Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

little nudge. Not much, of course, but I learned to ask myself Do I want to do this? when she asked me to do something. I learned that practically before I could walk. This wasn’t the same, but I guess it wasn’t that different.” She shook her head. “Why did it do that, Ryo? The other shades weren't like that at all.”

“The other shades have been settled in themselves. They have a proper place within this land. That shade was unsettled—the kind who has no place. Shades like that forget their names and their honor. They wish to steal the breath of a living person and take that person's name. If that shade came into the land of the living, she would try to steal someone's breath. She would fool herself into believing herself alive, for a short time. She might find a way into the land of the living and fool living people for a little while. That is dangerous, but usually the taiGara keep shades like that away from our tombs.”

Lalani nodded thoughtfully. “It's all very different from anything we say of the land of the shades. Everything here is different.”

“Aras said you Lau believe that shades must find their way to a place of judgment.”

“Oh, did he explain that? Yes, that is what we say.” She glanced up at the broad streak of Saa'arii emptiness that sliced through the sky. It looked very much like a hole in the world that might well lead into the endless dark.

The shadow of that dark tide looked so disturbing that I found it far too easy to believe that it might spill through the Ugaro part of the land of the shades into the Lau place of judgment. I wondered whether it might have done so, and what might be happening in that place if this were so.

We walked on for a long time in silence. It seemed a long time. Time here was as strange as distance and direction, or so it seemed to me. The only thing that moved any great distance through the sky was the dark tide. Every time I looked at it, that smear had taken more of the sky and come closer to the earth. I tried not to look at it, but we often walked toward it, sometimes at an angle and sometimes directly. It was growing more difficult to look at anything else, even though I knew I should be watching for the shadow of a tiger or for any other danger.

“We were in that,” Lalani said in a low voice after a while. “Tano and I.”

“Yes,” I agreed. My brothers might still be trapped in that emptiness. Lost, as Inhejeriel said. Desolate. I looked at that strange place in the sky and thought anyone lost there would surely be desolate.

Twenty and twenty and twenty inGara people were probably lost there. Perhaps more than that. Unless Inhejeriel could bring them out, all those people might be trapped forever.

“What was it like?” I asked. I did not really want to hear their answer. I knew from the way Suyet had behaved, even the way Lalani and Tano had behaved, that it had been terrible. But I had to ask.

“I don’t really remember,” Lalani said. “I ... I was alone. I’m not sure there was anything else. I don’t know how long that lasted. Then I heard, felt, I just knew where Aras was. That was the first time I knew where anyone was. The first time I felt anything was anywhere.” She shuddered.

“I was alone,” Tano agreed in a low voice. “But I felt enemies waited somewhere in the darkness. Only it was not exactly darkness. I do not know what that place was.” He glanced up at the sky, the looming shadow of the Saa’arii tide, then dropped his gaze.

I said, “Even if we must go into that place, we will still know where Aras stands. You did. You would again.” The tie he held to me was very deep and strong. I was certain I could not be lost, even in that shadow of the black tide. Almost certain. Unless Aras died. I did not say that. I asked, “Lalani, are you tired?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to stop. I want to get somewhere and do something. I want this to be over. I want to go back to the land of the living and sit around a comfortable fire and help your mother and sisters make sugar dumplings, and then I want to go home and see all my men, and tell them about all the excitement they missed. Esau’ll be so jealous, Ryo! He’s supposed to be the one who gets the strangest and most dangerous assignments!”

She did not mention Suyet, who might not be with us then. Probably he would not be. I did not say this. Instead, I said, “Esau will not believe this tale. No one would believe it.”

“I don’t believe it, and I’m living through it,” she agreed.

“Look!” Tano said suddenly. “That is not a shade.”

 -21-

I turned fast, following his gaze, and at once saw someone, a man, an Ugaro, a young man—Iro inGeiro. I recognized him then. I had hoped first this man might be my brother, either of my brothers, and that had made me slow to recognize Iro. But of course we had always been much more likely to find him than either of my brothers.

He had been sitting still, on the mountainside, not far above us, but he stood up now and came down to meet us. As he came closer, I saw that he moved carefully, more carefully than should be necessary for an uninjured man, though I saw no evidence of any specific injury. He carried no sword. When he had come close enough to speak without raising his voice, he said, “I knew