Nomad Moon (Bound Worlds Book 1), page 6
Once I arrived, I rummaged around the disorganized shelves and counters until I eventually happened upon a dusty, leather-bound tome with a decorative buckle entitled Mythologies of the Steppe by Pyre the Literate. I skimmed its glossary for a few keywords and sure enough there they all were waiting for me: Egress, Ishu, Lehktei (see Nomad,) Waste (the.)
This’ll be a good start, I ruminated. Satisfied, I turned to Thread, who had been glaring at me sulkily from behind a messy counter. His small, circular eyeglasses dangled precariously off the end of his nose as I handed him the four pieces owed. He grunted. I thanked him. And then I left without another word.
That evening, the bodies of the three townspeople who had been killed by the Photaur were to be committed to flame. The woman - named Ivy - who had worked as a handmaiden to the Noyan’s wife and the two men, both of whom were guardsmen posted to the Upper Tier, had died at the scene. One other man, named Grit, who was Tack - my employer’s - first cousin, had been grievously wounded by the creature and was being cared for at the infirmary.
It really did seem like the Photaur could have ravaged its way through the entire town had Vein of Hingow not been there to fight it. The speed and efficiency of its killings were hard to reconcile. My thoughts again returned to the crowds of people who had turned out at the market square that evening to watch the Nomad fight for our survival. What hubris, I thought.
I shuddered as a rogue gale blasted me as I exited the alleyway, almost causing Mythologies of the Steppe to plummet out from under my arm. I fumbled around with it but regained control just as a familiar voice called my name from the direction of the market. I twisted around awkwardly, catching a glimpse of Aurora’s lovely gap-toothed smile emanating a short distance away from me.
“Hi!” I said - much too loudly - as I stood up straight.
“Hello, stranger,” she said. She was standing at a narrow market stall with a bald man I recognized as her father. He continued browsing the cheeses, as his raven-haired daughter glided over to me. “I believe I have something of yours’.”
“Oh?” I ran my free hand through my hair, messing it up a bit.
“Your dagger. You gave it to me before dashing off to save the day the other night.” She reached into a small red bag she had slung over her shoulder and felt around for the blade.
“Oh. Right. Well, hey,” I reached out a hand and placed it lightly over her forearm. Her eyes snapped onto me. “Why don’t you keep it? It could be good for you to carry one around with you. Did you hear about that marauder raid near Sunga last month? You never know.”
Her smile was almost ethereal. I looked dumbly at her for a second, then inelegantly retracted my hand and placed it onto the spine of the book I held under the opposite arm.
“Are you sure?” her gaze crept down to the book. “It’s a nice knife. All those strange decorations on the handle.” She pivoted: “Hey. What’re you reading?”
“I’m sure. Don’t worry, it’s yours. Urm…” I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve been eying. I saw it discounted, so…”
“Beam told me you’re a big reader. I need to read more - I suppose we’re lucky to even be literate. My father can barely read the names of the cheeses on the signs over there.”
We grinned at each other, but she turned her head as her father, coincidentally, hailed her. “Rora,” he called. “I’m going to look at the vegetables.”
“Okay!” She called back, before bringing her crescent stare back around to me. “Hey…so, I guess I’ll see you around, Brume. Don’t let Beam over to the Shroudcap again without you.”
“I won’t. See you around, Aurora.” I felt the round vowels of her name melt away on my tongue as I spoke them. Within a moment she had turned around and crossed the road to the market. I began on my way up the steps again, towards home.
We had told no one of the information my mother had imparted the other night. She had been putting off her inevitable conversation with Rime, whilst Beam had gone back to work the day after the attack. Tack the Fletcher had temporarily closed down his shop as a result of his cousin’s condition, and so I had mostly stayed home, reading contently.
Upon my return from the bookshop, I set Mythologies of the Steppe down on the mantelpiece and sighed breathlessly. Li Li strutted out from my mother’s room and gave out a little screep screep for hello and I bent down to stroke her across the arc of her tiny head.
