“I don't know what you are complaining about.” Heshek paused and stretched out his back. “I have seen more than seventy summers and I still often come up here. A mere whelp of forty shouldn't have any trouble.”
When Narit had arrived at Hold Nix earlier today, he had expected a tense day of drinks, discussions and carefully calculated pleasantries. Instead, Heshek Su’Nix, Elder of Stream Nix and arguably the most powerful man in all Rinasu, had suggested they go for a walk. A boat, carriage and one hour hike later, he looked up and saw the striped orange and yellow of the Golden Cliffs looming above them. They had finally reached the Narrow Way, the only path out of Rinasu to the west. And Heshek wanted them to climb it. “Besides,” Heshek said, “The view from the top is simply spectacular!”
The older man started up the steep and narrow path with a strong stride. With a resigned sigh the younger followed, brushing mulchy tree bark off his hands. He still couldn’t quite believe they were going to do this. The Golden Cliffs ran the entire length of Rinasu from the Source to the sea and this was the only place they could be climbed. To Narit, that suggested that they weren’t meant to be. This was his first formal meeting with Heshek since he had become Elder of Stream Moana less than a month ago. If he had known they were going to spend it hiking, he wouldn’t have worn his best silks. Three layers in his Stream colours, dusky orange, dark green and silver-grey all over matching straight-legged trousers and silk slippers. He had spent hours deliberating over it all, wanting to make the best impression possible. He had met Heshek before, of course, there weren’t so many Su that he could fail to be on first-name terms with all of them, but Sanfor Su’Aiya and Thamin Su’Tirta had been so stiff at their meetings that he had decided to go all out for Heshek. He was wearing a simple black-and-white linen robe that reached to his knees over baggy trousers gathered at the ankle. It was decades out of style, but Narit had to admit it looked comfortable.
Heshek walked with his back straight, arms folded behind him inside his wide cuffs. Narit was sweating long before they reached the level of the canopy. He wondered if it would be too outrageous to remove his outer robe. Despite being half Heshek’s age, as well as having the River’s blessings of good health and long life, he was struggling; Hold Moana was built on the flat land between the Cliffs and the River an hour’s sail south, he had not grown up climbing mountains like the members of Stream Nix.
They walked in silence apart from the crunch of their shoes on the gritty path and Narit’s heavy breathing. It didn’t take long for them rise out of the dank, humid understory and into the forest canopy where they were bathed in fresh green light.
Heshek glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t even appear to be sweating. Narit was certain his silks must be soaked through already, he could feel his undershirt sticking to his back. “So...” He said, completely ignoring his companion’s indisposition. “What do you think of the young Boann?”
So that was his game, torturing him to soften him up for a questioning! Arata Su’Boann’s twentieth summer had been a great source of consternation among the Streams. Her coming of age solidified Boann as the latest family to be chosen by the River, the first in 120 years. She had taken to running her own fledgling Stream with astounding ease and had declared that her Hold would act as the first permanent trading post in Rinasu. There was a lot of opposition to the idea of trade with the outside. Narit had visited Arata weeks ago, it was traditional to introduce yourself as an Elder to the newest Stream first. Narit had just been happy that Arata’s inexperience had completely covered for his own awkwardness. She was young, idealistic and verging on inelegant; Narit was really quite fond of her. He took a deep breath, trying not to show his exhaustion but utterly failing to conceal his irritation. “I don't see what my opinion has to do with it. Arata is Su, what she does is her own business.”
“Still, I would be interested to hear it.”
This issue had been on Narit’s mind for the last few weeks. His mother refused to pick a side in the conflict because she firmly believed that each Stream’s business was their own. However, there were many problems bubbling just under the surface between the Streams at the moment; Arata’s declaration was neither the least, or the greatest of them and he didn’t think Stream Moana could afford to be non-committal anymore.
A stone turned under his foot nearly sending him sliding back down the path. Forget this! He was hot, worn out and grumpy. Maybe if Heshek didn’t like what he had to say they could get our of this sodden forest air and back to civilisation where there were iced fruit juices. He stopped and glared at the back of Heshek’s head, "I think she is probably right. The Tun lands are becoming more civilised, I have even heard tales of towns forming on the coast! We can't ignore them anymore and we can't just trust in the mountains to keep them out. Trade seems a reasonable alternative."
Heshek nodded slightly and walked a little further up the path, forcing Narit to follow. “Alternative to what?”
