The chains chafed, as Ultrina expected they would, leaving behind scraped sore spots near her wrists. Of course, she didn’t dare ask for them to be removed. Mongen, as her captor, would hardly be interested in letting her roam free again considering what had last been done.
The resurrected great cat had to be put down before they could leave the forest, but that wasn’t as hard as one would expect considering Ultrina called the creature to her with their link. The monster prowled into the makeshift camp outside of the graveyard it had left behind with its unnatural grace coming straight to its maker without a pause. Ultrina knelt on the ground and waited for it to come. When it came to her, it wuffed and snuffled her hair before laying down and putting its head in her lap. She put her bound hands over its showing eye, still a striking yellow behind the cloud of a cataract. She stroked its fur and murmured to it, allowing it to become complacent. It was a heart born, one of the undead which drew its strength from a strong heart. Animals made better heart born than people. Ultrina pressed her hands harder against the bones of its face, feeling them start to crumble beneath the pressure. It didn’t cry out or fight back.
“You truly are a maker of monsters,” Mongen said when the great cat lay dead at his feet with Ultrina cradling its head.
“I could say the same of you,” Ultrina said without malice. “For what more are soldiers?”
Mongen said nothing in response, but turned away on his heel to head to the horses which were pulling at their stakes trying to get away from the entire spectacle. Ultrina stayed there a few moments longer, stroking the stiffening body of her creature. It had been loyal in its few days. A killer brought low by another like it and still capable of being something more.
That had been before they left the forest heading further into the foothills of the Spine. The mountains which made up the Spine of the World were snow capped all year round, but thankfully few needed to travel so high to traverse them. Ultrina did not like to think of what it would be like to have to travel the snow cap bound as she was. It was hard enough with the weight, add in great cold and she would want nothing to do with her current bonds.
They, the three remaining of Mongen’s troupe, moved into a pass headed in the first valley of the mountains near where the forest ended. Mongen stopped them half a day’s ride in, before they fully made it into the valley.
“I smell fire on the breeze,” he said.
Ultrina closed her eyes and took a hearty sniff of the air. There was indeed the smell of smoke on the breeze, yet she couldn’t tell if it was a cook fire or a brush fire brought on by lightning. Fire could be a fickle friend in the best of circumstances. They didn’t want to be trapped somewhere because of a fire out of control.
With a sigh, Tal dismounted from behind Ultrina and stepped forward as if she would go on foot into the fire alone.
“Where are you going?” Ultrina asked, voice rising in confusion.
“I’m going to scout ahead and see what there is to see,” Tal said before giving Ultrina a wane smile. “That is if our expedition leader doesn’t mind.”
Mongen waved her forward.
“I’ll stay here with the prisoner,” he said.
Tal was gone an hour as the pair waited behind for what she would bring back.
When Tal returned, Mongen had helped Ultrina to dismount and the horses were feeding from the sparse grass.
“There’s a caravan in the valley. They are the fires you smell.” Tal’s report brought a frown to Mongen’s face.
“Can we avoid them?”
“I think we might be better off joining them.”
“They will ask questions about why one of our number travels bound?”
“You wear the colors of the Royal Guard; invoke your oath of silence.”
Ultrina kept her eyes closed, but listened carefully. Tal must have had a point because Mongen didn’t speak for a long moment.
“Why do you want to join the caravan?” he asked.
“They are going in the right direction. They have guards, which will help us to be protected against what’s in the mountains. They have unspoiled rations. And the company probably wouldn’t be too bad.”
Tal’s assessment sounded good to Ultrina’s ears, not to mention more people would allow her to disappear into the crowd when the time came. There was no telling when that time would come, but she needed to insure she was taken care of and having others around to keep Mongen from pressing them too hard would be a good thing.
“Ultrina,” Mongen called her name. “Tell me what you think.”
“We may need the cover,” Ultrina said. “Deal with their questions about me however you like, we may need the cover and the assistance.”
