Guardian of the God - Return from the Hard Journey - Part 1 Chapter 3 - Inside a Prison Jar

 Guardian of the God

-

Return from the Hard Journey

(Book 6 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)

Author: Uehashi Nahoko

Translator: Ainikki the Archivist

 

 Part 1 - Wolf Killer

Chapter 3 - Inside a Prison Jar

 Tanda saw holes above him, about the same width as his pinky finger. Wind wafted through them; Tanda felt a slight breeze on his face. The light they let in told Tanda that it was probably only a little past sunrise. He remembered waking up earlier in darkness, but he didn’t know how much time had passed since then.

    He didn’t even remember when he’d fallen asleep last. He had no idea how he’d gotten here, or even where “here” was. He shifted his head and felt agonizing pain and nausea hit him in a wave. He prayed that this sickness would pass quickly, and then he remembered: he’d been given a sleeping drug. It was called macos, and using too much of it caused headaches and nausea.

    Pain tore through the inside of his head. He remembered everything now: Shihana had tricked them all and knocked him out; she had some kind of plan to trap Balsa and Asra. When he and Sufar had gone back to the inn after being captured, Tanda had been certain that Shihana would kill him. Sufar had saved his life at the last possible moment by ordering her not to kill Tanda. Sufar was a powerful and well-respected magic weaver; his words and reputation still carried weight. Shihana had the assistance of the very strong men that had managed to bind Sufar, but they hadn’t killed him or otherwise harmed him that Tanda could remember.

    Sufar had persuaded Shihana that Tanda was too valuable of a hostage to kill. Tanda was grateful to him for saving his life, but being Shihana’s captive was a harsh experience. He’d been forced to drink the sleeping drug that contained macos, and the aftereffects made him sick to his soul. He didn’t remember anything at all after he’d drunk it. The fact that his memory was intact indicated that the damage done to his soul likely wasn’t permanent, which relieved Tanda somewhat.

    Morning light filtered in through the ventilation holes above his head. Tanda remembered that Chikisa had also been given sleeping herbs, but not macos. Tanda hoped that when Chikisa woke up, he wouldn’t feel nearly as awful as he did.

    Tanda looked around and tried to determine where he was. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of smooth clay. He saw no doors or windows. He felt like he was sitting inside a giant clay jar. The ceiling was too far away for him to reach. Even the ventilation holes were so high up that he couldn’t look out of them.

    He heard the soft, steady sound of flowing water somewhere nearby. He could also hear wind passing through the grass outside. Aside from that, he heard nothing.

    “Where are we?” Chikisa whispered.

    He was awake. “I don’t know,” Tanda answered. One of the effects of macos was the suppression of hunger, so he didn’t feel an immediate urge to eat, but he was urgently thirsty. He glanced up at the ventilation holes. He didn’t know if they’d be given water if he asked for it, but he also didn’t know how long they’d gone without water. He needed to try.

    “Hey!” Tanda called out. “Is anyone there? We need food and water!”

    There was no reply. Tanda remembered that this place had no door. His entire body felt numb from shock. He clamped down harshly on himself so that he wouldn’t show any anxiety or fear in front of Chikisa. He’d be able to send his soul flying after he felt a little stronger, but he expected Shihana to be on guard against him doing that. He didn’t know what else he could do.

    To distract himself from his growing sense of dread, Tanda cried out as loudly as he could for help.

    A shadow passed over the ventilation holes. Someone was standing above them, blocking the holes. Tanda panicked for a second, thinking someone had come to block up their air holes, but he was mistaken.

    There was a loud popping sound above his head. Tanda looked up and saw that the ceiling of this place was a lid--he and Chikisa really were inside a huge jar.

    Light poured into the jar from above. “Shut up,” a man said in Rotan.

    Tanda couldn’t see the face of the man that opened the jar; the sunlight behind him was too bright. The man threw a large basket into the jar. The basket fell rapidly and crashed into the bottom of the jar with a shock; the basket’s contents spilled out in all directions.

    The lid of the jar was still open.

    “Oi!” Tanda called up to the man. “Is there a toilet?”

