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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497628908 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2014 |
| Series: | Shanji , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Part One – Tumatsin
One
Kati
Kati was four when she went to the Festival of Tengri and saw the eye of Tengri-Nayon.
The festival location was far beyond the mountains, and her mother had been cooking for two days, their ger filled with wonderful odors of mutton, cheese and ayrog. Other women of the ordu came and went, carrying bags of tea, and barley ground to a fine flour. Goats and sheep had been brought in from the high valleys, their bleating a constant din from the holding pen near the ger. They dined well on grainy gruel to fatten them after another long, hard winter, but Kati often wondered if they sensed their fate.
Today she was confined to a pile of hides to play with her little brother while the women worked, their faces glistening over a wood-fired stove, talk animated with laughter. Kati sensed excitement, a pleasure projected in amber eyes normally deep brown during the drudgery of ordinary days. There were quiet whispers, and sudden giggles as the women shared a secret story. She didn't mind being ignored, at least for the moment, for it was fun to play horses with Baber. They were separated in age by little more than a year, and Da had made four horses for each of them, stuffed with wool and painted by hand with the colorful trappings of their ancestors. Warrior dolls clung to the flanks of the horses, faceless heads with black pigtails, images of bow and arrow quivers painted on their backs. Baber growled, thrusting forward two horses as they sat crossed-legged, knees touching. "Kati die," he snarled.
Kati met his charge with a single warrior on a black stallion. "Shanji!" she cried, twisting her horse tobite at the attackers, and all three riders toppled from their mounts at once.
"I win," she said. "Two to one."
Baber scowled. "You push too hard. You're bigger."
"I am an old, experienced warrior," said Kati. The women at the stove turned and smiled at her. One of them said, "Toregene, your little warrior-empress already does battle with the men. Surely she's old enough to begin riding. When will Temujin commence her lessons?"
Kati's mother shushed the woman, a finger on her lips. "Listen," she said, and the women bent close in whispers. Kati strained to hear them, and then the women giggled, snuck a look at her, amber eyes twinkling.
Kati wondered about their sudden pleasure from a secret whispered by Ma, but now Baber was charging again, this time with three horses, and she braced her remounted warrior for the attack.
The morning was crisp with cold when Kati was awakened by Ma. A single oil lamp flickered on the earthen floor of the ger, casting orange hues on tapestries and rugs covering the walls: scenes of warriors in battle dress, charging towards a great city of towers and pagodas spewing smoke and flame. In one, a tall woman in emerald green stood on a hill, arm outstretched, directing the charging warriors.
"Time for your first festival, Kati. Put on your leather tunic against the cold. We will ride two hours before it is light."
Kati rubbed her eyes. In the flickering light, the warrior figures seemed to move. Baber was already up and dressed, looking like a ball with legs in his layers of cotton, wool and leather. He stood by the doorway, watching the commotion outside: hooves stomping, horses snorting, the bleating of goats and sheep. Kati had slept naked in her blanket roll on a hide coverlet over the thick, straw mattress. She put on woolen undergarments, shirt and pants of puffy wool, then the double thickness pants and tunic to keep out the wind, grunting as she did so.
Ma smiled. "You grow so fast, it is time for new leathers. I will look for something at festival. Now I will braid your hair for the occasion."
"Do we have time, Ma?"
"We will make time. Now sit still."
Kati loved the feel of Ma's gentle hands on her long, black hair, combing it out, forming two braids and coiling them like snakes at her temples. The braiding rocked her head rhythmically, making her sleepy again, and she yawned. "Why do we leave so early?"
"It is best we be well along our way at dawn so the Emperor does not misunderstand our intention in banding together. He is aware of the festival, and its location. His flyers will see us headed in that direction, and leave us alone."
"Da says the Emperor fears us. He thinks we will attack him, like in the pictures." Kati pointed at the tapestry above her bed.
"He has little reason to fear us, dear. His weapons and machines are far more powerful than ours, and he is ruler of Shanji."
"So he can tell us what to do, and when to come home," said Kati.
Ma laughed. "Like your father and me? No, Kati, he is not a father to us. He has put us out of his city, and leaves us to rule ourselves as long as we don't bother him or his people."
"Why, Ma? Did we do something wrong? If I did a bad thing, would you make me live by myself?"
