Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

treat with an enemy without asking permission was extraordinarily presumptuous, but my father said nothing. He dismounted too, giving his reins to me. His mare tried to bite, swinging her haunches around, threatening to kick. I slid down from my saddle, and took a hard grip on the reins of both animals, directly under the jaw, so they would be quiet. My father strode forward and stood behind Aras. He had drawn his sword. One did not have to be a sorcerer to understand that he was considering using that blade right now, regardless of anything else.

The Tarashana woman spoke quickly, as Aras had advised her. It is the tide that took them, the black tide. The Saa’arii, the people of the sunless sea, they want all our lands, the starlit lands, the winter lands, all the lands of the world, they want to take all our lands for their own. They came against us, they withdrew, they came again, they sent the black tide to drown my people, my beautiful people, all my people. We could not stop them, we did not stop them, we did not understand and then it was too late. Great lord, your people were lost to the same tide, the shadow of the black tide carried them into the earth, below the earth, into the dark.

My father stared at her. He asked finally, his tone unreadable, “Do you claim your enemies cast my people into the land of the shades below the earth? Is this what you say?”

The land of the shades, the place below the earth, yes, lord, that is so, but not to the place they should go. Your people are lost, they are lost, but I will be their remembrance, I can redeem them! If you will not help me, they will be lost forever. But help me come to the place, the high place below the world, the place below and above, the place from which I may sing to the stars and be heard and answered. Help me and I will sing the names of your people as well as those of my people, I promise it, I swear it, I will remember all your people, every one of them, all the lost, only help me and they will be gathered and found and remembered and redeemed.

Determination underlay every word. Determination and triumph—she thought she would win this contest with my father—but beneath that, exhaustion and fear and desperate hope.

My father said in a harsh tone, “These people of the sunless sea, these people whom we do not know, these people who are your enemies, these Saa’arii defeated your people.” As before, he did not attempt the trill, but substituted a tiny pause in that place in the name. He went on. “Now you have made those people into our enemies as well, because you wish our help so that you may go into the land of the shades and there in some manner redeem your people—”

All, all our people, all our beautiful people, Inhejeriel broke in. All the lost, all the desolate lost, all those lost in the dark tide, yours as well as mine. Yes, everything is as you say, but only help me, great lord, and I swear, I promise, I will be the remembrance of all your people as well as all of mine, I will redeem them all, every one of them, all the lost. If I die, all our people will be scattered into the dark, forever drowned in the black tide. I must travel the way that leads below the earth, I must go to the place below and above. Help me, great lord, and I promise, before every one of the uncountable stars, that I will redeem all the lost, I will remember all, all the desolate lost, yours as well as mine.

“She speaks the truth,” Aras said quietly. “So far as I can tell, lord, but I think I would know if she said anything she believed false.” He added, his tone rising a little, “Lord, do I understand correctly that your people know a reliable way to enter the land of the shades?”

My father made an impatient gesture. “The paths of the dead lie through the oldest tombs, where the taiGara have come and gone for age after age. Anyone can pass through those tombs into the land of the shades, but seldom indeed does anyone return that way.” He glowered at the Tarashana sorcerer. “Do you claim that you know a way for the dead to return to the land of the living? The land of the shades is different for every people. Do you claim to know a way for my people as well as yours to return? How should this be so?”

Lord, great lord, your people are not dead, they are not shades, they are lost, lost, lost in the dark. All our people are lost, but they can be redeemed! I can remember them, I can sing their names to the stars and the stars can sing their names back to the world so that the world will remember them—

Aras held up a hand, checking her, compelling everyone's attention. He said, his tone incredulous, “Show me that thought again.” Then he paused. They looked at one another, the tall Lau sorcerer we had all learned to trust and the tiny Tarashana sorcerer no one trusted at all.

After a little while, Aras turned to my father. “Lord,” he said, his voice carefully level, “This woman believes that all these people have been cast into a place, or a ... a state of being that is out of the sight of the gods. I do not know that this is true. But I think she believes it is true.”

Everyone looked at Aras. No one said anything. Certainly I could not think of anything sensible to say in response to this idea.

Inhejeriel said, They have