The Lioness of Shadi

5 - The Jackal of Thoughts

"You took the most difficult step in the path of a warrior, Ilati, though not by choice." Menes tended to the mule as he spoke. They were back in tamer lands, the sun of the seventh day since her return from the desert just now beginning to set. They had stopped among the sea of thick grasses and mud in the vacant remnants of a farmer's house. Around the other side of the hut, Eigou performed rough funeral rites for the dead after chasing off the scavengers and digging them proper graves. Both Menes and Eigou insisted that Ilati not go near the dead.

You have seen enough death for a hundred lifetimes and you will see much more before this road is at an end, Eigou had told her quietly. Better that you not see more than you must.

Ilati drew up water from the well, pulling the rope tied to a wide-mouthed clay vessel. Fortunately, the water source seemed untouched. "What step is that?"

Menes's dark gaze touched her face for a moment and then abruptly moved away. "You saw the face of war. You heard the thunder of crashing hosts and saw the river of blood that is a true battle. That is not something many daughters of a king can say."

Visions of the horrors of Shadi's destruction flashed behind her eyes. He could not smell it, but the stench of blood and death filled her senses until she felt she would vomit. "I felt it as the waters of a flood." The priestess tried not to show how deeply the memories still affected her.

Menes frowned, a hint of confusion in his eyes. "Waters bring life."

"In Magan, yes." Ilati lifted the vessel of water. She was not strong after a life in the temple, at least not in her arms, but she knew how to attend to the task. "Stories say your great rivers are slow and sweet even when they swell beyond their banks, that the sacred waters your gods have gathered for you flow through the desert like a queen proceeding through her city's streets. It is not so in Kullah."

"The Esharra seems slow enough. You survived its embrace."

The priestess poured the water into a mud-brick trough for the mule. "It is not always so. The gods often punish mortals, and if they are angered fiercely enough, they open the heavens and devastate the harvest with a flood, beginning at the feet of the great peaks and destroying everything in its path. Whole cities have vanished, even their streets and foundations washed away so completely that one could stand where once there was a ziggurat and see nothing in all directions except mud and grasses."

Menes glanced towards the east, where the River Esharra coursed. "That explains you."

Ilati furrowed her brow. "What does that mean?"

The warrior held up his hands. "I mean no offense. It is just that to live in the shadow of such a wrath would take great courage, when any may offend the gods with impiety and cause the destruction of a whole city. It...I can scarcely imagine it."

Approaching from the direction of freshly dug graves, Eigou brushed soil from his hands. Even stone-stomached as he was, his grim expression made it clear that he had not enjoyed dealing with bodies left exposed beneath the summer sun and savaged by beasts. "The unfortunate are at rest."

"The follies of the Nadaren are as numberless as the sand grains in the Desert of Kings. To simply abandon the dead to rot invites the attacks of vengeful spirits." Menes shook his head. "Fools."

Eigou nodded thoughtfully, a gleam flashing in his eye as some thought occurred to him.

"I do not like that face of yours when it is so, Eigou," Menes muttered with a deep frown.

The sorcerer shrugged, his faraway look vanishing. "Something spoken of another time. Ilati, are you ready to begin your instruction with me? You may sit at Menes's feet tomorrow. This evening, I think it would be best to start at the beginning."