And save my lady, who once said that her mucker maid was her best friend.
PART 2
The Adventure
Thereafter
Day 1
I decided to start numbering the days at one again to mark the time when we began anew.
I was up all last night. Who can sleep when there's real air to breathe? Who can sleep when there's a sky? Still, I thought it wise to let my lady rest as long as she could, so for hours I kept company with the stars. When I couldn't stand to wait another moment, I clambered back inside, wrote in this book, and then woke her with the news.
She seemed happy. She seemed relieved. But at the hole in the cellar, she waffled. She said she couldn't climb up it, she said her ankle hurt, she said the hole was too small, she said anything to stay inside. After some time of this, I guess I got a bit tetchy and, Ancestors forgive me, I ordered her like I would a sulky sheep, pushing her from behind. I thought all she needed was to feel that glorious night air, but when I scrambled out behind her, I found her clinging to the side of the tower and shaking like a cornered rabbit.
I put my arms around her to make her feel tight and safe. I said, "Breathe the air, my lady! Look at the stars!" But she just shook.
Thinking it was the darkness of night that haunted her, I waited for the sun to come up. It was nearly dawn. The sky brightened in the east, turning white, yellow, then blue. It was perfect. I hadn't realized that by firelight, nothing in the tower had shown true colors. All we saw for years was black, gray, and orange.
My lady kept her eyes squeezed shut.
"Look, my lady. Open your eyes and see the colors."
It was the wrong moment, for just as she peeked, the first edge of sun rose over the horizon to peek back at her.
My lady screamed and fell to the earth. "The sun burst! We're going to burn up!"
"It's just so bright, I think, because we're used to darkness. We'll grow accustomed to it in time."
But she insisted that she was burning and rolled around, screaming and thrashing at nothing.
I dragged her inside.
We'll try again tomorrow.
Day 3
We've spent the past two days taking little steps out of the tower, shielding our eyes and looking around, then crawling back in. My lady tries to be brave, and she bites her lip and cries silently, sure she's on fire, but I tell her it's just the normal sun, that Evela, goddess of sunlight, will protect us. I've sung the song for good courage and the song for clear thought so many times, I feel hoarse and drained, as though the words plucked out my own courage and thoughts and tossed the rest of me aside like grain husks.
There are no guards with strung bows aimed at the escaping maid—at least I think there aren't since I'm still alive, but I can't yet see past my outstretched hand, not with the sun shooting bright arrows into my eyes.
Last night we sat under the moon for a long while, and my lady finally breathed in and sighed and seemed happy to be in the air again. She never once let go of my arm.
I spent this afternoon in the tower washing, making bundles of our blankets to carry spare clothing, and baking barley bread stuck with peas from the barrel scrapings. We'll leave tomorrow. I've packed brushes and ink enough, so I can keep writing of how we fare. I hope there will be much to tell.
Day 5
Oh, I feel so low, I want to curl up in the dirt and just moan, moan, moan. Everyone's gone. Everything's burned.
We knew from afar that something wasn't right. There should've been people passing us on the road to her father's city. The sun was so piercing I couldn't see much, but all the world felt wrong, as if the road appeared flat but was actually as steep as a mountain, as if we'd died in the tower and were just ghosts wandering a shadow world.
My lady wouldn't look up. I draped a blanket over her head and she stumbled along, her eyes on her feet.
"Would you like to go back to your father?" I asked.
"He won't have me. And even if he would, I won't have him." She gripped my arm as if without me she'd drown dead in the sunlight.
"We can't live out in the open like this," I said, "not for long, not without a gher. We need to — "
"It doesn't matter where we go. Lord Khasar will find me and wed me and then kill me."
"It won't come to that, my lady. If you won't go home, I'll take you to Song for Evela and reunite you with your khan."
"No! I won't see him."
"But he's your love," I said. "He'll take right care of you."
My lady had stopped walking and stood in the center of the road, hunched and shivering.
