آتش که نور را ایجاد می دهد، هنوز هم اگر بیش از حد نزدیک به شما را می سوزاند
Zahra straightened to her full height, losing her fighting stance, as the village elder breached the empty space between them to approach with soft eyes. Such a fool of an old woman. Couldn’t she see that warrior’s battle rage still flared in her gut? Her fires stoked on metal and her inbred response to fight that which threatened? Every muscle in allomancer’s body was tensed and quivering with anticipation like the taut string of a bow ready to loose its arrow.
But still she came. Eyes of warmth against the hardened stoicism of the bloodied woman before her, trying to touch Zahra’s sullied face and crooning at her with soft words. The Lioness did nothing to aid the woman in her endeavour, instead adopting a stillness that would have put many a statue to shame. Indeed, she might have been mistaken for one, had her nostrils not been flaring ever-so-slightly with each quick, shallow breath she took.
And then the elder fell, blood surging out from a wound so like that which had taken Zahra’s life that it bordered on cruel. But still the woman smiled and cooed. Even as men helped settle her dying body into the sands her words remained calm and non blaming; reverent even, to the warrior standing before her half-naked in a tattered robe and covered in sub-human blood.
Zahra lost her fight and the blade she’d commandeered fell to the sands as her grip loosened. Her fire turned to a chunk of lead that settled in the pit of her stomach, an uncomfortable feeling of sympathy and emotion that threatened to crack her carefully emotionless face. She swallowed a lump in her throat at the elder’s last words to maintain her passive mask. But it hurt. It hurt that this kind and considerate woman had been the one to die. And it angered her that in a village full of men who had swords and knives strapped on their belts, not one had been drawn in defense of their own.
جای شما خالی است
The woman’s body was lifted and carried in stream of men, women, and children towards a small temple to give her to the gods for safekeeping. Zahra followed slowly in their wake, alone and utterly silent. She loomed over the proceedings like the spectre of death her people had seen her become, an austere observer with a face etched from stone. She watched as the elder’s body was gently cleansed and covered in a silk shroud. Listened as the villagers raised shaky, emotion ridden voices in unison to sing her death song.
Several other elders presided over the woman’s funeral rites, standing on the dias where her body had been laid in solidarity and solem countrance. Now would have been the time that they lead a prayer to each of the gods for the woman’s soul, but instead they were silent. Zahra’s gaze swept across those assembled, but none of the other villagers seemed confused by this lack of tradition. Only sad… and afraid. Maybe the rites had changed since her death so long ago. Or maybe not.
Zahra strode towards the front of the dias, feeling like she was missing something very significant. She only had to move a few people out of her path before the rest took notice and parted before her. Nimble leaps took her to the top of the raised platform to stand with the elders, but their eyes diverted away from hers as soon as she met them. Fine, they could cower, but she would pay her respects and then gain answers from these people as to why exactly she had been resurrected, and why they thought the world was dying.
With one last penetrating look to those gathered next to the old woman’s body, and pulling a dagger from one’s belt, she approached the corpse of the woman who had shown her such kindness. She closed her eyes and muttered a little prayer before dragging the pilfered blade lightly across her hand. Blood started to bead from the cut and pool in her palm -a palm that was utterly riddled with scars from like cuts- and drew back the silken cover. Zahra pressed that bleeding hand firmly against the opening in the old woman’s abdomen, mixing their bloods. A warrior tradition among those of the deserts. “Once we were of kin and spirit,” she told the body, her voice clear and ringing through the deathly silence, “And now we are of the same blood. Through me, you live, and you continue to fight. Fear not death, our forefathers await to greet their child.”
The crowd’s silence turned into a cascade of desperate whispers and shifting bodies as she turned away from the corpse of the old woman to address the remaining elders; they could sense the re-hardening of her heart.
“You will tell me what has happened.” Her voice was low and dangerous, but still could be heard over people and shifting sands. “You will tell me why it is the world needs to be saved.”
“Honored-One,” the bravest of the lot said with a small bow of his head, “The stars have faded from the night sky. The gods have perished and the world is following.”
“How?”
“Our shamans can only see blackness, She-Who-Leads-The-Free, we do not know what has befallen the lands of Ansus, only that others from times past have come forth again across the lands. The deserts burn, and the lands beyond grow cold.”
