Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

we both took on this task, we would probably both have to make an effort not to quarrel. Even so, I thought he would be a good man to have at my back in any serious undertaking.

My mother had returned her attention to Inhejeriel. “If you must have our help, then make your meaning clear,” she commanded the Tarashana woman. “Do you say you can bring all our people, all your people, from this dark place and return them to the land of the living? Or do you say you can help all those who had been lost go to the land of the shades, but properly, so that your own people go to their stars and ours come into the light of our Moon? Or do you mean something else?”

When she did not speak at once, my father glowered more darkly still. “Well? Answer.”

The woman had folded her hands tightly before her. She looked at my father, then my mother, then Aras. Finally, she tilted her face toward the lucent sky. She said, Sije-Aras, you know I speak the truth. Great lord, tal-Marag ... what I must do is a thing Tarashana have done. The great sorcerer tal-Ysejahadris reclaimed her lover from the long circle because she was his remembrance. This is what I must do, will do, it is almost the same, I can do this. If you help me come there, to the high place below the world, that place is everywhere within the land of the shades, it must be, it must rise up from the place your people go. Help me come there and I can return our people to the world, all our people. Sije-Aras, you know this is the truth.

“She is not certain she will be able to do what she says,” Aras told us. “She is afraid she may fail. But she is determined and stubborn. She is so determined and so stubborn that she hid for many seasons from the enemies of her people, and then followed the warleader of the inGara into the pass, and then lived silently here without speaking a word for all these many days. All this because she is determined to do what she says she must do.” He paused. Then he said, “She would indeed say anything and do anything to persuade you to help her, but she believes that if she can save ... remember, restore ... her own people, then she can do the same for yours. That is the truth.”

Inhejeriel regarded Aras with her wide, storm-colored eyes. I thought she had not believed Aras would see so much, but she said to my father, Yes, yes. This is the truth. I promise before every one of the uncountable stars, I swear by my name and by my teacher’s name, tal-Shalaseriad, and by the name of tal-Ysinien herself, I will put all my strength and skill to lead your people by that way that will return them to the world. But at worst, at worst, I will remember their names and bring them fully into the land of the shades, in the way your people should go. I will not leave any of your people desolate. She paused, lowering her eyes to her hands, breathing deeply and slowly. I understood that this time, at least, she had made an oath that mattered to her.

“I think—I am certain—she is speaking the truth,” Aras said quietly. “She may not be speaking all the truth, but what she says is true and she will try as hard as she can to keep those promises.”

I am speaking all the truth I know, the Tarashana sorcerer said to my father. She held out her hands to Iro and to me. The strength of warriors is a gift that shelters the weak from peril. Protect me from all the perils that lie between this place and the high place below the world. Only help me come to that place and I swear I will redeem you and all your people if by any strength or skill I can do so. She turned to face Etta, lifting her decorated left hand in a formal gesture that was not like any Ugaro gesture. The patterns on her skin shone like wet ink, so deep a blue the lines were nearly black. The shaped intent of a singer guides the world to be as it should be. Lend me your song so that I am not lost, and I swear that I will spend all my strength and skill to lead you and all your people by the path that returns to the world.

My father began to answer her. I interrupted him in a disgraceful manner. “Lord, if all the inGara, if all Ugaro, face some great threat from beyond the mountains, then the lord of the inGara must ready our people to face that threat. I ask that you permit your son and your daughter to take up this task. I swear I will not disgrace you or our people by any failure of courage or resolve.”

My father glowered at me. But he did not rebuke me for speaking over his words. He snapped, “I have not the least concern that my son might disgrace the inGara. If anyone takes up this task, you may take it up, Ryo. But—”

Before he could speak as he wished, perhaps realizing that this might be her chance to win what she wished, the Tarashana woman turned to Aras. Sije-Aras, you have the skill to set the deep bond, the enduring bond. If you hold that bond between us, Sije-Aras, and between all and each, then neither warrior nor singer can be lost. I ask you also to descend the paths to the heights below the world—

“Wait, no!” Geras exclaimed, before she could finish. He had been watching all this with his customary steady patience, listening carefully, waiting to see what everyone would decide.