Roan Carratu
The Rebirth of Sindaku
-Copyright 2002 Roan Carratu
Sample: Second Chapter (Rated PG-13)
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Chapter 02
Teani reached the Age of Womanhood in the House of Lord Aaron, in the Valley of the Survivors. Her mother once served as one of several concubines of Lord Aaron, also available as bedwarmer to both close relatives of the Lord, other Keep Highborn, and even visiting Highborn from other Keeps, to warm the nights with Flesh. While the Lord didn’t admit his fatherhood, her mother Seani had visited the Hold’s crèche every few Brights, and once whispered to Teani Lord Aaron’s name as her father, which Teani held tight in her heart, not daring to mention it to anyone. Sometimes she had looked at her image in the polished shields of the Guards, and saw the resemblance, ignoring the fact most of the people in the valley had the green eyes and red hair similar to Lord Aaron.
When her mother was consigned to the Death Caverns in Teani’s tenth Cycle, Teani had cried, standing in the icy wind with other crèche children as the body bundle slid into the dark icy cavern entrance. Lord Aaron stood near, watching, a rare occurrence for the death of a concubine, especially in Winter, and Teani thought him sad, a rare look on the Lord’s face. She thought the great Lord had more than just Flesh in his feelings for her mother, a thought which helped Teani in her grief for the remaining years of her childhood.
Seven Cycles later, Spring showed in the early flowers at the Valley’s bottom, beginning their slow growth and flowering up the hills until Fall would arrive to turn them brown again. Already the Red Fruit ripened, their smell lovely on clear air with only a touch of chill. The People in the Valley of the Survivors had their biggest celebration, the Festival of Womanhood.
At the Festival, standing with nine other girls, two from her own Keep, Teani stood for auction, naked and scared, watching the Lords and Ladies dancing in bright clothing as the Auctioneer called for bids. As she stood naked among the rest, bound with chains, Teani thought of all the days the smell and warmth meant working in the groves and playing with the other crèche girls, safe and well fed. Tears dripped down her cheeks, sticking her long red hair to her shivering bare skin, her green eyes downcast, properly submissive. Long knowing this day would come, the fact of her bare exhibition and unknown future pulled the tears from her, even as she hoped some Lord would take her in Flesh as concubine, or give her a high work in his Keep.
She shivered and blushed, her body never exposed to others or the chill like this before, and when her turn came, she stood quietly on the block as Lords and Ministers bid for her, crying silently, until the tall dark Lord Byron bid the highest for her, not a high cost, nor noticeable to the assemblage. She followed the Minister of the Lord Byron who had bought her down the valley, her feet hurting and cold. She was acutely aware of walking naked among the common folk lining the path, who mostly looked away with tears in their eyes, pitying the young virgins heading to lives as Keep slaves or Guard’s Playthings.
Common folk had little to do with the Keeps, although they knew their status as slaves also, at the point of Guard’s crossbow bolts and long swords. But as long as they filled their food or service quotas to the Keep Lord who owned them, their children remained outside the Keeps, free to live as they will, safe from the Edge Monsters kept away by the same Guard’s swords and crossbows.
To Teani’s surprise, the Lord Byron did not take her as concubine, but instead she found herself dressed in rags, washing the Keep’s clothing, kneeling for hours on stone and scrubbing the thick cloth clean. It was a warm job, thankfully, in the cold winters, and much better than the worse of slave tasks. It was far better than Guard Plaything, the most feared of all assignments.
The old Cleaning Master, Sire James, a crippled white haired old slave himself, beat her several times the first handful of Brights, and Teani accepted the blows on her bare back with the right cries and pleadings, although within her nothing stirred, only acceptance of her lot. Perhaps her total lack of resistance made Sire James overconfident of her broken spirit, because one Dark after the others had all fallen asleep, he crawled into Teani’s bunk, silently taking her as she lay limp, not resisting, nor accepting, simply a slave with no choice, submissive as the man snorted and groaned and shot his seed into her, mumbled several threats of reassigning her to Plaything if she spoke of it, before leaving quietly, disappearing into the darkness.