“Sister Tal,” Mongen said, invoking the name of Tal’s station. “I want you to go to them and ask if there is something we can do to assist them. If they are in need of swords, they can have it. I will even offer them passage on the King’s road if that is what it takes to get them to agree.”
Ultrina flicked her eyes to the soldier when he mentioned the King’s road. No one but official messengers and those who bore the seal of the King were allowed to use the King’s road for any reason. If you were found on it without the appropriate seal, then you could be detained or even killed. Mongen wanted their assistance badly.
Why?
The question rattled in Ultrina’s head like knuckle bones for divination. Why did Mongen want them to join the caravan so much now? It wasn’t as if he were truly swayed by what he had been told by Tal or even her answer; therefore, there must have been something else. Ultrina put the thought away in her mind. She didn’t need to worry over it. If they made better time because of the caravan, all the better for her because the sooner she could get these bindings off.
The trio approached the valley and those who were already in it with caution. There was no telling how they would be received.
Ultrina put her hands against the pommel of her saddle to hide the fact that her hands were bound together. The immediate question of who she was or why she was traveling with a Royal Guardsman and a Sister were those she would prefer not to answer. Let Mongen or Tal do all the talking.
Ultrina kept her eyes lowered but active, seeing everything around her from their hooded state.
Something was wrong with this caravan.
The ground looked as if the horses had already cropped it clean. Alba whinnied and Ultrina immediately moved to sooth him. The air, tainted with fire smoke, smelled off. Reaching out around her, Ultrina began to count the people she felt. There were, of course, the toughs who made up the caravan’s protection detail. There were a few women with them, cooks and caretakers most likely, or consorts of those who were traveling.
Tal, who had remounted behind Ultrina for the approach, leaned up to whisper in her ear.
“Something feels melancholy about them.”
Without opening her eyes any further, Ultrina began to catalog the dress of those around her. All of them, to the last man, wore something white. Smocks, dresses, bands, something white in every outfit. Unexpected to say the least. White, like purple, was a color of significance in the Holy Land. It spoke of those who had passed on. She had to wonder who had passed on from the caravan and how recently. Were they still clinging onto life as they knew it or had they passed on and everyone was simply finishing their ritual mourning?
It would explain why the caravan had not moved in some time. Ritual mourning did not allow for trade or any kind of commerce. To be caught in the wilderness without friends during a death, that was a great issue to come to.
Mongen called a halt to his party and once more gestured Tal to come forward to do the negotiating.
The trio which came forward from the caravan were two women and a man. Ultrina marked their faces in case it should become useful later. She might need to beg a favor, so she wanted to know who to go to.
Tal took a blanket from the saddlebags and went to the sit on it close enough that the trio could join her.
“I do not bring drink,” Tal said. “Because I fear we have come at a hard time for you.” The trio formed a triangle with one of the women at the head.
“I am Narsan and I will speak for my own.”
Narsan sat down on the blanket with the other two flanking her.
“Narsan-eli,” Tal said with an inclination of her head. “Mine have come from a desperate place and seek your aid.”
“We do not know what aid we can provide,” Narsan said. “We ourselves are in a desperate place and cannot move from this spot.”
Ultrina listened closer at Tal’s next words, waiting for rather or not there would actually be help from this caravan. Doubt crept in and settled like a bird in a nearby tree, visible but untouchable.
“What ails your people?”
Knowing what she knew of Sisters, Ultrina had to wonder if Narsan and hers would accept any help offered to them. As the unwanted, Sisters were often turned away when it came to being part of the world.
Narsan’s eyebrows shot up as if she could not believe what she was hearing. Her hands clasped together and the man of the trio put a hand on her shoulder. Putting her hand over his, Narsan turned her head to look at her female companion. The woman nodded a slow yes and Narsan took a deep breath which she let out in a sigh.
“Our child is afflicted and lies upon their deathbed.”