"He won't." Her voice went raspy soft and strange as she said, "He wants to kill me with arrows and knives."
Well, those words nearly knocked my feet out from under me. "Khan Tegus wants to kill you? Why would you think that?"
"I heard the whispers."
I nearly laughed as I asked, "Voices whispered to you that Khan Tegus wants to murder you with arrows and knives?"
She looked at me then, her eyes clearing a bit, and said, "No, I didn't hear anything. I just don't want to see Khan Tegus anymore. That's all."
My guess is that she's tower-addled something fierce, her brain awry in her head and her understanding tilted steep. But it's not proper for me to make decisions for her. So what's a mucker maid to do?
We slept the night under a tree, my lady's back pressed to the trunk. I lay awake for hours, playing a game, trying to keep my gaze on the black parts of the sky, but my focus couldn't help but slide back to those bright stars. My eyes wanted the light. I breathed in as though I'd drink the sky cold. It was a good night.
Then this morning we approached her honored father's city. I save a gray smudge that must've been the wall, but there was a dark spot that didn't seem right. As soon as we were close enough to make out details, I gasped right out loud. My lady looked up then and saw it, too.
"There's a hole in the wall," she said. "Someone broke the wall."
We kept approaching but stayed in the shadows of the trees that line the road, though they didn't feel any safer. The city gate was gone. Torn out? Burned?
"I don't understand," she said in her little-girl tone. "If something happened to the gate, shouldn't there be workers to fix it? And there used to be gate guards. Didn't there?"
She started to cry, and we had to stop. I held her head to my shoulder, rocking her, rubbing her back. Poor thing, I don't think she knows where to put the whole world.
We lay down under a tree and I sang a soothing song, one for deep sleep that goes, "Trout in the water, deep underwater, swimming so silver." She succumbed to sleep, and I left her in the shade and crept toward the city. Not only was there a hole in the wall, but the entire length was marred with black marks. Arrow shafts stuck between stones.
As I climbed atop the heaping rubble, a striped snake startled beneath my foot. It didn't attack, just swam deeper into the stones. The snake was surely a sign of something, though I'm not sure what. All creatures belong to Titor, god of animals, but the snake is the favorite beast of Under, god of tricks.
When I'd climbed high enough on the wall, I finally witnessed the whole truth of it. Her honored father's city is no more. It's razed, gutted, gone. No sounds. Even the smoke from the burning has blown away. I could see heaps of stone, charred wood, broken wagons. No people.
Qadan and Mistress. All the folk in my lady's house, her father, sister, brother. That city that teemed with people, all gone. All dead?
A cat passed me and meowed as though nothing were wrong in the world. My heart tipped up in hope that it was My Lord, but this cat's fur was brown and white. She didn't come when I sang. I guess she'd been a wild cat for too long and no longer craved the company of people.
I've had time to write, as my lady has slept all of the night and most of the day. We have just a day's worth of the flat bread left, so I need to scavenge more food, but if I'm not by my lady's side when she wakes, she screams. I braid her hair as tightl
y as I can without pulling loose her scalp, making sure every hair crisscrosses another. I sing, sing, sing every song I know and I even make up a few. But my lady's not well. She is not well.
Day 6
Is her khan's land burned down as well? Is everyone gone? Maybe we're the last living souls in the world and we'll drift from tree shade to tree shade, eating grass and speaking with snakes and cats until we're stooped from age and crumble into the dust. Today I keep thinking of all the people who have left and never returned — my brothers, Khan Tegus, our guards, this entire city. What a strange, dark world that swallows people whole.
I need to know if anyone still lives. The not knowing makes me queasy. My lady said she won't go to Song for Evela, but Ancestors forgive me, I'm going to take her anyway. She won't ask where we're going, and once she arrives and sees her khan, shell heal and forget the whispers.