"Of course not. You're my child, from my own body, and I would never abandon you for any reason. But we are Tumatsin, not children of the Emperor's people. They call us changelings, and the people we came from went away a long time ago. No more questions, now. You will learn more at the Festival of Tengri, and see his eye that watches over us until our ancestors return. There, I'm done, and I have a little gift for you."
Ma put a loop of yellow metal over Kati's head and around Kati's throat. A pendant hung from it, two pieces of metal forming the outline of an ovoid shaped like pursed lips. "So you will remember Tengri's eye after you've seen it," she said.
"It's pretty," said Kati, fingering the pendant and smiling at her new treasure. "Now I have jewelry like the other women."
Ma hugged her from behind. "You are my little woman. Now, eat some soup and have tea before we leave. Only one cup of tea, though. We won't stop until mid-day. A bowl and cup are on the stove for you."
Kati gobbled her food too quickly, and seared the roof of her mouth with hot tea. Ma took Baber by the hand, and led him outside, so Kati hurried to get her place. She dumped bowl and cup into a bucket of cold water, put on the little pack containing her horses and dolls, and picked up the wooden dagger Da had carved for her. She shoved the dagger beneath her waistband, as would a man. Grabbing her cup, she rushed out the door and nearly ran into Ma, returning to close up the ger. She looked frantically for Baber. Horses were lined up many paces in two directions, and she found him perched on Ma's chestnut, dozing. She sprinted to the head of the line where Da sat on black Kaidu, talking to other bahadurn of the Tumatsin. "Da!" she cried.
The men turned to look at her, and smiled as she rushed to the black flank of Kaidu. "Look at her belt," said Kuchlug. "It seems your flower has grown a thorn! Her eyes might yet turn green, Temujin!"
The men laughed, and Kati held up her arms to her mounted father. "Da, I ride with you. I ride like the wind on Kaidu!"
Temujin picked her up, hoisting her high to sit in front of him on Kaidu's hard back, and she squealed with glee. She was at the head of the line, ahead of all the other children, sitting on the fastest horse in the ordu, Da's warm chest at her back. She leaned back as he hugged her to him. He took her hands, and placed the reins of the great horse there.
"Just hold them still. I will tell Kaidu what to do, with my knees and legs. That is all a good horse needs."
Kati looked up at Da's face, breathing hard with excitement, her heart aching with joy. "He has a soft mouth," she said knowingly.
"Yes," said Da. He nuzzled her cheek, and she smelled ayrog on his breath. A bag of the strong brew was even now being passed from man to man at the head of the line, but it was forbidden to children.
Da twisted behind her, looking back at the line of horses, the small flock of sheep, a few goats and three yearling calves herded by boys on horseback. "We are assembled," he said, then shouted, "We go with the blessings of Tengri!"
People cheered, the women trilling, and Kati was thrilled by the sound of it. She felt only the slightest movement of Da's knees, and squeezed the reins in her hands as Kaidu stepped forward, tossing his great head and snorting fog. She wanted him to run, to feel the wind in her face, the hard muscles bunching beneath her, but knew she must today be content with a leisurely pace to match that of the older people and the herded animals on the steep trail into the mountains. For the moment, it was enough, but someday she would have her own horse, and then she would fly with the wind.
Kati wrapped the slack reins around her hands so she wouldn't drop them if she slept. She leaned back into the warmth of her father, and sighed.
They had traveled for only two hours when the flyer came to interrupt their journey.
Kati had dozed, rocked to sleep during the long ascent on a rocky trail to the plateau at the base of the western peaks. She was awakened by the flyer's whine as it passed closely overhead, a silver craft shaped like a plate, an open cockpit seating several men who looked down at them.
"It's barely first light, and already they're out," growled Kuchlug. "They grow bolder all the time, Temujin, and we say nothing!"
The flyer proceeded to the plateau just ahead of them, hovering, then descending until it was out of sight. "Think of The Eye, my friend, and calm yourself, lest a Searcher sense your hostility and make trouble for us. The eyes of our women are more than enough betrayal of our feelings. Ride back and ask Toregene to come up here. I want her beside me to see anything important in their auras if they stop us."
Kuchlug turned his mount, and sprinted away. Kati was squeezing the reins so hard her fingers were numb. "Are we doing something wrong, Da?"
