Sand Ch. 3: The Spark Ignites

Gawen didn’t know how long he walked; all he knew was that every step drew him nearer to the orange glow. He shivered, but realized that he seemed to be getting warmer as he walked. The trees stood black and threatening around him as he found that he would have to leave the path to get there. He hesitated, then stepped off of it and into the forest.
Although he could see that the trees grew so closely together a bird would have trouble flying stratight between two of them, he was astonished to find that he strode straight through them easily as long as he kept his eyes on the light. When he turned around to see the way he had already gone, he was met by a thick wall of trees. He had no choice but to go on.
Eventually he came to a clearing where he saw a form bent low over the fire- or was it sitting? He could not tell. He approached it cautiously, grimacing as his feet crunched in the snow.
“You made it,” the form said. “I was wondering if you would see the fire or not. If you hadn’t, we would know you really weren’t interested, eh?”
“What do you mean?” Gawen asked cautiously.
“This fire,” the form began, “only appears to those who belong to its purpose. In this case, it is teaching a boy to read. It doesn’t only give light and warmth, but it helps get rid of obstacles for those who, as I said, belong to its purpose. If, for instance, Lady Isabelle came looking for it, she would never be able to get through the trees off the path. It is, most likely, the most amazingly useful thing invented since the knife or the written word, take your pick.” She motioned for him to sit beside her. There was a long scroll of parchment, ink, and two quills spread out in front of her along with a large, weathered book that looked as though it had been through a few good beatings.
He sat down next to her. She smiled at him and began to unscrew the ink bottle. He noticed it was made of finely blown glass. He puzzled over this for a brief moment, but put it out of his mind as Keri began to speak again.
“We can only work as long as the fire is over the bounds of its vessel, like it is now. Believe it or not, it is actually in a jar no larger than a lady’s jewelry box.” She held one of the quills between her teeth. “Now, I can teach you either Rashdan or common. If you want, I’ll teach you both.” She noticed the look on his face and said hastily, “But of course, it’s easier to learn the letters of a language you can speak. We’ll start with common.”
“How do you know Rashdan, Keri?” Gawen wondered.
She ignored his question and said, “The uses for reading and writing are so many, I’m amazed nobody hasn’t done anything about the literacy problem here. Knowledge is power, Gawen; don’t forget that. That is why I am teaching this to you. When I have finished teaching this to you, you will have the ability to learn things you would never even dream of. Now,” she peered at him, her green eyes glinting in the firelight, “we will start with the most basic concept, but ultimately the most useful: the alphabet.”
Gawen was enthralled as Keri explained each letter to him. She seemed to be an instrument created with the sole purpose of speaking. She seemed not just to use her mouth to speak and convey her ideas, but something else, something that seemed to present the concepts clearly in his mind, even though they had seemed so difficult when he had tried to learn them on his own.
The fire slowly shrank as she taught. After an hour it had diminished to no more than a handful of flames in a short round cup of clear glass. Then she packed up the materials and scooped up the jar in her hand. “Stay close to me,” she told Gawen, “or else it won’t give you the way back as well.”
He pressed close to her as they returned through the woods. It seemed that wherever the light touched, they could travel safely and easily. Whenever the flame got too low, Keri would hold it close to her face, blow on it, and stare at it intensely. To Gawen’s surprise, it seemed that it was the stare, more than the blow, that rekindled it. Every time she did this, she looked over her shoulder nervously.
When they were in sight of the castle, Keri pulled him close and whispered, “You must not speak of the fire to anyone, you hear? No one must know. Don’t talk about learning to read to anyone who would report it to Moks or Lady Isabelle, either. I don’t think it’s illegal, but I have the feeling they might not like it.”
He nodded to show he understood and made his way back to the castle, where the lights still shone brightly in the windows of the nobles who carried on the parties of the night in their personal quarters, their ribald songs echoing into the night.
Keri watched him until he was in, then turned back to the woods and fled into them, weeping. She ran until she came upon a circle of stones in a clearing. She didn’t have to suppress her tears like a Rashdan in this foreign place; she could weep freely of her loss.
Yet somehow it shamed her to do so. Had she been so bent on keeping her disguise that she had forgotten who she was? Whenever she looked into Eirana’s mirror while searching for something on the desk in front of it, it wasn’t Jada that looked back; it was Keri. When she spoke, it wasn’t in the sweet, Rashdan voice that had sung golden notes in a dozen countries, but the cracked, miserable voice of a jengda wearied by pain. When she moved, it was not in the grace of a Rashdan performer, but of the weary toil of a common slave.
