I haven't posted in a while, but for good reason. All of my writing for the past few weeks has been focused on another book, Seeker of the Silver Wolf as I have been calling it.
This is a brief excerpt from the book, the first chapter of many more to come. I hope you enjoy!
Shayna sat cross-legged on a mat covering the hard grey stone ground beneath her. In her palm was the small finger bone that once held a man's hand together; roped with taught ligaments and tight skin, now bare and white as ivory.
"You may begin when you like," the guiding Seeker, Magra, said. He sat across from her on a mat in the same cross-legged fashion, illuminated dimly by orange candlelight. Shayna's eyes flickered to the bone nervously. It looked like a long pebble, but the experiences it held, what she could see in it, was far beyond a simple stone. This would not be an easy reaching, if there could be such a thing.
She looked up at Magra, slowly lifting her head, trying to wet her mouth to speak, but the man simply nodded.
"Baliar aid me," Shayna whispered a solemn prayer into her chest and closed her hand tightly around the thief's finger. Total blackness overcame everything, like Shayna had closed her eyes, though she could not remember doing so. The bone was soft, pliable and long in her hand, then large, under an elbow. Not her elbow, but not separate from her either. There was only one thought, one that overcame everything: there would be no hope in escaping a guard’s pursuit in the wide streets of the Fahrul's mercantile district.
Amaazer's deep pockets were heavy with hard onions and near-stale bread pilfered from an unopened store; he carried another, fresher loaf, wrapped in wax paper underneath his arm. The Fahrulian guards knew his face almost as well as his wife did, so he had to carry a hamman around his neck. Pulled up, the scarf would undoubtedly attract suspicion, but at least it would cover his face. Hamman’s were illegal to wear outside the fringes of the Fahrulian lands where there was a constant roiling sandstorm, though it was better for Amaazer to be seen wearing one and remain unrecognized than be seen as himself, outside at this early hour. At least this way he could not be traced back to his home. Back to his family. I have a family to feed. A scabbed cut that ran over his bottom lip split as he grimaced. Damned council. He spat bloody mucous on the wall of the back-alley, painting the beige stone red. First they dismiss me from the guard, then they assign me to farming weeds in the Barren farms near the Old Lands. I will not let my daughters starve.
It was early morning and still cool, as cool as Fahrul could ever be said to be. Only the hint of the outline of the sun, a dull yellow circle, could be seen through the shroud of the ever-looming clouds of shifting sand above. Morning tinted the city orange and cast shadows of deep browns that made the tightly packed alleyways a comfortable dark; one that Amaazer could have happily lingered in if he did not have to be home so soon.
Amaazer peered around the corner of the alleyway onto the street. It was silent save for shop owners and street vendors stumbling out of sleep, opening their doors and lowering their multi-coloured eaves to the wealthier class who could afford anything other than bare rations. This was the spice district, the only area in Fahrul where colour other than bleak browns and pale yellows was allowed. Amaazer gathered the blood in his mouth, clenched it behind his lips, dirtying his teeth brown before he spat onto the ground. How do you like your colour now? He smiled, feeling the splitting pain in his lips, remembering the guard's warnings if he were caught again. He turned his head, steeled his jaw, and picked up his pace.
Amaazer looked to the sky, comparing the height of the sun to the top of the roof of a nearby building. He shook his head sharply. Almost time. I must hurry. Fahrulian guards were sharply regimented. This allowed the council to have accountability for all citizens of Fahrul; it also allowed Amaazer to have precise predictability of where they would be as he watched the sunrise. The first troop of the morning would be making their rounds past his home soon, decked foolishly in gleaming bronze that would shine even off of the earliest, bleakest sun. Soon, they would knock and he would not be there. It would not take a black-cloaked mind walker to prove his guilt if he was not there to answer the door.
"By the breath of Shazrim, how you push me, my daughters," Amaazer grunted in-between steps. He was running now, slipping between alleys, past thin backstreets littered with refuse that landed just shy of too small gutters. A familiar stench filled his nose. It burned, it made him feel sick, but it was sweet in a way; he was close to home, so close.
He roused sand from the softly packed ground of the scarcely walked alleyways, legs straining to keep up with his purpose. Through tightening street and crowded skylines, he ran in paths fit for only two people to walk shoulder to shoulder, all the while watching the rising sun. There was no colour here, just doors and open windows that longed to find a breeze; some respite from the dry heat that was already settling in. It was home, though calling it that made him feel sicker than the stench.
