Текст книги "Vessel"

Автор книги: Sarah Beth Durst

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Carrying rocks from nearby fire pits, she built her own cooking area beside her nest of palm leaves. She located a pile of sun-dried goat dung and carried it over to be her fuel, and she crumpled a dried palm leaf for kindling. She struck the flint and started her fire. Once she had a steady blaze, she skinned the snake, wound it around one of her poles, and laid it over her fire to cook. She buried the snake’s head.

While the snake cooked, she focused on enhancing her shelter. Keeping her same shallow hole (but checking it for snakes and scorpions), she set up Father’s tent and secured it with rocks around the outside.

By now the sun was directly overhead and felt as harsh as a fist. Liyana ducked into her tent with her snake meat and waterskins, and she ate and drank. She then stripped off her ceremonial dress, washed herself with the smallest amount of water she could spare, and dressed in more practical clothes. Carefully she folded the dress and placed it at the bottom of her pack. She felt as if she were laying bones to rest.

When her tasks were done, she lay down in her tent to wait out the heat of the day. Perhaps in the evening, when the air wouldn’t choke her, she’d climb one of the trees and pick any dates that the clan had missed. She’d also need to fetch more water, maybe hunt for more snakes or a desert rat. And then . . . she could survive today and tomorrow. Maybe a week.

And then what?

She was nearing the time of year when this oasis dried up. In three weeks, she wouldn’t be able to stay here. But it would take a miracle for one girl, alone, to cross the desert and reach the next well. . . . And assuming she did, what next? What was she surviving for?

She wasn’t supposed to live past yesterday. Ever since her dreamwalk, she had been the girl with no future. Others, like Ger and Esti, had made plans. Others looked ahead. She never had. She’d known her fate. But now . . . her future was as empty and terrifying as the desert that stretched around her in all directions.

* * *

Two hours later, Liyana heard the howls in the wind.

She slid the glass-like knife out of her sash and held it against her chest. The sand wolves sounded close. That meant a sandstorm would hit soon, and the wolves would run freely through camp. . . . Except there was no camp anymore. There was only her.

Clutching the knife, she huddled inside her tent. The tarp billowed and rolled. Usually during sandstorms, the clan huddled together in the center tents, using the outer tents as a buffer. The sheer number of people served as a deterrent to the wolves. She’d heard them often enough, but she’d never seen them. Tales said they were made of sand.

“Bayla, is this how you’ll kill me?” she asked out loud. “There are easier ways. You could send another snake. I am sorry I ate the first one.” Hearing her own voice made her feel braver. “He was delicious, though.”

As sand pelted the tent, she told herself that this wasn’t a punishment—Bayla couldn’t punish her, not from within the Dreaming. Like the snake, this storm was merely a natural occurrence. She only had to ride through it, and the wolves would be swept away with the winds.

She repeated this to herself as the world darkened, as if day had switched with night. Sand slammed against the tarp. The tent swayed sideways and then snapped sharply back upright. The poles shook, and she wondered if they’d snap. She cringed each time the wind knocked the tent back and forth. She wished she’d left rocks inside. She could have used them to brace the poles—or simply to be doing something other than listening to the howls of the wind and wolves.

The wolves were much too close.

Sand wolves hunted within sandstorms. In children’s tales, they carried away boys and girls who did not obey their parents’ warnings to hide from the storms. In adult tales, they slaughtered any goat, sheep, or horse that was not sheltered or guarded. They killed hunters who failed to outrun the storm and anyone foolish enough to be out alone.

She had to hope that they didn’t notice her tent. It was all she could do: hope and wait. The paralyzing helplessness was almost worse than the storm itself.

Sand slipped through the gaps in the seams, and it swirled inside the tent. Liyana wrapped the facecloth around her head to keep the grains from stinging her eyes. Each inhale was filled with grit. She breathed only through her nose. It didn’t help. She felt as if her lungs were coated with sand.

Outside, the howling came closer.

She saw a shadow surge past the door flap, and then she saw it again, darker than the already dark shadows that squeezed the tent. Her heart hammered in her chest. She crouched, knife in hand.