She looked at her hands. She used to feel resentment towards the hands of the perfume- makers and the painters, for theirs had been smooth and unscarred whereas hers had shown the burns of handling the dishas and not getting away from them in time. Now not only did they show burns, but the scars of beatings.
As she pondered this in the faint glow of the fire, she heard the rock behind her open. This didn’t surprise her; this was the outlet of the Rashdan tunnel to Delixia which she herself had used months before. Not wanting to have to explain how she knew it was there, she quickly hid herself behind a fallen tree and waited. She did not bother blowing out her lamp; she didn’t think any tribe would have anything to do with teaching a child how to read.
Forms emerged from the hole where the rock had been. Jada could only see them momentarily before they lit their own lamps of scarsh fire, and disappeared from her view until Jada couldn’t see any of them except for one, which surprised her. She stared at the falcon on his shoulder in disbelief, wondering if she could possibly be mad.
She shut her eyes and prayed to Lr A’dl that she hadn’t lost her mind completely, then opened them again. The youth was still clearly visible to her sight. He was looking straight back at her, his own face filled with a similar look of disbelief. She watched him begin to mutter at his lamp as though something might be wrong with it, then look up again.
“What’s wrong, Stefus?” Jada heard one of them whisper to the youth, “You look as though you just saw one of the ancient prophets sleepwalking.”
She saw him shake himself. The falcon squawked in irritation. “Nothing,” he said to his companion, invisible to Jada’s eye, “I saw nothing.”
Jada chose this moment to run back to the castle as quickly as possible. When she got there, she retreated to her room and locked the door behind her, heart racing. What were the Astul Lethya, of all tribes, doing here? Why them? Why could Stefus see her?
She pieced it all together in her mind. This was, of course, any tribe’s busy season; they were probably there to do their performance the next night and to sell some of their wares. There was every possibility that Stefus hadn’t recognized her and had just been shocked by seeing a jengda right by the exit of the Rashdan tunnel.
Still, she thought, Stefus would most likely figure it out, being the smart young man he was, and realize that it was no other than Jada. She had to keep that from happening somehow, for if she didn’t, one of three things would happen.
First, he could try talking to her as he always had and not be sensitive to the fact that she was in disguise, henceforth blasting the whole plan to smithereens. Second, he could tell his companions what he saw and Jada would never be able to return to Folona with anything but disgrace. Finally, though it didn’t seem likely at this point, he could very well have forgotten her as she had told him.
As much as she hoped the third would be, she knew it was probably the least likely. She winced as she realized what she would have to do.
She slowly put away everything in sight that a noble would immediately recognize as being Rashdan. Then, hands shaking, she opened her bag of kethona, positioned herself on her mat, made sure all of her disguise pieces on her face were secure and that the ones that weren’t on her face out sight, measured the right amount out, and knew no more.


Moks cowered as three nobles strode angrily into his quarters. All three were still in their dressing gowns, and all three were very upset. However, each was protesting what they thought were completely unrelated problems. How wrong they were.
“When I woke up this morning,” the first one said icily, “I found that the fire had gone unattended and as a result singed some of my finest gowns, including the one I had intended to wear tonight. Isn’t there a jengda who is supposed to tend to the fires on the night watch?”
“Yes,” said Moks nervously, “there is.”
“The jengda who is supposed to wake me up wasn’t there this morning,” the next one remarked. “If this weren’t a holiday, I’d be late to class!”
“Well-” Moks stuttered.
“And I,” the third one practically shouted, “woke up to find that I had missed orchestra rehearsal for tonight and as a result Maestro Lotwis is considering taking me off first chair!”
“You see,” Moks began squeakily, “there’s a jengda who tends all of the fires and wakes up all of the nobles on your floor. Normally she’s up even before the stars disappear, so I can’t see why any of this would happen-”
At that moment Lady Isabelle stormed in. “Why didn’t you take attendance at the jengdas’ breakfast this morning?” she screeched. “Sleeping off last night’s ale, I suppose?”
“Well, I thought you would do it,” Moks replied. “In fact, normally you do-”
“You are always there as well. Now,” she turned to the three nobles, “What is this all about?”
The three of them explained their grievances to Lady Isabelle. When they were done, she growled to Moks, “I thought I told you to keep an even closer eye on that one than the rest, orders of Sir Niclin. Where is she?”
Moks was silent.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this,” Lady Isabelle said acidly. “Where is the jengda’s quarters?”
“Er,” he replied, “this way.”