The sun was half-visible at the peak of a nearby building. He gritted his teeth and dug into a sprint. The guards would be at his block soon and his unit was always the first they checked. Amaazer licked the corner of his mouth dry of blood and spat again. Will I die to a little cut? He smiled warily as the blood dripped down a nearby wall.
Amaazer rounded a corner, his corner, the same wall of yellow sandstone he passed by every morning. He crossed into his narrow street and laid eyes on his door, but a glimmer of iron flickered at the entrance of the alley - the tip of a sharpened spear-point. He ran past his street into the adjacent alley. He pressed his back against the hard stone in the tight alleyway. Turning back around was no use.
"Seven lashes!" Amaazer said, prying the words from between tightly locked teeth. They should not be here yet! His mind raced and his heart pounded. Calm yourself, man, your heart is beating like a child's. He looked down the street, regretting not leaving his house sooner, regretting not pushing his legs harder, but regret was useless now. He looked at the sun, a dull yellow plate just above the roof of a building. They were not supposed to be here until - ahh! He pulled the hamman up around his face, disguising himself, raising suspicion beyond any doubt if he was seen.
He pushed on, the bread and onions rattling in his arms and against his legs, slowing him. I cannot drop them. I will not drop them. They will not starve. Amaazer took a right turn down the next street. Already cleared for inspection, people began to move lazily out of their houses toward the production district, mines, or farms just outside of the city. A man stepped into the middle of the street and opened this mouth as he saw Amaazer approaching. Amaazer clutched the loaf of bread tightly in his arms and stopped anything the man was about to say, planting a heavy shoulder into his stomach. The man collapsed and a heap of sand roiled around his body. The rest of the still-waking people made a clear pathway for Amaazer, not wishing the same fate as their neighbour had befallen.
The block ended quickly and Amaazer took another sharp right and crossed the connecting street. He pulled his hamman down to rest at his neck and looked around the corner with one eye. He was behind the guards now, their bronze pauldrons painting the tall sandstone walls with a sharp brown light. An array of weapons gilded their persons: short curved bows slung tightly over backs, brief metal spears held in hand, twisted daggers fastened to their hips, walking single file down the street. My street. Amaazer's face puckered with anger as the guards approached his door, a thick fist from a guard moving quickly to knock, to seal his and his daughter's fate. Amaazer felt for the short dagger pressed at his thigh, underneath his loosely fitting pants, but he pulled his hand back at the thought. You are a fool! Now stop your madness and-
"Guards! Guards!" A voice shouted from the street over, no doubt the man he had just sent into the ground. At the call, the guards roused to a jog and left his door, hurrying past the corner he had just come from. Makhilar looks upon me with favour today. He gritted his teeth and ran.
Amaazer burst in through his door without a knock, not stopping his pace as he ran into the back room. His daughters were huddled around his wife on the bed, their small heads pressed into her lap, whimpering like dune pups without the life to howl.
"Where were you Amaazer! You were gone too long this time," Lissan rose from the bed to face him, pointing accusingly with a bony finger, pale as bleached bronze outstretched into his chest leaving the girls to rest on each other. His wife was tall and lean with cheekbones sharper than he had ever seen on her before. Her brown eyes, deep as wet desert sand, wavered between berating him and eyeing the loaf of bread he held close to his chest. "You cannot keep doing this Amaazer, you will be-"
"Lissan, I have food. That is what matters right now," Amaazer said, handing the loaf to her. "We need to hide it, the guards will be back here soon," he said, continuing to unload his pockets full of onions and small loaves onto the small cot of a bed, tucking them underneath the lumpy mattress.
"Yes, yes of course," Lissan said, retracting her accusatory finger and taking the loaf from him. "and take that thing off of your neck! Being caught for wearing a hamman is just about the most foolish thing you can do," Lissan turned and kneeled to face their daughters, ripping off two small chunks of bread no bigger than a finger each for them to eat. "Girls, your father is home. He brought food. Eat this, quietly, underneath the blankets. Quickly girls!" Lissan said, but only Mareen looked up, opening her eyes for the first time since Amaazer had come in.
"Dad... Food?" Mareen said, her eyelids parting with the effort of moving all the sands in the desert.
"I did. Girls, you won't be so - hungry anymore," Amaazer said, choking on nothing. His youngest, Tareen, moved only to readjust herself on the blanket with a soft groan, clutching at her day's empty stomach. Who am I kidding? Aztaan's blessing, I have already failed them. The bitter thought came, but it would have to wait.
Amaazer removed his hamman and tucked it alongside the food underneath his mattress as a knock came to the door, sharp and hard, rattling the sandstone walls.
