The gate at Masebe is a chaos of shouting.
“Let us through! Our companion is badly injured!” Jilli shouts over the tops of every other head. She carries Rent in both arms and doesn’t slow as we approach. The wooden gate is nothing like the fortitudes in Gallaed, and it looks like someone or something tested it recently. There’s splintered posts and burnt spots along the wall.
Jilli runs at the same steady clip she left the riverbank. Maybe she’ll run right through.
The two guards, half asleep a moment before, raise their weapons and bring Jilli to an abrupt stop with swords pointed at her face. “You will present yourself for inquiry before entry!”
“My brother is dying! Let us through!” Hax tugs Gnuf forward ready to trample his way through. The ummuth brays, his eyes wide at the sharp weapons and the raised voices.
“He’s a priest of Deishaen!” I shout over Gnuf’s braying. “He needs the help of one of his brothers right now! Follow us to the temple, if you must!”
“Nay, we cannot leave our post.”
Things quiet as the guards see the truth of things. Both lower their swords, and the same one as before speaks. “Cause no trouble in Masebe. We’ve had enough.” He doesn’t elaborate. “We will send word ahead for you. You’ll want to head to the central district. The temple is impossible to miss, and all roads in Masebe go to the temple.”
Jilli runs ahead of us. I have no chance of keeping up with her longer, more powerful legs. Hax can’t get Gnuf to move any faster than a trot no matter how hard he pulls. I drop back to them. “Jilli will get him there faster than we could,” I say.
“Stupid beast,” Hax mutters, tugging on the reins.
Gnuf brays again. He nips Hax on the arm.
“Godsdammit.” He’s completely flustered, rubbing the spot on his arm, stompin along the dusty road. I’ve never seen him this way. No jokes. No smile. No getting in the last word.
“The priests will heal him.” But I remember how Rent had looked after the zolbat struck him. Rent’s cheeks had been charred with a black, tree-like branching pattern. He’d been so pale and gray he’d matched the silt at the edge of the river, forming a ribbon of gray between the red water and the red grass.
I bet that looks interesting from a bird’s view…
I pull my mind back from its tangent.
Rent can’t die.
No one’s ever died on me. Surely Rent can’t be the first. He’s been so good to me since that day in Northend’s charred town square. In my shoulder bag, I feel the outline of the book he gave me just earlier in the day. In there beside it are the pieces of parchment that have been so important to Mieklo these past days. Add to that that we’re here, a hundred miles from where we started. Well, maybe not a hundred, but it may have well been a hundred times that if I’d been on my own.
Mieklo feels my tension and strokes a lock of my hair anxiously. I immediately feel bad. My negative feelings are unhealthy for the xichu. Yet, he doesn’t leave my side, even now, in a town.
Masebe has a pleasant, sandy color to its roads and buildings, like a child’s sand castle. The lines blur together until it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. It gives the city a peaceful look, even with crowds of people surrounding them.
The clothes here are also different. Pale like the stone that makes everything. Most people wear light-colored coverings on their head too, so that only their eyes are visible. They’re fully covered, but they don’t look hot. Yet I’m sweating through the clothes I’m wearing. They’re wet all over again and unpleasantly sticking to my arms and back.
I swallow at the dryness in my throat, but I can’t seem to make more saliva. I look at Hax, remembering he’s not his brother. Rent has been sharing his canteen with me. I can’t bring myself to ask Hax. I’ll wait until Rent is okay.
A small bleat answers one of Gnuf’s brays. I look to our right, and I see what I first think is a goat. It sounds like one and has small horns and ears like one, but it sits strange, more like a rabbit. Its back legs are large and muscular with long, flat feet. It munches some dry grass growing between the stones and watches us go by. It seems interested in Gnuf.
The temple is as easy to find as the guards made it sound. As we draw closer, my legs get heavy, and I’m not sure I can keep moving forward.
Last I saw Rent he was alive. If I stay out here, he stays alive.
“Lo, stay with me.” I almost don’t recognize Hax’s voice.
I catch back up to them, and Hax and I walk to either side of Gnuf. I pet the ummuth’s ear, and he makes a contended snort. All is well in his world. No monsters. No worries.
At some point, Blaize joins us, or at least she makes herself visible to us. She walks beside Hax. They don’t touch, but I can tell her presence bolsters him, as much as I had when I rejoined him. It keeps him moving forward.
With Gnuf tied up outside, we enter the temple. I remember seeing the temple of Northend a handful of times, but only ever from the outside. The inside is more impressive. The floors are all swirled white and gray marble, thick pillars rise to our left and right, carved from the same. White woven rugs cover the floor, making my eyes have to adapt to the brightness.
A boy, younger than me, runs up to us. His boots are dusty, so I don’t think he’s usually in the temple. Maybe the guards’ messenger. “Your friend, the priest–”
“My brother!” Hax corrects.
Blaize silences him from further words with a hand on his shoulder and an understanding look.
The boy recovers and says, “He’s this way.” Then he hurries away.
Hax follows, and Blaize and I follow him. Or maybe I’m a few steps behind Blaize. Then a few more, until I’m moving forward with glacial slowness. I see the door they enter, down past where the columns end and the room opens up to either side, with doors to other rooms.
Rent is still alive while I’m out here.