"No, Kati. The Emperor knows about Festival, and has always allowed it. I don't expect any trouble. Just think of something nice. There's no need to be frightened."
Kati thought of what Da had told Kuchlug. "I will think of my pendant Ma gave me this morning. See?"
Da hugged her gently. "Yes, it's pretty."
Ma rode up on her chestnut, and her eyes were tinged red. "Will we be stopped?" Baber leaned back against her, head lolled over, sound asleep.
"I think so," said Da. "Let me know if you see anything dangerous in their auras, and clear your throat if I start to say anything to cause suspicion."
Ma nodded, but the redness in her eyes was brighter now. Kati sensed a deep wariness in her mother. "I'm going to think about my pendant," she said seriously.
Ma didn't smile. "And I will think about the blackness of a cave," she said. "There is sure to be a Searcher with them." Ma sighed, and her eyes seemed to cloud over. While Kati watched, fascinated, her mother's eyes changed from red to yellow to their normal deep brown. Women could do things men couldn't do, and Kati looked forward to that time when, with the first budding of her breasts, her own eyes would reflect her feelings and she would be able to see the life force emanating from other people. It would mean she was no longer a child, but a woman, held in high esteem among her people.
They reached the plateau, the trail ahead faint in short, tuffy grass. Here and there, in the shade of large rocks, were the white splotches of rotting snow. The flyer had come down in the middle of the plateau, near the trail, and five men were standing there, a sixth still in the cockpit of the craft. Kati glanced at Ma, saw that her eyes were closed, her chest slowly rising and falling with deep breathing. She looked down at her pendant, stared at it, memorized the shape, two strips of golden metal, like the entrance to a cave, blackness inside. She held the image in her mind as they approached the waiting men. Behind her, people were chatting gaily about Festival as if nothing was happening.
One of the men held up a hand, ordering them to stop. Three men stood on the trail, two others off to one side, all armed with weapons like the one Da kept wrapped and hidden beneath the stove in their ger. She had once watched it vaporize a tree limb, and knew its power.
Da reached around her, and tugged once on the reins, bringing Kaidu to a halt. He raised a hand in greeting. "We travel to the Festival of Tengri, across the mountains. I have the written permission of the Emperor, if you wish to see it."
Kati felt a sudden sensation, as if a day-dream had passed through her mind like a wisp of smoke. There was a presence, an awareness that was not hers. The three men on the trail stepped forward until Kaidu snorted and stomped a hoof. All were armored with bright, silver metal, bareheaded, weapons held casually across their chests, the round faces of the Hansui, except for one. That one had a finely arched nose and chiseled face with a protruding bulge laced with veins on the left side of his forehead. A Searcher. It was the first one Kati had ever seen, and she was amazed.
"We are aware of the Emperor's generosity in allowing travel," said that man. "He respects all religions." The man moved to Ma's chestnut, and looked up at her. Her eyes were open, dark brown, and she regarded him calmly.
"Are you carrying any weapons?"
"We have no need for weapons. We have supplies with us for travel, and food is provided at the Festival. There is no need to hunt," said Da.
Kati thought of the wooden dagger in her belt, and the man smiled, looked up at her, stepped to Kaidu's flank and reached up to touch the hilt of her toy. "We will not count this one," he said.
Kati looked at the man, without fear. "Can you really tell what people are thinking?" she said, her eyes focused on his forehead. "It must be very noisy, all those thoughts."
She felt Da tense, but the man laughed. "It can be difficult, and yes, sometimes noisy."
"Will you detain us long?" asked Da. "We must be over the pass before it's dark."
"Only a moment, while we count the number of you traveling. When will you be returning?"
"In the evening four days from now," said Da, "and it might be late."
The man nodded, then looked again at Ma. "See that you keep to your schedule, and if others return with you, you can expect to be stopped for inspection. Young woman, is this curious little girl with the dagger your daughter?"
"Yes," said Ma, not looking at him.
"Such control. Have you no secrets to share with me?"
"None that are of importance to you," said Ma. "You can see that we're harmless. Can we go, now?"
Yes! I'm tired of sitting here! I want to go to Festival!
The man turned sharply to look at Kati, and his eyes widened. "Now that was a noisy thought," he said. "Another minute, and you can go to your festival. Lan, aren't you finished yet?" he shouted. The two men off the trail had been moving up and down the line of horses, counting people.
