The High Priestess
Valachan Evening - 6th Day of the 12th Month of Year 706
Chapter 1
Shahara Bin Olan looked forward to her duties as she climbed up the steps to the seventh floor of the temple's main tower. The Hospice of the Healing Hand in Valachan was by far the tallest building in this land of jungles and near perpetual gloom which was so contrasted from where she herself was from. In all her twenty years, the recently accepted acolyte of Hala could not still believe how far she had come in only these last few.
She had been born as the reigning princess to the most powerful Bedouin tribe in the land of Har' Akir. This land of perpetual blowing sands and raging heat was also under the iron fist of Anktepot, who the stories said had ruled the land for hundreds of years. Alive or perhaps living dead, the stories varied on this fact, the pharaoh accepted no challenges to his declared godhood. Temples raised to other gods, especially those of benevolence such as Osiris and Isis, were destroyed by sweeping plagues, divine columns of flame, or claws of the living dead who lie in the unconsecrated ground out in the vast desert sands. Her people, being travelers by nature so not tied down to any location, believed this provided them the freedom to worship as they chose, providing no one outside the tribe ever learned of their choices.
The majority of her tribe honored Osiris for his wise guidance, strength of purpose, and his fierceness in battle against his enemies. These traits were dominant in a tribe that all others of the ocean of sands swore fealty to. Even the tribe's enemies grudgingly admired the strength this worship instilled in the warriors of her tribe even though only those bound by blood and marriage ever learned its source.
Princess Shahara however had instead always felt drawn to Isis and her motherly nurturing nature. Stories of the goddess spoke to her of hidden strength or spirit, not one that did battle with foes, but rather one that over time moved mountains and rivers and brought hope where little had previously existed. To her Osiris represented only a continuation of the day to day battle for existence that the Bedouins lived by. But Isis represented the path to a new and better tomorrow where survival was assured but prosperity flourished as well. She knew it would be up to her one day to show the tribes, her people, her family, the path to this prosperity.
It was on her thirteenth birthday when the tribe just arrived at the oasis which would provide for them all sustenance and most especially life providing water that Shahara stepped away from the tribe with the coming of the rising moon to pledge herself to healing this land through her goddess. The tribe had no books on the religion of Osiris or Isis as such things were banned by the pharaoh and their possession carried a death sentence. The rites sacred to Osiris were passed among the tribe by word of mouth alone and only after oaths of secrecy unto death had been given before their sharing.
For Isis almost nothing of her religion was known and only through her association in stories with Osiris was there even much mention of her in the tribe. But it was from these snippets of information that Shahara devised her own dedication ceremony, believing that the goddess would see the truth in the young girls' heart and inspired actions even if her sacrifices and prayers were not the proper ones. Out away from the camp, on a bare slab of stone rising up like an island in a sea of sand, Shahara sat to offer her prayers and ask for acceptance into the clergy of Isis. While admittedly a novice to any true religious practices of the goddess, Shahara was smart enough to invent her own based on what she knew. Since the goddess represented fertility and healing for the land and its people Shahara began by spreading a thing ring of grain seeds, mostly rice, along the edge of the rock to symbolize the holy circle of life that Isis was said to protect and nurture. She sat in the middle of this circle to demonstrate her willingness to work from within her goddess's domain to see this precious circle was maintained.
Wasting food was a crime almost as heinous in the Bedouin tribes as that of wasting precious water. Food stocks were closely monitored and no one was allowed access to them between meals. To acquire the stash for her devotions, the princess had volunteered to help make the meals for the tribe every day for the past two weeks. At first this was looked on with suspicion by her aunts who oversaw this chore, as Shahara had never seemed as interested in the daily needs of the tribe like all the other young girls were. And instead of being forced to share in this burden, at the blessing of her powerful father who doted upon his daughter, she had been allowed to focus instead upon higher pursuits such as reading and stone shaping, a unique Bedouin art whereby small irregular pebbles were fitted together without adhesives to produce wonderful works of three dimensional art.
These activities were only rarely allowed in the tribe due to their limited value in promoting survival and only then accomplished by those to old or infirm to help with regular tasks. Also stone shaping required a patient eye that the young rarely seemed to possess. A stone shaper may search for months or even years to acquire the single stone that would complete an existing work hand down for generations in the tribe. The chief's daughter though seemed possessed of both an artist's eye for detail, and an almost uncanny share of luck for finding just the right stone when she needed it that bordered upon the supernatural.
Only last year the girl had completed a two foot stone shaping piece of a rearing stallion composed of over three hundred separate stones gathered from over a dozen locations. The work was of such a quality that the chief had been able to trade it to a despised city dweller and caravan master for half a dozen of the mystical swords and knives made of rare iron. These blades had arrived from distant lands and were far superior to that of bronze which was the pinnacle of the forging art within the lands of Har' Akir. The Bedouin chief was so pleased by this trade, as were those closest to him who had been gifted with such blades, that he ordered, in as much as any father orders his most precious daughter, to create more of these pieces as quickly as she could. He was happy to note when he had last checked up on her that at least six were currently nearly three-quarters or more completed. Shahara was proving to be an unexpected boon to her tribe and the few grumbles about her performing common chores died out quickly.