“You know as well as I do! Some talk about attacking them.” He threw his arms out in exasperation. “Is this a test, Elder Su'Nix?”
The old man turned and lowered himself onto a small boulder, seemingly to examine a bell-shaped, purple flower clinging to a crevice in the cliff. “Of course it is, Elder Su'Moana.” He said, mocking the younger man's sudden formality. His crystalline blue eyes sparkled, the colour of a midsummer sky. Narit had those same eyes himself although his were a darker, twilight blue. Every member of his family had been born with those eyes for nearly 500 years, they were what marked you as Su, chosen by the River. Chosen to do what exactly was a subject for much debate and each Stream had their own interpretation.
Narit folded his arms and scowled out at the forest. He had never seen it from this high before, the leaves were so large and dense that you couldn’t see the ground anymore, the sky above was just a thin blue sliver. With the Golden Cliffs behind and the forest in front, they could be the only people in the whole world. “You don't think I deserve to be an Elder, do you?”
“That's not so,” answered Heshek, now apparently absorbed by a small grey and white striped rock. “You are young, yes, but not too young. I'm not sure I like the precedent set by your dear mother's abdication, but as you said, she is Su. What she does is her own business.”
Narit rounded on Heshek, who didn’t even look up. No matter how powerful this man was, Narit would not stand for his mother being insulted. “Precedent? What precedent?”
Heshek calmly tucked the rock into a pocket and looked up. “Of the five current Streams, four, including my own, were founded by women. As of your mother's retirement, Arata Su'Boann is the only female Elder and she is barely twenty summers old.” Heshek pushed himself stiffly up to his feet and walked to the cliff edge. He suddenly looked a lot older as concern added to the lines on his face. “The Council is still new, I worry that rule will become a thing of men. You say ‘some’ talk of attacking the tribes. I think this talk is louder than you suppose. Young men always want to fight. Both Aiya and Tirta support imposing some sort of rule over the coastal lands, by force if necessary.” He harrumphed and shook his head, “As if anyone would leave the River to administrate something like that.”
Narit watched as a small monkey darted through the canopy and out of sight. “So you want to know where I stand on the matter.”
“I do. You will be the first new voice on the council since its inception, even Arata has been attending for years under her mother’s supervision. Your mother was stubbornly neutral in this case but you can break the deadlock.” Heshek placed a hand on Narit’s shoulder and turned to face him. “I could understand her reluctance, she didn’t agree to the founding of the Council in the first place. But we could be talking about war here, no-one can avoid making the decision.”
“War! You think it would be war?” Narit was shocked. The largest conflict in the past thousand years of Rinasu history had been the Aiya-Moana blood feud nearly four centuries ago. The Elder of Stream Nix at the time had stepped in and, reportedly, bashed the two other Elders’ heads together until they agreed a peace. War, with tens, hundreds of people all fighting at once, was an alien and terrifying idea.
“A strange concept, I know.” Heshek released his shoulder and started pacing across the narrow path. He gestured out towards the forest, or rather, Narit realised, beyond it, towards the plains of the Tun tribes. “The tribes war all the time and I can't see that they would view us attacking them any differently. Blood is spilt, people die before their time. Aiya is the loudest voice for attacking but I don't think they fully understand what they are asking. They think we would stride out of the Pass, Waters in hand and the tribes would bow down.”
“And you don't?”
“Do you?”
“I know nothing of them! I’ve never met a tribesman. Have you?”
Heshek tucked his hands back into his sleeves and returned to sit on the boulder. “Once, many years ago. I was wondering through the eastern mountains and I stumbled on his camp. He seemed to be a lone explorer like me. I remember his hair was thick and wild, his skin was grey with dust and dirt and, of course, his eyes were brown. Deep brown, almost black. Otherwise he looked very much as we do.”
Narit nodded to himself. Brown eyes were rare in Rinasu, another blessing of the River. Even in the rare cases where a tribal family had settled on this side of the mountains, any new children they had were born with dark blue. It took many generations for the blessings to build up to the point where a child was born with the crystalline eyes of the Su. “Did you talk to him?” He asked.
“I tried. His language was clearly related to ours but not enough to hold a conversation. It was enough to show that I meant no harm though and we shared a cup of what he called ‘kuhi’, unless that just meant ‘drink’.”
“You drank something he gave you? Was it made with River water?”
