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Chapter One (to be finished later) |
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- G - E - N - E - S - I - S -
Aina, apprentice of the Aeli Order, hurried through the quiet, moonlit forest with her basket of herbs. She had tarried too long at her curiosity over the fairies that lived in the black rosebushes that grew at the edge of the Healer's Gardens. The tiny creatures had chattered angrily at her and tried to chase her off with a nettle, but they were so small they couldn't do any real harm, and they were such fascinating little things. They looked like tiny men and women, save that their eyes were large and had no pupils, and their skin was a pale, spring green while their hair (worn long on both male and female) was a beep purple, fading to lavender among the older fairies. Not a one of those had any wrinkles, but Aina was certain they must be the older ones, though she could not have said why she felt that way.
Now she was late. She was supposed to have brought the herbs she carried to Aimelle the Healer already, and so she was moving as fast as she could without running, for fear of spilling the precious remedies that she carried. It was said that long ago, Healers did not need herbs or medicines to work their craft, but no one believed those stories anymore. Aina did. It was just too wonderful to not be true. Aimelle often told her that she was a rather silly child, but Aina still clung to all of the old stories, so full of magic.
She was only a few yards away from the Healer's tents when she sensed it: something was not right. It was so quiet, so serene; where were the moans of the sick and the injured, the soft cries of the newborn and the loud snoring of the old man with the fever who lay in the tent she was closest to? This could not be right. If the Healer's had moved their patients, they would have sent someone to tell her, and they would have taken their tents with them. And even with how long she had dawdled, there was no way they could have all gone so fast, especially considering the fact that some of their patients could not be moved quickly, if at all.
And then she smelled it: the scent of fresh blood; much, much more of it than could be explained by the wounded that were being treated at the Healer's tents. The scent of Death's violent passage. But how? What had happened? There had been two Rii guarding the tents, and only one was ever really needed if a threat arose.
Someone was coming. Aina ducked quickly behind a large bush, then berated herself for being an idiot; it was one of the Rii guardians, her burgundy hair glinting like fire and blood in the moonlight. All of the Rii had fiery red hair, some dark and some light, which made them easy to distinguish. Aina began to stand back up.
She froze. The Ri was holding a dagger, the dagger was stained with blood, so much blood that the original metal could not be seen through it. And when she glanced over at the rustle caused by Aina's movement, her eyes glinted the same color as the gore that stained her blade. All of the Rii had hazel or golden eyes. There were no exceptions. In battle, they blazed yellow, like a lion's eyes, but they were never red.
The only people Aina had ever heard of that had red eyes were the Urdi, but they were only from tales; the pale-faced girls with black hair and dark eyes that wandered through graveyards were really just lonely kids that thought nobody liked them, that drew comfort from the presence of the dead because the dead could not tease them. Aina had met one. The girl's appearance had scared her so bad she nearly ran, but when she saw how that made the girl cry, she had stayed, and over time the two of them had become friends.
The Urdi were not young girls in need of a friend to talk to. They were nightmares. They brought Death with them wherever they went. They stole away the souls of newborn children for their dark goddess. They were the ones who had brought down the plague upon pregnant women in Te'a-nari, that caused them all to die in childbirth; and they were the ones who haunted men's dreams with visions of darkness and defeat, so that they lost their courage in battle and were slain.
Of all the old tales, those of the Urdi were the only ones that Aina had never believed. She did not want to, because they frightened her so; how could anything so evil really exist, in a world of such good, kind people? Why would the gods that loved their creation allow such darkness to poison it?
Clearly, those stories had truth to them. Aina willed her heart to stop beating, lest the sound of it be heard by the woman who was already looking in her direction with her red, red eyes. It was said that they could find anyone by the beating of his heart. Aina wanted to cry, to vanish, to be back down in the Healer's Gardens, where no one but the Aeli and their apprentices could go. But it was too late. The woman was still staring, Surely she could hear Aina's heart; it was so catastrophically loud in her own ears.
Suddenly, the Urdi turned away, as if convinced that it was only a small animal that she had heard. A soldier approached her; a male soldier. He did not wear the colors of the Te'a-nari, which were sky blue and pale gold; his surcoat was red and white, the raiment of the other-world soldiers. That was all wrong; what was he doing here? How had he gotten past the lines of the army? The urdi had given the man her full attention. He was saying something, but Aina could not decipher it over her own panic and the ringing in her ears. The woman with the red eyes said something in reply, looking irritated. Alarmed, the soldier made reassuring gestures, and said some more things in a high, nervous voice. What he said seemed to please the Urdi, and the two of them began to head down the hillside, towards where the Te'a-nari army ought to be, but a small, cynical corner of Aina's mind was beginning to whisper that there was no army left. She ignored it, and told herself it could not be true; that as soon as that woman reached the bottom of that hill she would be caught. No one had ever defeated the soldiers of Te'a-nari, not once, and no one ever would. It was impossible. But one of the guardian Rii was a fake, a traitor. Who's to say she was the only one? The voice said, and she redoubled her efforts to suppress it. It could not be true. It must not. The gods would not allow it.
As soon as the woman had been out of sight for several minutes, Aina ran. Not away from the tents, but straight into them. She had to check on the patients; they mattered more than anything, they were what she had chosen to devote her life to. Even if Destiny had not set her feet on that course, she would have chosen it. She loved people, and wanted to be able to help them. Like she had helped the girl in the cemetery. She wanted them to know that, even if everyone else forgot them, she never would, nor would she abandon them, unless Death took her away from her charges. Tears streamed down her face; she already knew that she would find no one alive, but she had to try, had to hope that there was someone, anyone, that could still be saved.
