Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

I cut my shirt into a long strip of cloth and used that to bandage the wounds as well as I could, pressing the edges together. That was not the best way to manage injuries of that kind, but there was nothing else I could do.

As I finished that task, and straightened carefully, a different feeling came to me, past and through and around all my various physical discomforts. I turned my head, then turned further, to gaze upward as well as away.

I knew where Aras was.

It was the tie. Of course it was the tie. I had never felt it before; he had never had reason to use that tie in such a way, not with me. But the feeling was unmistakable. He was alive. I was alive, and Aras was alive. A great sense of relief filled me. I knew he was not close, but now I knew which direction was right, and that if I walked long enough, I would come to him eventually.

I was very glad to know Aras lived. Perhaps everyone lived ... or at least Inhejeriel and Etta, who had been behind him, close to the cliff face, when the shiral struck. They might all be perfectly well, and together. I clung to that thought.

Obviously the gods had already been extraordinarily generous. They had sent the shiral at once in answer to my sister’s request for help. Seldom indeed do the gods answer a singer so quickly. Not only had they struck with their whip, they had shifted the world beneath me to bring me to this safe place. That was obvious. No one could have fallen from that height to this low valley without breaking every bone. The gods had shifted the winds and the world so that I would not die of that fall. Maybe, if the gods had been kind, everyone else had also lived.

I began to walk toward Aras.

I walked for what seemed a long time. The valley stretched out before me. A stream ran through it, as through most valleys—almost a river, not very wide, but deep and fast. The sound of the water made me thirsty. I set the discomfort of thirst at a distance, as I had the sharp pain of the cuts across my stomach.

The mountains were beautiful in the moonlight. The snow that here and there covered the meadow grasses seemed to glow with its own light. The breeze was cool and pleasant, smelling of snow and damp earth. Far away, wolves began to sing. Nearer, I heard the sound a goat makes when it blows out its breath in alarm. Cloven hoofprints appeared in the snow, bouncing away toward the nearest mountain. From the round shape of the hooves and the depth of the clefts, these were the white goats with the short black horns, not the tawny ones with the horns that curled. The white goats will go up a sheer cliff as easily as they cross a meadow. I looked after the hoofprints, but I knew they would not lead me to the kind of path a man could take up that cliff.

Where goats came to graze, white leopards might hunt. Or even the great tiger. I thought of Geras, and then of Suyet. Though I had never expected the land of the shades to be safe for anyone, somehow I had not expected anyone to die. Geras and Suyet and I had come through a great deal together, and now they were gone. If Esau had been with us, perhaps that would not have happened. Or perhaps he would be dead as well. I did not know whether I wished he had traveled with us or not. It was good to know he was safe in the summer country. Whatever problems he had encountered when going about his own tasks, those problems must have been small compared to the perils we faced here.

So long a time had passed since we had left the summer country. Esau must have found that woman long since ... I could not recall her name. Some long Lau name with many vowels ... Keraunani. That was her name. Keraunani of Pitasosa. Esau would have found her. She would be safe now. She and Esau would both be safe.

If Aras never returned to the summer country ... I did not know what that might mean for his people. My mother would send his letter to the king of the summer country, but I did not know what the king would think or do when he received that letter.

I thought of the reasons Aras had decided to come into the winter lands. It had been a long time since I thought of all those reasons. At least if Aras did not return to his own country, he would not have to order all those people put to death himself, nor witness it. That was some small comfort.

Perhaps he would not die. Perhaps he was right to believe Inhejeriel would work her great sorcery to bring her people back into the world, and all of us along with the many lost Tarashana. I found that I no longer believed her efforts would succeed. But weariness and discomfort wear at a man, and too little hope is as much a kind of self-indulgence as too much. I tried to put every kind of anxiety out of my mind.

I wished Aras could tell me whether some of the others were with him, safe, and what was happening now, and show me exactly where they were. But nothing came to me. The distance must be too great. Certainly I felt the distance was very great.

I paused. I had walked for some time following the direction I felt in my heart and my mind, which meant I was walking the long way down the valley, but also coming close