“I was only gone twenty minutes,” I said to her, rubbing my forefinger around her chin. “It’s not the end of the Worlds.”
Standing up, I crossed to the pantry to scrounge around for a bite to eat, settling for a rather angular hunk of rye bread. Some stray, thick globs of rain splattered against the nearby window as I picked up the tome again and stepped into my room. Li Li trailed me and climbed up onto the foot of my bed as I lay down to read, placing my lunch on the nightstand beside me.
The book was at the very least thirty years old. Probably a good deal older. It didn’t include anything about the Red War. I skimmed through the back half…there was nothing on the assassination of Mote Khan the Younger. No mention of the invasion of the Dei Khanate by the armies of Korul of Yellin. Everything up until that point seemed to be covered rather comprehensively, but I hadn’t bought the tome for a history lesson, so I turned back to the first relevant section, which just so happened to be…the first one. Titled The Makers and the Gates Between the Worlds, Pyre the Literate’s opening chapter began - rather unhelpfully - with a summary of events that occurred before the inception of human civilization: the creation of one World from the blazing forges of Flaror, its division into two to form Jerrid and Ishu, their molding into orbiting spheres. So on and so forth. I skimmed forward from there until I came across a double-page spread, which was a faded map of Jerrid’s sole continent. I planted my finger on the page, north of the center of the Waste on a triangular pin starkly labeled, ‘EGRESS’.
“So. There you are,” I muttered to myself as Li Li made herself comfortable between my outstretched legs. Most maps of the world I had seen failed to include the exact location of Jerrid’s only Egress. Yet, there it was then. I measured its distance roughly using the map’s scale in the corner, discovering that I had been broadly correct the other night. Just under seven hundred miles - as the Tagrin flies - give or take a few dozen. A formidable journey, elongated by the fact that we would be sticking to the mountains most of the way. A trip that would require intricate planning.
I studied the map for a while, doing some vague route mapping in my head, before reading on. A rough drawing of a triangular structure set on a stone dais took up another half-page. The Egress, I supposed. Opposite, the author provided a timeline of the relevant history, from the end of the Maker War, seventeen hundred years ago, to the years preceding the recent Red War.
“The (Great) Maker War was the most destructive conflict in human history,” wrote Pyre. “Some estimates put the death toll at five million, which at the time, was about ten percent of the population of the Bound Worlds.”
“When humanity eventually overthrew and killed their Maker overlords, the modern era of history began. Now, all that remains from the era of Maker rule are the Egresses, a monument to their genius, and terrible power.”
“The same Flaror-sent power thuds through the veins of our Nomads, who may travel freely between the twin planets through the use of the Egresses. One Egress, marked on the map overleaf, is located in Jerrid’s great desert, the Waste, while the other seven are spread across the surface of Ishu.”
“Regrettably, gaining trustworthy insights into Ishun society is difficult. The governments of the Protectorate, the Nomad Moon’s greatest empire, promise that new, innovative checks and balances have been imposed on the Nomads, to ensure their political neutrality. Such checks and balances have been agreed upon by all Ishun governments, and Nomads remain the arbiters of accord and unity on our sister world.”
I turned the page hungrily, reading on through the afternoon.
As the dreary daylight dimmed, my brother and mother returned home one after the other.
I showed Beam the map I had been studying right as he walked in the door, hastily running him through the various possible routes to the Egress. He nodded tiredly and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Mother still doesn’t think you’re coming, Brother. Best to keep this…” He closed shut the open book balancing on my forearm, “...out of sight for the time being. Hm?”
“Fair enough,” I agreed.
When my mother arrived, we said our hellos and how are yous, then changed into appropriate clothing, which for each of us, was our deels. My brother and I had one such outfit each - his was a burnt orange colored cotton tunic with yellow stitching, mine was slate gray with navy blue adornments - but my mother took her time, choosing from a small collection she had accumulated over the years. She settled on an understated sage robe, with a matching hat that hung over the back of her head and covered most of her dark hair.