The hall pulses silence around me. Suddenly I need voices, something. The silence pushes me forward.
I reach the doorway and freeze.
Rent lays there, eyes closed, and my eyes begin to burn. The blackened veins like tree branches are still dark on his cheeks, and the streaks of gray at his temples have become lighter.
Jilli, Blaize, and Hax stand around the bed. Suddenly, I’m not sure if it’s Rent I can’t approach, or the others. They all look road-weary and road-stained, and though I know I’m dirty and tired too, I don’t know if I belong here.
Jilli sees me. “Lo, come here.” She pulls me up against her side with one arm. I only come up to her midsection, and this embrace brings glaring attention to that fact. My face burns with embarrassment. Then my eyes fall on Rent’s pale profile, and remembering him makes me cold again.
“The priestess of the temple did all she could,” Hax says.
The tears that have been threatening squeeze out of my eyes, hot all the way down my cheeks.
“For Cassandra’s sake, Hax!” Blaize hisses. “Why would you tell her like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like Rent is dead.”
“I did no such thing.” Hax’s hand goes to his chest, feigning insult.
And in that moment, I know Rent is alright.
I rub the tears from my eyes and attempt to smile. I’m too raw for that, though. So I excuse myself. I leave the room, then the temple. Once outside, I take a deep, cleansing breath. It feels like I’ve been holding my breath since Rent collapsed. The air is warm, even though the last of the sun’s light is fading. Lamps light the street already. It allows me to see my way down the temple stairs.
I hear a familiar bleat. One of the goat creatures is munching near Gnuf. The ummuth brays at me in frustration, because he can’t reach any of the grass on his short tether. I take his reins and lead him over. He’s immediately eating and content.
Now that I’m closer, I pet the goat creature’s head. It bleats and stops eating, butting its head up into my hand.
“The banji, she likes you,” an old woman says. She’s sitting on the ground with a bowl, rolling something in her shiny, oiled hands. Her smile wrinkles her face deeply.
“Banji?” I ask. She bleats like she recognizes the name.
“Yes, the banji provide our people with much of our food–milk, cheese, yogurt, meat. This one is domesticated, but wild banji live in the mountains, where they climb the cliffs.”
I have trouble picturing the creature climbing a mountain.
“Keep an old woman company? I can tell you’re not from around here. You look like you have some interesting stories. I’d enjoy some conversation.” She continues to rub her palms together. She drops a cascade of glistening pearls into a pot.
“What are you making?”
“Couscous. Our people have made it since the mountains were not mountains and the desert was not desert. Sit, please.”
I hesitate, but I don’t want to go back into the temple. So I fold my legs under me, careful not to jostle Mieklo from my shoulder. I place my shoulder bag on my lap. The banji follows me, and she lays down beside me. Curled up, one of her long back feet rests under her nose. She lets out a sigh as I continue to pet her. Gnuf lays down on my other side, laying his big head on my leg.
“How do you eat couscous?” I ask.
“Steam it and serve it with sauce, meat, and veggies.”
The pot she’s adding the finished couscous to is almost full, the bowl she’s taking them from is almost empty.
I don’t know what else to ask. So I pull out the leather journal Rent gave me. At first, I just study it with my eyes and my fingers. The leather is well-oiled but not greasy. The book has simple trimming, just a few metal tacks to hold the corners tight.
Mieklo leans closer, twitching his nose.
“Don’t even think about it. You have your own parchment,” I tell him. I fetch him a piece, and he turns away to eat it. His content aura warms me as the evening air turns chill.
“You have a way with animals. They trust you.”
“Mieklo’s been my closest friend longer than anyone else,” I say. “He’s the reason I’m on the road. I’m trying to get him to Phiur and the library there.”
“And then what will you do? Once you’re in Phiur?” the old woman asks.
“I’ll stay at the library too. I’m an apprentice scribe, but erebus destroyed the library in Northend, where we came from.” As I say the words, they taste bitter on my tongue, but I can’t figure out why.
Phiur is my goal. Phiur is the end of the road.
I should be relieved we’re getting so close, but the thought of it puts a heavy feeling of dread in my stomach, like a rock.
I lay the journal open in my lap. I’ve seen blank books and been expected to fill them before, but I was always told what would go into them. This book is mine to do anything I want with, and I can’t think of a single thing.
“What will you fill those blank pages with?” the old woman asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“I feel that books are best filled with stories,” she tells me. She’s wiping her hands on a towel. Then she lays the towel over the top of her pot of couscous. Her task is done, but she doesn’t seem eager to head inside with it. “I sense you have an interesting story. That book deserves your story.”
But I’ve never done anything worth writing in a book. Somehow I articulate that to the old woman. I don’t know if it makes any sense.
She laughs, but it’s kind. “Then do something worth writing about.”
Her words hit me hard. If ever I’ve had a chance to do something, it’s now, traveling with Rent and the others.
Am I doing something? What more can I do?
While I ponder the old woman’s wisdom, I start sketching. I sketch the banji as she sleeps. I sketch how I remember her when she’d been eating grass. I sketch Gnuf’s big head on my legs. While I sketch, I write down everything I can remember I’ve learned about both of them.
It brings my mind some peace, and Mieklo curls into the curve of my neck and drifts into a peaceful sleep.
~ * ~
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