Grateful it did not hurt, Teani feared most becoming a Guard Plaything, a horror only whispered about as a child. That Sire James could not reassign her, nobody mentioned, so each Dark the old man came to her, and she stayed silent. She did not complain at all about anything else either. She seldom spoke at all, just following the other washing slaves in their daily routine. When the old Cleaning Master cornered her and fondled her body, Teani accepted it without complaint, Bright after Bright. None of the slaves spoke much, only a few whispered words now and again, enough to know each other’s names and where they came from.
Naroon, a dark haired cleaning slave several years older than Teani took her as friend, and after Sire James’ cry of pleasure awoke Naroon one night, the older slave told Teani that Sire James took a great risk, using Teani for Flesh. If the Minister or the Lord found out Sire James took Teani’s virginity, Sire James would soon slide into the Death Caverns also, probably with no skin on his entire corpse. Teani explained her fear of reassignment to the Guards, and Naroon explained where Sire James’ authority stopped. Realizing how naive she was, Teani vowed to stand up to the Master.
Hearing this, and realizing her naiveté, and after a whole cold winter of daily washing and carrying clothing to the top of the Keep to dry, and nightly visits by Sire James to her bunk in the slave room, Teani had enough that night. The other girls would not talk to her at all now, other than Naroon, although their contemptuous looks had seemed a great mystery to Teani. Now, knowing of Sire James’ abuse of her, that Dark as the skinny old man crawled into her bed, she whispered her threat to scream and report him to the Minister or Guards. The man sighed, not saying a word, his expression unseen in the darkness, and left her alone. From then on, he never looked at her, never talked directly to her, and never approached her bunk again. His fear and guilt showed on his face.
With the first little success at obtaining control over her life, Teani felt exhilarated for many Brights, laughing and joking with Naroon as they climbed down the steep steps to the River for their washing water each morning. Naroon had to quiet her enthusiasm repeatedly, but obviously rejoiced in her friend’s new spirit. Despite growing up in Lord Aaron’s Keep, surrounded by petty intrigue and manipulating glances, Teani had remained almost entirely ignorant of the art of Keep politics, living in her daily innocent play with other high hold children. The Lords preferred this naive result, for such girls made excellent concubines.
The Spring was delightful, the food fresh and filling, and even the oldest of the Washing slaves laughed as Twirlers whirled over their heads, eating the Dropper seeds the trees shot skyward at the first warmth of Summer. Each afternoon, from the Keep parapet where the laundry hung drying, Teani watched the Lord and long rows of Guards ride out on horses, patrolling the Valley’s cliffs against attacks by Devils and False Men, and sometimes, at night as they ate, the Guards would tell the slaves stories of their battles with the monsters, both past and present, many of them fresh from that day’s patrols. Some guards disappeared, replaced by younger men, and Teani knew the older men had slid into the depths of the Death Caverns, casualties of fighting or perhaps a meal for a monster or some of the many deadly dangers of the valley edge, The Edge of the World.
But before long, Teani realized Womanflow, always regular for her since her fifteenth Cycle, no longer emerged from her loins, nor had it for many Brights. She had, for many Brights after she threatened Sire James, felt sick each First Light, and Naroon had fussed over her, making sure she ate enough, a scared look on her face whenever Teani mentioned her lack, but not telling Teani what caused the lack and the sickness. In her happiness of her freedom from James, Teani didn’t really notice her friend’s fear for her, until the day Naroon had her Womanflow and Teani again noticed her own lack.
That Dark, Naroon slid into Teani’s bunk, and as she hugged her friend, Naroon whispered the horror into Teani’s ear, and from delight at her freedom from the bloody mess of Womanflow and her happy rejection of the Cleaning Master, Teani’s emotions swooped into the Fear, the deepest and darkest of all emotions. Naroon held her tight, sharing through touch.