So when the princess decided to devote some time to helping create meals, work that the other girls of her age were quite capable of doing without her, more than a few eyes were raised. Gossip among the older women was that she wanted to catch the eye of one of the tribes more eligible son's by demonstrating her domestic skills since she had recent begun blooming into womanhood. But try as they might, none of them could determine who the boy was that she had interest in. Shahara seemed to give no special notice to any of them, even when mothers of the likeliest candidates 'encouraged' – and a hollow reed upside the head was the standard for of encouragement in Bedouin tribes, – to ask the princess to serve them. This so baffled the mothers who ran the kitchens that in their pursuit of gossip to solve this mystery, they failed to observe the princess filling her pockets nightly with handfuls of rice, barley, and other grains. For her part, Shahara, with eyes focused toward higher things, did not recognize these women's efforts at matchmaking right away either and then it took her until much later to work out the likely source of their efforts.
Now sitting her on the island of stone in a sea of shifting sands however Shahara was content as she closed her eyes with the coming of the rising moon and began to pray. One legend in her tribe had spoken of the mystical 'Princess of the Sands' the traditional title for a high priestess of Isis, who would one day throw off the shackles of the evil pharaoh and free the desert tribes. In her heart, Shahara believed that she was the one the legends had predicted. She believed all it would take to start her on her journey to her destiny was to dedicate herself to her goddess and be accepted as a priestess, the immortal's hands here on earth. Had she been weaker in her devotion she might have opened her eyes and noted strangely that her small outline of rice seemed to glow faintly all on it own in response to her prayers.
The strange thing about legends though is that there is often another one told by opposing peoples that lies in direct contradiction to the first. Such was the case here where in the cities of Har' Akir the villagers, who as a matter of course looked down upon the nomadic Bedouins for their lack of a stable lifestyle to an extent equal to that which the Bedouins looked down upon them for there willingness to surrender their freedom, passed down another such legend. In this story the wandering tribes, through their own foolishness would call down the wrath of the gods upon themselves and the desert would rise up to erase them from memory. However only in the cities where men had found structure and stability would they survive this ordeal and prosper.
As Shahara closed her eyes and began to pray, she missed seeing the sea of sands around her begin to grow turbulent. Had the Bedouin been born in a more temperate land or savanna, the wisest of the tribe's guards might have looked upon this action as being similar to a moving school of fish causing a pond to ripple. But fish, and their even greater cousins the sharks, were unknown to the Bedouin, so while the guards were intrigued by the strange undulating dance of the small sand dunes, they did not understand the inherent danger this foretold of the situation they were in. Nor could they recognize when the waves grew greater and more violent over time how it now resembled the water amidst a feeding frenzy of sharks such as sailor would who were familiar with such things. By the time the youngest and most fearful of the guards, who was also the least experienced, convinced himself to accept the potential mocking of his brothers by calling out an alarm, the tribe's ultimate fate had been dealt by the gods. The random ripples and eddies changed and instead became arrow straight lines of attack just below the surface of the sands, and were all pointed directly into the heart of the oasis.
On the far side of the camp from where Shahara kneeled in prayer, the young guard turned and called out his first words of warning to the resting members of his family and tribe when two pairs of skeletal arms wrapped in desert heat desiccated flesh burst forth from the ground and seized his legs in a literal death grip. Panic lent the boy strength as he drew forth his two foot long bronze sword, but his inexperience and fear made his aim dicey at best. The family blade that had passed to him with a history so full of stories of its long service to the tribe, now failed to meet that standard when the clan's survival most depended upon it. The angle and force of the boy's blow hardly nicked the long dead flesh that the desert sun and heat had hardened almost as much as the metal of the blade. As panic flooded into his mind the boy raised the blade for a second swing, but now the hands yanked him hard and painfully, causing his knees to buckle and his body to fall back onto the sand. The blade slipped from his grip and landed a mere three feet from him. The river of panic now became a flood and while the young guard scrambled for his sword, more hands burst from the ground around him and began to drag the boy under the ever shifting sands. His last wail of despair was literally choked off by a final mouthful of sand.
Around the camp the scene was played out over and over again. Men, women, and children were gathered into the deadly embrace of the desert itself by the hands of its undead army. Camels, sheep, and goats were likewise taken. At first anything living that seemed to draw a breath was a target for these undead raiders. And those whose feet pounded across the desert, seemed to attract the most attention as if the creatures could feel the vibrations through the very sands themselves.
One old woman made this connection, and even began to shout to those nearest to her to stop moving in hopes of saving their lives. But the desert dead were not so easily fooled. While their bodies may not be moving, their hearts still raced as those around them dwindled in numbers rapidly. Those heartbeats were a call to dinner as they pulsed through the bare feet of the Bedouin and onto the sand, beating like a dinner bell. With a final consolidated attack this small circle of fearful defenders were overcome by more than three times the number of attackers.
So immersed in her prayers was Shahara that she never heard the call the first sentry's warning. It was not until the camp itself was fully engaged in battle for its survival that her mind began to register the unfamiliar and alarming sounds. As she awoke into full consciousness once again and turned to survey the commotion, a sense of overwhelming dread assailed her senses. Even from a distance she could see the grasping dead hands pulling her cousins, uncles, and even siblings into the deadly embrace of the shifting sands. Unconsciously she rose up to run to her family and was prevented by a flash of light and what seemed a physical barrier that matched the pattern of the rice she had spread upon the ground.