"I know you're in there Amaazer! Come to the door, now!" It was a familiar voice, one that made the cut on his lip swell with pain. It was best not to get on Tir's temper, though Amaazer seemed to live his whole life on the short side of it.
Amaazer took his time toward the door after stripping himself down to his common clothes as if he had just woken up. "I'm coming, Tir, I'm coming. I have barely woken up," Amaazer called through a false sheen of exhaustion. It was a difficult front to keep up; his heart nearly beat through his chest. Where has your courage gone? Baliar may not even know.
"To the door Amaazer, before I-" Tir said, but Amaazer pulled the door open before the man could finish. Tir's broad fist sailed through the air, expecting to find the door, offsetting his balance instead.
"You will wake my daughters, Tir. Is it my whole family you take issue with, or just the one?" Amaazer said, his courage waning even further as the man who looked to be built of sandstone himself held the space like a wall beyond the doorway.
Tir righted himself from the clumsy movement, hardening his broad face even further. "We will see," Tir said, more of a growl than a voice. He pushed sideways through the thin doorframe so his shoulders could fit, managing to knock Amaazer backward as he entered, bringing a grunt from his lungs.
As Tir made himself comfortable in the small room, looking casually over empty counters and barren cabinets, two other guards followed behind. A man ducked under the doorway, taller than Tir, taller even then Amaazer, and far skinnier. Another was a woman with uninterested eyes who brandished a shock-rod. Amaazer's split lip groaned as he looked at the device.
Then, it was Amaazer's stomach that groaned as he exhaled sharply, falling to his knees, gasping for breath. What felt like a boulder had pushed itself between the muscle and bone just below Amaazer's ribs, sending all the air from him in an instant.
"Would you care to explain this, Amaazer?" Tir said as placidly as he had ever said anything to Amaazer, though there was unbridled anger hidden behind the calm words. Tir held out an onion with the hand that hadn't been forced into Amaazer's stomach. In his palm, the onion looked like a grape. You blind excuse for a damn fool, Amaazer!
"Dammit Tir, what have I done? We've just woken up. By the nine, I swear it. I swear-" Amaazer was silenced by that same boulder of a fist dashing his face, crumpling the bone in his cheek like a dried twig.
"Search his house," Tir said. The woman skulked into the only other room in the house like a snake through thick sands as the tall man surveyed the empty cupboards and cabinets, pressing on the hard stone to see if anything would give. Tir remained with Amaazer.
"Look at my daughter's, Tir! They haven't eaten in days. They only have the energy to sleep, barely enough for that!" Amaazer said from the ground, hot blood gushing from the wound on his lip. It hurt to speak, but pain meant nothing now. If he touches my daughters, Amaazer tongued the split lip-turned gash on his mouth as he rolled onto his side, pressing the form of a dagger onto his thigh. Only if you must. Only for your daughters.
"Now, would you care to explain where you found this?" Tir said, spittle raining down from his mouth. His tone grew hotter with every word he spoke.
"I already told you Tir, I just woke up. I was home when you knocked, yes?"
"Don't play a fool with me!" Tir said, sending his boot into Amaazer's side before he had a chance to brace. Something cracked in his body as the kick landed and the world flickered as if a candle in the wind. My mind... What was..? Deeper pain followed the kick and the world returned.
Amaazer rolled, clutching at his ribs. "Where is the rest, scum!" Amaazer reached for the dagger strapped to his leg, feeling it through the fabric of his pants. They have not been touched yet. That is not to protect yourself, Amaazer! It is not for you! He released his grip on the hilt with some hesitance.
"By Baliar, I don't know what you are talking about!"
Tir wound up for another kick and Amaazer braced. Before he could send it into Amaazer's splintered ribs, the woman came out of the bedroom.
"Tir, the man does not lie. There is nothing here," she said, her gaze dropping to meet Amaazer's only for a brief moment. Tir grunted and lowered his foot to the floor. By the nine, I don't know if I can take another. Amaazer clutched his ribs, releasing a quiet groan so as not to tempt the hotheaded man that stood above him into more violence.
"Are you sure Malan? This man is-"
"I am sure," The woman, Malan, said in a careless voice, feeling the length of her shock-stick with nimble fingers.
Tir grunted. "Viresh?" He said to the man behind him, returning his eyes to Amaazer.
"Nothing, captain," Viresh said.
Tir grunted again, louder this time. "Who else could it have been! A man calls for us because someone in a hamman with an armful of stolen food knocks him over, and not a street away?" Tir said loudly, pulling his gaze back to face the two. "Do you think this is a joke? What reason would that man have for lying!"