By First Cold, many Brights later, Teani’s pregnancy showed, her growing tummy revealing her condition to everyone. The other slaves looked at her with the Fear also, Teani’s horror reflected in their eyes. Sire James noticed it easily enough, and the discovery of it brought the Fear to his face also. He didn’t dare report it, but the Minister, in an inspection of the washing facilities, noticed and had Teani put in chains. The Guards, rather than treating her harshly, showed their pity in their gentleness, but obeyed the Minister never less. Teani accepted all that was ordered, head downcast, and none asked her who took her virginity. She would gladly have answered, but none asked.
Many Brights she lay in the near darkness deep in a small storage cave, chained to a wall by her ankle and a long chain. Naroon’s daily visit bringing her food, a candle, and taking away her waste the only way Teani could mark the passing Brights. One Bright, right after Naroon left, the birthing pains started, and all alone, Teani rode the Storm of Birth and Death, her body’s great efforts to push the new life from her beyond her control, her screams unheard, the Dark Fear hovering over her seeming to grow to fill the cave with the shadows as her only candle burned down.
After a seemingly vast time, the first cry of the child brought a new mind to her, the darkness bright to her eyes, and as she looked at the child laying between her thighs by the small candle’s flame, Teani felt herself born into a new world, centered on the small wiggling baby girl grown from her body. Lovingly, she used strips of cloth torn from her kilt to tie the umbilical cord, then a broken shard of pottery to cut it, barely conscious of her actions, and then settled down to ejecting the afterbirth, passing out only moments after the struggle was over.
When Naroon came again, she found Teani pale and tired, holding the baby to her breast, both barely moving. Filled with the Fear, she wrapped the two in her own cloak, took the afterbirth and Teani’s bloody kilt away with the waste, and then went and told the Minister, not daring to fail to report. He had emphatically instructed her to inform him of the birth, or face the Death Caverns, so she ran past his Guards and dropped to her face at his feet, telling him of the birth in loud clear words. The Minister's expression seemed different to Naroon, fear showing on his face also, the first time his calm placid gaze had ever faltered, as if something had changed beyond Naroon's ken.
The Minister followed Naroon to the cave, then went in and looked at the new mother as she slept. After removing Teani’s chain, and with brief instructions spoken in a high thin quivering voice, he left, and for many Brights after that, as Teani’s milk came in and she healed from the birth, Naroon took good care of her friend, feeding her and cleaning her before wrapping her in many clean warm blankets. Naroon worried about Teani, especially since the Minister had instructed that Teani received foods usually only the Highborn received. Fresh meat, roots, dried fruit, and even cookies from the Lord’s kitchen helped Teani recover rapidly. Naroon could not tell if this was a good thing, or a very bad thing.
As Winter started to fade, Naroon led Teani into the cold Bright, and held her baby as Teani rejoiced in the light, stretching and exercising, laughing like a child in a Lord’s crèche enjoying the Keep garden for the first time. Then only a few Brights later, one morning as the eternal clouds erupted into their glow above, the Lord himself came, riding on a horse covered with ceremonial banners. When an obviously nervous Naroon brought Teani out, Teani saw a whole horse procession, a dozen Ladies in long many colored robes, Twenty six Guards in their best black leathers, many noblemen with tall hats, but in front, in his brilliant blue clothing, Lord Byron riding beside the cream colored clothing of Lord Aaron, her father!
Terror stripping her of any dignity, Teani crouched down, the Fear moving her into a protective position around the wrapped bundle of her child. The time of Cycle and the glittering display of the Lord’s specific clothing rang through her mind like an ax splitting her head… Teani recognized this procession… The Sacrifice to the Serpent!
Beside her, Naroon cried, but stood with hands clasped, head down, knowing her friend’s fate without doubt.
Teani tried to run, screaming with horror, but the Guards seemed everywhere. They had her in a moment, and her baby disappeared from her arms, her yet un-named baby, the fruit of her body, the center of her Universe…
She could barely see through her tears as they stood her in front of the Lords, until she saw her baby in Lord Aaron’s arms, and then all she saw was the little face in the bundle, her baby girl, her Life!