"Yes! We have their number!" came a shout from behind them.
The man stepped off the trail, his two companions following. "Then you may go. And have a safe journey."
I talked to him, thought Kati. I talked to him with my mind!
Da urged Kaidu forward, and as they passed the man with the veined forehead, Kati saw him looking straight at her, and he had a most curious look on his face. He waved, and she waved back. And when they had traveled in silence to the end of the plateau, she turned again to look at Ma, and saw that her mother's eyes were blazing red.
• • •
Kati only vaguely remembered their high camp that night. She was lying on Kaidu's back, face pressed to his warm neck when Da had lifted her down and carried her to bed inside a shelter of hides where Baber was already sound asleep. She slept fully clothed, for it was very cold, and found that if she consciously breathed faster than usual, the suffocating feeling would go away. There was a fire outside, light flickering on the walls of the shelter, and once she was awakened by the sound of voices, men sitting around the fire, arguing about something. But then she slept soundly, clenching her pendant as she drifted off, her last waking thought that of a man with a strange head who could see into people's minds.
It was light when Ma awakened her, prodding with a foot. "I've let you sleep as long as I can. Hurry, now," she said, teasing, "or we'll wrap you up in the shelter." Kati was instantly wide awake. Baber still sat on his bed, eyes closed, while Ma attempted to roll it up. "Wake up your brother, and take him outside. I must hurry," said Ma.
Kati tickled him, and he giggled, hiding his chin from her. She pulled him from the shelter and held his hand to watch the commotion of camp-breaking. There was soup and bread at the campfire, people eating on the run. Kati served herself and Baber, and looked around. They were on a grassy plateau, the mountain peaks now behind them, and she could see the trail winding up to a saddle between two giant fingers of rock. Tengri-Khan was not yet high enough to peek over the summits, but colored the lower, western hills and valleys in orange and gold, and beyond them was a flat brilliance of reflected light that made her squint.
Baber pulled at her hand. "I pee, Kati. Now."
Kati sighed, led him to scrubby trees at the plateau's edge, and went through the ritual of removing his four layers of clothing so he could relieve himself. She tried to sit him down, but he shrugged her off.
"You sit down. Baber stand," he said.
She had to giggle, for his organ was like her thumb, but he stood proudly, and played his stream back and forth around the base of a tree while she watched. "Already you are a little man," she said, and Baber nodded his head curtly in agreement.
Kati bundled him up when he was finished, and then took him by the hand again. They searched for Da, found him mounted on Kaidu at the head of the line that had formed while Baber was about his leisurely business. Ma came up to take Baber back with her, but he complained. "I ride with Da!" he cried.
"When you are older, Baber. You come with me, now," said Ma.
Baber pouted, tears in his eyes. "Kati always ride Kaidu, not me. I ride with Da!"
Ma pulled him away with her, and now he was crying. Kati felt his disappointment as if it were her own. But Da held out his arms to her. "You are the eldest, and a daughter. Until you have your own horse, you ride here with me." Da hoisted her up, and Kaidu's reins were again in her hands.
"When will I have my own horse, Da? When?" She leaned back, looked straight up at his face.
"When you are ready," said Da.
The other men were all smiling at them, and then a boy on a young, black stallion galloped past and reined sharply to a halt at the head of the line. The hairless tail of the stallion trailed a streamer of colorful ribbons, and the boy carried a flag on a long staff, a sheet of cloth striped vertically in yellow, red and brown.
Kati had never seen such a sight. "What is he carrying, Da?"
Da whispered to her. "Abaka is fourteen, the youngest of warrior age in our ordu. He carries a flag that identifies us so people will know where we come from, and he will lead us to festival. All ordus have flags, in different designs but with the same colors. They are the primary colors of our women's eyes."
"Abaka looks very happy," said Kati. "He is lucky to be a boy."
Da hugged her hard. "To be a warrior, yes, but not a leader. Remember that the warriors go forth, while the leaders invoke strategy and watch from a safer place away from battle. Empress Mandughai watched from a hill when our ancestors did battle with the Hansui, made good their escape when the Emperor violated the terms of war by using his flying machines and weapons of light against them. It is the women who lead, Kati. Goldani and your mother ride behind us, but they are the two leaders of our ordu. I am their Captain in ceremony and war. Would you be warrior, or Empress?"