“No, of course not. But I didn’t want to insult him, he had a rather large knife.” Heshek leaned back against the cliff-face. “It was quite nice actually, spicy and bitter at the same time. It made my head buzz. I have often wondered what plant it was made from, certainly not one we have near the River.”
Narit stood for a moment, stunned by this revelation. Drinking from the River bestowed the blessings of the River. To drink something else was, well, unthinkable, disgusting. Even fruit juices were of the River, the plants were irrigated after all. He soon shook himself and tried to get back to the topic at hand. “So you don’t support attacking the Tunlanders because one once gave you a possibly poisonous drink?”
“No, I don’t want to start a war with them because they will be so much better at it than we will.”
“What makes you say that? The Tun tribes are savage, barely starting to be civilised. We have the Waters, how could they stand against us?”
“I’m not sure that civilisation has anything to do with war. What I suspect does make a difference is practice. That man I met was carrying a knife, for a stroll in the mountains. Are you carrying a weapon? When was the last time you had to defend yourself in any way? Or do anything more violent than a little light hunting?”
“I am carrying Water, as are you I expect.”
“And when have you used it to fight? The imbuings exist, our own ancestors perfected them centuries ago. Have you ever practised them?”
Narit walked a little further up the path kicking a small stone ahead of him. Heshek was right of course. The most violence he had ever seen was a few fistfights as a young man, he had certainly never used the Waters violently against another person. He didn’t even really like hunting. Why chase down a living animal when fruits and grains stayed still and were just as satisfying? Contrary to Heshek’s assumption, he had practised a few of the more dramatic imbuings. He used to amuse himself in his teenage years by using Force to knock down piles of rocks. He kicked the stone off the side of the path and listened to it tumble through the leaves below. His mother's abdication had come as a surprise to everyone and she had given little reason for it. Narit had not expected to become Elder for decades, yet now here he was being asked for his opinion in something that would affect all Rinasu by a man that he had grown up in awe of. Stream Moana had never been outward-looking, he had spent most of his adult life inventing new dyes and tending the mulberry trees for the silkworms. This was too big for him. How could he think of the tribes when he couldn't even handle the valley?
He smiled and turned. "I think attacking would be premature. Trade will favour Moana, perhaps the Tunlanders can be persuaded to love silks."
Heshek Su'Nix chucked deep in his throat and came to slap Narit companionably on the back. "Glad to hear it young man! Now, shall we see this view?"
"We're still going up?" Narit said in dismay. Heshek just smiled and marched on up the path.
*******
The two men continued in silence for some time. As they broke through the lush canopy, Narit was suddenly overtaken with a severe sense of vertigo. This path really was very narrow and with the with the forest now below them, very, very high.
Heshek grabbed Narit's arm as he stumbled. “Sorry lad, I had forgotten how it can take you the first time. There is somewhere we can rest up ahead.” He led them to a shallow cave in the cliff side, not too deep but enough that Narit no longer felt in danger of tumbling to his death. Before him the very tallest trees waved in the breeze while the shifting, green mass of the canopy rippled below. The air was warm and clear, wonderfully refreshing after the humidity among the trees. In the distance, he could just see the golden-brown of the plains and foothills that led up to the eastern mountain range, utterly impassable this far north. The sky was stunningly blue with not a cloud in sight.
Heshek handed him a bottle of water and took a smaller, glowing vial out of a pocket in his coat. “Are you nauseous? I have an imbuing Melli Su'Tirta taught me.”
“She taught you a Healing?” Stream Tirta had held the monopoly on Water-based healing for more than a century. Normally, they would protect that knowledge with unbreakable stoicism, the same way he would protect the secrets of silk-making.
Heshek laughed softly. “Well, she owed me. And in my old age I'm prone to the heat-sickness in summer”
Narit shook his head, now that he couldn't see the treetops swaying directly below him the dizziness was fading fast. No longer worried about propriety, he loosened the ties on his outer robe and slipped it off. His thinner undershirts were soaked with sweat and the wind suddenly took on an icy edge. He sipped from the bottle while Heshek reminisced aloud about days, and people, long gone. The wind rustling the trees and the gentle swish of sand and grit blowing down the cliffs soon lulled him into a light sleep.
He was woken by Heshek shaking his shoulder. “Someone's coming” he said urgently. Narit wiped the drool from his chin and sat up straight.
How embarrassing! Heshek was twice his age and had arms and legs like sticks but you didn't see him dosing off after climbing up half a cliff. He heard the crunch of boots on stone. “How long have we been gone? Someone could be looking for us.”