She raised her foot to erase this barrier and set herself free when she heard her mother call out to everyone to stop moving. While Shahara wanted desperately to ignore this order, the girl had been too well trained by harsh Bedouin custom to ignore such a command by a parent and instead she stood and watched as her extended family, its livestock necessary for survival, and final all weapons tents and nonliving parts of the tribe's existence were pulled beneath the sands as if to be erased from memory forever by the desert herself.
Unable to deny her mother's dying request, or to even come to grips with the horror she observed, Shahara stood there on that rock facing east until the first rays of the rising sun dispelled the glow of the seeds. Somehow knowing insider of her that the evil she had observed could not touch her in daylight, the princess now of no people wandered back to the oasis in a desperate search that she knew would bear no fruit. Tears ran freely down her face as she kick and scooped sand in an effort to find any proof of the tribe's existence. But just before midday, weary and already nearly exhausted as physically from the heat as mentally from the events she had witnessed, she collapsed in the shade of the oasis palm trees.
She drank water through her cupped hands, all the tribe's water skins having vanished beneath the sands also, and slowly built up her strength and determination. She could not stay here, that was obvious. Not only for the emotional tortures this would inflict upon her, but because it was possible whatever had killed her extended family, might return this evening for her. As saddened as she was, Shahara was not yet ready to succumb to death without a fight.
Raised in the desert, she knew that the next nearest oasis was merely a half day walk to the west. Alone, and without a means of carrying water, Bedouin practice would be to wait and travel in the cool of night rather than exhaust herself in the scorching heat of midday. But of course this tradition did not take into account a pack of nocturnal blood thirsty corpses beneath your feet. She figured that bending this tradition would be excusable compared to such a horrible death.
But that did not help her with her most pressing problem, water. She had no means to carry it, and to walk boldly across the sun-baked sand was to invite death. Shahara took a few minutes to consider her options then chose the one that presented her with the barest hope for survival where all the others provided none. Shahara dove into the oasis pond fully clothed. The cold water nearly shocked her desert trained body but she found the ability to stand, albeit only while listening to her teeth chatter. Knowing time was against her the now former desert princess began to drink to her body's fill hoping to hold enough within her own skin since she did not have a portable one to carry with her. And before she could talk herself out of it, she marked her course and began her march out through the desert furnace of sands.
Thirty minutes of walking dried her outer layers of clothes. This helped not only to keep her cool as the evaporating water was party trapped in her clothing, but it also decreased the weight she carried making the next two hours even easier to withstand. By that time though her inner clothes were wet once more, but now from her own perspiration rather than any remaining residue of the oasis.
While her goal did indeed lie due west, Shahara's path was anything but straight. Desert dwellers know that only a fool crosses over a sand dune when it is possible to go around. The energy one's body expends, and there by the additional heat generated to climb up through the soft sand where each step is a slog, is the same as fifty or more steps that can be used to go around. And this does not take into consideration the additional dangers of falling back down the dune or being covered by the fine sand.
While a desert hawk might fly between the two oases in just over an hour, the sun had sunk beneath the western hill of sand before Shahara was assured of reaching her destination and that only because of the familiar smell of camel fry being carried upon the evening winds directly to her. Her body screamed for water, but the appetizing smell made the last half hour of travel bearable as it was a signal she would survive.
Two of the tribe's guards observed her approach and accepted her proper Bedouin request for assistance. Desert tradition guaranteed her water, food and a safe place to sleep for the night, even if the tribe she was encountering was currently at war with her own. Of course, if such a thing were true it was going to be a very quiet and soon to be completed war.
The tribe camped at this oasis for the season was, however, one related to her own, although by marriage and not strictly by blood. This common bond would allow her to request and receive at a minimum hospitality until she had rebuilt her strength for travel, and the supplies with which she could continue her journey. They could even accept her into their tribe, though that would likely only come with a marriage proposal.
Her strange arrival, both by crossing the desert in daylight and being alone, drew immediate inquiries from the totality of the tribe, but protocol, and strictly speaking the health of the girl, demanded that she be given time to recuperate from her travels before speaking of her ordeal. With darkness on the rise, Shahara waived away the offers of a feast accepting instead only a continuous refill of water as she told her story. Then, as she expected, she was shown to some private quarters, the private tent of one of the tribe's girls who had just been married that week so had not yet be assigned to another, to eat and rest while the elders discussed their course of action. Even fearful that the creatures under the sand had tracked her here was not enough to keep the princess awake once she sat down upon the comfortable pillows. With only a few nibbles of food Shahara fell into exhausted slumber. Once more she dreamed of Isis though oddly this did not provide her soul enough comfort to restrain the pain of her loss.