"Warrior," said Kati, giggling. Da hugged her again.
Abaka raised his standard proudly, turned his stallion and moved out at a stately walk. The column traversed a hill to a ridge and followed it west, dropping into a valley lush with trees and brush along a shallow stream of clear water, up another switch-back trail to another ridge, and so on until mid-day, pausing at another stream to water the horses and eat cheese and bread without dismounting. Tengri-Khan warmed them, but the air was still cold, and only a few of the men, including Abaka, dared to remove shirt and jacket to expose their bronzed skin to the light.
They climbed another hill and the trees were suddenly gone. Ahead of them was a maize of barren hills creviced with deep canyons, the land a lace of earth, and out towards the distant horizon there was a flat expanse of sparkling green. Da pointed over her shoulder, and said, "That is the great sea, which goes on without end. Most of our people live along its shore, and it's always warm there."
"Why don't we live there, Da?"
"Our ordu remains close to the land of our beginning. We are the watchdogs for our people, and when the time is right, the lands which the Emperor has stolen from us will be ours again. It is our obligation to keep watch on the Emperor, and we are honored to do it."
Kati said nothing, but wondered why the job couldn't be shared with others so that everyone could be warm some of the time. In her young life, she could not remember a day without cold.
The trail broadened and became visible far ahead, snaking across the barren hills towards the sea, criss-crossing trails from north and south. And as they came down onto a narrow plateau, Kati began to hear a distant sound: rhythmic pounding, deep, the clash of metal on metal, a tone for an instant, then again. Abaka was suddenly excited. He raised his standard high, waved it, and suddenly three boys rushed by, the tails and manes of their mounts festooned with ribbons, goat-skin drums in the laps of the riders. The boys began pounding on the drums, and Kati's heart raced with the breaking of the land's silence. Behind them, the women trilled, and several more riders, boys nearing manhood, rushed by to take a place behind Abaka and his drummers. Kati sat rigid on Kaidu's back, clenching the reins in her tiny fists, her heart pounding with excitement.
"It's good we're arriving with the others," said Da. "Now we can ride in together. See, Kati, how we all come together? I think this will be a fine festival."
Lines of horses were coming along the trails from all directions, north, south, several from the direction of the sea, convergent upon a broad valley sloping northward to a deep canyon dimly lit even at mid-day. The sound of drums, horns, and clashing cymbals of yellow metal grew louder as they neared each other, each line of horses preceded by a mounted youth with fluttering standard in red, yellow and brown, swirls of color in various geometrical designs. Da pointed out the standards of the Merkitis, the Naimansa, Kereits, Dorvodt, a blur of other ordu names, people of the sea and broad terraces west of the mountains, north and south. The trilling of the women was now continuous, and the beat of the drums pounded in Kati's ears.
People were waving to each other, and shouting names, but Kati was distracted by a curious sight. From the end of each line of horses, two mounted women were breaking ranks and converging on a slope above the plateau. Goldani rode by to join them, then Ma was suddenly there at Kati's side, thrusting Baber at her to hold. "Hold him tight," she said. "He's tired and wiggly." And then she rode off to join the other women on the hill.
Baber was thrilled. "I ride Kaidu!" he cried, and grabbed at the reins. Kati let him hold the reins, but gripped his hands tightly so that he couldn't pull on them, and after awhile he quit complaining, and was content just to hold them.
"Where is Ma going?" asked Kati.
"She'll follow us later," said Da. "Don't worry, just hold your brother still."
Baber was bouncing on Kaidu's neck, and the great horse shook his head. Kati shushed her brother, gave him a shake, and he was quiet again, pouting.
Lines of horses were three abreast as they walked down the slopes and into gloom of the canyon, Da exchanging pleasantries with a man from the Dorvodt ordu, a man named Altan. He too had a daughter perched in front of him on a white, broad-shouldered stallion with grey spots on its flanks, a hairless tail wound with ribbons of red, yellow and brown. The little girl's name was Edi; she was Kati's age, but shy, turning to smile occasionally, but saying nothing. Like Kati, she wore the pendant of Tengri's Eye, but its color was burnt-orange, not yellow.