He gingerly led them down through the complicated narrow hallways that twisted cleverly out of sight of the wider, better decorated halls of the nobles. For the most part, the rooms were empty, but every now and then they would catch glimpses of a small, wide pair of eyes from behind a door or hear different varieties of snoring from the jengdas off their night jobs.
At last they reached a door with a crude number 53 etched onto its front. Moks carefully took a key from inside his tunic and swung the door open. He gingerly peered in and called, “53, are you in here?”
“Get out of my way,” Lady Isabelle growled, pushing him aside. She strode right past him and lit a candle standing on a small table pushed to the side of the wall next to a sleeping mat and some uninteresting-looking sacks. By its light she saw the rumpled form of Keri.
“Wake up, you lazy wench,” Isabelle barked.
No response.
“I said, wake up!”
Still no response.
Moks knelt down next to the heap that was Keri and examined it more closely. He saw that there was one arm extended out from the thin blanket and followed it with his eyes until they rested on a cup lying on its side and the pouch full of powder inches from it.
“Perhaps we should call a healer,” he said casually. “It looks like this one might’ve committed suicide.”
“Ah,” Lady Isabelle remarked, unperturbed, “what’s the use of getting a healer if she’s already dead?”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Moks said. “It’s always good to have it confirmed. Plus, the service charge will be passed onto her nearest relative if she is, in fact, dead, and they will probably not be able to pay it. Out of that we get another worker. See?”
“Very well, then,” Lady Isabelle waved her hand impatiently. “Take her to Lady Kessil. She’s the least expensive healer in Delixia. As for the rest of you, go about your business and speak of this to no one.”
Moks roughly picked Keri up and slung her over one shoulder, muttering, “Dirty deadbeat’s gonna lose me my job,” and carried her down to the entrance hall, where he was waylaid by one of the Rashdans who were there for the night’s entertainments.
“Do you need help, there, sir?” asked the Rashdan.
“Nah,” Moks replied. “I’m just taking this corpse here to the healer to make sure it’s dead. Waste of time, if you ask me. Bet you anything the wench killed herself.”
An odd expression flickered over the Rashdan’s face. “Why don’t I take her over for you? I’m sure you have much more important thinks to do.”
“Sure,” Moks said, “knock yourself out. The name of the healer is Lady Kessil; she lives in the apartment on the other side of the entrance hall here, see? Off you go.” He shrugged Keri off from his shoulder and half handed, half tossed her over to the Rashdan.
The Rashdan carried Keri over to the door Moks had indicated and knocked. “Come in,” a tired voice called. “Sorry for the mess; every five minutes people come in asking for cures for hangovers.” He walked in and set Keri down on one of the many bunks nailed into the walls. “So what’s this one about?” Kessil asked, examining Keri with interest.
“A corpse, they think,” the Rashdan replied. “They wanted you to make sure if it was dead or not. Is it?”
Kessil opened Keri’s mouth, bent low, and sniffed. “She’s had some kethona recently, I can tell you that much. It’s hard to tell how much. How do they think she died?”
“They think she committed suicide.”
“Hmm,” Kessil said. “Interesting. If she did, which I’m not saying she did, she would have known the right way to do it; that’s painless and makes hardly any mess at all.” She closed Keri’s mouth again. “However, she’s still warm. Unless she died within the last few hours, she’s probably still alive. Pities for her,” she added sympathetically. “She was probably overdosing kethona to get out of work; the penalty for doing that on purpose is quite painful. Involves boiling water, if I remember right. Then confiscation of all of their kethona for a week, which means they don’t have anything to numb the pain.” Kessil looked up at him. “Well,” she muttered, “there’s only one real way to figure out if she’s alive or dead.” She took off her wire-rimmed spectacles and ran her hands slowly down Keri’s face, white light pouring out of her fingertips.
“Well?” the Rashdan asked anxiously as Lady Kessil put her spectacles back on.
Kessil shook her head, confused. “Don’t know what to tell you. I must’ve done that a thousand times and I’ve never had anything like that happen before.” She removed her spectacles again and repeated the process once more. This time her expression switched from confusion, to awe, and finally rested on grave.
“She’s dead,” Lady Kessil informed him.
The Rashdan bowed his head, gave a short prayer to his god, and left.


“Where have you been, Stefus? We need to be in there in five minutes!” Stefus’s mother scolded as they crossed over to the castle from where they had set up their tents outside.
“Can you do the show without me tonight, mayda?” he asked distantly.
“I thought you loved doing the show with Shalisda,” she remarked. “Something must be wrong with you. Tell me.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said, his face pale.
