A Warrior's Path (The Castes and the OutCastes) (11 page)

“And you,” Mistress Shull Weathervine said, throwing open the door and letting the pleasant aroma of some sort of stew waft out.  “Please come in.  It’s been too long.”  She glanced upward.  “I hope you don’t mind, but Trellis is practicing.  We pray she might be accepted into the Larina next year.” 

Mira smiled.  “Not at all,” she said.  “A glorious voice raised in song is never to be condemned.” 
In fact, hearing Shull’s granddaughter sing so beautifully raised a lump in Mira’s throat.  She wished she had a Talent so lovely, but she was Kumma.  Though women of her Caste were taught to fight, there was little beauty in killing.

She stifled a wistful sigh. 
To each their own.

Mistress Shull led Mira through the foyer, a small wood-
paneled space with a large firefly lantern hanging from the ceiling, and on into the kitchen in the rear of the house from whence the delicious aroma arose.  Several shelves hung from the knotty pine walls, holding well-used pots and pans as well as ceramic dishware.  A small window gave a view out over the fields and the barn, while the back door was thrown open, allowing a fitful breeze to help cool the room.  Mistress Terras, Shull’s mother, stood next to the sink, methodically chopping vegetables – onions and potatoes likely from last year’s harvest – and tossed them into a simmering pot.  Mistress Lace, one of Shull’s daughters and but a few years older than Mira, glanced up from her work at a large, butcher-block table where she was de-boning a chicken.  A slop bucket rested on the floor between the two women, and they were preparing a hearty dinner for later in the day.  And this wasn’t the entirety of their Clan.  The rest of the Weathervines were likely out in the fields.

Mistress Terras glanced up and her
heavily wrinkled face broke into a smile.  She set aside her knife and wiped her hands on her apron before straightening as much as she could, a dowager’s hump bending a once proud woman.  “It’s been a long time since you last visited us,” she said.  “What brings you out to the plantations after all this time?”

“The fortunes of House Suzay,” Mira said.  “We need spidergrass for several
Insufi
blades,” Mira answered.

Mistress Lace’s face broke into a smile.  “Congratulations,” she said.  “Your apprenticed House is blessed to have more than one candidate ready to take his place as a man.”

Mira smiled acknowledgement.  “Thank you.  Do you think we’ll have enough
sathana
for them?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Mistress Shull answered.  “We had an excellent harvest three years ago, and the spidergrass from that season was quite healthy.  It should do.”

“Then we only need to negotiate a price,” Mira said.

Mistress Terras stared Mira in the eyes.  “You’ve grown child, but know this: we bargain hard.”

Mira felt the corners of her lips turn up in a faint smile.  “Then let’s get started,” she suggested.  Kumma women couldn’t engage in battle – they were too valuable to waste in such a manner – but it didn’t mean they didn’t enjoy a good fight.

It took some haggling, but eventually they settled on a price, one Mira
believed Tol’El would be pleased with.

“Will you stay for tea and some food
?” Mistress Lace asked.

Mira was tempted, but there was one final task to complete.  If she finished quickly
enough, the evening would be hers, and she had plans.  A new production of an old play she had loved as a child was opening tonight.  Bree had promised that Jaresh could get them tickets.

“Thank you, but I can’t.  I have one last task still to complete,” Mira said, adding a regretful note.

“Tol’El wants to make sure he gets the most out of you before you return to House Shektan, eh?” Mistress Terras asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“He has been
pushing hard lately,” Mira said before making ready to leave as she said her goodbyes.

“You did well,” Mistress Shull said with a smile as she walked Mira to the door.

“Thank you,” Mira replied, relieved to hear the older woman’s good opinion. “Can you have it ready for delivery in a month?”

“We have it ready now,” Mistress Shull said.  “Why wait so long?”

“The caravan from Arjun is late,” Mira said with a grimace.

The sap of the cerumen
tree, which grew best in Arjun, was the key ingredient in the final glazing of a
sathana
blade before it was placed in a kiln. A Duriah could make do with something else, but for an
Insufi
sword, nothing else was acceptable.