Shahara awoke the next morning, still fatigued from her adventure, but strong enough to seek out answers. She found the tribe preparing to move which shocked her all the more. She knew better than to interrupt anyone assigned tasks, for if the whole tribe were to depart this sundown, the regular time for such things, then everyone must accomplish those tasks assigned to them by the elders. Instead she sought out the Bedouin chieftain, the brother-in-law of her uncle, and asked him what his decision on her story was. The sultan explained that after she had departed to rest, he had ordered his son and two others to return to the oasis and seek answers. While it had been as deserted as Shahara had described, the young men assumed perhaps the tribe had simple travelled on. It was not until the three completed a full ring around the oasis that they had believed her story. For while all the tracks were in evidence of a large tribe's arrival at the desert sanctuary just a few days earlier, the three trained scouts could not find a single sign beyond those of Shahara' own footsteps, of anyone departing. Add to that the strangely discolored kernels of grain that seemed to further proved the honesty of the princess's story and that left the elders with little choice. For the sake of all the Bedouin, the tribe must head south to both the civilized cities and the other oases to spread the word of the destruction of Shahara's tribe and pass warnings of this new evil that roamed beneath their feet.
The young princess accepted this all with a nod, too young and too naïve to understand the follow up questions she should be asking related to her own status with the tribe or at least her own survival. This issue too had been discussed at length while the girl slept, and it was decided that she would not be accepted into the tribe. The argument against her centered vocally upon whether or not her religious rituals had been the source of their tribe's disaster? If so, it was likely the beings that had destroyed the most powerful tribe in the desert would still be seeking her death as well. If this were so, that would mean any smaller tribe than her own, which was all of the remaining nomadic tribes of the desert, to take her in was to risk their own annihilation. The elders of this tribe would not accept such a risk. At least that is what the governing sultan and his male advisors told themselves to create the necessary logical arguments to ignore generations of tradition.
What went unsaid but was fully understood by the females of the tribe was the conflict the status this princess without a tribe would hold in the tribe were she to be allowed to stay? Once again tradition required that her status as princess be honored regardless of the disposition of her family. That would mean this thirteen year old would become the second most powerful female in the tribe, a realignment that did not sit well with any of the other females. And if she married anyone of importance, they would almost assuredly be raised to the point of a successful challenge to replace the sultan. Which means the carefully monitored pecking order that the women of the tribe relied upon could be thrown completely into flux.
In a secret meeting of key females while the tribe prepared to move, traditions were discussed, options identified, and rewards and punishments determined that would prevent the men of the tribe creating this problem. While the Bedouin tradition required the tribe to provide for the girl, that was a very loose word capable of multiple interpretations. Young wives took their more aged and powerful husbands aside and 'suggested' that if trouble did indeed follow the girl, wouldn't it be better if it found her in one of the desert cities rather than with the tribe? Of course proper flirtatious eye contact, and a few promises of pleasures to come went along way toward swaying these husbands' decisions on the matter. The more traditional, or those the women quietly referred to as 'the stupid ones', required a less subtle approach. Instead of an exchange of favors, their spouses explained how cold the desert nights would be as long as Shahara was allowed to stay in the tribe. So when the issue was finally brought up before the sultan and his advisors, he was relieved to find that his male advisors recommendation was in total agreement with the threats his wife had made him on this issue.
Two days later Shahara entered a city for the first time of her life. Never had she seen so many people cramped in so small a space. Never had she seen such strange foreigners, like the gray haired warrior woman whose eyes seemed to follow her every footstep or the mysterious gypsies in their colorful wagons. And never had she know such an orchestra of smells, if such filthy and stench filled odors could be compared to music. Two hours later she turned around to find she had been abandoned, as alone as she had been while she fled through the desert, though this time she had been provided two changes of clothes and a respectable number of coins that might see her through this moon cycle if she was careful in her dealings.
Being thirteen and in the blossom of womanhood she had been sheltered from the seedier side of life. As such when she saw the sign for available rooms at a cheap price, she thought nothing of the red lantern that hung in the window. In fact, the overwhelming perfume smell of the place was initially even a welcome change from overpowering foul odors of the streets outside. That of course was before the door slammed shut after she had crossed the threshold and entered the building.
"Looking for a room little sister?" The man behind the desk offered her an oily smile, bereft of more than a few teeth. While that itself was less than appealing, those that remained were a shade of brown that looked more appropriate on a barn floor rather than a person's mouth. Her inner alarms went off and Shahara turned to find a rather muscular and burly eunuch standing between her and the now closed door.
"Not wanting to leave us already are you desert rose?" The man at the desk's tone was filled with noting but undisguised malice. But before she could make a response, a second voice from one of the darker smoke filled corridors joined in the conversation.
"Fresh meat Hastas?" An even darker voice chilled the girl. "I will give you five silver falcons for first blooding, or three if I simply be the first of this crowd to wet my appetite." A cloud of sickly smelling smoke reached out from the corner where a hookah pipe burned.
"You were always cheap Romack." A second voice, more of a wheeze than proper speech answered up from the other side of the room. "I will raise his pitiful offer to eight and six if it includes a clean room this time. I fear the fleas left me itching all last night."
"I am not for sale!" Shahara tried to claim, but the eunuch's big hand wrapped around her mouth to silence her at the silent commanding nod of the one called Hastas.
