Chapter 30 Rasha
Rasha
Langzu – Kluehnn’s den northeast of Bian
There are few accounts of the life and accomplishments of Runata, a renowned philosopher from Cressima.
Instead, accounts always focus on her capture and execution – a terrible, violent affair during which she was placed in an empty arena and an aspect of Kluehnn himself devoured her alive, piece by piece.
Do not poke further into the past, these accounts seem to say, lest you end up like her.
So what was her crime? The few records that do exist say only that she asked very pointed questions.
If the gods were so powerful and wanted to take over the surface world, why had they not initiated an organized attack?
If Kluehnn wanted the best for the surface, why not give them all fair warning of restoration?
Questions, it turns out, can be more than mere annoyances.
They can be a power to be reckoned with and silenced.
My hands itched for my blade. I found myself waking most mornings reaching for my belt, only to find the knife sheath empty, no violet glow cast across the etched brown leather.
I ate little, slept too much, my injuries still causing me pain.
I’d strained myself by climbing up the mountain to talk to the crow, and I could now only put a little weight on my leg before I hissed in pain.
On the third day after Kluehnn had punished me, Millani strode into our room, her gray robes brushing against stone.
“Khatuya, Naatar, I’m to brief you – we’ve received reports of several gods gathering nearby.
Higher up in the mountains. You’re to engage with them, bring back at least one. Alive or dead.”
She passed them each a new blade, the light of the violet gems winking off the ceiling.
I pushed myself to my feet, though every muscle in my body felt like it was on fire. Millani’s yellow-eyed gaze fixed on me, her red tail lashing. “Not you. What do you think you can do without your godkilling blade?”
“Then I’m not to receive one?”
“No. If you want your blade back, you’ll have to earn it. You were leading your cohort. You are the one responsible for their loss.”
“I should still be with them. They need me.”
“Kluehnn’s orders.” She beckoned for Khatuya and Naatar to follow her before pursing her lips at me, as though I were a problem she didn’t particularly want to be dealing with.
She tossed a simple wooden crutch at the foot of my bed.
“Report to the archive after worship. You’re to guard the conscripts. ”
“For how long? When will I be able to return to work?”
She ignored me, the door closing behind her, cutting off any further answers.
I sagged back onto my bed, pressing my palms to my forehead. The pain in my head had retreated to a dull ache. I still dreamed of Kluehnn’s teeth at my skin, his poison coursing through my veins, and then woke drenched in sweat, everything still aching.
The crutch helped with the limp, though each jolting step toward the nave still caused me pain.
Worship didn’t revive me the way it usually did.
Kluehnn’s offering slid down my throat in a tasteless lump.
The crow had said the gods hadn’t come to the surface to conquer; they’d come because they’d been driven out of Unterra by Kluehnn.
They’d been forced to live in a land that wasn’t their own, hunted by mortals and Kluehnn alike.
And then Kluehnn had created the altered and the godkillers, and those godkillers had killed the last of the gods that had been born underground.
The crow had allowed me to ask questions after he’d finished telling me what he knew, as my wounds ached and the lights from the den winked in the darkness.
Even in that one conversation, I’d found he didn’t have the answers to everything.
Why would Kluehnn drive the gods out from their homeland?
He didn’t know. Why did Kluehnn want to keep the bodies of the gods?
He wasn’t sure. How could I trust him? I didn’t have to – it was enough just to listen.
And that was the part that really bothered me.
The crow didn’t push his answers on me. He only responded to the questions I’d asked, in narrow, polite terms. It contrasted sharply with everything I’d been told of gods.
I might have been able to still dismiss this crow as an outlier if I’d not also spoken to the god in Kashan, the one who’d watched over that village without an expectation of anything in return.
I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I should do with this information, but it stirred around in my mind, the dregs of a teacup that was never fully emptied.
The archive lay through a series of tunnels, higher up in the den – a cool, dry cave with glass lanterns fixed into the walls.
The far wall opened into a cliff face, windows carved into the stone to let in the light; metal shutters affixed on either side of each opening.
The warmth and sunlight brushed my skin, a breeze from the windows tickling my neck.
It smelled sweet and dusty, like dried earth and yellowed grass.
The room was sectioned off by screens, alcoves providing even more privacy.
Footsteps and the scratch of pen against parchment echoed through the space.
An altered man in a simple robe nearly ran into me at the entrance. Black-ticked fur covered his face; the end of his nose was black. “Ah. Sorry.”
I limped back, trying to feel angry and failing. All I could feel was pain shooting up my leg. “Are you here to show me the archives?”
He shifted from foot to foot. “No. I’m just a conscript. A murderer who begged mercy.”
I couldn’t help my raised brow. “And you’re here in the archives?”
“I’m educated,” he said defensively. “I work hard. They rewarded me.” He glanced over his shoulder. An acolyte was approaching, a tall woman with spiraling horns. “Excuse me. I’m going to the latrine.” He slipped past me.
“Rasha,” the acolyte said as she approached. She didn’t incline her head, didn’t show me the deference I hadn’t realized I’d become used to. She walked me through the archives. “You’ll be in charge of the conscripts and converts here. Watch over them. Make sure they’re on task.”
“And you? What will you do?”