    The lid slammed shut. “I’ll let you out later,” the man said.

    Tanda and Chikisa exchanged glances. “It looks like they gave us food and water, at least,” Tanda muttered. He opened up one of the containers that had been in the basket and smelled it. He was pretty sure it contained food, but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. It smelled a little like a type of unleavened bread called bam.

    “Do you know what this is?” Tanda asked Chikisa. He passed the food over to him.

    Chikisa took a bite and frowned. “It seems like bam, but it tastes funny.”

    Tanda wondered where they were, exactly. When Tachiya had told him Balsa’s message, he’d said that she was headed to Rota’s Ritual Hall at Jitan. Shihana had definitely said that she intended to go to Rota. Tanda could deduce, then, that they were somewhere in Rota, specifically somewhere between the border with New Yogo and Jitan. The man outside the prison jar had spoken to him in an accent unique to northern Rota, which added support to Tanda’s speculation.

    Tanda divvied up the food and water between himself and Chikisa. He talked to Chikisa about what had happened to them so far and where he thought they were going. When Tanda mentioned the Ritual Hall, Chikisa’s face completely changed color.

    “The Ritual Hall at Jitan...” he breathed.

    Tanda blinked. “Is there something important there that you know of?”

    “Back when Rota was called Rotarbal, Jitan was the capital of the country. Sada Talhamaya built her palace in the same place where the Ritual Hall is now." Chikisa told Tanda everything he knew about Sada Talhamaya.

    The current capital of Rota was significantly further south than Jitan. The climate of northern Rota had been much warmer when Sada Talhamaya had been alive. The city had been called Sara Shi Talhamaya, the City of Talhamaya. Sada Talhamaya had built a magnificent palace there, but nothing remained of it now, not even ruins.

    In the heart of the city, there’d been an enormous tree growing out of a clear, beautiful spring. The city had been surrounded by dense woods on every side. The forests had been warm enough to grow tropical fruit trees. A large population of monkeys had lived in the forest surrounding the city.

    After the first king of Rota, Kiran, killed Sada Talhamaya, Jitan and the forest surrounding it gradually became colder over time. The Hasal Ma Talhamaya river, which carried Talhamaya into Rota, stopped flowing after Sada Talhamaya’s death; the river’s sudden disappearance continued to affect Rota’s climate.

    King Kiran built Rota’s Ritual Hall at Jitan to purify the site where he’d killed Sada Talhamaya. He’d also built a castle at Jitan, which he’d entrusted to his younger brother; that castle was meant to help protect the north.

    “To the Tal people, Jitan is a city of hopes and dreams--and regrets,” Chikisa said. “When we became the Tal people long ago, we swore that we’d never set foot in Jitan again.”

    Tanda frowned. What was Shihana thinking? Wasn’t she chasing Asra so that she could kill her before she became Sada Talhamaya reborn? Why would she deliberately lead Asra to a place where Sada Talhamaya had spent so much of her life?

    “I don’t think Asra wants to go to Jitan,” Tanda said.

    Chikisa’s face clouded over. “I’m not sure Asra wants to honor the vow that our people made not to set foot there.”

    Tanda looked at Chikisa with an expression of surprise. “Why?”

    Chikisa’s right hand instinctively covered the wound on his left hand. “Asra believed our mother,” he said darkly. He stared at the bottom of the prison jar as he spoke. “Our dad got lost in the woods five years ago and was killed by wolves. It was just the three of us after that. Mom didn’t take his death very well.” He wrinkled his nose. “We got a lot poorer after he died--even poorer than we were before. I think she must have suffered a lot.” He shrugged.

    “Mom really started to change two years ago. She hated the teachings of our priests, the Tal Kumada. She tried to teach me and Asra to serve Talhamaya. She said that Talhamaya wasn’t an evil god, but a sacred one that could help the Tal people. I didn’t believe her--I couldn’t, even when I tried--but Asra did. She didn’t think our mom would lie to us.” 

    Chikisa frowned deeply. “When our father was alive, we had friends and other Tal people that we could go to for help, but after he died we lived apart from everyone else. I didn’t have any friends, and neither did Asra. We lived in the sacred forest close to Sada Talhamaya’s grave. No one was ever there but us.”