I gave Li Li a bowl with some jerky and leftover stew and she gratefully devoured it as we stepped out of the house. Looking out across the valley, the twilight of our neighboring planet hummed behind the violent gray clouds overhead, giving it all a much-needed semblance of color. We promptly meandered down to the ajar East Gate, past the shallow cliff which balanced Vein of Hingow’s sundered boulder above it, and then arrived at the banks of the river where three piles of timber had been arranged in the shadow of two great, azure Shroudcaps. If it rains, at least they’ll have shelter sorted, I mused bleakly.
People continuously filtered to the site, winding down the road from town. Aunt Rime appeared; alone, unsurprisingly. She, like my mother, was widowed, but unlike her, had no children. Slowly, she made her way over to us. I said hello and gave her a short nod. Beam grunted and folded his arms, taking immediate, special interest in the gentle meander of the river and the further Shroudcaps dotted along its banks. What is going on with those two? I looked between them, considering. Beam could hold a grudge, I knew that to be true. He was a proud person who didn’t like being slighted. Yet, until recently, Rime had served as a font of wisdom and support for him, and to us. Up until a few months ago, she had regularly taken us hunting, continually sparred with Beam, and afforded me a good deal of help with my shooting.
I looked over at my aunt again and then felt what I thought was a faint echo of pity. She hadn’t been the same since her partner, Sorrel died the year before. Beam should have afforded her a little bit of leeway, I thought. He would have to, if Rime was to accompany us to the Egress. That was if my mother ever decided to speak with her sister about it.
Amongst the now burgeoning crowd, I spotted Aurora, in the same yellow dress she had been wearing the day of the Miradaur and Photaur attack, standing alongside her father. I thought I saw the man glancing over at me once before his shining bald head swiveled back around to his daughter. Last to arrive - amongst a small procession of orange-sashed guardsmen - was Shin Noyan and his tall and delicate-looking Yellin wife, with her softly shaded hair and pale face. They were flanked by the Nomad, who had somehow managed to clean the Megalopredator’s blood and guts off his white armor. His plate mail looked just as pristine as it had on the morning of his arrival. His menacing war mask shrouded a stormy expression, and he held his right arm off at a slight angle behind him, his fist almost clenched. All eyes, it seemed, shifted to him as he glowered behind the Noyan.
The Elegy began slowly at first, with the men of the village opening with the bass melody: a chromatic movement in an unstable mode. As the song began, six guards - two for each of the bodies, draped in dark leather shoals to disguise their shape - moved out to the central wood stacks. They heaved the heavy masses onto their respective pyres. My brother and I softly echoed the others singing, our mouths remaining close-to-shut as our throats oscillated, grumbling like long-dormant volcanoes awakening. The churning melody crescendoed as the women of the town joined in, mouths agape, producing a counter-punctual chant that went, simply:
Jirrim lak tao,
Jirrim lak gali,
Orin Flaror,
Karuni kal ea lao.
Which was then repeated, thrice more to the same melody. It was Old-Deian, and roughly translated to, ‘Beyond the abyss, Beyond the Worlds, Immortal Flaror, Conquering life and death.’
After the fourth round, Sap, the lead Cleric at the Sun’s Pagoda descended from behind the Nomad and the Noyan. His head was closely shaved, except for a single, thick black braid which was drawn out from the crown of his head and draped over his left shoulder (always the left.) It split out into two bronze-beaded knots at his breast. He wore a blond robe that puffed out unflatteringly at the waist and dragged over the ground as he walked.
Sap held a lit torch in his right hand, which he touched to each of the three pyres one by one. Each then swiftly went up into a fated flame. We bowed our heads as inevitable silence - mired only by the crackling of the firewood - descended over us.
TEN
“WHAT’S ON THE menu tonight, then?” Rime uncorked an emerald bottle of wine and brought it over her mug to pour.