Mistress Shull frowned.  “A pity,” she said.  “Arjun is rumored to have a Sentya who they claim is the second coming of Kubar.  I looked forward to hearing his compositions.”

“As did I,” Mira said.  “Hopefully, the caravan will arrive shortly, and we can both hear the truth of Arjun’s boasts.”  With that, Mira said her goodbyes and headed back to Ashoka proper.

Can a man offer compassion to one for whom he holds nothing but contempt?  It seems unlikely.

-
Sooths and Small Sayings
by Tramed Billow AF1387

J
aresh Shektan waded his way through the heavy traffic of Martyr Hall, the southernmost road marking the border of Semaphore Walk, Ashoka’s theater and performing arts district.  He cursed under his breath as he bumped into a clumsy, heavy-set Rahail and offered a half-hearted apology.  The thick crowds weren’t a surprise.  The Semaphore was a popular destination on most evenings for couples and families, or a group of friends wanting to go out for a night of entertainment by seeing a play or listening to some new music.

He
glanced at his sister with bemused envy.  Bree wasn’t having any trouble.  There she was, walking alongside him without a care in the world.  He rolled his eyes.  Of course not.  She didn’t have to worry herself with such mundane concerns as moving to avoid others or mumbling apologies as one tried to slip through the crowd.  Her beauty and Kumma heritage allowed her to live without the need for such simple courtesies.  Men stepped aside at her approach as did women, although rather than favoring her with an admiring glance, the latter were more likely to give her one of judgmental jealousy.

Jaresh sent an angry glare at one particular Cherid, a young man who was staring at Bree with a bit too much appreciation.  He was happy to see the man’s wife or escort slap him for the almost rapacious expression he had worn.  The man was
a Cherid.  Bree was a Kumma.  An admiring glance was relatively benign, but the open look of lust on the man’s face was disgusting.  The Cherid needed to be taught the limits of what was considered proper behavior.

He felt sympathy for Bree.  She
hadn’t missed the interaction.  Her giveaway was the mildly derisive smile she wore and the tension Jaresh could see in the carriage of her shoulders.  Bree sometimes complained that her beauty was as much a burden as a boon, which was true to a certain extent, especially at moments like this, but it was also utter bat guano when fully considered in all possible contexts.  True, her appearance often granted her unwanted attention, but it had also never stopped her from using her attractiveness to its full advantage.  She exploited every gift available to her just as their nanna had once pithily advised:
don’t be too proud to use what you’ve got to get the job done. 
Bree didn’t always like the unsolicited interest, but Jaresh knew she wouldn’t have it any other way.  Better to be beautiful than ugly.

Jaresh, on the other hand, was as plain as yogurt.  Not even vanilla since that was an actual flavor.  He was unassuming like a good Sentya should be.  Nothing special.  Move along, people.  Nothing to see here.  He had the features typical for his Caste: an aquiline nose perched proudly above his well-tailored goatee;
sparkling hazel eyes, accented to his unending embarrassment with long, feminine lashes; and dusky skin, though not so dark as a Kumma’s.  The one aspect of his appearance setting him apart as unusual from the rest of his Caste was his build.  Like most Sentyas, Jaresh was of average height, but unlike the other members of his Caste, who tended to be slender, he had a thick and well-muscled physique.

He could thank his upbringing
for the latter, which was as unique as anyone could ever recall.  Jaresh was of the Kumma House Shektan and even carried the surname Shektan but was
not
himself a Kumma.  Nobody could recall a similar situation ever occurring in the past: a Sentya raised in a Kumma House, and by the ruling ‘El, no less.

It was all because his Nanna – Dar’El; not his birth father – fell out of a boat.

When Darjuth Sulle – Nanna’s name before his elevation to ruling ‘El of House Shektan – had returned home after his last Trial, he had taken to spending many an afternoon out on the sea.  He had whiled away the hours; resting, healing, or just trying to forget.  His final two Trials had been difficult.  Painful. He had ended up in Mockery, a city on the far eastern edge of Continent Catalyst near the Mourning Ocean.  It was about as far from Ashoka as any place in the world.  Darjuth had eventually joined a Trial heading from Mockery to Defiance.  The caravan had been large, with a complement of over five hundred warriors, and they had initially made good time.  But somewhere north of the Highmark Hills, several Fractures of Chimeras had attacked them.  While Suwraith’s beasts had been crushed, the creatures had still managed to cause heavy damage, setting fire to the caravan’s food stores and rupturing their water casks.  By the time the caravan had reached Defiance, fully half of the warriors had died, most from dehydration in the unforgiving desert of the Prayer.