    Tanda listened to Chikisa in silence.

    “Before mom had Asra and me, she ran away from her home village and wound up alone in the woods. The Tal Kumada gave her work and a place to stay. She was almost entirely dependent on them for a while. She lived on sacred ground in the Shan Forest. Most Rotans are afraid to go in there, so it’s pretty safe for Tal people. I think mom had a run-in with some Rotans before, so she probably decided to live there so she wouldn’t have to be afraid of them. When she married our dad, she persuaded him not to move. He told me that he built us a house in those woods because she refused to move anywhere else.”

    “Why are the Rotans so afraid of Shan forest?”

    Chikisa shook his head a little. “I don’t know. No Tal person ever wants to meet a Rotan, but we all go to markets to buy things and sell furs sometimes, even if it’s only once or twice a year. But mom never wanted to see a Rotan, ever. She left all the shopping and trading to our dad.”

    Chikisa’s face contorted in a frown. “Tal settlements are always small and isolated. We tend to live completely surrounded by the trees. Most of the time, a few families live together in the same place. The Tal Kumada priests visit each settlement a few times a month. They taught us history and religion; they also carried news from place to place. I never saw a settlement except the one I grew up in, and I never had friends to send messages to. Asra was the same. We did learn about history and the gods from the Tal Kumada, but...” he trailed off.

    Chikisa looked up at Tanda. “After our mother changed, she didn’t want us learning anything from the Tal Kumada. She told us not to believe anything they said the second they left our settlement. She never had a single kind word for them. Other people started to notice how mean and bitter she’d become.”

    Chikisa frowned again. “I thought that maybe the Ramau did something to make her change like that. She used to secretly attend their meetings. The Tal Kumada didn’t know.”

    “Who are the Ramau?”

    “They serve the Tal Kumada as apprentices. They can sense Noyuk. Every child with that power is sent to the Tal Kumada when they turn fourteen. I think Asra would be one of the Ramau if she was old enough.”

    “Asra can see Noyuk?”

    Chikisa nodded uncertainly. “I don’t know if she can see it or just sense it, but she definitely has some awareness of it. Mom didn’t want Asra to become one of the Ramau. She always said she didn’t want Asra to have the same kind of life she’d had.”

    “What does that mean? Was your mother one of the Ramau, too?”

    “No,” Chikisa said. “Ramau can’t get married. Mom was never one of them. I don’t really understand what she meant by saying things like that. She used to mutter a lot about running away and how she wasn’t allowed to have the life she wanted. Something must have happened to her before we were born.” 

    Chikisa sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, I really do think that the Ramau did something to her. They probably poisoned her mind against the Tal Kumada. I listened to the younger Ramau talking to each other sometimes, and what they said wasn’t always the same as what the Tal Kumada told us. Their meetings were always secret. Whenever mom came back from one of them, she seemed--it’s hard to explain. Impassioned? Crazy? She would sit Asra and me down in front of her and tell us all the ways that the Tal Kumada were wrong. It seemed...fun, for her to do that. It was the only time she seemed to be completely content.”

    Chikisa blushed. He was clearly embarrassed to be telling Tanda these things about his mother. "Asra loved our mom a lot and believed everything she said. I...had doubts. I didn’t like what my mom was turning into. But Asra was different--she loved seeing mom happy. Asra probably still believes what she taught us.”

    Tanda took a sip of water from a jar, then wiped the lip of the jar and handed it to Chikisa. “Tell me a little more about Asra. What’s she like?”

    Chikisa stared at the water jar in his hands without drinking from it. “Asra was always quiet. She did as she was told. She’s shy, but she has strong beliefs and it’s hard to change her mind. She never hurt anyone before...before this. I still don’t understand why all of this is happening.” Chikisa’s lower lip trembled as he stared into the water jar.

    “No one stopped our mother from doing what she did. If they’d stopped her, corrected her, helped her maybe...” He shook his head. “Maybe she wouldn’t have been executed. Maybe Asra wouldn’t have Talhamaya’s power.”