"I see we are to have an auction." Hastas spoke smiling at how this strange girl had already reached more than double his normal price for an evening of entertainment. These were monies to which Hastas had no intention of sharing with the girl in question. "The bid is to you Romack, do you wish such a fresh beauty to go for so such a minor pittance?"
"Fifteen and ten" the shadowy figure called forth after first taking another inhalation of his burning pipe.
This challenge was responded to immediately by the clang on a coin purse dropping onto a table. "Let's make it an even pharaoh either way." The voiced gasped just loud enough for all the parties to hear. A gold coin offering was more than Hastas had ever been offered for his wares.
A knock upon the barred door temporarily interrupted the auction, but the owner chose to ignore the new business in favor of continuing his likely greater profits. He motioned for his guard to deliver the girl unto him and then resume his duties at the door.
"A pharaoh and five." Romack raised tossing his own heavy coin purse on his table in response. Shahara knew that this was not really about her any longer but rather the way two rich city dwellers handled what would be a blood feud in her tribe, or rather her former tribe she remembered, with coins instead of blades.
"Two pharaohs" the wheezing voice replied.
Once again the door echoed with a knock, this one sounding slightly more insistent. Hastas looked to the girl to see if perhaps it was her guardian coming to her rescue. The pleasure dealer did not want unlooked for trouble with a full Bedouin tribe. But the girl's eyes betrayed no hint of hope of rescue, only a resigned fear that the shop's owner had seen upon the eyes of many young girls before this one.
"Three." From the left was immediately answered by "Four" from the right. Hastas was in pleasured shock and by the time the price had reached ten, the evil fat man was starting to consider what it would cost to hire trained men capable of raiding other Bedouin tribes for similar treasures. That was just a moment before the door was hurled from its hinges by a body that had smashed into it. Both she, for the owner could determine it was a woman in armor, and the heavy door barreled into the silent bodyguard, knocking him to the ground and relieving him of consciousness.
Shahara saw the woman shakily regain her footing, then kick the door off the eunuch, testing for a pulse. Once satisfied he would live she then turned her eyes toward the owner of the establishment, and for a moment, to Shahara herself to review the young girl's current level of safety. "I must insist that I be offered an opportunity to bid just like the others." Her voice had the signs of age, but seemed deep and strong and confident, especially compared to the wheezing of the second bidder. The young princess noted that the woman was not actually decked out in armor, but rather her silver hair was bound tight to her head and appeared at quick glance to be a helmet. She did wear bracers upon her arms, but only a stiff leather jerkin for protection of her torso, nothing that would blunt a sharp blade. For a weapon, she carried only a crooked six foot staff with an equally long flexible whip of leather connected on the top end. The weapon looked odd, but something in the old woman's eyes brought confidence to the young girl that the warrior knew how to best employ it.
The man behind the hookah stood up, allowing twin daggers to fall from his sleeves and into his waiting hands. Shahara was familiar with blades, and these appeared to be combat knives as they were too long and the pommels likely to be too heavy to toss with ay accuracy, especially after indulging one's self in the smoke of the black lotus flower. "This is a private affair, and one to which you are neither invited, nor would be acceptable to stand in this girl's stead." He growled and raised the blades to a combat position of preparation, the right higher and slightly forward, the left kept close and lower to use in defense.
The woman turned to regard him, shifting her balance ever so slightly, and crouching just a bit as she let her opponent approach. She opened her lips as if to speak, and the hookah smoker paused to await her words, much to his mistake. Her hand shifted slightly upon her crooked staff and in nearly and eye blink she had landed half a dozen and one blows upon the shoulders, neck, head, and face of her opponent. While none was enough to drop him itself, though the blow to the temple came close, the totality and ferociousness of the attacks made him stagger. Foolishly he instinctively tried to keep his balance, which not only kept him within the striking range of the staff, but also caused him to windmill his arms for balance, removing any protection either weapon might offer.
Another dozen blows reigned down upon his body before the warrior woman turned away from him. Shahara watched the man stumble and thought he was shaking off the attack, but soon recognized that these were actually uncontrolled responses of his body. His eyes were only whites, the pupils having rolled up into his head, and he fell backwards, his head slamming down on his former table sending the crystal and silver hookah pipe flying to shatter against the floor.
"As I was saying…" The woman began again.
"The attack upon Romack was almost in and of itself worth the price I offered, but what type of merchant would I be if I let so delectable a transaction fall though my fingers?" The wheezing voice spoke in what may have been an attempt at an amused tone.
"A living one…" The woman replied without even turning to face the challenge.
Shahara watched the man's hands come up off the table, and while his voice might suggest infirmity, the dexterity the pair made as they wove a specific pattern denied it completely. Shahara had seen magic performed only once in her life, but she knew she was seeing it again now. The warrior woman had challenged a mage of likely power and would now suffer horribly for it. His voice rose in strength and volume in direct response it seemed to this challenge. "Arteterous Magesti Conpre….Agggg."