“From up the path?”
Narit listened more closely. The footfalls were certainly coming from further up the cliff… and there were a lot of them. “Does anyone else come up here?” He asked.
“No-one who would make that much noise.” He reached into his sleeves and pulled out a few glowing vials. “What Waters do you have?”
Narit gathered up his robe and looked through the sleeve pockets. “Not much. Firelighter, high-light, trap. Three unimbued vials.”
“I have six unimbued vials and a couple of traps. Not much as you say but it will have to do.” Heshek passed Narit two vials and stood out on the path.
Narit scrambled to follow him, pulling his robe on as he left the cave. He tried to sight the sun and judge the time. It was mid afternoon, he had been dosing for less than an hour. “What's going on?” he asked, rubbing the grit of sleep out of his eyes. “Who are they?”
“I'm not sure.” Heshek's voice was hard. “But I ask you this: who should they be?”
Narit didn’t really have an answer for that. No-one lived beyond the Golden Cliffs. It was a desert, nothing but dry sand as far as you could see. He had never seen it himself, of course, but there were scrolls in Hold Moana that gave descriptions. Every so often someone from Stream Aiya would get it into their head that the desert sand might make better glass for some reason. Clearly it wasn’t that good because they had never bothered to carry any of the stuff down into the valley.
A line of people rounded a sharp turn in the path, travelling by necessity in single file. They were like no-one Narit had ever seen before. Their skin was a strange, pink hue and their hair was everything from black to red to gold. They carried poles with long, regular shards of metal attached to the tops; their clothing was all the same, leather tunics covered in metal studs over dark, baggy trousers stuffed into boots. Each man, for they were all men, had a large metal disk tied to his back. They spotted the two Su from quite a distance and as the last man rounded the turn the one at the front of the line shouted. The entire file stopped at the same moment. The man came forward, He was short and stocky with a dark, full beard that stood out against his pale, reddish skin. Just like the man in Heshek’s story, his eyes were nearly black. Were these Tunlanders? He didn’t think the tribes were this well organised and what were they doing in the desert? The man stepped right up to Heshek and stared into his eyes. Narit was actually quite impressed. Even the people of Rinasu had trouble holding the eyes of a Su. Their glittering, shimmering quality was apparently quite disconcerting when you didn’t see it in the mirror every day. The man spoke. His words were harsh and angry but completely incomprehensible. Narit looked to Heshek since he apparently had experience of outside languages.
Heshek didn't move "I don't know what you said, young man, but I do not like your tone." His calm voice making the new-comer sound churlish. The man pulled himself up to meet Heshek nose-to-nose. Narit barely stifled a laugh when he saw that he had to stand on his toes to do it. The man glared at him and his face turned bright red. He dropped down on his heels and walked back to his line. He exchanged words with the next man, the conversation quickly seemed to get quite heated.
“Who are there people, Heshek?” He asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think…” he looked back up the line of men “… I think this might be an army.”
“An army? What’s an army?”
Heshek tutted and glanced over his shoulder at Narit. “Really, you must read more. An army is a large group of men trained in war. They often all wear the same clothes and carry the same weapons.”
“The Tun tribes have made an army? Are you going to fight them? After everything you said earlier?”
“These aren’t Tunlanders, Narit. How would they get into the desert? No, we have been privileged to be born in this wonderful, quiet little corner of the world. I think some of the rest of the world has just come and found us.”
The man was shouting now. Narit expected a fight to break out at any moment. Instead, without warning, the first man stabbed the second through the stomach with his bladed pole. The second man crumpled soundlessly and tumbled off the cliff. He then turned back to the next man in line, blood dripping down onto his hand.
“He just killed that man!” Narit squeaked, his heart suddenly beating so fast that he was finding it hard to breathe.
“Yes, he did. Get your vials out.”
Narit stared, stunned for a moment. He had never actually seen anyone die before, His grandfather had died some years before but he had just passed away quietly in his sleep, he hadn’t even seen the body until it was ready for cremation. That man had just run the other one through, because of an argument. Discussions might get heated among the Su but no one ever got stabbed over them!
Heshek made an exasperated noise and pulled a bottle from Narit’s pocket, pressing it into his hand and wrapping his fingers around it. “Narit! Concentrate! You will need all your will. Remember; chosen by the River…”
“…to serve Rinasu.” Narit mumbled, tears in his eyes. The code of the Su had been drilled into him since before he could understand its meaning.
