Book of Remembrance: The Forgotten Gods: Book One (11 page)

With the last of the afternoon
light failing, Prea said, “We better get back. The feast will be starting soon,
they will be expecting us.”

I nodded. “Go
ahead,
I will be right behind you.” With a few curious glances from Jamber, they left.
Once I was sure they were out of sight I went through the Shea-Rin. Instead of
making me feel ready to collapse, it now made me feel strong. I had a quick
swim to refresh myself and hurried back to the village.

By the time I reached the
village square, it was already filled with people. A minstrel was singing a
lively song and playing the lyre and a sizable group of people was dancing to
the music. As I walked along, people stopped me regularly offering
congratulations. Of course, my success was only official once the Cha
pronounced it so during the feast, but everyone assumed that they knew what
this feast meant.

I scanned the crowds until I
spotted Aliana. She was standing by her friends, laughing and talking. I
scraped my courage together and purposefully started striding towards her, but
just
then,
Lilana came bounding up to me, a grin
splitting her face from ear to ear.

She hugged me fiercely. “Kadin,
you did it! I knew you would. And now you will have more time to play with me
again!” My heart twisted a bit. I had not even thought about how she would deal
with me leaving so quickly. I had already been aware of not spending enough
time with her lately because of all the training and preparation. I started
stammering a response, but she was looking past me, her eyes stretching a
little wider.

She grinned.
“Sweetcakes!”
With that, she went skipping away. I sighed. At least that had given me a
momentary reprieve, but I knew I would have to face her again later. I looked
around for Aliana, but she had been swallowed by the crowd.

Long tables had been set up with
various drinks and food laid out. I helped myself to some mulled wine and
pastries. Spotting Jamber, I walked over to him, but before I reached him,
Brant intercepted me.

His eyes were hard as stone. “I
hear we are to be travel companions. Do not harbour any notions that this was
any of my doing. I would rather eat Jurpa dung than travel with you.” It looked
like he was ready to spit at my feet.

Before I could respond, he
continued. “I doubt that the Cha would have revealed much to the likes of you,
but this will not be a simple journey. I see you carry around a rusty blade
now. We may have to defend ourselves during the course of our travels and if
you do manage to gather enough fortitude to actually do something then, I hope
you remember you have to stick them with the sharp end.” He gave a disgusted grunt
and stalked off.

What he had hoped to achieve
with that little rant I could not fathom. I wanted to laugh. Brant’s haughty
attitude had never bothered me as much as I am sure he hoped it did. I shook my
head and headed off to where I had seen Jamber.

I found the brothers all
together as usual. Jench and Jamber were sitting across each other at a table
intently busy with an arm wrestling match. This was apparently not the first
round as sweat stood out on both their brows. Brak jumped up on me wagging his
tail furiously before running off again.

Jench managed to pin Jamber’s
hand to the table and leapt at jubilantly pronouncing his victory until I was
sure that every person in the square must have heard. Jamber stood up laughing
and shaking his head.

Jench jostled me. “Come on
Kadin. It is only you standing in my way now to be crowned ultimate strong arm
of Predaki.” He sat down at the table, elbow down and arm up clenching and
unclenching his fist. I sat down and gripped his hand.

Prea piped up. “Right,
gentleman, I want a clean fair match. Ready….Set…..Go!” We were quite evenly
matched. Our hands crept one way and then the other. Jench’s face was as red as
a tomato and a large vein was bulging out in the middle of his forehead. I
started to gain, pushing his hand just a little further than before.

Suddenly I heard a screeching
howl in the distance. Within a heartbeat, I had focused my Navitas. I do not
know how, but I was certain that that howl was not from a wolf, but from a
Dyrrendrel. I found myself standing in flying
eagle, a form of the Shea-Rin, with Sunder in my hand. Markai was
next to me, deep snarling and ripping noises coming from her throat. Brak froze
in place for a moment looking at her and then with a yelp ran away as fast as
his short legs could carry him. This all happened in the space of two breaths,
but all had gone quiet around me.

Everyone in the vicinity was
staring at me in shock. They were looking at me as though I had lost my mind.
My brothers were standing back, well clear of Sunder. I realised that I had
also thrown over the table and chair where I had been sitting. Even the music
had stopped and people further away were looking around in confusion wondering
what had caused the commotion.

To my horror, I saw Aliana
looking at me from the back of the crowd. The look on her face told me she was
trying to decide whether I was crazy or perhaps just drunk on mulled wine. I
hoped she assumed the latter. After all, all young men have some lapse of
judgement with drink on occasion. With a huge relief though, I realised that no
one was looking at Markai.
 

I forced out a laugh while sheathing
Sunder. I released Navitas and with it Markai.
 
I walked over to Jench still with a grin on my face. I punched him
playfully on the shoulder and I winked at him conspiratorially, hoping that he
would go along with it.
 
“I told you they
would fall for it.
Scared them half to death.”
I
forced out another bark of laughter and was relieved to see Jench smiling and
nodding, albeit a bit nervously.

Slowly people returned to
whatever they had been doing. I noticed, though that they were not joining in
laughing the incident off. Jamber was looking at me thoughtfully, a frown
pulling his brows down. Prea’s face did not reveal much, but I saw questions
floating behind his dark eyes.

Prea looked around making sure
no one was paying us any more attention. I furtively glanced about to see
whether Aliana was still looking, but I could not see her. He looked from me to
Jench and back. “Do you mind telling us what that was really about, because I
don’t believe that was some half cooked stunt?”

