Seek (Chapter 2 Part 5)

“Were you being born blind?”

“No,” said Jova. “It was an accident.” She felt her way across the stables, her fingers combing through the long hairs of the animals.

“I am finding this truth hard to believe,” said Roan, the steady clip of Stel’s hooves close behind Jova. “Was it an illness?”

“I didn’t get sick, if that’s what you mean,” said Jova. She did not elaborate.

“Your eyes were removed?”

A delicate way of putting it. Jova nodded, although she was not sure if Roan could see her.

“Like a pontiff’s sacrifice on the altar,” said Roan. “Except most of the sacrifices lose their lives with their eyes.” Jova wasn’t sure if he meant it as a joke or no.

Jova paused. “I had help.” It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone, including herself.

Roan’s silence was pointed.

“There was…an energy,” said Jova. “Someone helped me.”

“Someone, and not something?”

“Someone, something, whichever you prefer. I misspoke,” said Jova, a little irritated. “This is the city of miracles, isn’t it? Maybe the Ladies Four chose to save me.”

“You speak as if that was a lie,” said Roan. “And yet if the Ladies Four had not saved you, then you would not be speaking to me.”

“So you really think it was them?”

“You are here, are you not? So am I. So are the rest of us. We are all being saved by the Ladies Four, every day.”

“You think so?” asked Jova.

“At times they are subtle,” said Roan. “At times they are more blatant. We are all facing such times.” He sighed. “Some of us more often than others.”

Jova’s hand stopped. The steady breathing of the creature under her palm indicated it was asleep. “Does we include you?”

“It does. I am owing my life to the Ladies. There are those in this city who detest my presence.”

It was Jova’s turn to be silent. She waited, trusting Roan to continue.

He did not. “This one is called Uten,” said Roan. “A good and holy name. She is a molebison, and prefers the dark and the quiet. You shall wash and feed her, and lead her on walks if she seems agitated.”

Jova blew air out of her lips. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Do not worry so. You shall not need to walk any of the others.”

“What makes Uten any different?” asked Jova, rubbing the fur on the animal’s side. It was soft and plush and thick, and felt good under her fingers.

“Because she is as blind as you. You shall make do.”

Jova bit her lip. She moved her hand away from the molebison’s side, and crossed her arms. It made her feel adrift and unbalanced, but Roan needed to see that she was unhappy. “Do you mean to be cruel?”

“No,” said Roan. “The truth should not offend you, blind Jova.”

Jova turned her head and snorted.

There was a pause. “Perhaps, though…” said Roan, hesitantly. “I am being too forward with this truth. I formally apologize.”

He waited. Jova let her arms fall to her sides. “I forgive you,” she said, and did her best to smile. She tried to think of a change of topic as the stifling Moscoleon night swirled around them. Roan had promised Ma to escort Jova safely back when they both returned to the compound, but he made no move to turn back: at least, not in a way Jova could hear.

“You don’t have many mounts, for a riding instructor,” said Jova, innocently. She counted only three: Yora the staghound, Chek the fall mule, and now Uten the molebison. Four, perhaps, if she included Stel, but Jova doubted Roan would ever let anyone else ride his personal mount.

“Most bring their own. It does only little good to learn to ride one type of beast, and then ride using the tabula of another. Yora is for those newcomers who seek grace and beauty. Usually they are ostentatious and easily offended, but they pay well and for that I appreciate their business.”

Jova giggled.

Roan paused again. “Have I said something funny?”

“Do you tell them that to their faces?”

“I used to, but I am finding I keep more clients if I do not. This is truth that I am wishing is not true.”

Jova used the walls of Uten’s stable to find her way out. She reached out, and a hand took hers. It was rough and calloused, and its grip was so firm it hurt.

“As I am saying,” said Roan, as they began to walk away. Stel moved slowly, so that Jova could keep pace. “Chek is sturdy and persistent, for those who wish to see if a beast of burden is a good investment. And Uten is powerful and strong, and is much sought after by the zealots who wish new ways to spread the word of the Ladies Four. She is blind, but blindness is no issue with a good rider and a strong tabula, and she can endure blows that would fell lesser beasts.”

“Truth,” said Jova, automatically.

“Excuse me?”

Jova shook her head. “Nothing, I’m sorry. It’s just…a game I played.”

“I will expect less frivolity from a child as grown as you. Games such as these are having no point.”

Especially not with you. It’s boring if there’s only ever one answer. Out loud, Jova just said, “Yes.”

They walked on, at a glacially slow pace. “Are you sure I can’t ride with you?” said Jova, helpfully.

Roan’s answer was immediate and flat. “No.”

Jova turned, hand outstretched, trying to grab Roan. “I could hold onto your waist and not let go. It wouldn’t be that hard.”