She gave me a startled look. “I’m being transferred. The gods are organizing, and Kluehnn needs more of us handling logistics and supplies.” She gave a quick nod of her head before leaving me to this simple work.
So he’d chosen her over me to handle logistics.
An acolyte. It shouldn’t have stung – this knowledge that I had fallen so low in the hierarchy.
I’d spoken to gods. I’d broken our first precept.
As soon as someone found out, as soon as someone told Kluehnn, I wouldn’t belong anywhere in this hierarchy.
But I had survived three trials, had killed my fellow acolytes, had faced down my sister, and this was what was left for me?
For a moment I just stood by one of the windows, looking out into the hot, dry day, a mouse with large ears scurrying across one of the rocks outside.
I was gripped by the sudden urge to launch myself out that window, to tear my robe from my body, to run into the wilds and leave this all behind.
A reckless fantasy, no more.
I limped from one end of the archives to the other, listening to the sound of knives cutting paper, books being clapped shut.
Every so often, someone would ask leave to go to the latrine.
It chafed, like a belt drawn too tight. I was accustomed to fighting, to traveling long distances.
Now I was confined to this space, my leg burning with each step.
And with nothing else of consequence to do, my mind kept turning to the crow.
Why? Why would Kluehnn drive the gods out from Unterra?
It plagued me that the god couldn’t answer any of my questions about Kluehnn. It seemed that neither mortals nor gods knew much of him. Shouldn’t the gods know more? Shouldn’t I, as someone who’d worshiped him? Who had loved him like a father?
I picked up a book from a stack outside one of the screens, leafing through it.
It was all in Langzuan. I’d learned to speak bits and pieces of it, but I’d never learned to read it.
I tossed it back onto the stack and chose another.
This one was in Cressiman. Another was in Albanoran.
I watched, surreptitiously, as one of the workers emerged with a stack of discarded pages and placed them into a crate. She returned immediately to her work.
I might not fling myself out the window and take off into the wilds, but was anything truly keeping me here, in the archives?
The converts all seemed to be working. I limped, hesitating, to the entrance and lingered there.
One of the workers passed me with a cart, taking it further into the tunnels.
Where were they going? And why take the books deeper down?
No one admonished me. No one seemed to notice me at all.
I slipped away and into the tunnels, following the path I’d seen the cart take, my crutch sliding across the uneven ground.
It was slow going, and painful, but two thoughts drove me forward: someone might notice I was missing from the archives, and I needed to know.
A part of me still hoped there was a reason for all of this, for the discrepancies; that once I found out what was happening in the den, I’d fully understand and could go back to being one of Kluehnn’s faithful.
I’d needed Hakara when we were young, I’d leaned on her, trusted her, never doubted or questioned her. And when she’d disappeared, I’d replaced her with Kluehnn. Now I was drifting and uncertain, my path unclear.
The air cooled the deeper into the den I wandered.
I’d never walked these tunnels before; I’d never had a reason to.
And it was easy to get lost down here if you weren’t familiar with the way.
Darkness filled the tunnel before me, the lamps on the wall unlit.
I took one down, lit it with the tinderbox in my satchel, and crept forward.
Water dripped somewhere ahead. The tunnel divided, one leading off to the right. No lanterns lined the wall that way. I squinted. There was… something strange about that tunnel. Acting on impulse, I blew out the light in my lantern. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but then I saw it.
The tunnel was emitting a faint glow.
My hand at the wall, I ventured toward that light.
The tunnel curved nearly all the way back around, opening into a small cavern. I sucked in a breath. Boxes lay in this room, golden light gleaming from between the wooden slats. I knew what it was, but I had to see. I opened the lid of the nearest box.
Yellow gems – more than I’d ever seen, even when we’d conducted our raids on the mines. They’d said the yellow gems were the rarest, yet here were more than I could count, even given an entire day, filling box after box in a cavern deep inside the den.
The sound of a scuffed footstep set my heart racing. I whipped about, raising my lamp before remembering I’d blown it out. No one was there.
Slowly, carefully, I limped back out of the cavern and toward the fork in the tunnels. Someone was muttering around the corner, a man’s voice, low and soft. I crept closer, trying to make out the words. He was speaking in a language I didn’t recognize.
I could wait it out, see if he would leave, before returning to my post. But that meant someone was more likely to notice my absence. Or I could try to move past him, hoping he didn’t know who I was and wouldn’t be able to later identify me. The crutch made that unlikely.
Wait. I’d heard that voice before.
I stepped out from behind the bend in the tunnel.
The man who’d nearly toppled me earlier, the former convict, stood in the tunnel, his hand to the wall, brushing over a set of carved symbols there. Without thinking, I reached for the blade that was no longer at my side, grasping only empty air.
I lifted my crutch like a weapon as the man finally saw me, a lamp in one hand, illuminating his sharp white teeth, the golden fur around his eyes.
I stood a full head taller than him, and in spite of the crutch, I must have looked a sight, materializing out of the darkness, the area where my horn was missing still red and raw.
I pointed the end of the crutch at his throat. It wasn’t much of a threat, but I could give him a good whack on the head with it. “You said you were going to the latrine. What in all the realms are you doing down here?”