“You are fruit of my loins, child of my Flesh.” Lord Aaron said, loudly, ceremonially, pointing at Teani. “I claim you as my Flesh born daughter, and your fruit as my own fruit. This day, you shall represent my Keep to the River, and your fruit shall become Highborn.” He held the baby girl up, looking around at the nobility, his witnesses. He looked resolute, but not happy.
Teani wailed, knowing the words. She had heard them every Spring of her life. At first Flower along the river, called the Serpent, some Highborn went into the river, sacrificed to a good harvest, no flooding, and many children for the sixty Keeps in the Valley. The sacrifice had to be Highborn, and each year a different Keep Lord chose a close relative to make the jump from Serpent Point.
And Teani, as she walked along behind the Lord’s horse, her eyes on the tiny bundle of her baby, knew she now fit the requirements. As Lord Aaron’s acknowledged daughter, Lord Aaron controlled her destiny, and her baby now would go to his crèche, acknowledged grand daughter of a Lord despite the Lowborn father, raised as Highborn in the Keep and never facing any Lowborn destiny.
Her heart tearing open within her chest, Teani looked around at the mountains, the Edge of the Valley of Survivors. She walked between the Guards, quietly trying to accept that this alone would benefit her baby, above all other results. But she would not live to see her daughter grow up, the price of her baby’s life. She had no choice, she told herself, walking along the muddy trail towards Lord Aaron’s Keep.
They took her to a room high up in the Keep, and maidservants bathed her and dressed her in a gown much like those she grew up wearing. Teani barely noticed them, passively obeying as she fought her own heart, her deep sadness, a loss so deep she felt death nearby. …and a yearning so strong, she wanted only to run out and find her baby, and run to some other place, somewhere safe.
But that could not happen. The Valley existed. Nothing else existed beyond the mountains of the Valley but Devils and False Men, the Hordes of Death. She could go nowhere. She could only die for her baby.
She stood on the parapet most of the night, shivering in the cold, staring at the ring of mountains illuminated by Darkglow. As a girl, she had loved looking at the Edge of the World. The giant half circle of mountains around the valley, so dangerous yet so beautiful, and the glimmer of the River, running along the bottom of the Great Wall, the cliffs at the bottom of the valley, the water wide and deep, the Serpent, a name so lost in the past she had no idea where it came from or what it meant. As a curious child, she had asked everyone, but none had an answer.
Teani cried, laughed, screamed, her sounds blown away by Spring winds, smelling of fruit and greening plants. She wanted to see her baby! She wanted to nurse her and hold her and smell her… and at Bright, she would die in the Serpent, and her baby would never know her.
When they came to get her, she stood on the edge of the stone facing the tower, high above the ground below, only her toes precarious grip on stone deciding life and death. She said nothing as they begged her to come in, but none approached her. More than one Lady or Concubine had killed herself, jumping off tower parapets. The hastily arranged nets around the bottom only rarely caught the falling Highborn, and they usually died from injuries anyway.
The Minister came, then the Lord’s doctor, then the Lord himself, Lord Aaron, looking annoyed. When he saw Teani standing on the edge, only her toes clinging to the stone, standing tall and looking him in the eye, he stopped and took a deep breath, calming his rising rage. “What do you want, Lady Teani?” He asked, worried, looking into her eyes.
“Father, …Lord Aaron,… I ask only one thing. I want to see my baby one more time before the Sacrifice.”
“It is done, my daughter.” Lord Aaron said, his eyes sad. He turned to his Minister, and the man ran off, returning with a wet nurse, carrying Teani’s baby.
Teani stepped off the low stone wall, and sat down, and the Guards started towards her, but Lord Aaron waved them back, his eyes blazing. “Do not treat a Lady in my Keep that way!” He said, quietly, his voice steel. They backed off quickly, shriveled at the threat in his voice. “Leave.” He said, and everyone backed into the tower, leaving the Lord alone with his daughter and granddaughter.