There was a scrape of cloth and leather as Roan shifted in his saddle. “No, Jova. We shall walk as we are now.”

Meekly, Jova drew back. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Silence flowed back in. Jova squirmed. She had been prepared to do anything to prove herself capable, but this was not the anything she had had in mind.

“You scratch your chest,” said Roan, suddenly.

“What?”

“You scratch your chest,” repeated Roan. “When you are agitated. You are not noticing.”

Jova let her hand fall. She squirmed, tapping her fingers on her thighs. Was Roan telling her to stop or just making an observation? “It just itches from time to time.”

Jova was beginning to hate Roan’s lengthy pauses. She shuffled forward, waiting.

“You have a pet name, blind Jova. Your friends, they are calling you little Lady.”

The girl said nothing. She waited for Roan to reach his point.

She waited and heard only silence, as bleak as the darkness behind her blindfold. But then, ever so softly, so soft that Jova, as intensely focused as she was in listening, could barely hear it, Roan spoke.

“There will be four, and a fifth to come.”

A shiver went down Jova’s spine. She did not know why. Perhaps it was the tone of Roan’s voice: so quiet and distant, when normally it was stiff and forceful.

Roan said nothing else; he probably had not even intended Jova to hear in the first place. But Jova would not be assuaged.

“What do you mean?”

A blank silence. Roan did not acknowledge her, at least verbally, although Stel’s pace stuttered slightly.

“Four, and a fifth to come. What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” said Roan, quickly.

Jova tugged at his hand. “Lie.” Roan came to an abrupt halt, and Jova stopped too. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. Was Roan looking at her? The stern, narrow-faced man in Jova’s imagination had eyes as cold as ice.

“It means nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.” Jova paused. “Are you scared of the truth?”

“Never, blind Jova.”

“Then prove it. Tell me what you mean.” Jova felt strangely electric. In this situation, Ma or Da would weave some fantasy about Jova before telling her to sleep; Rituu might have leaped into some fable in his alleged backstory. But Roan…

Roan would not lie.

“Are you familiar with the pyramids of Hak Mat Do?”

Jova cocked her head. “What do those have to do with anything?”

Without warning, Stel reared. Roan shook Jova’s hand free, and began to trot around her as he repeated, more forcefully, “Are you familiar with the pyramids of Hak Mat Do?”

Jova shook her head, mutely.

“They are enormous. Far into the dry desert, beyond the bounds of the city, but still very visible even from so far away. Their construction predates even the Seat of the King; they are as ancient as the lost empire of my people.”

“Your people?”

“In the time before the First Age, before the First King, the empire of the Hak Mat Do ruled Albumere.” Roan sighed. “It was centuries ago, and yet the pyramid lords still cling to their forgotten legacy.”

Jova pursed her lips. She had known Hak Mat Do was old, yes, but powerful? Never.

“If you must know, Jova, there is a fable, and the fable is saying this. The emperor who built the pyramids ruled Hak Mat Do at its peak. It was said that his fortune had been granted to him personally by the Ladies Four, and never was the empire being richer or more powerful.”

Dusty old Hak Mat Do? Jova shook her head. For its power to no longer even be a memory, it must have fallen far.

“This emperor had four sons. He is loving each of them dearly.”

“What happened when he lost them to the Fallow?”

“He didn’t.”

Jova perked up. Had his sons been like her? “Did the Ladies let him keep them?”

“No.” Stel’s hoof beats came to a stop. “The day before each of their fourth birthdays, the emperor smothered them. He was spiteful, and would rather kill his beloved sons than give them away.”

Not like her, then. Jova hung her head, grasping her hands together.

“For each of them, he ordered the construction of a grand tomb: Sag Gar, Dosh Mi, Zut Hal, Ya En. Summerborn, fallborn, winterborn, springborn. With the death of the fourth child, he had cheated each of the Ladies Four, and none were left to vouch for him. It is said they struck him down with an affliction. His skin burned like fire, and every morn he would wake bleeding from a dozen places, as if knives were cutting at him from the inside.”

“As he lay dying, he ordered for a fifth pyramid, Ral Zu. Many assumed it was to be his tomb, but he insisted that it be completed before his death. It was far from the other four, much smaller. It consumed him; finishing it became his sole goal. And at night, he whispered again and again: there will be four, and a fifth to come. The fifth, he would say, in his lucid moments, would change Albumere forever.”

“But…” Jova said. “If the fifth would be the end, why did he want to build it so badly?”

“Who knows? Ral Zu was never finished. Travelers shun it. They say it is cursed, but only because of the words of a senile old man, warped by time and superstition. So you see, blind Jova, it means nothing.”

“Then why did you say it?”

Roan paused. “Because I hoped I was wrong. Because we are looking for something more than ourselves, and sometimes our imaginations take us too far. I was being foolish.”