The canyon was devoid of vegetation, high walls of soft stone, orange and red, wide seams of black rock glistening wetly and giving off the odor of burning oil lamps. The walls closed in on them until they were walking in single-file, and ahead was an overhang forming an arch which blocked Tengri-Khan's light as they passed under it, stone so close to their heads that Kati reached up to touch it and found her fingers stained orange.
The overhang went on for many paces, but ahead there was light again, and the sound of rushing water, a dull roar that echoed from the canyon walls. The drums had ceased to beat, all conversation halting as they went towards the light. Da's arms came around Kati and her brother; she heard him sigh, felt him relax, his chin on her head. "Now we come to Festival," he said softly.
They came out from beneath the overhang with a marvelous view of a suddenly wide canyon ending at a wall so high Kati looked nearly straight up to see its top. Water cascaded from the top of the wall into an emerald-green pool surrounded by fine sand, a few tumbled slabs of orange stone and a huge boulder at pool's edge, on top of which stood the oldest woman Kati had ever seen: a tall figure, her bronze face etched deep with age, dressed in a heavy, long robe of leather dyed in splotches of red, yellow and brown. The woman raised her arms in greeting, and the men ahead of Kati responded silently, raising their arms in unison. Da raised his arms also, murmuring, "We greet Manlee, the living presence of Mandughai, Kati. She is the leader of all our people, and has great powers, as you shall see."
The great beach of sand stretched hundreds of paces from them as they rode towards the pool, groups breaking off left and right under directions of a single man at water's edge, and it was then that Kati saw the standards marking the place for each ordu to locate on the sand. Before the pool, a pit had been dug and filled with logs and splintered wood. Abaka stopped near it, jamming his standard into the sand and dismounting there. Around them was a tumble of horses and people as everyone found their place, others still arriving, and more until the crowd was crushed together, horses jostling for position and whinnying nervously.
At that moment, the woman called Manlee looked up to the top of the waterfall at a man suddenly there. She waved an arm, and the man stepped back out of sight.
In an instant, the waterfall ceased to flow.
Hooves stomping sand, colliding bodies, a few muffled curses, then all sound was gone -- except for a dull roar like the exhalations of a sleeping giant from the mouth of a small canyon leading east from the beach and along the wall.
Manlee held out her arms from the summit of the great boulder, and her voice echoed from all around them. "All are here! Unload your horses, and take them past The Eye to the plateau for grazing, then return immediately for the procession of Mandughai! Your gerts are marked on the Festival fields! The rest of you remain silent, and take ease at the sound of Tengri's breath! We give him thanks for bringing us together again!"
Horses were unloaded and led away, Abaka taking charge of Kaidu and two others, including his own black. People placed their tents and belongings in piles, and sat on them silently, listening to the sound from the canyon mouth. Kati was awed. With the wave of her hand, Manlee had made the waterfall stop! Surely this was magic! Still, it seemed she was just an old woman, still standing on the boulder, smiling down at them.
All waited patiently, some dozing, and the crush was not so great now that the horses were gone, but the expanse of sand was solid with clusters of people and provisions, and Ma had still not arrived. Kati leaned against Da, Baber sound asleep in her lap. Her stomach growled. "When does Ma come?" she asked.
"Very soon," said Da, "and I think there will be a surprise for you then."
And there was, for when the boys came back from tethering the horses, two climbed the boulder to stand by Manlee, and they blew a long tone on bone horns, and all faces turned towards the narrow canyon through which they had come.
Twenty women rode sedately out of the canyon, colorful tapestries over the necks and rumps of their horses, long robes like Manlee's, pendants and huge earrings of bright metal sparkling as they came. In the hand of each woman, blade upright, was a long, curving sword, and across each back a short, re-curved bow, and quiver full of arrows.
Everyone stood up silently, and Kati's view was blocked. "Da!" she said, holding up her arms. Da smiled, hoisted her high over his head, and settled her down on his shoulders.
The procession neared her place by the pool, and suddenly Kati gasped in surprise, and fright. Some familiar faces, yes, yet horribly changed; now long, taut, cheekbones prominent, their partly open mouths displaying the curved teeth of a shizi. The eyes of all but one woman blazed red, the color of Tengri-Nayon, the color of wariness and alertness.
The lead rider was different. Her eyes were the color of the emerald pool.
"She is so beautiful," murmured Da.
The woman leading the procession was Ma.
Copyright © 1999 by James C. Glass