To his credit, Jench simply
shrugged his shoulders and looked at me. Jamber looked around and then back at
me. “I know Brak isn’t the biggest dog, but he does not scare easily. Something
petrified him to make him run off yelping like that.”
 
All four of them were looking at me expectantly.
I sighed. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my brothers, but I didn’t know how much
I was permitted to tell them. I gestured with my head for them to follow me.

 
 
I led
them away from the busy throng of the square and some distance away still. While
I was walking, I tried to decide what I should tell them. I turned and faced
them. “There is something that I haven’t told you. In fact, I have not told
anyone apart from the Cha and that was unavoidable since I had to report to him
today. If I tell you this, you must swear that it remains between us.”

I waited for a nod of agreement
from each of them before I continued. “When I focus my Navitas, I call forth a
creature of the Fae.” Jamber and Wilm gasped.

I heard a muttered,
“Impossible.” from Jench.

Prea looked at me searchingly.
His eyes intent.
“What do you mean of the Fae?”

I shook my head. “Look, I don’t
even understand it all myself. Markai just came to me. I inherited this ability
from my mother. I do not know how I do it. All I know is she comes every time.”

Jamber spoke up. “Show us then.
Call her forth.” There was a note of mockery in his voice that I would not have
expected.

I breathed deeply to avoid
snapping at him. “It does not work that way. No one has actually seen her apart
from me.” And Quiniewa of course, but that may be revealing too much.

Jamber had an ugly sneer on his
face. “Humour us. Try.” I looked at the others and shrugged.

Clearing my mind, I focused my
Navitas. A moment later Markai came walking towards us. They were all facing me
with their backs to her. I pointed past them at her. Slowly they turned and
looked. One and all they cried out in shock and ran past me away from her. I
did not know who was more surprised, them or me.

They stopped some distance away
and looked back, disbelief written all over their faces. I sensed from Markai
that it had been her deliberate decision to reveal herself to them. She strode
up to me. I took in her massive size, muscles rippling as she walked. No wonder
she scared them.

She sat down next to me and
regarded my brothers with cool blue eyes. Even sitting down she was more than a
head higher than me. I put my hand on her back and the now familiar ice and
fire covered me, ran in my very veins. “She won’t harm you!” I had to raise my
voice to carry to where they were standing.

Prea started walking cautiously
toward us and the rest followed him. His eyes never left Markai.
“How?
What? Why have we never seen her before?”

A few
minutes before I had not known, and yet Markai was….telling me.
“As my
strength in the Navitas grew so did my Enchantment bond with
her.
 
My strength flowed into her and now we are so
strongly bonded that we are connected on a deeper level. She is almost at her
full strength and she chose to reveal herself to you today.”

Jench chortled nervously. “So, she
is like your guard, um, dog?” The idea of her being compared to a guard dog was
comical.

I snorted. “No. Markai is not a
mere animal. She is as intelligent as any human and more so than most.
 
She is more like my partner.
 
We are a team.” I could feel approval rolling
out at me from her.

Prea looked at me.
 
“You still haven’t really explained what
happened back there. That wasn’t her howl we heard, otherwise you would not
have reacted in that way. So what did happen?”

I shuffled my feet and ran my
hands through my hair. I was toeing the line a bit of what I was permitted to
tell. “No, that howl was from a creature called a Dyrrendrel.”

Jench interrupted.
“Dyrrendrel.
What is a Dyrrendrel?” I frowned at his interruption
and the note of disbelieve in his voice.

I sighed and continued. “I
cannot say much at this time, but suffice to say that they are distant cousins
to the wolf. They are extremely dangerous and they do not always work alone. I
encountered some during my Seeking and would rather not confront them again
anytime soon.”

Wilm’s eyebrows were raised so
high they were in danger of being lost behind his hairline. “That must have
been some meeting if that is the way you react when you hear one howl in the
distance.”

I merely nodded my agreement.
Jamber was scowling angrily. I looked at him. “Do you have something to add
Jamber?”

His lip curled in a sneer. “You
kept this from us?
This, uh, ability of yours.
Why?”
 
I swallowed my own anger in an
exasperated sigh. “Apart from Moma and Lilana, being with you four has been the
only place where I have fitted in; where I belonged. I guess I thought I might
ruin that by admitting to being different.”

Jench smiled and punched me on
the shoulder.
 
“Fool, we are your brothers.
For life.
You should know that.” I smiled at him
gratefully and the others nodded their agreement.
All except
Jamber.
He was keeping his face carefully blank, but his eyes were
thunderstorms.
 

Wilm saw that we were looking at
each other. I opened my mouth to say something, but he interjected quickly. “I
think we’d better head back. We can’t allow Kadin here to miss his own
announcement.” A murmur of agreement went through the group.

We started off, but Wilm put a
hand on my shoulder and walked slowly so that we fell behind the others. “Don’t
let his reaction upset you. You know he does not much like surprises and he is
even less fond of change. He will come around soon enough and things will go
back to the way they were. Jench had the right of it.” I smiled appreciatively
and nodded.

My thoughts went back to the
Book of Remembrance. I was eager to look through it.
To study
my enemies.
To know what may await me, but at the same time, I was
quietly petrified for all the same reasons. I had the feeling that once I
looked at that Book my childhood was truly over.

Not long after arriving back at
the square the Kichwa stood on the central dais and called for quiet. He
cleared his throat loudly. “As you are all aware, Kadin Aken has returned from
his Seeking. The Cha has taken his report and he will now announce his
decision.”

He gestured to the Cha who stood
up and walked onto the central dais. There was deathly quiet and I could feel
the tension in the air. Failure was less common than success, but not rare by
any means. The Cha’s face was carefully blank.