“No, you weren’t,” said Jova, and she smiled in the direction of Roan’s voice.

Again, silence. “One cannot live on starlight and dreams. Come, Jova. You must rest. Work will be hard tomorrow.”

Obediently, Jova took Roan’s hand as they began to walk away once more.

“Does everybody in Hak Mat Do know this story?”

“I do not know,” admitted Roan. “A Hak Mat Do teller told it to me, and I remembered it. I had not heard it beyond my own tribe.”

“What about Ral Zu?”

“The unfinished pyramid is deep in one of the most inhospitable parts of the desert. Foolhardy grave robbers go there, perhaps, but they do not return.”

“Did you go into the deserts often?”

“No. I am Hag Gar Gan. My business was in the steppes, not the deserts.”

“And what was your business?”

There was silence. And suddenly, Stel reared. Jova felt herself being thrown aside, skidding on her knees across the dirt road. She crumpled, shouting more in shock than from pain, her hands automatically flying up to shield her face.

Something hard and heavy shattered on the ground, a deep whump followed by a sharp crack. Jova could only crawl away from the impact, hands outstretched for cover.

“Back, Jova!” Roan shouted. Stel screamed, a high hoarse sound, as something else crashed into a wall near Jova’s head. Jova shrieked, falling backward, as stone dust rained on her face and arms.

“Go back where you came from, sandman!” shouted a voice. It was male, a middling tone. A teenager?

“Horse freak!” shouted another voice, similarly male and mid-toned, but with a different timbre.

Their words were slurred and their voices dipped and rose erratically. Jova found the corner of the wall that the projectile had hit, and slid behind it, whimpering. She could hear Stel’s frantic hooves a short distance away, but they were punctuated continually by shattering rock and Stel’s screaming.

“You remember when I say there are those who detest my presence?” shouted Roan. “These are such people. Go now, Jova, hide!”

Jova’s hands tightened. Her temple pounded. Running and hiding and crying- what did that prove? That she couldn’t take herself, that she was weak and needed coddling.

Jova stood up and shouted into the darkness. “Hey! Back off!”

“Who the fuck are you?” shouted the first voice. Something barked and snapped near the teenager, and Jova flinched. The voice laughed. “It’s a whole troop of freaks here. You, too, baygirl! We don’t want cripples and foreigners at the Temple!”

Jova took a deep breath, steeling herself. “I said back off!” She jumped as a brick shattered near her feet, but stood her ground. “You don’t- you don’t want to tell your friends you got beat by a little blind girl.”

They laughed first- then one of them shouted in pain and the other swore loudly. Jova smiled. Even she could recognize the sound of a horse charging.

There was a slick whistle, and the thunk of wood. Roan made no sound as he fought, but Stel whinnied loudly and often. She snorted as Jova heard her hooves impacting flesh. The male voices swore and shouted, but soon enough their footsteps faded into the distance.

Jova edged forward, hands reaching out until Roan took one.

“We did pretty good, didn’t we?” said Jova, smiling.

“We?” Roan’s voice was low, and he was breathing heavily.

“Yeah! I distracted them, you-.”

A sharp slap across Jova’s face made her fall to the ground. Her hand gravitated towards her cheek as her lips quivered; she could taste blood inside her mouth.

“You put yourself in needless danger. Your deception was obvious, your inability to defend yourself even more so. Do not do it again.”

“I just thought I could help. With the two of us-.”

“They were drunk and angry. They would have had no qualms about brutalizing a girl such as yourself, even as young as you are, do you understand?”

Jova choked on her protest. “Who were they? I thought this was a holy city.”

“The Temple is holy. The rest of Moscoleon is just a city, no different from the rest of Albumere,” said Roan.

There was the silence that Jova hated so, broken only by Stel’s labored breathing. “I’m sorry,” Jova muttered. “I just thought-.”

“You did not think,” snapped Roan, and his even tone broke. “You are blind. You are young. You are a girl. You cannot defend yourself. This is truth. Accept it.”

“No!” Jova shouted. Her head was still pounding and her ears were buzzing. “No, I won’t! If it’s true, then I’m going to change it!”

Roan did not say a word.

“You- you fought them off. You could teach me.” The blindfold around Jova’s was damp and her voice was breaking. “Please?”

Silence. An endless silence, a stifling darkness, emptiness all around her.

“I hired you, blind Jova. I took you as a worker, not a pupil. Focus on staying as one, rather than aspiring to be the other.”

Jova stood there, numb, her hands shaking. She didn’t know what she had expected.

“Come,” said Roan. “Your friends will be waiting. Stay behind me, follow the sound of Stel’s footsteps. Do not talk.”

Jova followed. She did not talk.

And silence reigned in the eternal night.

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