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

I did not say it either. Looking at Iro, I said, “Probably we have no need to set watches for this night. But I would prefer to set watches even if this is unnecessary.”

Iro answered at once, “Yes, Ryo, I agree.” He spoke so quickly that I suspected he had probably been trying to decide whether he should offer that opinion. He went on. “I would be pleased to take the first watch. You could take the second, and the—and Geras the third, if you agree.”

I began to agree, but Aras said, in his mildest tone, “I will take a watch. I will take the last watch.”

“My lord, you don’t need to—” Geras began.

“I don’t mind, Geras. In fact, I would prefer to.”

Geras sighed. “All right, fine.” He added to me, “Third and fourth are fine with me, Ryo. We don’t expect trouble up here, surely?”

“We do not,” I agreed. “The taiGara will prevent any dangerous thing from coming to this place from the land of the shades, and the white leopards that hunt in these mountains are not likely to come where they smell fire and men. Still, the rain muffles all sound, so the person on watch should remain alert. We may choose to go on as soon as there is light to see. Whoever is on watch when the skies clear should wake me. Everyone who is not on watch should sleep now, while we can. Rest, if you cannot sleep.”

“I’m fairly certain we’ll all be able to sleep, even in a tomb,” Aras said, smiling at me. He was tired too, though he showed it little. He took his blanket and lay down between everyone else and Inhejeriel. I lay down next to him, regretting that I had no blanket of my own to cushion the hard stone. But that discomfort was not enough to keep me awake.

Later, when the time came, Iro woke me with a touch to my shoulder and I sat up. Iro moved away to lie down. I stretched, but did not stand up. I sat where I was, cross-legged, and listened to the rain. It was falling as hard as before.

Nothing happened for a long time, except that gradually the force of the rain diminished. When I felt that enough time had passed, I woke Geras as Iro had woken me, with a touch. He woke immediately, with a hand to his weapon, as a soldier wakes. “All right,” he said, and I lay down again.

Some time later, Aras woke me. “Ryo,” he said quietly. “The skies have cleared. You may feel there is enough light to go on now.”

I stood up and went to the mouth of the tomb. Above, the round face of the Moon gazed down from a cloudless sky, amid the uncounted stars. The mountain was awash in the silvery light, gray stone almost white, black shadows stark and hard-edged where they lay across the pale stone. Dawn might not come for several hands of time, but in such a luminous night even the Lau should have no difficulty. I turned, nodding to Aras to wake the others.

 -16-

We came to the highest tomb of the inGara about six handbreadths of time past dawn. The place outside the tomb was large enough for us all to stand comfortably, the stone carved away to leave a level space bordered by eight head-high pillars, set unevenly, in pairs. Each pillar had been carved with a smooth spiral that turned to the right as it rose from base to top. Two of these pillars, only a fingerwidth in diameter, framed the opening of the tomb, which been carved into a smooth rectangle. To these columns, many Ugaro had tied thin streamers of their hair, which fluttered in the morning breeze.

From this place, turning to the north and east, we could finally see Talal Sabero, neatly framed between two of the other pillars. These pillars were wider, more than a handbreadth in diameter. The sacred mountain stood a long way to the north and east, surrounded by the peaks of lesser mountains.

“Pretty good distance, looks like,” Geras said, his tone noncommittal, when I indicated the mountain and gave its name.

I nodded. “If we walked there in the land of the living, the journey would take many days. In the land of the shades, the gods may shorten the journey, if they choose.” If the gods did not choose to give us that aid, then our task might prove hopeless. But that had always been true.

“And there?” Aras asked, indicating a different mountain, much farther away, almost due east, also framed between two pillars.

“The first Ugaro tomb, carved by the first Ugaro people in the world, is there,” Etta told him. “That is a long way from inGara land, but sometimes people go there, to make a luck-offering for something important.”

Aras nodded, turning in a full circle to take in the whole view, all that was not hidden by the bulk of Talal Soka. The remaining two pillars framed the cascading waterfalls that fell from sky to earth just to one side of the pass that led from the winter country to the starlit lands. Those waterfalls fed the long lake, and they never froze entirely, even in the depths of the long winter. To the south, the immeasurable sweep of the steppe stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Iro and I and Etta each unbound our hair and cut a fingerwidth from one side. Etta bound her offering to the column to the left of the opening, Iro and I to the column on the right. Then, as Etta gently cut a strand of Inhejeriel’s hair to braid into her own, I looked at Aras, frowning, aware that I should have thought of this moment