Before we journey, I should go into the city. We need food, and we need vessels to carry water in case we can't follow a stream. My lady fares a bit better today after many songs of healing. If I can coax her, she'll come with me. She knows her home and may find stashes of food that pillagers would leave behind. I'll admit, I'm afraid to go in to the city. If an army did this, then warriors may still lurk there.
And if the Ancestors did this, if in anger they wiped the land clean, then why did they let my lady and me live? Did they forget about us, locked away, hidden from the gaze of the Eternal Blue Sky?
I just looked back at the beginning of my workings and the title I gave this book of thoughts. It's all wrong now. I named it so, thinking that we would be seven years in the tower, and the idea of having an adventure thereafter gave me hope. I'm a stubborn mare sometimes and must dangle my own carrot. Here we are two and a half years later, saved from one coffin only to find my lady's city is but a second. My title is no longer correct. Two and a half years is not seven, but I'll leave it. I don't like the look of scratched-out letters.
Day 7
My lady came with me into the city, Ancestors bless her. She shook like a thin tree caught in a wind, but she came.
I don't fault her — there was much to shake at. Not a roof left intact, not a soul alive. And many a body, burned bones, some still stuck with arrows, some missing skulls. I won't describe any more because, truth be told, I don't want to frighten my own self.
The whole place was so still, I longed to find living people. But at the same time, every moment I feared running into another soul. There could be warriors or the knocking men, and I have nothing to defend us with but my own fingernails. Every shadow, every corner seemed dangerous. The dread was so powerful, I felt like I was walking on my own studded rat traps. Even the breeze hurt against my skin.
I can't say which is more terrible, to be locked away from everyone or to be free in a world where all are dead. Both are different shades of darkness.
When we came at last to my lady's house, we stood and just stared. How grand it had been! So lovely and large my mama wouldn't have believed the tale. Now it was a heap of stones, green roof tiles, and cinder. My lady didn't cry. She didn't even shake. I think she hadn't had much happiness in that house.
My lady was able to point me to the spots where the kitchen had stood and the likely location of the food cellars. While I sorted through the rubble, she stared.
"Maybe it never really existed. Maybe this is all it ever was."
"No, my lady. It was real."
"I can't remember. . . . " Her gaze didn't stray from the heap of rubble. "I can't remember, Dashti. Are you sure?"
Sometimes my lady asks me questions that I can't answer with any degree of patience.
From under the lighter rubble, I pulled out a sack half full of barley meal, some rope, a large ceramic pot with just the spout broken, a wheel of cheese still covered in wax, a jar of oil with its cork intact, and three boots. By then my arms were too tired to lift a pebble, so I wandered around the ruins, scanning for a gleam of anything useful. By the Ancestors' luck, eventually I did find a knife. With that tool I can sharpen sticks to dig roots, spear fish and rodents, and gut them for the eating. It gave me a bit of hope.
I hadn't realized how silent all the world was until I heard a cry that made my stomach jump up into my throat. I thought warriors had found us, that we were dog's meat for sure. But then I saw.
Titor, god of animals, must've taken pity on us and sent a gift for the last lady of Titor's Garden.
At first the animal looked ready to bolt, but I sang the yak song, the one that bubbles up your chest and says, "He laughs, he laughs, he moans and laughs." I've never seen any creature respond so quickly to an animal song. He came to me at a near trot and stuck his muzzle right in my palm. This one's made of the friendly stuff.
I named him Mucker, and he's the handsomest yak I ever save, with his coat a glossy brownish black, horns so long and proud as to make any she-yak blush, and grand teeth all still intact. He's so strong, carrying our few possessions must feel like a fly landed on his back. Yaks are the best animals for travel and will eat whatever stubby greens the road will produce. Give me one good yak over a herd of horses any day.
And what fine company he is! He nuzzles my hands and lips my ears, he stands close to me as we walk, sometimes pressing his broad head against my side, his horn wrapped around my back like an arm. I think he has a wonderful sense of humor, too. I told him a few stories and he turned his ears, listening heartily. Just writing about him lifts my mouth into a smile. Mucker and I will get along fine.