“I’m your mayda; I taught you how to walk,” his mother sighed. “What wouldn’t I understand?”
He lowered his voice. “Remember when I told you how the Erif Drathil woman managed to escape and secure a job as a jengda here in Delixia?”
“Yes,” she replied curiously, “I remember you also making me swear by Lr A’dl not to speak of it to anyone.”
“Last night when we arrived here, I saw her. Well, I would assume it was her, as she had a scarsh fire and she seemed to know the spot, which is pretty much impossible to find unless you know where to look. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to tell; her disguise is flawless.
“This morning I met a man carrying a corpse to the healer to have its death confirmed. I took it for him. She was the same I saw last night, Jada Erif Drathil,” he strained.
“How did she die?” His mother frowned.
“Overdosed on kethona,” he replied. “They say it was a suicide.”
“But why?” she puzzled. “Why would an Erif Drathil, particularly Jada, do such a thing?” She paused for a moment, than asked, “Where is her body?”
“At the healer’s,” he said, “awaiting burial.”
“Thank you,” she patted her son on the back. “You don’t have to perform tonight. After the show, perhaps, we can take her body to the tunnels and give her a proper funeral.”
She left him to himself and headed straight to the healer’s to find that Kessil was in the act of finishing up with a patient, a jengda with blonde hair and green eyes. Not wanting to disturb them, she merely waited at the door through which she could hear snatches of conversation.
“Many thanks,” the jengda was saying. “I had the feeling I could trust you.”
“How on D’nal did you do that, Keri?” Lady Kessil asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years of healing.”
“It’s a technique I picked up from sneaking into the back of some of Sir Norbert’s classes,” Keri replied. “The Rashdans have been doing it for a while, but for the most part, it is greatly frowned upon. I could have easily acted it out, but I think he would have seen past that.”
“Why, though, did you want him to think you’re dead?”
“Can you keep a secret?” Keri asked. “One that could get people killed, including myself?”
“I have kept many secrets exactly along those lines,” Lady Kessil said wearily. “It’s my job. People come in at all hours with mysterious injuries I’m sure were not acquired legally, and I spend a lot of time delivering babies that weren’t exactly legal, either. They come in, pay, I do my healing, and no breath is wasted on trying to blackmail people for what they come in with.”
“All right, then,” Keri took in a deep breath. “My brother is Darim Erif Drathil, making me a prime target for both the High Court and the Rashdan Council. In other words, I’m a bit of a fugitive. No problem there, just a well-done disguise and I’m good to go. Except for one small thing: this fellow Rashdan knows I’m alive and posing as a jengda. No problem, as I consider him extremely trustworthy. Just one small complication: his tribe is here. If he recognized me, and he did, he would probably do something, one way or another, that would smash my disguise to pieces. That would leave me in a very uncomfortable position, so you see,” she twitched the side of her face playfully, “I had to resort to desperate measures. This way there’s no conversation, no shocked meeting, no getting swarmed by the ugly men in gray.”
“Wow,” Lady Kessil said mildly when Keri’s tale was brought to a close. “That’s a new one. That means you’re real name is Jada, then? I would never have guessed. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thank you,” Jada said coolly, “for understanding. It really is a pain, poisoning oneself. Nothing compared to the music I’ll have to face when Moks and Isabelle find out I’m not dead.” Suddenly, her face paled. “Is there someone listening at the door?”
Stefus’s mother swiftly fled outside. She could hear the show start in the Hall, but thankfully she didn’t come in until about fifteen minutes in. That would give her enough time to find her son and tell him what he must do. It was her duty by Lr A’dl to make sure the only Erif Drathil did not fall into oblivion, and if it meant sacrificing a couple of years time with her son, it must be so.
Jada returned to her room and reset all of the items she’d had to tear down earlier, then knelt down for her evening prayer.
“Oh Lr A’dl who formed all life, hear me out,” she began in Rashdan. “I have tried to follow Your ways as the writings of the prophets have said. There is so much of Your wisdom I could use now. I have saved myself from the High Court today, but tomorrow I must face my tormentors once again. Give me courage, oh Lr A‘dl! Grant me the will to follow You ways. As it was for Your prophet Bashkt, so let it be,” she finished.
She got up and stared at her sleeping mat for a while, wondering if she would have the strength to wake up in the morning if she dared use it. Then again, if she didn’t, she would be slow at her tasks and therefore incur more wrath from her supervisors. She sighed and began the tedious process of removing her various disguise pieces and having them prepared for their next wearing so that in event of emergency, she could apply them quickly.
