Читать книгу The Raven's Warrior - Vincent Pratchett - Страница 15

A New Direction

By day and by night they traveled, stopping briefly to cook and eat what sustenance their route graciously provided. Moving relentlessly from north to southeast, Mah Lin would consult the spinning needle and study carefully one of the oldest parchment maps saved from the destroyed temple.

Over the course of their steady progress, Mah Lin explained that not all the manuscripts they carried were from his former monastery. Some, like the map they now followed, came from a much older place, and it was to this place, the place of all origins, that they were heading. It was this sanctuary that would provide them with the safety and protection that they needed, and within these walls of security they would once again build life.

Selah was very much like their dependable load-pulling horse. She never complained about the length or severity of their journey, or even questioned its nebulous purpose. She thought sometimes about the life they had left behind, but realized that they were not so much leaving something as moving towards something else. Her heart knew that the steady pace they had set had both direction from the delicately spinning needle, and purpose reflected in the calm and serious expression worn on the face of her father.

Mah Lin spoke of a world in a state of chaos, like the destruction from the heavens that brings the hail, the rain, and the winds. He spoke of it churning slowly and grinding steadily in its natural and unstoppable rotation. He explained that the place they now sought was a place of refuge from this tempest. The ancient of ancient temple site was the calm within this storm, the eye of this ever-expanding hurricane.

The star filled night sky covered the two travelers like a simple beggar’s bowl. As Selah’s eyes grew heavy her father’s grew more vigilant. He had heard the diminutive sounds of snapping twigs and the slight rustle of leaves in the underbrush. Now he sat calmly waiting, while his skilled hands comfortably touched the familiar wooden sword handle.

From the darkness stepped the huddled and half-hidden figure of an old man. Like a moth attracted by the fire’s light he sought to share a morsel, and perhaps some idle nighttime conversation. In truth he desired only the basic warmth of human contact. He was garbed in blackened tattered robes that cried out loudly of neglect, and his head moved coal black eyes from side to side to pierce the darkness. As a skinny arm reached carefully for the hot tea offered, Selah thought about the raven that followed them.

The monk and the beggar shared the fire’s comfort and talked well into the quiet night and long after she had fallen asleep. Their tone was for the most part serious, punctuated in places by honest laughter. He was gone by the time she awoke, so she did not see his parting gesture. The beggar had solemnly dropped a large rock onto the skirt of the dying fire. Neither did she know that the dropping of the rock coincided perfectly with the falling head of a distant sentry who had just finished making his last report.

Within the moon’s half cycle the end of their travels was in sight. They could see from the sparse lowland an oasis of lush green rising up before them in the distance. It stretched for miles untouched and unvisited by the few locals that lived nearby, for often a land long sacred carries within it the power to remain unmolested. The arrival of monk, woman, horse and cart, to holy ground attracted little attention, and needed no explanation.

To Selah this quiet protected area called to them, as if it had always belonged to them and them to it. As they arrived at its hub, she felt its welcoming nature. It hinted once again at security and family, even though her mother was painfully absent and terribly missed. They moved past the outer walls to the great hall, where they unloaded the weapons and armor from the cart of their tired horse.

The site was ancient, but not in tremendous disarray. It was simpler than most temple structures, more home than place of worship. She would start with a good cleaning. Within only a few months her work and womanly touch began to breathe vitality here once again. A small but adequate garden was soon planted and tended. Wild game was abundant, and before long there were cattle grazing and hens nesting or scratching and pecking as they roamed freely around the place.

Her father renewed his vows of priesthood. Martial training occurred daily, as did the study of the ancient manuscripts that had found their resting place within the structures simple library. All daily chores were done in a way that enhanced his strength and fighting skills, and by evening’s lamplight he poured over the written mysteries of age-old documents.

Like her mother before her, it was not long before Selah was collecting and categorizing the medicinal plants growing in this serene location. Also, very much like her mother, she had begun to feed mulberry leaves to the worms, and spin, dye, and weave their silken bounty. Her father meanwhile seemed more focused than ever.

The destroyed ruins of his former monastery hovered high and silent on the distant mountaintop, but its essence lived on within his soul. Day by day he methodically prepared spirit, mind, and body, for a challenge he sensed inevitably drawing closer.

The oldest scrolls were painted more than a thousand years before, from the time of the First Emperor. One particular passage veiled in the prophetic tradition held his attention, and he meditated daily upon its words. He soared with wings of wisdom to places of light and darkness and ascended toward the serenity of understanding, duty, and acceptance.

“From setting sun a man doth come, beaten by the rain,

Drawing sword from stone, he will rise through blood and pain.

From slave to king, to free the beast, that lies beneath the hill,

Eternity the last embrace and Death must drink its fill.”

Mah Lin listened to the raven’s call, and within the echoes of its fading cry, the priest heard much more.

The day that she had finished making her father his richly colored full silk robes marked the creation of a new weaving, a cloth long ago finished and only now begun. “Selah,” he said, “a man soon arrives. Since the beginning of time we three were woven together. Make ready the cart, and give the raven an extra tasty morsel. We must leave to collect him.” Selah was surprised by the news, but obeyed without question.

She set to her tasks with a smile, intrigued by her father’s enigmatic tone and amused that he had noticed she had taken to feeding the bird that had long claimed them as its own.