The Ring of Five Dragons, page 20
part #1 of The Pearl Series
“N’Luuura take me!” His breath was an indrawn gasp. “Where are my tender parts?”
At once, he put his hand to his throat. What had happened to his voice? It was more than an octave too high.
He scrambled off the bed and almost fell to the floor. Nothing worked right. His arms and legs were too short, colors seemed strange. He remembered this cottage from before he went to sleep—Bartta’s cottage, Giyan’s twin sister. But everything looked slightly different, as if he was seeing it in a mirror.
A mirror! That’s what he needed.
He crawled along the floor, pulled himself to his feet by leaning against an old and ornately carved chest of drawers. He steadied himself as a wave of dizziness overtook him. He swallowed hard, hoping he would not throw up. When he began to feel better he went frantically through the drawers, pushing aside clothes and personal items until he located a small, oval hand mirror. Whipping it out, he held it up in front of his face.
“N’Luuura take it!”
He was a she! There was thick golden hair sprouting all over the top and back of his head! He was a Kundalan!
This was a nightmare. It could not be happening. He slammed the mirror into his face again and again, but the reflection did not change. Where was his own body? Where was he?
“Giyan!” he screamed in the high female voice as he stumbled through the cottage. “Giyan, where are you? What has happened to me?”
He dropped the mirror. He heard it shatter only dimly; he was retching too hard. Gasping and groaning, he dragged his lithe alien body back to the bed, pushed aside the bedcovers that had fallen to the floor. Digging with alien nails, scrabbling with alien hands, he pried up the floorboards he had discovered were loose just after Giyan had brought him in here. The old leather-bound book Giyan had cautioned him to keep safe was still there, as was the knife Eleana had given him. He pulled them out, ran his hands over them. They were real. He wasn’t insane. His past was his past. Safe. It was his present that was uncertain and unknown.
He would have to keep his thoughts to himself until he could find Giyan and—
He stiffened at the noise. Someone was coming into the cottage. Quickly, he stuffed his precious possessions back into the hole, placed the floorboards over them. Then he scrambled back into bed and closed his eyes, not a moment too soon.
Returning to her cottage, Bartta went directly into Riane’s room. See-IVing that the girl was still asleep, she returned to the great room, hung up her cloak, and took up the long wooden spoon on the stones by the hearth. She hefted a thick, shallow bowl of green ceramic and ladled some stew into it. She had meant to eat it, but she found that she had no appetite, so she took it into the girl’s bedroom.
Riane was sitting up, staring at her.
Bartta froze as if there was a spice-adder curled up on her bedsheets. She could feel her heart hammering in her breast, and for a long moment it felt as though she had forgotten how to breathe. Now there is no help for it, she thought, the future staring her in the face.
“How do you feel?” Bartta said when she at last found her voice.
Riane said nothing, and Bartta smiled, stepping over the shards of mirror, cautiously offering the bowl. “You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten in days.”
Riane grabbed it from her, ate with ravenous speed while keeping a wary eye on her like a creature from the wilderness. Bartta was required to fill the bowl twice more before the girl was sated.
Bartta sat beside her. “Can you talk to me, Riane?”
“Where is Giyan? I need to talk to her.”
“It’s all right.”
“Now!” Riane screamed, throwing the empty bowl against the wall.
Bartta slapped him, hard then, as he began to fight back, pressed him back into the bed.
“You are safe now,” she said, her face close to his. “But you must come to terms with the changes.” She glanced again at the broken mirror. “You are no longer Annon. You are Riane, a Kundalan female. For your own good and the good of those around you, you put aside your male V’ornn personality.” Annon, inside the body of Riane, struggled against her, unused to this body’s lack of bulk and strength in comparison with his own. “Annon’s enemies are everywhere. If you do not adjust, if you allow Annon to leak out, they will surely get wind of it, and they will destroy you. I am Ramahan. I have few ways to fight back against the V’omn.” She shook Riane violently. “Are you listening to me?” she roared.
The girl stared up into her face, an expression of rigid denial on her beautiful face.