Another shadow ran past. This time the tent swayed as the shadow brushed it. She saw it pass again. It’s circling, she realized. Oh, sweet Bayla!

The sandstorm screamed. Wind hit so hard that the tent shook as if it were about to collapse. The roof bent in on her, and she braced it with a hand as she ducked. It then billowed up before bending down again. The walls shuddered, and the rocks that had pinned the edges outside rolled and crashed against one another.

Suddenly the tent wall split.

Claws of sand raked through the tarp, and a wolf jabbed his head into the tent. His face was hardened sand, and his eyes were holes. Sand sloughed off his muzzle as he tilted his head back. Liyana scrambled backward as he howled. His jaws . . . As he spread them wide, she saw his teeth were sharp rocks. He lunged toward her.

She dove to the side—too slow. Hard as stone, sand claws raked her arm. She felt pain shoot up to her shoulder, and she screamed. Twisting, he snapped his jaws at her, and she rolled backward. His teeth closed on air.

Wind whipped into the exposed tent, and sand flayed her. She saw the shape of the wolf, blurred by the swirling sand. He leaped for her again, and she struck toward his throat as she ducked beneath his jaws.

She felt the blade slide in.

And then sand, only sand, fell over her as the sand wolf disintegrated around the sky serpent knife. Coughing and spitting, she wiped the sand away from the cloth over her face, and then she lunged for the hole in the tent. Yanking it closed, she held it shut against the wind.

Outside, the wind roared. She heard other wolves. Squeezing the tear shut with one hand, she readied her knife with the other. She’d heard no weapon could kill a sand wolf. She guessed no one had tried a sky serpent blade before. “Come and get me,” she said. “Come and try.”

She listened hard, every muscle tense. Slowly the howls retreated. The tent walls shook less. The sand inside the tent began to settle, and the world lightened as the blackness of the storm receded.

Her arm throbbed. She released the tarp and tucked away the knife. Her throat felt raw from the sand that she’d inhaled. Unwrapping the cloth around her face, she vomited on the floor of her tent. The sandy bile tore the inside of her throat. She wiped her mouth with a sand-crusted sleeve.

She felt sand clinging to her hair and sticking to her sweaty skin. Piece by piece, she peeled her clothes off her body and shook them out. Searching the pack, she found a clean cloth and wiped away as much of the sand as she could. Left alone, the sand would rub her skin raw. She poured a little water on the cloth and washed her face. Her fingers shook, but she forced herself to attend to one task at a time, and she avoided thinking.

Unable to delay any longer, she examined her arm. The rock-hard sand claws had raked through her skin, leaving four deep gashes. Sandy blood clumped around the wounds. She washed them out as best she could, which caused more blood to run down her arm and stain the sand. She pressed some of Mother’s herbs onto the gashes, and she hissed through her teeth as the herbs stung. Leaving the herbs in place as she’d seen Mother do, she wrapped a clean cloth around the wounds and tied it. Blood stained the cloth.

One day alone and she was wounded. Oh, goddess, if it becomes infected . . . Liyana told herself firmly that she’d been lucky. If the wolf had broken through the tent behind her or if more wolves had followed, then all the herbs in the desert would not help. Quit complaining, she told herself. She’d use the herbs, and she’d keep her wounds as clean as she could.

Deliberately ignoring her aching arm, Liyana turned her attention to the tear in the tent, her next problem. If she couldn’t seal the hole, then she wouldn’t be safe from the next sandstorm. Or from ordinary wind. Or from any snake, scorpion, or spider that wanted to visit her for warmth. Liyana could patch it up. Yet another task to help her avoid thinking about her future. Between fixing her shelter, finding food, and fetching water—

Water! The well! She’d left the lid off! Liyana burst out of her tent. Outside, the oasis had been wiped clean. All the indents from the Goat Clan’s camp had been smoothed away, and all the trees were coated in a layer of reddish tan. Sand choked the air, billowing and blowing. Afternoon sunlight filtered through, scattering off the particles so the oasis seemed to glow with an eerie light that appeared to come from everywhere at once. In this hazy half light, Liyana stumbled across the oasis for several minutes before determining the location of the well. She hurried toward it, and she tripped over the edge of the lid and sprawled. Her knee hit the stone, and pain shot through her. Tears pricked her eyes as she clutched her knee, and she whimpered.