After
a long respite, Darjuth had then joined another Trial, the short sea voyage from Defiance to Ashoka.  It was regarded as the safest and easiest Trial any warrior could make, but it, too, had proved ruinous.  An unexpected storm had blown down from the Privation Mountains, sweeping the ships of the caravan north where many of the vessels had smashed against the Needle Points, a graveyard of spiky rocks and outcroppings with impassable water and heavy waves.  Only one man in four survived by the time the remaining ships had limped their way home to Ashoka.  The two journeys, occurring consecutively as they had, were disasters unlike any recorded in decades.

The Trials were harsh, but the sudden death of
so many
close friends…it took time to come to terms with such loss.  The sea was a place where Darjuth could occasionally forget his pain and search out his way in the world once more; where he could reconcile himself to his guilt-ridden survival in the face of the senseless death of so many good friends, men he had loved and who would never again return home.  The sea was a place where he had hoped to find some semblance of peace.

On one particularly fine day, Darjuth had gone out by himself on a small, wide-beamed catboat.  It should have been easy to handle with its one sail, but during a moment of distraction, the boom had unexpectedly swung around and smashed into his head
.  He’d been knocked unconscious and thrown from the boat.

Meanwhile, Jaresh’s birth father, Bresh Konias, already in middle years by then, had seen the entire accident
.  He later described it as a terrible event he could almost presciently guess would happen but had been powerless to prevent.  But he had prepared himself for what he knew was about to occur.  Before Darjuth had even hit the water or been struck by the swinging boom, Bresh had already aimed his sloop toward where he had guessed the Kumma would fall.  An unpredictable riptide and choppy swells had made the ocean dangerous, but Bresh had disregarded the peril.  At great personal risk, he had leapt into the sea and managed to save Darjuth.  In gratitude, Nanna had offered any boon he could legally promise.

Bresh had been th
e unwanted third son of a poor Moon Quarter dock worker.  He had no claims on those with wealth, and his kinfolk – the Konias’ – couldn’t help him either, being, at best, of only middling-to-minimal wealth.  They had been unable to help Bresh with anything beyond the bare necessities for living and the rudimentary schooling in Sentya learning.  However, without advanced training, he had nothing to commend him to a potential employer.  He had no specific skills or knowledge, which might have allowed him to rise to a higher station in life.  His fate had essentially been sealed in childhood: in poverty.

And after his childhood, in poverty he had remained.  At an age when many of his contemporaries were readying homes for grandchildren, Bresh had remained single and childless. 
After all, who would offer their daughter to someone in such dire straits?  His livelihood – a for-rent fisherman leasing his sloop at usury rates – had been the only job available to him.  Even the Moon Quarter where his father and two brothers worked had been a posting unaffordable to him.  His life as a fisherman allowed his survival but little more. Day-to-day drudgery was his existence.

Saving the life of a Kumma
, though, everything could change from that, and Bresh had known it.  Being unschooled didn’t make him stupid, and he had understood his good fortune and recognized how best to turn it to his advantage.  So instead of one boon, Bresh had begged Darjuth for two.  The first was simple: money to buy his own fishing boat.  After eyeing Bresh’s tattered clothing and old, poorly maintained sloop, it was a request Darjuth had expected, and one he could easily afford.  It was Bresh’s second wish that had caught Nanna by surprise.

With halting words, Bresh had begged
for a simple provision: any children the Sentya might someday father would be personally sponsored by Darjuth.  It was a bold supplication, and Nanna had been curious as to the reason for it.  Bresh’s explanation had been rational and straightforward: with his own boat, he would no longer be poor and with the promise of a Kumma sponsorship for his children, overnight, he would become a sought-after prospect for marriage.  More importantly, his children would have a chance for a future Bresh couldn’t even dream of experiencing.