Zahra studied the man before her in silence, droplets of her own blood splashing down on the stones beneath her clenched fist. She searched his face for lies, for addled-mindedness, for anything that could lighten the heaviness of his words. The truth of his words. She began to pace before the elders upon the dias, uncaring or unknowing of the eyes that followed her every predatory movement. Several minutes went by in silence as the woman fell into contemplation, but no one dared move except for the Lioness herself. The gravity of the situation in which she now found herself had firmly settled upon her shoulders. Yes, she was certain now, this new chance at life was far, far from a gift.
Dark brown eyes filled with purpose and determination snapped back towards the elder who had spoken and the rest of her body stopped abruptly. “I will need a horse, map, weapons, and supplies for a weeks long journey… and some real clothes,” she added with a hand indicating the tattered, blood-stained thing wrapped around her. A plan was swimming through her head now. A foolhardy, dangerous sort of plan, but it was one nonetheless.
“Bu- But… I- We. Lioness, what of us?” another of the elders stammered, stepping up to her with placating hands, “You must help us. Our savior!”
Anger blossomed across the woman’s face and in one quick movement she was inches from the man and pulling him closer so that he might feel the heat of her fires rolling of her. “I am no martyr,” she hissed before pushing him back to address the village as a whole,. Never did her voice raise in level, but still her words cut through the desert winds like one of her knives. “I do not know what the stories of me tell, but I will tell you this: I am no savior of the weak, I am a leader of the strong. Of warriors.
Not one of you pulled your weapons to aid in the fight against the men whose bodies now litter these streets; the men who subjugated, and threatened, and stole from you. The ones who slew your elder. Not one. I will not sacrifice my own life so that you may walk meekly to your deaths. I fight for those who fight with me.”
Again her gaze ran across the faces of the crowd, searching for any signs that these people were really the descendants of her brave warriors. “Our people,” she continued with careful deliberativeness, “were among the most fearsome and skilled clans of warriors to walk upon Ansus… And if I have been brought back to lead you into the end of the world, we will be again. If I return to these sands to call you to arms you will answer, or you will die. By your forefathers, my forefathers, and the Forefather, I make this promise to you. Decide.”
آن را فراموش کرده که گل با خار همیشه همراه است
The desert had grown far more harsh since Zahra had last traversed its expanse. The cancerous suns, the cankerous heat, and the cantankerous cold of the starless nights were heart-haunting. Not even the layers of cloth wrapped loosely around her body and face could ease the immense heat, and the dark lines of kohl painted around her eyes could stop the blinding light from drowning out her sight. Everything in this place was either wicked and warped or blasted and burned now. Nature's laws had been overthrown in the deserts. It was only an orgy of wanton violence between its denizens, all of whom have been disfigured and crippled by their attempts to live there. It was just a vast, mournful pan of emptiness where anything sentient resented anything else that was alive.
Luckily, only once did she encounter any other predators; desert lions. A small pride that eyed her warily through lidded eyes as she and her horse strode through their hunting grounds, low growls humming through barred teeth. Her namesakes. Usually terribly aggressive, the large cats seemed to be placated into not attacking only by the half-eaten remains of some other bestiary between their jaws, and perhaps animal sense to know she was no easy meal. Regardless, Zahra gave them a wide berth and laid a hand softly upon her new blade’s hilt as she continued on.
Slowly her fine-boned mount picked its way south through the scorching sands, head bowed and sweat lathering it’s neck and flanks. Zahra scratched the base of its mane encouragingly; they weren’t too far now. Even now the sands grew less dense, and brittle plants and cacti sporadically spotted the landscape. Soon they would reach the southern border of the Plains of Dust.
Sands eventually gave way to rock, and rock gave way to dirt. Zahra shivered as if the suns had shrank away from her back, and grasslands now stretched before her. For the first time in two lives, the Iron-Toothed left the lands of her ancestors. What laid beyond in this dying world she could not imagine, but some deep-rooted instinct told her to seek out others that would play a role in this potential unending of life.
یکی بود, یکی نبود, افسانه ای که به پایان رسید، دوباره آغاز شد
