Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

For a moment, no one spoke. No one had to say She is not Lau. No one had to say You cannot be certain. Finally I asked, as no one else had yet done so, “Why does she not speak? Why has she never spoken?”

Aras nodded to me. “That is another good question, Ryo. She cannot speak except by means of sorcery, but I do not know why. I believe this is a ... a discipline she has placed on herself? Or a curse someone else has put on her? I do not understand what is causing that problem, but I know this has put her in a very difficult position. An extraordinarily difficult position.” He turned to my brother once more. “Garoyo, she followed you into the pass because she hoped to beg for your help. Something terrible had happened, and she had almost given up hope, and then she saw you and your people and she had hope again. It was like ... like being lost in the dark and seeing the Moon come out from behind the endless clouds, shining her light down the path you sought. But she also knew that if she spoke to you, then you would realize at once she was a sorcerer and you would kill her. So she could not speak to you, yet if she kept silent, she could not ask for the help she needs. She has been caught in that dilemma ever since.”

“But what help does she need?” Garoyo demanded. By his manner, he was less angry than exasperated. His moderate response to the revelation that this woman he had chosen to protect was a sorcerer might have been due to his previous experience with Aras ... but I was not certain. Again, I considered breaking the Tarashana sorcerer’s neck where she knelt.

“Ah,” Aras said, unobtrusively setting a hand on my arm. “That is not entirely clear to me, warleader. If I have time, I should be able to understand this. What I understand so far, I understand from seeing some of her recent memories and seeing the ... the emotional loading evoked by those memories. But there is very much I do not yet understand.” He faced my father. “Lord, I will be able to understand this person better with time. May we have that time? You can put her to death later if you decide you should do that, but it would surely be better to understand more before you make that decision.”

“This is the time to take forty breaths,” my father said. During the pause, he considered the Tarashana woman. Everyone watched her. She bowed to the ground in the Ugaro manner, and stayed still, waiting, her muscles rigid with hard-held fear.

“So,” my father said at last. “Plainly she does not believe she could prevent me from putting her to death. What is her name?” Then he held up a hand, reconsidering. “No, my guest, do not tell me. I want this sorcerer to tell me.” He said to the avila woman, “What is your name? What is, or was, your place among your people? What do you want? Do you understand those questions? If you understand, answer.”

She straightened, looking up with her wide eyes of that pale sky color. She pressed her hands together hard to stop them from shaking. Her words appeared in my mind in a soundless whisper, each word as delicate as a single snowflake landing on my palm. Lord, give mercy to the silent. Great lord, grant mercy to the lost. My name is Inhejeriel Kiolekarian taja-Shalaseriad, great lord. I am a memory, the memory, I am one who remembers, I am the memory of my people.

Her speech was very strange. It was not exactly like the voice of a person of the Lakasha-erra, though those people also speak by means of sorcery. That felt more like natural speech. This avila woman’s speech carried much more feeling with the words.

Inhejeriel was going on. I am a ...  I am a thought, a memory ... I am a remembrance of my people. I am a hope of the lost. The hope. The hope of the lost. The hope of those who are lost. Please, lord. Please do not kill me. I am not harm your people. Will not. Cannot. Please. I cannot harm any people. Please help me. I beg you will help me find, gather, regather the lost, the desolate lost, those who have been lost.

This left us all looking at one another, puzzled. Though the woman’s words were clear, her meaning was hard to understand.

“A memory-keeper?” Lalani asked, tentatively. Though I knew the words, I discovered now that I did not truly understand the meaning the Lau might put on the term.

But Inhejeriel, gazing up at Lalani, seemed to grow calmer. A little like, she said, and then, confusingly, I must remember the desolate lost. I am their remembrance. You know how to remember. Please help me.

“Me?” Lalani was clearly startled. “I’m not a memory-keeper! Maybe in twice forty years, with luck, if the gods are generous.”

You know how to remember, Inhejeriel answered. The lost must be remembered. I must be their remembrance. You might be a waiting remembrance. You have memory of a kind. Please help me. I must sing all their names to the stars, so the stars will sing their names back to the world, sing them as they should be so that they may be remembered by the world, they may be found, they may be redeemed. You must help me. Please, she went on, again facing my father. Please, great lord, please help me.

“Sing their names?” said my mother. “Do you claim to be a singer?”

Not, no, not a singer, not in the way of your people, tal-Marag, singer of the inGara. Only the remembrance of the lost, only that way, only to sing their names