Though four full paces and a table stood between the combatants, the warrior woman reacted with the same level of precision she had shown to the first challenger. The staff seemed to nearly leap from her hands until only the last hand span was still firmly in her right hand grip. But even with this extension she was still six feet of reach short of her opponent. Except of course for the leather strap that now snapped out straight at the mage, and which Shahara could now see gleamed with a silvery metal tip of some sort on its very end. Though the girl's eyes could not follow the speed of the blow, she heard a muffled wet smack of flesh just after the warrior changed her direction and pulled on her staff like those familiar with fishermen would expect if landing a catch. Of course this was an alien concept to Shahara so she only noted the pure flowing beauty of the move, that and the severed tongue that dropped on the floor in front of Hastas. The princess of the desert did not even hear the muffled screams that turned changed quickly into the coughs of the mage choking upon his own blood.
Not waiting for a third challenger to present themself, the warrior strode up to the still sitting owner, knocking his table aside with a sweep of her staff. "I believe I heard the current bid was ten pharaohs." She spoke with the full fury of justice behind her actions. Hastas raised his hands to cover his face in supplication hoping to forgo a similar beating to his person. The warrior raised her staff and for the first time Shahara noted that the end opposite the whip was slightly v-shaped and reinforced with the same silvery type metal that the whip's end was covered by.
"Would you be willing to accept two jewels?" She said, stabbing the v-end down below the man's protruding waistline and twisting it viciously. Hastas screamed in response, his voice rising in pitch until it was unable to be heard as his arms trying feebly to protect himself. The room's new silence was marred only by the distinctive sound of something fleshy landing with a wet plop beneath his chair. Shahara chose not to look at the source or what the blubbering Hastas might look like as the warrior puller the girl up by her arm and marched her out the door to the city streets outside.
"Am I to be your slave then?" Shahara found the courage to ask three streets later once the stares and whispers of the gossiping crowd had been unable to keep up with the pace of the two women.
"I have no need of a slave, and find the practice repulsive." The woman turned and offered a reassuring smile. "I simply provided you assistance in your time of need."
"And I am to believe that you did this all without a desire for anything in return?" While Shahara was young, she was not THAT young or naïve.
"No." The woman replied with another honest smile. "I came to offer you a chance at a new life." She replied in an almost motherly tone. "I would argue that while I am unaware of all your current options, the one I can provide far exceeds the 'benefits' of the place in which I found you."
Shahara wanted more than anything to believe this woman. Some warm feeling burned inside her when she looked into the aged eyes. Some feeling of recognition, though she had never set eyes upon this woman before. And some sense of belonging, a sense that had recently been torn from Shahara's life and which she now realized was far too important to let slip away perhaps forever. But caution, quickly and recently learned though it may have been, was not so easily ignored. "Am I to be a sacrifice to you god?" Shahara asked defiantly.
The woman chuckled aloud. "Why yes, that is exactly what you would be." While her words seemed mocking the laughter was so infectious that the girl could not help but smile herself. "That is only providing of course that you prove yourself worthy."
Seven years later Shahara had chosen to become a living sacrifice to a god, well goddess actually. The sacrifice had been to accept the title of acolyte in the church of Hala, the goddess of healing. While this was not strictly speaking the church she had thought was her destiny to lead, she wondered if perhaps the legends of a mighty priestess of Isis were instead a local translation of the goddess Hala, since their described spheres of power were almost completely the same.
And the warrior who had saved her it turned out to me the Matron Mother of the Hospice of the Healing Hand who was known to her clergy as Mother Beth. Shahara, upon learning of the identity of this, at least locally, famous woman expected that she would be passed off over time to others who would be responsible for her education. With luck she might be allowed to converse with her rescuer, a woman she had come to respect and admire, once a month in passing.
But this proved to be a completely unfounded fear. Mother Beth adopted the girl as if she were her own daughter and put her in a room on the floor below her own. While such an obvious show of favoritism would never have been accepted in her tribe or any other Bedouin family, not a single member of the nearly five score of clergy even reacted to it. Shahara was welcomed with completely open arms and all the love of others she could accept. She had girls her own age to talk with when confused, and 'older sisters' who were always ready to provide loving assistance in her lessons and education. The desert princess learned that in Hala's church, individual accomplishment was praised, for it made the whole of the church stronger. And the strength of the church made life just a little better for the entire world.
With more sisters and kindly aunts than Shahara ever believed possible, there were also men but they were separated into their own dormitories during the more interesting teenage years, the princess grew in self confidence and found the ability to create her own identity without having to live within anyone's expectations. And she also found that her 'mother' was always there for her when she needed advice.
Mother Beth, she learned, was well into her sixth decade of life when she had performed this rescue. While she had shown youthful skills far in excess of any Bedouin elder Shahara had ever observed of even heard about, the girl did note that age was quickly catching up to her. While the woman's matured steps slowly replaced the confident ones displayed in Har' Akir, the dignity never left them, even as they slowed. And while her body began to stoop with the burden of age, especially after her daily climb of the six flights of stairs to her private apartment, a visit by Shahara never failed to add at least a bit of spring to her step and pride to her posture.
The two talked long into the night many times over the seven years they had so far shared together. Shahara had gradually opened up about everything, not only her dreams, such as saving her people, but also of her nightmares, reliving the loss of her family and the life she had once known. And all of these revelations were accepted without question and were responded to with only encouragement to make the most out of herself.
