‘You are that and more. Priestess, witch, mage. All we possess, all we know, has been poured within you.’
‘Poured? What do you mean?’
The creature tilted its head as if considering its words and paced off a distance. ‘The future, child. Any one point in time leads off into a near infinity of choices. Yet a blight sits astride an entire span of these. A catastrophe is threatening. Some of us see its approach. Others …’ his voice hardened to a snarl, ‘those who would stand aside, choose to ignore it.’
‘What does this have to do with me?’
‘It is possible that you may either ensure it or avert it. The choice is yours.’
Saeng found that the edge of her terror had eased. In fact, she was becoming rather irritated. She threw out her arms. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about!’
The creature turned its feline head to face her. ‘Really? You do not recognize where you are? Where I have brought you?’
‘Not a damn bit of it.’
Gesturing, the man-leopard invited her to approach the hillock. ‘Examine the façade.’
Saeng approached warily. She edged around the creature, giving it a wide berth. Next to the extraordinarily steep staircase the wall of the hillock, or temple, or whatever it was, held a wide band of sculpted figures. Vines and leaves obscured them, but they appeared to be walking in some sort of grand procession. They wore archaic costumes of short pants tight at the calves and their chests were bare — both men and women. All carried goods such as sheaves of grain or baskets of produce; some led buffalo, others pigs. She followed the processional along one side to where it ended at some sort of stylized tall shape: perhaps this very building itself. Some sigil or glyph stood atop the building and Saeng had to pull off the clinging vines and brush away the dirt and mat of roots to see revealed there the squat rayed oval that was the ancient sign of the old Sun god.
She flung herself from the gritty stone wall, nearly tripping on the many roots that criss-crossed the bare ground. She glared about for the creature but he was gone. Standing some distance off was a new figure, this one unmistakable as a Thaumaturg in his dark robes and gripping his rod of office.
As she watched, terrified, he raised his face and thrust the veined black and white stone baton skyward. The light dimmed as if dusk were gathering with unnatural speed and the colour of what light remained took on an unnatural emerald tinge. The disc of the sun itself seemed to diminish as though another object were swallowing it. Saeng had seen the sun eclipsed before but that event was nothing like this. The darkness deepened into a murky green as the object loomed ever closer. It was part of the Jade Banner, now descending, and it seemed as if it would swallow the sky, the world, entire.
‘And behold!’ the Thaumaturg bellowed into a sudden profound silence. ‘The sun is blotted from the sky!’
Now a roar gathered so loud it deadened her hearing. A mountain of flame fell upon them. It obliterated the trees, the man, the ground, herself, even the enormous mass of stone behind her as if it were no more than a clot of dirt.
Saeng awoke gasping and clutching at the dry leaves beneath her. In a quick step Hanu was next to her.
‘What is it?’
She forced her hands to relax, eased her taut jaws and exhaled. ‘Bad dreams.’
He answered with something like a mental shrug of understanding. ‘Yes. But now that you are awake we should go.’
‘Fine!’ She pushed back her hair and suppressed a groan; it was hardly dawn. She broke her fast with cold rice. Their supplies were getting low. Another day, perhaps, then they would be searching for mushrooms and roots.
They climbed down the overgrown rocks just as dawn brightened the eastern treetops. Beneath the canopy it was still dark and Saeng struggled to keep up with Hanu. Off a way through the trees an immense shape reared, easily three times the height of any man, and Hanu froze in his tracks. A great black muzzle turned towards the cliff outcropping and sniffed the air.
‘Back to your home!’ Saeng urged the huge cave bear. ‘We will trouble you no more.’
A growl of complaint rumbled their way; then the beast fell back to his forepaws, shaking the ground and sending a shower of leaves falling all about, and lumbered off. Hanu turned his helmed head her way as if to say: that was too close for comfort.
She waved him on, dismissing the entire episode.
Their return route was much more direct than their way out. They found the countryside deserted. Thin smoke rose from the direction of the village of Nan and this troubled her more than seeing villages merely abandoned. Were the Thaumaturgs burning as they went along? Yet why do that? To deter desertion? She hurried her pace.
It was past twilight when they entered familiar fields. Hanu motioned aside to the woods where Saeng most often used to hide to confer with the ghosts of the land. She went on alone. At least the village hadn’t been burned, yet most of the huts were dark where usually one or two lamps would be kept burning against the night. Their family hut was dark as well. Trash littered the yard and the reed door hung open.
‘Mother?’ she hissed. ‘Mother? Are you there?’
Inside was a mess. Looters, or soldiers, had come and gone. Anything of any possible value had been taken, as had every scrap of food. Through a window she saw that the small garden had been dug up and that the chickens and pigs were gone. Saeng searched her own feelings and found that she really didn’t care that the hut had been ransacked, or that her few meagre possessions had been taken. All that concerned her was her mother. Where was she? Was she all right?
She headed to the nearest light and found Mae Ran, one of the oldest of her neighbours, sitting on the wood steps leading up to her small hut. ‘Who is this?’ the old woman asked in a fearful quavering voice as Saeng came walking up. ‘Are you a ghost to trouble an old woman?’
‘It is Saeng, Mae. What has happened here?’
‘What is that? Saeng, you say?’ The old woman squinted up at her. ‘Janath’s daughter?’
‘Yes. Where is she?’
‘Saeng? Back so soon?’
‘Back? What do you mean — back?’
‘Janath said you’d gone on a pilgrimage to some temple or other …’
Saeng pressed the heel of a hand to her forehead. Gods! Mother! ‘Well … I’m back. What happened?’
‘What happened?’ She waved a shaking hand to encompass the village. ‘The Thaumaturgs came and took what they wanted. Food, animals. The hale men and women. Only we elders and babes left now. Every decade it is so. It is as I have always said — no sense gathering too much wealth to yourself, for the gods will always send a plague to take it from you. If not our Thaumaturg masters, then locusts, or fire, or flood. Such is the lot of humanity …’
Gods, old woman! I did not ask for a sermon. ‘Thank you, Mae — yes. I agree. So, where is my mother? Is she well? Where did she go?’
Mae blinked up at her, confused, and Saeng saw her eyes clouded by the milky white of cataract and her heart wrenched. Ah! Ancients! I am too harsh. Who remains now to look after this elder? Or the others? Could they labour in the fields? Harvest bark from the trees to boil to quell the pangs of starvation? And the infants? Who shall mind them? The army of our masters obviously judged them too much a burden to be worth their effort. How dare I denounce them for it yet prove as heartless?
‘Go?’ the old woman repeated as though in wonder. ‘Why, nowhere. She is with Chana, her mother’s brother’s youngest.’
‘Ah! Aunt Chana. Thank you. You take care of yourself, Mae. Take care.’
The white orbs swung away. ‘We must hold to what we have, child. It is all there is.’
‘Well — thank you, Mae. Farewell.’