Without warning she reached toward his face and grabbed the hair in front of his eyes. She cut it off cleanly with one of her claws in the time it took him to blink.
“This, you do not need,” she informed him. “Only that which flows down your back.” She regarded him for a moment, then nodded in approval. “Your hair is yet too short to braid. That will come later.” She ran a hand through his hair, her touch sending a pleasant tingle down his spine. “You must groom well every day. Your hair is thick, but will foul easily.” Then she turned her attention to the lock she still held in her hand. “May I keep this?” she asked.
“If it means something to you,” he told her, “you are welcome to it.”
She bowed her head to him and carefully placed the hair in a pouch that hung on her waistband, nearly identical to the one the priestess – and all the other warriors, he realized – carried.
“We should sleep, now,” she told him. She banked the fire and returned to her bedding.
Reza followed suit, stifling a groan from his protesting muscles.
“Tomorrow shall soon be upon us,” she murmured as she lay down.
He did not need further prompting. He buried himself under the thick skins, and was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
The days became weeks, then months, and Reza’s body grew toward the man he might one day become, if he lived long enough. He had already outgrown three sets of armor, and the seams on the newest were stretching at the shoulders.
Esah-Zhurah, too, was gradually changing as the shadows slowly lengthened toward winter in the planet’s extended seasonal cycle. Her body was filling out and becoming more powerful, her arms and legs rippling with lean muscle. She moved with the grace of a dancer, and he did his best to emulate her, learning how to move quickly and quietly. Her black hair grew ever longer. The beads attached to the ends now reached her waist, and the protuberances that were her eyebrows had formed into a graceful arch over her eyes.
After the furious hours of their normal training, the two often walked or ran long leagues under the ceaseless sun and cool, fresh air, and Reza felt himself growing stronger day by day. They silently challenged one other in undeclared races through the forest or up a hill, and while she often won, the margin was an increasingly small one.
As time went on, he and the other tresh began to build on the foundation that had come with the endless exercises and mock combats. Reza discovered with some surprise that they had something akin to team sports, with hardwood poles serving as swords, and he played them just as aggressively as his blue-skinned companions. While he often spent the nights nursing welts and bruises, increasingly he was able to compete on their terms, and his Kreelan counterparts were beginning to show him some degree of respect.
However, as Reza one day discovered, there was more to be found at the kazha than endless hours of fighting practice and nights filled with pain.
Late one evening, he and Esah-Zhurah were in the armorers’ chambers having their weapons and armor checked. While the duty armorer and her apprentices were busy with Esah-Zhurah, Reza happened to notice a lone armorer sitting alone at a small stone table in an adjoining room. She was quite old, judging from the length of her hair and the slight palsy that caused her neck to twitch. She bent close to her work, her eyes perhaps having grown weak from countless years (he still had no idea how long Kreelans could live) of such painstaking labor. A lamp hung close to the table’s surface, and he caught sight of what appeared to be a brush of some kind in her hand. His curiosity mounted as he watched her make a stroke on whatever was serving as her canvas, dipping the brush in a small container, then continuing to paint.
Without conscious thought, he wandered over to where the old woman worked, curious as to what she was doing. Lying on the table was the metal that would become a warrior’s ceremonial breastplate, and on it she had traced a design whose origins and meaning were beyond him, one of the runes in what he knew was the Old Tongue, but which he could not read. But the beauty and intricacy of the woman’s craftsmanship were universal. It was an ice-blue rune, arcing its way across the metal surface like an ancient scimitar, the colors used in its creation precise to render an effect that was almost three-dimensional, each shade and hue regulated and blended to perfection.
He stood quietly behind her as she slowly filled in a segment that would be the design’s center, fascinated by the steadiness of her ancient hand.
“If your hands hold the interest of your eyes, little one,” she said in a soft voice, startling him, “yours is it to try.” She looked up at him, her eyes milky with cataracts, so old perhaps that the healers could do no more for her. Or perhaps she did not want their help.
Reza, dumbfounded, nodded stiffly. The woman rose from her stool, her joints creaking loudly, and gestured for him to sit. She handed him the brush and proceeded to guide his hand along the trace of the rune with one hand, while supporting herself on his shoulder with the other. When she judged that the brush needed more dye, she guided his hand toward the appropriate vial. There were dozens of them, Reza saw, as well as a seemingly endless variety of hues the old woman had created by mixing other colors, placed with exacting care on the palette next to his elbow.
Time was lost to him for the rest of that evening. He had forgotten everything except the glowing design that was assuming its final form under his hand, with the old woman’s help.
At last, it was done. He had finished the last quarter of it by himself, with only occasional prompts from the woman. His hand was cramping from holding the brush, but he felt oddly triumphant. He had helped create something of beauty, and had not had to fight or be beaten to do it.
“Good is your work, little one,” she said as he held the breastplate up to the light for her inspection, her tired eyes still somehow able to see. “The priestess shall be pleased.”
“The… priestess?” Reza stuttered.
“Of course, young tresh,” she said, her nearly toothless mouth curling into a kindly smile. “Did you not notice its size?”
“No…” he said, shaking his head. But it was immediately obvious, now that she had pointed out the fact. The plate was nearly twice the size of his, if not larger. “No, I did not.”
“More observant should you be, then,” she advised. “Short is a warrior’s life, otherwise.”
“Of course…” Reza paused, looking at her helplessly. Her name, he thought. I should be able to figure out her name. But how?
“Pan’ne-Sharakh,” she said, as if reading his mind. “Her Children know each other by blood, human,” she said cryptically. “But it is also written here,” her fingers pointed in sequence to five of the many pendants that hung from her collar, “in the shape of the stars that are brightest in the sky when the Empress Moon is directly above. Look at the sky this night, and you will know the ones of which I speak. Their names your tresh shall teach you. They are the key.”
“Thank you, Pan’ne-Sharakh,” he said gratefully, bowing his head. “Thank you for your kindness.”
“I serve Her in my own way, little one,” she answered softly, patting his shoulder gently before turning back to her work.
He turned to leave, and found Esah-Zhurah standing in the doorway. He realized with a shock that she must have been standing there for hours.
She brushed past him to greet the old woman, bowing with reverence, and spoke quietly with her for a moment. Then Pan’ne-Sharakh slowly shuffled from the room, her back bowed with age.
“She seems to feel you have a talent for such work,” Esah-Zhurah told him, obviously surprised. “You shall develop that skill in addition to your others, but not in their stead. Should you have the time,” she added dubiously. She gestured impatiently toward the exit. “Let us go.”