations. Generally, this manifests in lots of specific traits being brought to the surface, so to speak—things normally seen only once or twice in a dozen generations will crop up in three times the numbers they would normally appear.” Talha looked up and frowned at the expression on Lhaurel’s face. “Sorry, child, was that too complicated for you?”
Lhaurel’s temper flared up and almost got the better of her, but Lhaurel managed to bite off the cutting remark before she made it.
“We are not incestuous,” Lhaurel said instead. “But, regardless, yes, it was different in the Sharani Desert. The men were the Warlords and leaders. The women bore children and tended to their womanly duties.”
Talha made a face, then took some more notes in her notebook. Was she ever
not
writing something?
“So primitive,” the Sister said. “How could such knowledge and power have degraded so quickly? By the Path, I don’t know how any of you even survived at all. The odds were astronomically against you.”
Lhaurel felt a headache swell on the edges of her temples, but she resisted the urge to massage them. Instead, she attempted to focus on what was going on around her.
The priestesses—the women in white who wore
shufari—
flitted about, completing various tasks. There were male servants as well, along with dozens of warriors looking grim and stony faced in their stark red uniforms, but Lhaurel had expected far more of them than there were. Where were the armies? Where were the other Sisters? Only two other wagons sat in alongside the one in which Lhaurel had ridden, both the same squat, angular affairs as her own. And pulling them . . .
“What in the seven hells are those?” Lhaurel asked, getting to her feet in such a sudden, jerking motion that set her already upset stomach into a churning mass of nausea.
Talha looked up from her notes, brow furrowed in either concentration or concern, then noticed where Lhaurel was looking. The creases in her forehead smoothed to their normal size and she gave a half-grin.
“Those? They’re just gatheriu.” Talha’s voice was dismissive, though there was a hint of suppressed mirth mixed in as well.
As large as one of the vessels they pulled, a single, massive creature stood strapped to each wagon. Massively wide at the shoulders and hips, with heavy, square heads, the creatures looked almost like a cross between a sandtiger and a bull, but three times as large. The front legs were thicker and longer than the back, giving each of the creatures an odd, stooped back, though Lhaurel couldn’t remember it affecting their gait enough to notice in the back of the wagon. They appeared quite docile despite their size. All three sat idly munching at the long grass and scratching at the dirt with the long, thick claws that grew from each front paw.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” Lhaurel said.
“They’re native to the northern regions here,” Talha said, a note of curiosity creeping back into her voice. “I would have thought there would be one or two in the Sharani Arena after all these years.”
Lhaurel shook her head. “If there were, the genesauri ate them long ago.”
Talha pursed her lips for a moment, tapping one finger to them for a moment before nodding.
“I suppose,” Talha said, lifting her finger, “I have wondered how the genesauri managed to sustain themselves for so long. Surely there were never enough of you to provide a sufficient diet for the thousands of monsters that ravaged that area.”
“They ate each other too,” Lhaurel noted, still distracted by the gatheriu themselves.
“Yes, yes. But no population of any size can be maintained solely on the merits of self-cannibalization. Water and blood bind me, I hate unanswered questions. That is something you and I must discuss in detail later. For now, we must turn back to your studies. We may have several months to reach Estrelar, but the time will pass all too quickly. Sellia will be most displeased if you aren’t ready when we get there.”
“Ready for what?” Lhaurel asked, tearing her eyes away from the gatheriu to look over at Talha with her entire focus instead of simply sidelong.
Talha smiled at her and Lhaurel squirmed as she met the woman’s discordant, humorless eyes.
“For life as a Sister.”