    Tanda extended his hand and rested it awkwardly on Chikisa’s shoulder. Chikisa’s back was rigid from the effort of holding back tears.

    “Why can Asra use Talhamaya’s power in the first place? Did your mom do something?”

    Chikisa shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t know what she did. I didn’t see it. After dad died, the other trappers came around one day to help us check his traps. I remember Asra saying something strange.” He looked Tanda in the eyes. “When she was walking in the woods after the trappers, she told me she felt a lot warmer in a certain spot than anywhere else. The Tal call that spot Noyuk Chai--it’s a place where water from Noyuk gathers in pools, apparently. I never noticed it being warmer or colder than anywhere else.

    “Asra seemed agitated. She wouldn’t keep still. She kept asking me if I could hear something. She looked like she was staring at something that wasn’t there. I thought she was acting really weird.”

    Chikisa seemed to be lost in his memories. “I thought maybe she was sleepwalking or dreaming or something. Mom took her away somewhere that night; I don’t know where. Maybe she took her to the Ramau. Asra didn’t tell me anything. Neither did mom.

    “At midnight the day after that, mom took us both to the temple of Talhamaya. We went inside, but mom kept walking further in to the forbidden place that no one’s allowed to enter. The forbidden place is Sada Talhamaya’s grave. I tried to stop her--I told her I wouldn’t go in there--but she didn’t listen.

    “I saw moss growing on the rocks of the temple. The Hasal Ma Talhamaya river flows between them. I saw it flowing there, though I’d never seen it before. It was midnight, so it was completely dark, but the water in the river just, um....glowed. I can’t really explain it. The moss seemed to mark the current of the river. I couldn’t really tell if it was the moss that was glowing or the river.

    “Mom told me to hide in the shadow of a huge tree. Then she took Asra and followed the line of the river. I saw her and Asra walk between two large stones and disappear. They didn’t come out for a long time.”

    He paused. “I didn’t see them again until dawn. Mom seemed surprised when she noticed the sun coming up. I don’t think she expected to be gone that long. She probably wanted to sneak back home under cover of darkness.

    “The Tal Kumada came to the temple to perform morning prayers. That’s how they caught us.” Chikisa didn’t want to talk about what happened next. Tanda wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it, either. He could make a fair guess about what must have happened based on what Sufar had told them before...but there was still one thing that he had to know. He felt that if he didn’t ask Chikisa outright, he’d never get an answer.

    “Chikisa,” Tanda said, “did Asra...do something at Shintadan?”

    Chikisa’s expression twisted in pain. He wished Tanda hadn’t asked him that, but he understood why he had. Chikisa took a deep breath. “Mom was going to be executed that night. They bound our arms, all of us, so we couldn’t do anything. They brought me and Asra to the execution site. There were a lot of other people there--they came to watch. Some people seemed just as sad and scared as we were, but a lot of them were...were laughing.” Chikisa’s voice shook. “I wanted to kill the people who were laughing. They were cruel. I screamed and begged them all to save our mom, but no one did anything.”

    Tanda gripped Chikisa’s arm. He wanted to tell him that it was all right and that he didn’t have to say anything else, but he had to know what happened.

    Chikisa swallowed hard. “When...when mom was killed, I heard something. Something loud. People screamed all around us. Asra looked up. I saw her eyes roll back in her head. Something twice as big as her just kind of...shot out of her chest. It was so bright that I couldn’t really see it.

    “What happened next took less than a second. All the people around us collapsed. It was like a strong gust of wind passed over them and made them all fall down. I blinked, and suddenly all of them were dead. Even the guards restraining us fell dead instantly. I held on to Asra and didn’t let go.

    “Lots of people from the fortress came running toward the execution yard. I saw that thing chase them down and kill them, too. It looked like--like glowing light, like the light I saw at Talhamaya’s river. A lot of people ran when it attacked them, but none of them got away.”

    Tanda felt goosebumps on his arms.

    Chikisa’s eyes filled with tears. “We’re murderers. So many people died, and I...I didn’t run. I watched. I...I should have killed Asra, then myself.”