“What was done,” Bartta said more calmly, “had to be done to save you.”
The girl continued to watch her, but at least she was for the moment quiescent.
“I know you saw yourself in the mirror before you broke it,” Bartta continued. “You are beautiful.”
“Let me up,” Riane said.
“Have you calmed down?”
Silence.
Bartta let go, backed off the bed. • “Riane—“
The girl scrambled off the bed and backed up until she was crouched in the far corner of the room. “Don’t call me that!”
“What else shall I call you?”
“You will call me by my real name.”
“Riane is who you are now. Please try to understand. Your—that is, Giyan and I transferred your essence into the body of Riane. It was the only way to protect you. Your enemies believe you are dead.”
“If that is true, then let Giyan tell me herself. I will believe her.”
Bartta sighed. “Giyan is gone. She took…” She wet her lips. “In order to prove to your enemies that Annon was dead, she took the body down to them. So the Khagggun would stop killing the townsfolk. You remember that, don’t you?”
Riane stared at her.
“You remember that you were going to sacrifice yourself to save them. Well, in a very real sense you did. They have your body, and they have Giyan, as well. She was taken by the Pack-Commander.”
“Rekkk Hacilar.”
“Yes, well, I doubt she’s coming back, so you will just have to—“
“I will go find her,” Riane said, rushing past her.
Bartta grabbed her around the arm, swung her around, hit her again, harder this time, so that the girl fell back against the bed. Giyan, Giyan, it was always Giyan.
“That is Annon talking,” she said. “I told you we’ll have none of that.” Seeing the girl ball her hand into fists, she said hurriedly: “And what a foolish notion it would be to go after her. You are alone, in an alien body. You are one of the conquered now, and a female to boot. You would not last a week on your own.”
“Then take me yourself.”
“It was Giyan’s express wish that you remain here with me, that you become an acolyte of the Ramahan at the Abbey of Floating White, where she and I learned Scripture.”
“I do not believe you.”
Bartta hit her again. “Then learn to believe me, Riane. The quicker you do, the better it will be for you. You already have quite enough to get used to without my having to hit you. I don’t want to hit you, I get no pleasure from it, but you have to learn. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Riane uttered an incomprehensible V’ornn curse. “I am V’ornn! I live now only to revenge myself against Wennn Stogggul and Kinnnus Morcha!” She uncoiled herself, snatched up a shard of broken mirror, and lunged forward. Bartta jumped back but not before the razor-sharp edge ripped her robe and scored her skin. Blood flowed from her shoulder. Rage spurted through her, and she smacked Riane so hard, the bloody shard of mirror went flying across the room.
Bartta hit her again and again. “Forget revenge, forget Giyan, forget your life of leisure and privilege in Axis Tyr. It no longer exists. Annon Ashera no longer exists.” Panting and grunting, she continued with the thrashing until Riane lay unconscious.
“There,” she said, panting still. “There.” For some reason, she was put in mind of the lorg she had killed so many years ago. That cursed memory! Was she fated to carry it around with her forever? Why? It was just an animal, and an evil one at that, Giyan’s protestations notwithstanding.
Spent, Bartta sat on the blood-spattered bed, slid her robes off her shoulder in order to tend her wound. “Müna protect us,” she whispered as she stanched the blood. “I own you now. I will never let you go. The Great Goddess Herself has seen fit to grant you life. But it is a life no one would envy! You will experience firsthand the murderous, hateful, hopeless life under V’ornn rule. You will see for yourself how they have systematically stripped us of everything that was once ours. Perhaps, given time, you will even mourn for us, for there is scarcely a Kundalan alive who remembers what Kundala was like before the V’ornn invasion. A time when narbucks roamed the plateaus, when Osoru had not yet been corrupted by the Ramahan males and by the accursed Rappa, when lightning rimmed the sky, presaging the appearance of Mima’s glorious Sacred Dragons. Where are hey now, eh? Where?” Bartta’s hands were squeezed into white fists that pounded against her thighs. “Ah, that time is long gone; I fear it will never be again! And now we are left without our Goddess, without the magical narbucks, without even the lightning to bring us sorcerous energy. We are left with our dead and our pain and the terrible compromises we have had to make.