The first tent--The one with the old man who snored and whose name was Farius--was littered with bodies, most of them healers that Aina had known almost all her life, and poor Farius was lying face-down in a corner, his body cool for the first time in weeks, because he, too was dead. The next tent was just the same; all the patients were dead, beyond the saving of the healers, who were dead as well. They had all been murdered; Aina had never seen so much blood, even after a hard battle against the other-worlders. That was what the people of Te'a-nari called their only enemy: other-worlders, because they came from another world, and had found a way into the world of Te'a with their black arts. They sought always to conquer Te'a, but though their numbers were far greater, they had no equivalent to the Rii among their numbers; indeed, they did not seem to have any women in their army. One Ri was all Te'a army needed to keep the other-worlders from getting what they wanted; though they always used two, just in case.
As Aina stepped into a third tent, someone grabbed her shoulder. She stiffened, heart frozen with fear where before it had thundered with it. "Well, what 'ave we here, gentlemen? Looks like quite a prize, if I do say so myself!" a gravelly voice said behind her.
She heard foosteps. Another voice spoke: "Raldo, you idiot! She's one of them! How do you know she's not one of their abominable woman-fighters?"
The second man, who had now grabbed her arm, snorted. Aina determinedly refused to turn and look at the man who had caught her, as if doing so would make the nightmare fully real, and by not looking she might make it all just a bad dream. "You're the idiot, Hadir. This one's just another healer; can't you see the blond hair? Such a fine shade of gold, too," he said, and he pulled her around so that she now had to face her two discoverers.
Raldo, the man holding her, was dirty, blood-smeared, and missing some of his teeth. He grabbed her other arm, and only then did Aina's frightened brain catch up enough that she could move again, and she struggled with all her might. Raldo punched her in the stomach, hard, and she doubled over, unable to breathe. The world swam around in meaningless chaos. She could not see straight. There was a dead woman nearby, her lifeless eyes wide with disbelief. It was the other Ri, the true one. Aina vomited. Raldo kicked her.
"Now, now, none of that! Soiling yourself will only spoil out fun!"
"Raldo, I really think you should--"
"Did I say I care what you think, idiot? She can't harm us. What's wrong? Do you think that the general cares if we have a little fun with the helpless ones? Are you scared, nilwit?"
Something was happening. Someone had grabbed her ankle; Raldo. His grip was painful, and his hands were so rough the scraped her fair skin. He rolled her onto her back. She could do nothing, she was still lost within her own panic, staring like the dead Ri in incredulity at what was happening.
Time passed as they did what they would with her. Hadir was at first reluctant, out of his fear brought on by the tales he had no doubt heard about Te'a-nari women, but when he saw that nothing ill befell his companion, his reluctance vanished. He seemed to relish it even more that Raldo. Aina tried to block it out, tried not to hear the sounds, but it hurt so much, and everyone was dead, and soon she would be dead, too. She wanted to cry, but her body seemed to have completely lost the ability to obey her. So she lay there, alone with the fear and pain, for the two men who violently robbed her of her innocence did not count as company in her mind.
At some point, it was over. The two men stood a short distance back from her, laughing at her. Helpless rage bloomed in her heart, but she could do nothing, and it hurt so very, very much...
Her vision flickered. She longed to die, to fall mercifully into oblivion, and it seemed that she would have her wish. She was losing a lot of blood, and there was no Ailmelle around to staunch it, and to hold her as she cried tears inside she could not shed outside. Dimly she saw the two men standing over her, stupid grins on their ugly, evil faces. Darkness overtook her again, and when her vision came again, there was a woman standing over her, a healer.
"Oh, child, what have they done to you," the woman sobbed, and she pulled Aina's skirts down and picked her up in her arms. "I come back from the temple only to find everyone is dead, and now this... Oh, Aina, Aina, Aina." The two men who had raped her were dead on the ground, their throats slit. The healer hugged Aina to her breast and turned her eyes away from the sight of the monsters.
It was impossible: The woman was Aimelle.
*----------*----------*
Aina awoke from a fitful but heavy sleep of dark dreams to find herself lying on a pile of blankets blanket in a corner of the cave that the Healers used as their temple. Caves in Te'a-nari were often used as Aeli temples, for the Healers believed that they were closer to the goddess Aela's heartbeat down in the earth from which all life took sustenance.
 Dayinara · Tue Dec 09, 2008 @ 10:46pm · 0 Comments |
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In the Beginning of the world of Te'a, it pleased the gods to give unto the first woman three daughters: Aela, Ri, and Urda; the Healer, the Warrior, and the Destroyer. Aela was kind of heart, soft-spoken, and pleasing to look upon, and it was said that she could heal any wound and cure any ailment. Ri was strong and fierce, proud and red-haired, and whenever she rode with the armies of Te'a-nari--the name given by the people of Te'a to the part of the land they inhabited--none of their enemies could prevail against them.
And Urda, pale as the moon, eyes as dark as night... It was she that visited the people of Te'a-nari when their loved ones were dying, she that conducted their souls to Kur'en, the land of the dead. People feared her greatly, for she had deep within her the seeds of power that would destroy the world.
Ages passed, and the three sisters fell into the myths of the people of Te'a-nari, believed to be goddesses, and the mothers of the three major classes of women among them. The Aeli were healers of great skill, the Rii female warriors that could not be defeated, and the Urdi--Well, not many of those existed, and no one really knew what they did, aside from the rumors that they visited graveyards at night, and were always accompanied by strange, black birds, which they were said to whisper to as they stood among the dead.
And thus it was, and had always been, and the gods seemed pleased with their creation; the people knew neither famine nor plague, neither crime nor poverty. And so it would ever be, the poets said, for the gods of Te'a loved that which they had made.
And so they always would.
Dayinara · Tue Dec 09, 2008 @ 02:35am · 0 Comments |
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