Shannon Hale - Book of a Thousand Days

[Image: Picture of a Snake Moving On Rocks]

When I'd climbed high enough on the wall, I finally witnessed the whole truth of it. Her honored father's city is no more. It's razed, gutted, gone. No sounds. Even the smoke from the burning has blown away. I could see heaps of stone, charred wood, broken wagons. No people.

Qadan and Mistress. All the folk in my lady's house, her father, sister, brother. That city that teemed with people, all gone. All dead?

A cat passed me and meowed as though nothing were wrong in the world. My heart tipped up in hope that it was My Lord, but this cat's fur was brown and white. She didn't come when I sang. I guess she'd been a wild cat for too long and no longer craved the company of people.

I've had time to write, as my lady has slept all of the night and most of the day. We have just a day's worth of the flat bread left, so I need to scavenge more food, but if I'm not by my lady's side when she wakes, she screams. I braid her hair as tightly as I can without pulling loose her scalp, making sure every hair crisscrosses another. I sing, sing, sing every song I know and I even make up a few. But my lady's not well. She is not well.

Day 6

Is her khan's land burned down as well? Is everyone gone? Maybe we're the last living souls in the world and we'll drift from tree shade to tree shade, eating grass and speaking with snakes and cats until we're stooped from age and crumble into the dust. Today I keep thinking of all the people who have left and never returned--my brothers, Khan Tegus, our guards, this entire city. What a strange, dark world that swallows people whole.

I need to know if anyone still lives. The not knowing makes me queasy. My lady said she won't go to Song for Evela, but Ancestors forgive me, I'm going to take her anyway. She won't ask where we're going, and once she arrives and sees her khan, she'll heal and forget the whispers.

Before we journey, I should go into the city. We need food, and we need vessels to carry water in case we can't follow a stream. My lady fares a bit better today after many songs of healing. If I can coax her, she'll come with me.

She knows her home and may find stashes of food that pillagers would leave behind. I'll admit, I'm afraid to go in to the city. If an army did this, then warriors may still lurk there.

And if the Ancestors did this, if in anger they wiped the land clean, then why did they let my lady and me live?

Did they forget about us, locked away, hidden from the gaze of the Eternal Blue Sky?

I just looked back at the beginning of my writings and the title I gave this book of thoughts. It's all wrong now.

I named it so, thinking that we would be seven years in the tower, and the idea of having an adventure thereafter gave me hope. I'm a stubborn mare sometimes and must dangle my own carrot. Here we are two and a half years later, saved from one coffin only to find my lady's city is but a second. My title is no longer correct. Two and a half years is not seven, but I'll leave it. I don't like the look of scratched-out letters.

Day 7

My lady came with me into the city, Ancestors bless her. She shook like a thin tree caught in a wind, but she came.

I don't fault her--there was much to shake at. Not a roof left intact, not a soul alive. And many a body, burned bones, some still stuck with arrows, some missing skulls. I won't describe any more because, truth be told, I don't want to frighten my own self.

The whole place was so still, I longed to find living people. But at the same time, every moment I feared running into another soul. There could be warriors or the knocking men, and I have nothing to defend us with but my own fingernails. Every shadow, every corner seemed dangerous. The dread was so powerful, I felt like I was walking on my own studded rat traps. Even the breeze hurt against my skin.

I can't say which is more terrible, to be locked away from everyone or to be free in a world where all are dead.

Both are different shades of darkness.

When we came at last to my lady's house, we stood and just stared. How grand it had been! So lovely and large my mama wouldn't have believed the tale. Now it was a heap of stones, green roof tiles, and cinder. My lady didn't cry. She didn't even shake. I think she hadn't had much happiness in that house.

My lady was able to point me to the spots where the kitchen had stood and the likely location of the food cellars. While I sorted through the rubble, she stared.

"Maybe it never really existed. Maybe this is all it ever was."

"No, my lady. It was real."

"I can't remember...." Her gaze didn't stray from the heap of rubble. "I can't remember, Dashti. Are you sure'.

Sometimes my lady asks me questions that I can't answer with any degree of patience.

From under the lighter rubble, I pulled out a sack half full of barley meal, some rope, a large ceramic pot with just the spout broken, a wheel of cheese still covered in wax, a jar of oil with its cork intact, and three boots. By then my arms were too tired to lift a pebble, so I wandered around the ruins, scanning for a gleam of anything useful. By the Ancestors' luck, eventually I did find a knife. With that tool I can sharpen sticks to dig roots, spear fish and rodents, and gut them for the eating. It gave me a bit of hope.

I hadn't realized how silent all the world was until I heard a cry that made my stomach jump up into my throat.

I thought warriors had found us, that we were dog's meat for sure. But then I saw.

[Image: Picture of a Yak]

Titor, god of animals, must've taken pity on us and sent a gift for the last lady of Titor s Garden.

At first the animal looked ready to bolt, but I sang the yak song, the one that bubbles up your chest and says,

"He laughs, he laughs, he moans and laughs." I've never seen any creature respond so quickly to an animal song. He came to me at a near trot and stuck his muzzle right in my palm. This one's made of the friendly stuff.

I named him Mucker, and he's the handsomest yak I ever saw, with his coat a glossy brownish black, horns so long and proud as to make any she-yak blush, and grand teeth all still intact. He's so strong, carrying our few possessions must feel like a fly landed on his back. Yaks are the best animals for travel and will eat whatever stubby greens the road will produce. Give me one good yak over a herd of horses any day.

And what fine company he is! He nuzzles my hands and lips my ears, he stands close to me as we walk, sometimes pressing his broad head against my side, his horn wrapped around my back like an arm. I think he has a wonderful sense of humor, too. I told him a few stories and he turned his ears, listening heartily. Just writing about him lifts my mouth into a smile. Mucker and I will get along fine.

Day 8

This landscape is as familiar to me as the inside of my eyelids. West of the city, the terrain eases back into the steppes--stretches of grass growing as tall as my knees, low, rounded hills, stripes of streams carrying away the mountains' snow, and the occasional knotty tree, wind-whipped and bending.

I'd forgotten how the wind never sleeps out here. The clean air moving against my skin was more delicious than spiced food--at first. But when we stopped for the night, I couldn't fall asleep for all the memories of mucker life the smell of the wind thrust into my mind.

When I did finally sleep, I dreamed I'd been running through the ruined city, trying to find a way out. When I went into a house, I found it full of bodies, and before I could turn away, the walls sealed up around me. Goda, goddess of sleep, save me from such visions. Even after I woke, the dream still felt sticky, clinging to me as if I'd walked through a spider's web. I'm lying against Mucker now and feeling a bit easier for his warmth and sleepy grunts.