“To serve Rinasu, Narit Su’Moana. Elder Su’Moana. We do what we can to stop these men bringing their violence to our people. This will be our service.”
Narit nodded and set his jaw as firmly as he could. “Our service, Elder Su’Nix.”
The man with the bloodied spear shouted something at them from the front of the line. Again, his words meant nothing but he was spitting with fury.
Heshek’s eyes shone with anger and he pointed back up the path. “Leave now while you can. Stay, and it will not end well for you”
The man looked confused for a second. He obviously could not understand the words but Narit didn't think the meaning could have been any clearer.
Then he screamed, “Ti nama!” The shout was taken up by the two men behind him and all three charged, their poles down and the blades coming right for the Su’s hearts. Before Narit had even flinched, Heshek had a vial out and the lid open. He made sharp throwing motion and the Water leapt obediently from his wiry hand. Shaped by the old Su’s will, it stretched into the shape of one of the bladed poles and froze into ice as it went through the attackers. Narit gaped. Heshek has not only imbued the shape of the strange bladed poles, a shape that he at least had never seen before, but also adjusted to make it long enough to go through three people, all in less time than it had taken Narit to think. He had no idea the Elder was so powerful; that sort of dexterity of imbuing certainly took more mental discipline than Narit had ever managed to muster. Heshek’s face showed nothing more that grim determination, not a sign that he had just impaled three people with less effort and more skill than Narit had ever thought possible.
The men stared down at the shaft of ice sticking out of their stomachs. The man in front, the one who had been doing all of the shouting grasped it as if he was going to try to pull it out. He coughed, spitting blood down his front and then, pinned together as they were, they tumbled off the path and through the trees below.
Heshek straightened and locked eyes with the next man in line. He didn’t have the fortitude of his superior and soon dropped his gaze. The man behind him muttered something in his ear and he nodded. Glancing back at his men, he hefted his weapon and shouted an order. Then slowly, awkwardly, the whole line started to back up. When the last man reached the turn in the path, he span and ran back up the cliff.
Narit breathed a sigh of relief, it was over.
His hopes were shattered when Heshek started pursuing them up the path. “Come on!” He shouted, “We need to know what that was about!” Marvelling at the elderly man's energy, Narit followed him.
They reached the top of the cliff in less time than Narit would have supposed. He rounded the last twist in the path and stumbled on the uneven ground, momentarily stunned by the vast, bright yellow expanse before him. The desert. He had read about it of course but he could never have imagined anything so... wide. The horizon was endless.
Heshek sat down hard on a rock and was only just managing to speak between gasps for breath. “Narit! Narit, trap one.” Squinting, Narit looked towards the sun, where the surviving foreigners were running with odd gaits across the sand. Narit pulled out his trap vial, flipped open the lid and threw. The Water did what Narit had willed it to do when he had imbued it a few days ago; It sprang out of the bottle and raced towards the nearest moving thing; the slowest outsider. He yelped as the water wrapped tightly around his arms and legs and squeezed until he couldn't move anymore. The others abandoned him.
Narit spoke the trap’s command word to summon it back and inspected the huge horizon as the man was dragged to his feet. There was something odd about it, should the horizon generally be so... shiny? “Heshek, look.” He waved his hand towards the glinting light “I think there's something out there.”
Heshek sat still with his eyes closed, breathing deeply still. “The desert is a strange thing, lad,” he breathed in through his nose “It can make you see things that aren't there.”
“Could it make me see more of those spiked poles?”
Heshek opened his eyes. There, unmistakable even behind the heat-shimmer of the desert air, were men with poles and leather and metal disks. Hundreds and hundreds of them. “We need to go.” Said Heshek, pushing himself to his feet. “Bring that,” pointing at their captive, “We don't have much time.”
Narit touched the trap and willed the Water into a shape that could both hold the man and follow them back down the cliff. It flowed and lifted the captive off the sand on a dozen spindly little legs. He followed the Elder of Rinasu back down the cliffs taking just a moment to do what they had been coming up here to do in the first place, look down on his world. On his left, the mountains of the Source; birthplace of the River and the power of Rinasu. On his right the lush forests, shining lakes and imposing peaks that made up the land of his people. Tied together, people and place, by the mighty Rina, the river of magic, the river of strength. This world was perfect. Looking back at his gently bobbing prisoner and beyond him that threatening haze of metal, he silently made a commitment to keep it that way.
No matter what.
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