Just as she was tackling her nose, she heard a knock on her door. “Oh great,” she muttered, giving up the futile struggle and swiftly reapplying what progress she had made. “What do you want?” she asked crankily as she opened the door. She gasped. “Stefus! I told you not to follow me here; I thought you were just here with your tribe. Why do you have a jengda tunic on?”
“Why did you pretend to commit suicide?” he asked her sardonically. “I think you topped all records on the weird factor with that one.”
“In my defense,” she growled, “poisoning oneself is not fun. Why do you have a jengda tunic on? I thought you had your own little corner of the show where you talked with that bloody falcon you always have on your shoulder.”
“You’re looking at the new keeper of the castle flocks,” Stefus grinned. “When they heard I was an Astul Lethya, they were absolutely thrilled, as you can imagine.”
Jada just stared at him for a minute, not sure if she was shocked, angry, worried, or confused. A thousand questions crowded into her head, mostly rounding up on the one she asked.
“Why?”
“Basic ethics,” Stefus toyed with some of the instruments on Jada’s table. “You are the last of your tribe, and it’s only my mother and I who know you’re here, so naturally, we have to look out for you.”
“Don’t touch that!” Jada stopped his hand as it fiddled with some powders. “I thought you’d have learned by now not to mess with my materials; if you had done what you almost did there, we would have ended up finishing this conversation in the afterlife.”
“Jada, Jada,” he clucked. “You know what? I think you need to learn to relax. You’re always so stressed and worried over everything.”
“And with reason!” She began angrily to mix some powders together and insert them into a hard shell. “You can’t become a jengda! You don’t know what it’s like. I can’t watch you demean yourself to be whipped and put to work like a common mule!”
“You did it,” he said pointedly.
“That’s different,” Jada sighed. “I had no choice.”
She felt her eyes sting, tears threatening to come. She refused to let them come- she was a Rashdan, after all, an expert actress. She could tell that Stefus was reading her, like all Rashdans learn to do, even if not on purpose.
“Listen, Jada,” Stefus said as Jada absentmindedly fiddled with some ground-up metals and carefully placed them inside her carefully-scraped indentations on the inside of the shell, “I know it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but I am willing to do this if will ensure your tribe will stay alive.” He took the disha from Jada’s hands and turned it around in his. “I see that you continue to practice your tribe’s trade. What color will it be?”
She took it back from him. “It’s a simple, large white explosion that shimmers after the initial bang. Not that it really matters, of course,” she continued to tinker with it, concentrating hard. “I can’t exactly use them in my current position.”
“Then why do you keep on making them?” Stefus asked her gently.
Jada shrugged. “I don’t know. It gives me something to do. Maybe it’s in the hopes that someday the anti-Erif Drathil feelings on the Council will die down and I’ll be able to go back to being a Rashdan once again, even if I can’t travel with my show. I’d still be able to perhaps join some Folona-ground tribe and hire myself out to the tribes that come in who are there to celebrate weddings or hold parties. Not that it seems likely at this point.”
She set the unfinished disha down onto the table and turned around to face him. “Now you listen, Stefus. Every day I wake up before the stars have dimmed in the sky so I can give the morning prayer before I have to go and wake up an entire floor of cranky University nobles and tend to their fires. Then we all get a breakfast, made by children no older than ten, which normally consists of a thin gruel.
“After breakfast, Lady Isabelle and her pet man Moks take attendance and doll out punishments, which range from shift changes to floggings. This is always done at this time, and always in front of every last jengda in the castle.” She stared at him pointedly. “I’ve only been here for six months, and I’ve already been flogged, and I expect to be tomorrow when they find out I overdosed on kethona on purpose.”
“Actually, I hear it involves boiling water.”
“Burns, then!” Jada said sarcastically. “At least it’s something I’m used to.”
“No kidding,” Stefus exclaimed. “The hundreds of times I saw you bandage up your hands from handling dishas that went off when they weren’t supposed to.”
“My point, Stefus,” she growled, “is that every day I see people starved, beaten, and subjected to back-breaking work, yet taking it as though it is the most natural thing in the world. Skipping over how it makes me feel like my brother actually might have been onto something, I have to warn you on how hard it is to blend in. These people find it normal and shrug it off, except for some of the small children and new arrivals. Do you think you could do that?”
Stefus rolled his eyes. “I know you, Jada; you’re probably exaggerating it. That’s what made you such a great Rashdan.” Then he dropped his jocular tone and looked straight at her, an impossible to read expression on his face. “Jada, even if what you say is true, I’m staying here and keeping an eye on you for as long as necessary. No negotiating. I made a promise to my mayda and bound it by the name of Lr A’dl. I have every intention of keeping it.”