"There is nothing here," Malan said simply without taking her eyes off of the shock-stick. Amaazer couldn't take his eyes off of it either, especially the point at the end which held the powder - the reason it was given its name. Though the powder shapers worked with the stick and tools like it day in and day out, whenever one of those sticks was in a room, especially with someone as volatile at Tir, there was an undeniable degree of danger to everyone. "We should try elsewhere. There have been more Dunesmen trying to enter the city than ever before, could it not as easily have been one of them?" Malan continued, dragging her eyes from the stick to match Tir's. Even through the pain and confusion that surrounded Amaazer, the mention of the Dunesmen brought a brief shudder.
There was a long silence where all that could be heard was Tir's heavy breathing, hot from his nostrils like a slakh feeding its large lungs with air. "If you insist," he said, then paused again, completely silent this time. "Take his hand," Tir said, turning slowly back around to Amaazer.
"I have don't nothing wrong! You cannot take my hand for following the laws!" Amaazer protested, placing his elbows on the hard floor, inching himself backward into the wall.
Malan's eyes widened almost unnoticeably. "Tir, there is no need-"
"You will address me as captain!" Tir said, stopping Malan's words dead in the air. "Now, you will take his hand, or I will take yours."
Malan looked back at Tir, a gaze so unshakeable its periphery made Amaazer want to disappear into the ground. Amaazer shifted his eyes from the two to the tall man that stood in the kitchen, Viresh. He was almost not there, yet he loomed over everything; a bronze shadow painting the wall. His look was already on Amaazer, his dark eyes set far back into his skull underneath a brow which drew even deeper shadows across his face. His was a harder gaze to hold than any other, but Malan lowered the stick to her side and pushed past Tir, drawing all of Amaazer's attention back toward her and that deadly stick.
"Let this be quick. It will hurt, but do not make it worse than it must be," Malan said to Amaazer as she reached for his hand.
"No, no! You can't take it, you can't! I've done nothing-" No, not my hand... Not my... A thought came to Amaazer like someone else's voice in his head, but it was not his head. It was not his alone.
The world flickered, like a white sheet covering his eyes for a brief moment almost unseen, almost ignored. "By Shazrim, what have you done to me! Are you a mind walker? Have you..?" Hold... Don't return... Not yet... Amaazer's gaze became cloudy. Beads of sweat that were not his own draped his face, his knuckles curled tightly into nothing. There was still enough clarity to see Malan. She held Amaazer's arm on the ground with her boot, bones wavering against underfed muscle. Malan's body coiled backwards, a long black stick in her hand that was now high above her head. Then, like a viper made of fire, she struck the back of Amaazer's hand and the ball of powder at the end of the shock-stick fragmented into shards of light, tracing his loose fingers across the room.
Someone yelled, a sound full of pain and loud as rolling thunder, though it was impossible to tell who. It could have been Amaazer; it most likely was, though through the haze it was impossible to say. Beads of sweat rolled down a young cheek, a tight grip still held in the place where a hand was a blown to nothing. Shayna's eyes opened sharply into tears for a pain that she no longer felt, for a pain that was never truly hers.
A stout old man sat cross-legged across from her on the rough-hewn carpet, illuminated all around by flickering candles. Shayna looked at the man, wondering at him, wondering why she was sitting in a strange room with a strange, bald man.
"I am Magra. You are Shayna. We are in the ascension room, testing your reaching abilities," he said calmly. Clear your mind, Shayna. Return. She let her tight grip go from the finger bone. At least she knew herself. "Remember Shayna, return," the strange man, Magra, as he called himself, urged again, reaching to her hand to take the bone from her grasp.
"No! I did nothing wrong! You cannot take-" Shayna said sharply, twisting her hand around herself, protecting the finger bone like a dog protecting food. She blinked. Magra. It is Magra. Shayna played with the name in her mind. She loosened her grip on the finger bone and twisted back around. My hand...
"You are training to become a Seeker. We are testing your abilities. We are-" Magra continued, talking quickly, pulling himself back from her and holding his hands up protectively, reassuring Shayna of everything she almost knew.
"Magra, I remember now. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell," Shayna said. She ran the hand she did not grip the bone with over her other hand, but she could feel its touch only slightly; it was like she rubbed a rock at the end of her arm.
"You must not apologize, it is expected in a reaching," Magra said. "As long as you return, there is no harm done."
Shayna frowned at the bone in her hand, trying to ignore the dim, unfeeling nerves in the palm that held it. Making it through this reaching, as brutal as it was, gave a Seer the right to call themselves a Seeker. Whether it was from the recognition of her failure or the realization she would have to go through the trial again, the kicking and battering of Amaazer, that man she felt as if it was herself, it was the last thing she wanted to be holding.
