Richard Tuttle - Star of Sakova

“A criminal’s word is hardly anything worth talking about,” sighed Larst.

“True,” agreed Ferde, “but if Malafar was brought to the city and placed in custody, he would have had to have been held at the mage cells and we would know who had him incarerated. That is something you can verify without arousing suspicion.”

“You must know that I will not do anything to dethrone Alazar,” Larst declared. “I will check the mage cells for his confinement, but the information will do little for us. It still doesn’t explain the assassination.”

“It does if Malafar was drugged over a long period of time,” suggested Ferde. “Have you ever heard of a drug called Quetara?”

Larst nodded solemnly. “Still there is nothing we can do,” he sighed. “I will not help overthrow a sitting Katana.”

“Nor I,” agreed Ferde. “That is why I have come to you. I do not know what to do. At least you can try to diffuse the war. Short of war, Alazar cannot do too much harm.”

“You underestimate the power of the Katana,” warned the First Minister. “He does not need Council approval for a war. The Sakovans are not the only enemy Alazar sees as a threat either. There have been rumblings and rumors of Khadora being the real enemy and the Sakovans being portrayed as merely a thorn to be plucked before turning our attention northward.”

“Two wars would devastate this country,” groaned Ferde. “What can we do?”

“There is nothing we can do without breaking our allegiance to the Katana,” summarized Larst. “I will never do so, no matter how he came into power. If we were to act against Alazar, the time for it was before he became Katana. We could hope that the Sakovans would remove him for us.”

“I fear that will not happen,” Ferde shook his head. “They have said as much and I agree with them. Oh they want to, but if the Sakovans were to assassinate another Katana, war would surely follow and war is not what they want.”

“You have spoken with Sakovans?” Larst exclaimed, his eyebrows rising in an arch. “What would prompt you to undertake such a dangerous path?”

“I did not undertake it,” explained the Mayor of Campanil. “They came to me in my bed one night. They slipped past the Imperial Guard and my personal bodyguards. They could easily have killed me and been gone without capture.”

“What did they want?” quizzed Larst.

“They wanted me to reopen the investigation,” answered Ferde. “They do not want war and they had discovered who had really set the fires, which they were being blamed for. They provided the facts and I independently verified them later. Everything they said I have proved to be true.”

“So you believe them?” inquired the First Minister.

“Absolutely,” responded Ferde. “I did not at first, but there is no longer any doubt. It was the Sakovans who supplied the watula for Campanil. They managed to sneak it past the army and conceal it on one of the burned farms. They did not need to do this to get me to check out their story. I believe they really cared about my people starving. I think we have much to learn about our neighbors in the interior.”

“It appears that our greatest threat is among our own people,” frowned Larst. “If the Sakovans will not remove Alazar then we are in for a rough road.”

Mayor Ferde nodded and rose to leave, but Minister Larst called softly to him. “Do not repeat this conversation with the other Ministers,” he cautioned. “Most are in Alazar’s camp and you will be tried for treason. I need not mention the interrogation that you will go through before you die.”

“This conversation never took place,” assured Ferde. “If I am caught, I will die with dignity. You will be safe. Besides, like yourself, I will not act against the Katana. I just wanted another patriot to know the truth.”

First Minister Larst watched him leave. He didn’t know whether to curse the Mayor or thank him for sharing the information. He felt better knowing the truth, but his inability to act would surely plague him the rest of his life.

***

Lyra slept fitfully, the fatigue of the day’s journey sending her promptly to sleep, but a sleep fraught with visions and images of centuries gone by. The dreams had been frequent since her anointment as the Star of Sakova and always portrayed the defining moments of the Sakovan civilization, but they varied as well. Each dream seemed to branch off in a new and exciting way to divulge more of the culture of the people she had been chosen to lead. Each morning she awoke with a feeling of being more Sakovan than the day before, although she often could not remember the details of the dreams.

She had lived as a fisherman plying the seas in search of fish and discussing the best areas to find a particular species with the other fisherman. She had been a net-mender, chartist, historian, and even a priest. Always she knew exactly what to do and how to act. She saw the civilization through the eyes of the people.

Tonight’s dream was different though. There had been no Omungan invasion, no creation of the Wound of Kaltara, no bloody assassinations of the previous Stars, only blackness. But the blackness was alive with scents and sounds and Lyra struggled to make sense of them all. The scents came at her in a rush, sweet, pungent, moldy, and musty, all mixed together. The sounds were detached from the scents and made no sense at all, yet she perked her ears to listen to them all. They were not the noises of man or creatures, but rather the sounds of raw force, the sounds of power. Pinpoints of light penetrated the inky blackness and began to swirl and her focus blurred as she tried to watch.

She shook her head to clear her vision. The noise intensified dramatically and sounded like a roar, a roar of the earth tearing itself apart. She felt a great pressure building around her, from within her, and mentally tied the roar to the building pressure. The noise was her own. The building pressure was her soul and it yearned for release. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the forces gathering around her, pushing outward, seeking freedom. The blood pulsed in her veins and rushed about seeking an exit from her body.

The roar burst into a thunderclap and her eyes snapped opened to see the tiny pinpricks of twirling light exploding outward, growing larger. A sense of escape fled through her as she watched the light of the sun spray over her and the cascading rock surrounding her. The sky appeared above her, bright and blue, as tremendous slabs of rock blew outward away from her. She stared in amazement as the mountain that was her, exploded and rained down the slope towards the valley far below.

The roar died and was replaced with the sound of giant chunks of rock falling down the mountainside and Lyra gazed at the world around her. She stood perched atop a tall mountain, its peak disintegrated to expose her previous prison. No longer incased in the solid rock prison of the mountain, Lyra inhaled the sweet air deeply and stretched her arms. Feeling a presence nearby, she turned swiftly and stood facing Kaltara.

“You have done well, my Star,” Kaltara stated with a smile. “You have thrown off the shackles of your earthly life. You are Sakovan now. No, more than Sakovan, you are Sakova. You are my child and I give my people into your care.”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed at the image of Kaltara as his words turned into the hoot of an owl. Her brow wrinkled with puzzlement as the hooting continued, but from more than one direction now. Suddenly, Kaltara faded and she felt a great weight on her legs as if the mountain was trying to reclaim her. She brushed absently at her legs and her hand felt a sticky, moist substance. Shouts filled the air now and she tried desperately to move her legs but they would not obey her. In frustration she screamed.