Her closely cropped, silver-streaked hair - a hangover from her soldiering years - framed a square and weathered face. Her broad, bold features were punctuated by an off-center nose that had undergone some punishment in years gone by. My mother had extended an invitation to dinner to our aunt at the funeral’s conclusion, to which Rime had assented. She hadn’t been around in some time.
“Yaxbeast,” my mother responded whilst confidently slicing some vegetables atop the wooden counter. Rime slid the bottle back into a narrow cupboard at one end of the kitchen and swung around to inspect her sibling’s knife work. On the other side of the main room, Beam, who had just returned from collecting water from the nearby well, was decanting a bucket into the blackened pot hanging over the fire pit.
“Speaking of which, Brume.” My mother craned her head mid-slice. “Be a Spirit and fetch the meat from the cellar, would you? A leg will be enough.”
I was hovering by the circular table situated on the right side of the room by the door to my mother’s chamber. My attention shifted back to the world and her expectant expression. I nodded, snatched a tall candle from a holder on the table, and crossed the room to the cellar entrance, which lay next to my room. Beyond the crooked door were several stone steps cut out into the building’s foundation which ran sharply downward into a shadowed expanse. I held the candle ahead and sidestepped carefully down onto the first indent.
At the bottom, I shimmied around a collection of wooden barrels and swerved back toward the front of the cellar. Glancing momentarily into the dancing candle flame I held before me, my mind drifted to the funeral pyres. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, I pondered as I felt my way around the darkness. Could I really hope to travel with Beam across that dreadful desert expanse to the gate between the Worlds?
How would I feel, anyway, when he stepped through the Egress, vanishing beyond an unknowable veil on his way to the Nomad Moon?
Majestic, enigmatic Ishu…
Good for him, I thought. If it was to be anyone…then, of course, I’d want it to be Beam.
Holding my candle to a series of hooks dangling beneath a tiny window, I studied the haunches of white and rouge meat, swinging them to and fro to get a better view of the ones tucked away behind. In the daytime, the window behind them would have - barely - illuminated the cellar, but was non-functional amongst the ebbing darkness of the evening.
Did I feel a twinge of jealousy for Beam? Maybe I did. My brother really would have been happy enough riding off with the Khan’s men. Patrolling the southern border and the fringes of the Steppe. But now, I supposed, he was destined for far greater things.
My thoughts betrayed me, as a small smirk formed across my lips. A few days prior, I had been anxious about Beam leaving me behind for the army for a few years. Now he would be departing the planet itself. My brother would fly off to that impossibly blue sphere - that eternal fixture of our night sky - to become something close to a deity. I might have visited him at Hingow or an outpost on the Steppe. Now, I’d be lucky if I ever saw him again on this great, depressing rock.
I was being foolish. Brooding once again. Of course, I’d go with him. This was the sort of thing we had been training our whole lives for. Beam and I were more than capable of seeing this through, and if Rime came with us, the journey would be swift and manageable.
Now I just had to convince my mother to let me go with them.
My mother ladled a helping of stew into four bowls.
Famished, I took my seat with my back to the front door, opposite my mother and next to Rime and Beam, and shortly tucked in.
“Well, I’d like to thank Beam and Brume for bringing this meat to our table.” My mother clasped her hands together, a spoon dangling between them, and smiled at me. “I hope it tastes as good as it looks.”
“It tastes great, Ma,” I whispered after swallowing a spoonful.
“Delicious, Aria,” Rime grunted in agreement.
Beam said nothing, instead ruminating on his first mouthful.
Then, we ate in silence for a while. At one point, my aunt stood up unprompted and walked over to the pantry, bending down to reclaim the emerald bottle she had opened earlier.
I hazarded a look at Beam. His expression was frozen like stone. Rime came back over and placed the bottle on the table. She sat down, uncorked it, and then poured more of the pale green liquid into her mug.
“More wine?” Beam bowed his head and dredged up some meat from the depths of his bowl. “On the night of a funeral? Is that proper?”