Day 8
This landscape is as familiar to me as the inside of my eyelids. West of the city, the terrain eases back into the steppes — stretches of grass growing as tall as my knees, love, rounded hills, stripes of streams carrying away the mountains' snow, and the occasional knotty tree, wind-whipped and bending.
I'd forgotten how the wind never sleeps out here. The clean air moving against my skin was more delicious than spiced food — at first. But when we stopped for the night, I couldn't fall asleep for all the memories of mucker life the smell of the wind thrust into my mind.
When I did finally sleep, I dreamed I'd been running through the ruined city, trying to find a way out. When I went into a house, I found it full of bodies, and before I could turn away, the walls sealed up around me. Goda, goddess of sleep, save me from such visions. Even after I woke, the dream still felt sticky, clinging to me as if I'd walked through a spider's web. I'm lying against Mucker now and feeling a bit easier for his warmth and sleepy grunts.
Stars light my page. We'll be starting our journey in earnest come dawn and I suppose I won't have a chance to write again for some time. Song for Evela is west of Titor's Garden, so we'll follow the road that stretches toward the setting sun. If it would take two weeks for the khan's party with their horses and decent supplies, for us, I guess it'll be more than twice that. We don't have food enough, but it's spring and there are trout in the stream. If there's something a mucker knows, it's how to eat from nothing. No walls trap us now! The smell of grass and yak is making me drunk with wishes that I'd never left the steppes—but after Mama died, I didn't know how to survive alone. Did I give up everything to learn to make letters and words on paper?
No. I'm a lady's maid. She would've died in that tower without me, I know that. My worth lies in keeping my lady alive for her khan. The Ancestors will honor such a life as mine. I hope.
Day 33
Three weeks we've been walking and still not another soul. We spotted the remains of some villages, but whether the folk there fled when the city was destroyed or whether they were all killed, too, I don't know.
A few days ago we forded a wide river, and I believe it must be the one that marks the border of Titor s Garden and Song for Evela. If so, then we've crossed into her khan's realm. Will we find the city gutted and full of the dead unburied? Never mind, I'd rather not think on that question.
My lady's clothes begin to hang on her again. I get her off Mucker's back and walking as often as
she'll allow, so her blood is moving and her breath is exhaling the tower poison from her body. But oft times she must ride, for she's so beset by darkness as to not see the road.
This morning she began to scream, "I'm drowning, I can't breathe. The air's not right, I can't breathe." She clawed at the air and grabbed her throat, and when my songs of healing did her little good, I found a hollowed overhang by the stream and stuck her inside. She calmed at once.
I'm sitting outside the little cave, where I can still see the sky, where the sunlight moves on my arms. Being inside that tiny space, even for a moment, that's what made me want to scream.
While she's been napping, I've combed Mucker's shedding hair with my fingers, sharpened a new stick, boiled the sting out of some nettle leaves, then speared a fish in the stream, wrapped it in leaves, stuffed it with nettles, and cooked it in coals. The smell of fish cooking is rich enough to wake up the trees, but still my lady sleeps.
So I ate my portion and then lay on my back, watching the clouds. Seven years of food isn't worth trading for the sky.
Day 44
Others live!
Since fording the river, the steppes have faded away, trees and then great woods taking over. Today we reached a crossroads and save a group of traders traveling the north-south road. They were whole and living and speaking — real people, not ghosts. What a heavenly sight.
"How far is the city?" I asked when we were upon them. I didn't say Song for Evela, for my lady still doesn't know where we're going.
"Four days, if you walk straight. You weren't coming from the east just now, were you?"
"Sure enough, they're coming in from Titor's Garden," said another trader, then he leaned over and laughed hard.
The first rolled his eyes. "Hmph, very funny. As though anything comes from Titor's Garden."