“You wear the white of the dead,” Tal said.
“We do, but something is not right about what has occurred. She lingers.”
Ultrina brought her head up slowly so as not to alert anyone to her movement. Her eyes skimmed the caravan wagons, trying to find the one where the child lay. Though there were several, the vision of one who lingered should have been easy to spot. When she found it, Ultrina blinked at the way her vision doubled. There was something else going on in that wagon and it was nothing anyone else would be able to see.
“Say what you mean?” Tal asked.
“Our daughter lingers at the veil. She is neither dead nor alive and there is a strangeness to it.”
“A strangeness.” Mongen urged his horse forward and it stopped right at the edge of the blanket.
“Yes,” Narsan said. “A strangeness. We have been stopped here a week. Our supplies are many, but even they will not sustain us forever. I fear, we can offer little help.”
“What have you done to combat it?”
“Our Oloa has been with her the entire time, chanting over her and offering sacrifices on her behalf to see her over to the other side. Nothing has worked. She breathes but will not wake. Her mind is gone, but we cannot do anything further. Until she dies or lives, we cannot move.”
Tal sniffed at the mention of the medicine man. They were not of the Church and that meant the caravan existed outside of the sanction. Which could very well mean they would not look so well on the Royal Guard being involved in their doings. Were they a caravan of illegal traders? If they were, they might well murder them all in their sleep to take what they had.
Narsan continued. “Our child is our only. It is with deepest regret we see her to the other side.” Narsan’s female consort put her hand on her belly and rubbed it clockwise, a blessing that she might have another in Ultrina’s eyes.
Ultrina’s double vision settled back into a single as she moved her eyes to the Oloa in the wagon. The Oloa gave off a mystical mist where he stood, undoubtedly because he was invoking the powers near and beyond the veil in hopes of gaining their aid. She could not hear him chanting, but she watched him move. He danced in her vision, which she expected. They hardly moved like real people, but they were of the world and not. Much like the Sisters themselves.
Ultrina closed her eyes and murmured a necrotic blessing over the caravan. If the Oloa could not guide the child to the other side, then perhaps she was not yet meant to go. Perhaps she was meant to live. Ultrina’s specialty was with the dead or nearly dead to see them to the other side; however, she had to consider that she might be able to do something further for these people.
If she could solve their problem, the caravan would move on and things would be better for everyone. Maybe and if. And that was assuming Mongen would even allow her, a monster, to help.
Narsan rose from her place on the blanket and bowed to Tal before casting her eyes on Mongen.
“You are of the Royal Guard,” she stated. “We are not of your kind.” There it was, stated plainly.
“Do you honor the place of the King?” Mongen asked.
“We do.”
“Then you are of my kind,” Mongen said. “Let us join with you.”
“If you wish,” Narsan said. “Our caravan may be your home until you move on.” Narsan looked at Ultrina who did not duck her head or attempt to hide in anyway. “And this one? Is she your consort, Guardsman?”
Ultrina probably could have held in the laugh, but she made no attempt to. Her, Mongen’s consort, there was an amusing thought.
“No, she is not. We travel as three together, but unbound to one another,” Mongen said.
“We offer unbound their own bedrolls,” Narsan said. “Though I assume you would prefer a wagon for the three of you.”
Tal nodded at Narsan’s assessment. The woman was astute, which Ultrina considered quite a good thing. Narsan did not ask why they traveled together as the unbound, but then again, perhaps she didn’t care. The affairs of those she did business with were perhaps just as often her business as they were not.
Narsan led the group back toward the caravan. Tal walked with them, but slightly behind having thrown the blanket over her shoulder. The small woman, with her hair covered, looked vaguely out of place to Ultrina; however, she had to consider as a Sister this was often true.
The caravan, with its wagons painted maroon and gold, stood out against the landscape as they caught the light. The green and brown of the growing mountains offered quite a backdrop. Ultrina did not attempt to dismount when they reached what looked as if it were the guest wagon. No crest beyond that of the caravan proper adorned it to say it belonged to a triumvirate.