After a moment, the pain receded to a throb that matched the throb in her arm. She tested her leg. She could stand, thank the goddess. Leaning over the edge of the well, she looked down. She saw only blackness. Hands shaking, she found the rope and bucket. The knot had held, which was one bit of good luck. She lowered the bucket. It hit bottom. Had it hit sooner than before, or had she just lowered it faster? She didn’t know.

Please, Bayla, she silently begged. She couldn’t survive without water, and dehydration was a terrible way to die. Please.

Liyana pulled the rope. She tried to pull steady and slow to avoid spilling. If she jerked the bucket up and spilled all the water, then she’d panic for no reason. But with each slow pull, the pain in her arm spiked until she felt dizzy. As the bucket got close to the top, she had to stop. She lowered her arm. It hurt so badly that her head swam. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the bucket up the rest of the way.

Wet sand.

It was full of wet sand.

She dug her fingers into it, and the sand clung to her skin. She made a fist, squeezing it, and then she flung it across the camp and screamed. Tears raged down her cheeks. She grabbed another clump and threw it. Continuing to scream, she hurled wet sand until the bucket was empty. She then fell to her knees and pummeled the sand that had piled up beside the well.

“I did everything right!” she screamed at it. “I worked. I trained. I did everything that was asked of me. I dedicated my life! I was pure! I was fit! I was worthy! You betrayed me! You . . .” Unable to find more words, she threw fistfuls of dry sand with her unhurt arm.

Her eyes were so blinded by tears and sand that she did not see the man walking toward her through the hazy air until he was only a few feet away. Hand raised with a fist full of sand, Liyana froze. She panted, her rib cage heaving. Her arm began to shake. She stared at the silhouette of the man—boy, really.

He came closer, and she saw he was beautiful: sculpted face, shadow-dark skin, haunting eyes. He’s not real, she thought. He had to be a dream that her addled brain had produced.

Dropping her arm, she rose to her feet.

He didn’t vanish.

He spoke. “I have been looking for you.”

Chapter Five

Clamping his hands on her wrists, the boy twisted her arms to expose her tattoos. Liyana kicked him in the knee and sprang backward. She pulled out her sky serpent knife and held it in front of her. “Touch me again,” she said, “and I will skewer you through the eye.”

Clutching his knee, he winced. “I would prefer that you did not.”

“Strangers do not touch me,” she said. She had studiously kept this body pure. She would defend it with force if necessary.

Still favoring his knee, he executed a sweeping bow. “I am Korbyn. You are the vessel of Bayla, as your marks confirm. There, we are not strangers anymore.”

She didn’t lower the knife. He hadn’t named his clan or his ancestors, and Korbyn was a common name, often used by those who wished to hide their own name.

He sighed as if she were a child who had disappointed her teacher—it was an oddly old sigh from a boy who looked to be the same age as she was. “This is not a situation I have been in before. Would you like to offer me tea? I have traveled a long way to find you.”

She didn’t recall falling asleep, but this had the same insane logic of a dream. Handsome strangers didn’t suddenly appear in an empty desert and request tea. “There’s sand in the water. We can’t have tea.”

He peered into the dark shaft of the well. “You should have covered the well before the sandstorm,” he said unhelpfully.

“Who are you truly?” she asked. There were a dozen more questions that went with it: Where had he come from? Why was he here? What did he want? “It’s a hundred miles to the next well.” She saw no horse. He carried no pack. He didn’t have deposits of sand trapped in the folds of his clothes, the way he should have after a sandstorm. There was no sand plastered to his skin, like there was on her cheeks. In fact, he looked perfect, as if an artist had crafted an ideal boy with shining eyes, baby-soft black hair, and smiling lips.

He lowered the bucket into the well. It smacked the bottom.