“But, for better or worse, it would seem you are the Dar Sala-at.” She put her hand out, stroked Riane’s hair back from her forehead. The girl’s face was just beginning to darken and swell. “Riane, Chosen of Müna and of Seelin. My holy secret. So life you shall have, just as Müna has decreed. But you are in my hands now. Whatever mysteries you hold will one day be mine. Of that you can be assured!”
Ring Of 5 Dragons
Book Two:
GATE OF LIFE
“The Kundalan spirit is composed of five elements: earth, air, fire, water, wood.
The interaction of these elements—whether harmonious or acrimonious, sweet or bitter, curved or straight, flowing or rigid, determines the personality—and therefore the Path—of each individual With suck a volatile mix, it would be dangerous to believe that Equilibrium can be achieved. Indeed, it may not even be advisable.”
—Utmost Source,
The Five Sacred Books of Müna
Vessel Half-Full
The Abbey of Floating White was aptly named. Built on a rocky bluff overlooking Stone Border, it was a long, rambling structure of bone-white stone that sparkled in sunlight, shone silvery in rain. On moonless nights it glowed with an ethereal light marked by everyone in Stone Border. Nine slender minarets rose from sacred shrines within its high walls. These were crowned by domes pulled upward like taffy, coated with silver leaf. They were so tall they became lost when the ridge was shrouded in fog or low clouds.
No Ramahan now living could remember a time when the abbey did not exist. Indeed, legend had it that the structure was conceived and constructed by the Goddess Müna Herself. There were hints and clues to the veracity of this notion, the most compelling of which was the makeup of the stone itself. It bore no resemblance to that of the Djenn Marre mountain chain. It was dense and so hard the huge blocks showed no wear. Indeed, save for the former Abbey of Listening Bone in Axis Tyr (now the V’ornn Temple of Mnemonics) it was unique in all of known Kundala.
Riane could see the abbey quite clearly at the southern edge of the kuello-fir forest as she worked daily in Bartta’s sorcerous garden. Below, along the steep, stepped streets, she saw townsfolk moving in short, quick bursts, a stillness in between, a lassitude born of the absence of happiness of any kind. Wrapped in their dark cloaks, they hurried about their business, stood solitary, deep in contemplation in their shadowed doorsteps or at half-shuttered windows. Waiting, their shoulders perpetually hunched against an unseen storm. Where was the bustle and clamor of voices raised in argument, in haggling over prices, in minor disagreements? Where were the shouts of recognition from across crowded markets, the squeals of children at play? Where, most of all, were the numerous Kundalan celebrations to commemorate the change of seasons, the harvests, special days on the calendar Giyan had so lovingly described to him? The quiet unnerved Riane. Annon and Kurgan had often spent time in the countryside surrounding Axis Tyr when they had gone hunting, but always they had returned to the heat and frenetic beat of the city.
Surrounded by strange scents that made her light-headed and slightly nauseous, Riane toiled away under Bartta’s keen eye. Her face, neck, and shoulders were still bruised and swollen from the beating she had received. At night, the pain kept her awake. She did not swallow the sleeping draught Bartta concocted for her, spewing it out the window the moment Bartta left her alone.
She thought she was being clever but, as it turned out, she wasn’t so clever after all. One night, three days after her thrashing, she tried to sneak out of the house. She waited until the reading lamp went out in Bartta’s bedroom, until the entire cottage was dark. She rose from her bed and stood at the open windows, staring out at the night. Low clouds scudded across the sky, obscuring the mountaintops and the minarets of the abbey, and the air felt dank and chill. Pulling on a cloak, she climbed through the window and came face-to-face with Bartta.
Bartta hit her, sending her to her knees. Then Bartta gripped the hair at the back of her head so hard it made her eyes water, but she was determined not to cry out. Her teeth ground together in fury. Bartta opened her palm, a ball of light in a miniature lantern hovered there, illuminating their surroundings.
“Lookl” Bartta commanded, jerking hard on Riane’s hair.