“This will be your wagon, feel free to hitch your horses to it and settle inside,” Narsan said.
Ultrina waited for Mongen to help her dismount. Having her hands tied, she could ask Alba to kneel and dismount that way, but Ultrina didn’t want to press her luck. For now, she needed to play things as carefully as possible.
Mongen assisted her in dismounting and Narsan noticed, perhaps for the first time, that Ultrina’s hands were bound. However, the woman said nothing. Her eyes simply flickered from Ultrina’s bonds to the purple of the Guardsman’s shoulder. Perhaps she thought Ultrina a criminal being brought back for whatever reason. It didn’t matter in Ultrina’s eyes. They would rest for a while and maybe they would stay with the caravan or go.
Once they were inside, Tal settled on one of the three bunks which lined three sides of the wagon. Mongen stooped, his head inches from the ceiling. It would be quite a feat for him to sleep in the wagon. Ultrina sat down and waited for them to say something.
There were places to stow a little bit of their gear, but most of it would have to remain on the horses.
“What do you make of what’s going on?” Mongen asked Tal, gesturing to the small woman as he spoke.
“I don’t know. They do what is right in the eyes of the church, yet it is obvious they are not of the church if they allow an Oloa to operate within their camp.”
“And what do you make of their dilemma?”
“The child most likely had an accident and clings to life. They will eventually die and the caravan will move on.”
“There’s something else at work here,” Ultrina said quietly, almost too quietly for them to hear. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself for her abilities, but there was no way things were going to progress the way the pair assumed.
“What did you say?”
“There is something else at work here,” Ultrina repeated. “Something the Oloa might not be able to deal with but which will keep the child alive indefinitely.”
“And how do you know this?” Ultrina favored Mongen with a flat stare before shaking her head.
“You dragged me away from my life,” Ultrina said. “And have force marched me into this wilderness. You can at least listen to what I have to say.”
“You are a maker of monsters,” Mongen said. “Your way is destructive. Let Sister Tal attempt to handle it and then we shall see.”
Tal blinked rapidly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Mongen said. “You know full well the veil. So speak to the child and send it forward into what must happen. Fear may well bind her to this place.”
Tal sighed. Mongen spoke truth.
Ultrina shook her head and then laboriously turned her back on the pair. They weren’t listening to her and she had perhaps the most knowledge of the veil between the living and the dead. Just as well, let them make their mistakes and see what came of it. Tal left the wagon not long after, leaving Mongen and Ultrina alone in silence.
Ultrina bit her tongue against saying something further to the Captain while she had his solo ear. She had not been making fun when she said they should listen to what she had to say. Of course there were things those who did not deal with the veil often would not know and Ultrina did not expect that Tal spent much time studying the things which might well affect the child held between life and death. However, it was not her decision to make; therefore, she would abide in the wisdom, which might be instead hubris, of others.
Tal went to Narsan who sat near a cook fire stirring a pot of a savory smelling broth based soup.
“I would like to see your child,” Tal said.
“I do not think that would be wise,” Narsan said without looking up. Tal knew her to be an older woman, perhaps on her second triumvirate, but that did not mean she would fight back against the decision of a Sister.
“I ask only because it is polite.” The stock phrase brought Narsan’s head up to bring their eyes together. Then Narsan shook her head. She called out for one of her crew to come and tend the pot before she rose from the makeshift seat beneath her and straightened her dress. It floated near to the ankle, but left her feet fully exposed, a dress meant for travel. The emblem on the chest matched the crests on the wagons. She was a woman of means, but Tal still wondered if those means were being taxed by this expedition which was taking too long.