    “Chikisa...”

    Tears streamed down Chikisa’s face. His shoulders shook as he cried. “I don’t think Asra remembers any of it. Visiting Sada Talhamaya’s grave and mom’s execution seemed like hazy memories for her. None of this is Asra’s fault. If mom hadn’t entered the forbidden place and broken the Tal people’s vow not to visit Sada Talhamaya’s grave, none of this would have happened.

    “I want to believe that all of this isn’t our fault, but more and more people keep getting caught up in it. There seems to be no end in sight, and I don’t know how to fix it.” 

    Chikisa covered his face with his hands and said through his tears, “I want to see Asra. I want to tell her everything before she kills anyone else. I want to fix everything and just make an end of it, but I don’t know how, and, and...”

    Tanda wrapped his arms around Chikisa in a gentle hug. Chikisa sobbed into Tanda’s chest.

    “I’m so sorry! I never wanted you or Balsa to suffer because of us.”

    Tanda hugged Chikisa more tightly. “You didn’t get us mixed up in any of this. That was our choice. We did what we did because we wanted to help you. I still do. Even if I die, it’s not your fault.” He wished he could speak Rotan better; he couldn’t put everything he wanted to say into Rotan words.

    Tanda kept his arms around Chikisa and stared at the walls of the prison jar. He hadn’t completely believed Sufar when he’d told him about Chikisa and Asra, but it seemed that Sufar had been telling the truth. Asra really was dangerous.

    Balsa.

    She was probably heading for Jitan so she could rescue them. Balsa was caught between two separate dangers: Shihana’s trap and Asra’s power. He needed to warn Balsa somehow before she reached Jitan.

    Tanda sat and stared at the walls of the prison jar for a long time. He and Chikisa passed the entire day inside the jar. It started to get a little harder to breathe as the sun started going down. Tanda felt entirely trapped and helpless as darkness fell.

    Should I try to send my soul wandering?

    Chikisa had fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the day; he was still sleeping. Tanda listened to his soft and even breathing as he considered what to do. Shihana was a magic weaver; she knew that he could project his soul. There was a good chance that she’d already set a trap so that he wouldn’t be able to contact Balsa or Torogai. If Shihana managed to catch his soul and prevent it from coming back to his body, he’d become a soulless husk--and, eventually, die.

    That line of thinking wasn’t encouraging, not least because it didn’t get him anywhere. He had to find some way to warn Balsa. If he could sidestep Shihana’s trap, he might be able to find some way for him and Chikisa to escape. This was a sink-or-swim situation. He couldn’t possibly succeed without risking failure, so he decided that he’d have to risk falling into Shihana’s trap. He couldn’t just sit here doing nothing.

    The moment he made his decision, the lid of the prison jar opened. Tanda looked up and identified a slight, crouched-down figure peering into the jar. They looked a little like a thief. Tanda rubbed his eyes to clear them and squinted in the half-dark, trying to see better.

    A rope landed in Tanda’s lap.

    “Climb to the middle of the rope,” the man above him whispered.

    Chikisa startled awake. He looked at Tanda, who nodded. The two of them pressed their backs against the curved wall of the prison jar and waited.

    The man above them jumped down, graceful and silent. He pulled something out of his clothing and turned to face Tanda and Chikisa with a tiny ball of fire in his hand. In the dim light, Tanda could just make out his features.

    “Sufar.”

    Sufar lifted his hand in a silencing gesture. He stood still and listened for a moment, then handed the end of the rope he’d dropped into the jar to Tanda.

    “Tanda,” he whispered, “you need to get out of here. Climb the rope, now!”

    Tanda frowned at Sufar. “What about Chikisa?”

    Sufar shook his head. “Chikisa has to stay here.”

    Tanda let go of the rope. “I’m not leaving here without him.”

    Sufar thrust the rope back into Tanda’s hands and said in a tone of irritation, “Listen. Shihana won’t harm Chikisa. She wouldn’t dare. You have to believe me. I know what she’s planning now.” 

