Shannon Hale - Book of a Thousand Days

Stars light my page. We'll be starting our journey in earnest come dawn and I suppose I won't have a chance to write again for some time. Song for Evela is west of Titor's Garden, so we'll follow the road that stretches toward the setting sun. If it would take two weeks for the khan's party with their horses and decent supplies, for us, I guess it'll be more than twice that. We don't have food enough, but it's spring and there are trout in the stream. If there's something a mucker knows, it's how to eat from nothing. No walls trap us now!

The smell of grass and yak is making me drunk with wishes that I'd never left the steppes--but after Mama died, I didn't know how to survive alone. Did I give up everything to learn to make letters and words on paper?

No. I'm a lady's maid. She would've died in that tower without me, I know that. My worth lies in keeping my lady alive for her khan. The Ancestors will honor such a life as mine. I hope.

Day 33

Three weeks we've been walking and still not another soul. We spotted the remains of some villages, but whether the folk there fled when the city was destroyed or whether they were all killed, too, I don't know.

A few days ago we forded a wide river, and I believe it must be the one that marks the border of Titor's Garden and Song for Evela. If so, then we've crossed into her khan's realm. Will we find the city gutted and full of the dead unburied? Never mind, I'd rather not think on that question.

My lady's clothes begin to hang on her again. I get her off Mucker's back and walking as often as she'll allow, so her blood is moving and her breath is exhaling the tower poison from her body. But oft times she must ride, for she's so beset by darkness as to not see the road.

This morning she began to scream, "I'm drowning, I can't breathe. The air's not right, I can't breathe." She clawed at the air and grabbed her throat, and when my songs of healing did her little good, I found a hollowed overhang by the stream and stuck her inside. She calmed at once.

I'm sitting outside the little cave, where I can still see the sky, where the sunlight moves on my arms. Being inside that tiny space, even for a moment, that's what made me want to scream.

While she's been napping, I've combed Muckers shedding hair with my fingers, sharpened a new stick, boiled the sting out of some nettle leaves, then speared a fish in the stream, wrapped it in leaves, stuffed it with nettles, and cooked it in coals. The smell of fish cooking is rich enough to wake up the trees, but still my lady sleeps.

So I ate my portion and then lay on my back, watching the clouds. Seven years of food isn't worth trading for the sky.

[Image: Picture of a Person Sleeping In a Cave and a Yak in the Background]

Day 41

Others live!

Since fording the river, the steppes have faded away, trees and then great woods taking over. Today we reached a crossroads and saw a group of traders traveling the north-south road. They were whole and living and speaking--real people, not ghosts. What a heavenly sight.

"How far is the city?" I asked when we were upon them. I didn't say Song for Evela, for my lady still doesn't know where we're going.

"Four days, if you walk straight. You weren't coming from the east just now, were you?"

"Sure enough, they're coming in from Titer's Garden," said another trader, then he leaned over and laughed hard.

The first rolled his eyes. "Hmph, very funny. As though anything comes from Titor's Garden."

"What happened there?" I asked.

"Lord Khasar happened. Wiped it out entirely almost a year ago. Now he's off making war with Goda's Second Gift. We're hoping he burns them down, too."

"Hoping?"

"As should you. If he just conquers, if he adds their armies to his, all the warriors of our realm will have little chance against him. He's bound to come our way next. Tales be true, there's nowhere in all the Eight Realms where Lord Khasar's shadow won't cross."

My lady's hands covered her face, her shoulders trembling.

Day 44

Our grain meal is long gone, as is the cheese and oil, and after days on nothing but nettles, I think we were both feeling twig-thin and cranky. This morning I killed a marmot with my stick. I stuffed its belly full of hot coals and let it cook from the inside out. We had no salt or spice, and the meat was so tough it took fifty chews each bite, but even so I guess I never ate a meal so delicious. Even my lady didn't complain.

Very soon, I'll reunite her with her khan. And then? If she wishes, I'll stay with her and be nursemaid to her babies. If not, I'll find work in the city, or perhaps I will return to the steppes and find a mucker clan, take a seven-year oath, and work in their herds in exchange for eating their meals and sleeping on the floors of their ghers. But I'd be twenty-five by the time I was eligible to marry, and that's old for a mucker bride, even if anyone would take me without a dowry.

I'll worry about it after I see my lady settled in her happiness.

The sky no longer seems breathlessly huge, but feels to press down on me. Perhaps I'm just afraid of the uncertainty to come. When I'm moving on a journey, the ending is still unknown and possibly wonderful. But once I arrive, it's hard to keep imagining.

Day 46

Ris, god of roads and towns, has guided our feet, for we are here at last! The city of Song for Evela is greater than Titor's Garden, with a wall three-men high and a small army on horseback beside each gate. They fear Lord Khasar, I think.

A caravan from the south entered the gate ahead of us. I'd seen caravans arrive in Titor's Garden when I ran errands for Qadan, and I knew that they offer their goods to the lord or lady of the city before setting up in the market.

Following behind seemed the fastest path to finding the house of my lady's khan.

It was a bold sight, camels and wagons and dozens of traders swathed in the brilliant white cloth of the desert lands. They uncovered their cargo to excite interest in buyers, and I caught glimpses of dye pots, porcelain bowls, bolts of silk, casks of honey, bags of sugar, skins of wine, and bricks of incense. The incense and the scented woods wafted a heavenly scent over us, and I walked as though in a dream. Performers rode atop the cargo, their heads bare and painted faces smiling. Later they'll show off their talents in the market to attract buyers to the goods. Acrobats, contortionists, storytellers with wild, strange accents--I wish I could see them perform.

We followed the caravan up the streets, past the wooden houses, merchant stalls, and animal pens, toward the city center where the buildings are made of stone. It wasn't long before my heart was going as fast as a rabbit's stomp.

I was wondering if her khan would be in his house, if we'd see him that very hour. If he'd welcome her back, if he'd take her in and marry her at once. And what would happen to me then?

The streets were clean and straight, as different from the crooked, narrow lanes of Titor's Garden as my lady's face is from my own. And as I ached for a way to tell her where we really were, she said, "This is Song for Evela, isn't it?"

"Yes, my lady."

Her face wrinkled as though she were pained.

"Khan Tegus isn't plotting to kill you," I said. "I spoke with him in the tower, remember? He is goodness from boots to eyebrows, my lady, I could tell that, plain as plain. The tower sits heavily on you still, that's all. And the whispers --"

"I don't hear any whispers," she snapped. "I'm fine. I'm not afraid."

She walked tall, her hand on Mucker's back, her other arm in mine. She was trying to be brave, I could see.

And it twisted my heart.

She didn't say another word for all those long, straight streets. Perhaps she felt buried in all that life. I certainly did. There were people everywhere--cooking in the street, shouting and chasing, throwing wash water out the window, fighting and kissing and eating and just talk, talk, talking. The smells! And the noise, like having your head stuck inside a wasp's nest. I'd forgotten that people were so loud, that they move around so much. They were beautiful, their eyes, their hands, their voices and laughs. It was many blocks through the city before I realized I'd been crying and I didn't even know why. Is that strange? I think Mama would understand. And maybe Khan Tegus.