When in passing, Shahara mentioned her skill in stone shaping, that night she returned to her room to find an urn full of stones of various sizes, shapes, and types with a handwritten note desiring to see a demonstration of her skill if the girl were so inclined. The Bedouin girl began that very night. And in the times when her lessons and chores allowed, Shahara combed the gravel paths of the Hospice recovering just the right stones to properly demonstrate her skill. The piece, which turned out to be an upraised hand in prayer, was now on permanent display directly behind the hold altar. The creation brought her fame among her peers and a priceless hug from her adopted mother.
Soon after Mother Beth took ill, though it was nothing more than her advanced age catching up with a woman who chose not to go silently into Hala's embrace. Instead the leader of the church became bedridden and while the healing prayers were offered to the old woman daily, she shrugged them off saying that she needed no cure for a well lived life. In respectful silence, the elder aunts, those priestesses next in line who took over the Matron's duties, told Shahara early in the spring that her mentor would likely not see the next year's flower buds. It was doubtful that she would even be able to celebrate her own birthday, an event that coincided with the changing of the year.
For Shahara that made this summer, fall, and early winter all the more important. Not only did she throw herself into her studies to become the fastest, while not quite the youngest, acolyte ever accepted into the church of Hala. She also spent whatever time she could when Mother Beth was awake talking to the woman and just sharing her life. She learned, much to her shock about a long lost love affair with a rather dashing rogue that the aged woman had kept secret from all the others. Celibacy was not a requirement of the church of Hala, otherwise where would the next generation of faithful come from the common joke asked, but the young twenty year old woman still had trouble picturing her adopted mother in love, especially since that was an adventure the princess had yet to experience for herself. While Mother Beth did admit her first and only love was still alive, relating that her heart and soul would know if he had passed on from this world, she also related that she had no desire to relive this past, but was content that it remained sealed away in memory.
Shahara had briefly considered locating the man and arranging for his reintroduction, but the matron was firm in her desires. Instead the girl decided to use her artful talents to produce for her 'mother' a small token that she might look upon and understand the joy she had brought to Shahara's life.
This new piece seemed almost to make itself. At the end of the first week it was obviously going to turn out to be a palm tree, a fitting reminder of the start of the two women's journey together. And after but a few weeks, it only required one more stone to be complete. But that one stone was proving to be stubbornly elusive.
Unfortunately during these weeks Mother Beth had also begun to slip into the world of delusions. Her normally peaceful sleep was now tormented by dreams leaving her bedding awash in sweat every morning. As her foster daughter, Shahara took it upon herself to stay with the old woman while she slept, offering her a comforting presence through her troubled nights. This did little for her own well being, but the temple's staff said nothing for the girl's sacrifice of self was a standard they all admired. As Shahara's own body tired from staying awake most nights, the other priestesses dolled out Shahara's chores among themselves to give the girl all the time she needed to say a long goodbye to her mother, and her friend.
Matron Beth still had good days and bad. On the better she and Shahara would walk in the healing gardens where many of the temple's natural herbal cures grew and were tended along the same gravel paths that the girl used for her stone shaping. While she hung on her mother's every word, the girl could not stop herself from seeking out the final stone she needed so that her gift might not be too late in coming. Somehow she knew the stone was here within the temple walls waiting for her. It was a feeling of recognition; similar to ones she shared with more than a few of the other priestesses in the hospice and of course her mother. But knowing it and finding it was not the same thing.
"Child, what do you know of you family?" Beth asked as she watched the girl's eyes seek out a familiar shaped stone. "Were they all Bedouin or did one of your ancestors marry outside your people?"
The question was shocking. Her people, like many others, like to proclaim the purity of its bloodline for it established their nobility. While the tribes did intermingle out of necessity, they never married outsiders. She explained that this was how it had been since the very first days of their people when the Bedouin's great first leader had brought all the wandering tribes together after the death of Anktepot and showed them that they must travel together in larger tribes for mutual support. Back then the oases had not yet come to the surface everywhere and the cities and their inhabitant jealously guarded their wells an allowed no outsiders access to them. But the Bedouin king cared not, saying these cities were dens of evil where Anktepot held sway and that for the people to survive and know freedom they must follow him into the desert. Most did so because they believed in him, while the remainder believed they were choosing a slow death of dehydration.
But the Bedouin king, the only one to ever wear that title, demonstrated his first miracle and produced enough water from the sands each night to fill the bodies of all the people, animals, and water skins required for the next day of travel.
"He was a priest!" Shahara blurted out, inadvertently interrupting her own story. While it had been a common enough story of retelling around the Bedouin fires in her childhood, the girl had not the experience to make this association. During her training, as she gained this experience she had not thought of the story. It was not until this minute that she found the common thread between these two parts of her life that reminded her that a mighty priest would have little trouble performing just such a miracle.
Before she wandered too far down that mental path, her mother asked another question. "Did you father lay claim to this king as an ancestor?" The question seemed to be spoken with a sense of already knowing the answer, just coaxing the girl to further revelations.
"Of course he did." Shahara responded but waived this off. "But then again I believe all the tribes said similar things. It's not like any could perform the miracles the Bedouin king had been capable of."
"Until now you mean." Beth's teasing voice and playful smile were a comfort to her daughter, even if the meaning was so disturbing.