Narsan led the way to a wagon draped in white linen. Even the door had been covered. Pulling the cover aside, Narsan stepped into the wagon to the sound of a man chanting melodically. She sidled to one side to allow Tal entrance. The Oloa opened his eyes at their entrance and Tal suppressed a gasp at his appearance. How anyone so dirty could be allowed to come anywhere near a child, she didn’t know, but Tal wanted him out with the immediacy of vomit.
“I need you to leave,” Tal said matter-of-factly.
The Oloa looked from Tal to Narsan as if asking permission to speak. Narsan shook her head and gestured for him to make his way to the open doorway. With a ducked head, he excused himself from the wagon.
This wagon was one obviously meant to entertain children, the interior painted in bright colors with various toys arranged in their spaces on the walls. In the center, however, lay a covered body.
“What is her name?” Tal asked.
“Narsakin,” Narsan said. “She is named for me.”
“Where are the others?”
“They are kept with the Consorts for now. This is no place for them.”
“How did this happen?”
“Near here there is a cave and the children went exploring. One returned, weeping, that something had happened to Narsakin. We found the other children holding her and though she seemed to still be alive, her heart did not beat and she did not breath. We brought her back to the wagon then and began to observe mourning; however, the Oloa sensed something and sought to do something about it himself. My child does not rot.”
“How long ago was this?”
“More than a turn of days.”
“A turn of days and she has not begun to smell or rot?”
“No. What you smell in this room is not coming from the body. It is as if there is nothing there at all.”
Tal closed her eyes and stepped over to the white linen covering the body.
“I will uncover her, is this alright?”
“As you have said, you only ask to be polite.” Narsan closed her eyes as Tal uncovered the body. Beneath the cloth was a girl, perhaps no more than nine, who had the obvious features of Narsan’s female consort but Narsan’s black hair splayed beneath her head. The child was still beautiful, untouched by the corruption which should have easily ravaged her body.
“Have you attempted to burn her?”
“Our people do not burn our dead.”
“You bury them? Will you leave a marker along your trail for your return to give thanks?”
“Bodies travel with us, in our custom, until we reach the place of our root and then they are placed there, so yes, we bury our dead.”
Tal nodded in acceptance. Not all who traveled purified their dead, so she would do well to follow the custom of those with whom she did business.
“Bring me a bowl of clean water. Boiled if you must.”
Narsan left the wagon to fulfill Tal’s request. Tal sat down at the head of the body, her hands flat on either side of the head. Then she began to hum. The ritual magic of the Sisters would allow her to shepherd the child to the veil and beyond, but it would take time. All important things took time.
When Narsan entered to the sound of Tal’s humming, she set the bowl of water at the door and left.
Tal knew her voice could not hold out long enough on its own. She would need to replenish it throughout the night if she was going to help them figure out what had happened to this child. As she hummed, her hands became misty and she closed them over the child’s head and face, passing her hands through the bone and into the essence, the soul. With such a connection, Tal felt the final moments of this child’s wakefulness.
There was a cave and it sounded as though it would be fun to explore. She was not alone, but with three other children of the caravan, two of them her siblings. Each of them vowed they would look after the other.
What’s in the cave? Tal questioned.
The cave mouth stood before them hulking and certain of its depths. One of them reasoned it couldn’t go very far; after all, they were only in the base of the mountains.
They had been wrong.
Narsakin’s bewilderment at being lost and out of sight of the light turned into fear and then panic when she realized how alone she was. Then there came the whisper.
It offered her solace if she would just find her way to it.
Tal recognized any whisper coming from the heart of a mountain could be something quite dangerous.
Tal let go of her reach into Narsakin’s memories.
“A whisper from the heart of the mountain,” Tal murmured to herself before crawling to the bowl of water and picking it up to take a sip. “What darkness resides near here that it would take a child?”
Without putting the bowl down, Tal rose to her feet and began to pace.
Whatever was going on here, they needed to investigate the cave and its whispering presence. Sighing, Tal considered Mongen’s view on the idea. He would probably find it unnecessary because he knew little of how magic truly worked. To defeat something like this, she needed to take it on at the source.
