Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

They were all dead. That was my thought. Any moment we would smell the copper-and-bowel odor of death, and then we would find our people tumbled along the path, the wagons overturned or wrecked, the animals gone or dead ... the terror of that thought came to me so fiercely I could hardly press it aside, even though I could not see how such a thing could happen. No enemy should be able to kill so many Ugaro, so quickly that no one escaped. But I could not put the idea out of my mind.

Still, as far as we rode, we came upon no dead inGara. But we began to pass riderless ponies. A handful at first, and then more, nearly all saddled, but wandering off the path, to places where the grass was better. Some lifted their heads to watch us. A few followed, as ponies will when they see other ponies moving decisively. I exchanged a look with Iro. Neither of us said anything. There seemed as yet nothing to say.

Then we began to pass wagons, one and then another and a third. There were no people with those wagons. The ponies were still harnessed, but no one guided them, so they had turned aside to graze near the lake, where the grass was good.

Still without a word, Iro and I went to free the ponies from their harness and turn them loose. Then we cantered to come up again to the others, who had not waited, but had gone on more slowly. No one discussed the kinds of things that might have happened. Plainly no reasonable explanation could explain what we had found. Finding our people dead, killed by enemies, would have been worse than this. But at least that would have been something anyone could understand.

The rough foothills of the great mountains stretched off toward the high steppe on one side of the path and the placid lake to the other, the water ruffled by the breeze that came from the heights as evening approached. The red light of the lowering Sun tinted the pale stone and ice of the mountains and the waters of the lake in colors that would have seemed like fire on an ordinary evening, but now looked like blood. We came to the place where our camp had been. Nothing was there except the debris that any camp leaves behind when it moves, and a few abandoned tents, and a handful of wagons, equally abandoned.

No one suggested we halt there. We rode on toward the place where we had left the Tarashana sorcerer. Impatient as we all were to come to that place, my father set a more cautious pace, signaling my mother and sister to drop back to the rear of our small group, Iro to stay with them; signing for me to come up to support him.

We came to the small campsite where the Tarashana sorcerer’s wagon stood, and that wagon was still there. No harm had come to it; no violence had touched this place. She knelt on the rug in front of her wagon, waiting for us. She appeared exactly as small and harmless as ever, but this time, as little of the Sun’s light lingered in the sky, we could see how her pale skin and her white hair glimmered softly, the patterns drawn on her face and arm and hand stark and vivid against that luminescence. The three spirals on her cheek had become as dark as the midnight sky; the circles and dots set around and among the spirals gleamed bright and dark by turns as she turned her head to look at us. Her eyes were not pale now, but the color of dark storm clouds.

No one else was anywhere in sight.

Then, as we rode toward her, Inhejeriel held up her left hand, the back of her hand toward us, the elegant tracery of lines on the back of her hand and her fingers gleaming in the light. The gesture forbade approach as clearly as though she had called out aloud.

My father lifted his own hand, commanding everyone to stop. He jerked his pony to a halt so abruptly that the animal half reared and then jigged sideways in protest. All the ponies were confused, edgy, angry; our fast pace and tension made them think we faced battle. They wanted to run forward and trample an enemy. If my father had relaxed his hold, his mare would certainly have tried to trample the Tarashana woman. I am sure we were all as confused and angry as our beasts.

Inhejeriel said, Great lord, great lord, listen to me. Your people can be remembered, they can be redeemed. Help me redeem my own people and I will also sing the names of your people so that all will be remembered by the world. All, all, great lord, I will redeem all your people, only you must help me or they will be lost, desolate, forever lost in the dark.

Every word carried a clear sense of her resolve. Nothing she said came with a feeling of malice, but it seemed to me there might be a thread of triumph behind the determination.

My father stared at her. Then he said to Aras, not to her, “She did this to make us help her.”

“I think that is why she let it happen,” Aras answered. He had not let his pony past my father’s animal, but now he dismounted, tossing his reins to Geras. Then Aras walked forward, faced the Tarashana sorcerer, and said, “If you want our help, if you want to live through another dozen breaths, you had better tell us everything. What has happened here? Where are our people? What is it you want, and what is it you promise, and why should we believe any promise you make or anything you say?”

For Aras to put himself forward and