    Sufar snapped his mouth shut and looked at Chikisa. “When Shihana comes back, she’ll let Chikisa out. She won’t do anything that would threaten his life. I expect she’ll treat him a lot better than she’s treated you both so far.”

    Sufar returned his gaze to Tanda. “But she’ll kill you, Tanda. I’m sure of it. Chikisa is the only one she needs. If we take him with us, she’ll call on all her allies and come after us. There’s no way she’ll let us get away if we take him.”

    There was a long silence.

    “Please, Tanda,” Chikisa whispered. “Go. Leave me here.” His voice was quiet, but he seemed resolute. “I’ll be all right. And if you get away, maybe you can...” he trailed off.

    Tanda could tell that he wanted to say more, but telling Tanda to leave him had cost him something. He didn’t want to be left alone here.

    Tanda squeezed Chikisa’s shoulder. “Staying here alone will be horrible for you. I know it. But I promise you that I’ll find Asra. I’ll do everything I can to save her so that you can see each other again. I promise.”

    Chikisa grabbed Tanda’s hand and held on.

    “I’m sure you’ll see your sister again,” Sufar said. “Shihana will probably think of a good story to explain away her imprisonment and treatment of you so far. She’s going to try to convince you that she’s justified. Chikisa, when she does that, I want you to think hard about why the Tal people live in the shadows. Remember the history of Rotarbal that I told you whenever Shihana tries to talk to you about the Tal people.”

    “Remember the history of Rotarbal? What does that even mean?”

    Sufar shushed Chikisa. “We don’t have time. I wish we did. Forgive me. Tanda, climb the rope. We have to hurry.”

    Tanda squeezed Chikisa’s hand, then dropped it. He retrieved the rope, lined himself up facing one curved wall of the prison jar, then pushed off the wall with his feet as he started to climb. As he neared the top of the open jar, he smelled damp grass.

    Tanda’s hands gripped the lip of the prison jar. A man seized him strongly by the wrists and pulled him roughly out of the jar. Tanda stumbled and nearly fell, but the man paid him no mind. He grabbed the end of Sufar’s rope and started rolling it up with neat, efficient movements.

    The air outside the jar was so cold that Tanda’s teeth chattered. He saw a river in front of him. The riverbank he stood on was high and angled upwards away from the river. Tiny points of light shone from the other side of the river. He could smell smoke somewhere nearby.

    As his eyes adjusted to the light outside the jar, Tanda caught sight of two men walking along the other side of the riverbank. They were coming closer.

    Sufar climbed nimbly out of the jar and landed next to Tanda. “The next set of guards is coming,” he said. “We need to run.” Sufar grabbed Tanda’s arm and dragged him toward the river. There was a small boat concealed in the tall grass near the shore. The man that had pulled Tanda out of the prison jar helped Tanda board the boat before climbing in himself. Sufar untied the boat’s mooring rope from around a small tree, then leaped into the boat.

    The man Tanda didn’t know knelt in the bottom of the boat and seized a long piece of wood that looked like a rudder. Sufar also got to his knees at the head of the boat and hauled up two oars that were attached to the boat’s sides.

    The small boat slipped into the current of the river as easily as a fish. Sufar and the other man started breathing in time with one another. As the man steered and Sufar rowed, the boat gradually picked up speed.

    The boat seemed to move silently; even Sufar’s rowing blended in perfectly with the soft sussurations of the water around them. The small lights Tanda had seen lining the river on either side faded into the distance.

    “This is the river Rawal,” Sufar said. “The lights we passed were gaps for ventilation that the Kashal use in their underground homes. Distant cousins of my mother live in this area. The head of the village we just left is a young man named Kafam. He’s Shihana’s cousin.”

    Sufar’s words came in interrupted spurts as he used his breaths to time out the strokes with his oars. ”Shihana’s crafty, but she doesn’t know everything. Age has its advantages. I know a lot of history that the younger Kashal don’t. I also have friends that Shihana doesn’t know about.”

    Sufar laughed low in his throat. “I was just imagining her surprise when she finds out I’ve run off.”

    Sufar’s laugh echoed across the water in the gathering darkness until it finally faded away.

 

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