The child was a candle lit by a bonfire; without getting rid of the bonfire, there was no point in extinguishing the candle.
Tal stopped, took another sip, and then shook her head. If she was going to find out what happened, she needed to either dive deeper into the child’s mind and risk becoming trapped there or go out and see the cave itself and risk becoming trapped there. There was no way to handle this which did not involve her risking her own life and limb.
“Life is sacred.”
Her oath to the Sisterhood meant that everyone else’s life was worth more than her own, however, so risk her life she would to see this child moved on to the afterlife or restored to the life she had left.
Mongen would have a vision of what she should do, and an opinion about her choices because he was her commanding officer. Tal placed the bowl down on the floor and once more knelt beside the body of Narsakin.
“Each child born comes from starlight,” she murmured. Then she placed three fingers at the top of the child’s head. Those fingers plunged through the child’s forehead and back into her spirit. Tal did what she could to emanate peace through her being to the child beneath her.
Thrown backwards hard enough to impact the wall and shake the wagon, Tal blinked her eyes rapidly as the world began to fade at the edges. Her mouth formed a word that her throat did not utter and she dropped her head to the wagon floor and lay there, unconscious.
Awakening some time later, Tal blinked again. The wood beneath her cheek had grown warm from the time she spent lying there.
“What the…?” Her eyes focused on the first thing they saw, a doll. A cloth rag doll made to amuse a small child, but a moment later, Tal gasped.
The doll floated a good foot from the floor of the wagon without a thing touching it and gave off the faintest of a green glow.
In the center of the room, Narsakin floated as well, the linen sheet having fallen from her body to reveal how she had changed. Her eyes were open in hollowed sockets and white as the mourning shroud. Tal shivered as she pulled her knees underneath her and moved to stand.
What’s happening, Tal tried to piece together what was going on. She had, a moment earlier to her mind, touched the soul of the child. Then she remembered being dealt a great blow as though a giant had thrust her backward and into the wall. Barely turning her head, Tal tried to take in the entire wagon. The toys all floated in their spaces, bobbing as though in water like the child before her.
“What’s going on?” Tal asked. She had never seen anything like this before, nor had her training prepared her for the eventuality of seeing it in truth.
“Get out,” said a strong voice from Narsakin’s mouth. No child spoke with such force or authority. A moment later, the toys ceased to simply float, but they gathered, summoned, to the center of the room forming a ring around the girl. “Get out,” came the command again.
Tal considered running, ducking around the toys and the girl and going to the door of the wagon; however, she didn’t dare just leave and allow whatever presence had taken over Narsakin’s body remain unchecked. Certainly there had to be something she could do.
The doll came at her first. It spun through the air under its own power and hit Tal’s hands as she protected her chest. A toy wagon came next and splintered against the barrier Tal erected to keep herself safe. This was getting her nowhere. Another toy, thrown with much more force, shattered against the shield. Whatever inhabited the girl intended to pummel Tal into submission.
Tal counted the remaining toys and considered her barrier. It might survive all those hits, or it might not. Even if it did, there was no telling what else might come out of this. Flinching away from another broken toy falling to the floor, Tal again considered how she could get away.
This was beyond her.
Perhaps beyond even an Elder Sister and Tal had not the training for that.
The barrier showed cracks when another toy hit it. She wouldn’t be able to survive for too much longer without another plan. An offensive spell might well have done her better, but she didn’t want to damage the child. Whatever was happening, she was merely a victim of it. There was no reason for her to destroy the little girl along with the entity which had come to them.
Sidling to one side, Tal kept her barrier up for as long as she was able. Then when she dropped it, she ran, throwing herself toward the door. She hit it and fought to open it, trying to swing it both inward then outward yet neither worked. It was stuck tight. She pressed her body against it and a toy shattered against the wood near her head. Sinking to the floor, Tal screamed for help.
She could only hope help would come before her death did.