"Take it, please. I don't want to hold it anymore." Shayna thrust the finger bone into Magra's hand. Shayna watched their hands touch as he took the bone from her, but she could feel nothing in her fingers. "I can... I can still feel him Magra. I haven't returned completely," Shayna said, rubbing her hand over the one that had been blown off of Amaazer. Her hand was there as solidly as it had ever been, but it felt as though it should have been gone. It was numb, but still oddly nimble.
"The mind is a complicated thing. Some Seers have reported feeling the same thing," Magra said, looking up from the bone in his palm, his round face lit like burnished bronze. "Reaching is a difficult thing; a gift with a burden. It strains the mind, but you must always remember that what you see is not your pain," Magra said, sternly now. "Amaazer is the thief, you are the Seer. No matter how much you may think you feel him, no matter how much you think you understand his pain, you cannot let it become yours."
"I understand Magra. I won't let it, I promise, but... It's just so hard. I cannot separate myself from that..." Shayna looked at her hand. It was still numb, but it was there. Of course, it is Shayna! It is your mind playing tricks, just like Magra said.
"Don't make promises to me, Shayna, make them to yourself. There is a reason this is the final trial," Magra said, holding up the thief's finger. "If it were an easy reaching there would be no Seers, only Seekers unprepared and incapable of doing their duty." He rose with some difficulty, favouring his left leg, tucking the thief's finger into his pocket.
"But I've been trying for weeks Magra!" Shayna said, but her words died in the tight air of the small room. "All I want to do is study the old relics," she said. "As a Seeker!" She added." I want to dig, I want to reach into ancient bones. I want to help!"
Magra pulled a black curtain, revealing the morning's orange sunlight. A pleasant breeze filled the room, exciting the candles and washing some of Shayna's doubts with it.
"You are making quick progress Shayna, quicker than any other Seer, but you have yet to forget yourself in the reaching as you must learn to do. Do you think the thief could simply disconnect from his abuse?" Magra said. "Do you think Seekers would ever learn anything if they could not handle pain in a reaching?"
"No, of course not," Shayna said, a frown besetting her face.
"Nothing can get in the way of our knowing. What if the thief knew the location of an artifact of the Old World?" Amaazer is more than a thief. He had daughter's. "You would never know it if it hid behind a veil of pain," Magra said out the window. "But you are making progress. Complete unity of a Seeker with a memory takes time and practice. Last week you broke your connection to the reaching as soon as the guard collapsed the thief's ribs. This time you-"
"His name is Amaazer," Shayna said sharply.
Magra's dark eyes hardened and met hers. "He is only a trial, Shayna. A test. The thief leads us no closer to knowing the world's histories. Understanding that is more important to becoming a Seeker than mastering reaching itself," Magra said placidly, the same tone in which he said everything. Whether it was in the slight tick of his eyelid or the forced sound of his voice, Shayna sensed a roiling frustration.
"But he is still a man! Do we know where he is now? We have his finger, but what happened to the rest of him? What happened to his daughters?" Shayna said, her brow furrowing into frustration. A Seer pushing a Seeker in this way was wrong, but something inside of her pushed her forward.
Magra closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to let go of whatever stirred underneath. "Perhaps some chores will clear your mind. You are clearly yet to return."
Shayna placed her left hand on the ground to rise up and almost fell over. It was still completely numb, but she pushed on it as one pushes on a crutch. "I have returned! Forgive me if it is not myself to be curious about the man who had his hand blown off by the High Council for trying to feed his daughters!"
"Do not speak of the Council in such a tone!" Magra said, his voice rising, almost cracking under the strain of anger. "It should be about time to help with breakfast, yes?" Magra said, looking into her with eyes as dark as onyx chips.
Shayna swallowed the further protest she wished to make. It felt like swallowing a pineapple whole. "When will I get to try again?" she said, reeling back the frustration that she truly felt.
"One month from now, like all other Seers," Magra said looking away from her. "You need time to let the vision go. You need time to become yourself again, to return." He knelt in the circle of candles, extinguishing them between his wetted fingers in a symphony of hisses. "When you are a full Seeker, this time to rest is a pleasure you will rarely be afforded. Make good use of it Shayna," Magra said, her name spoken like spitting poison from his mouth.
Shayna turned toward the door to hide the scowl that her face had twisted into. Her hand was still prickly and numb like she had slept on it wrong. "I will be ready," she said and walked out of the small room before Magra could respond.