Teani no longer knew anything but the baby at her breast. Her soft round eyes looked up at her mother, then closed as she sucked on Teani’s nipple, her little fists pushing gently, her tiny face Teani’s Universe.
A hand squeezed her shoulder, and she looked up at the Lord, standing looking down at his daughter and nursing granddaughter. “I name her for you. Her name shall be Deani, 3rd of the Lineage. Your mother Seani, my favorite, chose your name, and now I pass it on. I will raise her well, I promise.”
Teani looked up at him, her face expressionless, then down at her baby again. Lord Aaron did not really exist to her.
“This …Sacrifice… is beyond perception.” He raged, walking back and forth in front of her. “I have long tried to stop it. We have enough to do, to save ourselves from Devils, why kill our own for an ancient misunderstanding!” He stopped and looked at her, his face sorrowful. “You were not to be touched, …worked and taught, but not touched. Lord Byron promised this. I was going to buy you back and raise you to Lady at the Summer Festival, and he knew this. He used this to shame me!”
Teani heard nothing he said. She existed only now, only in her baby, already dead to all else. The Lord stood beside her for a long time, saying nothing, his face dark and sorrowful.
They came again to take her, and Teani gave her daughter up, little Deani’s wrappings wet with her mother’s tears. Her eyes glazed, Teani walked between the Guards, not noticing they now carried a banner over her head, a great honor, rather than being there to intimidate her.
Outside, an honor guard waited, and much nobility, from all the Keeps, the Lords lined up on horses, each wearing the colors of their Keep. Teani didn’t see them; she saw only her baby’s face, what passed in front of her eyes unimportant, her walking unconscious.
They walked a long time, down past three of the lower Keeps, through many small villages, past fields of crops and sheep, cattle, lama, and Emu. As they passed the lowest Keep, Lord Byron’s Keep, faces stood out to Teani, many she had lived with for many Brights, washing clothes. She became aware of Naroon’s crying face and even Sire James, although, from his gray ragged clothing, he was not a Sire anymore. His face also seemed gray, haggard, and his old lined expression showed his shame. Teani felt nothing about him, nothing at all. Beyond the stone castle, the muddy trail became wide and flat, with a light covering of small rocks and stones.
The wide flat trail cut smoothly around the side of the cliff at that end of the valley, the lowest point of the slopes, the river flowing into the narrow deep canyon.
They stopped at a huge stone arch, certainly newer than the road, built of roughly cut stone like the Keeps. A open door lined with torches on tall poles had two Guards standing below them, swords drawn, faces covered by black hoods.
Teani, having seen this many times before, stepped between the two guards, in front of the open door.
“The Serpent calls!” One Guard shouted. “Who answers?”
“I do.” Teani said, softly. “I feed the Serpent.”
“The call is answered.” The hooded guard shouted, “Do the Lords accept this Sacrifice?”
One by one, the Lords nodded, including Lord Aaron, although his fists were clenched, his eyes on his daughter.
“It is done.” The other hooded Guard said, and turned towards Teani. He led her through the arch, to stand on only an inch or so of cliff edge. Then he closed the door behind her, leaving her facing a great drop, a hundred bodylengths to the raging whitewater below, the roar of falling water echoing up the canyon cliffs.
Teani stood there, facing her death. She was to jump into the water far below, giving herself to the Serpent. As she stood, sweating despite the chill breeze, she found a spark of defiance growing in her heart. They took her baby, they admitted the truth of her birth only to save sacrificing an already acknowledged member of the Lord’s family. They wanted her to submissively give up her life just for their convenience, for an empty ceremony.
But she wouldn’t do it! The thought erupted through her brain like lightening, intense energy tightening every muscle in her body. She suddenly felt more aware than ever before, her senses exploding with every small crease in the stone cliffs around her, the humid smell of the river below, the slight caress of the wind on her skin, everything intensely amplified, her existence suddenly overwhelmingly beyond her thoughts.