For a moment he stared into the well. Around them, the wind paused, as if it held its breath. And then Korbyn relaxed. “That should do it,” he said cheerfully. Yanking on the rope, he pulled the bucket up with careless ease. Water sloshed over the brim as he hefted the bucket over the lip of the well.

Liyana felt her mouth drop open. Her mother would have tapped her chin and told her not to catch flies. Or maybe her mother would have been stunned too. Talu couldn’t have done that. “Who are you?”

“I am Korbyn.” He unhooked the bucket from its rope and held it out to her. “Shall we?”

She didn’t budge.

He heaved another long-suffering sigh. “As tricks go, that one was easy. The water was there. It was merely a matter of causing the sand to settle faster than usual. Now if you want a real trick . . . Have you heard about the time that the raven tricked the moon into sharing her light?”

Liyana knew the story. She’d told it to Jidali once. But she could only stare at Korbyn. He had to be a magician, but to be so powerful . . .

“He flattered her beauty and told her that she must see herself,” Korbyn said. “He knew of a mirror, he said, where she could view her own beauty. He guided her to the sea. When the moon looked down at the rolling water, she saw her image broken on the waves. The raven complimented her shine and her color, but said it was a pity she wasn’t round like the world. He said that if she gave him a sliver of her light, she would be fixed. So she did.” He nodded at her, as if he wanted Liyana to finish the story for him.

Liyana swallowed. “But she still looked broken. So she gave him another sliver and then another until she was nothing but a crescent.” His smile broadened, as if he were delighted with her. Encouraged, she continued. “And when she realized she’d been tricked, she struck a deal: The raven would return her light bit by bit until she was full if she would then share it again with him bit by bit. And so it continues, month after month, waxing and waning.”

Korbyn beamed at her. “See, now that was a trick.” Whistling, he strode across camp with the bucket in his hand. Precious water spilled out, darkening the sand around him. After a second of staring, she followed him.

Korbyn set the bucket down next to her tent. The torn side fluttered sadly in the wind. “Your fire pit is . . . ahh, here.” He knelt beside a lump and proceeded to wipe away sand with his sleeve. He exposed her circle of rocks, as well as the remnants of her fire pit.

“What clan are you?” she asked.

He rolled back his sleeves for her to see the tattoos that decorated his arms. Black birds wound around his wrists and up to his shoulders.

“Raven Clan?” she asked.

Swirls twisted between the ravens in a pattern she knew very well, and she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She had the same swirls on her arms. She looked up into his eyes. “You’re a vessel.”

Shaking his head, he winked at her.

“You’re a god?”

He laughed again, but she didn’t feel as if he were laughing at her. It was the joyous, glad-to-be-alive sound of a child. It cascaded over him and shook his whole body. She thought of Jidali’s laugh and how it would overcome him. You couldn’t help but smile when Jidali laughed. When Korbyn laughed, the sheer joy in the sound made her feel dizzy.

Liyana sat down hard on the sand opposite Korbyn. She stared at him, and he, still amused, stared back. She thought she should be able to tell—divinity should beam out of his eyes. But he seemed human. “Truly? You are the Korbyn?”

Instead of answering, Korbyn laid one hand on the charred sticks, goat dung, and dried palm leaves from her last fire. He concentrated for a moment, with the same blank expression she’d seen on Talu’s face when she was in a trance. Flames burst to life. He grinned at her as the fire licked his fingers. Smoke curled up.

She smelled a hint of burning skin. Korbyn’s face contorted as if he were confused. Liyana lunged forward and shoved his hand off the fire. She smothered the flames on his palm with her sleeves. Once she was sure the fire was out, she released him.

He raised his hand and looked at the red, puckered skin. Blisters ran up and down his palm. “That hurts,” he said, wonder in his voice.

Quickly Liyana grabbed the bucket and plunged his hand into it. “Keep it in there. I have aloe and bandages.” She dove into her tent and then emerged with her supply pack.

“My attempt to impress you has failed,” Korbyn noted.

Liyana lifted his hand out of the water. “We have to try to keep it clean.” She squeezed the aloe leaf, and the precious white sap smeared onto his palm. Moving quickly, she wrapped white cloth bandage around his hand. “You have a high tolerance for pain.”