Jada sighed again. “If it is Lr A’dl’s will, then,” she said with resignation, “it must be so. Perhaps this is all part of His plan; no one knows. Bashkt certainly had no clue what would happen that day he ran to hide in the Cave of Tabak-sul. Perhaps, like him, I need be patient and allow His plan to unfold that I may understand it.”
“I hope you’re right, Erif Drathil,” Stefus said. “Lr A’dl let the sky rain fire and the ground shake for Bashkt when he was in desperate need; maybe He’ll do the same for you.”
“Lr A’dl di rah yae.”
“Sih rah yae.”
With that, he left. Jada sat at her table, staring at the disha. She remembered how awed her childhood friends had been when they had found out that she was an Erif Drathil, for its performances were legendary. She remembered going with her father to test out new types of dishas and working with him on scripts and ideas for his shows. She remembered how much she loved her father, who was now either dead or rotting away in the Jegundo prison complex.
She would not forget her tribe, or her trade. With grim determination, she finished filling up the shell and slammed the two halves together, sealing them with a thick glue. I will use this someday, she thought with satisfaction. The work of the Erif Drathil will light the skies once more!
The next morning she was flogged. It didn’t hurt any less than the first time, when she had been punished for carrying weapons. In fact, it pained her worse for the recently healed scars to re-open and for Stefus to see her in her shame. However, she just gritted her teeth and took it, even when they poured boiling water into the raw flesh, using the Rashdan litany against pain to get her through it.
As she started to rush back to her room to put salt on it before her morning task of clearing the Hall after the nobles’ breakfast, Stefus stopped her for a quick word, his face even paler than usual.. “I can see now that you weren’t joking,” he said, uncharacteristically serious.
“No,” Jada sighed, “I wasn’t.” She paused, then added, “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t stay. I don’t think it would ruin your promise, either.”
He laughed hollowly. “I’m not leaving, J- Keri. I don’t think I could after seeing that. The promise I made was to ensure the future of your tr- family, and leaving would almost certainly be blotting the name Erif Drathil out of its use forever.”
“Get used to it,” Jada said dryly, leaning onto the walls for support as they walked. “I appreciate your loyalty, but I’m afraid that if these dratsabs-” she used the Rashdan swear word with relish, “don’t kill me, by the time I return to our people, I won’t be capable of having children any more, without considering the fact that I most likely won’t have a husband to have children with.”
“You are of the legal age to get married,” Stefus reminded her. “Besides, didn’t that one fellow propose to you?”
“Tartath,” she shot back, “was only after me for the prestige of my tribe. He hardly knew me. He only wanted me to marry me so he could boast in having a wife to bear his sons.”
“The problem with that is...?” Stefus trailed off before seeing the disgusted look on Jada’s face. He realized he had hit a nerve, and soon wished he had dropped it.
“Women are not property!” she half-shouted at him, causing quite a scene. “We are not goods to be bartered for, nor are we prizes to be won! I thought you, of all people, would understand that a woman’s genius is not only in the womb. We have minds! We have souls!” She gestured at a group of women who had began to whisper and laugh, glancing occasionally at her. “Look at these women, for example. They work as hard or harder than most noblemen do. What do they get for it, though? Nothing! They work endlessly, yet are still looked down upon even by the men they share their tasks with.”
She caught her breath, giving Stefus enough time to pat her on the back and say, “Of course, Keri. I wasn’t thinking. I guess I’ve spent too much time around the Riya Dru.”
“Please don’t touch my back,” she said, teeth clenched.
“Oh, sorry; I forgot.” He quickly withdrew his hand to find it covered in blood. He clumsily wiped it off on his tunic, though some of it had already dried. He looked at it guiltily with the realization that the one reason Jada had borne this pain was to protect her identity from him. It was, in fact, his fault she was living as a jengda; he could have made her camp in the desert, as the Rashdans of old did. He could have had her live with his tribe; his mother would most likely have been quite enthusiastic about the idea. He could have even married her, for Lr A’dl’s sake!
Though looking at her now, it seemed like that would not be wise at all, the way she was seething about men in general at the moment. He didn’t even know why the thought had crossed his mind. It was completely preposterous, not to mention disgusting. They were friends; they had fought back to back and helped each other in time of need. Nothing more.