Upon hearing his reasoning, Darjuth had agreed to all of it.  He had been thoroughly impressed with Bresh’s judgment.  A lesser man would have asked for more selfish and fleeting needs.  Bresh’s choices reflected a more shrewd intellect.  Even then, Nanna had prized competence
and intelligence above all else, reasoning from a purely practical level that any children from a man like Bresh should be nurtured so their acumen could flower.  They could be of great benefit to House Shektan.

And Nanna couldn’t help but feel empathy for Bresh’s pain.  So much longing and desire trapped in a life of drudgery.  It was a tragedy.

Soon after, Bresh had married, and several years later, he and his young wife, Shari had their first child: Jaresh.  Witness to his birth had been Darjuth himself, holding to his promise to sponsor Bresh’s children.  Life must have been an unexpected, endless wonder of possibilities for Jaresh’s birth father.  It all ended several years later when a drunk in a downstairs apartment had failed to close the grate to his stove and a stray spark had sent the whole building up in a wall of flames.  Jaresh had been three when the apartment fire had claimed the lives of his birth parents.  Darjuth and his wife, Satha Sulle, had come for him. He didn’t remember much from back then – except for the fear.  He had been certain he would have to go live with his Aunt Veldik, who hated him.

Instead, for reasons he doubted
even his father truly understood, something in Jaresh’s soot and tear-stained face must have touched Nanna’s heart.  Perhaps it was the voice of Devesh.  Perhaps it was a moment of weakness.  Or, maybe it had been simple pity.  Whatever the reason, Darjuth had followed his feelings, and on the spot, without even consulting his wife, he had decided to adopt Jaresh.

Even now, most Kummas hadn’t quite come to grips with the ridiculous
peculiarity of such a decision.  What could be the purpose of a Kumma adopting a Sentya?  It made no sense.

Jaresh wondered if his
nanna sometimes questioned his decision as well.

A
doption into House Shektan had provided Jaresh with a loving home, but it had not solved all of his problems.  Far from it. It wasn’t easy being the Sentya son of a Kumma. For his own birth Caste, Jaresh was an oddity.  He was one of their own, but he acted and dressed like a warrior.  As far as he knew, it was something never before known in Ashoka or any other city.  As a result, other Sentyas weren’t sure whether his status counted as a point of pride or as a matter of revulsion.  They simply didn’t know how to relate to him.  As for Kummas, Jaresh often served as an affront to their ego.  He was someone who could never measure up to their lofty warrior standards and yet carried one of their surnames.  It was a disgrace for one so incapable to be counted as a member of a Kumma family.  It only grew worse upon Nanna’s election as the ruling ‘El of House Shektan and his children’s assumption of the House name.  Despite all this, Jaresh was grateful for his place in the world.  Dar’El and Satha were the only parents he knew.  They loved him.

On most days
it was enough.

Jaresh was broken out of hi
s reverie when he bumped into Bree.  She had come to an unexpected halt as, wonder of wonders, the crowd had
not
parted before her.  She turned with a frown.

“Be careful,” she admonished.  “You almost stepped on my dress.”

“Sorry,” he said.  “Just thinking about other things.”

Her eyebrows arched in an unspoken question.

“Did you know that tomorrow is my seventeenth year as your brother?” Jaresh said.

Bre
e smiled.  “Of course I know.  Amma plans on throwing you a surprise party,” she said.

“Oh.  Had no idea.”

“That’s why it’s called a ‘surprise party’,” Bree explained in an overly patient tone.  She tapped her chin in consideration.  “We don’t want Amma to be disappointed.  So act surprised,” she advised, giving him a condescending pat on the cheek before turning away.

Jaresh smiled at his sister’s patronizing tone.  She must be slipping if she thought she could irritate him with such a transparent ploy.  For whatever reason,
the two of them had always been competitive, even when it came to schemes meant to annoy one another.  It was childish, and Jaresh sometimes wondered if they should grow up about it, but the look on Bree’s face when he punctured her inflated sense of importance was absolutely priceless.  He imagined she felt the same way, else she wouldn’t also continue with their game.