“It’s a novelty,” he said. “I haven’t felt pain for a century.”

She knotted the bandage and then rocked back on her heels. She had no doubt about his identity now. No human would lack the instinct to yank his hand away from a fire.

He flexed his fingers. “Thank you. That was kind of you.” He then looked at the bucket and grimaced. “We may want new water for the tea.”

“Boiling fixes nearly any impurity.” She dug the one small pot out of her pack, and she poured water in the pot and then set it over the fire. “You’re in a vessel?” She was proud that her voice sounded so calm.

“I was summoned five nights ago, and I set out to find you.”

“Me? But . . .” All calmness fled, and her voice squeaked. “Your clan! Your clan needs you!”

“All the clans need me,” he said. “And I need you.”

She understood the words he was saying, but the order of them made no sense. “You left your clan to find me?”

“Deities are missing. Five in total. They were summoned from the Dreaming, but their souls never filled their clans’ vessels.”

Liyana felt as if she had been dropped back inside the sandstorm. “Bayla . . .”

“I believe their souls were stolen. And I intend for us to steal them back.”

Chapter Six
The Emperor

In the predawn, the emperor walked through the dead garden. Orange trees had once filled this place with a fragrance so heavy that it thickened the air. Now the trees were bare, and the branches looked like bones. A gardener had meticulously combed the dry, dusty earth, trying to create beauty from death. The emperor knelt next to an empty flower bed and ran his fingers over the spirals and swirls. He scooped up a handful of dirt. His people hadn’t given up. Neither could he, no matter how impossible it seemed and no matter what his court said.

He heard them, even when they whispered, even when they didn’t speak. He’s too young. Barely a man. Their eyes accused him from every corner of the palace. His father had not been able to break the Great Drought, and he had been the finest emperor ever to grace the throne of the Crescent Empire. And now it was whispered that his son had a mad plan. . . .

He had dreamed of the lake again last night. He had walked through a valley framed by sheer, granite cliffs. Green had overflowed all around him. He had halted at the pebble shore of the lake. It had been a perfect oval, and the crystal blue water had been still. He had tossed a pebble into the water, and the smooth, glassy surface had broken into a million diamonds, each reflecting the sky.

Heels clicked on the marble stones that wound through the garden. The emperor let the dirt fall through his fingertips, and then he rose and turned to greet the guard. “Yes?”

The guard snapped his heels together and bowed. “Your Imperial Majesty. The court is assembled and awaits your decision.”

Inwardly the emperor sighed. He wished he could tell the court to wait another hour, another day, another year. But he didn’t have the luxury of emotions like that. The face he presented to the guard was as serene as the lake from his dreams. “Then I shall join them.”

The guard bowed again.

Wiping the garden dirt off his hands, the emperor straightened his robes. “The gardener who tends this garden . . . See to it that his family receives extra water rations this month.”

The guard’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and the emperor had to suppress a smile. But he didn’t explain himself, and the guard had had enough training not to ask any questions. Leaving the guard behind, the emperor strode out of the garden and into the palace.

The palace of the emperor of the Crescent Empire had marble pillars from the northern mountains and walls inlaid with mother-of-pearl shells from the western sea. Silk cascaded from the ceiling to mimic the wind, and the symbol of the empire– a crescent sun from a lucky eclipse—decorated everything from the exquisite chairs to the ornate mirrors to the jade vases that perched on blue glass pedestals. All in all, the emperor preferred the dead beauty of the garden. At least it didn’t lie to him and claim that all was well.

Guards flanked him as he approached the massive double doors of the court. He nodded at them, and they threw open the doors before him. He didn’t pause as he strode inside. All the men and women of the court—chancellors, judges, musicians, generals, princes, and princesses—ceased conversation and scurried to line the central corridor that led to the dais. Each bowed as he passed.

He climbed the marble steps to the throne. He’d composed a speech, filled it with arguments and eloquence. But looking out over his court, he felt tired. “Our salvation lies in the desert. I will lead the army across the border, and we will claim the sands and all the magic within,” he said. “In my absence . . . try not to do anything stupid.”