When they reached Jada’s room, she turned to him and sighed. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that, Stefus. it just really makes me angry, the way women are treated here. I hope that someday I’ll be able to do something about it, along with the way the jengdas are not given justice, either.” She sighed again, but this time with futility instead of guilt. “I never realized how lucky I was to be a Rashdan back when I was one. If I ever return-”
She stopped midsentence and quickly ducked into her room, shutting the door quickly yet silently behind her. Stefus stared at the door for a moment, her words echoing in his head. I never realized how lucky I was to be a Rashdan back when I was one.
He pondered upon this. Jada had traveled farther than he had when it came to distances, and as a result had even more world experience to think on. He had traveled far himself, though normally the demand for his tribe’s work was based in the large cities of Binnenda, Clevia, Delixia, and even occasionally Jegundo. From there, their larger trading partners would deal out to the smaller towns and villages for them.
All of his life he’d been told how privileged he was to be a Rashdan, how lucky to be respected by his tribe, and how fortunate to have food on his table. He had, indeed, thought about it at the time, but shrugged it off at the prospect of a new journey, a new show. Now that he saw how it really was in the rest of the world, lifting the shade over his eyes that refused to see the people in the brown tunics, he realized how much he had taken for granted.
“How do you know her?” asked a curious voice, jolting him from his reverie.
He looked around and saw no one, then looked down to see a small boy who he’d noticed following them about after breakfast. He hadn’t thought much of it until now, though it did strike him as odd that such a young boy would be stalking them so closely.
He smiled. “Let’s just say she’s an old friend of mine. How would you know her?”
“A friend of mine as well,” the boy answered, though Stefus could read from his expression there was something more than that. The boy paused, then asked, “What was the flogging for this time?”
“Poisoning herself to get out of work,” he replied.
“Dangerous business, that is,” the boy remarked. “It takes a fair bit of nerve. I wonder why.”
Now it was the boy who was reading him. Stefus bent down so he could look the boy in the eye. “Perhaps someday we’ll both know. What is your name?”
“Gawen, sir. Gawen from the midget crew that cooks the jengda meals.”
“Stefus. Pleased to meet you.”
The door of Jada’s room opened as she limped out, teeth gritted. “What have you boys been up to behind my back?”
“Nothing, Mother,” Gawen grinned.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” Stefus joked, playing along. “Who’s the father? Tartath?”
“Please, Stefus,” she said, annoyed. “He’s six years old. I would have had to be nine when he was born, and I didn’t even know Tartath then.”
“Who’s Tartath?” Gawen asked interestedly.
“None of your business,” Jada snapped. “As for you, Stefus, I thought you were above such mocking bribery.”
“Bribery?” Stefus said, bemused. “Who ever said anything about bribery? Besides, that’s blackmail, not bribery.”
“Whatever,” Jada growled. “Listen, guys; if we’re stuck here for the next couple of years, we have got to learn to get along better. I know Gawen can keep a secret. I know you can keep a secret. I just despair of you keeping secrets from each other, so let’s just have everything out in the open: Stefus, I’m teaching Gawen how to read using a scarsh fire in Oak Rock Forest. Gawen, I’m Darim Erif Drathil’s little sister, and my name’s not Keri. It’s Jada Erif Drathil. Stefus and I are both Rashdans, except that he is on good terms with the Council, whereas I am not. Do you both follow me?”
They both nodded.
“Good,” Jada said. “Now that we’re all properly introduced, I have work to do.”
After Jada left, Gawen said, “Well, whatever I expected, that wasn’t it.”
Stefus shrugged. “She’s like that all the time. Really crazy. Is she really teaching you how to read? If she is, she’s crazier than I thought.”
“She is,” Gawen remarked. “I have decided it’s a really useful skill to learn. I already get some good pocket money off of the stuff I hear, but think of how much more I can make once I can read!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Blackmail, I think it’s called.” Gawen grinned. “Now, who is this Tartath fellow?”
Stefus chuckled. “It’s hardly my business, much less yours. Why do you call her mother?”
“Because I don’t have one, sir,” Gawen shrugged. “Come to think of it, I don’t have a father, either. Never knew either of them.”
“Then how did you come to be a jengda?” Stefus asked, bewildered.
“If a jengda dies without paying their debt,” he explained, “their children have to work it off for them. At least I think that’s what happened.” He frowned. “All I can remember is wandering the streets when I was three years old. It was snowing, and I was very cold. Some men in gray found me and took me here, where I remember there was a nice, big, warm fire. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what I was going to end up doing for the rest of my life-”
“Nonsense!” Stefus interjected. “You have your entire life ahead of you to do whatever you want.”