"Mother, that would be suggesting that priestly magic is hereditary and not the result devotion." The princess replied. This friendly talk suddenly seemed to have taken on a second year theological level discussion. Shahara suddenly wondered if the old woman's mind was slipping back to the days she taught these lessons.
Mother Beth met her gaze with strength and wisdom of her own. "No my dear, we both know that all faith can not come from bloodlines." The old woman stood up but motioned the young woman to stay seated. "I am going back to my room but I want you to stay here and spend some time with your stone shaping. Come join me tonight in my room for a private dinner." The girl beamed at the offer as Mother Beth turned and made her way back to the Hospice proper. Her voice called back without turning her head. "Oh Shahara my daughter, know that your Bedouin King's blood does flow true within your veins."
The rest of the morning and afternoon went by in a blur for Shahara. While she tried to dedicate her mind to stone shaping, she could not find the peace and tranquility within herself to focus upon the stones. The words Mother Beth had spoken to her replayed themselves over and over in her mind until she deciphered what the old woman had been trying to tell her. She has said that all faith could not be hereditary, but this allowed for the possibility that some faith perhaps was.
The former princess of the Bedouin went immediately to the temple library and began to do more research. She ignored the common books of her faith, ones she was familiar with from her years of study, for she knew any clues would not be in those. Instead she set her sights on rarer and dustier tomes in forgotten corners where the sunlight rarely reached. After hours of such study she had found her answer.
Pieced together from vague reference in numerous books, references that appeared to be written for those with special insight beyond which the average student of Hala might be granted, Shahara found that there were indeed one or more bloodlines sacred to the goddess, and that these people, if dedicated, were meant to serve as the goddess's hands throughout the world. She also learned that members of these bloodlines could sense one another, especially if the gift of faith was strong within them which Shahara recognized she had been doing with a small number of her fellow priestesses since arriving here.
The girl was filled with such joy that she went immediately to her patron's quarters to talk more of her discovery, one that Mother Beth had likely prompted her to make. She was so exited that it was only as she was standing in front of her doorway that she suddenly remembered she was supposed to bring their evening feast. She began to turn when the old woman's wail came through the closed door.
"The stars have been pulled down…the stars have been pulled down." The familiar but now tortured voice seemed repeat the mantra over and over. "Now darkness shall consume the world." From behind the closed door came the sounds of breaking glass and wood. Shahara reached for the door but found it locked from within. She pushed harder, but the heavy wood would not budge to her efforts.
"Mother Beth it is me Shahara, please open the door and let me in." The girl could not help but let a tone of fear enter her pleas. For a moment the destructive noises seemed to pause in consideration. Then they resumed at an even quicker tempo.
Shahara cursed herself for failing to go to the kitchens first, for then she would have at least a knife or fork, or some metal implement with which to try to do battle with the stubborn lock. As her indecisiveness took hold the sounds inside the room reached crescendo and then were replaced by total silence. This was even more worrisome for the girl. She reached in her belt and pulled forth the stone shaping sculpture she had been working on. While the statue was nothing more that a set of tightly packed stones and pebbles, it was stronger and more likely able to break through the simple lock better than her flesh and bones might do.
She swung the small palm tree shaped artwork at the door lock, whispering a prayer built of desperation more so than faith. "Please open…" Shahara watched the stones taken on just the slightest of glow that when they came in contact with the lock transferred immediately. The door lock audibly clicked and the portal swung open.
The room beyond showed all the signs of damage or battle that the girl had expected to find. Normally well ordered books lay scattered about the room, their bindings strained by the damage of their falls. A delicate tea set that Beth doted upon lay like a shattered hazard to the barefoot priestess. Holy vestments and other clothes lay torn and strewn about the room. And the window lay open, with the night breeze causing the single remaining curtain to snap in response to each gust. But of the Matron Mother there was no sign.
Shahara raced for the window and peered down to the courtyard below. Contrary to her fears, both the stars and the moon shown brightly, enough so that the young priestess could find no evidence of a body, which was what she most feared, lying below the window. In fact the courtyard held nothing that appeared out of order, and the few animals that the hospice was home to, cats and birds and such, showed no signs of panic either.
While the land of Valachan was home to lycanthropes and other deadly predators like jungle cats, these threats were understood by the church and the Hospice designed with these dangers in mind. There was no way any predator could scale the walls and reach these windows, and that was without even considering the protective wards the priests and priestesses' prayers added for further security. Flying creatures, at least those larger than a pigeon, would also find it impossible to have entered this room for similar reasons.
While her eyes darted from one spot to the next she added her own cries to the night, alerting her sisters walking in the courtyard below to the crisis. Refusing to leave the tower she guided the searches from this perch, though all proved as fruitless as she had first expected them to be. Others soon joined her in the room as well, and they too could find no explanation for their patron's disappearance. Most shook their heads, offering up that Hala perhaps had finally come for her chosen matron.
A few though, the ones in fact that made Shahara tingle in their presence chose to say nothing, but shared a look with one another that seemed to speak silent volumes. When she prepared herself to ask what they knew, she received caring stares that held her silent, and then whispered promises that all would be explained soon. None of these though answered for the girl the question closest to her heart. Where was Mother Beth?