Riane had no choice but to look at the flower bed just outside her bedroom where, for the last three nights, she had been spitting out the sleeping draught. The flowers were wilted, the petals shriveled.
Bartta bent down. “Stupid, stupid Annon,” she hissed. “Did you think I wouldn’t be able to fathom your tricks?” She took her fist from Riane’s hair, pulled her up. Her voice changed, softening. “Riane would never think about leaving, why should she? Somewhere in these mountains is her home, she is among her own kind, she is about to be inducted into the elite society of her people, to learn all the secrets Müna has to offer.”
She stood her up, brushed her down, caressed her cheek. She took Riane to another part of the garden, and said kindly, “Here, see this plant with the trumpet-shaped flowers and the teardrop-shaped nuts?” She knelt, and Riane knelt beside her. “This is Brugmansia san-guinea, the blood brush.” She plucked off a nut, peeled back the green skin to reveal a reddish nut, which she placed in Riane’s palm. “I will teach you how to make a paste with this that, when ingested in just the right amount, will keep you warm even in subfreezing weather.” She looked at Riane. “This is a secret no acolyte knows, Ri- ane. It is not widely known even among the novices.” She put a hand gently against the nape of Riane’s neck. “But I will teach it to you. Would you like that?”
Riane, bewildered by this abrupt change in attitude, nodded, though she could not see how she could make use of the knowledge.
Two days later, Riane was awakened by the vibration of the power bourns. Bartta had told her that they crisscrossed all of Kundala. It happened that this cottage was built upon a bournline, but then so was the Abbey of Floating White—in fact, according to Bartta, all the Ra-mahan abbeys were sited on major bournlines. This otherworldly power grid was of no little interest to Bartta; she asked Riane all the time if she felt them. Riane always said no, but she also said that she would try because she wanted to keep Bartta talking about them. Riane gathered that among many other things lost to the Ramahan over time was a detailed map of the bourngrid. Without it, it was impossible to make sense of the lines; without knowing where they linked up, it was impossible to understand the nature of the grid and what it had once been used for. Apparently, nowadays very few Ramahan could even feel the bourns, let alone attempt remapping them.
Riane arose, feeling the humming in her bones, as if her body had been turned into an instrument whose strings were being plucked by an unseen virtuoso. The sensation was not unpleasant, but it was certainly eerie.
It was just past daybreak, but with the low sky full of black-and-blue clouds, the morning promised to be only slightly less dark than the night. She stood in the center of her bedroom and closed her eyes. Silence enveloped her. Birds twittered fitfully outside; rain pattered gently against the windowsill, fell silkily onto the sorcerous garden. There was no wind at all.
The wretched primitiveness of the place had begun to prey on her. There were no fusion lamps, no ion accelerators, no tertium matrices, no equation-building fields, no neural-net generators. Heat from fires, light from oil lamps, and nothing to give you a sense of what was happening in the outside world. The village was, in effect, deaf, dumb, and blind. No wonder the Kundalan had been so easy to conquer.
A sudden creak, as of someone moving across the floorboards, caused her to freeze. Now she could hear Bartta moving about, and then she heard Riane’s name being called. She drew on the Kundalan robes Bartta had given her and went into the great room.
Bartta was sitting at the wooden table. There were two bowls filled with vile Kundalan grain. Riane had no taste for it. She wondered if Bartta would mention the singing of the bourns, and was somewhat surprised when Bartta said instead, “Come and eat your breakfast. There is much work to do today.”
Riane sat without a word, but she did not pick up her wooden spoon. What she wouldn’t have given for some roast corribs right now. She tried to concentrate on the eerie singing.
“The salve I made for you is working. Your face is looking much better,” Bartta said, just as if the swelling had come from an accident. “Very soon now I will be able to take you to the abbey to live.”
Riane stared sullenly at her unappetizing breakfast. Her stomach rumbled emptily. She had not had much dinner. The root stew Bartta had served her had smelled and tasted bitter as dirt. What little she had eaten had erupted back out of her mouth an hour or so after she had gone to bed. “