“That is proof you are a Rashdan, if there is any to be found,” Gawen gave an ironic smile. “Your people are free to live lives of dignity and respect, free from the oppression of the High Court. We cannot even speak of our disapproval for fear of sedition charges.”
“Wow,” Stefus marveled. “Darim Erif Drathil wasn’t as unfounded as I thought he was. I can see why he went about doing all of that now. It’s enough to make any decent person angry.”
“You see, though,” Gawen said, “he only made matters worse for us. After he got arrested for his attacks, they tightened down the laws in order to prevent something like this from happening again. That’s why J-Keri-got punished so heavily for carrying weapons, even if it did save Lady Eirana’s life.”
“Hold on a second,” Stefus frowned. “Are we talking about Lady Eirana of Lendarge?”
“Yes,” Gawen replied. “Jada saved her from an assassin several months ago.”
“Interesting,” Stefus said with a strange look on his face. “Well, I’ve got to get to work. It’s been nice meeting you, Gawen.”
Gawen watched Stefus leave, puzzled. He may only be six years old, but he wasn’t stupid. He could tell there was something else going on that they weren’t telling him. He would keep his mouth shut on what they did tell him, of course, being a “man” of his word.
Besides, he took quite a liking to Stefus and, especially, Jada. As the months passed by and lengthened into years, Jada began to earn the title of “Mother” which Gawen had bestowed upon her. She continued to teach him how to read and write in Common, and one night she proudly announced that she thought he knew it well enough for him to move on to reading, writing, and speaking Rashdan, an opportunity he accepted, figuring that it might come in handy some day.
Occasionally Jada would take him to the market place and teach him about the wares of the various vendors. She would also spend long hours teaching him the secrets of the streets, including how to defend himself with a set of daggers and how to read the slightest twitch of a muscle on a person’s face. Sometimes Stefus would help her, but he was kept busy, as he had to report back to Folona every now and then to tell how things were going in Delixia.
In this way, Jada taught Gawen all the ways of the Rashdans, except for the making of the dishas which she withheld out of respect for her tribe. All of this she did in secret until Gawen asked, “Mother, why only teach me? There are so many others who could profit from such learning!”
“I would teach every illiterate person, child or adult, to read if I could,” Jada sighed. “However, it would be extremely difficult to maintain my disguise while doing so. I read the entire Jengda’s Code the other night, and it didn’t say anything about teaching other jengdas how to read, but there was a clause about how they can make up necessary rules on the spot, as long as they are approved by the lord of the district.”
“Since when has Lord Niclin payed much mind to Moks and Lady Isabelle?” Gawen asked.
“Technically speaking,” Jada said grimly, “she is the Lord’s wife and therefore has just as much right to make up laws on the spot as he does.”
“That really, really bites,” Gawen remarked in the understatement of the day. “That means that just about anything you do can be enough to get you into jail. So what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Jada replied, though she hated to admit to defeat. Suddenly, she got an idea. “Listen, I’ve already broken the Code about scarsh fire, so why not use that? We could both ask people if they want to learn how to read, and tell them to wait by the edge of the Forest. If they can’t see the fire, we’ll know they aren’t interested in actually learning, and that way we’ll be able to weed out those who would betray us.”
“Why, that’s absolutely crazy!” he exclaimed. “And perfect,” he added thoughtfully. “However, if something went wrong, it could be extremely unpleasant news for you.”
“Yes,” Jada said, “but I am willing to take the risks. I do not fear death, if I am to be found; the mere reason I am here would be enough excuse to secure an execution. It would be a shame for the Erif Drathil to fall, yes, but if it is Lr A’dl’s own will, I will follow.” She thought for a moment. “Gawen, in order for this to work, there needs to be someone to carry on my tribe’s craft if I get caught. It looks unlikely that I will ever have a husband or a child of my own at this point. How would you like me to be your mother, at least in name?”
Tears welled up in the small boy’s eyes. “I would love that.”
Jada smiled and embraced him. “Welcome to my tribe, Gawen Erif Drathil.”
From that moment on, she and Gawen worked tirelessly to establish this “school” in the forest. It grew slowly, the exact number of students difficult to tell due to the different night shifts certain people had to work.
They kept no written records of who was part of the school; to leave such information lying around for all to see would be fatal to the school’s existence. As soon as each meeting finished, any papers used were burned in the scarsh fire or kept on Jada’s person. Jada took it upon herself to take full responsibility for the school. If they were to be discovered, she would take the blame. If one of their number were to fall, she would find out how and make sure that they didn’t go unknown.
The spark had ignited; it merely needed a catalyst before it could grow.