For a moment, Teani considered going back through the door, but realized it wouldn’t open for her, and if she somehow climbed around the arch, the hooded Guards would kill her immediately. She looked around desperately. Other than the tiny edge of the strange flat trail she stood on, there was sheer cliff on the right of her, the long chasm on the left of her and in front the cliff had collapsed long ago, taking the flat stone trail with it, leaving only the long fall to roaring white water rapids. Ten bodylengths in front of her, the strange hard flat trail continued, she realized, although only a tiny corner showed around the curve of the cliff face.
Teani searched the rugged cliff next to her, looking for some way to get across the gap. Behind her, she heard horns, the Lord’s signal for her scream to sound as she jumped into the chasm. She desperately searched for some small ledge or hand holds to allow her to make it across alive or climb down the cliff below her, and then saw it! A little more than a bodylength away, a small outcrop had a tiny remaining ledge of the rock trail, which led most of the way to the other side. She bent down and tore off most of her skirt, freeing her legs, and then the sleeves, tossing them into the chasm but not watching them flutter down. She was scared enough!
Teani’s eyes traced the route she must take, which holds to make with each hand and foot, concentrating hard, then she concentrated on her baby’s face, that yearning she felt so intensely, which burned in her heart. She had to make it!
As the horns blew behind Teani for the second time, she knelt down, then jumped out over the chasm, launching herself as hard as her legs could propel her, and for one heart stopping moment, she thought she wouldn’t make it, but then her hands had a grip on two jutting rocks and her frantically scrabbling feet found solid footing on other rock.
Teani glanced down for the tiny ledge, and slowly moved the closest foot; acutely aware of the vast emptiness she hung so precariously over. With one foot on the ledge, she reached as far as she could and had a hand grip, then moved the second foot, moving deliberately and carefully, her heart beating so hard she was afraid that alone would dislodge her from her precarious hold. Memories as a child of climbing the huge boulders scattered here and there over the valley came back to her, the way she climbed then, making sure three limbs held her secure as she moved the fourth.
Teani moved slowly along the tiny ledge, moving only a fingers length each time, until she realized the ledge ended. She could see more of the undamaged wide trail, just a bodylength away, easily within jumping distance, but then she realized if she bent her knees more than a little bit, she would dislodge her grip. She couldn’t jump!
She searched all around her for some way to get to the ledge, and then slowly climbed upward, working her way up to a little outcropping with a lot of broken edges she could use to grip. The horns sounded again, long and loud, as she stood up on the tiny outcropping.
Something hit the rock next to Teani, hard, spraying rock chips stinging her shoulder. Looking back towards the arch, she saw the Lords and Ladies and a huge crowd of commoners, all standing looking at her. She had climbed into view, and one Guard had fired a crossbow bolt at her.
Lord Aaron had kicked the man from horseback, spoiling his aim, and was now shouting at him, although over the river roar filling the canyon, Teani couldn’t hear the words. She looked down at the continuing trail edge, then back at the crowd. She had no choice...
She screamed as she jumped towards the edge of the continuing trail, then her scream turned real as she realized she would miss it. Desperately, she grabbed for the edge, and caught it, hanging from it for a long minute before pulling herself up. She lay panting for a moment, and then looked back at the arch, realizing it couldn’t be seen from where she lay.
Crawling forward a few inches, she peered around the edge of the cliff, and saw the two hooded Guards peering over the edge in the doorway. They turned around and walked back through, closing the door behind her, and a loud low sound echoed off the canyon walls, words obscured by echo and rushing water, the Ode to Death said by a hundred loud Highborn voices mourning the death of a Highborn Lady. Far below, she saw her torn skirt fluttering in the eternal wind of the chasm, just above the rushing white water. They thought she had died, she thought, in great relief, the thought dull through her exhaustion.
Teani lay amide the rock debris for a long time, feeling pain in her hands and feet and muscles. When she sat up, she found her gown torn all over, hanging in rags, blood oozing from a dozen scrapes and scratches. She was so tired! She would just lay there awhile, she decided, her body suddenly a lump of clay, yearning for rest.
I'm alive! She thought, as sleep took her over. I will see my baby again!
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